Marauder. I loves it.

Smash does not do 6k damage on average, it does closer to 3.5-4.5k depending on your targets expertise and gear. Chain Lightning has 30m range, with the ability to strike additional enemies around the target. ~1k average damage is a good tradeoff for being 30m, and CL is just icing on the cake for a normal damage rotation for a sorc. It's not the bread and butter of the classes damage. Oh, and chain lightning cannot miss the target, and sorcs can also still pull pretty decent damage even without CL procs. Rage warriors can miss, and if smash misses, it's gg. They have no sustained damage. Oh yeah, and you can purge crush. We cant purge your FL. tl;dr There are a lot of fail players in this game who do not utilize all the skills they are given (like the sorc I quoted), or simply cannot, or will not use their brain while pvping. If you're getting hit with smash consistently, you should probably rethink how you're doing things, 'cause you're doing it wrong.

This is when I knew the OP has no idea what he is talking about. I'm no WoW junkie, having come from Aion; anyone who plays Marauder knows there is really only 1 viable spec if you want to max out your damage, durability, and utility. There are certainly no viable hybrid specs either. This class has forced players into a specific spec, Annihilation, because the other two have extremely glaring weaknesses, lackluster damage, and considerably less useful utility. We don't have 3 equal trees. We have 1 tree that is significantly better then the other two, and the other two that are kind of ok. Every other class in the game has at least two viable specs on an equal level; that's the real problem.

You can have power and surge in the same enhancement. You dont have to choose.

Unfortunately there is not a crit/power enhancement or mod that I am aware of. I wish

I didn't say the DR was harsher, don't put words in my mouth. I said expertise starts hitting deminishing returns as soon as you start getting it. The fact that expertise has DR at all de-values its usefulness as a stat anyway. Since it's a pvp stat, it should scale linearly, that would entice players to go full pvp gear. Since it's on DR, players can stack a reasonable amount, and then pursue other stats that will be more beneficial; just like with the surge nerf.

You realize battlemaster and rakata gear use the same mods right? You can just itemize them. The difference is that pve gear usually has significantly higher strength and endurance (for warriors) then pvp gear. If both sets of armor have the exact same mods, you're looking at trading something like 25 strength and 18 endurance from a Columi chest and Champ chest, for a measly 46 expertise. Since expertise starts hitting deminishing returns immediately, the more you stack, the less effective it gets. Basically, stacking to 500 is your best bet, and then going full pve from that point. I use 3 piece armor, implants, earpiece, bracers, and belt for pvp, and 2 piece pve armor (chest and pants), with pve mainhand and offhand. I get both 2 piece set bonuses, which is better then my 4 piece, and the pve weapons are much better then the pvp equivalents (and they can have their mods/enhances/crystal changed).

Massacre does more damage with its guaranteed proc then VS does overall. You should always be using Massacre. Ataru strikes deal energy damage, and are therefore subject to mitigation by armor.

Are you suggesting this as a buff, or does this actually work?

The Champion Enforcer gloves (for snipers and operatives) have an enhancement with power and surge on them. That's what I'll be stacking.

It's not a ops-wide buff; it's your group only.

Correct; which is why I suggested making massacre proc ataru 100% of the time for the next 6 seconds instead of 50%. It's not a huge dps increase, fits within the scope of carnage (damage based on procs), and also means you can proc execute more reliably, which gives you a 10% damage bonus on your next rage spender. Crazy suggestions will get us nowhere, but you can reasonably make massacre grant 100% ataru proc for 6 seconds, and give the tree a moderate damage increase. What I proposed will increase the sustained damage of the build, as well as the burst slightly. Your burst rotation will automatically proc ataru on massacre, gore, and scream. This means you can effectively add 300-500 damage per hit. Heck, it might even make carnage better sustained damage then annihilation now that I think about it.

Probably just increase ataru proc to 100% for 6 seconds after using massacre, instead of 50%. That would help the damage.

Itemize your gear with different enhancements.

Actually you are wrong. Same level mods with 34 power or 34 crit will have the same main stats on them; likewise, mods with 10 power or 10 crit have the same main stats. The only difference is between the 34 power/crit vs the 10 power/crit. The 10 power/crit will obviously have higher main stat then the 34 power/crit. Don't act like having accuracy is worthless either for some classes, it can still increase your damage as a melee class. Many classes have base defense ratings, and it's a good idea to nullify their base defense rating. Especially against Sorcs or Assassins, because they start with a base 10% defense. If you get a burst skill parried, you will kick yourself in the ***** afterwards. Sometimes it's worth stacking a stat like accuracy to ensure you will never miss the important skills.