In a small man or 8v8 group setting, what brings more to the table, savage or zerk?

Haven’t played in awhile , and for small man or 8v8 RvR , what would you rather pick up in a PUG all things being equal?
Zerk seems pretty straight forward, but I haven’t played DAoC in awhile, and considering Phoenix ruleset, what would you pick up for a RvR group all things being equal without any prior knowledge of the player?

Sun 6 Jan 2019 12:36 PM by Mura

Zerks bring steady and reliable damage with on demand burst, better defense penetration, and prevent flight.

Savages damage is spikier, sometimes you'll have huge quad hits, but this is offset by streaks of single/double hits, it's unpredictable, and their swings count as 1h weapons for defense penetration calculations. Their buffs make them one of, if not the most, defensive light tanks out there, as well as the highest theoretical burst damage, at the cost of sizable chunks of their hp.

H2H styles do have better control with 2 decent positional stuns, where LA doesn't have any. The LA rear chain does huge dps, but it also has a bleed in it, so you better kill what you're attacking or they get free cc immunity for 40s.

All that said, on paper, savages bring more to the table, but they are both good at their role. I personally went with zerker just because I prefer the look of axes, want PF, and like the better defense pen.

I'm far from an expert on the issue, but these are my thoughts on the subject.

Sun 6 Jan 2019 1:10 PM by opossum12

Savage hands down, mainly because zerkers do not have a positional stun, while savage has a 7 sec side stun chain that hits like a train, combined with a 4 sec back stun (might be 5 sec).

Your buffs combined with 360 evade makes you the toughest tank to peel, you also have an off-evade snare style that is really useful considering you evade ~50% of what’s thrown at you.

When you get trained, you have self buffs that bring the melee resistance up to 50%, which makes you pretty tanky.

The name of the game is burst damage with the insta heal on a 5 minute timer and the general healing power of support classes.

Zerker is a bit higher steady dps, but over the course of a fight the savage will generate more dps, have more burst, and will be more difficult to peel than a zerk.

The only weakness of the savage is defense penetration. A good heavy tank that guards well will be your biggest pain.

Sun 6 Jan 2019 7:54 PM by Falken

as stated above the savage out shines the zerker, just avoid targets who are being guarded and shield tanks in general and you will be better off. Savage has a 4s back stun and a 9s side stun (2nd style on a chain) while zerker only has a backsnare in their hammer chain to keep targets in their range (PF down the road)

Zerker will be able to more reliably sit on a target, but you are going to end up spamming hammer snare and not LA skills if you want to stay on them before you get PF and after that (as mentioned above) your biggest damage burst comes in a 3 style chain w/ bleed on it... so your target better die.

The way this server has been designed with lower insta heal timers savages spike damage is actually more reliable at dropping targets rather than the slow consistent chopping of zerker.

Savage has much more survivability, while zerker getting focused really can just get obliterated especially if you pop vendo at the wrong time. This element isn't always taken into consideration but savage has a load of avoidance between parry/evade compounded by resist buffs which make them anti-tanks with ~45% melee resists and actually able to survive when focused.