To be blunt: Does Savage Melee suck?

[Chalkarts]

I'm playing one and I like the animations but it feels weak.  Is it just a feeling of am I right?

 

Edit: What about street justice?

Edited yesterday at 07:02 PM by Chalkarts

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, Chalkarts said:

I'm playing one and I like the animations but it feels weak.  Is it just a feeling of am I right?

 

Edit: What about street justice?

Savage Melee is pretty good, and is probably the set that most benefits from being on a Brute as opposed to one of the other melee classes.

 

It breaks in a little late.  Savage Leap is the true gem of the set, and Rending Flurry is nice.  Hemorrhage is unfortunately kinda weak.  I find it a little boring to play because a lot of it is "maiming slash > savage strike > vicious slash > savage strike" at least while you're leveling.  But the damage is there, you get a the Savage Leap opener and if you want it a nice 15' radius AoE, and I personally like the animations.

 

Street Justice is generally good, if with slightly weak AoE, though I've never played it on a Brute.

[Sancerre]

the downside to the set is the lethal damage type.  otherwise -- savage leap carries the set a lot.  savage leap is an insane button in all kinds of ways both for AoE damage (especially) but it is also just a strong button even for single target at point blank when proc bomb'd.  but generally all of the buttons are 'solid' aside from hemo.  hemo is technically fine as well, but not really a point to it over any of the other single target buttons along the way.  shred is the other 'stinker' button but it is fine DPA if you are hitting 3+ targets.  last frustration is savage melee's build-up variant is a very long 2 second cast compared to any other standard build-up... but you learn to live with it.

 

overall performance, when combined with fire, dark, or psychic patron pools is very strong.

[Quasar Seraph]

I agree it's definitely not weak and very much a brute set. Probably my favorite character to play is my Savage/Bio/Soul brute, it does a ton of damage and has such a dynamic playstyle. I highly recommend taking Combat Teleport and create a macro to TP back to max Savage Leap range for maximum effectiveness and fun (I'd post mine but I don't have my computer with me). It's easy on the power commitment too, as I skipped Savage Strike (on the final build, grab this for leveling), Shred, Taunt, and Hemorrhage. I really wish Hemorrhage was good, because I love DoTs, but it just isn't worth the rotation slot.

 

Late add: Another recommendation is to slot the Winter Avalanche knockdown proc into Savage Leap. It procs so often I actually forgot it wasn't part of the power until I double checked just now.

Edited 21 hours ago by Quasar Seraph

[Erratic1]

It seems to me that so long as you are continuously attacking, it is a pretty decent set. But that means you play an extremely hectic way.

[Erratic1]

5 hours ago, aethereal said:

Street Justice is generally good, if with slightly weak AoE, though I've never played it on a Brute.

 

As Spinning Strike has a KB component, it is a good place to stick the Force Feedback proc generally, and even better if your secondary boosts Recharge.

 

Admittedly done on a Tanker, no good reason you cannot flash the same Recharge on a Brute:

 

[Maelwys]

8 hours ago, Quasar Seraph said:

I agree it's definitely not weak and very much a brute set. 

...

I really wish Hemorrhage was good, because I love DoTs, but it just isn't worth the rotation slot.

 

FWIW, on a Stalker working Hemorrhage into the chain is actually viable, as Hemorrhage grants an extremely large amount of additional damage whenever it's critting from Hidden.

 

e.g. AS (with "chance for Hide" ATO) > Hemorrhage > Maiming Slash > Shred (with an Achilles Heel)

 

Stalkers also benefit from Build Up rather than Blood Thirst, so you'll never have to deal with the 15 second Blood Frenzy lockout period.

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

FWIW, on a Stalker working Hemorrhage into the chain is actually viable, as Hemorrhage grants an extremely large amount of additional damage whenever it's critting from Hidden.

 

This used to be true but was fixed years ago.  Stalker Hemorrhage is now just as mediocre as everyone else's Hemorrhage.

[Maelwys]

11 minutes ago, aethereal said:

This used to be true but was fixed years ago.  Stalker Hemorrhage is now just as mediocre as everyone else's Hemorrhage.

 

It's still extremely high. 144.5904 base, inflicted as a spike rather than as a DoT.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.savage_melee.hemorrhage&at=stalker

 

For comparison that's exactly the same as Broadsword's Headsplitter gains from a stealth crit (but with a 100% chance for activation instead of 50%!)

 

[tidge]

17 hours ago, Chalkarts said:

I'm playing one and I like the animations but it feels weak.  Is it just a feeling of am I right?

 

Edit: What about street justice?

 

As noted by @aethereal Savage Melee is almost certainly best on a Brute... because Fury, but also Brutes have higher HP etc. so they can better stand there while most everything late game resists the damage type. 

 

I have personally filed Savage away with Psionic (melee, blast) and Dual Blades as sets that I will only use when the concept demands them... entirely because building characters that can smoothly run through whatever end-game content without being painfully slow on defeats is just not my game. My characters leveraging those sets are fun, except when solo against certain enemy types.

 

Street Justice is IMO better, but it takes some getting use to the way the attacks work. The Street Justice combo system is easier to ignore IMO.

[aethereal]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

It's still extremely high. 144.5904 base, inflicted as a spike rather than as a DoT.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.savage_melee.hemorrhage&at=stalker

 

For comparison that's exactly the same as Broadsword's Headsplitter gains from a stealth crit (but with a 100% chance for activation instead of 50%!)

 

 

It's an ordinary crit.  Like most DoT powers, crits on both Stalkers and Scrappers do the full value of the DoT as an up front package.  Scrappers get a 162 point crit with Hemorrhage due to their higher scalar.

 

It's 100% out of hide instead of 50% out of hide like Headsplitter because Headsplitter is an AoE.

 

Back a few years, Hemorrhage used to get an anomalously high amount of crit damage out of hide.  Now it gets the summed value of its normal damage, with no bonus for blood fury.  It's exactly what you'd expect it to be.

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

Hemorrhage used to get an anomalously high amount of crit damage out of hide.  Now it gets the summed value of its normal damage, with no bonus for blood fury. 
It's exactly what you'd expect it to be.

True.

But my point is that the current additional critical hit damage Haemorrhage deals is still extremely high.

It deals the same as a T9 attack (Headsplitter) and notably more than a Snipe (Moonbeam clocks in at a maximum of ~127.9 base; compared to Haemorrhages' ~144.6)
And it adds an Assassin's Focus stack.
And it consumes Blood Frenzy Stacks for more damage (AS>H>MS>S means Haemorrhage activates with 4 Blood Frenzy Stacks; so you're never getting locked out!)
And because it has a substantially reduced recharge time; it also gets to activate after EVERY Assassin's Strike; so there is no danger of the Stalker's Guile proc lockout period getting out of synch and causing your autocrit to kick in on a different less-effective attack.

Haemorrhage's regular DPA is however pretty bad, which is why IMO it's only normally viable in a Stalker's regular attack chain. Stalkers gain one extra predictable crit from Hidden via their ATO1 proc (and get more at-will via Placate) every 10 seconds. That's time gated, not animation gated so DPA has little impact on it. On Stalkers you can therefore put a viable chain together where Haemorrhage is used after every AS, or where it's used after one AS and a Snipe is used after the next AS. I know of some players who won't don't include it in their normal attack chain at all but will still manually activate it after they enter a hidden state; because its additional crit damage is still that good.

IME one of the more optimal chains on a SM Stalker is to just cycle AS, Hemorrhage, Maiming Slash and Shred. Technically using a Snipe will give more raw damage, but working Shred in opens up Achilles' Heel proc opportunities (which raises average damage over time) and using Hemorrhage after each AS makes the autocrits more consistent.

Some sample chains from my Savage/Psi are below:





In addition to this, on Stalkers you don't have the issue of getting 5 Blood Frenzy Stacks (automatic lockout!) whenever you activate your "damage buff" clicky.

...all of which is why I consider Savage Melee best on Stalkers by a country mile.

[MTeague]

Eh, ... even "bad" damage types... aren't that bad.  Teaming there will be enough debuffs flying around that you'll still wreck face / meaningfully contribute. Soloing... I guess if you focus a lot on solo farms, and you really care about clear times, it can be an issue. I don't, and I don't, so it's not an issue for me.  My Claws scrapper still kills things plenty fast enough, my Assault Rifle Blaster still drops targets fast enough, and my Savage brute still rips enemies a new one (literally) plenty fast enough, and my Ninja Blade stalker never felt slow killing anything.

 

I don't think Lethal is as big a deal as people tend to think. 

Your milage may vary, feel free to decide I don't know WTF I'm talking about.