If you are set on having a pure physical zealot you need at least sunders and atmas scarab.

Dps at top end is similar. Phys zeal has Phoenix, multiple helm options, and wider weapon options thanks to more socket slots and fanat. Also, Amp is 100% and decrepit is 50% so there are ways to mitigate the gap.

I think at top end gear, native holyshock and phys zealot both beat dream.

*phys sunder not worth...

This post was edited by rabidfruits on Jun 9 2023 10:20pm

Top end for Phys zeal has around 450% ED from Fana and 400% max ED from Phoenix so that'll make 850% ED in phys dmg more than Dream build's phys dmg

Let's say your weapon is the best one which is Grief PB with +400dmg so with 850% more ED, that'll be 850% x (400+33) = 3680 phys dmg on average. With G-face, you'll have 15% more chance to crit.

As for Dream, with full synergy, lvl 30 Holy Shock would get you 1-8k Light DMG so the average is 4k ---> Not too far behind from the 3680 phys dmg with zealot +15% crit.

Not to mention that it would pair with -150% Light Res. Like you said, Zealot don't have that, just decrepit from merc in which you'd have to wait for your merc to come and then wait for it to proc and it'll only have -50% res.

Amp is -100% res but how do you proc it frequently enough like Conviction aura?


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If you still disagree with me, that's fine. There is no deny that Dream still has better clear speed because it has better AOE. For Zeal, you'd have to hit each monster, 1 by 1. For Dream build, you can kill mod by pulse all at once.

Let's say your weapon is the best one which is Grief PB with +400dmg so with 850% more ED, that'll be 850% x (400+33) = 3680 phys dmg on average. With G-face, you'll have 15% more chance to crit.

As for Dream, with full synergy, lvl 30 Holy Shock would get you 1-8k Light DMG so the average is 4k ---> Not too far behind from the 3680 phys dmg with zealot +15% crit.

Not to mention that it would pair with -150% Light Res. Like you said, Zealot don't have that, just decrepit from merc in which you'd have to wait for your merc to come and then wait for it to proc and it'll only have -50% res.

Amp is -100% res but how do you proc it frequently enough like Conviction aura?


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If you still disagree with me, that's fine. There is no deny that Dream still has better clear speed because it has better AOE. For Zeal, you'd have to hit each monster, 1 by 1. For Dream build, you can kill mod by pulse all at once.

Conviction is definitely more reliable than Decrep. Even with Teleport carrying your merc. Also Vengeance doesn’t work with Grief because its +damage so the only way to handle immunes is Sunder+Curse which slows Physical Zeal down.

Although Gface does have CB which helps with Boss kill little faster. Dream Zealot is the winner.



Can you post some numbers for Physical and Holy Shock Zealots?

Also if no Physical Sunder, how do you deal with immunes?

This post was edited by Tarisus on Jun 10 2023 04:25am

I am actually playing as a Zealot right now. Ive always wondered the min max of variants but it seems like only 3 come out top for Zealots. Holy Shock, Fanatic(Physical) and Dream. In lod, there’s a 4th, which is Beardin.

Hence the reason to want to know differences between them.

So far, it would seem there’s pros and cons for all 3.

This post was edited by Tarisus on Jun 10 2023 09:43am

Paladin Holy Aura pulses fall off vs. higher hp mobs/higher player count. Definitely a better clear speed in mixed areas because you are right, all single target builds hit each monster 1 by 1. Vs. high hp mobs however, all auradins are still essentially single target builds.
In order to calculate dps, generally the math is done vs 1 target because in practice, density and mob generation is quite varied. The issue here is also choosing which mob on maxroll as your punching bag, do we go target dummy, baal, diablo, a rando venom lord, a blood lord, etc. Generally speaking, single elements + sunder are easier to calculate because it is standardized that your -res begins working from -95. Whereas with physical damage, there isn't a -res except for the curses and the ability to cast curses is gated by ctc or charges.

For DPS, a physical zealot would optimize based on intended zones. For example, in an area that doesn't have phys immunes in rotation, you could get away with a cranium basher (amp) or spell steal charges (decrep) or lacerator on switch vs boss spawns and run a pride merc for extra damage (345% ed).
Also grief is not the only weapon on the table. eDeath, a crazy rare, edc, ebotdz, all require individualized setups to milk the most out of them. A grief for example, gets the most damage from 13 min dmg circlet with 3x 40ed/10min jewels. (If you stack min damage on a grief pb high enough, it will also move your max dmg up if you catch up). Other weapons might want to use a deadly strike armet, or guilli if you're testing damage vs baal/ubers, or some nice 2os visio circ for all the 2ndary mods.

Reaper merc benefits the most from a fana zealot as his patron because the ar% increase and attack speed increase make decrep proc the fastest (hit 8 frame max jab with 37 ias on merc which means andy cham'd, fort, reaper's shael) So not only do you proc decrep faster than a dreamer's merc, the merc itself will do more damage too.

Another option is a crazy eth rep rare with 2os and amplify damage. You could LoLo for 40% ds and use atma's for like ~9-10% ctc amp on your main setup.

Also if you don't use grief, you could use any eth weapon with high damage and use vengeance for PI's. This will allow you to itemize both you and your merc for the maximum dps w/o having to worry about finding ways to apply amp or decrep. While this definitely is slower against PI's, PIs are also much less common.

Based on previous comparison, I know that a pure Holy shock paladin out dps a dreamer. It's easier to compare these two because they do the same thing (except maybe a dream paladin has more merc and inventory choices). Fana zeal gets hard because PI's are awkward to get around.

This is also just in theory, in practice which is more important, a dreamer offers a lot of nice things like ctc confuse, free res/fhr/mf, flexibility in charms and merc, etc.

As a random and pointless example, with a death BA setup using atma's and assuming it triggers. Can get over 174k dps against target dummy on maxroll. (Can push this higher if going all out). Also, crushing blow being affected by amp is another factor to muddy the waters.

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=101280823&f=148

^ that topic is an example of how dps is not the final factor for performance. On my own holy freeze paladin, I built the highest DPS build I could on maxroll and in playtest it was fucking awful. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to achieve better AR and sustain.

This post was edited by rabidfruits on Jun 12 2023 05:35pm

Very nice post!

Sadly, amp is a bit of a let down, when it comes to CB damage specifically.
Against everything that has 50% phy res or lower, which is basically the norm at endgame, amp cannot bring it under 0%, which essentially gives the same CB damage boost as decrep.
It's a nice touch against naturally phy-immune mobs and stone skin uniques though.

I agree and thank you for the detailed post. Many of them I actually just learned from.

I feel you with the holy freeze pally. There should be more runeword with holy freeze aura. I made a fun build that I called: Melee-Hammerdin. It's just Doom made in Ogre Maul. Then I max zeal, sacrifice, Fana, Light Res, and salvation. He doesn't have shield so I max Light Res for the 90% max Light Res and I also use Dream helm for a bit more Light Dmg and also chance to proc Confuse. The rest of the gear is just Zeal set up with Might Merc holding Infinity. If I want, I can just change gear and it would be zealot (G-face & Phoenix), or dream/zeal hybrid (Dual Dream) without reset skills and points. This build sucks after P3 but decent for solo. Basically just a fun off-meta build