Savage vs VW

I main Hibernia, but have played each class in the past.

Valewalker and Savage are both solid melee dps, with savage being the highest melee dps in the game.

The pros of Savages are they have extremely high burst damage, especially killing casters, and having the ability to swap between thrust and slash damage depending on your target. They also make the most use of passive damage RAs like MoPain due to how often they hit, and with triple and quad hits.

The cons are Savages are not considered dual wield classes for the purposes of defense penetration, the way Bezerkers are with Left Axe spec. So when Savages are up against a defensive group comp that includes Shield Spec Chars like Armsman/Pally, or Hero/Champ, their dmg gets nullified pretty quick.

VW are also strong, but for different reasons. They have the highest single target style dmg in the game, and even though they do not get Stoicism here, they do get access to Determination, and with your casted range lifetaps, even when rooted, you can still interrupt and do damage. Self Disease is also huge in melee comps, and as part of the assist train, VW tend to be MA more often than even Blademasters.

The cons of Valewalkers is when their self haste is down, Pulsing Blade turn can really mess up their side combo, and lack of being able to use one handed weapons here makes popping bubbles more detrimental to your overall dps.

Both classes run well in Strict Melee, Hybrid, or Caster groups, though more favored of course in Strict Melee.

Hope this helps, and that more players answer in the thread. Im sure there is a lot more to add to this.

Cheers
-Exo