Hardcore PvP'ers don't ask for nerfs/buffs without equal gearing and many trials. Generally they are also rooted in mathcraft (so if it was mathematically possible for an op to kill without the opponent being able to retaliate, they would ask for a nerf even without having to experience it. Note that with equal gearing this is never the case) But in fairness, I think most hardcore PVP'ers have bigger problems with this game than operatives... if they're still playing this game.

and that title should have told you all you need to know. But since you clicked it, I'm assuming you either want to troll, flame, or actually read why, so allow me to provide material for all three. I could write an enormous post here. But I won't waste your time. I could do bullet points, but even then I'd be wasting your time. Instead I'll do it in 10 lines. I play MMO's for the PvP. whether you like it or not SWTOR features PvP and has advertised PvP (even if PvE is the focus). I was bm pre 1.1 and am perfectly happy with my success in PvP given that I'm trying. I don't hate Bioware for what they did top Ilum or anything like that. I don't dislike the knockbacks/stuns or class balancing enough to complain. I like grinding gear/valor or their equivalents in MMO, as long as the gameplay is satisfactory. I don't mind the buggy PvP system insofar as sticking with SWTOR is concerned, though I'd expect it to be fixed...soon. I'm also not going back to WoW, I quit long before starting SWTOR. I'm done with SWTOR because the combined effect of all the problems with the game, PvP (including those mentioned above), Bioware's lack of transparency, my lack of faith with what Bioware is doing, a lackluster endgame (which more tiers of gear/new warzones would not fix), and most importantly a lack of fun. SWTOR ( and PvP particularly) is dull and annoying to me in a way that no other MMO I've ever played has been. I quit those because my friends and I moved on, this time I'm moving on and some of my friends have chosen to come with me. Broadly, this game was unsatisfactory. I subbed for 3 months (had it chosen by default) and so have no monetary reason to not play for the remaining time, but I won't. Not a fun game... sadly. *only read below here if you would consider replying* To those saying the by now totally overused "don't let door hit x on way out", don't bother, I'm not monitoring this thread. To those who will retaliate with positive remarks about this game, don't bother: I've made it further than the vast majority of you, and from the peak, so to speak, I've seen that there is nothing here to keep me. To those that wonder why I even bothered to write this, you're right: it has no intrinsic value at all, except to those who wouldn't ask that. And to those who agree, don't bother replying, let there simply be 1 more dead thread lying about with yet another QQbabywhiner saying he's leaving. Except I am sad: sad that I can't enjoy the game I was hyped for and recommended to all my friends. I'm really sad about that, more than I should be. This isn't a "RIP SWTOR" or anything like that: the PvE content (or even PvP, who knows) can propel it to infinite profit for all I know, I'm not into that. It's just a sad thread.

Well, vicious throw and force scream are incredibly strong in the rage tree because of +30% crit damage and 20% armor penetration. The reason you take malice is that, though still strong without a crit (1.5K on force scream without any trinketing/adrenals), with a crit you should be hitting for about 50-75% of your fully buffed up smashes. If you're using an adrenal and land a smash for 5K, you're going to want to follow up with a scream every time, just on the potential for a 3.5+k crit (though it depends heavily on armor mitigation and there's no guarantee of a crit. The highest value I've ever gotten was 4.5k with adrenal on a poorly geared sorc). Always use vicious throw. I don't know how else to say it. By damage/rage cost, it's the most efficient ability, outside of a pumped up smash (I've critted for over 5k, though it's pointless because they'll never have that much left anyways, unless they get healed between your cast and the throw landing). EDIT: I'd like to dismiss the notion that Rage is just 2 pumped up smahes then a long cooldown. While that is the sort of core to the build, the rage tree gives bonuses that make its damage potential between smashes, given lucky crits (which will eventually happen), the highest of the three trees. People dismiss force charge/obliterate/force crush/force choke/deadly throw as being set-ups. The reality is that all of these apply plentiful damage on a crit with the right surge values. Force crush without crits may only hit for around 2k, but with crits on every tick can do about 4k, and while that is improbable it also applies a huge slow: it's an incredible ability. Obliterate isn't just a smash set-up, it can hit for well over 2k on a crit, which is 1/8 of the health of a well-geared non-tank.

I loled. Also, any arguments over which spec is best aside (I put explanations in parentheses so often, but they never get read, so what's the point), there should be no argument that carnage is not best for dps. It's just not built for it: it certainly has utility we could argue about, but the talents don't increase damage incredibly or anything like that. You can defend it but a simple reading of the skills won't show numbers like "+30% bleed damage" or "+100% smash damage", and it's numbers like that which bump dps, which is, based on the topic title, all that should be in this thread.

Smash radius is broken by latency, just like many other things (knockback, animations, positionals, etc). In PvE it works quite well. Enraged Slash vs Defensive forms is personal preference. Between the two enraged slash realistically makes more sense (because in most fights you'll only really drop from single-target abilities), but enraged slash needs all 3 points to be reliably useful (pointless if you can't count on it), and 3 points for a return only on a vicious slash (free during Berserk) and vicious throw (it should be your finisher anyways) isn't necessarily the best. Great for the other trees though. Anyways, payback is only good if you're trying to hoard medals: 10% every 2 minutes is insignifcant compared to a crit on a force scream/obliterate. Strangulate absolutely works and is pretty useful. In fact, it's alsmot requisite for a 1v2, as otherwise only force crush will get you the stacks needed to make smash worthwhile. EDIT: It's amazing that Easymode and I disagree on absolutely everything. Really, really improbable (especially because we're on the same server, iirc) Anyways, I'm tired of arguing on these boards because of the people on them, so just go with Easymode's build.

It's in your character stats on mouseover, it displays your primary weapon accuracy and your offhand weapon accuracy.

See, I dunno how right you are, but if true you should really spread this around. Everyone has latched really, really hard onto this "dispel->annihilation useless". Really hard.

Agreed, though I don't know that it should provide advantages that vary based on what form you're using... leave the balancing to the tree itself, or at least give something neat to all 3

Immobilizing ravage does not require CC... lmfao. 1 interrupt, much less skill/thinking than dispelling bleeds... Everyone in a competitive PvP environment will break the channel... If you seriously think deadly throw+force camo makes sense, than I advise you to seriously reconsider your pvp playstyle... blowing 3 rage and a 45 second CD on (arguably) our strongest gap close/escape mechanism when annihilation tree can just wait a few seconds for a charge and rage can use obliterate to break the snare for the same rage cost.... what... Also, knockbacks can do crazy stuff. Some slow you, some send you directions you didn't expect due to latency, and some will hit you when you think you're out of range. You can't just sit on one side of a guy anyways: if you're not being mobile as melee, than you're doing it wrong (is why ravage is such a bad ability btw)

Math? What math? There. Is. No. Math. Theorycraft and mathcraft is different, though when you toss around ******** like 6k you prove that even if I did use math, you'd exaggerate and make it worthless. Regardless, the dispel costs energy/force, uses GCD, and must be used to deny not only the <12 sec CD rupture (CD reset by annihilate and vicious slash), and every stack of deadly saber (if they dispel all three stacks it means 1-2 stacks already ticked 2-3 times...) Anywho, pseudo-math aside, annihilation should not be the target of your dismissal, as annihilation and carnage are on totally different spectrums of damage and rotation. Why is carnage better than rage? Lower numbers... weaker burst... more gore-dependent...no obliterate/force crush....massacre=vicious slash+a bit of damage, no +15% crit.. All you get is mildly less telegraphing, 2 snares (1 interruptible the other costs 3 rage), and no/much less AoE. Gratz, you beat me with math.

Copy and pasting my previous post I've said this too many times already. Carnage is weak. It's a utility spec in a metagame where such utility is pointless: the only way snares will improve your dps is in Huttball snaring them over the fire or if they are snared within melee range while you are not stunned. If you're within melee range and not stunned you don't need them to be snared: marauders have enough slows and melee is forgiving enough to simply play catch-up and keep your damage on the target. The snares are a gimmick. What marauders need is a way to do damage from afar or to close the gap when the opponent separates via a stun or knockback (much more common than being slowed and unable to keep up to a running foe). To this end annihilation and rage provide solutions (bleeds/faster charge CD and obliterate/ranged force damage/burst). Carnage provides no such solution. The theory behind carnage is to spam Massacre, which is mildly stronger than Vicious Slash only if vicious slash is not talented for +15% crit. It also gives free crit force scream which are weaker than force screams from the rage tree, although crits in that tree are luck-based. The benefit of the carnage tree over any of the other trees is Gore. All that needs to be said, then, is this. Gore is broken. It's 4.5 seconds of usefulness are too easily denied, it's rage cost too high to maintain sustained dps if you go for burst during the gore, and the gore benefit itself is only useful vs high armor mitigation, while a large percentage of damage is actually blocked by shields(i.e. barrier abilities) or defensive abilities on cooldowns (which gore does not help against). Gore is broken and thus so is carnage. To the "prove it" comments, just save it. No one can prove anything, and to force us to provide proof when you can't do it yourself is ludicrous. Look at the talents: based purely on the theorycraft differences between the specs, carnage can only be better in very select scenarios, and it's not worth speccing into for that, unless you find it to be fun. Answers to in thread crap: No proof=carnage is not worse. That's fine. Anyone, however, who would take that to mean carnage is better than annihilation or rage needs to think really hard about why I'm calling them dumb and bad. Theorycraft/=/proof. Ok, but then no one has anything to go on. All numbers are bogus, I've said it before. There's no way to defend or attack any spec without theorycrafting... Carnage snares>obliterate/bleeds. I answer this in my thread. Deadly throw root is worthless: if they're too far to melee than snaring them won't do you any good without you closing the gap, and while you're closing the gap they have the options of snaring, stunning, or using an escape ability: what then? Carnage has no answer to any of these things, the other specs do. Annihilation bleeds dispelled. Fine, it's true that this can be done. But dispelling=GCD=time wasted not healing/attacking. Also, while we're on the topic of good players. No good player will EVER let the marauder channel ravage. It's the only channeled ability we have that can be interrupted by the target (force choke stuns them). There goes 1 snare. No good player will ever let you wail on them just because they're snared. Every class has a stun or "vanish-esque" ability they will use when you snare and gore: you wasted your CDs then. Rage is predictable? No joke, but Carnage is no better. Sustained damage vs burst: Carnage loses in both. Annihilation pulls sustained damage out of bleeds and mixes in vicious slashes/annihilates which are not only bursty but can give more rupture uptime and thus more rage. Rage itself has force crush, an ability which deals far more damage than deadly throw, lasts longer, and does more damage than 20% healing prevents. This ability also costs the same amount as deadly throw. Massacre costs the same as vicious slash, but lacks the 15% chance to crit... Carnage is rage-starved and thus burst trades off with sustained. For those that wish to dismiss the theorycraft fine, but don't claim carnage is better than or equal to rage/annihilation. If theorycraft is out the window so are any of your arguments. For those claiming carnage is the new annihilate, understand I used annihilate when rage was the end-all. Big crits are not my sole focus. I was BM pre 1.1, so don't act like I'm some undergeared <50 scrub. I've cycled through every spec with all of my gear changes and rest assured I understand how and when carnage abilities are meant to be used, as well as rage maintenance. In my opinion carnage is the worst of the three specs without any significant advantage except in Huttball, and the only way your opinion would be more valid is if you have either a) the skill to back it up (you don't) or b) the proof (you don't). Thus I'm entitled to my opinion just as you are to yours: except mine is backed up by experience and actual analysis,. while yours are backed up with feelings and fun TLDR; I've come to realize that not only is carnage bad (old news), but that those who defend it are short-sighted and dumb. (not those who like it, as you can like whatever you want. Just those who claim it's better than rage. Yeah right.)

Dunno what's happening ITT, but I read the OP and laughed. Was the "huge" pun intentional?

It shouldn't have fixed everything. In the update on ability delay there were several factors pointed out, and based on how soon after that update this patch came out it's fair to assume it doesn't address most of them. Also, iirc, the patch notes said "in frantic situations". I assume it fixed problems where in really, really low fps situations (like Ilum), abilities wouldn't work at all, not warzones where stuttering is caused by ping and animation issues, not just fps drop.

The only difference gear makes, assuming equal gearing, is that armor goes up while endurance/damage trade-off. For pubstomping the context is different, because victory is assured.. the question is how efficiently. Anyways annihilation suffers mild drop-off in damage at high gear levels most notably because armor increases and without passive armor penetration (rage) or gore (carnage), annihilation marauders lack a way to deal with armor. Except bleeds. Bleeds alone will keep annihilation relevant, even if the damage annihilate does vs equal geared opponents gradually diminishes. Internal damage is essentially true damage: only buffs/skills mitigate it and they do so very poorly. The ticks of a bleed are what is really killing tanks, not the lousy 3k annihilates that cost 5 rage and are on an 8+second CD. Sure it's nice to crit big vs a sorc, but since you can't count on annihilate to crit anyways, bleeds are the focus.

I've said this too many times already. Carnage is weak. It's a utility spec in a metagame where such utility is pointless: the only way snares will improve your dps is in Huttball snaring them over the fire or if they are snared within melee range while you are not stunned. If you're within melee range and not stunned you don't need them to be snared: marauders have enough slows and melee is forgiving enough to simply play catch-up and keep your damage on the target. The snares are a gimmick. What marauders need is a way to do damage from afar or to close the gap when the opponent separates via a stun or knockback (much more common than being slowed and unable to keep up to a running foe). To this end annihilation and rage provide solutions (bleeds/faster charge CD and obliterate/ranged force damage/burst). Carnage provides no such solution. The theory behind carnage is to spam Massacre, which is mildly stronger than Vicious Slash only if vicious slash is not talented for +15% crit. It also gives free crit force scream which are weaker than force screams from the rage tree, although crits in that tree are luck-based. The benefit of the carnage tree over any of the other trees is Gore. All that needs to be said, then, is this. Gore is broken. It's 4.5 seconds of usefulness are too easily denied, it's rage cost too high to maintain sustained dps if you go for burst during the gore, and the gore benefit itself is only useful vs high armor mitigation, while a large percentage of damage is actually blocked by shields(i.e. barrier abilities) or defensive abilities on cooldowns (which gore does not help against). Gore is broken and thus so is carnage. To the "prove it" comments, just save it. No one can prove anything, and to force us to provide proof when you can't do it yourself is ludicrous. Look at the talents: based purely on the theorycraft differences between the specs, carnage can only be better in very select scenarios, and it's not worth speccing into for that, unless you find it to be fun.