Return of Reckoning

Hello fellow zealots,

I want to start a discussion about the best possible build for a Zealot playing in RvR with an organized warband.

The build

Path of Alchemy : 0 - Path of Witchcraft : 12/15 - Path of Dark Rites : 15/15

This is not what you usually see on this forum as I didn't put any point in the path of alchemy.

First, I usually find myself spamming the group heal during warband fights and saw no reason to improve my single target heal capacity.
Secondly, rather than using the AP ritual, I found better to use the shield ritual that provide a 455 damage shield every 2 - 2.5 seconds in RvR fights (it procs almost immediately in big fights).
Finally, apart from the usual tactics (AP, +25% heal, shield), I prefer to use the morale tactic as I find very often useful to have access to the M2 - Focused mind a few seconds after impact (it saves my group many times).

I also frequently use Embrace the Warp as it allows to keep healing even when focused (the AP cost decrease being a nice bonus).
I find useful to put Daemonic fortitude on our main DPS at the beginning of the fight as a nice wounds buff.

The renown

I'm used to run a critics focused build for defense and heal :

Spiritual refinement : 45 - Futile Strikes : 30

The goal is to get as low as possible in chance to be critically hit given that it seems possible to go negative and thus decrease the critical chance of your adversaries.

The gear
IMO, the best stuff is the vanquisher set for it's 6 pieces bonus that decrease the cast of Dust of Pandemonium to 1.9 seconds which improve by 25% the heal output of our group heal.
The 4 pieces also allow to recover 35 AP every 2 group heal thus reducing it's cost by 25% on average.

For the rest, the full genesis set should be good enough until sovereign pieces for it's heal crit.
This give 40% in total with theses 2 sets which should be enough to maintain Blessing of Chaos on your group most of the time.

For talisman, I like to have around 8000 HP so I would use wounds talisman until 7400 HP (+60 wounds from Mercy liniment) and then complete with talisman armor (something like 4 wounds talisman and 3 armor talisman)

For potions, big stacks of both HP and AP potions allows to keep healing after M2 heal group spam or long tense fight.

If I were going to run that build, I would probably get tzeentch's refreshment and run it over the morale tactic. Unless you are trying to get to a higher morale it seems like a waste. From my experience me getting FM available seconds earlier is not usually the difference in a fight.


I also tend not to use demonic fortitude reactively.

I like your idea, and run something similar on my Zealot. This is an older build for me honestly, before the new Sov sets. The idea was to max INI, and at one point I could get about 9xx but that takes a lot of SC dps gear so I lost some of my heal ability. Some good times when I had 2 RPs and 3 Engies chasing me and not able to land much.

As for a build outside of 13/0/11, I don't mind this style. As you point out, a lot of our aoe is tied to the last tree so this fits well. I tried Ritual of Superiority in a few Forts over the past few days and its not bad. Really cuts back on the spike damage. As I forgot about the Vanq set bonus, I'm off to put that set back in my bags and try this out next big keep/fort.

On the side, I've seen a rise in chatter about 2H choppa, with someone in a SC recently saying "Oh good, 2H!". That and this make me happy, as it gives a bit of flavor to a stale meta for me.