Savage Melee Secondary (/Energy, /Rad, or /Something Else)?)

[Mythical Creature]

I am interested in making a savage melee brute that is not a fire farmer or savage/bio (I am already leveling one). I was torn between Radiation Armor and Energy Aura, both seem to offer recharge and endurance which should synergize well with Savage Melee. What else in the sets will compliment savage melee?  

 

Energy aura seems to be more of a balanced armor set split def/res set but doesn't seem to have much in terms of healing/regen or added damage components. This set seems more fire and forget.

 

Radiation armor is pure resistance based and offers no defense but has a lot more healing/regen and seems to have more damage components as well. This set seems a lot more active.

 

For playing general casual content (no intense hard elitist stuff) which of these two sets would be more beneficial? Is savage melee too busy that radiation's clicks will get in the way? Or does savage melee benefit from this extra damage and activity since the recharge rate will allow me to use them more often? 

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited January 18, 2022 by 723wolf

[Cutter]

Savage/Rad has become one of my most-played characters in the last few months. I don't push ridiculous envelopes, but she tears through your everyday +4/x8 Council maps, so there's a metric if you're looking for one. I can't say that I've found issues with either set interfering with the other -- I put Particle Shielding on autofire, and use the heal and Ground Zero as proc bombs when they're up. I prolly went a little overboard on endurance slotting but she can go forever if that's your jam.

 

I've no experience with /EA so I'll let someone else tackle that one.

 

I will say, IMHO, for general content you prolly won't go wrong with either choice.

[Mythical Creature]

I am leaning towards Savage/Rad myself so thanks for the confirmation that it is a fun combo to play. It seems like Energy Aura is frequently cited as a synergistic secondary choice for Savage Melee, which sort of lead me to Savage/Rad as a potential option, since it had similar recharge/endurance cost mitigation toys. I frequently double guess myself, so want to make sure there are no red flags to watch out for in this combo. It basically seems like the main difference is sav/energy will be a tad bit more survivable and sav/rad will be a tad bit more damage. If that is correct, than I definitely think sav/rad is the winner. Thank you.

[StriderIV]

I've thrown it out there a couple of times, but I LOVE my Savage/Bio Brute based on @Darkir's build. The thing is a buzzsaw. Both Savage and Bio have DOTS in their kits, which are both pumped up by a Brute's Fury. It's very synergistic and you end up seeing a ton of orange numbers going off over your head as you melt through mobs.

[Thrax]

My main is savage/invul but a scrapper.  I’m sure invul is just better on a brute with higher hop cap for dull pain but rest probably about the same. 

[Aurora_Girl]

SR. You're welcome. 

[Darkir]

10 hours ago, 723wolf said:

 

For playing general casual content (no intense hard elitist stuff) which of these two sets would be more beneficial? Is savage melee too busy that radiation's clicks will get in the way? Or does savage melee benefit from this extra damage and activity since the recharge rate will allow me to use them more often? 

I'd go savage/shield for what you are looking for. You get easy softcapped def, ok resistance, and another leap ability in shield charge that you can put a FF proc in it.

[Six-Six]

/dark

[Sovera]

I've posted on a Savage/Stone before. Clears maps well, and the extra recharge from Stone makes for a 1, 2, 3 rotation. Stone is pretty tough too.

[Without_Pause]

20 hours ago, 723wolf said:

For playing general casual content (no intense hard elitist stuff)

Either. EA is the better regarded of the two, but Rad is more than fine for general content. I have a Sav/rad at 23 who is only on hold due to me wanting to play alts. I have a level 29 Rad/ice tank and she's been a blast to play. I have a /ea Stalker at 50 and a couple /ea Scrappers getting there eventually as well, so both sets get a thumbs up from me. If it matters, slotting the Theft of Essence proc into Radiation Therapy makes Rad super end friendly earlier than what EA can manage.

[Outrider_01]

Nice seeing more shout outs for Savage, rarely see it in game.  Savage is now my main thing, to roll a bunch on various AT with different secondaries than make cheap IO builds.  Just made a stalker, doesn't flow well with AoE so dropping Shred and Rendering Flurry; think it will be better at single target DPS.

 

On 1/18/2022 at 12:11 PM, 723wolf said:

set split def/res set but doesn't seem to have much in terms of healing/regen or added damage components.

Regen means nothing high end, 1 CoT death mage or something beam with -regen; you are screaming like a baby once your defense gets a cascade failure.  Haven't really looked at anythig with Regen debuff protection, but any character I have that gets hit is 0.0 regen a second.

[Mythical Creature]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

Nice seeing more shout outs for Savage, rarely see it in game.  Savage is now my main thing, to roll a bunch on various AT with different secondaries than make cheap IO builds.  Just made a stalker, doesn't flow well with AoE so dropping Shred and Rendering Flurry; think it will be better at single target DPS.

 

Regen means nothing high end, 1 CoT death mage or something beam with -regen; you are screaming like a baby once your defense gets a cascade failure.  Haven't really looked at anythig with Regen debuff protection, but any character I have that gets hit is 0.0 regen a second.

 

You bring up an interesting point, -regen debuff. I think that further solidifies my resolve on radiation armor. Radiation Armor is the only defensive set I could find with -Regen apart from Granite Form. The Rad -Regen is 29% for 60secs on a 60sec recharge pbae I plan to turn into roughly 20 sec recharge or so. Assuming it stacks, I can get that up to almost 90%.

[Razorback]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:28 PM, Darkir said:

I'd go savage/shield for what you are looking for. You get easy softcapped def, ok resistance, and another leap ability in shield charge that you can put a FF proc in it.

 

How would you rate this pairing on Brute vs Tanker? It seems synergistic, but Savage seems best on Brutes ( DoTs + Fury ) while Shield seems best on Tankers.

 

Do you feel the DPS gain of Savage on Brutes outweighs the durability loss compared to Shield on Tankers?

[Darkir]

43 minutes ago, Razorback said:

 

How would you rate this pairing on Brute vs Tanker? It seems synergistic, but Savage seems best on Brutes ( DoTs + Fury ) while Shield seems best on Tankers.

 

Do you feel the DPS gain of Savage on Brutes outweighs the durability loss compared to Shield on Tankers?

hmmmmmmm an interesting question: on the one hand shield's biggest weakness is not having any kind of healing and so getting to the defense softcap and as much resist as you can is of supreme importance to the set (or pairing it with a heal primary like dark, but we aren't doing that here) and so I would think this would favor a tanker. However, things stop hitting you when they're dead and savage melee really shines when you give it +damage and proc out savage leap. 

 

The tanker would get a much improved shred and I would absolutely take it on a tanker (but no other AT). Hmmmmm...the biggest problem I see for SD is how to live through the hits that will inevitably get through, you can put power transfer procs in physical perfection and health to get some passive regen....but it wont be anywhere close to enough for hard content on a tank or a brute. For casual play I would 100% go with the brute. On a team with a single corr/def/troller? Brute. I'd only consider the tank for casual solo play. Damage is just too important to the overall game and savage melee in particular to warrant picking a tanker for general use. 

 

Maybe I'm wrong though, with the higher tanker def/resist numbers and the ATOs, maybe you could take some other powers or proc something else out in a creative way to increase your survivability greatly. You'd certainly have a lot more slots to play with on an SD tanker. 

 

In summary, I'd probably go brute, but I'm not 100% sure, its very possible that I'm missing some huge thing on a tanker that could fix SD's heal/regen hole. Shield charge>proc'd out savage leap is still gonna be super fun on anybody though.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Darkir

[Neiska]

I have done a few Savage/X brute builds now, here are the highlights -

 

Savage/Bio - it's so much damage, between offensive stance, bonus toxic procs, bleeds, it's a walking blender and a ton of fun to play.

Savage/Dark - The blood stacks are nice to help manage the END demand of /Dark, but it's not a cure all. Dark is solid as can be expected, and it does open up a few other choices for slotting and incarnates. 

Savage/Rad - Another good pairing, but it feels more offensive minded than defensive. But it is very potent and the built in debuffs are nice.

Savage/Electric - A fantastically efficient pairing, with essentially endless END and supreme levels of resists. Between Blood Stacks and Power Sink, you have enough energy to power the west coast for about a year. Which really frees up choices for slotting as well as incarnate power picks.

 

Since the OP said no /Bio, I would recommend Electric. Electric is a solid choice and offers a ton of freedom in your build since END is of little concern. The downside about /Elec is it offers little in the way of offense - No +damage, no debuffs, no CC. 

[ScarySai]

My top vote goes to dark armor, it's my main's build and it's pinned in the discord if you're on that.

 

Were I not dark armor, I'd probably be either fire armor following the recent bug fixes, or bio/rad.

Edited January 20, 2022 by ScarySai