In thisRemnant From the Ashes Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you my Sabertooth Build, which is a Melee Build that focuses on high Armor and Health Leech to withstand punishment while smashing away with Melee Weapons. It uses a mix of new items from the Subject 2923 DLC, as well as old, but I’ll show you how to use it at any level effectively, working your way up to its final form. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for aBeginner Build, orEnd Game Build, you can use this one regardless. Note that the Leto belly flop is overtuned and is getting nerfed in the next patch, which is why I didn’t make a Belly Flop Build.
The Sabertooth Build uses Heavy Armor and Melee Weapons to withstand damage, while pummeling its enemies to death even up to the highest difficulties of the game. By getting extremely high Armor values, damage you take is drastically reduced, and by having Life Leech you can drain enemies to replenish missing life. The Sabertooth isn’t the highest DPS Build in Remnant, but it has extreme survive ability, which is an absolute necessity if you’re going to play a Melee Build.
Sabertooth Weapons & Weapon Mods
Weapons are a huge part of this Build, and which you use makes a big impact on your success in Melee combat. I like to use Scar of the Jungle God for this Build, not only because its attacks are relatively fast, but also because its Charge Attack sets the Bleeding Status Effect which helps to heal you once you’ve acquired Bloodletter’s Insignia. This healing combined with your Life Leech from Terror Margin make you nearly invincible in the right situations.
However, it is not absolutely necessary to use Scar of the Jungle God for this Build, because we also use the Devastator Crossbow, which can set Bleeding with its Skewer Weapon Mod. Sometimes you will need to use this Weapon on flying or far away enemies, so it’s a must for this Build. This allows you the opportunity to use other Melee Weapons, if you can gain enough Mod Power fast enough to keep this Bleed up constantly. This is possible in 90% of situations if you pay attention, so if you like another Weapon like Riven (which has Life Leech intrinsically) then you are free to use it.
Your Secondary Weapon is not important and you can choose whichever you wish for it, but I like to choose something that leaves an opening for a Weapon Mod of my choice. Ideally, this Weapon Mod would be defensive like Mantle of Thorns, Howler’s Immunity or Flicker Cloak, but you can also use offensive ones as well, depending on what biome you are in. This choice is up to you, and I encourage you to play around with different Weapon Mods here and see which you like best.
Sabertooth Armor
For this Build we’re going to use Leto’s Armor because it affords the highest level of Armor protection possible, and it reduces your damage taken as your Health goes down. This helps keep you alive until you can heal back up, and you should get used to your Health bar going up and down constantly over the course of a battle, because that’s just the nature of how it works.
I don’t recommend using any other Armor Set for this Build because Leto’s Set also gives you a Stagger Reduction, allowing you to keep swinging even when you are getting hit fairly hard. This allows you to keep leeching without interruption a big chunk of the time, and is simply not possible with other Armor Sets. You won’t be able to Melee easily on Nightmare or Apocalypse with other Armors.
Sabertooth Amulet & Rings
For the Sabertooth Build you can use different setups for your Amulet and Rings depending on what difficulty you are playing, since you need much less survive ability on lower difficulties. I’ll cover what to use on Normal and Hard, before what to use on Nightmare and Apocalypse, because they are quite different.
Normal & Hard
On Normal and Hard you don’t need that much Lifesteal to stay alive, so ramping up your DPS can make fights go faster, and is just more fun in my opinion. I like to use one of the following combinations:
Terror Margin
Melee hits steal1.5%base damage dealt as health. For every25%missing Health, gain an additional1.5%lifesteal. When full health, gain20%melee damage.
Band of Castor
Increases Melee Speed by10%, but reduces Fire Rate by15%.While wearingBAND OF CASTOR,Melee damage is increased by10%, Evade Speed is increased by15%and Encumbrance is reduced by25.
Band of Pollux
Increases Melee damage by 15%, but reduces Ranged damage by 15%.While wearingBAND OF CASTOR,Melee Damage is increased by10%,Evade Speed is increased by15%Encumbrance is reduced by25.
OR
Polished Whetstone
When attackingBLEEDINGenemies, Crit Chance increased by15%and Crit Damage increased by50%.
Burden of the Gambler
Disables Weakspot damage bonus. Increases Crit Chance by15%and Crit Damage by25%.
Leech Ember
Melee hits steal2.5%of the base damage dealt as Health from enemies.
With the first setup you gain increased Melee Damage and Melee Speed, as well as a couple of other perks like increased Evade Speed and reduced Encumbrance. This will allow you to pump out a lot of damage and still “roll” instead of belly flop. It also gives you Life Leech on your Melee attacks only, which is all you need most of the time on these difficulties.
With the second setup your Build will become more Crit focused, which is really the best way to increase your overall damage as a Melee Build, but you don’t get any other benefits. If you use the Hunter’s Mark Weapon Mod you can hit 80% Critical Chance with this setup, and 150% Critical Damage. You’ll still have the Life Leech on hit only, so make sure you are always attacking something.
Nightmare & Apocalypse
On Nightmare and Apocalypse difficulties you’ll struggle to stay alive if you only have healing on Melee attacks, so you need to add in the Bloodletter’s Insignia in order to make your Bleed Damage heal you as well. This will help supplement your Life Leech, and allows you near immortality if you can constantly wail on an enemy with a Bleed on it, like Bosses.
However, this still isn’t enough to stay alive about half the time because you simply take damage faster than you can heal, so you need to buff your defenses even further. So the following are the two setups I use for Nightmare and Apocalypse:
Terror Margin
Melee hits steal1.5%base damage dealt as health. For every25%missing Health, gain an additional1.5%lifesteal. When full health, gain20%melee damage.
Bloodletter’s Insignia
BLEEDING effects applied by the wearer steal 2% damage dealt and return it to the wearer as Health.
Alchemist’s Jewel
Increase Armor Effectiveness by 50% and Armor Encumbrance by 25.
OR
Twisted Idol
Increases Armor Effectiveness by30%and reduces Encumbrance by15.
Leech Ember
Melee hits steal2.5%of the base damage dealt as Health from enemies.
Bloodletter’s Insignia
BLEEDING effects applied by the wearer steal 2% damage dealt and return it to the wearer as Health.
The first setup has 100 more Armor than the second one (828 vs. 728), and helps to reduce the damage you take. The downside is that you belly flop when you roll, and with the second setup you fat roll instead. That’s the biggest difference, other than that with the first setup you gain more Life Leech as your Health gets lower, and you gain +20% Melee Damage at full Health. You shouldn’t need to Dodge Roll much with this Build (you can still Evade just fine), so I recommend the first one, but both work.
Sabertooth Traits
Traits play a vital role in determining how successful or not you are with this Build, and in this section we’ll cover the must have Traits. I’ll put them in the order of importance, because it’s hard to gauge what order you’ll get them in, based on the somewhat randomness of the game.
Vigor – This Trait increases your Health by 50, which is a 50% increase at max level. This is pretty much a must on any Build for Nightmare or higher, so make sure you max this one out quickly.
Triage – This Trait will increase the effectiveness of your healing by 100%, which should apply to both the healing from Bleeds and Life Leech, though I have not tested this thoroughly. Still you can max out all Traits eventually, so there is no reason not to take this one.
Siphoner – This Trait will increase the effectiveness of your Lifeleech, making you heal for more with every Melee attack. You need all the healing you can get so this one is a must.
Barkskin – This Trait will increase your effective Armor rating by 15%. You need to mitigate damage so that you stay alive, and this Trait can help with that, especially since you already have high Armor.
Mother’s Blessing – This Trait gives you a flat 10% damage reduction from Ranged attacks. You’ll get shot at a lot while running to enemies, so this one is great at keeping you alive until you can get in Melee range and start leeching.
Guardian’s Blessing – This Trait reduces Melee damage by a flat 10%. You’ll often be hit by melee combatants when playing a Melee Build (big surprise), and this can help mitigate some of that damage. Especially useful when fighting Bosses who melee.
Rapid Strike – This Trait increases your Melee Speed by 15% at max rank. Striking more often increases how often you will heal yourself. Needless to say, this is very important to this Build.
Spirit – This Trait increases Mod Power generation by 25%. This Trait helps you use your Weapon Mods more often, which can save your life in many circ*mstances, so be sure to take this one.
Arcane Strike – This Trait further boosts your Mod Power generation when striking in Melee, which you’ll do often. Get this one to get even more Mod generation, because you can’t have enough.
Catalyst – This Trait increases your Mod Power generation by 40% at max rank when striking enemies with a Status effect. Since this should be Bleeding with this Build, this really helps against tough enemies and Bosses that you strike often after you’ve set Bleed on them.
Swiftness – This Trait will increase your Movement Speed by 15% which is very nice to have for a Melee Build. Closing the distance quickly to targets can be very useful and help you avoid damage, but in many cases enemies either run directly at you, or they run far away which makes this less useful than it could be.
Executioner – This Trait boosts your Critical Chance by 25%. This is good for both Ranged and Melee, so take it to boost your overall damage, particularly if you’re going for a Crit based Build in Hard or Normal.
Kingslayer – This Trait boosts your Critical Damage by 25% at max rank. Again, good for both Melee and Ranged, so an all around good pick up if you want to boost damage.
Warrior – This Trait increases your Melee Damage by 20% at max rank. It would be higher on the list, but staying alive is more important, so take this one when you are not dying and want to boost your damage.
Wisdom – This Trait will increase your Bleed Damage by 10%, which isn’t a ton, but every bit helps.
Final Tips
When playing this Build please keep in mind that some areas are harder to play as a Melee Build than others. For example, on Corsus or Rhom, many enemies tend to rush at you, making Melee rather easy since you just start swinging when they get to you. But in some places like Earth and Reisum, enemies shoot at you more and then run away and hide, which can make it frustrating and hard to stay alive. Adjust your strategy for these places, and play smartly. Use cover to close distances without getting shot, and make sure you use your Bleeds on every enemy you can to help you heal up from the gunfire.
Mudtooth’s Tonic can be used to increase your Health by 25 for 60 minutes, and is a great consumable for this Build to give you an even larger Health pool that must be depleted before you die. Remember that Leto’s Armor gives you more damage reduction as your Health goes down, so this can really help out.
You can heal friendlies with your Bleeds and Melee attacks if you slot Burden of the Devoted in one of your Ring slots, though it will seriously reduce your own survive ability. Still it can be a lot of fun, and is extremely useful when playing in a group. Imagine 3 players in the same party all running this Ring…
Lastly use theSave Analyzerto check which gear will drop when you roll a Campaign or Adventure so that you can farm the gear you need for this Build easily, since many things drop randomly. This tool will tell you what Bosses you will face, what Events will happen and what random equipment you will get, and where they will be found. Keep re-rolling until you see the item(s) you want, and then go get them.
Stay tuned for more Remnant From the Ashes Builds, as we explore what you can make with the new items added inSwamps of Corsus, and Subject 2923 DLCs. And if you haven’t already be sure to check out our overviews of both DLCs if you are on the fence about picking them up!
