Annihilation vs. Carnage in end game, generaly speaking

[jellOfish]

I did some testing at lvl 42 whit ani and carnage.

 

Foudn that whit quinn, i got better DPS as carnage, and the diffrence on my HP pool after fight was max 5% from normals to elite mobs.

 

Alone whitout a commp, i did some better on normal\silver mobs as carnage, but had maby 10% more whit ani.

 

As i play on a pvp server, i whould use quinn anyway for safty.

 

 

But my bigest issue whit ani is that it is to statick, if you miss rotation you lose dps and healing and you need to following the rotation 100%, so you effectly get alot less utility.

 

 

carnage IS utility, becouse there is no notable rotation, but as it is skill on demand play you got utility when ever you need it.

 

i use abilitys on the pre tense i "see" what does te most dmg.

 

I.E on a Silver mob, i whould charge, ARP hit then ravage and finish of whit massacre, as liver mob is usualy dead at this time.

 

normals i charge aoe stun and just 2 3 GCD them whit any high dmamge hiting skill off CD\GCD.

 

 

But i got jumped alot as i play pvp server, and so far i lost 1 fight, becouse I messed up, i hadnt bothered to keybind and was just messing around and was a n00b, got my act together and keybound and i havent gotn killed yet on a full pvp EU server, and im lvl 45.

 

 

Naa, i say i pref carnae for the utility, and atleast the profund illusion of better dmg.

 

Also that i have seen others who where in beta when they had combat log comparing ani to carnage, saying it was obvious at that time carnage did more, way more dmg, but some skill have been re fitted, so unless we get a dmg metre, we wont know yet.

 

I wouldn't exactly say it's more damage but rather that it's quicked damage with carnage. The thing is it seems so high because of the initial spike cause by chaining gore>ravage>force scream. After that it slows down some. However, annihilation can kill just as fast imo, especially when strongs and elites are in play and there is time for the dots to actually kick in. A strong mobs goes like BA>rupture>annihilate>VS and the mob is pretty much dead. Not that much difference to be honest. For PvP it's something different tho. You do not have that spiky damage when you need it.

[jellOfish]

I levelled as Anni with Quinn, I did all my Claas Quests solo and never broke into a sweat, no matter what the game threw at me, I reached 50 in under 5 days played and took everything layed back.

No idea if it would of been better with Vette but with Quin I had zero down time and I killed Golds faster than most were killing Silvers.

 

It wouldn't be better, I tried and instantly dismissed the idea. Quinn is just a fricken monster, especially in later levels and good gear. People keep telling me that they have used the DPS compations without issues and that they did not need the healing. I simply refuse to believe that. They are either not telling the truth or had to channel after ever fight or two. I do not know about others but channeling is pissing me off as I have to stand there and do nothing. With Quinn you basically got zero downtime, especially now that I can also heal myself.

[Majinr]

It wouldn't be better, I tried and instantly dismissed the idea. Quinn is just a fricken monster, especially in later levels and good gear. People keep telling me that they have used the DPS compations without issues and that they did not need the healing. I simply refuse to believe that. They are either not telling the truth or had to channel after ever fight or two. I do not know about others but channeling is pissing me off as I have to stand there and do nothing. With Quinn you basically got zero downtime, especially now that I can also heal myself.

 

I ran around with vette till level 38, but that because i reached 10,000 affection with her, now i switched over to quinn - i have to say he does cause u to have lower downtime , but vette was just better in killing things faster.. both have their ups but i have to agree that quinn does make things easier, but it doesnt mean dps comp is not viable - it totally is

[GuitarSolo]

What is the ideal rotation for Carnage rauders? Edited January 5, 2012 by GuitarSolo

[Matayo]

I've leveled up to 49 now using Carnage with Vette, and then Jaesa since I got her. I Have soloed everything up to this point. It's been rough, but fun. Managed to keep my gear up to par as I level. I can see for sure that it is very gear dependent and If you don't pay attention, it's pretty easy to get your face kicked in. Maybe not as much with a healer companion following you around though, but I liked how fast things died having a DPS companion following me around.

 

Going to have to try Annihilation at some point though.

[Viscerus]

It wouldn't be better, I tried and instantly dismissed the idea. Quinn is just a fricken monster, especially in later levels and good gear. People keep telling me that they have used the DPS compations without issues and that they did not need the healing. I simply refuse to believe that. They are either not telling the truth or had to channel after ever fight or two. I do not know about others but channeling is pissing me off as I have to stand there and do nothing. With Quinn you basically got zero downtime, especially now that I can also heal myself.

 

I used Vette up until around 35 and it was fine, but after that I had to make the switch to Quinn.

 

I leveled as Carnage. didn't have any problems getting to 50 and completing the story.

[KOREAslayer]

If you want to grind elites you're playing the wrong class. The tanks do this very well with very similar dps as they are nearly unkillable due to the 5 defensive cds on relatively low timers.

 

I have pretty much the best possible gear for the current content and while I have no intention to solo elites (ever) I think it would be much more difficult than if I were any of the tank classes with baseline level 50 epic gear.

 

The first tree is by far the worse. The other two are fairly close. I prefer the middle tree for a couple reasons. If your gear is bad the 3rd tree might come out ahead, but I was pretty much done gearing up when I took the time to estimate my dps.

[Kibaken]

My sig gives a good idea on how to play both along with detailing their strengths and weaknesses.

 

Also, for the record, I leveled as Carnage 1-50 using Vette, Quinn when I got him and then Jaesa until 50. The only time I busted Quinn out otherwise was for the story's conclusion fight. I didn't have any problems other than that *** hole.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Kibaken

[Kanzel]

I've raided as both Carnage and Anni in mostly Columi(T2 PvE) gear, and in terms of raw damage output Carnage quickly began to outshine Anni. The sheer damage output coming out of Massacre once your fury stacks up far exceeded the benefit of automatically critting some bleeds with minor healing, and I found that in many situations(particularly while platforming the final boss in EV) your group healing will amount to diddly. The free 6% hit from Carnage was of massive use when I first started hard modes as well, allowing for more power/crit/surge stacking. The end result is a Massacre that can potentially crit for over 3k damage on a 1 second GCD while berserk, followed by a nasty scream.

 

Your fury might stack up more quickly as Anni, but it's no where on the level of Carnage's burst, which was exceptional for burn phases. On top of that I can't express how incredibly disheartening it is to be cruisin' along, and suddenly you're hovering in the air being thrown around the room by the final boss in EV, just watching your Annihilation buff fade away--or at any point when you're CC'd and unable to break with Unleash, which is true of the majority of stuns in raids... something I'd expect to remain constant.

 

The only thing that was nice about Anni was the reduced cooldown on Force Charge, but I find I haven't had much use for it in the most difficult encounters--it's up when I need it if I don't waste it foolishly.

 

TL;DR: Carnage scaled better than Anni as I geared up and was easier to play.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Kanzel

[Manigma]

The thing with annihilation is you dont need quinn.

 

I only use Vette, I tried quinn a bit when I got him, but kill rates are so slow without extra dps, I tried jaesa when I got her, shes good too but I just prefer having the ranged dps, Vette doesnt get in the way and has better survivability than jaesa.

 

Kitted out with appropraite modded orange gear, Vette chucks out insane damage, everything dies very, very quickly, cloak of pain, berserk, and the bleeds give me healing and survivability, charge, roar, disrupt, obfuscate, choke are all interupts to stop the big damage from gold mobs, I've just finished Voss, I soloed everything, even the sel makor avatar using vette, and Im level 47, so not over levelled to make it easier, if anything, 1 level below where I should be.

I found Vette to be a terrible companion, by the time she charged her shot I had killed whatever she was aiming at most of the time. Other times she was stuck/stood still and or just wouldn't join a fight for 5-6 seconds (no she wasn't set to passive).

 

Quinn on the other hand is actually useful with his healing and if you set him to damage stance you get some decent output without the overkill or annoying channeling skills Vette uses.