Breaking down why he’s the best disruptor in the game.
In this post:
Introduction
I didn’t really like Salve the first time I tried him during the regional test. He died too quickly and I just couldn’t get the results I wanted out of him.
To be honest, he turned me off of assassins altogether, and it wasn’t until the end of the test that I gave him a second chance.
If you’re wondering whether Salve is worth owning, he is…or at least he was when I played him in the test.
I don’t own Salve yet, but I’d love to pick him up when his banner comes around or he drops to the freemium banner like he did in the test.
In this article I wrote at the time, I break down Salve’s abilities, how I used him in the game and whether I thought he was worth adding to your squad.
Let’s get started!
About Salve
Salve is an Umbrus assassin from the redeemer faction. If you aren’t familiar with GoG’s classes, check out my guide here.
I also happen to think he’s one of the coolest looking guardians in the game.
He’s like a techno samurai straight out of a Neo-Tokyo fantasy novel. He definitely holds his own next to other great designs like Tian-Long, Oxellus, and our resident Jean Gray, Phoenicia.
Assassins are hard to master, and Salve is one of the more complicated ones.
There’s a lot going on with him.
His ultimate ability, Shadow Step, launches his lightsaber like a giant ninja star that plows through enemies. It deals up to 360% damage in an AoE that travels from one enemy to another for around 5 seconds.
The damage may seem underwhelming, but I’m fairly sure sure Shadow Step hits multiple times. Enemies at par with Salve who take a direct hit from Shadow Step die immediately.
Emphasis on “direct hit”. The tricky part is aiming the ninja star in the right direction.
Based on my testing, it seems to track the enemy with the lowest HP, but I can’t be sure without knowing the mobs’ stats.
Salve’s second ability, Silent Strike, is decent. It deals a high amount of damage to a single target and gives him a nice 50% attack speed bonus. The cool down is a bit too long for the ability to be a game changer, though.
Subterfuge, his second active skill, is why he’s so disruptive to the enemy formation.
When the battle starts, Salve immediately switches spots with the enemy opposite to him. That means he starts the fight behind enemy lines and one of your opponent’s units will start behind yours.
Imagine your Flix going up against your opponent’s Derisda while taking an additional 75% damage?
Subterfuge opens up so many interesting strategies, and I think it could be a big factor in PVP arena play.
Having played Arena now, I know he can. He can teleport any one of the opposing back row Guardians right next to your Derisda…
His ult and active skill might not come into play a lot, but his passive…
Salve’s last ability is okay. Defy Death spawns a copy of himself when he dies. The clone will spam basic attacks with a big speed bonus, but only for 20 seconds.
It’s not a bad ability, but the whole point of carrying Salve is for him to stay alive to maximize your squad’s damage output.
Again, this could have some good applications in PVP arena, but its usefulness is limited in Endless and Adventure mode.
It definitely can!!! Salve goes on fighting past his death just like Kharkuk…except that Slave does it for 20 seconds instead of 6! The question is whether Derisda will target him or not.
Even if she can’t and she attacks other Guardians instead, he’s still back there hacking away for 20 seconds with a 50% boost to attack speed. He can do some serious damage with the right build.
Oddly, Salve can’t equip character specific gear in the regional test. The mask I collected was nothing special. It heals him for 20% of his HP when Shadow Step ends.
That’s an ok bonus, but probably not enough to keep him alive if enemies decide to target him.
If you know some of the other enhancements he can receive with his special item, please leave a response and let us know!
How I Use Salve
It took me a while to figure Salve out, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
Shadow Step can really devastate the enemy formation and subterfuge exposes your opponent’s weakest Guardians to the highest damage-dealing ones in your formation.
To build a solid squad around Salve, you’ll have to solve three issues:
- Where will Salve aim Shadow Step?
- How will you keep Salve alive?
- How do you deal with the Guardian at your door?
Where Will Salve Aim Shadow Step?
The most effective way to use Salve is to aim his ninja star across the back row — basically killing or maiming support and DPS enemies.
The problem is that he often targets the enemy he just traded places with — firing his ninja star back towards your squad instead of across the screen.
When that happens, only one enemy in the back row takes partial AoE damage, leaving him open to attack.
To make sure he behaves the right way, you have to swap him with the right enemy.
It’s a bit of a guessing game and it involves a lot of switching Guardians around. That can be a bit much during long Endless runs.
I got around this problem by pairing him with Gwynn. Gwynn has an ability that pulls the entire enemy formation together in a pile — creating a turkey shoot for Salve.
If you line up Salve in the middle spot of your back row, he’ll throw his ninja start right into the pile, dealing big damage to everyone in your opponent’s formation.
How Will You Keep Salve Alive?
Salve doesn’t take damage very well, so you need a plan to keep him alive if he can’t finish off his targets.
I can’t promote Ikam enough for this type of role. His Taunting Blow ability makes him charge at the furthest enemy and taunts them for 5 seconds.
His unique item adds another 10 seconds to Taunting Blow. That gives Salve a lot of time to work with.
Telva is also a good choice. Her taunt ability only lasts 7 seconds, but unlike Ikam, it will taunt all nearby enemies.
How You Deal With the Guardian at Your Door?
You don’t really want to teleport your opponent’s biggest unit to your back row without a way of dealing with it.
Dersida and Atticus are perfect for this role. Both receive big damage bonuses to their basic attacks. With Subterfuge’s damage bonus on top, they can finish off any assassin or ranger very quickly.
A warrior in the front row can also help speed up the process against higher difficulty enemies. If you line them up on the same side as Salve, they’ll often turn around and attack the intruder.
How To Optimize Salve
Based on my testing, Salve is best when you lean into his damage output. Long battles just increase his chances of dying.
That means doing the following:
- Maxing his weapon and boots to increase his attack stat
- Stacking critical chance and critical damage secondary stats
- Stacking runes that increase damage like Full-Bellied, Order of Assassins, Scorching Cinder, Paper Skin and Brute Force
- Stacking runes that increase critical chance and critical damage like Shadow Blessing and the Keepers
- Pairing him with Lia to receive a passive 30% critical hit chance bonus
Investing in Prodigy is a good idea if you plan on using his ultimate every fight. I’ll also choose Behind Enemy Lines to give him a little extra protection when I don’t have better runes to choose.
All of the above still applies, except for #5. Lia’s passive now only gives her a crit chance bonus.
Also, some of these runes are no longer available from winning battles in Endless. You have to purchase them in merchant shops with dungeon coins.
Since Salve is an Umbrus character, you could also consider an evade build. Unwavering Umbrus grants an evasion bonus of 5–15 points per Umbrus Guardian in your squad and reserve.
I don’t find the evade mechanic makes that much of a difference in PVE.
High-level enemies usually “cheat” with boosted accuracy.
It also takes an insane amount of time to grind out a full set of legendary agility gear with good evade secondary stats.
How Good Is Salve?
Salve is probably one of the most effective Guardians at targeting back row enemies, and he’s great at exposing healers and damage dealers.
Taking these threats out early cripples the enemy formation’s ability to hurt yours, and it’s an incredibly effective strategy once you get the execution right.
Whether you end up choosing him or not really depends on the following.
Manual Play Is Mandatory
Unfortunately, Salve needs a lot of tweaking to be effective.
Even if you’re using Gwynn to coral enemies before unleashing Shadow Step, you have to time his ultimate when he’s perfectly aligned with the pile of enemies to inflict maximum damage.
If you aren’t using Gwynn, you have to check Salve’s position every battle to make sure he shoots his ninja star in the right direction.
If you prefer auto-battle, he’s not your guy.
Not A Versatile Guardian
Salve isn’t a Guardian you can just drop into any formation. Left to his own devices, he’ll just run into the throng of enemies and die.
You have to build your formation around him to get good results in Adventure and Endless mode.
Like we covered before, that means using a collection of specific characters to make sure you finish off back row enemies quickly to keep him alive.
Using him commits you to a strategy that’s harder to master than others.
If you don’t like to experiment or theorycraft, Salve may not be for you.
Could Be A PVP God
Ok! I realize it’s still early to tell which Guardians will prevail in an arena PVP mode we know nothing about.
Still, Salve’s Subterfuge ability seems like a game changer.
You can use it to expose important Guardians like Phoenicia, Flix or Derisda, and there isn’t much your opponent can do to defend against it (except maybe doing the same to you!).
An evade build Salve could dominate when PVP first launches in May.
Teleporting a high evade guardian to the enemy’s back row would be very hard to stop without accuracy gear.
I don’t see that being a very big focus for most players. High-accuracy builds doesn’t have much use in Endless mode.
If PVP is your thing, Salve is worth checking out.
Ok, maybe not a god, but I still think he can be pretty good, and I intend to find out.
If you have experience using him in the launch version, leave a comment in here or on my X account.
Test Him Out First
At the time of writing, Salve’s price on Token Trove is around 100 USD. That’s a sizable amount for a Guardian that you may not end up liking.
He’s even cheaper now. He only retails for 50 USD on Token Trove. His banner just dropped as I’m updating this on June 11, 2024, which could drive prices down a bit more.
If you’d like to support my content, you can use this referral link to find Salve on TokenTrove.
If you decide to pull the trigger and max him out early, you’re committing to a manual play strategy centered on him.
Again, that’s not for everyone.
The good news is that Salve was available from the Freemium banner, the Endless Shop and the Premium Banner in the regional playtest. So, you should have a number of chances to pull him after launch.
That should help lower his market price a little, but more importantly, it will let you try him out to decide if he’s for you.
Conclusion
First things first, Slave is an amazing Guardian. He’s a lightsaber wielding shadow assassin that mows down weaker enemies with ease.
Salve isn’t for everyone though. He needs a certain setup to be effective against higher-level PVE content.
I experimented with Gwynn, Ikam, Lia, Phoenicia and Flix with some good results, but I had to do a lot of tweaking to make it work.
I think Salve could surprise a lot of people in PVP arena mode.
His subterfuge ability is hard to defend against, and Shadow Step does a lot of damage to the back row. If you back him up with a powerful AoE damage dealer, he can really disrupt your opponent’s squad.
His price point is decent enough to grab him early and experiment. I recommend testing him out before going all in to make sure he fits your style of play.
For the rest of us who won’t engage in competitive PVP or leaderboard challenges, Salve isn’t a must own.
I had a lot of fun testing him out, and I’ll certainly rank him highly on my future tier list, but his challenging setup will turn off most new and casual players.
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