1st char: savage melee / radiation armor

[cohRock]

I am experienced player from NCSoft days, and just started back.  My first character is a scrapper with two skill sets unfamiliar to me, Savage Melee and Radiation Armor.  He is level 3 hero right now, having made it thru the Galaxy City starting zone.  His chosen powers currently are Savage Strike, Alpha Burst, and Gamma Boost.  What things are important for me to know about this archetype?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Well... it's gonna have crazy good aoe output.

Mids is showing, with arcanatime accounted for, that Maiming Slash is almost double the DPA of Savage Strike.

I don't consider anything in rad armor skippable. Even the T9 is awesome because it doesn't have a real crash.

Savage Leap is just fun as hell.

[Troo]

You chose well..

 

Out of the newer sets you did choose some nice power sets. The Savage mechanic is nice and psuedo replaces buildup. Radiation is nicely balanced for the current teaming environment.

 

 

Savage Melee

"Tear at your foes with deadly animalistic attacks that primarily inflict Lethal damage and cause additional damage over time. Savage Strike, Maiming Slash, Vicious Slash and Savage Leap all grant stacks of Blood Frenzy. Each stack of this buff grants a small damage buff and endurance cost discount. You may have up to 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy active at a time. Blood Frenzy can be maintained, or it can be consumed to empower Shred, Rending Flurry, Blood Thirst and Hemorrhage. Using one of these consumers while you have 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy offers an additional benefit to these powers, but will also leave you Exhausted for a short time. While Exhausted you cannot build Blood Frenzy."

 

Radiation Armor

"Radiation emanates from your body which harms foes, but empowers and shields yourself. You can use this energy to absorb damage, heal from your wounds and debilitate nearby foes."

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Troo

[Zeraphia]

I think the conventional wisdom would tell you that the #1 most important thing is to have fun! 

 

Savage melee, as others have pointed out has lots of AoE output, and is very well-liked. Savage Leap is sort of like Lightning Rod's somewhat prettier and different sister. Leap does not do knockdown, and does 3/4 of LR's damage, but it actually can crit unlike Shield Charge, and is on less than half the cooldown!

 

Radiation Armor is an excellent set that excels late-game. It provides lots of very handy exotic resistances and its "hole" happens to be the least seen damage type in the game. 

17 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Mids is showing, with arcanatime accounted for, that Maiming Slash is almost double the DPA of Savage Strike.

This comment is also very helpful 🙂 especially when looking at a Mids' build for this combination. I'd recommend though trying out the attacks you end up liking and just enjoying the game!

 

Also welcome back returning player!

[InvaderStych]

Good combo.  After leveling a Sav/WP Brute and a Kat/Rad scrapper I can see Sav/Rad on a scrappy being just brutal.  Basically scrapper with a targeted teleport, 2 nukes, 2 heals (use Particle Shielding re-actively, not on auto - thank me later), and a half-way decent taunt aura. 2.5 nukes if you slot Rad Therapy for Dmg; though I'm torn on that.  I like my RT as mostly a heal for the moment.

 

Thrist (for gaussian's) -> Leap -> GZ -> Rending -> <filler if needed> -> BT -> finish the bosses.

 

Global recharge is your friend with Savage (and Rad, imo); Leap keeps a 90% proc rate as long as you don't drop any recharge enhancement on it.  Ground Zero (assuming 3.5ppm) can take over just 100% +rech from enhancements before the proc rate lowers.

 

The only real downside is that Hemorrhage is not only generally terrible (except on stalkers, apparently), iirc it's bugged and does not crit.  Definitely skip that one.  Which leaves VS as your "big hitter," which isn't as bad as that sounds in reality. 

 

Also, drop a FF +rech into VS.  You'll be hitting this often enough that you'll see a benefit from the burst +rech.

 

Edit: Also, Meltdown is one of the rare tier 9 powers worth taking.  Scrap's get +41.5% dmg for the duration.  (iirc tanks/brutes get a lower buff?)  Almost half a build-up for 60s.  So, if you start that AoE chain above by firing Meltdown first ...

 

Yeah, lots of damage. 🙂

 

Double Edit: Slot a "Theft of Essence: Chance for +End" into Radiation Therapy ASAP.  The set is available long before the power.  RT has a good proc rate, but can't take much recharge before it starts to lower.  Run this, get used to how it works, and by the time your toon is hitting Malta missions you'll basically be laughing at the Sappers. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by InvaderStych

[Wolfboy1]

I hate to necro this topic but does anyone have a build for this?  Surely someone who is more mids savvy has something for this powerset combo?