Zealous Sword Hilt

Can someone explain to me what good a zealous hilt is?

1/-1 I mean doesnt it cancel itself out? So you hit faster than your energy normally builds back up, so you gain 1 on each hit.

Zealous is a great mod for swords and axes, mainly because with an attack speed boost (usually a must..), you will gain more energy than you would have with 1 more regen.

http://www.gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Zealous

-1 energy regen translates to -1 energy every 3 seconds.

DPS for most melee weapons 1.33.

So you gain significantly more energy with a zealous mod. Add attack speed boots and you can easily manage the most energy intensive builds.

It's a great mod.

Livingston

I see, so I need something in my skill bar to make me attack faster to make the most of a zealous hilt? This will make me gain energy faster?

Yes. After all, if you attack more often, then presumably you'll hit more often, which means you'll gain energy more often.

Normal attack speed is enough to gain more energy with zealous than without it if you are using axe or sword and your attacks hit. Skills which increase attack speed will give you even more energy but those skills also cost some energy.

But you are also attacking faster which is always good, and building more adrenaline, for any adren attacks you may be using.

Livingston

It took me awhile to see the benefits of having a 3/1 vamp sword and a zealous 1/-1 sword in my arsenal. Ive been playing with them for awhile now and I like the setup. Switching around takes a second and the benefits are awesome.

Agreed. The only downside of vampiric and zealous weapon is that you have to switch to a normal set when you're not in a fight, and for lazy warriors like mine it's a HUGE issue

I still don't like vampiric weapons as it seems to me that I lose more health then I gain, even when using speed boost attacks, and even if it's not actually true. And it also makes degen very scary for me, as it’s one of the biggest weaknesses for warriors in the first place.

Degen + slow = me not happy.

I know I can just switch out in that case, but to me it's a bigger pain than it's worth, so I'll go with furious, zealous, or even barbed first.

Unless I have mending then vampiric is my friend.

Livingston

The main point of vampiric isn't to gain health, it's that you do 3 points more damage per hit, armor ignoring. Although if you're using, say, triple chop against tightly packed enemies the healing can become quite significant.

Zealous just rocks. With tiger stance you basically get 4 pips of energy regen as a warrior.

With Tiger Stance you can afford to use Tiger Stance!

Weapon switching might take effort but it makes such a difference. Earlier today I was playing Gyala Hatchery, using a Cold Sword vs warriors and a Vampiric Vs pesky rangers, you see such a massive improvement in the numbers.

think of it this way though, i use flurry because i can keep it up all the time but does it really make sense to keep spamming it? it costs 5 energy and it looks like after 1 flurry ends i barely get the energy i used to use flurry.

But remember to switch weapons after battle if you're low on energy.

I use Zealous and Defense mods on my sword. I almost never run out of energy, unless of course, I run into a mob of E-Denial mesmers