WM/HM Raiding Marauder's Rage Guide

[Talarii]

This is a guide for Marauders. I am writting this because in my opinion a lot of people are complaining about a class that has SO many perks and powers I cannot believe that so many people complain.

 

Couple things up front, I have played all three specs in PvE and PvP. I am rank 60.5 in pvp atm and have cleared both raids completely post patch 1.1. I am sure I am not the best player by far nor the best in this class but based on what is being said in the forums some info is needed.

 

I am going to go over my spec: what/why/how.

 

I will talk about pvp and pve rotations and strategies. I will talk about specific skills. Marauders have really complex rotations, that is the nature of it because we have so many cds and situational tactics. I will be broad in my discussion.

 

I will talk about gear and what I found for optimization, in as far as one can without meters to really test this out.

 

I will throw a few miscellaneous point sin the end and I will try to answer questions later on.

 

IMPORTANT: This is my first class guide. Be kind.

 

PART 1: SPEC

 

RAGE: I am currently 5/5/31.

 

The only things I DO NOT HAVE in Rage tree are:

 

Unbreakable Rage: Unnecessary. In PvE it is not a problem and in PvP you will only get the first 2 ticks of ravage off anyway, which I will mention in the pvp section again.

 

Strangulate: PvE you simply do not need it. PvP it is fairly uncommon given all the circumstances you find yourself in that you are being hit while choking someone. Because of that, skip it.

 

Relentless Fury: Because it only gives 10 rage at the end, not really worth it. I find I do not have a hard time building fury, and in circumstances when you need it quickly having 10 of 30 simply doesn't matter enough. Skip it.

 

In the Carnage tree I DO HAVE:

 

Duel Wield Mastery 3/3: Because our offhand doesn't scale this is needed so that you can actually have noticeable offhand crits. I am sporting 37% crit chance with my melee attacks (43% with force abilities). When your offhand hits in all three strikes of Ravage you are doing another 1000-1500dmg on it. That matters. Basically start looking at the offhand numbers and you see that this helps.

 

Cloak of Carnage 2/2: You are commonly taking damage in PvE and PvP and as such this helps with rage generation which can occasionally be a problem in Rage if your rotation is sloppy or if you are in a fight long enough.

 

In the Annihilation tree I DO HAVE:

 

Quick Recovery 2/2: This is mandatory. Period. If your are rage spec, or almost any spec, and you do not get this your out of your mind, to put it kindly. You will be using smash on cd as Rage and having it cost 1 Rage is amazing. I do not find myself using sweeping strike often to be honest, I could use it more, but I don't.

 

Enraged Slash 3/3: This is questionable. There are times when I have an overabundance of rage build up and I can dump a chain of Vicious Slashes in. Mine crit for 2500 without counting offhand dmg. This is nothing to discount. Doing that much dmg every gcd is nice.

 

Minor alterations depending on preference could work. However the real important thing with Rage spec is you want BIG numbers. It is what this spec is all about. Your are not doting people or slowly chipping away. You are walking in and blowing them up all at once.

 

NOTES ON OTHER SPECS:

 

Why not Carnage: It does have a couple nice perks with the whole ravage holding people in place thing. That could be good in circumstances for PvP. The bottom line with Carnage is the damage sucks. It just plain sucks.

 

Extra strike for Ataru form do not hit often enough to add enough to your dps. The fact that you get a free crit scream means nothing because your force power crit chance should be close to 50% when you have some tier 3 gear. Massacre is does not do enough damage. All this while accounting for Gore being up, and having to always put it back up. Gore being on a 15 second cd and only lasting 6 seconds is just silly.

 

Even if it could keep up with Rage dps, and it cannot, you cannot touch Rage aoe dps. Carnage is out. If the Ataru strikes had no cd, or if Gore lasted longer, or if it made Ravage cast quicker and have a shorter cd..or many other things then it would be worth while. For movement it does win, for dps it loses.

 

Why not Annihilation: Same as above really with different complaints. Annihilation likely has same if not better dps on single target while berserk is up and you are critting every dot. This is on single targets only and it is questionable at best because my berserk makes me do 5k dmg every gcd with no rage cost. 5K dmg because I am doing 2.5k cleaves on 2 targets. This is all optimal of course, I do not crit every swing and all that, but bottom line is cleave > dots. Annihilation does nice damage. It is about 20-30% behind smash. Which blows my mind. I go on same types of targets with both abilities and cap out around 5-5.5k on annihilate and will get 6.5k on smash...and again, its aoe. I will dare say that rotation can be even more difficult to manage on Annihilation because of the need to keep the annihilate cd buff active or else you lose a ton of dps.

 

That is my opinion. I have not put as much time into other specs as rage but I have played all three and the numbers I am seeing and the speed things die at tell me a lot.

 

ROTATIONS AND STRATEGIES:

 

PvE: Standard Rotation: Charge-> Crush(Shockwave/Dominate up now) → Battering Assault → Smash → Scream → Ravage → Obliterate → Choke(Shockwave/Dominate up again) → Smash → Scream....

 

At this point you are optimizing cds so you can scream/smash/ravage and such whenever they come off cd. Very rarely you will smash without with shockwave or dominate on it to optimize the damage. If you have a moment, which at times you will, you can quickly back out and charge again to bring dominate up. If you do this with proper timing you will only lose about half a gcd worth of time to make smash autocrit which might be worth it. With a 40%+ crit chance its questionable and I am playing with that. It does give you more rage though.

 

You notice I did not include vicious strikes. I found that at max level play you really do not need them to fill in your rotation. You want to use force abilities as often as possible and with all the other cds you have you do not have to resort to rage dumping very often.

 

Berserk timing: I find in boss fights I will build enough fury to go Berserk and spam my 6 vicious strikes around when I am waiting on cds to come up and I can use this to effectively reset my whole rotation and max our my dps again. Which I can then use Frenzy to do a 2nd time if necessary. In most boss fights you will be moving around and not be standing still so much as for this to be a problem though.

 

Defensive cds: Obviously as an off tank you need to go into a fight with cloak up. This will help build rage and keep you alive longer. This ability really is amazing in that you can have it up 50% of the time, its like free rage and defense.

 

Use Saber Ward when you go into a pack, blow your first smash, and see a ton of red numbers start popping up. When I crit a pack that first time it is not too uncommon to pull most of them off the tank. As tanks get better geared this happens less and less but the moment you realize you have 2 or more on you blow this ability as well as cloak if its not up and you will survive until the tank taunts. If he doesn't taunt by the time this is down...get a new tank. LoL

 

Undying Rage: This seems a bit OP to me. Obviously you need to use this when you are as low as you can manage. I usually hit it if I go to about 2500hp or so. I have 15-16k hp depending on buffs. Remember to pop a medkit the moment after you hit this, it helps a lot. I usually call on vent when I blow my invulnerability. This single ability got me so many boss fights when we had just hit 50 and were doing hard modes and hitting enrage timers. Those few seconds to finish a boss make all the difference in the world.

 

Predation and Bloodthirst are all situational. Just know when a good time for your group to use this and call it. On Soa you wanna use Bloodthirst on phase 1 asap(when he is not invulnerable) because it will come up for phase 3 again.

 

Force Camo: Pulled agro early? Hit your vanish. Seriously, marauders getting vanish is so OP it makes me laugh. Can this class have any more amazing abilities?

 

PVP TIME!

 

Rotation is very similar except you are not standing still and blowing people up. You are going for a few big crits to instantly turn the fight in your favor and/or rotating cds so that you outlast people.

 

Charge → Crush → BA → Smash → Scream → Choke → Obliterate(If they break choke early obliterate immediately) → Smash → Scream.....they should be dead already.

 

On anything that isn't tanky as hell you will be in a huge lead by now. The first half of the rotation works because Crush allows you to stay on them via the snare. The smash will take a huge chunk of HP and Scream critting next will scare the hell out of them because the last tick of Crush will go at the same time and they see a string of large numbers. 90% of the time people turn to run, you choke the !@#$ out of them, obliterate(which hastes you so they cannot get away) and you smash/scream again.

 

If they do not blow cds to stay alive they should be dead or at like 10%. Either way, you get this rotation off and you win the fight. What is really awesome is even if they run half way through this your charge comes back up and you get another free crit smash.

 

On tanky targets you need to rotate big hits and your own cds to out last people.

 

Do your rotation until they break it, they almost always will with the Choke part. Go ahead and obliterate and smash/scream still. You wont do as much damage but what happens is most of the time they think they have the upper hand because you didn't stun them full duration. 90% of the time a Trooper will stand there after they broke your force choke and try to dps you or stun/dps you. In which case you break their stun and ravage them. If you start ravaging people when they start dpsing you they will not stop and run. Your ravage will simply out dps them because it hits like a truck. When that is done you should have enough dps cds up to rotate on them again.

 

All the while you are rotating your defensive cds. I will usually blow saber ward right before I ravage to tip that point in my favor. If at some point I mess up my smash setups I will use camo to position myself for a charge so I can setup another big hit.

 

If I am fighting people 2 or 3 on 1 I always look to the squishy target first, not the highest dps cause that is not always the same or easy to tell. If I see a robe or light armor, that is my target. Once my first rotation is done I will likely go berserk and start cleaving them. Realize when you are doing this you are allowing them to hit you for 6 gcd so you need to turn defensive at this point.

 

If they stun you and you are at 100% health let them hurt you a bit before breaking the stun, take advantage of Payback. Being a force ability it crits a lot. I get my 2.5k heal badge in pvp every match from these critting. But let them hurt you a bit so they have abilities on cd and you healed off the damage.

 

The overall strategy with Marauder Rage spec is you get on them, and you show off a big number immediately to throw them off. If they do not think they can do their normal rotation then you have them because it is HARD to get away from a marauder. If a class mezzes you and just runs off an you cannot break the 6+ sec mez then nothing to be done about that. If its 3 seconds or less then they will not get out of range of charge.

 

Optional, if you think someone will run from you then snare them. Our snare goes for 12 seconds and they are not getting away from that. As a marauder if you have your cds up then you should be able to solo any other class...ANY. From my experience if you rotate defenses properly you will never lose a 1v1 fight. The class that is the toughest: Trooper/BH. Tanky as hell and does good dps in the right spec. This can be problematic but not unbeatable.

 

TIME TO TALK STATS AND GEAR:

 

Rage spec is all about those free smash crits and using force powers. Some of your highest dps abilities that you use a lot: Smash, Crush, Scream, Choke, Vicious throw is energy damage.

 

You have +6% crit chance on force abilities which means you should be around 40%. Without meters this is theory but here we go.

 

If you are using artifice enhancements then go Adept. This is 18 Endurance/27 Power/39 Surge. This will maximize when you crit. I swapped from Crit/Surge to Power/Surge and saw most of my abilities jump a few hundred points. I lost a few percent to crit but it simply seems to work better.

 

Most of the time though you are going to be using level 56/58 enhancements from gear. These are usually crit/surge and 6 levels of stats are simply better I would say.

 

If you get gear with accuracy and you can change the slot..DO IT. I am sitting on 103.77% accuracy on force abilities and I would rather change that out if I could. Anyhow, you will likely get repeat gear pieces eventually and find yourself taking out the extra level 56/58 enhancements on some to put in others to maximize.

 

MISCELLANEOUS:

 

I would recommend artifice so you can make your own hilts/crystals/enhancements.

 

Until you can DE the level 56/58 and learn the recipes you won't use them long after hitting 50 but it works. Honestly the trade skills endgame are not all that exciting yet, I hope they will be, but I make a lot of money off artifice so it works for me.

 

Here is the bottom line with this class. You have to rotate your cds properly. You need to keep yourself active. You have a lot to offer in terms of dps and buffs for the group. There is no reason every raid shouldn't have a marauder in it.

 

I have full T2 gear, couple of T3 pieces, both pvp and pve. I am in the 500k dmg club. I have put a lot of time into my Marauder and love the class. I think we get so much to play with its ridiculous.

 

Can we get cc'd to hell and never actually reach our target? Yes, it can happen and does in PvP. It happens to everyone. Charge is the envy of almost every class that doesn't have it. The fact is that if we get surrounded we can blow cds and it will take all those people a lot longer to kill us than almost every other class.

 

Because of all the complaining about this class it just might get a buff...which would be ridiculous. I read that even Bioware has said ours is the hardest rotation to manage correctly. This means to me we are really powerful, just really hard to master.

 

 

Again, if you think I am wrong on any given point I would be happy to back and forth. But I hope this helps.

[Paybacktc]

I really like this guide for rage, it pointed out a few key points that I did not notice before in PvE. But from my experience, a annihilation marauder that has mastered his spec against a mastered Rage marauder, Annihilation comes out on top every time. But then again this cannot be made a fact until some kind of parser comes out. Obviously Carnage needs a huge rework due to the amount of low damage it puts out. If anyone says it "does" do a lot of damage doesn't even know how to actually play a marauder. Edited January 21, 2012 by Paybacktc

[Talynsin]

Great guide, handy tips for any aspiring Rage Marauder.

 

Just one quick question: You mention your spec is 5/5/31 and which talents you do not take – Which talent do you not fully spec in the rage tree to allow 5 points for Annihilation and

Carnage and why?

 

Cheers!

[Kodokai]

Why would anyone smart take a rage marauder raiding?

 

MISCELLANEOUS:

 

I would recommend artifice so you can make your own hilts/crystals/enhancements.

 

Wrong. Biochem is still the strongest.

[Talarii]

Great guide, handy tips for any aspiring Rage Marauder.

 

Just one quick question: You mention your spec is 5/5/31 and which talents you do not take – Which talent do you not fully spec in the rage tree to allow 5 points for Annihilation and

Carnage and why?

 

Cheers!

 

Just copy/pasting from earlier in guide:

 

The only things I DO NOT HAVE in Rage tree are:

 

Unbreakable Rage: Unnecessary. In PvE it is not a problem and in PvP you will only get the first 2 ticks of ravage off anyway, which I will mention in the pvp section again.

 

Strangulate: PvE you simply do not need it. PvP it is fairly uncommon given all the circumstances you find yourself in that you are being hit while choking someone. Because of that, skip it.

 

Relentless Fury: Because it only gives 10 rage at the end, not really worth it. I find I do not have a hard time building fury, and in circumstances when you need it quickly having 10 of 30 simply doesn't matter enough. Skip it.

[Talarii]

Why would anyone smart take a rage marauder raiding?

 

 

 

Wrong. Biochem is still the strongest.

 

I will agree with this actually. Biochem is still the most functional. If at some point Artifice has some BoP recipes that are on par/better than what is otherwise available that will change. But Biochem is the best purely functional tradeskill.

[Talarii]

I really like this guide for rage, it pointed out a few key points that I did not notice before in PvE. But from my experience, a annihilation marauder that has mastered his spec against a mastered Rage marauder, Annihilation comes out on top every time. But then again this cannot be made a fact until some kind of parser comes out. Obviously Carnage needs a huge rework due to the amount of low damage it puts out. If anyone says it "does" do a lot of damage doesn't even know how to actually play a marauder.

 

I won't outright disagree with this. Without damage meters to really measure it is hard to say. However, the truth is if ae is viable in a given situation Rage wins hands down. Annihilation is about single target dps, and Rage has AE going for it. So in that regard it is going to be better even if the single target is somewhat equal.

 

There is a republic player that seems to be equally geared and is Annihilation spec on my server that I clash with often, and when it is one on one we come out even a lot of the time.

[Talarii]

Why would anyone smart take a rage marauder raiding?

 

 

 

Wrong. Biochem is still the strongest.

 

Oh, to answer your question about raiding...

 

Because you do better dps than the other specs. You ae adds better than other specs. You can give the group defense/haste and/or dps buffs.

 

Why would you not take me raiding?

[Dyslexicon]

Love your guide and its a great first effort at writing a guide but I had a few questions to ask about your spec and how things work for you.

How do you deal with cc's in most groups with all your aoe? Do you just ask tanks to move mobs away and/or los, it seems like alot of work and difficulty in places to deal with the aoe you cause. Fights like the bonus boss on KUS, the trash to the Foreman in KP and a few other places need cc and it seem like the spec is near worthless with its smash and other aoes.

How do you feel about Defensive Forms in Carnage vs Cloak of Carnage - it seems like Defensive Forms would be more rage more often and also more DR up more often, I rarely need my Cloak or Saber Ward cds and would often forget them in the din of some fights.

How do you think accuracy plays overall - I'm at 105.07% and I still see some misses with my offhand at a times, are these misses worth dropping it even lower for more crit/surge? Do you think the extra migation effects force attack positively more than melee?

Lastly, what do you think of our set bonuses for pvp and pve, they dont seem to be particularly special to any spec and you would have to reslot alot of crit/surge to get the ideal gear that you expound on.

 

Thanks for the read.

[Kibaken]

I have to completely disagree with you on your stance on the damage of Carnage and Annihilation. You won't see crits as high as you will in Rage but that by no stretch of the imagination means that the damage "just plain sucks." If you truly believe that bigger numbers = more damage you have no concept of the term Damage Per Second.

 

I've out-damaged Rage Marauders - and Juggernauts for that matter - in PvP as Carnage and both myself and my guild's other Marauder (Annihilation) regularly out-damage Rage Marauders in PvE.

 

I'd venture to say that Rage is actually the lowest single target DPS because of its complete revolution around Choke and Crush.

 

On Carnage:

 

Ataru hits all the time. I have no idea where you got that from but I'm constantly seeing Ataru hits. The free Force Scream crit is in the exact same boat as the free Smash crit from Rage; you completely contradict yourself here. Massacre does more damage than Vicious Slash due to part of it being an Ataru strike. Gore is incredibly overpowered to begin with in both PvE and PvP and if you think it should be any longer or is underpowered in its current state you must not PvP a lot. Reducing a tank specced Juggernaut's armor is god-like.

 

On Annihilation:

 

Berserk is amazing for every spec and is designed to be that way. Reducing the GCD on Massacre and getting 6 free Crits as Annihilation is just as good as Vicious Slash spam and is Rage's extra Rage generation ability (Blood Frenzy and Empowerment for Carnage and Annihilation, respectively). You're trying to compare the damage from Smash and Annihilate and quite literally saying Smash is better because it does more damage. Smash is Rage's MAIN ability. Annihilate, while integral to DPS, is simply filler as most of Annihilation's damage comes from bleeds.

 

Before you try to state one spec is completely above another please try to have your facts straight.

 

 

Also, you should probably try to find a list of what abilities are actually Force attacks. Ataru form procs as well as bleeds benefit from your Force critical chance.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Kibaken

[DXI-Edge]

Here is my question: do you level with rage or annihilation? which is better?

[TMONADO]

Really nice guide with lot's of tips.

Regarding earlier question asked on what you did not take in Rage tree, a full Rage tree without what you mentioned adds up to 32 talent points. It's 1 point to many to allow 5 in each Annihilation and Carnage.

 

Are there one more thing you do not have in the Rage three ?

 

Thanks for the guide

 

EDIT: As poster above, I'm also interested in your take on using this as a leveling build ?

Edited January 21, 2012 by TMONADO

[Talarii]

I have to completely disagree with you on your stance on the damage of Carnage and Annihilation. You won't see crits as high as you will in Rage but that by no stretch of the imagination means that the damage "just plain sucks." If you truly believe that bigger numbers = more damage you have no concept of the term Damage Per Second.

 

I've out-damaged Rage Marauders - and Juggernauts for that matter - in PvP as Carnage and both myself and my guild's other Marauder (Annihilation) regularly out-damage Rage Marauders in PvE.

 

I'd venture to say that Rage is actually the lowest single target DPS because of its complete revolution around Choke and Crush.

 

On Carnage:

 

Ataru hits all the time. I have no idea where you got that from but I'm constantly seeing Ataru hits. The free Force Scream crit is in the exact same boat as the free Smash crit from Rage; you completely contradict yourself here. Massacre does more damage than Vicious Slash due to part of it being an Ataru strike. Gore is incredibly overpowered to begin with in both PvE and PvP and if you think it should be any longer or is underpowered in its current state you must not PvP a lot. Reducing a tank specced Juggernaut's armor is god-like.

 

On Annihilation:

 

Berserk is amazing for every spec and is designed to be that way. Reducing the GCD on Massacre and getting 6 free Crits as Annihilation is just as good as Vicious Slash spam and is Rage's extra Rage generation ability (Blood Frenzy and Empowerment for Carnage and Annihilation, respectively). You're trying to compare the damage from Smash and Annihilate and quite literally saying Smash is better because it does more damage. Smash is Rage's MAIN ability. Annihilate, while integral to DPS, is simply filler as most of Annihilation's damage comes from bleeds.

 

Before you try to state one spec is completely above another please try to have your facts straight.

 

 

Also, you should probably try to find a list of what abilities are actually Force attacks. Ataru form procs as well as bleeds benefit from your Force critical chance.

 

 

First off, without dps meters we cannot really know. However...

 

 

My experience is that the extra carnage strikes do not do enough damage. That the extra abilities from carnage, gore and massacre, do not do enough. You will get ravage + 1 attack off during the duration of gore buff, which simply does not seem to be enough. Your sustain is as much as other specs when all your cds are up and not otherwise. Oh, and the free scream does not compare because smash crits are 100% stronger because of Shockwave.

 

Again, from personal experience I always ended warzones with far more dmg in rage than carnage. You say you out dps the rage marauder, I get 300k 99% of the time, and if i focus on dmg I get 450-500k. If you are beating that, wonderful, I could not in other specs.

 

PvE...it was absolutely no contest, yet again. Without dps meters its hard to say.

 

For annihilation you have better sustain but im going to wager that force crush does more dmg than deadly saber does. You say Annihilate just is another cycled ability and not meant to be the critical ability of the tree like smash is to rage. That is fine, I am comparing the hard hitting abilities of the tree and smash wins. I think your dots will likely beat out continued rage damage but you would need berserk to make that happen.

[Talarii]

Really nice guide with lot's of tips.

Regarding earlier question asked on what you did not take in Rage tree, a full Rage tree without what you mentioned adds up to 32 talent points. It's 1 point to many to allow 5 in each Annihilation and Carnage.

 

Are there one more thing you do not have in the Rage three ?

 

Thanks for the guide

 

EDIT: As poster above, I'm also interested in your take on using this as a leveling build ?

 

Thank you for pointing this out. I missed putting this in.

 

On Rage tree: I go 1/2 on Ravager. There is that extra point.

 

I leveled with this spec. I took DW master first and went up the rage tree from there. Soon as I got to 31 in rage I went back and got quick recovery and finished out with others.

[Talarii]

Here is my question: do you level with rage or annihilation? which is better?

 

My real answer is leveling is so easy it doesn't really matter. Do what is most fun for you. Because this game likes to give you lots of weak mobs in packs to kill I think rage with the aoe is better.

 

If damage meters come out and Annihilation is proved better than swap to that...but I do not think that will happen.

[Talarii]

Love your guide and its a great first effort at writing a guide but I had a few questions to ask about your spec and how things work for you.

How do you deal with cc's in most groups with all your aoe? Do you just ask tanks to move mobs away and/or los, it seems like alot of work and difficulty in places to deal with the aoe you cause. Fights like the bonus boss on KUS, the trash to the Foreman in KP and a few other places need cc and it seem like the spec is near worthless with its smash and other aoes.

How do you feel about Defensive Forms in Carnage vs Cloak of Carnage - it seems like Defensive Forms would be more rage more often and also more DR up more often, I rarely need my Cloak or Saber Ward cds and would often forget them in the din of some fights.

How do you think accuracy plays overall - I'm at 105.07% and I still see some misses with my offhand at a times, are these misses worth dropping it even lower for more crit/surge? Do you think the extra migation effects force attack positively more than melee?

Lastly, what do you think of our set bonuses for pvp and pve, they dont seem to be particularly special to any spec and you would have to reslot alot of crit/surge to get the ideal gear that you expound on.

 

Thanks for the read.

 

We finished Karagga's on hard mode tonight...woot!

 

On those cc fights smash can be positioned so that just 1 mob is hit. Takes a bit of practice but you can do it so just the top bit actually hits. I can smash and hit mobs right next to each other consistently.

 

The accuracy point I think requires more math than I have done to be honest. I am sure there is a perfect point where accuracy is still useful over crit/surge...which I am going back to after working on power/surge for a while. I try to stay away from accuracy in Rage spec because your force abilities, which are a lot of your dps, do not use your offhand and as such don't need lots of extra accuracy. That is my experience.

[Sayc]

8.5s cd on annihilate(and you should be using it on cd) vs. 18s cd on crush/obliterate for your smash buffs.

 

I try to stay away from accuracy in Rage spec because your force abilities, which are a lot of your dps, do not use your offhand and as such don't need lots of extra accuracy. That is my experience.

 

The last number I saw being thrown around for mainhand special attacks is 105% to prevent defense/resist/whatever.

 

I'm sitting at 110% accuracy from 6 accuracy enhancements, so yeah. Hitting 105% is pretty easy.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Sayc

[frostxone]

Quote 8.5s cd on annihilate(and you should be using it on cd) vs. 18s cd on crush/obliterate for your smash buffs. Quote

 

You do know you can lower smash to 9 sec speced and you alternate crush and choke with either leap/oblit depending on cd. So no, it's not 18 sec vs 8.5 sec. 1st rotation, leap/crush/smash, 2nd rotation oblit/choke/smash 9 sec later, before smash comes off cd for 3rd time, crush is off cd.

 

You are not waiting 18 sec for smash buffs. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me but this is my rotation (obviously with BAs, screams, ravage etc mixed in when needed) and I have np properly rotating my buffed smashes as you do annihilates

Edited January 22, 2012 by frostxone

[Talarii]

Quote 8.5s cd on annihilate(and you should be using it on cd) vs. 18s cd on crush/obliterate for your smash buffs. Quote

 

You do know you can lower smash to 9 sec speced and you alternate crush and choke with either leap/oblit depending on cd. So no, it's not 18 sec vs 8.5 sec. 1st rotation, leap/crush/smash, 2nd rotation oblit/choke/smash 9 sec later, before smash comes off cd for 3rd time, crush is off cd.

 

You are not waiting 18 sec for smash buffs. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me but this is my rotation (obviously with BAs, screams, ravage etc mixed in when needed) and I have np properly rotating my buffed smashes as you do annihilates

 

You have it right. Smash is 9sec cd. You will get 3 good rotations of huge crits with almost no waiting between them before you find yourself without something to prep an autocrit.

[Pappus]

You are such a pro yet you don't know the best point about rage:

 

ENDLESS PREDATION. You get 10 fury back for every person you gave predation to. So yes in a group it would mean 30>0>30>0>30>0

 

With 3 marauders in the group you could also enhance the tanks parry/deflect by 30% constantly.

 

You don'T have a problem building fury as ragespec? Sure let's claim idiocy on our part and believe you here, but I don't need to build fury!

Edited January 22, 2012 by Pappus

[Kibaken]

My experience is that the extra carnage strikes do not do enough damage. That the extra abilities from carnage, gore and massacre, do not do enough. You will get ravage + 1 attack off during the duration of gore buff, which simply does not seem to be enough. Your sustain is as much as other specs when all your cds are up and not otherwise. Oh, and the free scream does not compare because smash crits are 100% stronger because of Shockwave.

 

In full raid conditions my Ataru procs hit for about 620 and usually Crit around somewhere around 1000. Massacre is probably the best filler relative to all of the trees due to its low Rage cost and high damage, not to mention part of it benefits from Malice, Ataru Mastery and Sever. So in the span of one Berserk - 6 seconds - The Ataru procs alone could easily add up to 6000 damage. That isn't counting any that other abilities proc from the Massacre buff or procs that happen without it. Ataru procs make up a staggering amount of our damage when put into perspective.

 

Gore is incredibly powerful. Ravage and Scream are both the essence of Carnage, so to speak, and benefit HEAVILY from rage. Timing those two abilities with Gore is incredible burst. When Gore is up and all my Ravage attacks crit with my Power relic and Surge Adrenal it easily does around 10k damage. Couple that with Scream under the same conditions and I'm looking at nearly 15k done by the end of Gore.

 

 

Again, from personal experience I always ended warzones with far more dmg in rage than carnage. You say you out dps the rage marauder, I get 300k 99% of the time, and if i focus on dmg I get 450-500k. If you are beating that, wonderful, I could not in other specs.

 

There are plenty of people on this forum who have done exceptionally well as Rage and Annihilation and I'm one of many who can vouch for Carnage as being amazing as well. I am in no way trying to discount any spec, but the performance of each spec has to do with both team's compositions and gear as well as the player's skill level and familiarity with the spec.

 

Having two healers on your team means you're going to have a lot better of a match versus not having any.

 

How much PvP did you do with Carnage and Annihilation? If you just picked it up and did two games and said to hell with it I can almost guarantee you weren't optimizing as much as you could have.

 

Did you do an equal amount of WarZones with the same or similar team compositions on each side in order to test each spec's viability? If not your results will be extremely biased to one spec.

 

It's perfectly fine to like one spec more than another, but telling people not to play a spec simply because you didn't do well in a few WarZones and were against a geared premade or just sucked at the spec in general really isn't the best way to help the community. "It just plain sucks" followed by no mathematical or statistical evidence is just silly.

 

 

PvE...it was absolutely no contest, yet again. Without dps meters its hard to say.

 

Again, how much PvE did you do with each spec?

 

Did you time and record your fights and add up the damage? Burst damage always feels like more because of the big numbers all the time and being able to visibly see the health bar move with your big hits. Something like Annihilation doesn't feel very fast but can pull amazing DPS just the same.

 

It's my opinion that Rage's filler is actually the weakest of all 3 and the current (albeit questionable) math at sithwarrior.com has it in last by about 300 DPS last I checked.

 

 

For annihilation you have better sustain but im going to wager that force crush does more dmg than deadly saber does. You say Annihilate just is another cycled ability and not meant to be the critical ability of the tree like smash is to rage. That is fine, I am comparing the hard hitting abilities of the tree and smash wins. I think your dots will likely beat out continued rage damage but you would need berserk to make that happen.

 

Not counting any bonus talents:

 

 

Force Crush does 366 Kinetic damage over 5 seconds plus 972 Kinetic damage at the end.

 

21 second CD.

 

(366 x 5) + 972 = 3168 Kinetic damage

 

3168 Kinetic / 5 seconds = 633.6 DPS

 

3168 Kinetic / 4 Rage = 792 D/R

 

3168 Kinetic / 19 second CD = 166.73 D/CD

 

 

Deadly Saber does 451 Internal damage over 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

 

12 second CD.

 

451 x 3 = 1353 Internal damage

 

1353 Internal / 6 seconds = 225.5

 

1353 Internal / 3 Rage = 451 D/R

 

1353 Internal / 12 second CD = 112.75

 

 

 

In my Deadly Saber calculations I didn't count the extra ticks from the time stacking up, therefore this is only the ticks from 3 stacks ticking for the full duration.

 

Crush is clearly victorious, but shouldn't that be expected of a 31-point talent versus an 11-point talent?

 

For the record, the damage values are coming from my current tooltips and I'm not counting any talents or abilities that affect either ability (sside from Force Alacrity):

 

 

Deadly Saber: Juyo Form stacks, Juyo Mastery, Bleedout, Hemorrhage, Malice.

 

 

Crush: Malice, Shii-Cho, Shii-Cho Mastery, Dark Resonance.

 

 

Annihilation's massive reliance on bleeds - including a whopping extra 15% crit from Juyo stacks plus the free 6 crits (albeit Rupture can take those as well) from Berserk (which, with Short Fuse, is up constantly) makes Deadly Saber extremely valuable as a filler. It, while integral to Annihilation DPS, pales in comparison to Rupture in terms of usefulness but for a rather passive-to-use ability pulls its weight quite well.

 

On top of that, as far as I've been able to tell Deadly Saber is off the GCD, means you not only don't lose any time using it. Therefore, you could almost just add the damage from Deadly Saber to the ability you use to bring it to its 3rd stack.

 

Crush provides Shockwave and, as such, is definitely one of if not the backbone of the Rage tree. The extra Armor Penetration as well as the increased Force Damage bonus make Crush hit as hard as a 31 point talent should.

 

Thus, comparing an 11-point talent - meant mainly as rotational filler to add bleeds and not make one ability (Rupture) hit for too much - and Crush - a 31-point talent meant to be the main generator of Shockwave - is pretty unfair. If we look at Annihilate assuming maximum damage with no crit:

 

 

2804 Weapon / 1 second = 1869.33 DPS

 

2804 Weapon / 4 Rage = 701 D/R

 

2804 Weapon / 7.5 second CD = 373.86

 

 

Crush obviously wins over time, however for "burst" so to speak Annihilate wins out on top of having a chance to finish the cooldown of Rupture - Annihilate's main bleed.

 

 

My entire point here is comparing one talent to another is a complete waste of time because the weight of talents is relative only to the spec itself and not other talents. By the same logic comparing Hemorrhage to Dominate would yield different results based on what spec you were.

 

 

you would need berserk to make that happen.

 

Berserk is up all the time due to Short Fuse. Those 6 free crits come very, very often.

 

 

 

Trying to say one spec is by far superior than the others in a game that, for the most part, prides itself on "bring the player not the class" mantra and supports the idea that all DPS specs across all classes do the exact same is just wrong. I have absolutely no problem with the spec, you, or anyone that plays it. Rage is by far the least complicated of all 3 trees to play and, as such, telling people to pigeon-hole themselves into the "lolbigcrits" tree and not experience the other trees disheartens me.

 

Annihilation's damage graph will probably look ventricular fibrillation (minus the large drops in the picture) with periods of asystole (flatline): fairly steady over time with periods of small bursts.

 

Carnage will look a lot more like a normal sinus rhythm (minus the S-wave drop): lower points with large periods of burst inbetween

 

Smash, however, resembles ventricular tachycardia almost entirely: large bursts with fairly low filler.

 

Over time V-tach and V-fib will kill you, but when taken as a mathematical graph it's extremely possible that, depending on the numbers, all 3 specs even out to be even PvE DPS.

 

PvP is a different matter entirely that, quite frankly, would make this post much longer than it already is. Damage, while important, really doesn't win matches as much as a few good healers and good coordination does. All 3 specs can pull amazing numbers and each one has different PvP utility to bring to the table. Preferring one is fine, but knocking one out as bad based on no grounds other than opinion in a written guide meant to help people just isn't right.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Kibaken

[frostxone]

Interesting analogy. V tach/v fib are serious cardiac dsyrhythmias, normal sinus is healthy normal cardiac rhythm. Guess what's he trying to say is annihilation/ rage are killers, carnage is nothing to worry about:)

 

I know you where trying to make a point using rhythm strip waveforms, I just found it a little funny the way you worded it.

Edited January 22, 2012 by frostxone

[Kibaken]

Interesting analogy. V tach/v fib are serious cardiac dsyrhythmias, normal sinus is healthy normal cardiac rhythm. Guess what's he trying to say is annihilation/ rage are killers, carnage is nothing to worry about:)

 

I know you where trying to make a point using rhythm strip waveforms, I just found it a little funny the way you worded it.

 

 

LOL I had a feeling someone would pick that up. Unfortunately that was not only a fairly easy to understand analogy given the major differences with the rhythms but, at the same time, can be visually construed to a mathematical graph of damage over time.

 

Studying for my Paramedic license. Can you tell what's on my mind half the time?

Edited January 22, 2012 by Kibaken

[frostxone]

<-- ICU nurse, lots of cardiac background. Really did like the analogy, grats on working towards paramedic, very rewarding field.

[Kibaken]

<-- ICU nurse, lots of cardiac background. Really did like the analogy, grats on working towards paramedic, very rewarding field.

 

Thanks. From what I've seen so far I absolutely love it. Just got my EMT-B license (waiting to get it in the mail; passed the exam) and I went ahead and picked up my Medic material for this coming fall.

 

Going to be playing a healer IRL soon.

 

Also, turnout gear makes you look bad ***. Just saying.