is /Savage in a good place?

[mistagoat]

I've been considering making either a Fire/Savage or an Earth/Savage Dom but I haven't played Savage before so I took to the forums to do some research. In doing so I ran across a few posts stating that Savage was a bit under par and needed a balance pass. Those posts were from 2019 so I was wondering if that was still the case and if so, to what degree. Is it just a little underpowered or is it unplayable?

 

If it's playable do my pairings work well with it or are there better options I should consider? Any tips on the set or suggestions as to what powers are skippable would be appreciated! Thanks!

[...]

Savage is fun, quirky and a little weird. 

 

It has lots of AoE, and that AoE is readily available. The combo system is a little janky, but usable. ST dmg is pretty good for a dom. 

 

Most powers are good. The heal has a long cool down but doms don't get much healing options so it's something. 

 

Lethal, so can be heavily resisted.  A lot of the damage is dots, so it doesn't feel punchy. Do you like lots of little numbers or a few big numbers? 

 

 Do you like birds?

 

Usable? Yes. Fun? Yes. Optimal? Maybe not. Depends on your goals. 

 

That said, I haven't gotten one past 30. Altitis strikes me regularly. 

[Frosticus]

There is perhaps nothing more consistently fun that using feral charge every few seconds. You feel like Night Crawler.

 

Single target is quite good, with call hawk hitting super hard. One of the hardest hitting attacks doms get.

AOE is as good or better than most depending on how you leverage the blood mechanic.

 

Blood buffs are really nice for a dom as the +global rech is valuable, at least until you start pumping a lot of inf into you build.

Utility isn't great. It has very little soft control and while the heal is very strong, it isn't up as often as you'd probably want a heal to be up to serve the purpose. I'd prefer half the strength with half the base rech personally. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

I have a Plant/Sav that I stopped playing at 43 and moved on from, but was a killer while leveling. 

 

I know, obligatory "Everything is good with Plant." The thing is the stacks from Frenzy felt nice for helping keep Creepers out.

 

Plus you can throw bees. 

 

Full confidence that if I went back, took to 50 and incarnates, it would do great. 

 

---

 

Also I saw a lot of people enjoying Ill/Sav Doms when Illusion dropped on Live. I'll bet that the Frenzy stacks likewise helped that pairing a lot.

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
I'm not drunk but I do type like it.

[Frosticus]

I'm one of those ill/sav/ice builds ha.

But I've also taken fire/sav, dark/sav, and plant/sav into the high 40s.

 

Ime /sav is extremely impressive when clearing missions, great on teams because no one can move faster than feral charge. However, the sustained dps chain feels awkward to me. You are either hoping back to improve feral charge, or adding in maiming. Neither performs at the level of Hawk, or viscious. 

 

If I revisit my ill/sav I think I will try a different app. I think /primal with ET and procd torrent would be really good. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Frosticus

[mistagoat]

Thank you very much folks! Sounds like Savage can be fun but I may swap to plant/savage to be the master of both plants and animals! I really appreciate the insight!

[SeraphimKensai]

If doing feral, I'd recommend something like combat teleport and macros to to you back to maximize your cones and then launch back in with feral charge and repeat.

[mistagoat]

On 5/15/2023 at 1:17 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

If doing feral, I'd recommend something like combat teleport and macros to to you back to maximize your cones and then launch back in with feral charge and repeat.

Oh that sounds like fun!

[ninja surprise]

it was fun enough that I re-rolled as a Savage/Bio Brute so I could focus on the Savage part.

[Darkir]

My ice/savage has an ST attack chain that keeps the ff proc basically on permanently. It's amazing and runners don't bother me in the slightest when proc'd out feral charge and call hawk recharge in under 3 seconds.