Savage Melee Suggestions/Tweaks

[Rumors]

Savage Melee is, IMO, definitely one of the cooler new powersets that we got when the game returned.  I have a blast with it, having taken a Savage/Regen Scrapper all the way up to 50 and beyond and still enjoying him.  That said though, Savage definitely feels unfinished and it also has some... janky bits.  I've not tried the set on all ATs, so this'll mostly be from a Scrapper's perspective, although I don't think it should change much for Tanks/Brutes on my suggestions here.

 

So, my suggestions to fix/buff Savage Melee!  There are both mechanical and asthetic suggestions here!  I know tooling around with animations and sounds is probably pretty difficult for the SCORE team, but I thought I'd include them anyway.

 

 

Overall mechanics

 

-The stacks of Blood Frenzy are cool, but getting new stacks doesn't refresh/replace old stacks when you're at max, which leads to random bits of drop-off and slightly inconsistent performance.  If possible, a simple fix would be to have new stacks overwrite the oldest stacks.

 

-Scrapper critical hits are pretty erratic on this set.  They all have weird, random damage values on all the powers, except Shred which absolutely cannot crit for some reason.  This also reduces the value of the Scrapper ATOs on this set.  Crit damage values should be redone to make them fall in-line and be consistent with other sets.

 

-The Exhausted lockout is too darn long.  Blood Thirst clearing it is very nice, but otherwise dropping your stacks already hurts performance typically, so Exhausted is just the rotten cherry on top.  Trade-offs are cool and all, but dropping five stacks of Blood Frenzy, and therefore ~20% recharge/end discount, is already a big trade-off.  I'd suggest reducing the Exhausted lockout to 5-10 seconds rather than 15 or just removing it entirely.  Alternatively, see Blood Thirst for a bigger change and suggestion below.

 

-Real Numbers don't work for the set, or work right at least.  If possible, would be nice to fix this!

 

-I imagine the fantasy of this set is someone that jumps in and just viciously keeps slashing and lashing at the enemy in a frenzied rage, never stopping, never quitting, just go go go until all the enemies around you are in bloodied, shredded heaps.  While the low cooldown attacks and gradual speeding up help sell it, the set is actually a fairly thoughtful one instead where you need to pay attention to stacks and think about when and where you burn them.  Or if you burn them.  Not really sure how to address this without entirely changing the set, but I imagine it's a problem.

 

 

 

Powers

 

Maiming Slash and Savage Strike -  Perfectly fine as is.

 

 

Shred -  Mechanics-wise, this move needs help.  It's fine for leveling, but it's like... using Flurry.  Except a bit better since it can take -Res procs, but even then it needs some super optimal scenarios to even have a chance of competing wth the rest of the set.  (And we really shouldn't balance the power on the ability to take certain procs.)  Savage has two wide-range AoEs as is, so I see no problem in increasing the width and reach of the cone a bit to make it more competitive as an AoE tool.  Ideally, if possible, maybe with some sort of wide slash animation change.

 

REMINDER THAT SHRED CANNOT CRIT ON SCRAPPERS!  This really needs to be fixed!

 

If the animation stays the same, then it really needs a tweak for visual and audio oomph.  Just like how Sands of Mu and Flurry have the uppercut at the end, Shred needs some sort of "finisher" to the end of the animation.  Non-trivial to do of course, but worth mentioning.

 

 

Vicious Slash -  Mechanically, the move is fine.

 

Terms of audio/animation, it needs some tweaks.  At bare minimum, I think it needs a different, maybe sort of more visceral sound effect to distinguish it from Maiming Slash. 

 

It's also possible that it has the wrong animation, with it being swapped with Hemmorage.  Swapping the two would make sense, but this would increase Vicious Slash's cast time if left to perfectly match the animation time.  However, if you could still interrupt the animation after the ~1.8 seconds it currently has, it might be fine.  Otherwise, it'd probably need a small damage buff to keep the performance consistent.

 

Alternatively, the Knock Up/Down could be moved to Hemmorage and Vicious Slash could receive more damage or some other debuff effect to compensate.  But, I have other ideas for Hemmorage so... would prefer not that one!

 

 

Blood Thirst -  The cast time on this power is way too long and the buff is weaker than other Build Ups for no reason.  ...okay, it lasts longer, but is that compensating the weaker build-up or the longer cast?  Or the Blood Frenzy stacks?  I think this power is over-balanced. 

 

Preferred change:  Reduce the cast time to 1.32, same as regular Build Up.  Alternative change:  Increase the damage buff.  Combined change:  Do both and reduce the duration.  Fourth change:  Instate/re-instate the healing over time Blood Thirst was supposed to have.

 

Visually/audioly, the power needs more oomph.  It lacks the usual Build-Up-esque effects and sounds and the audio is has is very quiet!  It at least needs the Build Up stuff and louder growing/roaring/howling/etc.

 

Also, it'd be nice if the normal Build Up empowered sort of animation was an option in power customization, which would be great for those characters who aren't savage, but have natural claws that they're fighting with.  (Or like... robots with claws or something.)

 

BIG SUGGESTION!  So, here's an idea that might better sell the savage fantasy, make exhausted more workable, and give the set a third way to burn stacks.  (It really feels like it lacks ways to use its resources.)  So, tweak Blood Thirst.  Its current effects stay as is.  However, if used at five stacks of Blood Frenzy, then the stacks are consumed and the character goes into an even more frenzied state.  Now, I don't know about numbers, but I'm thinking even stronger Blood Thirst effects + even stronger Blood Frenzy effects for the duration of the power plus Rending Flurry and Hemmorage acting as if they had max stacks.  Possibly some extra things too, like Fear and Placate immunity? 

 

When the power expires, then the character goes into Exhausted at the full duration (and maybe make Exhausted nastier too if need be).  Under this idea, Rending Flurry and Hemmorage would only consume stacks, not Exhaust.  Or, maybe alternatively, empowered Blood Thirst's exhausted would be a different, seperate crash?

 

This would definitely give the player more options and make Savage Melee a bit more distinct.  Blood Thirst could be used as an alpha strike tool or as a way to instantly recover Blood Frenzy after consuming them, like right now.  Or the player could use it to go utterly nuts for a little while at the cost of a crash.  I think this would be pretty cool, but would be a pretty big change and non-trivial to implement.

 

 

Taunt/Confront -  A customization option to use a more standard Taunt animation would be nice and appreciated by concepts where the character just happens to have claws and aren't savage.

 

 

Rending Flurry -  Only issue here really is the audio.  It needs some sort of more visceral sound effect(s) rather than just spamming Maiming Slash's sfx.  A different visual and/or audio for use at max stacks would be nice, but hardly necessary.

 

 

Hemmorage -  As it stands, Hemmorage is a net-loss of damage no matter how you use it.  Except Stalkers, they have a better version apparently that is actually worth using.  A really simple fix here would be to make other versions more match Stalker Hemmorage. 

 

Hemmorage could also stand to tick a bit faster since it's not uncommon for teams to kill the target before the move does its thing.

 

A more complicated fix?  Hemmorage should be the "big, tough target" killer.  The idea is you're making them bleed out, so instead of just shoving more damage into the attack, we could stick something like a -Regen, -healing received, -recovery, -res, and/or other debuffs here that scale with the number of stacks used on the move.  I mean, hey, if someone just gave you internal bleeding then you're gonna be more vulnerable and not be able to walk it off or heal as easily!  Adding those sorts of debuffs would still leave Hemmorage as a more niche option, but it'd be a really good option in certain scenarios.

 

Also, I said a bit about mechanics and visual/audio on Hemmorage in Viscious Slash's part.  that all applies here still!

 

...when writing the draft, I miswrote "internal bleeding" as "eternal bleeding".  I suppose making empowered Hemmorage tick for an incredibly long time would also really drive it into the "big tough target killer" role.

 

 

Savage Leap -  Mechanically, it's mostly fine.  Two things though:  First, sometimes the damage/effects don't trigger.  Not 100% sure what causes it, but it's most easily noticable if you use it from melee range against the giant mech in the Market Crash Trial, where Savage Leap will fail to do anything almost all the time.  I think it might be related to hit boxes?  Second:  the move does more damage at a distance.  It could be nice to light the move up with an orange circle if the chosen target is at optimal range to make this mechanic more clear.  And maybe mention it in the tooltip?

 

Beyond that, the power needs more visual and audio-oomph.  For the top tier power of a powerset, it's really lacking.  It needs some sort of landing impact visual/audio and maybe a very slight wind-up time to give more the illusion of a leap.  (With the right tweaking, the wind-up could be included without increasing the cast time much or at all.)  The actual hit sound could, again, stand to be something more oomphy than Maiming Strike's hit. 

 

 

 

 

And, hmmm, I think that about covers everything.  Overall, I think the set is in a pretty good place, but it could really use some adjustments for better flow, making some powers more useful, and selling its fantasy better.

[Kaika]

As a Savage/Bio main I agree with alot of this. The exhaust mechanic in particular feels odd, it feels less like I'm getting rewarded for using my resources but more like I'm getting punished for spending them. It doesn't feel that bad with rending flurry, since the increased size of the AoE is very noticeable, but hemorrhage feels bad even when I try to incorporate it into my rotation. I feel like the Idea behind Blood thirst is more to get rid of exhausted as it does do that, which would make the power possibly worth the long animation if it felt better to use those powers. During single target fights for me, it sits unused.

 

Shred is just meh, it's ok when leveling but the set has two good AoEs so this sub par one is extremely skip-able. I'm sort of ok with this as the set gets by perfectly fine without it but it doesn't feel out of place with it, it's just not super useful.

 

Savage leap is a bit buggy, If I use it while jumping and momentum carries me out of range, it will still get used but will deal no damage. I cant complain otherwise though because when it works this power is awesome

 

I feel the main problems are

 

A) Hemorrhage isn't very good and doesn't feel that good to use, making the big single target hit not fun to use is a no no in my book.

 

B) Blood Frenzy is tied to recharge which is easily one of the most chased stats in the game, which means the pay off for spending it has to be very high. Rending flurry sort of delivers on this in some situations but Hemorrhage falls flat.

 

This creates a set that still feels very much in development. However I can't complain too much as it certainly isn't a bad set atm by any stretch. I can currently solo GMs with it and there are definitely worse choices. It just feels like you are fighting against the mechanics of the set to get it to work correctly, rather then using the mechanics to preform better. The fact that I'm going out of my way to not spend my resources just feel kinda wrong.

 

[Rumors]

Yeah, I feel you on not usng Blood Thirst.  That long casting time makes it feel kinda bad to use in the middle of a fight if you don't need to clear Exhausted.  It does boost your damage over time by a lot if you use it at every chance, but... it still feels bad.  :/

 

 

I've not had that momentum issue with Savage Leap.  Are you using it with Super Speed or Super Jump active?  I tend to turn off travel powers in combat, so I might not have enough momentum to bug it out with just Combat Jumping.

[Steampunkette]

The best way to use your stacks is to drop them at 3 or 4 with rending flurry and hemmorage. You shouldn't hold them until you've got 5 to drop them.

 

One big thing I would do to "Fix" the set? Turn Savage Leap into Burst of Speed.

 

Reduce the damage and area slightly and give it the ability to be used 3 times in a 6 second window before it goes onto cooldown.

 

Teleport, strike, teleport, strike, teleport feels a hell of a lot more "Savage" to me than 'Teleport, fight fight fight"

 

It would also help offset the 15 second exhaustion window (Or 10 second one if it gets reduced) by giving you a reusable high end attack to fill in during the exhausted period.