Zealot Mechanics, I'm confused

[DaBoxer]

I've been looking at Zealots and they are a very interesting class, but I'm not sure if I understand their mechanics.

-From what I read, a Zealot casts Harbingers on their opponents, marks on their allies, and than can create rituals that cause effects to those with the Harbingers.
-Or does the Zealot cast a ritual and those stuck in the ritual get a Harbinger(opponent) or Mark(ally).

If anyone could clear things up, maybe links to other players experience with zealots, or any good videos would be appreciated!

[Crazy ol' dude]

It's *almost* like the second one you described:the Zealot cast a ritual and those stuck in the ritual get a Harbinger(opponent) or Mark(ally). However:
We don't know much about Marks (at least i didnt find anything about them :S), no idea if they are casted before battle as an AoE buff or as an individual buff (meaning that you need to target and cast Mark on every person you want to get buffed) or they're a part of rituals or whatever. I'd say they're automatically put on any ally who is within the ritual area, but again - i didn't find any clear info on Marks.
Explanations of actual ritual+harbringer system: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=400596&postcount=7
I'm quite sure there aren't yet any videos showing how the debuffing system (ritual+harbringer) works. Most of them only show this : a Zealot casts Harbingers on their opponents(...)and than can create rituals that cause effects to those with the Harbingers. which is out of date.

[Zeetchmen]

Seems a lot still isn't know about zealots :( They seem so far to be fun and interesting to play :cool:

Has anyone seen their tier 4 armor?

[Crazy ol' dude]

Seems a lot still isn't know about zealots :( They seem so far to be fun and interesting to play :cool:

Has anyone seen their tier 4 armor?
As far as i know we have seen only two types of zealot ->
1) newbie Zealot (http://www.war-resource.com/images/screenshots/0703_0307_SS_017.jpg?PHPSESSID=4a3e10a0ae2f056d311 41076b0ba8df3)
2)"pro" Zealot (http://www.war-resource.com/images/screenshots/0705_20070515_ss_zealot.jpg?PHPSESSID=4a3e10a0ae2f 056d31141076b0ba8df3) (tier 2? tier 3? tier 4? :neutral:)
I think the second Zealot's "armor" is a placeholder for a high tier and will be Changed. While we are at it -> I have seen in some videos Zealots in full robes (killing the "shirtless dude" stereotype of a Zealot), besides even in recent GDChicago you can see in several moments a Zealot running around (literally, he didn't even cast anything :() with a staff ;)

And yes, too bad we have so little info on such an interesting class :cry: I hope guys will bring us enlightement from The Waaaagh :)

[silex]

From playing them again in Chicago, I've completely fallen in love with Zealots. They are no slouches in the healing and DPS departments. The primary skills I used:

- Casted Nuke
- Casted Heal
- Insta HOT
- Insta DOT
- Debuff targets resists and armor by 35% for 24seconds (morale ability at 60%)
- Super nuke (morale ability at 80% - about 5x to 6x as strong as a normal nuke)


I only had time to cast one ritual the entire time. But even without them, they were a fantastic class to play.

[Crazy ol' dude]

But even without them, they were a fantastic class to play.
Glad to hear that.
I have read your writeup (anyone who didn't yet - check it out (http://warhammerinfo.com/gamesdaychicago.shtml)), however, if you have time, could you please spare a few minutes and write for us everything you can recall about playing a zealot? :p your view on moving/casting/spell animations, toughness of this career, any info on marks, well pretty much everything you can remember about the Zealot will be much appreciated :) If you don't have time/will to write this, that's ok, i understand and i'll forgive you but only this one time! ;p

[DaBoxer]

Haha, thanks for clearing that up for me, gives me a better grasp of the mysterious Zealot class, well I guess there isn't much out there to grasp yet :-P

I think the second Zealot's "armor" is a placeholder for a high tier and will be Changed. While we are at it -> I have seen in some videos Zealots in full robes (killing the "shirtless dude" stereotype of a Zealot), besides even in recent GDChicago you can see in several moments a Zealot running around (literally, he didn't even cast anything :sad:) with a staff Wonderful, the only thing that didn't appeal much to me about this class is the armor style. Full robes with some kind of hood, or skull helmet sounds good to me!

[Crazy ol' dude]

Haha, thanks for clearing that up for me, gives me a better grasp of the mysterious Zealot class, well I guess there isn't much out there to grasp yet
That's true. Unfortunately we still know little to nothing about Marks of Chaos , only from Zealots description (and according to it - they ARE set before or in combat, not a part of rituals)Those glyphs placed on Chaos's loyal followers are called Marks, and can grant entirely new abilities. [that's very interesting, but that's all we know about this] (...) You must prepare your allies for battle, and see that their Marks are set or re-set according to their shifting needs. [and that means there'll be some/many different marks]we also know that doing damage to harbringer bearers will heal marked allies, but that's pretty much all we know about marks :(
Paul Barnett also mentioned throwing down scarecrow totems [no info on this one] and bringing the birds out [the Summon Harbringer spell i guess, but of course there might be many others about birds] and bringing the bird god manifest into the world and blowing people up with spells[:)] (...)(source (http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=98))
Time to write some questons about Zealot for The Waaagh :p

Wonderful, the only thing that didn't appeal much to me about this class is the armor style. Full robes with some kind of hood, or skull helmet sounds good to me!
I on the other hand like the "diadem" with eye thing much more than any hoods :)
The "pro" Zealot look i mentioned above - i'd say its a full tier 2/3 Zealot's set, but not Zealot's "standard" look, like many people think.
The video i mentioned before -> HERE (http://s48.photobucket.com/albums/f211/Morkreth/Warhammer%20Videos/?action=view&current=Zealot.flv). Notice the robe and the boots she wears and the sword in her hand. This is an old video tho(GDAtlanta, 29th April -> ritual+harbringer system and its animations we can see in this vid are out of date.)

[Muzzah]

Zealot is going to be one of the hardest classes to play, but I think a good player in control of one will be able to greatly influence battles. Thats why this class is one of my favorites at the moment.

[Auku]

I hear they have dark ritual circles. Anyone who's an enemy in the circle will get debuffed and allies will get buffed/healed.

So they have-

-AoE debuffs and buffs
-Heals over time
-Instant dots

[silex]

Glad to hear that.
I have read your writeup (anyone who didn't yet - check it out (http://warhammerinfo.com/gamesdaychicago.shtml)), however, if you have time, could you please spare a few minutes and write for us everything you can recall about playing a zealot? :p your view on moving/casting/spell animations, toughness of this career, any info on marks, well pretty much everything you can remember about the Zealot will be much appreciated :) If you don't have time/will to write this, that's ok, i understand and i'll forgive you but only this one time! ;pThanks :D I'm a bit stunned by how many people have read that. It even made the Herald news. I nearly crapped myself. Had I known, I would have done a better job of making jokes and better detail.

The Ritual spell effects are incredibly cool. It inscribes a huge glowing pentagram-like symbol into the ground at the desired location. I can't believe there isn't video of this somewhere (I bet the WAAAAGH! will come through), but there weren't any rituals on the default hotbar (I guess they just wanted people to run and gun for starters). While it is active, you receive a buff icon that counts down from 60 seconds - seems that is the standard duration for the rituals. I'm not sure if enemies can see this ritual on the ground or not. Not even sure that allies can see it for that matter. I would imagine the answer is yes to both, though.

Casting a Harbinger causes a neat little animation of crows swarming anyone caught in your ritual circle. As far as spell effects go, I was really impressed. In a way, it sort of reminded me of the cool void eldritch particles from DAOC, but obviously more defined.

There didn't seem to be any spell effects attached to the straight up nuke spells when I was playing for whatever reason. Possibly incomplete. Either that, or they were extremely un-noticable. The nuke and insta DOT were pretty effective, but not huge DPS houses. But I think I am a bit too accustomed to DAOC/WoW style of gameplay where characters can keel over in a matter of seconds. WAR combat lasts quite a bit longer. To put it in DAOC terms, it's like we are all Paladins and Wardens wacking away at each other, haha.

But even besides that, I guess I did pretty good in the DPS department. I scored 2nd out of 8 on our team for overall damage and 4th out of 16 out of both teams for overall damage. I was pretty surprised. I was beaten out only by a Magus on the Destruction side.

(there's a picture of the stats in the write-up (http://warhammerinfo.com/gamesdaychicago.shtml))

And survivability is surprisingly good. I didn't die once, which I'm pretty proud of. The insta HOT helps a lot with that. I would often kite away from the battle throwing that on myself as I ran. People seemed to eventually give up the chase when they started to see my HP go up.

Some people keep trying to tell me this is a melee class, but I really don't believe it. I haven't seen a melee skill yet and bothering to use the dagger seems pretty unproductive. Pretty much like a healer using their weapon in any other MMO, hehe.

Damage on the nuke: 45 dmg
Damage on the insta DOT: 10 dmg/tick
HP healed from main heal: 60 HP
HP healed from insta HOT: 20 HP/tick - unsure of tick amounts

Morale abilities that I can recall (was all pre-loaded, I didn't have time to mess around):
20% - Reduces target's armor and resists by 35% for 6 seconds
40% - Snares a target by 25% (estimate) for 8 seconds. This, along with all of WAR's CC, seemed really underpowered to me. I used it once and regretted it, heh.
60% - Reduces target's armor and resists by 35% for 24 seconds (upgraded version of 20% one)
80% - Deals massive damage to one opponent - dealt around 250 damage, which was quite considerable... but still only about 25% of an Ironbreaker's HP. See what I mean about long battles? hehe

... and I forgot to look at the 100% ability :( Nuke damage spiked up to about 70 per nuke after the debuff was applied. I used that on an Ironbreaker once that was taking fire from our team and he seemed to drop like a rock from then on. Great spell to use with a coordinated group, I'd bet.

Healing is definitely not like the DAOC system of "here's 2 heals - yay - you're at full HP!". As you can see from the numbers, I can heal only slightly better than I could nuke. I was down to 10% at one point and it probably took me 15-20 seconds to get myself back to full HP. You can basically cancel out one or two attackers on an ally with heals. Probably sounds ridiculously low to most of us, but when you consider it takes like 30 seconds to kill most people normally, it isn't too bad at all. Of course, I'm sure there are morale heals as well that I didn't have on my hotbar for use. Morale abilities as a whole are going to be a big fight turner, I think. Choose em wisely.

AP regenerates really fast. I could chain nuke or chain heal all day long if I wanted without losing any AP probably. If you throw in the insta skills, you'll start losing more than you gain though. I imagine this changes if you know how to find the more advanced skills though, haha. The characters we were using were lvl 20, so again, it might be even different at different levels.

[DaBoxer]

Awesome! Thanks for the input Sylax! Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun, nice to know how much of a healer these support classes are, and to see how long fights seem to last. You have brightened up my day ^_^

[silex]

Awesome! Thanks for the input Sylax! Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun, nice to know how much of a healer these support classes are, and to see how long fights seem to last. You have brightened up my day ^_^

I've caused joy instead of sorrow on a message board for once!

[Crazy ol' dude]

Thank you very much Silex for a very nice write-up :D
As for rituals...i'd love it if enemies wouldn't be able to see the ritual symbol on the ground before they step in it :P
Ritual+harbinger effects sound great, can't wait for a video/screens :)
People seemed to eventually give up the chase when they started to see my HP go up.:lol:
(...) it takes like 30 seconds to kill most people normallyThat's great! I love it, it's total opposition to the WoW's pvp 3 second gear-check i hated so much
Awesome! Thanks for the input Sylax! Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun, nice to know how much of a healer these support classes are, and to see how long fights seem to last. You have brightened up my day ^_^ my thoughts exactly ;p
I've caused joy instead of sorrow on a message board for once! Grats then, also grats on your site as it's growing and gets more and more important :)
Again, thanks for your input, it cleared a lot of things up :)

[silex]

Thank you very much Silex for a very nice write-up :D

Grats then, also grats on your site as it's growing and gets more and more important :)
Again, thanks for your input, it cleared a lot of things up :)No problem :) Glad to help.

I was blown away by how many people read that write-up. Still am. I would have done such a better job had I known, hah.

[Crazy ol' dude]

We know something more about Zealot -> http://only-war.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=188098#188098

Once I figured out how to play it, I was a force. I'd throw down a damaging ritual, stand in it, and throw off debuffs, nukes and group heals. If a melee got too close, he'd take damage from the ritual, I'd root him and sprint away and repeat. I could take some good hits but I wasn't superman nor instantly dead. You debuff someone with a Harbinger, then they take more damage from your other spells.It seems like Harbingers got kinda separated from the Ritual system, even in BrightWizardRvR video we can see a harbinger casted on someone w/o any ritual on the ground. I guess the rituals doesn't need to be activated by any Summon Harbinger spell, they start to do their thing just as you cast them on the ground
EDIT: OR you have to harbinger every enemy inside the ritual area to get it's effects to work (that's how i think it works now)
Sorry about kinda messing things up before ;p

[Zeetchmen]

Ohh, well that makes them a lot cooler :cool:

/leans toward zealot more

[Gemini]

Honestly, that dissapoints me really. It removes a layer of complexity in my opinion, and then... really, what is our mechanic to keep us from being forced into healbotting? The lastest WAAAGH!!! gimmick that we've heard about gives free heals. The runepriest has master runes, and the warrior priest of course has his righteous fury. The dark ritual/harbringer combinations were supposed to be are absolute best support spells. Now what do we have?

I hope this person was either mistaken or the mechanic will go back to the way it was. If not... looks like I'm a marauder after all.

[Pahp]

It seems like Harbingers doesn't have anything to do with Rituals at the moment

I wouldn't say that. We've known for a while that the Harbinger has a debuff of its own, but I've never heard anything about the ritual affecting people in it without a harbinger... In the end it's all still speculation, though.

[Crazy ol' dude]

If it's true, one thing that really sucks is: you'll have to, after you put down a ritual, harbinger every enemy inside it to get ritual's effect to work on them :|
Ritual system will probably be Changed 473666374 times before release, so don't worry much about it. Also i may have misunderstood this...anyway there'll be RvR Zealot video soon released, we'll see :twisted:
As for healbotting possibility, nothing really Changed, we still need to wait for info on marks.
I imagine however...if our heals will be not very effective, and our debuffs+buffs strong enough, then there's already an anti-healbotting system, promoting marks+rituals+harbinger+heals than just healing.

They're not ready to reveal any info on Mark as they have probably other things to do or they want to come up with best balanced and cool system to impress us...'cause if they would show something to us now, it'll still be Changed probably a lot before release, so there's kinda no point to do so :)
I wouldn't say that. We've known for a while that the Harbinger has a debuff of its own, but I've never heard anything about the ritual affecting people in it without a harbingerYes, althought i meant -> before, you had to put down a ritual, then activate it by Summon Harbinger. Now it got separated (i think), so you can cast ritual on the ground, or you can run around and cast harbingers on random enemies aswell. I was in a hurry when writing my previous post, have choosen wrong words and didn't really think about it , sorry :( edited to reflect my thoughts now

[Nihilist]

One thing that I've always noticed about MMOs is that they "nerf" stuff when a bunch of people complain about it being too hard, and that's not how things should be. Video games in general should be difficult, not to the point where's it's unplayable and you can't be good unless you are a god, but there should be determining factors that separates good players from bad ones, and I am looking forward to Zealots partially for that reason. I want to be able to see a difference between a good zealot, and an excellent one by the way they play.

I just hope that Zealots stay a complex class and they don't make things too easy to the point where it's just another healbot, or some simple class who spams a few buttons and he's doing a good job. No... I want to be a Zealot who is helping turn the tides of battle, and know that without the awesome Zealot in the raid, the other team would have won.

[silex]

Very interesting. Man, there's so much more that needs to be revealed about this class, it's not even funny. Can't wait for that RvR vid.