Carnage, Massacre, Vicious Slash.

[Bohagen]

I think I read somewhere that you should spam Massacre and it totally replaces Vicious Slash. I haven't seen any math to back the claim up though. VS tooltip has it do around 300 more base damage than Ma. With the Ma buff does VS at 50% chance of an offhand swing produce more damage over time than just Ma spam with a 100% offhand PROC?

 

Let me know if you agree or disagree and why. Also make it clear if you are referencing PvP or PvE specifically.

[Wookieenator]

massacre for both because of ataru form procs giving blood frenzy = crit force scream, rage gen, and also more ataru procs and mine in pvp hit for about 1k each

[Bohagen]

Blood frenzy has a six second internal cool down and the Ma buff lasts six seconds. It's easy enough to weave in a Massacre to activate both those buffs and then use VS while the buffs are active. So one Massacre every four non berserk GCD and one Massacre every six berserk GCD and you keep both buffs indefinitely. The question I would like answered is does VS with the 50% ataru proc rate do more damage than Massacre with it's 100% ataru proc rate?

[Xerain]

my stats on massacre and vs without a stim.

 

massacre 1472-1711

vicious slash 1689-1963

 

So 217-252 more damage.

 

Thing is massacre has a 100% chance to proc a hit that does 495-559 (mine without stim).

 

so 278-307 more damage then vicious slash. Sure you can proc the buff and hope you get that 50% chance but the ataru form hit has a seperate crit modifier on it too.

 

Oh also... it's an automatic proc where as vicious slash is going to be a successful hit has that 50%. So even if massacre gets defended against and doesn't hit it still pops the ataru hit where as VS will not.

[TheBetty]

I have had soo many arguments with my mate about this lol.

 

His belief:

That spamming VS during a beserk whilst keeping massacre buff up does more damage.

 

My belief:

Spamming massacre + Aturu Proc does more damage.

 

Maybe we focused too much on the chainsaw substitute example lol

 

Sadly we have not been able to get a clear cut answer on which is absolutely better.

[Altheran]

Even if Massacre has better reliability because Massacre + 100% proc of Ataru is higher than Vicious slash when there is no procs, Vicious slash has still 80% chance of Ataru proc when Massacre have been used before, and a proc chance of off-hand attack (which procs more oftenly because of Ataru's extra Accuracy)...

 

So probabilties say that it is more powerful to use multiple Vicious Slash than Massacre, but you have to not be unlucky.

Edited August 15, 2012 by Altheran

[Senatorial]

I haven't looked at logs in some time, but I believe Massacre, which has two strikes just like Vicious Slash, auto-procs 2 Ataru strikes as well. Not sure if this is possible with Vicious Slash (Or any offhand ability for that matter.)

[Senatorial]

I haven't looked at logs in some time, but I believe Massacre, which has two strikes just like Vicious Slash, auto-procs 2 Ataru strikes as well. Not sure if this is possible with Vicious Slash (Or any offhand ability for that matter.)

[Omophorus]

Even if Massacre has better reliability because Massacre + 100% proc of Ataru is higher than Vicious slash when there is no procs, Vicious slash has still 80% chance of Ataru proc when Massacre have been used before, and a proc chance of off-hand attack (which procs more oftenly because of Ataru's extra Accuracy)...

 

So probabilties say that it is more powerful to use multiple Vicious Slash than Massacre, but you have to not be unlucky.

 

Where are you getting 80% from?

 

And the offhand argument is invalid, you'll have identical behavior between Massacre and Vicious Slash.

 

The question entirely comes down to the extra damage of Vicious Slash vs. the guaranteed proc of Ataru.

 

Let's use Xerain's numbers for a moment...

 

Massacre 1472-1711

Vicious Slash 1689-1963

Ataru strike 495-559

 

Massacre will do 1967 to 2270 damage 100% of the time.

 

Vicious slash will do 1689 to 1963 50% of the time, and 2184 to 2522 damage 50% of the time.

 

If we assume equal distribution across the damage range (no reason not to), mean damage for Massacre should be 2118.5 and mean damage for Vicious Slash should be 2089.5.

 

Ergo, by a small margin, Massacre is mathematically preferable to Vicious Slash, at least for Xerain.

 

It took no more than a minute or two to do some basic addition and division to see what was ideal in Xerain's scenario, so I urge anyone who's genuinely curious to do the same, plugging in their own numbers, though if the result differs I would be somewhat surprised.

Edited August 15, 2012 by Omophorus

[anwg]

Since sever buffs massacre but not vicious slash, the gap is even greater. Edited August 18, 2012 by anwg

[ACTroyan]

But you can pick up 15% crit buff for VS and VT to push VS > massacre can't you? If VS with the 15% crit bonus is better without massacer to boost the ataru proc maybe u can pick up the VS dmg boost in rage tree as well...

[anwg]

But then you waste 3 points in either malice and decimate, as well as skip over things like enraged assault, displacement or short fuse.

[ACTroyan]

True but your VT gets the crit boost too

[Aurojiin]

In addition, Massacre still has the standard chance to proc an Ataru strike in addition to the forced one, so it can yield two Ataru strikes. It's absolutely better than VS. Edited October 25, 2012 by Aurojiin

[anwg]

True but your VT gets the crit boost too

 

I ran the numbers using the damage ranges in a post above, the numbers are very close (slightly favoring massacre spam over VS), assuming 30% crit and 75% surge, but I didn't bother to take into account the effect of execute.

 

Of course, there's no way to fill out both brutality and enraged slash.

[ACTroyan]

without taking vt into account massacre spam > vs spam, but if u massacre for the buff than vs spam u should get a dps increase, of course this is at the cost of enraged slash which adds up to additional vs swings 1-2 swings every 15s depending on if ravage is off cd, or dropping short fuse... when i play carnage its mostly for the pred speed for my team, so maybe i can afford to drop short fuse and save fury for when its needed vice berzerk for dps to each his own i guess...

[anwg]

If it's a PVP spec and your job is predation I can't see how you can skip either short fuse or enraged slash, both help you build fury.

 

To be honest I can't see how any spec marauder can afford to skip short fuse.

Edited October 29, 2012 by anwg

[ACTroyan]

theres a diff between spamming pred on cd and using it at strategic times

[anwg]

theres a diff between spamming pred on cd and using it at strategic times

 

Now you must be trolling, how could generating a full stack of fury in half the time not help using predation strategically? Even if you just berserk every time it helps your burst a lot.

[Omophorus]

Now you must be trolling, how could generating a full stack of fury in half the time not help using predation strategically? Even if you just berserk every time it helps your burst a lot.

 

Trolling, or building a contrived set of circumstances to defend a sub-optimal choice.

 

5 points in the Annihilation tree is all but table stakes for any Marauder spec. Short Fuse and Enraged Slash are just too good to pass up. I'm sure one might exist, but I literally cannot think of a single justification for any build which skips over either of those two talents.

 

Every single AC tends to have at least 1-2 similar "table stakes" talents in the first tier that any build would incorporate, so there's nothing unusual or out of the ordinary about it.