This mainly focuses around general stuff the flail.
A combination of these suggestions would be appreciated.
General
First of all his passive with the damage stack shouldn’t be affected by temporary health (kinda defeats the purpose if you go to town with ol’ slappy and fill your hp ever wave)
The talents No Surrender! and Flagellant shouldn’t be in the same category as his damage output is kind of below average when at full health and a little above average when low. (he should be high risk - high reward at low health)
Grimoires should not readjust the 100% healthbar for the passive. They should count towards it.
The Flail
Incease the movement speed. I’ve never used a weapon like this but i’d imagine you would rather have to move with the momentum of that flail instead of planting yourself into the ground and swinging it around you. (that jump on the 3rd strike always throws me off)
all attacks should be armour piercing not just swings 3 and 4 that makes no sense.
I think every class and every playsyle should be 100% viable (I think thats what the devs are going for), appeasing every kind of player. People are just carrying that “meta” stuff over from competetive games.
This is a PvE game whatever playstyle you like should be viable and you should not be condemned for it.
I have been making the rounds as I’m trying to hit 30 on every character, which includes trying every career once. So far, everything is playable, including Zealot, but I needed to work a hell of a lot more to make full use of its abilities. This is a game centered around survival. Zealot uniquely rewards you for intentionally taking damage, and the in-game mechanics directly work against you in maintaining buffs it relies on, much like you outlined.
Unless you take the HP on Boss Death level 20 talent, you’re routinely removing your stacks just by being effective in combat. You might get hit a few times and regain them, but as soon as you kill a few enemies, they’re diminishing again. All in all, it’s super awkward, tedious, and stressful (on Champ or Legend). Without at least keeping the stacks with temp hp, Zealot is just uniquely disfunctional chore to make full use of.
But specifically on the topic of the flail, I tried to use this initially as well. It’s amazing for hordes, but the only Saltz weapon worse at dealing with armor is the 2H sword. I think if they made all the normal attacks penetrate armor, it would completely outclass what I’m thinking is better, the Falchion. The normal attacks all headshot penetrate the armor dummies, and for the same or more damage than the flail’s 3rd and 4th hits. It’s as good at clearing crowds, but it’s decent. It’s high damage should scale better with all the +power% Zealot buffs, too.
I think he is in a good place now. He is one of the most survivable characters with his mobility, damage reduction talents and death immune. You don’t have to always have less than 20% hp to make use of him, think of it more like a last resort.
Flail is a very good croud control tool, that is also good anti armor. And with 3-4 hits that do double headshots you can kill armored brutes even with chaff inbetween them, and it has amaizing shield peneteration. Compared to Krubers mace, which shines against single enteties, has more stamina but pretty poor croud control (you rely on on it’s counter attack mostly), I’d say that flail is better in offence. And you can compensate for 2 shields with talent.
From all your suggestions, I only like grim included in health lost, but can’t say that it’s critical. But then it would be a bit redundant. The only problem is that he is overshadowed by BH who can just kill super dangeorus elites for free with no risk involved, and has better boss killing potential.