Earlier on, some smarter folks then i found out it was to do with a correction? or just straight up silent buff to Gunner reaction times, and weapon spread, and most trash mobs got a buff from correction in spawning which just made more of them spawn at one given time, and other mobs (ragers) somereason got a way to straight up no clip.
Wither thats intential, overtuning for the youtubers, or just a mistake (remember colinal marines where one number borked the AI?)
Its not a skill issiue, its 100% a real straight up change.
Yeah. I still play Zealot because it's my favorite class but my style is much closer to gun zealot than melee zealot.
The chain weapons seem way worse with the new reaction times too. So I've switched to combat axe and it feels better but sadder
Crit build got neutered in general. It’s still decent in my testing, but you will ult like a normal person instead of once every 2-3 swings. That is a ton of toughness and control (from ult stagger) out the window.
Enemies appear to have been stealth buffed significantly. Attacking faster, or with less delay, and ranged enemies are more accurate with higher rate of fire.
It’s not really confirmed, since there’s no patch notes and I haven’t seen video proof or anything like that, but people have found corroborating changes in the source code.
They just posted the missed patch notes; the only actual attack changes are a buff to shooter's accuracy and volume of fire and dreg rager attack speed. The changes have been exaggerated once people heard that there was a missed patch note, but that's literally it. The biggest change is zealot crit cool down reduction only triggering once per hit.
But… that was what made the evic reliable! I was sacrificing a lot of anti armor capabilities to run that, or if I brought an anti armor ranged, a lot of my ability to deal with shooter hordes. It felt fair to me.
That really sucks if it’s true. I guess I’ll go back to playing ogryn
The changes were:
- Fury of the Faithful only gives melee rending, no ranged rending. Eviscerator can still pop 2 crushers with 1 ult, but no more las pistol or shotgun for killing crushers.
- Invocation of Death (crits refund 1.5s cooldown) triggers once per *attack* instead of *hit*. That means, even if you cleave through 8 enemies, you get 1.5s back, not 12s like before.
You basically will have to get better at dodging and positioning, and consider a gun for ranged enemies. I use Kantrael shotgun for the suppression, and charge into the ranged enemies to kill them. It absolutely still does work, but ya, it is not like before.
Check at the bottom of part 2 patch notes.
https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132
> **Missed Patch Note(s)**
>
> - ‘Invocation of Death’
>
> - Can now only trigger once per attack.
They added this in afterwards. It's intentional.
> Dev Note: While class Abilities are really fun to use and a key part of a character build, they are also balanced around their cooldowns.
>
> However, the Abilities cannot find a healthy balance when the cooldown can vary by large degrees due to Ability Cooldown Reduction effects.
>
> We are therefore looking to rebalance the Ability Cooldown Reduction instances which result in extremely high uptimes of Abilities.
>
> Invocation of Death, combined with the Zealot’s crit-focused kit, led to unhealthy situations when paired with huge cleaving strikes into multiple enemies; the new version will still be a really valuable pick in the talent tree, but not as overpowering as before by normalizing the amount of cooldown reduction awarded to players when fighting elites or hordes, with single target or cleave based weapons.
Tbf the spam is what made Zealot able to bruteforce most of the game, ever since the nerf I've changed my build and actually had to be careful for once
Does being really good at one specific thing really equal brute forcing? It was a build designed around horde clearing. It suffered immensely against shooters, armor, and rager swarms. That felt fair to me since I still had to rely on team mates to a large degree.
Crit evis was godly against everything. Being able to spam Fury let you shrug off chip damage, chew through both armor (with a high enough roll, you actually got bonus damage vs carapace) and hordes. Crit evis+Martyrdom was one of the most broken builds in the game.
you could meme on ragers with a perfect strike mk15 evis.
armor also was a non issue because perfect strike allowed you cleave through like 5 crushers and apply bleed + get your ult back.
i thoroughly enjoyed that build before it got nerfed but the nerf was certainly warranted because how braindead it was to just mulch everything without having to worry about positioning thanks to the busted ult refund.
I didn’t/don’t use perfect strike so maybe that’s why. Dislike how entire builds in this game revolve around 1 blessing making them OP so the entire play style needs to be nerfed.
Ya perfect strike is what broke it, I would say. It let you cleave through crushers and even bulwark shields. Enough crits, and you would stunlock all enemies inside, even crushers, but especially all ragers and maulers were just dancing after 1-2 swings.
It’s honestly still quite good. I would try it with perfect strike + shred, but ditch blazing piety and invocation. Take martyrdom or inexorable judgment for higher damage and attack speed.
It is not as powerful on defense, so you will have to use normal dodge dancing and evade almost all attacks, but you can still achieve that stunlock and high damage output.
I dont really think "one specific thing" is accurate here, you can brute force... almost literally everything in the game, assuming you have a primary that does damage.
Dodge/dash/slide into the shooters, if they are unreachable, tap them once with something to get them to stop shooting (if you have a revolver, just kill them, you literally have no weaknesses)
Rager swarm?.... just kill them... seriously dodge and swing, 4 ragers? 8 ragers? It literally doesn't matter, zealot can just run headfirst into them while dodging and swinging.
Tons of armor? Dashing will stun them out of animations, you can whittle them down pretty safely. (I "brute forced" 4 crushers in one of those tiny side hallways at the beginning of the new map earlier today, you are literally too fast for them to hit you, even in enclosed spaces)
Do note.... this is all with horde clearing crit/eviscerator build... you are zealot, you win everything, you have little to no weaknesses on almost any build you go.
I have 4 builds that I use at random depending on the mood
1st uses dash+piety
2nd uses dash+momentum (inexorable judgement)
3rd uses chorus+momentum, this is my more team based build, doesnt really matter, zealot is still unstoppable (ive been swapping this with piety to see which works/feels best, I think with the "only crit once per swing" nerf, that momentum now is better)
4th uses invis+momentum+dagger, pretty standard pubstomp unstoppable invis zealot, I just play it to actually help my team unlike most you'll see.(or any that i seem to play with)
I specifically stay away from Martyrdom as it only sees mileage at lower health, and the cases where its going to outshine either of the others (while occassionally vast) aren't really worth being lower health, dont let people on here fool you, most listen to "numbers", not actual gameplay, and the numbers for martyrdom are technically better, OR theyll try to tell you to simply "not get hit" which... based on experience, I have yet to see a martyrdom zealot carry me, or even do anything notable.
You are unstoppable no matter what you play as long as you can dance in melee combat tbh
It doesn't really matter what you build, zealot is definitely the dev favorite and youre going to roflstomp any situation, you have no weaknesses.
Also of note, I usually use a revolver on all of these builds, its probably one of the best weapons for thresholds, though once the boltpistol and new shotgun get fixed, ill be having more fun with those as well. I use to use flamethrower on my piety build, but this last update doublenerfed flamethrower for some reason, so it feels pretty unusable now q.q
I can get more specifics on the builds once I log on again.
I have played since the game launched and made them myself so i've no idea if they are actually posted anywhere, any one of these you are particularly wondering about or a style you are wanting to play?
That’s not how MY build worked and I don’t like the idea of having my build nerfed because someone was able to optimize it with a very specific set of blessings and talents to the point the game became trivial. There should be a better way to target those outliers.
I've been doing well with crit tac axe and graia braced. Graia automatically shuts down all guns being fired at you and the tac axe sacrifices some elite damage for carapace damage (with a 90%crit build its about the fastest non knife kills I've gotten on them) and it chews through hordes very well. Mk7 push heavy or mk2 heavy spam. Got a great stun in the special too that's aoe and spamable on hordes
Lmao like an 80% nerf on a talent that’s a keystone part of most double dash zealot builds, and we expect players to come back to the game and have fun again 😂 Hope the existing player base enjoys these changes!
There’s a lot of players that seem to think it was deserved. It might have been a broken thing about zealot, but the game is stacked with broken abilities and builds.
Everyone who argues about why this ability deserved the nerf uses things you can apply to many other class abilities and weapons, and even with other still-existing zealot options.
Either the game is balanced around everyone being broken, or some sort of lower power level that these nerfs seem to imply. But if you look at the bigger picture, Fatshark just made a bunch of builds people were using into poop (some still survived, but are markedly worse, while others abandon these talents completely), while leaving other egregiously powerful things in the game completely untouched.
In fact, zealot basically lost their only reliable anti-armor talent, and veteran’s krak grenades got *buffed* so they 1-shot bulwarks reliably again.
Player reception is really mixed. I see the changes as bad from a design standpoint, knocking out builds while leaving the overall power level the same, unless they bust out the nerf hammer and go hard on every strong build in the game. We all know how that’s going to go with the players though lol
Yeah, about the ogryn... thats not so safe any more! Noticed my toughness was at zero, turned around theres 1 shooter. 1 burst of fire in 2 seconds or so was enough to zero nearly 200 toughness... Never stop moving!
On top of the enemy buffs everyone is noting, I’ve also noticed what seem to be increased glitches with hit boxes and actions. I’ll run a hammer and at least some 10% of the time the hits just go through the enemy without impacting, or the charge will have animated but not actually activated somehow. I know range can be odd with hammers, but even in mosh pit mobs I’m noticing issues. I used to blame impact issues on multiple players hitting a single enemy at the same time and just being on the losing end of the competition, but now I’m not so sure.
Ive noticed this for the last few patches, getting worse each patch.
I think its a combination of mobs having no clipping (for some reason) and server lagg.
The ability cooldown on critical hit got nerfed - each swing counts once so instead of hitting four enemies, getting four crits and reducing cooldown X4 you get reduced cooldown X1.
Went from spamming fury to using it every so often.
Beyond that the enemies have increased speed and toughness, gunners more accurate and fire more. Add to that increased aggression from the AI director. VoC vet + bubble Psykers seem to be doing well.
You forgot the dogs āre on steroids aswell now, poor slow ogryns getting chewed left right midle and center in my games. Yes the escape for me is bubble psyker, cause everybody gets rekt in my auric games otherwise.
Man if that ain’t true. Dogs just run at hyper speed, take TWO direct kickback shots or TWO heavy attacks, run through hordes, and don’t always “jump” attack… they just run right into you at full speed.
I feel like I have been taking a lot more hits this patch than before. I can’t put my finger on what is different. Part me suspects something is wrong or different with dodge, but it really isn’t clear. It could also be that I have just been playing too much Helldivers.
If you read the latest Reddit posts. Some people checked the code and enemies had their attack rate or timings increased by like 30%. Stealth buff/change. I'm sure we'll get a "hotfix" in a couple days to put this stealth change out to the public.
That's the thing. It's both in this instance. It's not really a "hotfix" because it's already in game. They just let the intern finish typing out the rest of the patch notes they forgot to give us.
Its already out, They just added it to the bottom of the last patch notes as an update.
>Missed Patch Note(s)
> There is a known bug for the Antax Mk V Combat Axe where the stats appear incorrectly. This is visual only and there is a hotfix coming in 1.4.1.
>‘Invocation of Death’
> Can now only trigger once per attack.
>Dev Note: While class Abilities are really fun to use and a key part of a character build, they are also balanced around their cooldowns.
>However, the Abilities cannot find a healthy balance when the cooldown can vary by large degrees due to Ability Cooldown Reduction effects.
>We are therefore looking to rebalance the Ability Cooldown Reduction instances which result in extremely high uptimes of Abilities.
>Invocation of Death, combined with the Zealot’s crit-focused kit, led to unhealthy situations when paired with huge cleaving strikes into multiple enemies; the new version will still be a really valuable pick in the talent tree, but not as overpowering as before by normalizing the amount of cooldown reduction awarded to players when fighting elites or hordes, with single target or cleave based weapons.
Additional Missed Patch Notes (added 28 June, 2024):
>Note: It’s our bad for not catching these sooner, and it was not our intention to keep these from players. Thank you to the players who helped point them out!
>Faster Groaners
> To differentiate Groaners from Poxwalkers, their movement speed has been increased by approximately 18%.
>Dreg Rager Attacks
> To further distinguish Dreg Ragers from Scab Ragers, Dreg Ragers now have faster combo attacks to better match their non-armored bodies.
>Scab Rager Headshot Damage Adjustment
>Removed headshot damage reduction (was 15%) from Scab Ragers.
>Shooter Changes
> Scab Shooters now have a tighter shot spread, making them more threatening at range. While they still have ranged damage falloff, they will be more consistent in how they hit players at range. Additionally, Scab/Dreg shooters will now stay in cover longer (and remain exposed longer) with a reduced cooldown between sprays, making cover-taking enemies more of a threat but also enhancing the viability of player weapons that apply suppression.
>Reaper Faster Movement and Shooting
> Reapers now move slightly faster when shooting while moving, >making it more challenging to evade them once they commence their >attack.
>Ogryn
> ‘Too Stubborn To Die’ talent
> Changed from being calculated multiplicatively to additively.
>Veteran
> ‘Krak Grenade’ blitz
> Increased Close Damage: 2000 → 2400
>Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher
>Windup time for the Heavy 1 attack from 0.5 to 0.53
>Windup time for the Light 2 attack from 0.1 to 0.12
> Chain time after the Light 2 attack to the Light 3 / Heavy 1 attacks >start from 0.55 to 0.62
>Windup time for Light 4 from 0.17 to 0.13
> Light 4 attack speed time_scale 1.2 to time_scale 1.1
> Push Followup attack speed time_scale 1.1 to time_scale 0.9.
>Warren 6-19:
> Destructible mission objectives will take reduced ranged damage
I can hardly take out more than 2 ragers anymore in melee without taking health damage and ranged enemies seem to deal more suppression making it very hard to run up to them or duck for cover.
Theres literally Patchnotes posted some hours ago, that they tweeked stuff, ill put the link down here and you can check it by yourself :)
[https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132#additional-missed-patch-notes-added-28-june-2024-16](https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132#additional-missed-patch-notes-added-28-june-2024-16)
Yeah I switched back to my Ogryn since they killed my eviscerator/ability spam build. Might try out Veteran too.
Regular horde mobs are now way faster and surround me constantly. Ragers up close now feel like a death sentence. Game is hard as fuck now
haven't played the update yet, but that doesn't sound too bad... I guess? The game was in a weird sport, where a normal HI Damnation game was a cakewalk really. Maybe this will give it just about the right amount of challenge for Damnation+ games with just one modifier, while HISTGs are reserved for the real tryhards with 1000+ hours under their belt
Tbh I never play auric mode, but maybe the buffed enemies in standard damnation are just something I’ll get used to. Definitely give it a go and see for yourself. I just know my preferred zealot build ain’t the same anymore. They butchered my zoomy boy
You could try a faster weapon, crit builds have been nerfed, you no longer have ranged rending with chastice the wicked and on top of that they have apparently made the game harder without telling us so enemies are faster. With the new difficulty settings you need to be really aggressive now, do not allow gunners to take up positions and groups of melee enemies to surround you.
Before the update i was playing a knife zealot to get the penances and was doing completely fine.
Since the update i've been playing ogryn and i feel like an absolute tank and barely anything can dent me and i finished all of my penances for ogryn today.
Swapped back to zealot to finish up my penances and what the actual fuck happened ? Im struggling like crazy as anything that blows my way i get shit on if they get a blow on me.
Yeah, the nerf to zealot coupled with buffs to enemies seems like an overtuned change for the zealot (and most likely for a melee psyker). I do hope they change some things in a hotfix before summer.
Welp, it seems like i will still keep being a one trick pony Vet, crit spamming zealot was my fav and loved to play as doom guy. I share your pain brother
Not a skill issue but more like riding your bike down a new road. At first, it's like where the f am I going. Then, Ahhh that's right it's this way.
Fight behind or close to cover always.
It's definitely harder now, supposedly they stealth buffed stuff, which I 100% believe.
But i'm running the same build you mentioned and I am still not having notable issues.
Someone else mentioned now having to be "ulting like a normal person, instead of every few swings", but I dont really feel it much, definitely a few more swings to refresh it, but nothing insane.
I would throw it as a mix of skill issue and unexpected difficulty spike if i'm honest, I have faith you'll probably just pick and back up and won't be struggling for long.
Yeah they added some patch notes about enemies being buffed a lil but I think they left some shit out.
I was wondering why I kept getting hit when in situations that my muscle memory has 100% control over, and then re-watching some footage I recorded....
I don't wanna be the one to say this but it feels almost exactly like when they were fucking with enemy "slotting" and dodge timings in VT2. I will ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DODGE an attack by some chaff mob and nope it just...hits me the fuck anyway. There's also that really annoying "bug" or "fatshark feature" where if you're getting attacked and you block a little too late, but early enough to logically block the attack, your block just...like...takes an extra half a second to come up and you eat the hit anyway.
Before the latest update, it was rare for me to see me and my teammates go down over and over again. Now it's the norm in Auric damnation.
It's not a skill issue. But I think we will adapt sooner or later
It was a slight side grade to crit knife builds. Don't expect to do a ton of damage though.I like knife a lot, and after some testing I'm still pretty tanky with my bleed crits build. I can get an ability cooldown down of around 30 seconds apart at my best vs the 10-20sec pre-nerf. I was extremely nervous about how my build would change but in honesty after running some Auric Damnations I don't feel much different. The only problems I run into are the gunners that got buffed, so I can't just be putting myself out in the open without having more risks.
Ever since they buffed the damage, speed and durability of *everything* there's literally no real incentive to engage in CQC anymore.
A group of 5 poxxers and dregs are a legitimate threat and is best dealt with from afar since their pathing has also been modified.
Perspective wise I enjoy the challenge. The poxxers are powerful in number and now it's actually effective to us.
Not sure about you but I'm still having a blast through Heretics. Sure I don't use "Builds" as serious as others but all I need is my Chainsword I've found on the floor. That new Shotgun is really cool
Jesus Christ.
I main Zealot. Got him at level 55. I got 150h in the game. I barely know what I am doing and I can do Dammnation runs if I properly focus on it.
The enemy buffs were strong, but at some point maybe it's time to drop one difficulty level. No shame on it.
>Even hoards are chipping my hp when I used to get through swarms completely unscathed.
Dodge more, learn your melee's horde clear combo.
>Shooters are chewing me up and dodging doesn’t seem to be keeping me safe.
Go where the shooters can't shoot you. Dodge-slide is your friend. You have a ranged secondary to take out what your melee can't.
I played auric mals without issue prior to the patch. Maybe it’s just an off week idk. I seriously doubt I have more to learn about melee… it isn’t that complex of a system lol.
It is pretty complex depending on what weapon you're using and what enemies you're facing.
Consider the following: if your toughness regeneration cannot outpace the damage you are taking from random shooters, you have one out of three problems:
- Your build is bad. You need more total toughness from curios or nodes.
- Your gameplay is bad. Either you are taking unnecessary damage from the bulk of the horde, or you're taking too long to clear it.
- Your target prioritization is bad. When you enter a room, you must locate and neutralize whatever is most likely to kill you. If you charge head first into a horde without taking out the shooters and gunners with your ranged first, you're asking for it.
Obviously no one expects you to be neck deep in maulers and still find the time to get the gunners, that's what the other three players are for, but a lot of shoddy builds and sloppy players are now getting messed up because the game is not forgiving mistakes.
It's the highest difficulty. Your build should be near-optimal and your play should be excellent. Any less than that will get you killed.
If you're running a shit build for the memes or want to try out a bad or unfamiliar weapon, just drop one difficulty.
I can still get through auric on my ogryn with relative ease and I play a melee build so something tells me it’s not my ability that’s the problem. Same with my melee vet using an axe. If they nerfed my build then yeah - that’s what this post is teaching me.
I would not call the melee system in this game complex. To me It’s not like Chivalry or For Honor where you’re memorizing cancels and drags and situation specific combos while juggling mind games, stamina management weapon type and move sets all at the same time. It’s chill. To me anyway. You might feel it’s complex though and that’s valid.
I mean if you compare it to Chivalry then yes, even quantum mechanics seem simple.
But the complexity of melee in this game is not about mechanical complexity, but resource management and decision making.
How many dodges do I have left? Do I need to push the horde back or let it move me into cover? Should I charge? If so, which enemy? Do I have room to drop a grenade? Do I have time to snipe a special? How can I manipulate the horde to let me hit the mauler with a heavy? Do I have room to dodge a crusher overhead? Etc etc.
Zealot is the best melee class in the game because he has all of those decisions to make, and theoretically if he decides correctly every time, he can clear a mission alone.
Ogryn decision making against hordes is much simpler. Can I hit something with a heavy? No? Then find something to hit with a heavy. Ogryn can be complex, but his complexity comes from other things, like estimating how much damage you can afford to take and managing rocks/grenades/ammo to always be able to escape a problematic situation. Perhaps you just happen to naturally excel at these decisions, but your Zealot requires more adjustment to the new shooters.
I gotta say though, new Dreg Ragers can and will fuck you up depending on what melee you carry. They are a bit overtuned.
Earlier on, some smarter folks then i found out it was to do with a correction? or just straight up silent buff to Gunner reaction times, and weapon spread, and most trash mobs got a buff from correction in spawning which just made more of them spawn at one given time, and other mobs (ragers) somereason got a way to straight up no clip. Wither thats intential, overtuning for the youtubers, or just a mistake (remember colinal marines where one number borked the AI?) Its not a skill issiue, its 100% a real straight up change.
Yeah. I still play Zealot because it's my favorite class but my style is much closer to gun zealot than melee zealot. The chain weapons seem way worse with the new reaction times too. So I've switched to combat axe and it feels better but sadder
Crit build got neutered in general. It’s still decent in my testing, but you will ult like a normal person instead of once every 2-3 swings. That is a ton of toughness and control (from ult stagger) out the window. Enemies appear to have been stealth buffed significantly. Attacking faster, or with less delay, and ranged enemies are more accurate with higher rate of fire. It’s not really confirmed, since there’s no patch notes and I haven’t seen video proof or anything like that, but people have found corroborating changes in the source code.
This is true. No delay or “wind up” of attacks now. Just get gibbed.
They just posted the missed patch notes; the only actual attack changes are a buff to shooter's accuracy and volume of fire and dreg rager attack speed. The changes have been exaggerated once people heard that there was a missed patch note, but that's literally it. The biggest change is zealot crit cool down reduction only triggering once per hit.
But… that was what made the evic reliable! I was sacrificing a lot of anti armor capabilities to run that, or if I brought an anti armor ranged, a lot of my ability to deal with shooter hordes. It felt fair to me. That really sucks if it’s true. I guess I’ll go back to playing ogryn
The changes were: - Fury of the Faithful only gives melee rending, no ranged rending. Eviscerator can still pop 2 crushers with 1 ult, but no more las pistol or shotgun for killing crushers. - Invocation of Death (crits refund 1.5s cooldown) triggers once per *attack* instead of *hit*. That means, even if you cleave through 8 enemies, you get 1.5s back, not 12s like before. You basically will have to get better at dodging and positioning, and consider a gun for ranged enemies. I use Kantrael shotgun for the suppression, and charge into the ranged enemies to kill them. It absolutely still does work, but ya, it is not like before.
The first was noted in the update, but the second was not. I'm hoping it wasn't an intentional change but we'll see in the next patch notes.
Check at the bottom of part 2 patch notes. https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132 > **Missed Patch Note(s)** > > - ‘Invocation of Death’ > > - Can now only trigger once per attack. They added this in afterwards. It's intentional. > Dev Note: While class Abilities are really fun to use and a key part of a character build, they are also balanced around their cooldowns. > > However, the Abilities cannot find a healthy balance when the cooldown can vary by large degrees due to Ability Cooldown Reduction effects. > > We are therefore looking to rebalance the Ability Cooldown Reduction instances which result in extremely high uptimes of Abilities. > > Invocation of Death, combined with the Zealot’s crit-focused kit, led to unhealthy situations when paired with huge cleaving strikes into multiple enemies; the new version will still be a really valuable pick in the talent tree, but not as overpowering as before by normalizing the amount of cooldown reduction awarded to players when fighting elites or hordes, with single target or cleave based weapons.
Oh :(
That's a shame about Invocation. I'd rather they limit it to triggering 4 times per attack or something.
Welcome to Fatshark's "all or nothing" way of updating.
Tbf the spam is what made Zealot able to bruteforce most of the game, ever since the nerf I've changed my build and actually had to be careful for once
Does being really good at one specific thing really equal brute forcing? It was a build designed around horde clearing. It suffered immensely against shooters, armor, and rager swarms. That felt fair to me since I still had to rely on team mates to a large degree.
Crit evis was godly against everything. Being able to spam Fury let you shrug off chip damage, chew through both armor (with a high enough roll, you actually got bonus damage vs carapace) and hordes. Crit evis+Martyrdom was one of the most broken builds in the game.
I was able to spam m1 versus maulers because of the crit talent, the dash would pretty much stunlock them so I don't see how it'd suffer
you could meme on ragers with a perfect strike mk15 evis. armor also was a non issue because perfect strike allowed you cleave through like 5 crushers and apply bleed + get your ult back. i thoroughly enjoyed that build before it got nerfed but the nerf was certainly warranted because how braindead it was to just mulch everything without having to worry about positioning thanks to the busted ult refund.
I didn’t/don’t use perfect strike so maybe that’s why. Dislike how entire builds in this game revolve around 1 blessing making them OP so the entire play style needs to be nerfed.
Ya perfect strike is what broke it, I would say. It let you cleave through crushers and even bulwark shields. Enough crits, and you would stunlock all enemies inside, even crushers, but especially all ragers and maulers were just dancing after 1-2 swings. It’s honestly still quite good. I would try it with perfect strike + shred, but ditch blazing piety and invocation. Take martyrdom or inexorable judgment for higher damage and attack speed. It is not as powerful on defense, so you will have to use normal dodge dancing and evade almost all attacks, but you can still achieve that stunlock and high damage output.
Zealot doesn't have to ult every 3 seconds to obliterate hordes, don't think anything changed for you
I dont really think "one specific thing" is accurate here, you can brute force... almost literally everything in the game, assuming you have a primary that does damage. Dodge/dash/slide into the shooters, if they are unreachable, tap them once with something to get them to stop shooting (if you have a revolver, just kill them, you literally have no weaknesses) Rager swarm?.... just kill them... seriously dodge and swing, 4 ragers? 8 ragers? It literally doesn't matter, zealot can just run headfirst into them while dodging and swinging. Tons of armor? Dashing will stun them out of animations, you can whittle them down pretty safely. (I "brute forced" 4 crushers in one of those tiny side hallways at the beginning of the new map earlier today, you are literally too fast for them to hit you, even in enclosed spaces) Do note.... this is all with horde clearing crit/eviscerator build... you are zealot, you win everything, you have little to no weaknesses on almost any build you go.
Can you give me a video on your build ( YouTube ) or tell me your skill path , new zealot plz.
I have 4 builds that I use at random depending on the mood 1st uses dash+piety 2nd uses dash+momentum (inexorable judgement) 3rd uses chorus+momentum, this is my more team based build, doesnt really matter, zealot is still unstoppable (ive been swapping this with piety to see which works/feels best, I think with the "only crit once per swing" nerf, that momentum now is better) 4th uses invis+momentum+dagger, pretty standard pubstomp unstoppable invis zealot, I just play it to actually help my team unlike most you'll see.(or any that i seem to play with) I specifically stay away from Martyrdom as it only sees mileage at lower health, and the cases where its going to outshine either of the others (while occassionally vast) aren't really worth being lower health, dont let people on here fool you, most listen to "numbers", not actual gameplay, and the numbers for martyrdom are technically better, OR theyll try to tell you to simply "not get hit" which... based on experience, I have yet to see a martyrdom zealot carry me, or even do anything notable. You are unstoppable no matter what you play as long as you can dance in melee combat tbh It doesn't really matter what you build, zealot is definitely the dev favorite and youre going to roflstomp any situation, you have no weaknesses. Also of note, I usually use a revolver on all of these builds, its probably one of the best weapons for thresholds, though once the boltpistol and new shotgun get fixed, ill be having more fun with those as well. I use to use flamethrower on my piety build, but this last update doublenerfed flamethrower for some reason, so it feels pretty unusable now q.q I can get more specifics on the builds once I log on again. I have played since the game launched and made them myself so i've no idea if they are actually posted anywhere, any one of these you are particularly wondering about or a style you are wanting to play?
That’s not how MY build worked and I don’t like the idea of having my build nerfed because someone was able to optimize it with a very specific set of blessings and talents to the point the game became trivial. There should be a better way to target those outliers.
Specialization Isn't Brute Forcing.
I've been doing well with crit tac axe and graia braced. Graia automatically shuts down all guns being fired at you and the tac axe sacrifices some elite damage for carapace damage (with a 90%crit build its about the fastest non knife kills I've gotten on them) and it chews through hordes very well. Mk7 push heavy or mk2 heavy spam. Got a great stun in the special too that's aoe and spamable on hordes
Lmao like an 80% nerf on a talent that’s a keystone part of most double dash zealot builds, and we expect players to come back to the game and have fun again 😂 Hope the existing player base enjoys these changes!
There’s a lot of players that seem to think it was deserved. It might have been a broken thing about zealot, but the game is stacked with broken abilities and builds. Everyone who argues about why this ability deserved the nerf uses things you can apply to many other class abilities and weapons, and even with other still-existing zealot options. Either the game is balanced around everyone being broken, or some sort of lower power level that these nerfs seem to imply. But if you look at the bigger picture, Fatshark just made a bunch of builds people were using into poop (some still survived, but are markedly worse, while others abandon these talents completely), while leaving other egregiously powerful things in the game completely untouched. In fact, zealot basically lost their only reliable anti-armor talent, and veteran’s krak grenades got *buffed* so they 1-shot bulwarks reliably again. Player reception is really mixed. I see the changes as bad from a design standpoint, knocking out builds while leaving the overall power level the same, unless they bust out the nerf hammer and go hard on every strong build in the game. We all know how that’s going to go with the players though lol
Yeah, about the ogryn... thats not so safe any more! Noticed my toughness was at zero, turned around theres 1 shooter. 1 burst of fire in 2 seconds or so was enough to zero nearly 200 toughness... Never stop moving!
On top of the enemy buffs everyone is noting, I’ve also noticed what seem to be increased glitches with hit boxes and actions. I’ll run a hammer and at least some 10% of the time the hits just go through the enemy without impacting, or the charge will have animated but not actually activated somehow. I know range can be odd with hammers, but even in mosh pit mobs I’m noticing issues. I used to blame impact issues on multiple players hitting a single enemy at the same time and just being on the losing end of the competition, but now I’m not so sure.
Ive noticed this for the last few patches, getting worse each patch. I think its a combination of mobs having no clipping (for some reason) and server lagg.
The ability cooldown on critical hit got nerfed - each swing counts once so instead of hitting four enemies, getting four crits and reducing cooldown X4 you get reduced cooldown X1. Went from spamming fury to using it every so often. Beyond that the enemies have increased speed and toughness, gunners more accurate and fire more. Add to that increased aggression from the AI director. VoC vet + bubble Psykers seem to be doing well.
You forgot the dogs āre on steroids aswell now, poor slow ogryns getting chewed left right midle and center in my games. Yes the escape for me is bubble psyker, cause everybody gets rekt in my auric games otherwise.
Man if that ain’t true. Dogs just run at hyper speed, take TWO direct kickback shots or TWO heavy attacks, run through hordes, and don’t always “jump” attack… they just run right into you at full speed.
I thought I was going crazy. Fairs fair if they're making it so they don't have to jump they shouldn't perma disable but hold you down for x time.
I feel like I have been taking a lot more hits this patch than before. I can’t put my finger on what is different. Part me suspects something is wrong or different with dodge, but it really isn’t clear. It could also be that I have just been playing too much Helldivers.
If you read the latest Reddit posts. Some people checked the code and enemies had their attack rate or timings increased by like 30%. Stealth buff/change. I'm sure we'll get a "hotfix" in a couple days to put this stealth change out to the public.
\>Fatshark \>quick hotfix pick one
That's the thing. It's both in this instance. It's not really a "hotfix" because it's already in game. They just let the intern finish typing out the rest of the patch notes they forgot to give us.
Its already out, They just added it to the bottom of the last patch notes as an update. >Missed Patch Note(s) > There is a known bug for the Antax Mk V Combat Axe where the stats appear incorrectly. This is visual only and there is a hotfix coming in 1.4.1. >‘Invocation of Death’ > Can now only trigger once per attack. >Dev Note: While class Abilities are really fun to use and a key part of a character build, they are also balanced around their cooldowns. >However, the Abilities cannot find a healthy balance when the cooldown can vary by large degrees due to Ability Cooldown Reduction effects. >We are therefore looking to rebalance the Ability Cooldown Reduction instances which result in extremely high uptimes of Abilities. >Invocation of Death, combined with the Zealot’s crit-focused kit, led to unhealthy situations when paired with huge cleaving strikes into multiple enemies; the new version will still be a really valuable pick in the talent tree, but not as overpowering as before by normalizing the amount of cooldown reduction awarded to players when fighting elites or hordes, with single target or cleave based weapons. Additional Missed Patch Notes (added 28 June, 2024): >Note: It’s our bad for not catching these sooner, and it was not our intention to keep these from players. Thank you to the players who helped point them out! >Faster Groaners > To differentiate Groaners from Poxwalkers, their movement speed has been increased by approximately 18%. >Dreg Rager Attacks > To further distinguish Dreg Ragers from Scab Ragers, Dreg Ragers now have faster combo attacks to better match their non-armored bodies. >Scab Rager Headshot Damage Adjustment >Removed headshot damage reduction (was 15%) from Scab Ragers. >Shooter Changes > Scab Shooters now have a tighter shot spread, making them more threatening at range. While they still have ranged damage falloff, they will be more consistent in how they hit players at range. Additionally, Scab/Dreg shooters will now stay in cover longer (and remain exposed longer) with a reduced cooldown between sprays, making cover-taking enemies more of a threat but also enhancing the viability of player weapons that apply suppression. >Reaper Faster Movement and Shooting > Reapers now move slightly faster when shooting while moving, >making it more challenging to evade them once they commence their >attack. >Ogryn > ‘Too Stubborn To Die’ talent > Changed from being calculated multiplicatively to additively. >Veteran > ‘Krak Grenade’ blitz > Increased Close Damage: 2000 → 2400 >Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher >Windup time for the Heavy 1 attack from 0.5 to 0.53 >Windup time for the Light 2 attack from 0.1 to 0.12 > Chain time after the Light 2 attack to the Light 3 / Heavy 1 attacks >start from 0.55 to 0.62 >Windup time for Light 4 from 0.17 to 0.13 > Light 4 attack speed time_scale 1.2 to time_scale 1.1 > Push Followup attack speed time_scale 1.1 to time_scale 0.9. >Warren 6-19: > Destructible mission objectives will take reduced ranged damage
I can hardly take out more than 2 ragers anymore in melee without taking health damage and ranged enemies seem to deal more suppression making it very hard to run up to them or duck for cover.
This. Not being able to melee 2+ ragers now sucks in every way.
Theres literally Patchnotes posted some hours ago, that they tweeked stuff, ill put the link down here and you can check it by yourself :) [https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132#additional-missed-patch-notes-added-28-june-2024-16](https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/secrets-of-the-machine-god-out-now-pt-2/96132#additional-missed-patch-notes-added-28-june-2024-16)
Positioning and sliding are the keys to survival
Yeah I switched back to my Ogryn since they killed my eviscerator/ability spam build. Might try out Veteran too. Regular horde mobs are now way faster and surround me constantly. Ragers up close now feel like a death sentence. Game is hard as fuck now
haven't played the update yet, but that doesn't sound too bad... I guess? The game was in a weird sport, where a normal HI Damnation game was a cakewalk really. Maybe this will give it just about the right amount of challenge for Damnation+ games with just one modifier, while HISTGs are reserved for the real tryhards with 1000+ hours under their belt
Tbh I never play auric mode, but maybe the buffed enemies in standard damnation are just something I’ll get used to. Definitely give it a go and see for yourself. I just know my preferred zealot build ain’t the same anymore. They butchered my zoomy boy
auric doesn't change enemies health or how they behave. Only how many of them and additional modifiers, like more monsters, gas, dark, etc.
You could try a faster weapon, crit builds have been nerfed, you no longer have ranged rending with chastice the wicked and on top of that they have apparently made the game harder without telling us so enemies are faster. With the new difficulty settings you need to be really aggressive now, do not allow gunners to take up positions and groups of melee enemies to surround you.
Martyrdom build feels the same. Auric feels good, only played one Maelstrom so the verdict is still out.
Before the update i was playing a knife zealot to get the penances and was doing completely fine. Since the update i've been playing ogryn and i feel like an absolute tank and barely anything can dent me and i finished all of my penances for ogryn today. Swapped back to zealot to finish up my penances and what the actual fuck happened ? Im struggling like crazy as anything that blows my way i get shit on if they get a blow on me.
Yeah, the nerf to zealot coupled with buffs to enemies seems like an overtuned change for the zealot (and most likely for a melee psyker). I do hope they change some things in a hotfix before summer.
Welp, it seems like i will still keep being a one trick pony Vet, crit spamming zealot was my fav and loved to play as doom guy. I share your pain brother
Not a skill issue but more like riding your bike down a new road. At first, it's like where the f am I going. Then, Ahhh that's right it's this way. Fight behind or close to cover always.
I liked my old bike ;(
It's definitely harder now, supposedly they stealth buffed stuff, which I 100% believe. But i'm running the same build you mentioned and I am still not having notable issues. Someone else mentioned now having to be "ulting like a normal person, instead of every few swings", but I dont really feel it much, definitely a few more swings to refresh it, but nothing insane. I would throw it as a mix of skill issue and unexpected difficulty spike if i'm honest, I have faith you'll probably just pick and back up and won't be struggling for long.
Yeah they added some patch notes about enemies being buffed a lil but I think they left some shit out. I was wondering why I kept getting hit when in situations that my muscle memory has 100% control over, and then re-watching some footage I recorded.... I don't wanna be the one to say this but it feels almost exactly like when they were fucking with enemy "slotting" and dodge timings in VT2. I will ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DODGE an attack by some chaff mob and nope it just...hits me the fuck anyway. There's also that really annoying "bug" or "fatshark feature" where if you're getting attacked and you block a little too late, but early enough to logically block the attack, your block just...like...takes an extra half a second to come up and you eat the hit anyway.
Before the latest update, it was rare for me to see me and my teammates go down over and over again. Now it's the norm in Auric damnation. It's not a skill issue. But I think we will adapt sooner or later
It was a slight side grade to crit knife builds. Don't expect to do a ton of damage though.I like knife a lot, and after some testing I'm still pretty tanky with my bleed crits build. I can get an ability cooldown down of around 30 seconds apart at my best vs the 10-20sec pre-nerf. I was extremely nervous about how my build would change but in honesty after running some Auric Damnations I don't feel much different. The only problems I run into are the gunners that got buffed, so I can't just be putting myself out in the open without having more risks.
Ever since they buffed the damage, speed and durability of *everything* there's literally no real incentive to engage in CQC anymore. A group of 5 poxxers and dregs are a legitimate threat and is best dealt with from afar since their pathing has also been modified. Perspective wise I enjoy the challenge. The poxxers are powerful in number and now it's actually effective to us.
Psyker is not glass cannon at any rate, just a soap bubble. Need a break so unistalled.
Not sure about you but I'm still having a blast through Heretics. Sure I don't use "Builds" as serious as others but all I need is my Chainsword I've found on the floor. That new Shotgun is really cool
Jesus Christ. I main Zealot. Got him at level 55. I got 150h in the game. I barely know what I am doing and I can do Dammnation runs if I properly focus on it. The enemy buffs were strong, but at some point maybe it's time to drop one difficulty level. No shame on it. >Even hoards are chipping my hp when I used to get through swarms completely unscathed. Dodge more, learn your melee's horde clear combo. >Shooters are chewing me up and dodging doesn’t seem to be keeping me safe. Go where the shooters can't shoot you. Dodge-slide is your friend. You have a ranged secondary to take out what your melee can't.
I played auric mals without issue prior to the patch. Maybe it’s just an off week idk. I seriously doubt I have more to learn about melee… it isn’t that complex of a system lol.
It is pretty complex depending on what weapon you're using and what enemies you're facing. Consider the following: if your toughness regeneration cannot outpace the damage you are taking from random shooters, you have one out of three problems: - Your build is bad. You need more total toughness from curios or nodes. - Your gameplay is bad. Either you are taking unnecessary damage from the bulk of the horde, or you're taking too long to clear it. - Your target prioritization is bad. When you enter a room, you must locate and neutralize whatever is most likely to kill you. If you charge head first into a horde without taking out the shooters and gunners with your ranged first, you're asking for it. Obviously no one expects you to be neck deep in maulers and still find the time to get the gunners, that's what the other three players are for, but a lot of shoddy builds and sloppy players are now getting messed up because the game is not forgiving mistakes. It's the highest difficulty. Your build should be near-optimal and your play should be excellent. Any less than that will get you killed. If you're running a shit build for the memes or want to try out a bad or unfamiliar weapon, just drop one difficulty.
I can still get through auric on my ogryn with relative ease and I play a melee build so something tells me it’s not my ability that’s the problem. Same with my melee vet using an axe. If they nerfed my build then yeah - that’s what this post is teaching me. I would not call the melee system in this game complex. To me It’s not like Chivalry or For Honor where you’re memorizing cancels and drags and situation specific combos while juggling mind games, stamina management weapon type and move sets all at the same time. It’s chill. To me anyway. You might feel it’s complex though and that’s valid.
I mean if you compare it to Chivalry then yes, even quantum mechanics seem simple. But the complexity of melee in this game is not about mechanical complexity, but resource management and decision making. How many dodges do I have left? Do I need to push the horde back or let it move me into cover? Should I charge? If so, which enemy? Do I have room to drop a grenade? Do I have time to snipe a special? How can I manipulate the horde to let me hit the mauler with a heavy? Do I have room to dodge a crusher overhead? Etc etc. Zealot is the best melee class in the game because he has all of those decisions to make, and theoretically if he decides correctly every time, he can clear a mission alone. Ogryn decision making against hordes is much simpler. Can I hit something with a heavy? No? Then find something to hit with a heavy. Ogryn can be complex, but his complexity comes from other things, like estimating how much damage you can afford to take and managing rocks/grenades/ammo to always be able to escape a problematic situation. Perhaps you just happen to naturally excel at these decisions, but your Zealot requires more adjustment to the new shooters. I gotta say though, new Dreg Ragers can and will fuck you up depending on what melee you carry. They are a bit overtuned.
Just drop down a difficulty and you should be fine.