WP/Sav Build Help

[MellowPeanut]

I'm brand new to the game and just started playing with Mid's, but I have no idea what I'm doing or what's good. Can anyone hook me up with a Willpower/Savage Melee build or at least give me some pointers on how to build it.

 

In game, I'm level 30 and leveling with 2 friends (sentinel and defender). I've picked up Combat Jumping and I'm starting to get Tough and Weave from the Fighting pool. Right now, I feel invisible, but I'm not sure if I should be seeking more damage or more tankiness and where I should be putting my slots.

 

Thanks!

[Pleonast]

You’re leveling with friends, so you can’t really go wrong. 
 

In general, take powers from both your primary and secondary powersets. These will be more powerful than pool powers. In your attacks, put an accuracy IO and a damage IO. Put a defense or resistance or heal IO in your primary powers, as appropriate. Add more enhancement slots wherever you feel like. 
 

Are your friends dying a lot? Then you should tank more. If you’re dying a lot, your Defender friend needs to buff or debuff more. As long as you’re not setting the difficulty too high, you’ll be fine. 

[Hardboiled Hero]

  Honestly, The specifics would depend on exactly how your friends are built, but in theory your team should be very beefy, but might need help on damage.  While sentinel is my favorite AT, it's sadly not the best at DPS, on the other hand the sent will be able to survive a while if you don't do the best job tanking.  So from basic group comp alone I'd saying putting a little more damage in your build than a tank normally would shouldn't be a bad thing.

 

  Willpower is a "balanced" defensive set and defense is generally easier to raise than resistance, but again this kind of depends on what your defender is doing.  Ultimately, if your defender is buffing defense, it's probably better for you to worry about resist, if they buff resist than you probably want to get your defense up (because there's a defense cap).

 

  Also, if you're planning on working in a team all the time with these characters, then everyone in the team should strongly consider taking the Leadership pool.  If you do that, you can probably either drop combat jumping or weave.

 

  I'm sorry, but I can't help much more than that at the moment.

[InvaderStych]

I could show you my current Svg/WP Brute setup, but it isn't a "Finished" build, isn't really well tuned, and doesn't use a lot of "High End" sets so I am not certain how helpful that would be for your tank.

 

What are the other members of your team running, specifically?  There's probably an opportunity for the 3 of you to build synergy into the 3 toons, like the Leadership suggestion above.

 

A few things that might help depending on your budget:

 

Slot Savage Leap with Damage Procs, Don't slot any recharge enhancements in it and the Procs have basically max chance to fire.  Always get Procs at the lowest level they are available.

 

On a Brute, Hemorrhage and Shred (? The lame cone) are both trash, YMMV may vary on a Tank though I don't seem in many tank builds.

 

High Pain Tolerance and Quick Recovery (in addition to Health and Stamina) give you extra room to slot in things like Miracle +Recovery, Performance Shifter +End, Power Transfer "Chance for Self Heal," Numina's +Regen/Recovery, Preventive Medicine +Absorb, and/or Regenerative Tissue +Regen.  Those are useful pieces that - in the grand scheme - are not terribly expensive.  Definitely get yourself Power Transfer's +Heal, stat.

 

Run arcs/TFs with your team for Merits and get the Tanker ATO pieces as well.  Collect them as you level; the Tank Experts here can help with where to slot them.

 

Perfect Zinger Chance for PSI dmg is ultra-cheap and you can slot them in many places, even cheaper if you are willing to buy the recipe on the market and craft it up. The set bonuses there aren't bad either for a budget build, but you'd be robbing yourself of damage if you used too many of them.  At the very least, 1-slot-wonder the PZ Psi Dmg into Taunt.

 

Indomitable Will is a good place to slot "One Hit Wonders" for defense like Karma +Acc; HPT is a good place to Unbreakable Guard +HP, Steadfast +Def.

 

Hope some of that helps.

[MellowPeanut]

Thanks for the responses! These are great places to start working from.

12 hours ago, Pleonast said:

In general, take powers from both your primary and secondary powersets. These will be more powerful than pool powers. In your attacks, put an accuracy IO and a damage IO. Put a defense or resistance or heal IO in your primary powers, as appropriate. Add more enhancement slots wherever you feel like. 
 

Are your friends dying a lot? Then you should tank more. If you’re dying a lot, your Defender friend needs to buff or debuff more. As long as you’re not setting the difficulty too high, you’ll be fine. 

When I hit 22 I filled in everything with lvl 25 IO enhances. That was a huge power spike for the group. We are steam rolling content right now, we even upped the difficulty a bit.

 

To your second point, this is where I'm starting to feel a little lost. I haven't had issues holding aggro and keeping mobs off my team, I feel pretty much invincible, and my team is pretty sure that I do a a good portion of our damage. That said my primary powers have been getting most of the slot love so far, and I'm pretty sure I need to put more slots in my main damage powers.

11 hours ago, Hardboiled Hero said:

Also, if you're planning on working in a team all the time with these characters, then everyone in the team should strongly consider taking the Leadership pool.  If you do that, you can probably either drop combat jumping or weave.

I was unaware that Leadership stacked, but that's a great idea. Our defender is already in the Leadership pool, but I'll pick up some powers up and suggest it to our Sentinel too.

2 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

What are the other members of your team running, specifically?  There's probably an opportunity for the 3 of you to build synergy into the 3 toons, like the Leadership suggestion above.

The Defender is Elec/Elec with Leadership. He's been a great healer and is giving us a ton of End and recharge. The Sentinel is Rad/Bio.

Quote

Always get Procs at the lowest level they are available.

I hadn't heard that before, that's good to know. It would be cool to get some good procs into my build now instead of waiting till 50.

Quote

Run arcs/TFs with your team for Merits and get the Tanker ATO pieces as well.  Collect them as you level; the Tank Experts here can help with where to slot them.

We've been doing TFs and I've already picked up my first piece of Might of the Tanker.

[Psyonico]

Here's my build.  WP is one of (if not my) favorite sets.  My WP/Savage is only in the low teens so I haven't gotten to try it out, but the numbers are good.  Note: I'd probably switch out Force of Will for Sorcery because other than Smashing/Lethal the resists are pretty low, but I took Force of Will for concept reasons.

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Savage Melee
Power Pool: Force of Will
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Mind Over Body -- Ags-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Ags-ResDam(5), Ags-ResDam/Rchg(11), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 1: Savage Strike -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(27), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 2: Maiming Slash -- SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx(3), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(43), SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc(45)
Level 4: Shred -- Erd-Dmg(A), Erd-Acc/Rchg(5), Erd-Dmg/Rchg(21), Erd-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Erd-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Erd-%Dam(50)
Level 6: Indomitable Will -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A)
Level 8: Rise to the Challenge -- NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(A), NmnCnv-Heal(9), Trg-Heal/EndRdx(9), Trg-Heal/Rchg(11)
Level 10: Taunt -- MckBrt-Taunt/Rchg(A)
Level 12: Quick Recovery -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(13), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(13)
Level 14: High Pain Tolerance -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ResDam-I(25), ResDam-I(25), Heal-I(34), Heal-I(42), Pnc-Heal/+End(42)
Level 16: Vicious Slash -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(17), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(17), Mk'Bit-Dam%(33), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 18: Heightened Senses -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(19), Srn-Def/EndRdx(19), Srn-Def(21)
Level 20: Mighty Leap -- WntGif-ResSlow(A)
Level 22: Fast Healing -- NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(A), NmnCnv-Heal(23), Heal-I(23)
Level 24: Combat Jumping -- ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(A)
Level 26: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 28: Rending Flurry -- Erd-Dmg(A), Erd-Acc/Rchg(29), Erd-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Obl-Dmg(34), Obl-Acc/Rchg(40), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 30: Tough -- Ags-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Ags-ResDam(31), Ags-ResDam/Rchg(31), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 32: Strength of Will -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), UnbGrd-Max HP%(33)
Level 35: Hemorrhage -- PlvFst-Acc/Dmg(A), PlvFst-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), PlvFst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), PndSlg-Acc/Dmg(36), PndSlg-Dmg/EndRdx(37), PndSlg-Dmg/Rchg(42)
Level 38: Savage Leap -- Erd-Dmg(A), Erd-Acc/Rchg(39), Erd-Dmg/Rchg(39), Erd-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Erd-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Erd-%Dam(43)
Level 41: Weaken Resolve -- Acc-I(A)
Level 44: Unleash Potential -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(45), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(46), Srn-Def/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(48), Srn-Def/EndRdx(48), Srn-Def(48)
Level 49: Resurgence -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet 
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run 
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Heal(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(7), Heal-I(33), RgnTss-Regen+(45)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(7), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(15)
Level 1: Blood Frenzy 
------------

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1453;702;1404;HEX;|
|78DA6593DB4E13511486F774A6D496165A4E85028562E9891E8518AF34115054301|
|8442F9B09D9944AD392B6A25CFA060AEA63F8083E871AA35E78E2A8B746E3B866FF|
|8B62D249DBAFF3EFBDF65EC7A5C773DE57D79F5C119A77B662361AC5BB667553D65|
|DB7CDE6C3BA5911F6E3A2EF20F4E29C5C97D586CCDE2F572A5BB547B23EC40B4BB2|
|226576C5DC364B122FA267B956AB64AFD5EA6BB2585B2FDA265E252D4A73AB5C2DF|
|9B05E2E6D34E90D4B2BF6EEFA4EEFFC56792D3B5F95F5D24E71C96C34491B243762|
|F4FDE2A61FCD76CCD2459EFE440D61CC809E02D8350DBE4D087E2C43AC0BA5394A6|
|068038C96C1D403F04D828F1796537B6A0851209B676068178CEE81A9E760FA05F8|
|8E6C75B6D5F71D428C926F0760DF219839020BC7CC13F01BC5E5445CC2E981FFDF4|
|973699A8AD57507DAB955E6454DD9792E819FE86E37EE16EEB243EDD927A113673A|
|3A77499B3084F725730FFC4C7B7CD8E3F40571D6605AA8784E198982C953467465F|
|B3A294437C7DBCDF9F5737EFD9CDFF14D30C2798E739E0FE8DE00D731E0474C3DFD|
|CCBFD8D3E7C07B9362EBE5D87A8775A57D25FB7E8EADDFCE0DF935B0CAB4FD24FF0|
|6A877839CD3E02DD869A40DF15943163DE23D9D3ECC510C73D546B86A235CA5C86F|
|6434FE07CC58A04EA78D7214A3DC8D61EEC630776398BBF1883C1EC33DDAD805647|
|0FC97AECEFF403E4CB00F1357ED8933C4F959E61C7341A8BDD11B60F226F8916C27|
|D97692FD8FB1FF31EEBA18775D9CE34971D735C836C1D9488490B56D12A6A0E9530|
|1F89EE6CA643AC182850A19147F96E3CF721573BC37C755CC71150F29FE3CDF959F|
|C25D23466B42E963572369B4E6DB4AB5ADE6DB94429B32DDA6CCB4298B6DCAB2D19|
|A7BA129C5ED6F4DB375ECA155EE242D03DF7F9C69BAA63ACF253AEE21D67135292E|
|91BE8C893AF9DF3E01FB9F679A43E3E9ECE0E9ECE2E994F1B36CFC03A8E4E565|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

[Pleonast]

1 hour ago, MellowPeanut said:

To your second point, this is where I'm starting to feel a little lost. I haven't had issues holding aggro and keeping mobs off my team, I feel pretty much invincible, and my team is pretty sure that I do a a good portion of our damage. That said my primary powers have been getting most of the slot love so far, and I'm pretty sure I need to put more slots in my main damage powers.

Old school trinity teamwork: the Tanker's job is getting the focus fire, so no one else takes the brunt of the damage. The Defender's job is making sure the Tanker stays alive, by buffing the Tanker or debuffing the bad guys. The third player's job is killing stuff. As long as stuff is getting killed without player deaths, then it's working.

 

The magic of City of Heroes is that the trinity is merely a suggestion. Every archetype can stay alive and kill stuff; there's no fixed roles. It sounds like your group is working fine, so don't worry about it, especially while leveling. Just have fun now; you'll be at level 50 quicker than you think.

 

Now if you want to stress-test yourselves, keep upping the difficulty and see what breaks. Then make adjustments. Note that you can increase the effective level separately from the effective team size. Your group might be able to handle one better than the other.