Savagery as an auto-attack performs pretty wierd in it’s current state. I have no complaints about the 2h Savagery, it’s pretty good and performs well in general, both on ranged and melee weapons. The thing that I want to discuss is the state of 1h Savagery in this game.
First of all - the DW Savagery. Currently there are three ways to make a decent DW Savagery build - either based on cold damage type, using the Korba’s Hood or making a bleeding trickster. Cold Savagery is actually pretty OP in my personal opinion.
All other DW Savagery options are either mediocre or straight up bad.
Here is a little list of different possible Savagery damage types and my personal thoughts about them:
Aether Savagery (using the Conduit of Wild Whispers) - pretty mediocre due to the lack of gear. Not that horrible tbh, but’s it’s one of the weakest melee aether builds that you can make.
Physical Savagery (using the Beronath sword) - bad. I have tried a lot of different builds with different class combos, but neither of them performed well. Any more or less difficult enemy is a pain in the a$$.
Vitality Savagery (using two Malmouth Scepters) - I have seen a crucible build using this concept and performed pretty well. But still not as well as some other available end-game builds.
Pierce Savagery (using the Mythical Brutallax) - bad. Has become a local meme on the forum already.
Ok, I agree that the above damage types are pretty exotic and that one skill shouldn’t cover all damage types. But, there is also…
Lightning Savagery - very mediocre. Pretty strange that the base skill damage type isn’t supported for 1h melee users in any way. It is possible to make some sort of Lightning Defender/ Ultos trickster, but from my personal experience it doesn’t perform very good.
Everything I’ve said above was about DW Savagery builds. Now, let’s talk about non-DW 1h Savagery, using the shield for example. It’s simply unplayble. No matter what damage type you want to use.
But Saw, Shaman is a 2h mastery!
Well, soldier is a shield mastery. But for some reason Cadance performs well with most available damage types, with 1h (DW and non-DW) and with 2h both melee and ranged weapons. Cadence in my opinion is a good example of an auto-attack, that allows different playstyles without sacraficing the actual damage.
I have three suggestions to deal with the “1h Savagery problem”:
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Buff the Savagery skill line and nerf Might of the Bear to make 1h Savagery a more valid option (of course nerfing cold Savagery as well).
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Introduce some sort of a transmuter (like the Might of the Bear) for 1h weapons. (don’t forget to nerf cold Savagery)
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Implement more gear options into the game, that allow DW and 1h/shield Savagery to be on par with other good end-game builds (and nerf cold Savagery).
This comment of mine kinda sums up the whole OP, so I figuered I’d add it here: