Sell me on Savage Melee.

[Zemius]

I'm giving it a chance, but I hear from a lot of haters saying the damage is too low and the bleed mechanic is trash. I believe slotting correctly fixes anything, but is Savage a waste of time? 

[SeraphimKensai]

I'm casually checking out as well. I have a lvl 39 Savage/Regen Brute that I have as a low priority project toon. The rotation might actually be better I think ignoring the spenders, but I haven't really done the math on it yet, just observation. Savage Maiming Vicious. Rinse and Repeat.

[Frosticus]

Actually savage has really good DPA, but it gets that from a lot of dot damage and it has no really heavy hitters. Hemo and viscous slash can both do pretty good damage, but they don't have much burst/upfront.

 

Savage leap with procs is really good. Probably the best melee t9 attack available. 

It's a very good aoe set, with mediocre single target damage. A lot of dot damage and a subpar damage type. 

 

Stalkers get far and above the best version of savage

[Zemius]

7 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

Actually savage has really good DPA, but it gets that from a lot of dot damage and it has no really heavy hitters. Hemo and viscous slash can both do pretty good damage, but they don't have much burst/upfront.

 

Savage leap with procs is really good. Probably the best melee t9 attack available. 

It's a very good aoe set, with mediocre single target damage. A lot of dot damage and a subpar damage type. 

 

Stalkers get far and above the best version of savage

Seems like Stalkers get the best version of everything. 

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, Zemius said:

Seems like Stalkers get the best version of everything. 

For attack sets that retain most or all of their aoe stalkers definitely get the best version because they have good aoe and superior single target. Sets like elec melee and savage are quite a bit better for stalkers.

 

Lots of stalker secondaries are not as good though. /rad giving up beta decay, /fire not having feiry embrace, scrapper ninjitsu is better, /bio loses the -res aura.

 

Ultimately every melee AT is in a pretty good spot though and can handle just about any content when fully built up. 

[dangeraaron10]

I'm loving Savage/Rad on Brute at the moment.  

 

I use Savage Strike (T1), Maiming Slash (T2), and Vicious Slash (T5) for the primary attack chain.  Savage Leap makes for a great opener and proc monster.  

 

Now I skip Shred, being a long animation, low payoff cone that it is.  I also skip Hemo, because you only need one spender and Brute gets far more out of Rending Flurry (an AoE) than Hemo.  Hemo is GREAT on Stalkers because of massive upfront damage but...not on Brute.  So I tend to not spend my Blood Frenzy stacks at all unless I want AoE, then spend it on Rending Flurry.  The key is to only do this when Blood Thirst is off cooldown, which will replenish your Frenzy stacks in spite of your Exhaustion (which ordinarily prevents getting Frenzy stacks which really tanks your DPS).

 

It's a high damage (bleed DoTs scale with Fury), endurance-friendly set with a great emphasis on single target with a smidgen of AoE when needed.  The "GO GO GO" gameplay loop of Freny upkeep already jives with the Fury generation of Brute.  The thing to remember is to NEVER spend your Frenzy stacks unless you have Blood Thirst to get them back.  Your DPS relies on you keeping 5 stacks at all times to maintain the high DPS this set can achieve.  

 

It hits hard, is satisfying to hear and watch, and feels really fun to play.  Being so endurance-friendly, you can even run Beast Run in combat for the full savage monster experience!