[Perfect Zealot] The Build That Time Forgot

The Weapon

When the game first came out, people never understood the term "Enemy Hit Mass" or "Hit Mass Bonus". Thanks to people like telopots, we now can understand it, and capitalize on it, knowing its benefits, and limitations. Some blessings, for general use, still remain on the shelf, and I want to make a case for one, as I have been using it for many hours on damnation and above, and think it might not only be viable, but stronger than current Meta.

We will be using the Heavy Eviscerator 15, and using Perfect Strike. This build is focused around this weapon, and requires a pretty ideal roll to justify itself. Flak bonus is negotiable, as Crit Damage will also be of good use, but Perfect Strike, 5% Crit Chance, and Shred, all should be at max level.

The Idea

In this build, we will be maximizing our crit chance through all means that we can, to capitalize on Perfect Strike. Anyone who knows their way around Zealot's tree knows that crit chance can get pretty high. But what does Perfect Strike get us as opposed to an Eviscerator's normal meta blessings?

Most Meta builds will either use Rampage + (Savage Sweep/Wrath) or Rampage + Shred, as Rampage double dips its bonus with Power, resulting in more damage, more cleave and more impact. These builds go through hordes like blenders, but what they don't do, is pass on those benefits to High Value Targets, or bosses, as you need to be able to activate Rampage to benefit from it. A Rampage + Cleave blessing offers no benefits on single targets, and Rampage + Shred only is granting you Crit chance on single target.

When we use Perfect Strike, and ignore Hit Mass Bonus, we aren't getting the exact same benefits from Brutal Momentum on crit, as they arent the exact same. Ignoring Hit Mass bonus will, on crit, subtract the enemys armor as it factors into a Cleave. This means your weapon will glide through the enemy, dealing its crit, and the next person in line will have much more damage pass into them than before, if that hit was also a crit, this will continue.

Here is the damage spread for a basic Eviscerator left click, as you can see, it truly shines on a crit, offering similar damage bonuses as something like Rampage, and we will eventually use Duellist, so we will get a 50% bonus to Crit Damage, and Weak Spot damage.

It is important to note that the Eviscerator has a 4 target damage cap, meaning no matter what you do, you can only hurt 4 targets. Any enemy beyond 4 targets will be impacted, and maybe stagger, but they cannot be hurt. It is also important to note that while your weapon will crit randomly, there is a difference between a random crit, and your weapon critting. For example with a crit chance of 50%, you could swing through four people, and the first person in line not get crit, but the people in the middle do get crit. When using Fury of the Faithful however, Zealots charge, the entire weapon swing is 100% crit, meaning every person hit will be crit, not just the first person impacted. Meaning that on your F, you guarantee maximum cleaving damage passthrough, even if you were attacking 4 Maulers.

How does it compare vs the Meta? If you would compare this weapon against a Rampage Eviscerator, and 4 Units hit by your Charge, compared to Rampage with 3 units hit to prime rampage, and then 4 units hit by the Charge. This build comes out roughly equal in damage.

If you are wondering, how is this possible? Rampage adds power and damage so it should help cleave even more? Yes, Rampage massively amplifies damage on the first person hit, but will fall off for every person afterwards massively as well. This alternatively lets enemies be hit much more equally.

tl;dr

Works just as good for hordes, and better for High Value Targets.

The Build

This Build should not be a mystery to anyone. It takes advantage of all of Zealot's strongest nodes.

Some notes: I personally use The Emperor's Bullet, as I pair this build with a Revolver so often I am emptying the gun, and capitalizing on the buff. If you do not want to use the Revolver, or do not like this talent, as it is arguably a standout strange choice, feel free to make this node a flex choice and can pick something else that speaks more to you.

Disdain is a worse version of Sustained Assault, but still a reasonable choice. Disdain activates on every other swing, so one swing is counting the targets, the next is an amped swing, repeating.

We will not use Thy Wrath Be Swift. If you desperately want it, go ahead, but I would advise you to play better. We want you to dodge, and ignoring the hits you take will make you dodge less, and this will lead to you playing worse overall.

Duellist is our most important node, on dodge, we gain a staggering amount of Crit Damage, and Weak spot damage, with our huge amounts of crit chance, this will be used almost all the time. You should be dodging often, and this will skyrocket your damage and can activate often with conscious play.

Invocation of Death, a staple of crit builds. Because of our high crit chance, as well as our ability to cleave much more than other builds can, this can activate so often, in hordes you can often charge every other swing.

Fury of the Faithful. You should not ignore that this ability also gives a 10s Attack speed buff. If you are in a horde, and all is fine, and you are sitting at full charges, just use one for the buff, itll only make things even smoother. Our sources of crit chance totalled up are: 5% base from class. Eviscerator 15 has no additional base crit chance.

5% from Weapon Perk, so at all times, our minimum crit chance is 10%

30% from Scourge, this will be inconsistent, but the more crit chance we have, the more bleed we deal, the more Scourge is active.

25% from Blazing Piety

20% from ShredThis means we can fairly easily reach a resting crit chance floating around 85%. Which can reach even higher from party member's sources of Crit chance.

Everything Else

I like to pair this build with something that can reach out and touch HVTs and Specialists. A revolver will make it so anything at range can die quickly, as well as the things in Melee that you don't want to deal with, like Crushers. Feel free to use whatever ranged weapon you like, but remember that Fury of the Faithful gives you Rending on your weapon as long as you dont Melee, and Duellist still works at range, so keep dodging for a massive damage bonus.

Weapons with good crit stats get good benefits from this build, make sure you preview their damage spread with inspect. So anything like a Columnus V will also work fine, but remember to consider dropping The Emperor's Bullet if so. Another reason to not use a revolver, is the throwing knives achieve the same sort of niche with HVT sniping, although at a lesser range, and a huge penalty against Unyielding and Carapace.

For Curios it's also your own personal preference. I enjoy an assortment of benefits. Remember that using two Damage Resistance blessings gives diminishing returns, but if you want to drop Combat Ability Regeneration with 2x Sniper or 2x Gunner resist, its a fair move. You can also go 2x Toughness and 1x HP. Just be yourself.

Summary And Gameplay Tips

To sum up, this build brings out more of the strengths of the Eviscerator 15, and mitigates some of the normal Meta build's shortcomings. With this, you can comfortably jump in a horde and make wine by leftclicking, and using the additional comfort therein to focus on Dodging, and situational awareness. Because of your weapons ability to glide through enemies, it gives you a much bigger benefit with mixed hordes (Hordes with Ragers, Maulers mixed in) as you can get through them using just your left clicks as you will still hurt people beyond it, because of ignoring their hit mass bonus from armour.

With isolated HVTs, you can either deliver a heavy strikedown, a revved heavy strikedown for extra tanky enemies, or just spam lights. Simple gunners and shotgunners will die with about two light attacks to the head, so use your discretion with choosing between multiple lights, or the high commitment strikedowns. This is extra true with monstrosities, as the strikedown's latch can leave you open to attacks. Spam lights while you wait for your opening, and if you find it, Heavy, or Rev Heavy, depending on your window.

When Ragers are in play in a horde, you can deal with them by using your Fury of the Faithful, to effectively shoulder check them. Impacting with an enemy during your charge stuns them, and you can keep a Rager stunlocked by using your Charge over and over. With good control to not let you surround them, you can very comfortably lock down groups of Ragers without them seriously threatening you.

If you feel like it, a good mod to use with this is the new Show Crit Chance. This will give you a live preview of your crit chance as it fluctuates. This will help you understand when and how you are getting the most benefit from the build.

If you have a weapon similar to this, I urge you to try this out. If you don't, keep an eye out for rolls that could achieve this, but without the full 5% crit chance, and R4 Shred, it will harm our damage and safety, so hold out for a very good roll.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158661162					

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