Direction desired

[Xaddy]

While one of my characters sits idle at their day job (seems like a contradiction there, but whatever), I have rolled some digital dice and gotten a Savage/Ice Brute. 

This is all kinds of out of my comfort zone, as I've never done ice armor or savage melee before. 

I seriously thought about mids...but not being familiar with what the powers do, seemed a bit premature. 

I am slowly grasping the method to the mad design of savage melee. It's not at all intuitive (to me), and I've had to go out of my way to find out what's going on with this concept of blood frenzy. 

Ice armor is so interesting! I am on the verge of really liking it. But...I've no real clear idea of what I'm doing with some of these powers. 

Energy Absorption - I've no idea why this couldn't have been a toggle - but no matter. I initially thought...slot it for recharge. Then I thought - idiot, slap the global LotG in it. So, that's what I've done - for now. Still just level 33. So much more to learn before 50. 

But now that I'm getting 3 slots instead of just 2, I have to be careful I don't put too many on something I shouldn't. 

    

So, from top to bottom - and I realize opinions will vary. I mean, you folks don't know how I play so, it's a stretch, I get that. I just want to avoid the mistakes that would be obvious to those of you with experience playing the armor. 

Frozen Armor - Seems easy enough - I can go with 1 lotg 7.5 and 3-4 Shield Walls. Maybe slap the Reactive Defense unique in it, or in Combat Jump
                          An alternative might be the full reactive defense set
Hoarfrost - Seems like I could go with a 5 piece of Panacea, and the PM Absorb proc, or 6 slot the set of Preventative Medicine. Or maybe I can just 

                   get away with 3 slots of HOs if slots are tight. 
Chilling Embrace - if I had the slots, I'd put a taunt, a slow and an end reducer. But..I think it's just going to be an end reduction. 
Wet Ice - just an end reduction IO. 
Glacial Armor - LotG 7.5% and the defense LotG.  Or, lose taunt and use some more slots here? 
Energy Absorption - Seems like this does a larger defensive boost if I have more npcs in the 12 ft radius. Is it worth more slots. Seems like it is, but 

                                 at what cost? If I'm teamed, and the team is good, it won't matter. But if the team is bad, I'll need all the help I can get. 
Permafrost - Right now, I'm thinking of just using the Unbreakable Guard 7.5% HP and Steadfast 3% in here, or alternatively the steadfast 3% and 

                     the glad armor 3%. I am torn between the hp boost from a 5 piece of glad armor or 4 piece of the unbreakable guard in tough. 
Icicles - I'm thinking of at least putting the Superior Brute's Fury proc in it, or the full set in here. But the math doesn't support this proc in a toggle. Less than 20% of the time it works. So maybe I use it somewhere else, or maybe not at all. <shrug> 

Attached is what I've come up with and I'll likely tinker with it some more. 
My goal is elevate the numbers so I can basically punch my way out of a dry bag (as opposed to a wet one), and take the alpha with a robust and/or luck. Or, without it, if I can. 

I imagine my attack chain to look something like Savage Leap, Vicious Slash, Rending Flurry, Blood Thirst and Vicious slash if I can get the recharge boosted enough for it to be ready. And yeah, I think recharge is important..but I'm just not sure HOW important. Like, would I go for max recharge, at the expense of some tasty set bonuses? I'm sure there's a balance that I have to find. 
Just hope someone can point out the obvious blunders. 

And yeah - that's a damn wall of words, ain't it? 

 

Ice Pack Palooza - Brute (Savage Melee - Ice Armor).mbd

[Ukase]

I also use lots of words when I post. Don't sweat it. 
I looked at your build, and I think you're overthinking it. The Savage Melee is a set that could use some attention, imo...but that's neither here nor there. It's probably the attention it did get that took hemorrhage and morphed it into hemorrhoid. But that's just my opinion, and those vary a lot in these forums. The folks that make these changes don't just do it to piss people off, they have a goal in mind, so I've learned that if I can't change it, just change my mind-set. Anyway, I think there's no real big mistakes your making in your build, except not really having an end goal in mind. 

You can pursue recharge and get a lot of it. But I don't think you need too much recharge. Your choice of ice armor...well, I love ice blast, but I have never been smart enough to figure out ice armor. The hold protection from Wet Ice seems a bit low for an armor that holds aggro as well as it can - that much I learned the hard way. 

The one thing I see...is because Savage melee provides such generous end reduction, you're able to use Energy Absorption more as a set mule than an endurance management tool. At level 33, you probably haven't run into that many EBs or AVs yet. You may regret that choice, unless you have enough global accuracy bonuses to help you - you may find that to be a mistake in some scenarios. Just my two cents on a combo I've never tried. 
I'm sure there are others who can give more feedback.