Savage on Stalkers: Am I doing it wrong, or is it kinda weak?

[Lazarillo]

Messed around with the set a bit earlier in a private setting where I could try a high-end build, and it seems like the set is not very Stalker-friendly.  Savage Leap breaks Hide, unlike, say, Lightning Rod, so it doesn't work as well as an opener, and that's a problem, since it's meant to build up Blood Frenzy at the start of battle.  The "big hit" Power of the set is Hemorrhage, which is mostly a DoT and similarly doesn't appear to Crit for very good numbers.  That said, since I sorta jumped it up, it could be there's some more to the "flow" of the set that I didn't have a chance to learn.  Has anyone else given it a try?  Is there anything more to it, or is it just better suited to Brutes?

[StrikerFox]

SM's damage output doesn't look good on Pine's. How much damage does the DoT do? Like how much damage per tick, how many ticks per activation, what's the damage difference between BF stacks etc. Also what's the cooldown on BF when 5 stacks are used? Also does IO slotting in Hemorrhage affect the amount of damage the DoT does? What attack chain are you using while testing?

 

I bet SM will be similar to DB. Shine when it's unique mechanic is disregarded.

[Lazarillo]

SM's damage output doesn't look good on Pine's. How much damage does the DoT do? Like how much damage per tick, how many ticks per activation, what's the damage difference between BF stacks etc. Also what's the cooldown on BF when 5 stacks are used? Also does IO slotting in Hemorrhage affect the amount of damage the DoT does? What attack chain are you using while testing?

So since the numbers in-game are all so vague (so many just tagged as "[special]damage") I just did a little bit of basic number running against a Pylon, and I definitely think my initial assessment was the result of misjudged assumptions and the set not being what I thought it would be at first.  Hemorrhage, especially, gets a bunch of bonus ticks when you land a critical hit, and its total damage is pretty through the roof.  Here are the numbers I got.  Since the character I ran is pretty twinked out, I included a couple ancillary abilities for comparison's sake:

 

Soul Mastery.Dark Blast: 103.82

Soul Mastery.Soul Storm: 72.82

 

Savage Strike: 80.04 base, 14.42-57.68 over time.  Base is doubled on a crit, DoT is unaffected.

Maiming Slash: 122.28 base, 22.02-88.08 over time.  Base is doubled on a crit, DoT is unaffected.

Assassin's Frenzy (exposed): 290.69 base.  Doubled on a crit.  No DoT.

Assassin's Frenzy (Hidden): 737.27.  No DoT.

Rending Flurry (no Blood Frenzy): 121.88 base, 9.79-39.16 over time.  Base is doubled on a crit, DoT is unaffected.

Rending Flurry (max Blood Frenzy): 146.26 base, 9.79-39.16 over time.  Base is doubled on a crit, DoT is unaffected.

 

Now Hemorrhage does lots of different things based on how much Blood Frenzy you've got and whether it lands a Hidden/Critical hit, so I tried it a few different ways.  The other "interesting" thing about Hemorrhage is that always does the same upfront damage and then appears to always register a Critical hit for the additional Frenzy-based damage (whether you have any to contribute to it or not).  It then deals 2 simultaneous DoTs, both of which scale up with additional stacks of Blood Frenzy.  If you do land a Critical Hit (or a Hidden one) the actual critical damage on the initial hit is lumped in with the faux-critical damage, but there's secret additional critical damage in the form of a third DoT that, like the other two, scales up.  It can get pretty wild!  Here's how the numbers came out:

 

Non-Hidden, No Blood Frenzy: 80.11 base portion, 33.75 "critical" portion, 244.5 damage over time.

Non-Hidden, Max Blood Frenzy: 80.11 base portion, 40.62 "critical" portion, 399.1 damage over time.

Hidden, No Blood Frenzy: 80.11 base portion, 80.11 "critical" portion, 667.56 damage over time.

Hidden, Max Blood Frenzy: 80.11 base portion, 80.11 "critical" portion, 996.89 damage over time.

 

And for fun, I added a Build-Up to that last one: 134.21 base portion, 134.21 "critical" portion, 1401.88 damage over time.

 

So, yeah, I was mistaken.  Hemorrhage is happy time.  Savage Leap is still kinda meh (I also played with it a little, got up to 174-ish damage at best range, but from too far away, it appears it bugs out and does no damage, so it's a gamble, plus, as noted in my first post, it breaks Hide, and has a 0% chance to deal Critical damage even when Hidden.  And point-blank it only does around 105, so it's not suited to Stalking.  Haven't messed with Rending Flurry yet.  I'll have to give it a test drive when I have more time.

 

ADDENDUM:

Okay, checked on Rending Flurry.  It works the same way as the basic ST attacks, just with the base damage slightly increased based on Blood Frenzy stacks.  I included its numbers above as well; can't say I'm super impressed with them either, but it's better than Savage Leap, at least.

 

Overall, I'd say the answer to the original question I posited was "I'm doing it wrong".  For my "live" build, I'm thinking I'll replace Savage Leap with Spring Attack (the character in question is a /DA, so I'm already well into Leaping), assuming it does work like Lightning Rod, because even without the Blood Frenzy boost, a Hidden Hemorrhage is actually a touch more damaging than Assassin's Frenzy (providing you can give it five seconds to finish ticking) anyway, so it seems like a good, strong follow-up.  Will probably keep Rending Flurry for a touch of AoE in groups, but the real shine of this set seems to be in the fast-and-furious approach to single target hits.

[StrikerFox]

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for all the testing. I'm guessing SM's best attack chain would be:

 

[bU]AS-Hem-MS-Shr-repeat

 

The main reasons are:

 

Maiming Slash is just there to add a stack of BF.

 

Shred can hold the Achilles' Heel and Fury of the Gladiator unique IOs to debuff resistance.

 

In this chain, Hemorrhage will burn the Blood Frenzy stacks at 4. Because it does not expend 5 stacks, there would be no BF cooldown. It also wouldn't need to worry about activating BU while BF is on CD.

 

Hemorrhage and Rending Flurry have a base 14 second recharge time. I think IO damage procs will trigger reliably on them.  I have some build ideas floating in my head I will try to put together soon.