Another thing about Riposte specifically, especially after the nerf, is: is it more valuable to have a whopping 15% damage boost conditionally, contingent upon properly counted dodges or 10% melee damage all the time from the left minor node?
Riposte requires 2 points to get to from that part of the tree vs 1 (assuming martyrdom, which is the build I had this realization on).
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all i know is a lot of movement/sprinting based talents on Veteran should really be on Inexorable Judgment-side Zealot, besides nerfing some basic nodes for Veteran (Trench Fighter Drill should be 7.5 from 10%, the Melee Damage Boost node on the Weapon Specialist side should be 10 from 15%. why does the ranged focus class have nearly the melee damage potential as the melee damage specialist?).
likewise, IJ should have more unique effects to better differentiate it with Martyrdom, at present they are:
Martyrdom:
Melee Damage, (Ranged & Melee) Attack Speed, Toughness DR, Toughness Replenishment
Inexorable Judgment:
(Ranged & Melee) Damage, (Ranged & Melee) Attack Speed, (hidden) Dodge Distance & Regen, Toughness Replenishment
There are some differences but there more overlaps than not. IJ should be getting more movement-focused buffs, even if they’re minor. Like please at least give each momentum stack give .5% Sprint Efficiency as well
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Someone here also enlightened me that IJ bonuses don’t apply to the first hit as well. So that’s a major usage issue not communicated and really hurts the potential of IJ to compete with Martyrdom
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I think the dodge bonuses alone are very gamechanging, the bonus damage and speed are just a cherry on top. Another significant difference is the good toughness regen but the caveat of no good toughness damage reduction skills. Definitely calls for different pathing above.
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Just found an interesting fact that zealot is the only class who doesn’t have any talents about rending. Maybe it’s because zealot already has FotF and stealth which both grant 100% rending, FS supposes that zealot needs no more rending. However most melee weapons don’t require that much rending granted by his abilities, and also with the enormous amount of carapace enemies it’s hard for zealot to deal with them only rely on his limited abilities. I’d rather FS nerfs their rending to 50%, then add a new talent which grant 10%~15% rending.
Another issue that I believe the Zealot has is that they have the most difficult toughness generation talents, in terms of potential, at least among the “melee” classes.
- The Voice of Terra: Replenish 4% toughness on ranged kill.
- Enemies Within, Enemies Without: Be in the thick of battle for up to 7.5% toughness per second.
- Blood Redemption: 100% toughness replenishment on a melee kill.
- Second Wind: Replenish 15% toughness on successful dodge.
- Vicious Offering: Replenish 10% toughness on heavy attack kill.
Comparing those talents to the other “melee” classes toughness generation talents, the potential for Zealot is really lacking especially with the armor spam and increased hit points in high havocs. The Arbites class just has to stagger a target for an instant 10% toughness while the Ogryn has to hit a target for 5% toughness on light attack or 15% on heavy attack. The potential among those two talents is much higher than having to kill, successfully dodge, or the 7.5% toughness per second. If the zealot can more reliably generate toughness I believe Zealots would have a more manageable time in high havoc where chip damage and armor spam become an issue.
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Zealot toughness is fine in my experience. Enemies Within and Blood Redemption are pretty good if you took the time to use it in a game. All Zealot abilities provide toughness and all Zealot keystones have a strong CDR node which you’re not mentioning.
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I agree that Enemies WIthin and Blood Redemption have the potential to be serviceable. But in high havoc with armor spam that’s loads of potential for chip damage as you are trying to take out high priority targets (healers, disablers, etc.), because unless you charge or stealth 100% of the time there will be moments where you have to perform multiple hits to kill an enemy and a poxwalker does about 40 toughness damage (guestimating exact number from experience). It would take Enemies Within about 5 seconds to regen that toughness or you switch targets to that poxwalker to get the kill and regen toughness thus forgetting the high priority target for a second. I know seconds don’t seem like a lot, but in high havoc with pubs, those seconds mean a lot.
Edit: I forgot to mention the inevitable gunfire/hazards that you’ll experience as well.
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Yes the game does have enemies that deal damage to you.
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I play a lot of Zealot in Auric with FotF along with Inexorable Judgement and all 3 Modifiers and Enduring Faith, because I’m a degenerate that likes to run in and go crazy. I feel really bulky and unafraid of chip damage this way. But my damage is certainly lackluster compared to Veteran, with whom I can just nuke stuff with a well-placed headshot, no Active Ability required (as long as I have my stacks of Skirmisher or Agile Engagement, which ain’t difficult).
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This is always lost in the static.
Us faithful don’t just want to be the new Arbites.
We just want to not have to work twice as hard for the same melee combat effectiveness of a ranged class.
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“But you guys have the Duelling Sword!”
- Arbites abusing Arbites shock maul with 5000 talents that proc either passively or hitting something
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And in high havoc if you can’t regenerate that toughness near instantly, you’re likely to take chip damage, which adds up as high havocs have become a constant slog of armor and special spam.
Grut me for wanting use a THammer, speccing my whole tree into barely making it usable, but still losing every kill (but a burgle) to the other 3 veteran DS4 players pushing the win button.
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As a fellow thunder hammer enjoyer, I feel this pain. Zealot’s talents are even harder to keep active with slower weapons like thunder hammer due to fewer crits and dodges.
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I’d actually be interested to see how IJ stacks up if they make it take effect on the first hit. My world was really shaken learning that, imo, egregious game design error.
I like the way you made the post, having some data to back up your argument it always nice.
When I started my last wave of gameplay the past weeks (had pause since June) I indeed felt pretty good as the Zelot. However playing some more and finishing some penances I went over to veteran to play a melee build with him, with some wacky abilities and grenades due to penances, It felt way better in terms of dmg and consistency. Vet without Shout felt slightly squishy when I played him as an crazed infiltrator crit zelot, as that was what I played the past 20 missions, and that feels right, It should be more difficult to survive as a vet who goes on 1 man assassination missions compared to a Zelot.
However Zelot might lack a little dmg compared to what utility and consistency he gets? And maybe he lacks some dmg resistance as well? Like I can remember playing as Zelot in Late 2022/early 2023 when the Deamonhosts was released, I could easily solo it at least heresy with a tac axe and spamming light attacks. With some dodges it was not hard to beat the deamon host as zelot on damnation in a 1v1 either. Now this was way before patch 13 and now with bound and duty the game has changed even more.
Not really sure from personal experience how Zelot plays in Havocs, as I have currently kept myself to Aurics.
This is a really well thought-out and well-researched post, and I hope it reaches the attention of Fatshark.
Uh, uh:
- Disdain +25% dmg
- Sustained Assault +20% dmg
- Duellist +50% finesse dmg
- Desperation +20% dmg
- +10% melee damage node
- Abolish Blasphemers +15% dmg vs Elites
- Another +10% Melee Damage node
- Scourge up to 30% crit buffs
- Blazing Piety Crit Boosts OR
- Martyrdom +50% dmg boost +30% melee attack speed buff OR
- Inexorable Judgement +20% dmg +20% attack speed buff
- at least 2 easily reachable melee attack speed nodes.
- All on the top of far more survivability, less condition dependent damage resistance and toughness damage resistance, easier toughness regen, and better mobility.
Zealot has its issues, and some questionable nodes (I’m looking at you Out of Pocket, can we get the Sainted Gunslinger instead please?) , but its far from a disaster. I would say most of its issues stem from what Fatshark difficulty modifiers have done to a lot of melee and ranged weapons, and not the actual talent tree problems. At the same time a lot of damage output differences between zealot, lets say “correctly” build vet and psyker are down to some ( in some cases outrageously) broken weapon picks we still have access to on those 2 classes.
What I would like to see happen is Fatshark thinking hard about what some of the Havoc difficulty modifiers do to player experience and weapon variety. How does spawning 20 rotten armour melee elites influence weapon balance ACROSS the board, and not in the narrow space of duelling swords, other Uncanny Strike riders, bully clubs, FGS, and maybe Relic Blade.
What about other weapons, Fatshark? DCs? Heavy Swords? Tac and combat axes? What about Crusher? Another weapon which niche has been always undermined by poor anti-armour performance (unlike Shock Mauls for some reason), and overall performance being tied to the Stagger status.
ONE would hope the game / weapon designers simply haven’t gotten to those weapons post Havoc changes YET, and it is all work in progress. I don’t want to play on zealot with 2 weapon types, dear Sweden.
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Zealot has extremely good toughness generation into high havoc and chip conditions. Its really only in sustained facetanking situations where classes like ogryn and arbites have the advantage. There are problems in the game in regards to how enemies are interacted with most efficiently (many people here correctly point out the problem of waves of heavy mass heavily incentivising bulk/infinite cleave solutions) but if I were to take high level players and compare their real impact on the game and real power levels zealot is very well regarded.
I don’t mean to insult anyone, everyone grows at their own pace or just enjoys playing differently, but a lot of people have very weak fundamentals and this results in very different opinions on what is and isn’t good than other players with stronger fundamentals. This makes honest conversations about class balance very hard because the potential power of a class is often missed due to an inability by a broader playerbase to express that power. That doesn’t make the thing weak, however, and it preserves a diversity of gameplay styles while also allowing a wider range of players to play together. It’s quite healthy for the game actually and healthy for the community.
Sorry to keep editing this but one more detail:
Zealot has a lot more TDR and DR than most people realize and on pretty reliable conditions too. This heavily impacts how much value each point of toughness has. The conversation isn’t quite as easy as “the toughness generation isn’t that good"
Like enemies within and enemies without might not take you from 0 to full that fast but it might take tou from 80 to 95 before you take another hit and mixed with DRs might result in losing only a few HP etc.
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