I agree that our damage potential is good. Do any of the theory crafter types know what the implications of raising our defense chance value might be? Would it make a significant difference? My reasoning would be that agility would make the Sentinel/Marauder more capable of dodging melee attacks and deflecting ranged attacks and if we were to liken the class to the typical rogue/ninja type of class wouldn't our training involve some type of resistance to internal poisoning attacks which would justify taking medium armor to allow greater agility over heavy armor? I really think there's some justification to adjusting the baseline defense values for the class to improve our solo performance in ranked pvp but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how or where these should be applied. Also, I'd love it if obsfucate applied its debuff to all types of attacks and not just melee and ranged and had a base range of 10 meters extendable to 30 with the utility

Absolutely true no argument there. Except that in 4v4 there's very little time or space to sit back, assess the situation, and do this. Let's say you're a single mara with 3 stealth on your team. You get focused, blow some cool downs just to reposition and hope you have something left to assist in a first kill before you're finished off. Or you are up against all stealth who have the initiative. You're forced to react to their attack pattern, again no choice but to blow a cool down early and hope that your teammates have sufficiently dropped the hp of an opponent for you to be able to assist with that kill. These scenarios are common on my server. Additionally, everyone doing pvp seems overly obsessed with total damage as opposed to total kills which leads to unnecessary trolling of maras who might do their fair share of killing blows but significantly less damage overall and are unable to farm healing (unless Anni) or protection points and end up lower on the medals earned. Don't get me wrong, plenty of players appreciate and recognize predation in regs which often leads to some mvps, but it's the exception to the general rule.

The devs use ranked pvp as their main source of data for class balance which is probably because, of all the endgame content it, has the least number of variables to take into account on face value. The problem with classes like sniper and mara is that with good healer support we can perform very well in ranked pvp. Without it, we are the least sturdy and most succeptable to being controlled and shut down from maximizing our damage output. Mercs have similar issues and even juggernauts can fail when up against many compositions that are weighted heavily by the stealth classes. Dps nerfs to sorcs, sins, pts, and operatives have not been extensive enough to bring the pure dps classes above the threshold that would make sense to players and the defensive tweaks to sent/mara in particular have not been enough to give us a truly non healer dependent class to play in solo ranked pvp. The matching system in solo ranked is incredibly flaky, random, and frustrating to deal with and one of the main reasons why it's difficult to find any sense of balance in the game. Stealth is just too much of an advantage. When you get 10 matches straight against 4 stealth vs mostly melee you start question the validity of allowing such an advantage in the game at all. But then you luck out, get a good healer in the group and feel godly against anything. Given that it's our succeptability to taking high amounts of damage in both PvE and PvP at endgame with very few ways to mitigate it, I would suggest that the devs take another look at the baseline aspects of Sentinel/Marauder and improve our abilities that mitigate damage in a way that can keep us in the fight just that little bit longer without being so reliant on healers

Ok this will never happen but... Shadow Step Creates an illusion of yourself that will continue to lose health if attacked for 3 seconds and places you behind your target. Resets the cd of force choke. You will effectively be force camoed for 3 seconds. The camo effect will break before 3 seconds if you start dealing damage. Hell, while I'm at it may as well be useable while stunned. You do not continue to build resources from attacks dealt to the illusion of yourself. Cool down 2 minutes

That's actually a very good question. Some players have logged some outstanding dps parses for HM boss fights in Carnage spec but they are very few and far between. Carnage should have always been given Deadly Throw as a baseline ability and kept viable at least for pvp but for some reason the devs nerfed it into a "learn how to maraud" leveling spec and went too far oversimplifying it's rotation. The thing I don't think they're fully aware of is just how difficult the timing of the Gore windows can be on a dummy parse let alone a HM boss fight especially with lag factored in. I do hope that the KOTFE xpac brings something special to the Carnage equation.

For Fury utilities I recommend for regular warzones: Brazen, Overwhelm, and Inexorable in Skillful, Relentless and Phantom in Masterful, and Unbound and Undying in Heroic. For ranked arenas swap Relentless for Defensive Roll and Unbound for Expunging Camo

Sadly for Xeoh, he's stuck in a pre 3.0 time warp that has little relevance to the game in real time

Ok this is all well and good but the fact s are things have changed: 1 Fury is the designated burst spec post 3.0 and Carnage is a hybrid burst/sustained dps spec. 2 Most other ACs have gained more mobility which has had a negative impact on the Mara/Sentinel class which used to have superior mobility 3. BW have made it pretty clear that dps buffs are NOT the way they intend to address class balanc moving forward. With that in mind, the idea here is to come up with ideas on how to improve what we already have in the current game environment that are viabe for pvp and pve. I'd love a harder hitting Ravage. No question there. I don't think I'm going to get it so there's no point using any pre 3.0 references in asking for future tweaks to the class or the Carnage discipline.

Ok this was never meant to be a combat/carnage specific thread. More a suggestion for all specs. But seeing as it's gone this way I'd like to point out that prior to 3.0 you got 3cgds into a gore window and additionaly could reliably hit vicious throw before gore to get that full burst you're talking about so I find the arguments that solely call for a ravage buff to bring back the intensity of the combat/carnage burst a bit of an oversimplification. Regardless of the value of your ravage damage you're still gonna be susceptible to cc during a hard switch. I've also said all specs should get a version of gravity vortex cc immunity like fury spec has several times on the forums so I agree on that point. Tldr: the game has changed since pre 3.0 kindly move on

And you find your damage lacking? Would a buffed Ravage make a huge difference in your gameplay experience?

Hmmmmm..... You guys actually pvp on your marauder/sentinels or have you benched them?

It's more about taking away the need to stand still and channel an ability at all to further increase mobility. A jugg should be able to stand still take damage and put out damage with their survivability. A mara should be played differently in both pvp and pve. The damage is fine for me in both carnage and fury. Haven't played Anni since 3.0 so I can't talk for that spec. With so much immunity to movement impairment in pvp a ravage on the move can only increase uptime on targets that can easily evade it and kite you. Same for pve with so many mechanics that might cause you to use a different skill in your rotation to move out of the circle of incoming damage etc.

I've thought that about the animation before but I don't think it's as big an issue as people might make out. Look at the acrobatic/spinning jugg attacks shatter and impale and how they play out on the move. If it's a big problem easy fix... Make a replacement ability

Marauder/Sentinel only Ravage on the move would pretty much make this class perfect and distinguish us from Juggs in a very cool way. The only other thing I can think of is a cd reduction utility for unleash or ability to activate a defensive like UR or FC while stunned but that might be too much. I'd like this more than the idea of giving us more self heals just like every other class.

For Fury and Carnage I go 3 Alacrity enhancements rest Power Surge and all Power Augs

While I wouldn't go so far as to say everything is perfect I do agree that my mara feels stronger in PvP. The utilities are starting to feel like there are some worthwhile options to pick from. Saw a lot of maras and sents in wzs trying out Anni/watchman yesterday and I see this as a good thing. I personally love phantom, even before it also granted my fury mara the movement speed I used to get only in carnage. If the devs can find a way to replace the lost dps for the PvE annihilation players then they will have actually done something good for the class. I am happy with how the class feels in pvp

Thanks Fayt for the feedback. I can see that there are both positives and negatives to this change but it's heartening to see Anni maras back in pvp. How to balance this mess out for PvE tho... Well, there's more work to be done

PvP Fury I'm gonna try: Skillful - brazen, inexorable, overwhelm Masterful - relentless, phantom Heroic - unbound, undying

Ok there's good news and bad news.. The good news is that as far as top ratings for ranked pvp go marauders have leveled with juggs with snipers now taking the lowest bracket title. The bad news is that this means, in the eyes of the devs, the class is performing as intended and that the most recent changes have been successful. Not sure how much of an impact 3.2.1 will have on the ratings and of course there is no way to really measure HM PvE performance outside of player provided data but I believe that further changes to the class will slow down and be limited to utilities tweaks and hopefully an overhaul of Anni.

You changed the topic dopey. Grats of your 6/10 in HM PvE. It has little to do with what's being discussed in this particular thread. You're just wasting space here being a troll and a hypocrite. Now begone bad sentinel! Go enjoy your guardian and enjoy the actual game. The less time you waste typing here will mean the more time you'll have at your disposal to terrorize those pesky rdps in warzones given that you work such long hours and have so little time to actually play SWTOR with your 46 hour work schedule and all

Grats on the mainhand drop and good work on that latest parse too brother! The guide is good, thank you for keeping it updated and keeping the fresh Combat Carnage players on point!

Can't get Torque down aye? Bad Btw, this is primarily a pvp thread, stay on topic

Perhaps if you read my posts you'd acknowledge that I am not happy with the way the devs have changed this class. Perhaps if you were in control of your emotions you'd be less inclined to troll and flame and more able to contribute valid posts on this forum instead of making outlandish claims. Perhaps if you tried a little more you'd discover aspects of the class that you were previously unaware of and use them to your advantage in warzones and operations. You have zero proof to share that the class is being deleted and zero proof to share that I get paid by BW to post what I post so if I'm wrong... Prove it.

10m range root back. Cc immunity off ability activation similar to jugg. Predation off Fury system. Merge of undying rage utilities... These changes were all asked for and implemented or are incoming. I'm not saying the way they have been implemented in the utility tree has been done well but they were all ideas that were asked for by the community since 3.0 launched. Annihilation discipline is a mess since 3.0 and I think it has been handled extremely poorly by the devs so I can understand the negativity surrounding that spec right now. BW are losing a significant section of the SWTOR community and will continue to do so until they can get this class properly balanced. They do listen to our feedback and attempt to implement some of our ideas. We need to keep pushing this forward and testing out everything to keep them on track. It's not ideal and it's not always fun but someone's gotta do it right

Yes. 3.0 kinda destroyed the essential nature of Annihilation spec and took away its unique play style. Carnage and Fury are still ok to play in terms of functionality. The main reason the class under performs is more to do with the excessive nature of the buffs (defensives/cc/movement etc) all the other ACs got out of the transition to 3.0 and the overall better design of their utilities and the melee unfriendly content in PvE. It's an imbalance in the game overall and the fact that our high sustained dps spec got changed way too much that leaves the class trailing behind everyone else