Well it's like, zeal is good enough, you must have a good weapon though. Visio helmet is just a small piece of the puzzle. I'd say if you don't have crushing blow on your weapon or elsewhere, guillaume's helmet is a must, for hitting that quickly and fast, procing stuff is that much more important. Especially for bosses.
But yes, zeal is fun, definitely is. The damage bonus is not great, but you use fanaticism for that. 1-h and shield is the normal option, i have not tested 2-h zeal a lot. Though i have a memory, lol ^^
This was back in early 2000's ... when d2 had just come out. I had an associate.. and a shitty computer ^^ that barely even ran d2 ^^ It lagged and chopped ^^ I had made it to diablo in act 4 ^^ And i was getting killed over and over xD Dealt almost no damage, i was using zeal .. and then my associate was going to "help" ^^ He put on a halberc or something like that, and the pally was like chopping away with that huge thing with zeal, i was lol'ing like hell xD yes it dealt a little bit more damage but he was still getting murdered by diablo ^^ Lol that stuff was hilarious ^^
But i actually do remember, still now 20+ years later, i found ginther's rift OR headstriker, one or the other, that i can't remember - and i made it to act 5 nightmare even with that choppy computer ^^ But there i was getting killed all the time so the interest for d2 lagged off a bit .... and then i was going into masoning apprenticeship, so i kind of de-prioritized gaming a bit. 5 years of pure hell, that's not joke, lol ^^ And after that i got into it a bit more, but then moved around a lot, couldn't really settle. Only in about 2009-2010 i could get back into d2 a bit ... and played on and off since then. Done every d2l season last 7-8 years now, so that's good. Gone into hardcore then too, about 2019, much much more fun than sc.
For gear, i mean, you talking high end stuff? I mean anything CAN work... super optimal setup, would be like pre-procing fade from treachery, then switching to fortitude, i imagine.... to get both the damage bonus and the frozen armor bonus. Weapon? They say grief is top tier. I personally like curses, atma's scarab is a great one, you get amplify damage, zeal helps to proc it. I can imagine laying of hands for the +300% ed to demons is great. War travelers, perhaps, or maybe even goblin toe, for the crushing blow bonus. But other boots surely have greater rewards, like a rare tri-res boots, they can be great. Shield - for hardcore? Hmm. Sanctuary can be good for chaos sanctuary runs. Stormshield is a great defensive option especially for hardcore.
You can play around with the high end options if you want to trade for high runes - but personally i like to just have fun with what i find along the way. That's what a true gamer does. At least 99% of the time, like, if you're really stuck, then i don't consider it cheating to give it a little helping hand. Buy a good weapon or armor piece to help start doing quest bugged boss runs and such.
D2