Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: How to Beat Zealots

You’ll experience plenty of tough enemy encounters across England, but none are more challenging than the righteous Zealots. These ultra-tough boss-types are a returning feature from Origins and Odyssey, and they require a very good command of the combat system to take down even if you’re well above their Power Level. Here’s how to beat Zealots in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla if you’re struggling.

How to Beat Zealots in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Fighting Zealots requires a very different strategy than one you would apply for fighting other enemy types, with the exception of perhaps the Standard Bearer heavies. This is because most of the Zealots use an enormous shield that makes them impervious to normal attacks.

Given that, the go-to strategy for most players is likely going to be parrying the Zealots standard and yellow special attacks. While this does work just fine, it’s very difficult to time and leaves you pretty vulnerable to mistakenly trying to parry a red attack (which is impossible).

Unless you have the reflexes of a cat, here’s our advice: don’t even bother trying to parry a Zealot. The best strategy by far is to dodge incoming attacks and hit him on the counter.

But there’s a small problem with this strategy: Zealots are both big and fast, and therefore attempting to use any sort of heavy weapon or heavy attack isn’t viable.

Remember when I said before that fighting Zealots requires a different attack strategy? Well, that extends to which equipment you use, too.

Put simply, speed is key. You want a weapon that is extremely quick, and you want gear that boosts your evasion. Both of these factors will allow you to keep dodging and keep attacking the Zealot during their attack animations.

My personal favorite weapon to deal with a Zealot are daggers. These are the quickest weapons in the game, and since you’ll only be attacking very briefly as the Zealot attempts to hit you, you want something that’s incredibly fast. Not only will that allow you to actually land a strike, but also to build your Adrenaline levels to then use special Abilities.

As for the actual strategy, don’t be scared to get in close with Zealot. As soon as they attack, regardless of whether it’s a standard or yellow or red attack, hit the dodge button and then immediately light attack. Always be prepared to hit dodge again if you feel you’ve been too slow or the Zealot has some sort of follow up attack.

The idea is that we’re trying to do chip damage and just never get hit. It shouldn’t take long to build Adrenaline if you’re using a dagger or seax weapon, so once you have a bar go in with a special attack to do extra damage.

For Zealots who don’t use a shield, another tactic to try is to use a two-handed spear and just jab them from distance. Still, the preferred method is definitely a speedy close-quarters style. The previously mentioned dagger and seax work best, but it’s possible to use this same strategy with one-handed axe.

That should give you a solid overview of how to beat Zealots in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. For more useful tips and guides on the game, be sure to check out Twinfinite’s extensive wiki. And if you haven’t already then please read our glowing review of the game here.

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