Frosticus

it can work well. cosmic burst is a really nice stun attack. fast snipes are all good. rad blast can take a lot of really good procs. storm is of course storm, which is to say, an offensive powerhouse.

I think stj benefits well from adding in an epic aoe. It doesnt really need any more st attacks, however crushing, as, and a snipe is a ridiculously hard hitting 3 hit combo. That can be nice because you dont always get to stand and duke it out. melt armor is pretty meh. Not bad with an achilies to melt every 3rd or so spawn if that's what you seek. Not so great as a debuff vs an AV though

not sure if they are missing it or just figure the low value isnt worth mentioning. the -special of weaken is pretty cool though. and unique along with benumb in cold. Though weaken is spammable

For almost all content the upfront critical of crushing blow, freezing touch, midnight grasp is superior for quickly moving through targets. Not to make mention of the secondary effects of most other heavy hitters. It can be frustrating at times when warwalkers do their big heal, or even freaks healing through the hemorrhage dot when another set probably would have killed them outright with upfront damage. Plus you frequently end up having wasted dot damage either through impatience or failure to switch targets promptly while they tick down. In general an upfront heavy hitter would be preferable, but hemorrhage has some interesting and unique mechanics so that is good for differentiating the set and the damage potential is extreme under good conditions.

I recommend any secondary that is robust. The damage is good, great even, but the set offers zero mitigation. Plus a lot of the damage is DoT so you have lower stopping power than other stalkers that all do upfront critical damage. If not shield then I'd take a long look at invuln and elec armor. When i did +4x8 Romulus Aug w/o insp a self heal sure would have been useful heh. Melee hybrid and a ton of moving around/hit and run saw me through. If you let them pile up the nictus+rom will drop you in short order.

Blood, Blood everywhere! Thanks to Croax for reminding me to discuss the blood mechanics of savage in more detail Blood Frenzy was an example of a gimmick that the original devs added to late sets similar to combo points for street justice, or insight for psi melee. These systems are fairly straightforward and offer a nice little bonus while playing. They tend to not be as robust, or intrusive as the combo system found in dual blades. The blood system is pretty good. It is a 5 point system where each stack grants you a 4% recharge bonus and a 6% endurance reduction globally. Every attack in savage either grants blood, or consumes blood. Each stack lasts 10 seconds and when you consume 5 stacks you get locked out of building stacks for 10.25 seconds. If you consume 4, or less stacks there is no lockout. However, that 5th stack grants some special things to the consuming powers, so the lockout (exhaustion) can be worthwhile. Builders: Savage Strike – 1 stack Maiming Slash – 1 stack Shred – 1 stack Assassins Frenzy – fast cast 2 stacks, slow cast 3 stacks Savage Leap – max range 3 stacks, medium range 2 stacks, short range 1 stack Consumers: Rending Flurry – small improved damage up to 4th stack. 5th stack expands aoe to 15ft. Hemorrhage – see the nifty chart. All things being equal, exhaustion doesn’t really matter from a st dps standpoint despite conventional wisdom. All unhidden: 3 @4 stacks = 634 damage. 1 @5 stacks, + 2 @ 0 stacks = 636 damage. If all were hidden: 3@4 stacks = 1415 damage 1@5 stacks+ 2@0stacks = 1362 damage That said, if you are rotating targets then avoiding exhaustion may be of benefit. Plus it can be a fun minigame along with building assassin's focus. Finally, avoiding lockout/exhaustion means a bit more overall global recharge while you clear missions than if you keep consuming 5 stacks of blood. It's not huge, but it can help get long cool downs up a bit faster. I mostly just mash buttons though :) Savage fun I've had a lot of fun with this savage. I started with a sav/bio, which is fast and hits like a truck. Ultimately the absence of mitigation in savage melee started to hurt me when paired with /bio as even a little breathing room can work wonders for that set. I settled upon sav/shield/mu. There isn't many situations that the build feels underpowered. Some noteworthy solo accomplishments of the build that may be more attributed to shield than savage, but at any rate: -Consistent 1:45-2:00 min pylon time. Effortless and without health or endurance stress. No insp/temps/lore -Lots of +4 AV's, but this one made me happy -Katie Hannon TF 0x8 - demonstrates the ability to exemp down well as you ultimately face +3x8 spawns w/ a +3 AV -ITF +4x8 In reality this took a couple hours, maybe a bit more and I died 4 times. +4x8 with no deaths given the restrictions would be tough, but doable with a lot more care and attention. MoITF 44 min (no insp/temp/lore) -Confident this could go into the high 30's with a bit of practice. I fought everything very linear.

SAVAGE - to assault and maul by biting, rending, goring, etc.; tear at or mutilate - lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings In this guide I will detail the how and the why behind Savage melee being one of the best stalkers you can make. Savage Melee was a late addition to the retail game. As such the design of the set sacrifices much less than the early stalker sets. Savage retains all of its aoe potential (and more) and has vastly superior single target damage when compared to other AT's that have access to the set. In comparison to other stalkers, Savage is head and shoulders above other sets for AoE and is a top tier performer in ST dps. Where Savage shines less, is the damage type (lethal) and a good portion of the ST damage is comprised of DoT. The majority of attacks are straight forward so I'll just briefly touch on them. Savage Strike - low damage, super fast recharge. A fine attack filler at low levels. Some people use it at high levels. I don't and wish we had a longer rech power instead. Maiming Slash - medium damage, fast recharge, bonus dot that can be meaningful. Shred - melee cone. A decent one at 80 degrees that also does -def. A such it can take some decent IO's. Some people like it, I don't bother with repositioning and the animation is too slow for me. Assassin's frenzy - same as most. The fast cast is slower than kinetic melee, but faster than street justice and noticeably faster than the sword sets. Make sure you get your hide ATO in here and if you can swing it, a couple damage procs Build Up – same as all stalkers get, Other AT’s get blood lust, which provides a very low +dam buff and instantly gives you 5 stacks of blood. They both have their merits, I prefer buildup for the extra damage and because I like to control my blood stacking. Placate – most skip this power these days. However, placate into hemorrhage is worthwhile as is placate into a good aoe. I don’t use it, but savage is a stalker that does potentially benefit from it. The final three powers in Savage all have unique mechanics that make the set excel. These powers are also responsible for why a lot of people overlook, or even downvote savage melee. I will attempt to explain the how and why these powers can be leveraged so well for stalkers. Rending flurry – pretty standard 8ft pbaoe. In base form it is more or less on par with pbaoes from other sets. Frozen aura is maybe a little better, Mass levitate is definitely better due to the control+proc options. That is until you have 5 stacks of blood frenzy. With 5 stacks the pbaoe expands to 15ft. Which makes it a much faster, harder hitting spine burst. I’ll discuss aoe strategy later, but hidden flurry with 5 stacks is very very good. Well worth the exhaustion status. Hemorrhage – at a glance this power is not so great. You’ve probably heard people saying it is skippable even. Mid’s shows crappy damage and ingame shows no damage. I can’t blame someone for overlooking this power. The power has one major drawback – it is a long duration dot and when you critical with it the critical portion isn’t delivered upfront like other dot powers (freezing touch, midnight grasp), but rather, massively improves the dot aspect. The chart below details how strong hemorrhage is from hide. But the power is actually really good unhidden too. At base it does more damage than headsplitter, skysplitter, eagles claw, freezing touch, midnight grasp…and the list continues. So unhidden damage is good, albeit often with overkill, or wasted attacks because the dot is pretty slow. The dot takes 5 seconds to complete. By comparison freezing touch does its dot damage in half the time and the critical hits are upfront damage. Hidden damage is where hemorrhage not only surpasses other single target attacks, but eclipses them. At 5 stacks a hidden hemorrhage deals 1.3x as much damage as a hidden crushing uppercut at combo lvl 3. As indicated in the chart it deals anywhere from 2.2x critical at 0-4 stacks to a 2.03x critical at 5 stacks. But again, it deals it over a considerable amount of time and is often wasted through overkill on anything less than a +2 boss. So in practice some other sets that deal their damage upfront can actually move through small spawns as fast, or faster than savage melee. Hemorrhage Number of blood stacks 0 4 5 Damage 188.49 212.01 258.46 Hidden Damage 418.31 471.74 525.66 Savage Leap – The crown jewel of the set. This power is a true tier 9. It improves tremendously upon what savage is already good at – aoe damage and single target damage. -It’s a big aoe, at least 15ft (sometimes it seems bigger) that hits 10 targets. -The closest comparison I can make is that savage leap is like a sentinel nuke once it is properly slotted. Which is to say, quite good. It is also nearly instant cast time. This results in savage stalkers having arguably some of the best aoe capabilities in the game. -it also improves single target damage because it instantly moves you to your target. That can be pretty handy for a stalker considering their melee prowess. In some situations this power is of tremendous benefit, such as getting close to hard to reach targets. -It recharges fast enough that you don’t need to feel apprehensive about using it in whatever situation you deem best. The image below shows the expected damage from max range with my preferred slotting. The physical damage is halved from point blank, but procs remain the same. You NEED damage procs in this power. It performs subpar without them, but with them it is amazing. 4 Damage procs, 1 -res proc, 1 purple +5 damage. *If not going musculature then drop a damage proc to fully enhance the +damage to ~95%. Single target strategy – pretty straight forward. Use hemorrhage from hide. Whether that means you open with it or follow AS with it, just make sure to get this from hide as much as possible. I highly recommend adding an epic attack into the rotation. I prefer a snipe. Hidden hemorrhage, AS, snipe is hilariously high damage. If you have the odd small gap in your st chain it really isn’t that big of a deal. Nothing short of an EB lives long and EB’s and AV’s will try to flee you often so you spend a lot of time chasing them. AoE strategy – this is a little more fun and unique to savage stalkers. You may want to open with an epic aoe for the 50% crit chance. Mu gives you the aforementioned snipe and a nice big aoe. Either way, that is up to you. Savage leap from max range is next. So target something meaty in the middle of the spawn and savage leap. Some stuff will die, some stuff won’t. Immediately follow up with AS. Savage leap from max range gives 3 blood stacks. Non-hidden AS gives 2. So now you are at 5 stacks which means rending flurry is fully charged. Use that 15ft pbaoe and laugh. Clean up any remaining bosses. Do it again on the next spawn because everything recharges nice and fast on Savage melee. Builds I’ve solo’d both a sav/bio and a sav/shield from 1-50 now. I strongly recommend shield because it is so well rounded and sturdy. It also helps a bit with single target damage and adds another nice big aoe. I’ll highlight some of the silly things my sav/shield has done below and attach my current build. That said, play the secondary you will enjoy most. They all have their strong points and weaknesses. *I personally try to avoid my inspiration tray and I don’t use lore. Those are self-imposed restrictions that alter how I build and play a fair amount. Savage melee is basically how I always imagined fire melee should be. Really good aoe, strong single target and no mitigation whatsoever. So plan accordingly. Build notes: designed to hit +3’s only. Exempts extremely well down to lvl 27 at x8 settings.

ya i think 5% is so low that a good run becomes very noticeable. Last night it proc'd a LOT in a single AV encounter. To the point I thought the newest patch changed it. Then the next AV I don't think it went off a single time. If it were possible I'd vote for it to be increased to 10% on single target attacks and lowered to 3-4% on aoe's. Many stalkers have limited aoes. I thought the proc was bordering on junk on my nin/bio, but I love it on my aoe-centric savage stalkers.

Maybe. But nothing in savage melee is broken. The only power that is over performing is hemorrhage from hide (it is a 2.2x critical instead of 2x). It is the only power in the game that criticals with backloaded damage. All other crits are frontloaded. I think most people would trade the boosted dot from hide for a front loaded critical like other dot powers receive (ie freezing touch, midnight grasp) because that would clear everything short of EB's faster than the backloaded damage. Until procs are nerfed for everyone (if that happens) savage leap works exactly as any 15ft aoe w/ rech of 40 seconds would. Unless there is another power in savage that isn't working properly?

I used to feel the same and have even made the same statement. That was prior to really getting in to how poison excels. Traps version is unbelievably slow. Poison version has a very fast cast time. In addition to that, poison version takes pbaoe damage sets. This is pretty advantageous as it gives a reliable way to get the fury of the gladiator -res proc out, which most corrs/defs/trollers have limited access to. Which on that note, the power procs unbelievably well. I've posted about it in the past. It is one of the best proc powers in the game. So on a quick team poison trap delivers a quick little aoe hold, a large amount of aoe damage and a reliable source of -res proc. Plus you already in close to maximize venomous gas, which I personally prefer over the MM version, but ymmv. I would however suggest playing the build as a defender rather than a corr. Both the defender ATO's fit nicely with things poison lacks. Not a huge amount, but a bit. Plus the defender values are noticeably higher for the -res powers.

This is certainly an issue the power had on live at one point. Last time I checked vs a pylon I was getting right around 45 seconds of -res out of sleet. I haven't checked the dominator version though.

double checked. Unslotted vs pylon (20% res all) 0 stacks 5 ticks of 21.97 5 ticks of 10.26 = 161.15/0.8 = 201.44 4 stacks 5 ticks of 21.97 5 ticks of 11.9 = 169.35/0.8 = 211.69 at full blood stacks 5 ticks of 21.97 6 ticks of 12.89 = 187.19/0.8 = 233.99 That's no joke, it hits about as hard as seismic smash...and takes some really decent procs too.

I still maintain that it is the best debuff set for fast moving, run and gun teams, by a noticeable amount. But it isn't so much better that it outweighs the other things that a set like cold brings. Dark is slow as molasses at getting out powers, but may be the best set for keeping crappy teams standing, but is about on par with traps in a fast moving environment. Poison is a tough set to solo with, but some pairings can do well. It shines well for some controllers such as my plant/poison.

No for sure, I suspect we have a similar mindset to be honest. I only have lore for the level shift where applicable. I've summoned them once just to see them. For my sub 2 min pylon builds I run 3-5 pylons consecutively and then subtract the travel time. I found that my offense heavy builds were sometimes geared too heavy toward offense and weren't endurance (or even health) sustainable in longer fights. Such things weren't really exposed in such a short fight, or most mission content. In which case hybrid is a-ok by me.

I don't find assassin's mark to be spectacular vs single targets on any of my stalkers. But vs full spawns when you start tossing out the aoe attacks it can frequently pop multiple times per group. Assassin's mark is one of the better ato procs for sure, but it is certainly no Critical strikes proc that scrappers get. Though, hide proc is terrific, so perhaps that is a better comparison for critical strikes.

I think its base damage is around 150. blood stacks are minimal . I'll check on my dark/sav this eve if no one else reports. I've been meaning to get some solid savage (assault and melee) numbers as I play both a lot.

While I dont necessarily disagree with what you've stated, one could make the same argument about lore pets. For me I lean toward conservative reporting because for spawns my aoe matters more than my sustained st. Where my sustained st matters is generally much longer fights than a pylon. A no insp/temp/lore of lvl 54 romulus aug takes me much longer than 2 min. That said I still know my pylon capabilities with and w/o hybrid and a few other scenarios. So I guess I dont have much to say after all haha.

It will be nice not be spammed by "assassins mark" when using shield charge as it didnt actually refresh buildup. That said, is there any way to get shield charge (and lightning rod I presume) to work with assassins mark?

I'd suggest sm/shield is best played as a stalker, but it would still do heaps of aoe damage and ok single target as a scrapper

grav/traps has tremendous synergy too. I think the most complimentary secondary for illusion is /cold Lots of really good pairings though.

yah I think people overthink summoning and resummoning. I treat the t1s as the expendible buggers that they are, often not even bothering to upgrade them. they are little more than seeker drones in some situations.

yes. damage is a fine choice. ATOs will improve both his controls so that isnt bad either. some like the kd IO.

interesting. almost like it is proccing but it procs on the "pet" and as such does nothing. does lightning rod have this issue too? savage leap works differently than the other telenukes. It works correctly.

I have a stone/bio brute that is a lot of fun. Stone melee has tons of +rech proc slots and can keep a group stunned/knocked pretty well which gives bio ample opportunity to cycle its powerful clicks. I imagine the tank version would be a lot of fun too.

Ya, the dom ATOs are sort of junk. The fire front is disappointing (as is the troller one too). The +dam one could be ok, I'd be happy if you could slot it in any damage power from the prim/secondary. As you say, not many assault sets can even slot it and where you can slot it you probably dont even want it there. To me it is strange that I can put assassins mark in dna siphon, which is a purely offensive proc in a defensive power, but I cant put the +dam ATO on my dominator into fireblast.