I would, but the BM helm base armouring is awful. BM Helm armouring has 33 Str and 31 End. The Rakata Helm armouring has 61 Str and 44 End. I'd basically be trading 28 Str and 13 End for 0.6% Expertise (500 to 550, 10.2% to 10.8%). I haven't ran the math, and don't have the mathematical prowess to do so, but i'd say that the difference between those are almost non-existent (until i'm proven wrong, in which case i'll swap). I'd hate to do so, because the Rakata helm looks aweeeesome, and it was the primary deciding factor in choosing that as one of my non-PVP pieces.

People just needed another AC to label as the next FOTM (since Sorcs/Sages are getting brought down a little bit), even when there is no such class now. What some people forget is our primary spec is actually getting a bit of a nerf. Having Pred moved to Carnage and 100% DR Camo gone is a pretty big loss for Annihilation (albeit i'm eager to test out the new Phantom, as I wonder how the increased speed and duration will play out with 50% baseline DR). It's countered, but not fully, but the removal of rage costs on three abilities and a slight damage buff to Ravage. This is ignoring the fact that Fury building via Quick Recovery will be a thing of the past, as it to is being removed. At the moment, Annihilation is way up here and Carnage/Rage are way down there. In 1.2 they're all going to be pretty even, with Rage possibly sneaking ahead for Voidstar/Civil War and Carnage for Huttball. At release, Marauders were labeled as power houses but easily controlled. That hasn't changed, nor will it change in 1.2 Marauders were widely considered one of the lower end AC's (remember all of the Marauder QQ threads, plz fix us for PVP, plz make us viable for PVE, blahblahblah), but now that we get the rage cost of our interrupt, AOE mez and obfuscate removed, we're suddenly the FOTM class? Give me a break. It's just the pre-patch hype.

I consider 10% expertise to be my soft cap and gear around that (500 expertise). I can reach 700 expertise for the 12%, but in my mind it's hit a steeper DR cap and my points might better be spent on off-stats like Power or Surge. I personally use the Oath of Ragnos (offhand), Matrix Cube, 1 Mastercrafted Columi implant w/ 28 Surge augment, and Rakata helm as my non-Battlemaster pieces. The rest of my gear is BM. I've found this to be a nice balance, and, that should be your main goal as well, finding the balance in your gear. You could do as you wish though, subbing out a belt or a bracer for crafted and then sub in the BM offhand, there is nothing wrong with that. The BM sabers are nicely itemized for us, high Endurance and Power, so you wouldn't be nerfing yourself at all by using them. The real trick to providing yourself with BiS gear is re-working all of your mods and enhancements. But that will all change in a week or two, so I wouldn't put to much effort into it.

Sounds like you're more of a FOTM re-roller than a hardcore PVP'er.

We could be knocked out of camo with BH/Trooper stealth scan. This change is to prevent Marauders from cycling Undying Rage and Force Camo with proper healing backup that's present in organized warzones. If you cycle these abilities correctly, Annihilation Marauders are incredibly difficult to put down. Healers can slack off healing until we hollar for it while using either UR or Camo, and have a solid 5-6 seconds of 99% and 100% DR to soak heals. That's what Marauders were starting to reserve Force Camo for, instead of its designed use (quick-switching, quick short-distance unrestricted travel, threat dump and target dump, etc.). I think people will start seeing some inventive use of Force Camo from Annihilation Marauders in 1.2. 60% speed and extra duration with a 50% DR attached. That could potentially be some serious distance traveled.

just change the thread title to (delete) and the text to (delete) and it should make its way to page 2 and beyond (if not deleted shortly by a moderator).

Why would you necro a thread that's been gone since January? How far back did you have to search to find this anyways?

I usually reverse those 2. I enjoy getting that initial refresh on Rupture's CD to use in between the first and second Annihilate stacks, when you usually have excess rage to spend on VS's. I don't much think that waiting 1 GCD, to use on Rupture, is going to be a massive DPS loss. Even if it is, the refresh on Rupture's CD makes up for it and then some.

Awful choice in music? Who are you to decide what people think of as good music? I loved the opening music selection. The BH he was fighting had a Sorc behind him tossing out heals. Keeping multiple debuffs on the BH, including the healing debuff, not only made it extremely difficult to dispell his DOT's, but helped negate some of the healing that the Sorc could have been doing. I think you need to grow up and stop hating. All that hate must make your company insufferable. I'd probably regret ever meeting you IRL.

Hope not. I can build a 30 stack of fury with 8 rage as Annihilation, less if i'm being attacked (Defensive Forms). That talent is instrumental, and one of the only viable forms of AOE DPS as Annihilation and Carnage.

Read all of the patch notes before you run your mouth.

Bloodthirst is 5mins. And I agree, 5mins on it is to long, it should be 3mins.

Barely anything? No more Ferocity and Phantom nerf aren't just flavour changes, they're game changers, especially with Short Fuse now being a shared talent. Ferocity changes the way you play Huttball, and is instrumental in defensive swaps in Civil War. With that taken away and redistributed, Annihilation just got kicked in the balls and the torch passed over to Carnage. So yes, it got destroyed. Ferocity was a favourite among many.

Annihilation just got destroyed. With Rage now having a solid use for Berserk, other than Pred spam, and access to Short Fuse (dear god...), it's going to be a serious contender. Our tier 2 talents have been lackluster in Annihilation and Rage trees, making off-tree talent choices lackluster. This will spice up specs quite a bit.

The PVE 4pc is nice, but it's mainly just flavour. It does help with our rotation on bosses during the execute phase though; having execute only cost us 1 rage really does help our rage starved rotation. The 2pc is beyond useless. The PVP set bonuses I like though. 15sec off UR is really nice (especially when your rage, UR on 45sec CD is completely OP). With the 4pc, making our execute 15 meters is also awesome, it's been the sole reason that i've gotten KB's on some people who are running away and sub-20% hp. Wonder what the new ones will be like.

Retaliation is a net DPS loss during a standard single-target DPS rotation. I shouldn't have to point out the fact that it can't even proc unless your getting hit, and Marauders don't off-tank Operation bosses. Cute fluffy leveling specs are redundant once you hit 50.

This sentiment exactly. In PVE, retaliation will have no place in an Annihilation DPS rotation. But in PVP, it's all about the burst. The damage you can chain together into a single GCD attack, with the above example, is insane. Also, those people running Cloak of Carnage and Empowerment will have a significant increase in rage generation, enough to sustain the use of Retaliation in most situations.

Just to clarify, Seeping Wound has a 100% chance to apply a 30% snare...just so you aren't confused. The reason why many people don't get Seeping Wound is because most other snares are 50%, meaning you will still be falling behind while trying to chase the person and have to apply Crippling Slash anyways. So it's easier to just spend the 2 rage on Crippling Slash. Also, since Rupture is only a 6sec duration, without 100% up time on it, you'l still be applying Crippling Slash when it wears off. It's a personal preference talent, i'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not it's beneficial. Ferocity is always a must for my PVP builds, it's too helpful for ball running in Huttball, node swapping for defense in Civil War, and boosting to doors in Voidstar. Glad to see you have it. Subjugation is personal preference, whether or not you find yourself glued to healers or not. For organized PVP it would be almost mandatory, but for PUG PVP and single queueing, it's give or take. Phantom is one of my favourite talents. It allows me to avoid smashes from Rage Marauders/Juggs, defensively camo and negate most of the heavy DOT damage of a sorc, it allows you to camo through fires in Huttball to get into pass or intercede positions without losing health, or even to save your life in that 20meter dash to the closest health pack with a full string of DOTs stacked on you. Close Quarters is nice, but I only put 1 point into it. I don't use charge as an interrupt unless I absolutely have to, and moving back a couple feet to get your charge off isn't the end of the word. 5 Meters seems perfect to me, as its right outside of your melee range. With that in mind, i'd probably move 2 points up into Phantom from Seeping Wound, and then you can also move 1 point from Close Quarters into something else, maybe even Defensive Roll (which is really nice for negating Smash and all of that heavy Sniper/BH/Sorc AOE that gets thrown around all too often). My 2 cents. Hope it gives you a different perspective. P.S. Malice is give or take IMO. 6% crit to our DOT's is nice, but it's benefit is lessened in my eyes because our Berserk rotations already give them a 100% crit chance, and we also get a bonus 15% from our Annihilation tree. So an extra 6% for 3 talent points just seems like trading too much possible utility (Defensive Roll, extra rage on charge, etc.) for a slight increase in damage.

Rank 74 Valor Marauder and Huttball is my favourite warzone. I don't have a knock back, an enemy grip or a friendly grip, but I can spam Predation all day and have the 4 of us running circles around you. Know your role. Concealment Operatives can be powerhouses.

Undying Rage does not make you immune to crowd control abilities, it does not break crowd control abilities, it can not be used while stunned or mez'd, it halves your current HP on use, it only lasts for 6 seconds, it does not remove DOT's or other damaging effects, it does not prevent DOT's or other damaging effects from being stacked on you, it does not prevent you from being crowd controlled during it's use (i.e. rooted, stunned, mez'd, knocked back, enemy grip). WHY ARE YOU COMPARING THIS TO PALLY BUBBLE?!

I'm afraid that Defensive Roll is too powerful to turn down for PVE encounters. Over half of them have damage that can be mitigated by it. I'll never run Nightmare operations without Defensive Roll...ever.

My PVP spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bIbRrRdfGzZdMM.1 My PVE spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bIbRr****zZhMMZh.1 The beautiful thing about Annihilation is there is no 1 ultimate spec. It has such differing talents that are all extremely useful in their individual niches. Everyone will have their own opinions on which is best, my only advice is to try them all for yourself before passing final judgement.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=327225 This will give you details for what most people are running. But to quickly answer your question, the Enhancement you're looking for is called Adept, Power/Surge, and you can rip them out of the Champion Operative DPS gloves. There is also Crit/Surge, which you can get from our Champion helms.

If you have all of your CD's available, Operatives aren't that hard to beat. 90% of the time they'll end it by vanishing and running away to a health pack, which I view as a victory.

Or they're free. It's called Rakata weapons. The new colour crystals are a credit-sink that Bioware needed to implement. Currently there was nothing really to dump credits into to keep the market balanced, other than repair bills (which don't occur in PVP), and re-specing. Once I get another Rakata mainhand i'll buy another White crystal and go duel white sabers for my Marauder. 5 million price tag screams E-PEEN way to much to ignore. You can also swap them out for 27k, to change it up now and then.