Yeah.

Roots ignoring resolve is the only thing giving ranged classes a fighting chance against melee.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100MIMzMZhGboZhrRkdk.2

While I don't agree with the OP, I've gotta say you're wrong on this. On my fully-optimized War Hero Marauder I'm getting 5.5k hits rather easily on WH targets without the use of Bloodthirst or any adrenals/pickups (usually in the range of 4k to 6k). A Jugg/Guardian with their 10% extra damage from the set bonus and 6% extra force damage from a talent (+ armor debuffs) and equally optimized gear is gonna top that easily (they'd hit 6.25k on the same Smashes I hit 5.5k on from just the set bonus by itself).

lol u mad

Annihilation's best usage right now is to pressure targets that aren't being focused by your team's main assist train. A good example of this is locking down a healer (or two) while your team bursts down an enemy damage-dealer. You're going to contribute less if you try to use Annihilation to focus fire targets when you have, for example, 2 or 3 Pyro PT's on your team that kill targets faster than can you get your peak damage set up. If you want to assist in focus fire, both Carnage and Rage are more optimal in that regard.

They'd have to nerf all defensive's like Dodge and Deflection first just because they can potentially parry our 1-button kills.

Rage or Carnage for most team compositions would be ideal.

Skimming this thread makes my brain bleed.

Crush is way better than anything you can pick up in a hybrid spec IMO. It does about as much damage as Smash itself.

Riposte is used as a focus dump when you have excess focus. "Excess" depends on spec, but usually if you're at 9+ focus it's a DPS increase. It's not cost-effective rage wise, but being off the global and the moderate damage it does makes it time-effective. Just don't use it if it would otherwise not allow you to use your main abilities when you're trying to burst down a target. It also bypasses accuracy reduction/defense chance so it's good for using when you're Pacified/Obfuscated or trying to hit an Agent/Smugger through their dodge shield. It also allows you to setup for "controlled burst". You can wait for a Sent/Mara's GBtF/UR to end and unload a your highest hitting ability+Riposte to burn 'em down quick as an example. It's worth a keybind if you want to maximize your character.

No, they aren't.

More damage vs. more HP. Up to you.

The game is CPU-bottlenecked in most cases. I gained considerable FPS (almost double) by overclocking my i5 760 from 2.8 to 4.0 ghz.

Nope. That's only what bads say.

Removing the global and rage cost on Obfuscate was big because you now no longer have to judge when it's worth wasting a global for and instead just use it liberally (less though required and also reduces the importance of rage management). Removing the rage cost on Intimidating Roar reduces the importance of rage management. Making Ravage interrupt-immune and increasing its damage caused it to become an ability that is "never a bad idea to use" because the consequences are always advantageous (deal immense damage or force kiting/CC) when it used to be more situational and could punish you for misuse or simply be a huge DPS loss. Deadly Throw had extra usage in acting as a buffer for cleanses and protected other effects on the target from being removed (most useful against snare cleansing Operatives). Vicious Throw used to usually only be a last resort execute on a fleeing target but the change from <%20 HP activation to <30% enables players to ease off whatever they were doing up until then and just spam it much sooner. There are some specifics regarding specs as well. Annihilation's snare was improved, allowing less work to counter-act kiting and de-emphasizing rage management via less importance on our manual snare. Rage's cooldowns and Shockwave-stacking were reworked to be longer, stronger (Smash), and therefore more "forgiving" to bad play (don't have to be as dilligent with your rage management and cooldowns to output maximum damage). Those are all off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more. I'm not talking about buffs/nerfs (e.g. Carnage gaining boosted Predation and Short Fuse), just band-aid changes (being able to not have to manage rage more often, requiring less thought to do something, etc.) that don't affect half-decent players but make players who were unsuccessful with the class less so. See my first post. "Quality of life" improvements, as Bioware says.

I didn't say Annihilation couldn't burst. It's just not as often or to the extent as the other 2 specs. For the purpose of assist-training in organized play (where most of Annihilation's benefits fall off) the other two specs are superior. I never mentioned Ravage.

They made numerous tweaks to improve the performance of bad players on the class. At this point, Marauders are both extremely strong and easy to pick up and play.

It's like everyone thinks Annihilation is the only spec. In terms of peak burst damage: Carnage>Rage>Annihilation General burst: Rage>Carnage>Annihilation

Depends on what you're trying to do. If you solo queue, Annihilation is still the best. If you want to up your game for Ranked, the other 2 specs are more favourable IMO. Carnage provides the best control/Predation (makes it excellent for healer-peeling), and peak burst as well as decent assist-training. Rage provides strong burst more often than the other specs to provide the best assisting overall and creates immense AOE pressure (can break heavy guard-comps) as well as being the most durable in organized play. Annihilation is a solo-star. You're almost godly in unorganized play. It's an all-around Rambo. Those benefits fall off in high-level coordinated play. It's best use is for breaking down anything that raw focus-fired burst can't (very little in this game falls into that category). It's "healer-killing" abilities aren't so prevalent unless you're the only one on the healer (shouldn't be the case).

There's, like, no point to having macros in this game other than benefiting disabled/bad players.

Pooping bricks? More like not giving a ****. I could care less about nerfs. Watchman/Annihilation are pub stomping kings. In serious and organized ranked play, both Rage/Focus and Carnage/Combat are far more appealing in my mind because they bring more to the table than sheer Rambo-power (which has far less significance and falls off in organized play). Take it from a Marauder who actually plays all 3 specs regularly and has experience in all types of conditions (solo play, group play, premade vs. premade, etc.). Anyways, all threads like these devolve into the same dribble spouted by both sides, much like how people of different religions argue with each other endlessly. You just feel embarrassed for both sides if you're a neutral onlooker. Waste of internet bandwidth IMO. Not that I completely agree with everything Bioware keeps doing to the class. 1.3 continues to make Marauders easier to play and dumb them down even further. This time, Carnage is receiving a "quality of life" change.

Funny thing is I'm always seeing the same 5-6 advocating both sides of the fence in every single Marauder thread spewing the same nonsense over and over again.

One point three, butts will bleed.

lol @ thread title. What are we backpeddling here? Some illegal drugs? Strafe-moving is always faster than back-pedaling if you're already doing everything else in a competent manner. If you're a clicker, keyboard-turner, have low APM, etc., then you will have use for back-pedaling. Basically, back-pedaling becomes a better alternative to strafe-moving only if you're already gimping yourself in some other way.