Does anyone else feel the bolstering down to 70 is taking off too much in stats / output? Its felt notably more difficult in content since leveling past 70, and it doesn't make a lot of sense why BW would do that.

You can definitely do very good raw damage in the right situation, but Marauders running in Rage versus Juggernauts give up a lot of survivability, and really don't add a lot of dps since Smash doesn't benefit from an off-hand lightsaber. I wasn't saying Rage was useless, just that if you were going to run a Rage/AoE team you want Juggs, not Marauders given their heavy armor and larger health pools.

The reality is that Carnage and Annihilation are basically even in damage output. Now will Carnage do better burst, and therefore be better suited to the role most melee dps fill in PvP? Yes, it does, but Annihilation brings other things to the party that makes it just as good in certain teams/roles as well. Anni gives you a faster CD on our interrupt, shorter CD on Charge, and it gives us better sustained dps with less severe valleys in between damage peaks. Sitting here saying one or the other is markedly superior to the other is silly when they have similar, if not quite even, dps, and both have features that make them better and worse in certain situations. Now what should be mocked as a worthless spec for Marauders, and considered terrible is Rage, which as we all know is a gimmicky AoE spec, and utterly inferior to Carnage in single-target burst as well as being far too dependent on people clumping together.

Personally I've noticed that for raids Carnage dps is very competitive with Annihilation once you have 75% or higher crit damage so our crits can catch us up to Anni's DoTs.

If worst comes to worst and they can't fix Target Tracking/Deadly Cannon impacting Unload/Full Auto crits due to impacting other code at least they know about it, and can have it factor into future balancing of the spec.

Adjust Resolve so instead of giving immunity when it fills you build resistance to CC as it builds. This would prevent someone who is 1 or 2 points away from being at full Resolve taking a 4 sec hard CC or 5 sec soft CC when they have already been heavily CC'd.

Honestly the biggest positive for Carnage/Combat is the greater availability of Surge on our PvP gear which will make Carnage even more devastating in terms of its single-target burst.

I like the BH designs a lot, only one on Empire I'm not crazy about is the Sorc PvP set as it looks a little odd. From an itemization standpoint I am so glad we have a good amount of Surge on gear now, in particular for my poor Carnage Marauder.

With Carnage you give up the wow omg numbers from Rage Smash on low expertise, low armor classes, and the superior sustain dps from Anni for the ability to shred tanks in addition to dps and healers. Carnage Mara fully geared into power/crit/surge, and not over-specced into accuracy as the base Enhancements on our PvE/PvP is we are exceptionally effective.

You do realize that it is Rail Shot/High Impact Bolt, Heatseeker Missiles/Demo Round and Unload/Full Auto with Barrage/Curtain of Fire proc that does the most damage? The only reason we "spam" Tracer/Grav beyond 5 stacks of our armor sunder is to proc Barrage/Curtain of Fire, and to build up Tracer Lock/Charged Barrel to increase the damage of Rail Shot/High Impact Bolt. The thing you are upset about is that Arsenal/Gunnery as a tree is completely and totally dependent upon Tracer/Grav for all of our other abilities to do good damage. Furthermore players who simply spam Tracer/Grav are a favor to you an opponent as that drastically reduces the damage potential of the spec.

You do realize Vengeance is substantially better overall as it gives you more focused, consistent dps output, as well as high pressure single-target damage? Rage is used because it gives you "oh look wut I critted vs undergeared squishies" when in reality its sustain is horrific, and will never, never compete with an equal geared, skilled Vengeance spec. I have seen BM Juggs in Vengeance go for 470k in damage, almost all single-target while having excellent survivability thanks to their heavy armor.

To the people complaining: Do you realize that TM/GR is the basis of all of our other rotation skills in Arsenal/Gunnery? Do you also realize that any melee with an interrupt murders Mercs/Commandos in 1v1 fights unless we are heal specced?

Combat/Carnage is best suited for killing tanks via the 100% armor pen buff, and is highly gear-dependent unlike Annihilation which is more skill-dependent though Carnage/Combat is skill heavy as well. Once you get Champion/Battlemaster gear try Carnage/Combat, and you will be amazed how much better your damage is then.

Big thing with Marauder/Sentinel is that it has a very high skill requirement to be effective with unlike some other classes. In addition to that the DoTs from Annihilation/Watchman can be cured. What should be frightening to people are well-geared Carnage/Combat Marauder/Sentinels as they have massive burst when they can use their optimum rotation on opening.

Just to zero in on fights with Snipers/Gunslingers, if I can start the fight with them I will normally win it as I will pop Predation + Camo to close to melee, and then the Sniper is SOL as I will have taken no damage, and be in melee with them, Force Choke to break cover, and then burst down.

You do realize that the entire concept of the Rage/Focus tree is to have sucky as heck sustained damage with big AoE spikes on occasion? Vengeance/Vigilance is infinitely superior to Rage/Focus, and the only reason the community isn't screaming for it to be nerfed is because it requires some skill/gear to be effective in.

I'm still gearing my Anni Marauder, I'm assuming once you get geared healers stop smiling at you and laughing at your damage right? I feel like I'm tickling them right now, but again I'm not geared yet, not even Cent so I'm guessing it gets better with more Str. and Expertise.

As we all know Fury (oops, I mean Carnage) is gimped due to Ataru Form procs not hitting enemies with large hitboxes as its range doesn't scale off of hitbox size like other melee attacks. Also Annihilation has substantial survive, and does monstrous damage once your Force Crit is around 30% so your bleeds consistently crit along with Annhilate + Ravage weapon damage.

Arsenal does Kinetic/Physical damage, and Pyro does Elemental. This means Arsenal will have higher base damage due to the higher mitigation in solo content. The problem for Pyrotech at least in my raid group is we have 5 stacking 20% armor sunders which means we are reducing the target's armor by around 70% plus the Armor Pen on HV Gas Cylinder. So that means our Kinetic/Energy Damage is being mitigated a lot less than is normal, and that means Pyro's advantage of special damage is out the window. The other big reason in group/raid content that Arsenal blows Pyro out of the water is that HSM's damage is increased for each stack of Heat Sig, not just yours, on the target. This allows me to crit with HSM for 8k in my raid group. This is in addition to the fact that in Rakata gear you will constantly proc the heat dump on TM/HSM and Unload off of crits which means you will only over-heat if you intentionally do so to burn Vent Heat. Pyrotech gets blown away, like every other dps spec, by Arsenal over long fights and because of Heat Sig's contribution to raid members' dps.

Don't get Seeping Wound, just don't do it, it is a waste of two points that won't change the fact most enemies can simply KB you, and the extra slow on top of our snare won't matter then. Close Quarters is better for long fights as it gives you the extra Interrupt at point-blank and 4 rage which is extremely helpful to get you more Vicious Slash rage dumps.

True, but I also think for Annihilation you're going to run into a cost/benefit issue taking force crit over accuracy as Vicious Slash, and I believe Ravage in addition to the Assault skills have an off-hand component to them. You're getting 6% crit for your two bleeds which should be at 45%-50% crit all the time once you're geared, and 90% with Berserk up. Whereas even though you only need accuracy at 108% for auto hits from the MH component of Vicious Slash and Ravage you can still push the accuracy of the OH component up.

I personally take Accuracy in Carnage to free up itemization for crit/surge/power sooner.

Once you have the 4 piece bonus for the PvE Eliminator set you should use the following rotation: Tracer Missile x3, Heatseeker Missile (HSM), TM x2, Rail Shot with Unload used at the end of your rotation or before Barrage falls off. You should never have more than 39 heat except when you are going into Rail + Unload and then only between 40-48, and if another TM/HSM will push you over use Rapid Shots/Thermal Sensor. The reason for the 5 TM before Rail is to maximize Tracer Lock as the bonus it gives to Rail Shot's damage is substantial. Furthermore because Rail is effectively a net 5 heat loss ability at 0-39 heat with the 4 set piece you can use it at the tail end of your rotation with Barrage proc Unloads to give your Heat regen time. Furthermore the x2 TM gives you separation time in the CDs for HSM and Rail giving you more time to keep your heat down through Rapid Shots.

As an Annihilation Marauder I would say Crit > Surge for Annihilation. This is for slightly better chance at DoT crits because of the higher frequency/lower damage. However for Carnage and Rage I would argue Crit is less important than even Power due to the auto crit for Smash, and the 100% of your Crit chance added to Force Scream with Towering Rage up.

100% Arsenal Merc or Gunnery Commando in first and it isn't close either. This is particularly true in operations with multiple Mercs/Commandos as Heatseeker Missiles/Demolition Round bonus damage scales off of every Heat Signature/Gravity Vortex stack on the boss, not just your own. The next class I would say is a good Vengeance Juggernaut/Vigilance Guardian as they do exceptional direct damage combined with steady DoT along with very good resource sustainability, unlike some other dps classes such as Sorcs/Sages which for long fights have serious resource constraint.