Savage guide

[Frosticus]

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.

Spoiler

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1542&c=735&a=1470&f=HEX&dc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

Build notes: designed to hit +3’s only. Exempts extremely well down to lvl 27 at x8 settings. 

 

[Frosticus]

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 5^th 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 4^th stack. 5^th 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. 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Frosticus

[Groovy_Ghoul]

Great guide Frosticus! You’ve been a huge advocate for SM and this guide reinforces your passion.

 

What other secondaries do you believe would pair well? Any other powers?

[Croax]

Hi @Frosticus,

 

Very nice guide!

 

You make me almost try out SM again. You mention a downside to Blood frenzy stacks, i do know what that means . But could you make a section that explaines these stacks, how to manage them and when it's worth to spend them.

 

Otherwise well done!

 

[Vea]

 Here is ONE cast of Hemorrhage in game from hidden against a Cim Boss (50+1 vs a level 50 boss)

 

Spoiler

You activated the Hemorrhage power.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 185.57 points of Lethal damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 185.57 points of Lethal damage [CRITICAL].

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Mako's Bite: Chance for Lethal Damage for 79.63 points of Lethal damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Gladiator's Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage for 79.63 points of Smashing damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 118.86 points of Negative Energy damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Touch of Death: Negative Energy Damage for 79.63 points of Negative Energy damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

 

I think I prefer Crushing Uppercut in street justice.. but 2.5k damage...

[Frosticus]

8 hours ago, Groovy_Ghoul said:

Great guide Frosticus! You’ve been a huge advocate for SM and this guide reinforces your passion.

 

What other secondaries do you believe would pair well? Any other powers?

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.

[Frosticus]

5 hours ago, Vea said:

 Here is ONE cast of Hemorrhage in game from hidden against a Cim Boss (50+1 vs a level 50 boss)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

You activated the Hemorrhage power.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 185.57 points of Lethal damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 185.57 points of Lethal damage [CRITICAL].

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Mako's Bite: Chance for Lethal Damage for 79.63 points of Lethal damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Gladiator's Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage for 79.63 points of Smashing damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 118.86 points of Negative Energy damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Touch of Death: Negative Energy Damage for 79.63 points of Negative Energy damage.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 42.48 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 95.51 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

You hit Praefectus Castrorum with your Hemorrhage for 100.5 points of Lethal damage over time.

 

I think I prefer Crushing Uppercut in street justice.. but 2.5k damage...

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.

[Dr Causality]

Thanks for posting with your build!  Interesting to see and impressing looking ITF results.

[Generator]

I have a character concept that was in the rotation to develop, and now I'm thinking it'll be a Savage/Ice Stalker.  Thanks for the pep talk.  🙂

[Groovy_Ghoul]

On 2/21/2020 at 8:59 AM, Frosticus said:

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.

I'm thinking either electric armor or ice armor but I'm leaning towards electric. Both seem very solid. Thoughts? Recommended build(s)?

[Frosticus]

6 hours ago, Groovy_Ghoul said:

I'm thinking either electric armor or ice armor but I'm leaning towards electric. Both seem very solid. Thoughts? Recommended build(s)?

I like ice armor for a lot of reasons, but you can drive a truck through the holes that it has defensively.

elec armor is solid in in just about every way except toxic

 

I don't have a build for either those armor sets.

[Generator]

13 hours ago, Frosticus said:

I like ice armor for a lot of reasons, but you can drive a truck through the holes that it has defensively.

elec armor is solid in in just about every way except toxic

 

I don't have a build for either those armor sets.

I hope you're not saying to actively avoid Ice Armor, as that's what I was thinking of using for my guy...

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Generator said:

I hope you're not saying to actively avoid Ice Armor, as that's what I was thinking of using for my guy...

No I like ice armor. Immunity to slows/rech debuff, +perception, and zero endurance issues are all really nice.

 

the set struggles against fire,  toxic and psi though. Fire is easy enough to fix, though redundant as it is already great against cold and fire def/res IOs  are always paired with cold. Still not too hard to get up to acceptable levels. 

 

The psi hole is a tough one though.  But at least you are immune to the -rech that most psi powers pack. And bastion does give quite a bit of regen. 

 

toxic probably isnt common enough to worry too much. 

[Microcosm]

Fire is really a non-issue because most fire attacks come with a s/l component. It would be much worse if the hole was energy; there's a ton of pure energy attacks in game. As for psi, if you get enough recharge icy bastion and hoarfrost will cover you just fine. I've done the mother mayhem av mission on my ice/ice recently at +4/8 (it's entirely psi damage) and struggled a bunch until I remembered I had icy bastion... After I started using that it was fine. Sprinkle in some waterspout for extra mitigation.

 

Ice and Electric are my two favorite armors; they both would do fine. Ice will be a little bit easier to level than elec, for what it's worth. Electric's big bonus is +rech and endurance forever, neither of which is exceptionally needed for savage though. If you want the resist side I'd consider rad in this case as well.

[Frosticus]

With both a sav/shield and a sav/bio at 50 I can tell you that savage is a lot more endurance hungry than people realize.

 

As soon as you proc out savage leap and feel its power, you move faster than anyone else and your chain is as thirsty, or more, as any.

 

As I said in the OP, play whatever secondary you enjoy, they are all decent. Every stalker can take shadowmeld too...

 

I'm not going to go too deeply into various armor sets as I've only tried to max out /bio and /shield for stalkers. All the other ones had holes, or were lacking aspects that I was unable to overcome to promote a wide array of play using no insp/temp/lore. 

 

I can tell you that my shield sucks against raluruu, DE if you don't kill quartz drops, The toxic tentacles in apex/tinmage, and the IDF has something that wrecks me out of nowhere if I sit in a spawn for too long (and it isn't the warwalker red thing). Most everything else just plinks away at you and you have lots of time to react because you have some res to everything (but psi), good +hp and high ddr.

 

I no insp/temp/lore'd a +2 silver mantis the other night. I'm sure someone has beaten her with a naked defender, but it was a pretty good victory as she has the tools to counter /shield pretty well.

[Microcosm]

Hmm, I did /bio and /nin, and didn't have any problems with the former at all for endurance, whereas I had with other primaries, though I didn't proc out savage leap like you did at that point. Nin had problems without Ageless, but it was also another proc heavy build. I definitely felt /bio was just a bit too squishy for me as well without any mitigation from savage.

[Carnifax]

I've been running Savage/Shield this week and the damage is fantastic. Just hit 33 and started slotting out Savage Leap. 

 

But my god the End issues. I'm running with 3 stamina + Performance Shifter, Health with Panacea + Miracle and I've been slotting sets and frankenslotting for End reduction and it can still be a struggle, especially if any Elec enemies get into the mix. My shield toggles are all 3 slotted for Defense only (no sets in there yet) so maybe its that but at times it's so painful. 

 

Also is 35.7% the max DDR Shields can get. Doesn't seem to be slottable in Mids (Grant Covers seems to ignore Def bonuses and Active Defense won't take them). Is that just how it is for Shields? 

 

But it's a hell of a lot of fun so far. Unless a bloody Super Stunner shows up with his damn Rez. 

[Frosticus]

end can be an issue because you have pretty fast animations and savage leap means zero downtime between groups. The end discount of blood is largely offset by the recharge bonus.

 

That said I've done a no insp/temp of 0x8 Katie hannon and they are tough on the blue bar. Once you get softcap def most end drainers cease to be much of a bother.

 

DDR should be around 71% at lvl 50 with active defense double stacked.

 

edit: spelling is hard

Edited March 27, 2020 by Frosticus

[Carnifax]

2 hours ago, Frosticus said:

with active defense double stacked.

Oohhhh! Never even thought of that

[Dz131]

Hi, I'm actually building a sm/inv right now.  Which powers do you use as your ATO mules?  I proc out all my attacks but I need to try to slot the sets in there somewhere

 

 

nvm, found your build in the op

 

Is Hemo worth proccing out?  Wouldn't the hidden dot scale better with more straight +dmg?

Edited April 1, 2020 by Dz131

[Malintyne]

Love the guide, I recently started a SM/Rad Stalker and using your build ideas I believe that it is pretty well kitted out.  I took the idea of have an AoE in the secondary and ran with it, turning both AoEs in Radiation into proc mules much like Savage Leap.  Needless to say, they proc at a very similar rate with Radiation Therapy acting as a mini Stygian Circle to refill End as needed.  I am working on finishing out the patron arc to unlock the Soul Mastery for the snipe, hold (just for recharge slotting) and of course Shadow Meld.

 

I am at work currently but I should be able to post the build later when I get home.

[Frosticus]

12 hours ago, Dz131 said:

Hi, I'm actually building a sm/inv right now.  Which powers do you use as your ATO mules?  I proc out all my attacks but I need to try to slot the sets in there somewhere

 

 

nvm, found your build in the op

 

Is Hemo worth proccing out?  Wouldn't the hidden dot scale better with more straight +dmg?

Cake and eat it too. no reason not to enhance damage and put in procs. All that really matters is you sync up the cycle times of AS and hemo so you can always follow for the hidden hemo.

 

I like procs  in hemo because the dot is slow. 

[fortior]

I'm rolling a savage/energy stalker right now, and it's great so far even though I'm just at 22. The animations feel real snappy. Currently just doing a standard build with perma hasten, but if anyone has a Mids' for this setup that'd be great, I'm kinda floundering about right now.

[Tryna_Dugid]

On 4/13/2020 at 2:13 AM, fortior said:

I'm rolling a savage/energy stalker right now, and it's great so far even though I'm just at 22. The animations feel real snappy. Currently just doing a standard build with perma hasten, but if anyone has a Mids' for this setup that'd be great, I'm kinda floundering about right now.

energy aura is an excellent choice, and the one i went with myself. max level you should expect to feel very sturdy and with 0 endurance problems. i have some

modifications to make to my build, otherwise i’d share; nonetheless, there is an excellent savage/EA build somewhere on the stalker forum, i used it as inspiration. 

 

i went for as much recharge, resistance and endurance discount as possible. you’ll blow through your endurance very fast so recovery and endurance discounts are essential. don’t rely on the discount from savage.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Tryna_Dugid

[fortior]

40 minutes ago, Tryna_Dugid said:

energy aura is an excellent choice, and the one i went with myself. max level you should expect to feel very sturdy and with 0 endurance problems. i have some

modifications to make to my build, otherwise i’d share; nonetheless, there is an excellent savage/EA build somewhere on the stalker forum, i used it as inspiration. 

 

i went for as much recharge, resistance and endurance discount as possible. you’ll blow through your endurance very fast so recovery and endurance discounts are essential. don’t rely on the discount from savage. get the ATO proc that recharges build up ASAP so you can refresh your blood stacks easily. 

Do you mean the stalker forum on this site? Or the old forums? Then I'm going to get to looking 🙂