Zealot Still Has Major Structural Weaknesses in High Difficulty (Auric/Havoc)

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Zealot was by far the most successful talent rework imo. It has strict conditions but I think that’s better than having your percentage damage talents activate by just swinging your club around.

Zealot has great dodges and DR which push him to be a highly mobile melee focused class and I think his current talents reflect that intended playstyle really well.

It also just makes macro play a lot more enjoyable. With Relic Blade MKII, I take the time to build up Cranial and Sustain Assault right before a fight for weakspot damage and uptime. I cleave through a horde of enemies with H1 and H2 to stack Ramapage and Disdain, then prioritize Caparace and other Elites and the like with the H3 and H4 Duelist amped strikedowns and that becomes a satisfying gameplay loop. With Puncture on a Bolter and Scourge with Fury of the Faithful I can stack bleed on a boss or a horde of crushers and get 30% crit and consistent bleed damage for that specific stack of enemies, and all the while keeping up Enduring Faith for more DR.

No other class I’ve played promotes macro play like Zealot does in my opinion, and that’s why Zealot is my favorite class. I will agree that a talent like Riposte should work more like DD and lose one stack at a time, and duellist could probably see a bump to 4 seconds maybe. But I don’t want to see it get changed to something like ‘when hit enemy, finesse dam go up’ I think that’s pretty boring.

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My problem with Holy Revenant is that it’s the second half of Until Death. Still wish it was just one talent.

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Much like all must pick nodes, like survivalist, should be baseline class passives.

I talk to such people frequently. Class balance is a big subject of our conversations since I have some influence on it and everyone wants their voice heard. That’s also why I talk to people I don’t agree with. But in any case the opinion broadly is that zealot is one of the tankiest classes in the game.

Not at all and unfortunately this doesn’t really prove your point. Zealot has a much easier time avoiding damage than most classes and every class dramatically benefits from the same fundamentals as zealot. So the baseline of comparison is already maximizing for damage avoided them comparing how tough a class is. Vet and (not melee) psyker are for sure the squishiest. Ogryn has trouble avoiding damage but is better at taking it on the chin while arbitrator has relative parity with zealot but has several ways of being way tougher up front but then suddenly folding at just the wrong moment. A moment zealot usually skids through or at least escapes with until death on.

Not to say zealot doesn’t have issues. Especially with heavy hitmass blobs in tight quarters.

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It has finally arrived

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You’re defining “tankiest” in terms of how well a class can avoid or escape lethal damage, not in terms of how much damage it can absorb while continuing to fight. There’s a disconnect here.

Zealot does have strong tools for avoiding hits and surviving at low HP. They also have access to damage resistance, but that mainly softens bigger hits and doesn’t fix toughness sustain. So in practice you avoid most hits through movement, and the ones that slip through turn into chip damage that adds up if you’re forced to trade. That’s not the same survivability model as Ogryn or Arbites, who can actually brawl and keep trading while taking hits.

And since Zealot is a melee-focused class, that survival loop matters more. They are fighting in the range where chip damage and engagement pressure are constant. When your durability hinges on maintaining spacing, dodging correctly, and choosing your engagements, mistakes are punished harder than on classes that can simply take the hit and continue.

So yes, Zealot can be very survivable. The point is that their durability is conditional on consistent execution, not on passive bulk. The class works, but the skill tax to sustain that survivability is higher than for frontliners who tank by absorbing damage rather than avoiding it.

Edit: We also can’t really say that arbitrator suddenly folds when they have access to an ability like Revenant where they limit health damage to 50. If you’re gonna say that Revenant is mandatory then why not True Grit on Arbites?

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True grit and revenant aren’t even in the same ballpark homedog.

Also there’s too much thinking going on here in these posts, ya’ll gotta turn off your brains a little. If you want to be tanky on zealot you can go outta your way to take the honestly myriad of DR nodes they have access. Also Holy Revenant counts as a survival node and one of the best in the game.

25% heal keeps you at max martyrdom stacks with max wounds. If chip damage is that much of an issue for you, you can focus more on defensive play for the next 2 minutes (which really isn’t that long). Not as much passive bulk as Ogryn but I would hope not. This isn’t a problem that needs fixing.

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Because Until Death lets you dive impossible situations and Holy Rev lets you extend the timer of said dive.

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indeed, just surviving rarely helps without some healing. should be a single node. i’ve always taken UD+HR, on old and on new zealot, simply because it has saved me many times from the game’s bullshittery, like the silent overhead out of a blob of enemies.

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Comparing True Grit and Revenant was a response to his statement that Arbites suddenly folds. Not a direct comparison between the talents themselves.

And in high havocs with 1000+ elites/specials, defensively playing for 2 minutes has a negative potential versus consistent gameplay that is more easily attainable on the other front-line classes.

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I get what you mean about the “macro play” loop — it sounds good on paper, but in practice it’s not something a player can actively control.

What you described with Relic Blade MK II only works if the situation lines up perfectly:
You need a horde nearby before engaging elites just to stack buffs like Cranial or Sustain Assault, and Cranial only last if you’re hitting weak spots consistently. On top of that, Duellist only activates when an enemy actually swings at you — so the whole flow relies on enemies behaving in a specific way, and on your teammates not staggering or killing the targets you were preparing for.

Darktide is a team game, so those ideal conditions almost never last.
Your “pre-fight setup” often gets interrupted by other players or by simple RNG.
That’s why I think this kind of “macro planning” sounds impressive in theory, but feels very situational in real gameplay.

So what I really want to see is for Zealot to have more ways to actively trigger or maintain his melee buffs, rather than relying so heavily on perfect combat circumstances.

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It’s not going to be perfect but that’s a good thing, and it really isn’t as complicated as you’re saying; just managing buffs at the end of the day. And I’m pretty certain duelist procs on dodging stalker shots, as well as charging through elite/reaper gunner fire but correct me if I’m wrong.

All this macro play example I’m setting has a lot of nuance. If there are few enemies you can focus on buff uptime for the next wave, if they’re staggered you can again focus on maintaining buffs to follow up on everything else around you. Using your charge effectively to reset the cooldown and keeping it ticking for charge buff uptime, and making sure you have one available when you DO have your buffs to burst monstrosities or instakill carapace when needed (This is why I love CDR on curios and taking the CDR talent nodes in zealot tree). No I won’t have Disdain and Rampage up every time I want to uppercut a Crusher, but that’s where the macro and skill expression (and fun) comes in.

If you want to stand in a psyker bubble with flamer and chorus you shouldn’t have easy access to maintaining damage buffs. There are ways to build support flamer Zealot which will damper your melee buffs which is fine. I wouldn’t mind a small buff to uptime, but I don’t think Zealot talents are a problem to be fixed. At the risk of sounding patronizing I think that a majority of the Darktide playerbase just isn’t good enough to not only have these things in mind, but also effectively use these concepts in a game.

For a game like Darktide it’s really hard to convey what’s better or worse, or what needs fixing and in what way because the game is one you really have to feel out and experience. I still see people left click spamming with Relic Blade MK X because they’re too obsessed with excel sheets and DPS numbers and think it’s the most optimal way to play. Not saying you’re the same, it’s just an example.

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I understand your point — but saying “it’s not complicated, just manage your buffs” really overlooks the core issue.
The problem isn’t that Zealot players can’t manage buffs; it’s that many of those buffs are triggered by factors outside the player’s control.

You mentioned “macro play” and skill expression, but Darktide is a team-based game.
You can plan your rotation perfectly, but if a teammate kills or staggers the enemy you’re setting up on, your entire buff chain collapses.
That’s not lack of skill — that’s the system punishing coordinated play.

And sure, you can claim “that’s part of the nuance,” but it doesn’t change the fact that Zealot’s conditional uptime relies more on luck and enemy behavior than actual decision-making.
I don’t think wanting a class to reward consistency instead of randomness makes someone a “spreadsheet player.”

In the end, what I’m saying isn’t “make Zealot easier,” it’s make his power more responsive to the player, not the situation.

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None of Zealot’s “on dodge” talents procs on dodging Elite Gunner/Reaper/Disabler/Sniper fire.

In fact, only Vet’s “Duck and Dive” talent procs when dodging the aforementioned enemies. No other talents or blessings with “on dodge” requirement procs on dodging Elite Gunner/Reaper/Disabler/Sniper fire.

I assume it’s to avoid having 100% uptime with dodge talents/blessings.

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Every class has talents which provide bonuses which are conditional. Fixation with damage output isn’t really helping here. My opinion hasn’t changed much on this subject. NONE of the classes need extra damage at this point, if anything we could argue that extra damage is THE REASON why Havoc looks the way it does. I mean the last addition are enemies which refuse to take virtually any damage in specific conditions.

Some of us raised power creep as a concern BEFORE the recent talent tree reworks were revealed. We have been concerned that Fatshark opens up the build options as we asked for, but as a result also ends up power creeping all classes. Here we are now. Players being able to remove all threats just by applying dps isn’t what Tide games are about. It was always about smart movement, reacting to enemy attacks, dodging, stamina management etc. I should not be able to clear the screen with few swings before I get skilled checked on my footwork.

Auric is mostly walk in a park with a competent squad, if anything its too easy then. Players don’t fail high difficulty Havoc missions because their chosen class lacks power. Havoc has literally designed to be “unfair” and to fail you runs. Enemy numbers, intensity and pretty unhinged difficulty modifiers are there you so you cannot just clear the screen with hyper-optimised dps build, maybe with the exception of inferno / smite / vent / ranged Soublaze psykers. Todays modifiers will even push broken stuff like Rumbler spam to its limits.

Most runs fails because we are constantly skill checked from the defensive perspective. We fail at the basics like your “footwork”, positioning, movement, dodging, kiting larger groups, cohesion, knowing when to push and when to fall back. Whatever we like it or not, group composition, weapon picks also matter a lot. I personally don’t like certain build options trivialise threats which otherwise are pretty over-tunned in Havoc.

There is certainly an argument to be made about how random those Havoc experiences can be, especially when the game continues to be dragged down by broken game mechanics and design decisions. Broken audio cues, hyper-density nonsense, and often very poor visibility of threats. The game can look stunning and atmospheric , but in high intensity games those visual effects and poorly chosen colours, post-processing, put you at a disadvantage.

My recent favourite is the green “smoke” around the Rotten Armour waves. With hyper-density and sheer number of enemies, efficient dodges can save you only for so long from 600+ dmg overheads through other enemies mass. The last thing I need when facing overlapping enemies is green particles everywhere. I suppose I will write this off as a clash between artistic vision and demands of “competitive” play?

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Doesn’t matter how complex the scoreboard mod is, damage is the only data point players hone in on.

I don’t want to derail the thread with mod talk, though. I mostly agree, I think there are areas of the talent tree that simply doesn’t help any play style.

If I see a thammer shroudfield zealot in the event missions, I know that poor bastard is praying to god for a Burgle to spawn because they are bored out of their mind for the other 99% of the map.

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The only Zealot buff that could be considered out of your control is Duelist. Disdain, Backstabber, Againsst All Odds, Abolish Blasphemers, all the bleed talents, Prime Target, and whichever keystone you choose (going to assume martyrdom) are all within the players control. The design is incentivizing you to play forward and gives you the tools to stay there with the DR and cheat death and mobility.

I can just as easily go Bleed/Rending knife, Anoint in Blood, piety and backstabber and not have to worry about buff uptime nearly as much with relic blade.

And every class has problems with teammates killing enemies. DD psyker, EO Arbitrator, Veteran and specialists with tactical awareness. Ogryn knocking down enemies making it harder to hit their weakspot. That’s not a Zealot specific problem.

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:joy: I have to say this is Thammer opinion I can 100% agree with. I used to rock 2 h hammer all the time back in Vermintide 1, but somehow that weapon type is just not fun to use for me anymore, even now with a power up button.

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I wonder how many people realise that Scourge uptime isn’t great on slower, hard hitting weapons which can kill enemies outright.

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It seems like we have quite different standards for what counts as “uptime” or how much of a buff’s performance can actually be kept under player control,
so I think we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree on that part.

However, since you mentioned that most of these buffs are manageable under player control,
I’m honestly not sure how that applies to talents like Disdain and Against the Odds, which are both heavily affected by weapon choice and specific combat situations.

Could you perhaps share a full gameplay recording or uptime data from an Auric or Havoc run?
I’d really like to see how well all those buffs can actually be maintained and executed in a high-difficulty environment.