CaD: Deathstroke vs Zealot

Part One: Physicality and Reflexes

Vulcan - Maul was actually strong enough to casually hold Zealot and have entire monologues with Zannah that she was shouting for him to release her and completely unable to escape his grip. She only broke out of his lock by kicking him hard enough to loosen his grip and actually free herself. You're literally unironically claiming Zannah is anywhere from 20 to 100 tons based on an actual misinterpreted unquantifiable panel. Do you have ANYTHING to substantiate the claim that she's on that strength level? Because it seems like you looked really hard and tried making that out as some feat then went off talking about how Maul is impressive - I would never have interpreted that as an actual strength showing. Slade himself has feats that would put him in the double digit range inside the stat amping nth metal armor:

Pressurized airplane doors require 12 tons of force just to open...Slade ripped off the Cargo plane's metal door and severely dented the thing using one hand during the first issue of his New 52 series. This is actually quantifiable and irrefutable in comparison with the evidence that you presented for Zealot being so strong. And if Slade holds the strength advantage he will indeed abuse his physicality with similar mannerisms like how he simply manhandled Batman and how he can use the environment like literally effortlessly smacking Batman with 2-ton chunk of concrete even when he was outside of nth metal armor. But we are on opener stages so if you're holding back on feats I will have you know that Slade is ridiculously proficient at using footing and balance alteration to actually disadvantage strength as he has ragdolled people like Captain Marvel Junior and Donna Troy - This goes back to his first appearance when he used superior footing and Donna's arrogance to sling her at Starfire in the New Teen Titans Vol.1 #2:

I want to stress how Deathstroke abuses his speed and instantaneous reflexes as his fighting style is perfectly attuned for such tactics to perfectly time attacks and engage maneuvers faster than his opponents can comprehend. Slade's way more dangerous for his speed than his strength and this is so relevant herein because he has speed feats well above Zealot's paygrade even outside of his Nth metal armor. He's effortlessly rolled through turret fire on the lowest end and that comfortably matches Zealot dodging minigun fire. But when he's actually trying he has shredded assault rifle gunfire from 3 different directions and angles simultaneously:

This feat is magnitudes more impressive than anything Zealot has done..I would actually associate this level of speed with Iron Fist/Gorgon fast characters. Your scaling with Grifter is decent but Slade scales above people on Zealot's own speed level. Katana has multiple feats wherein she rapidly deflects high caliber gunfire from jets and machineguns so it's fair to say she's comparable to Zannah yet Slade performed graciously against her during the Outsiders #19 when he twisted himself and locked with Katana at the last second when she was suckering him...

She had every possible advantage at the moment yet Slade's instantaneous reflexes allowed him to match her strike and she is just as fast if not faster than Zannah. Durability and endurance are irrelevant factors as both characters have swords that cut on the high-tier level and can tank each other's blows backed up with their respective healing factors so I'm going to skip ahead with those arguments.

Part Two: Fighting Style and Combat Skills

Let's get right into this debate. I'll be using Deathstroke with all the consistent equipment he's displayed across his appearances along with feats from all his armors (Promethium and Nth Metal) with the exception of the ikon suit. This gives Slade laundry lists of destructive power and versatility to gain upperhands throughout the fight with tactics like environmental exploitation and balance alteration that work perfectly in conjunction with his fighting style to ultimately maneuver Zealot into other attacks and even land killshots.

If you request them, notable feats I'll post include: Beating up and then killing Batman in the Dreamwar crossover

Using the Dreamwar crossover for feats? Seriously? That event was so full of PIS that we had Grifter kill Doctor Fate with bullets, The Joker keep up with Midnighter and Superman oneshot Mister Majestic. Batman and Zealot were actually evenly matched until Zealot opted for cheap tactics that Bruce amateurishly fell for...Perhaps because he was so out of character he literally set the tone of the fight to killing each other? Because the DC characters were idealized dream constructs and the Wildstorm guys were just dreaming?

Your feats are fine regardless and I'll admit Zealot is more technically skilled than Deathstroke. But as I said, Slade's fighting style relies on tactics and versatility to gain upperhands and ultimately defeat his opponent. His technical martial art skill is decent enough but Slade is more about the physics and circumstances of the fight wherein he identifies advantages and pressures on them or uses things like superior footing, balance alteration, leverage exploitation and body positioning with some martial arts in-between. Let's conveniently cite Teen Titans #46 where Slade destroys the Titans to illustrate this type of fighting prowess when he had nothing more than his standard blade...

This is ludicrously impressive for multiple reasons. Donna has far better physicals and could turn him to redpaste if she lands 1 clean hit and people like Cassandra Cain and Ravager (Rose Wilson) have precognitive abilities then there's the fact that Batgirl and Nightwing are simply way more skilled yet he managed to redirect all of their attacks and deal with them pretty comfortably with his situational awareness and tactical ingenuity. He was even able to duck Donna's punch and make her lose balance allowing him to literally fling her around, manipulate their fighting styles against them like how he wrecked Dick and use wordplay as emotional manipulation to off balance the Titans. This is further contextualized when we know Deathstroke was purposely holding back against the Titans meaning he could have damn well killed them if he actually wanted to do so...His techniques and tactics are going to be much looser here and he will aim to carve Zealot's skull out.

Part Three: Equipment and Combat Tactics

So things get really cool here given Deathstroke has his Volatile Promethium Type-II blade which absorbs unlimited amounts of energy and can cut pretty much everything as established by Christopher Priest (the writer of Rebirth Deathstroke). It's something backed up through feats as Slade has slashed Superman across the chest that he drew blood - he has even halved Aquaman's trident during Justice League Vol.3 #43 and that has multiple feats of piercing beyond Superman level beings:

Deathstroke's Promethium Sword comfortably matches the Kusar Blades as far as Swordfights are concerned. But Slade has concrete advantages regarding versatility and combat tactics with all the equipment he's packing and the way he applies them into his fighting style. His hardcore marksmanship and various guns should suffice into keeping Zealot within bay from ranged attack points and off balance her positioning and focus with trickshots that lead Zannah into other assaults that will surely spell doom given the destructive power and rapid fire Slade packs. Let‘s look at what he did pretty much effortlessly during Deathstroke Vol.3 #2 against 300 ninjas when he was weakened regarding skills and reflexes by 25% per Writers statement...

Deathstroke identifies how many men this army includes and correlates the point with how he will thin down their numbers whilst suspended midair and shooting well over 1 hundred ninjas without missing any shot and without looking then leads them into landmines because he knows he can tank them and he performed the showing when he was having fun and weakened with his reflexes and skills. Pretty insane level marksmanship and tactical thinking that he can apply during CQC...

Possessing rapid fire bullets that he can unpredictably use for luring Zealot into other maneuvers and balance alteration tactics gives distinct advantages during CQC when he’s engaging into Swordfights. Slade further pressures on all this with his grenades that distract his opponent into misdirection and the likes...Note I showed Slade shitstomping the Titans with nothing more than his standard blade using the aforementioned tactics and he has all his equipment herein which obviously translates into more tactics and maneuvers that Zealot can’t deal with which I’m fairly certain about because Slade has the reflexive advantages for timing his attacks and pulling off maneuvers faster than Zannah can comprehend. He has exemplified this combat capability against Cassandra Cain during Batgirl #63.

He fluently avoids her blows whilst leading her into environmental exploits that drop the concrete foundation pillar and collapse the building using simple trickshots then off balances Cass by shooting her bombs that leads her into the bola nets. Cassandras actually marveled at the amount of tactics and maneuvers he’s employing simultaneously that were so complex she could not read him. It was revealed towards the end that Slade was merely toying with the fight because he was saving Cass for his daughter and she admitted next issue that Slades better at pretty much everything including speed which correlates to how she partially attributed her inability to read him because of his speed and Cass has read people like Batman and Lady Shiva just fine. Cassandra Cain dodges sniper bullets inches from her face as an 8 Year Old and has genuine low level speedster feats where she crosses massive distances as an abstract blur - Slade being so much faster than her is another showing that proves Zealot isn’t on his speed level.