If I was a dev for a day I would prioritise one* big change to the zealot tree: I would buff gunzealots.
I would buff the existing ranged talents, review their locations in the tree and maybe add one new talent relating to ammo management near the bottom of the tree.
Atm most players see the zealot ranged talents as tax nodes, apart from Anoint in Blood. Gunpsyker is a solid spec, melee hybrid veteran is basically meta and gunlugger ogryn… exists. A hybrid ranged spec for zealots would fit right in.
Adding an extra playstyle, maybe modelled on Bounty Hunter from VT2, would not be a threat to other classes and would increase variety in a class that is seen as limited in spec diversity.
(* fixing Martyr’s Purpose might come first but after that!)
Zealot needs a buff in the way that it increases opportunity costs. Zealot has a lot of optimal nodes and a lot of tax nodes. In comparison, Vet or Psyker have lots of great nodes, but you can’t take all.
Also, I really like the idea of martyrdom giving toughness for health. To further brainstorm on that idea, it could also give temporary toughness or health, similar to Vermintide 2.
For this to work they would have to change the ammo economy.
All 4 classes use ammo and if you use it wisely it is not much of a problem however when a gunlugger joins a pub, you already know you are out of luck for ammo. So another heavie gun focussed build would make this even more of an isue.
I’m not really convinced that FotF in any way falls behind the other Ults, it’s my go to with and without IoD. I’m also not convinced +20% AS is something you need to have literally 100% uptime on.
Like it’s a decently stacked Ult. It’s got survivability, Rending, Guaranteed Crit, and significant duration AD all together. Boss damage aside I feel like it gets you most of the one shot breakpoints you need or would want from Shroudfield already on relevant weapons without aggro dumping on your team. Then you get a good duration of increased DPS through AS (which also applies to ranged weapons, brauto especially loves this).
I will admit I haven’t played Havoc but I do know Chorus is very popular there so maybe that’s the context for you suggesting it wouldn’t be competitive without IoD. Even so I think balancing around Havoc would be a dangerous and questionable approach.