How to build a perfect Carnage Marauder on a Fresh 50

[Aluvi]

Both awesome and frustrating. I fully expected to be buying extra WH gear for optimization but never thought that I was flat out buying the wrong gear. I must admit, it will be interesting to see how this process affects my dps in PvP matches. I guess I'll start checking out gear tonight to see what can be salvaged in the long run. Thanks to all that have contributed to this informative piece.

 

If it's any consolation, the difference between fully augmented non optimized BM gear and fully augmented, 100% optimized WH gear is not that huge, maybe a 10% difference at very most. It certainly does help, but I've been putting up very high numbers in warzones and been a competitive player ever since BM gear, so don't fret over it too much. Skill is so much more important than gear. I see fully WH + augmented geared marauders that put out half as much dps as me or less, forget to use their defensive cooldowns, never use undying rage, don't know how to use their escape mechanisms etc... the skill disparity is crazy.

 

In short, worry about being better than your opponent, now having better gear, and the gear will come with time, and you wil lbe that much more unstoppable.

[Toilet-burger]

Im already in FULL BM weapon master gear pooo.. i cannot get the WH vindicator gear w/ out buying a set of BM vindicator gear. Is it worth it to start over? Or keep going for WH weaponmaster??

[-Yui-]

If it's any consolation, the difference between fully augmented non optimized BM gear and fully augmented, 100% optimized WH gear is not that huge, maybe a 10% difference at very most. It certainly does help, but I've been putting up very high numbers in warzones and been a competitive player ever since BM gear, so don't fret over it too much. Skill is so much more important than gear. I see fully WH + augmented geared marauders that put out half as much dps as me or less, forget to use their defensive cooldowns, never use undying rage, don't know how to use their escape mechanisms etc... the skill disparity is crazy.

 

In short, worry about being better than your opponent, now having better gear, and the gear will come with time, and you wil lbe that much more unstoppable.

 

The difference between non-optimized BM gear and full augmented, 100% optimized WH gear is definitively more than 10%.

 

I also respectfully disagree with skills = all. Unless the marauders on your server completely and utterly suck, there is simply no way that a marauder in WH + augmented gear will be outputting half the DPS of any other marauder, unless his/her stats are completely whacked out.

 

By experience, a BM geared marauder will output half of my DPS (similar numbers by 2 very experienced guildies who recently rolled sentinel). A WH geared will output around 20-30% higher than BM, and I have no experience with full min/max sentinels for comparison because I have not yet seen another one.

[Megatfx]

Im already in FULL BM weapon master gear pooo.. i cannot get the WH vindicator gear w/ out buying a set of BM vindicator gear. Is it worth it to start over? Or keep going for WH weaponmaster??

 

Yes it is worth it to start over. Because if you think about it, you're saving yourself 20k ranked warzone comms by buying the correct set the first itme.

[arkitip]

I'm in fully augmented BM that I've min/maxed with BM mods. I have the WH implants and ear, as well as the relics (since I'd get the relics for PVE also). Buffed but sans stim I'm at 1650 strength, 793 power, and 1212 expertise for WAY less of a grind than WH is. I don't see the point really, since I assure you I'm not being outperformed by 20%-30%

[-Yui-]

I'm in fully augmented BM that I've min/maxed with BM mods. I have the WH implants and ear, as well as the relics (since I'd get the relics for PVE also). Buffed but sans stim I'm at 1650 strength, 793 power, and 1212 expertise for WAY less of a grind than WH is. I don't see the point really, since I assure you I'm not being outperformed by 20%-30%

 

20-30% is a lot. But those are arbitrary numbers and there are too many factors to calculate the exact effect on stats on WZ potential (I plan on doing a recruit gear test soon though just for fun ).

 

The point of min/max WH is higher potential numbers at an opportunity cost. You might not be consistently outperformed, but a player of equal skill with WH min/max WILL outdps you.

 

It might be less of a grind, but if you have time, why not. Get a rated team and you'll get full WH in a week or two.

Edited September 19, 2012 by -Yui-

[Zelurd]

How much worse to get weapon master set instead of vindication?

 

The one huge concern I have is if they itemize perfectly for weapon master next tier, then it would be disastrous to get everything again from the start.

[Megatfx]

I'm in fully augmented BM that I've min/maxed with BM mods. I have the WH implants and ear, as well as the relics (since I'd get the relics for PVE also). Buffed but sans stim I'm at 1650 strength, 793 power, and 1212 expertise for WAY less of a grind than WH is. I don't see the point really, since I assure you I'm not being outperformed by 20%-30%

 

Not trying to be completely arrogant but...

 

I would outperform you by more than 20-30%. I have 1744 strength and over 1200 power (With stim) with 1208 expertise. You aren't even close to me damage wise. I also get a 10% damage buff after force charge. You are outperforming bad Marauders, not good ones. You can't use bad Marauders as a gauge. I can outperform those same bad WH Marauders you're talking about by over 20-30% because at that level it becomes a skill issue, not a gear issue.

 

You probably only have about 16k HP as well? I'd kill you (Which I quite frequently do to BM geared Marauders) with over 80% of my HP left.

[arkitip]

Not trying to be completely arrogant but...

 

I would outperform you by more than 20-30%. I have 1744 strength and over 1200 power (With stim) with 1208 expertise. You aren't even close to me damage wise. I also get a 10% damage buff after force charge. You are outperforming bad Marauders, not good ones. You can't use bad Marauders as a gauge. I can outperform those same bad WH Marauders you're talking about by over 20-30% because at that level it becomes a skill issue, not a gear issue.

 

You probably only have about 16k HP as well? I'd kill you (Which I quite frequently do to BM geared Marauders) with over 80% of my HP left.

 

 

The math just isn't as enormously in your favor as you think. It's a gap, but you'll be surprised when I lay it out here because I'm betting you're thinking the gap is larger.

 

I have 1785 strength stimmed (because BM mods are those high str low secondary stat mods) and 845 power. That's 579 bonus damage compared to your 656 (1744 str, 1200 power). That's 13% difference. That's just not a wildly significant number. It makes a difference, certainly, but it is not the barrier for entry that most people seem to think 50s PVP is. I'm in no way, shape, or form suggesting that a fully optimized WH player will not outperform a fully optimized BM 1, my argument is that it won't be by 20%-30% from a purely mathematical standpoint (ie leaving player/team skill out of the equation).

 

If you plan on being 1 of the top DPS on a top ranked team then it absolutely makes sense to go through all the min maxing because you'll be stocking rwz comms by the bundle. If you are a more casual PvPer though (some days you only do your daily, some days you might PVP for hours, some days you might not PVP at all) then it is completely unnecessary because it'll take way less time to mod and augment your BM gear and you'll be able to be competitive.

[Megatfx]

The math just isn't as enormously in your favor as you think. It's a gap, but you'll be surprised when I lay it out here because I'm betting you're thinking the gap is larger.

 

I have 1785 strength stimmed (because BM mods are those high str low secondary stat mods) and 845 power. That's 579 bonus damage compared to your 656 (1744 str, 1200 power). That's 13% difference. That's just not a wildly significant number. It makes a difference, certainly, but it is not the barrier for entry that most people seem to think 50s PVP is. I'm in no way, shape, or form suggesting that a fully optimized WH player will not outperform a fully optimized BM 1, my argument is that it won't be by 20%-30% from a purely mathematical standpoint (ie leaving player/team skill out of the equation)..

 

You don't understand why it's significantly more than 13% do you? Take into account the 10% Vindicator set bonus, the talent that gives us 30% more damage on force scream when it crits, massacre giving our next attack a 10% damage buff. That 13% difference widens immensely when you factor in damage multipliers. It's not as simple as saying "The difference between this is this much". The % multipliers scale HIGHER with the amount of power you possess. That 300 power difference becomes night and day in damage output when playing with equal skill. Do I believe that you're a good player and you can top warzones even with BM gear? That just means your an exceptional player who can easily outperform.

 

But lets face the facts, if you cloned yourself, gave him perfectly min/maxed WH gear, you'd notice a difference much higher than "13%". With the damage multipliers alone I'd say at the very least your clone would outdamage you by over 20%.

[arkitip]

You don't understand why it's significantly more than 13% do you? Take into account the 10% Vindicator set bonus, the talent that gives us 30% more damage on force scream when it crits, massacre giving our next attack a 10% damage buff. That 13% difference widens immensely when you factor in damage multipliers. It's not as simple as saying "The difference between this is this much". The % multipliers scale HIGHER with the amount of power you possess. That 300 power difference becomes night and day in damage output when playing with equal skill. Do I believe that you're a good player and you can top warzones even with BM gear? That just means your an exceptional player who can easily outperform.

 

But lets face the facts, if you cloned yourself, gave him perfectly min/maxed WH gear, you'd notice a difference much higher than "13%". With the damage multipliers alone I'd say at the very least your clone would outdamage you by over 20%.

 

 

What's the tool tip damage for your Force Scream, and what's your surge? We can do the math from that

 

I'm not trying to discredit what you've done here, btw, what I'm trying to disprove is the general opinion that full WH is a necessity to be competitive in the 50s bracket like so many insist. What you've done here is quite the grind for most people, especially those that can't field a consistent ranked team and MORE especially for those that already got the Weaponmaster gear.

 

What I'm looking to show is that you can in fact be competitive with over 90% of the PVP population with a much shorter grind - which is actually a good thing to prove for the state of PVP in general.

 

 

(For the record I'm guessing that your damage gap will be right about 20% with mine because of the Vindicator bonus. Otherwise it really wouldn't increase beyond that 13ish % regardless of the damage multipliers)

[-Yui-]

There's one simple if crude way to discover if people are outperforming you or not. Simply post (or take) a screenshot of your top DPS game ever and we can see if, and by how much, are under performing. Edited September 20, 2012 by -Yui-

[zoranporan]

There's one simple if crude way to discover if people are outperforming you or not. Simply post (or take) a screenshot of your top DPS game ever and we can see if, and by how much, are under performing.

 

is this comment for real? or are you just one of those that post ss and vids about how you did 400k dmg in a warzone with a pocket healer, calling your self pro?

 

Wz's are completly situational, there is no way that this is comparable, you would have to have two exact same wz with the exact same things happening in both, but two seperate geared ppl to be even close to comparing.

 

These guys are trying to compare mathematical based stats in order to get that cookie cutter gear setup. wich is going to go on forever seeing how some ppl favor power, some favor crit.

 

I personally agree with OP, the build hes made is imo very good, and with todays mods/enhancements, there is no way to have a good amount of both, specially seeing how all the gear is moddable. i think BW did a good thing letting us mod gear to this extent, giving us options, instead og one certain specc and one certain gear layout.

[Zelurd]

I have 1785 strength stimmed (because BM mods are those high str low secondary stat mods) and 845 power. That's 579 bonus damage compared to your 656 (1744 str, 1200 power). That's 13% difference. That's just not a wildly significant number. It makes a difference, certainly, but it is not the barrier for entry that most people seem to think 50s PVP is. I'm in no way, shape, or form suggesting that a fully optimized WH player will not outperform a fully optimized BM 1, my argument is that it won't be by 20%-30% from a purely mathematical standpoint (ie leaving player/team skill out of the equation).

 

I might be wrong but I don't think the damage output difference is the same as the difference in power, given all other factors being equal.

 

You don't understand why it's significantly more than 13% do you? Take into account the 10% Vindicator set bonus, the talent that gives us 30% more damage on force scream when it crits, massacre giving our next attack a 10% damage buff. That 13% difference widens immensely when you factor in damage multipliers. It's not as simple as saying "The difference between this is this much". The % multipliers scale HIGHER with the amount of power you possess. That 300 power difference becomes night and day in damage output when playing with equal skill. Do I believe that you're a good player and you can top warzones even with BM gear? That just means your an exceptional player who can easily outperform.

 

That is simply untrue. It's just a simple math problem. Without taking the 10% set bonus into account, let's say A marauder does 100 dps, and B marauder does 113 dps (13% more due to higher str/power from gear).

Now, with all the damage buffs you mentioned (such as force scream crit, massacre etc.), A marauder is doing 140 dps (a 40% increase), same goes for B marauder - 113*140% = 158.2 dps.

What you were saying is, the dps difference between A and B WIDENS (158.2 - 140 = 18.2 more dps, as opposed to the original 13 more dps). However, the % difference remains the same (158.2 - 140) / 140 = 13%.

 

Now, compare 2 marauders both with vindicator set - one with WH min/max gear and another with BM min/max gear. Their % difference in dps would be about 13% indeed, assuming arkitip was right in his str/power calculations between optimized WH and optimized BM gear. You may notice significantly you kill people easily in wz, but that's just a ripple effect of being able to stay alive and kill the next target while a lesser geared marauder would be dead and do 0 dps while waiting for respawn. That has nothing to do with % difference in dps. You still just do 13% more damage.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Zelurd

[arkitip]

I might be wrong but I don't think the damage output difference is the same as the difference in power, given all other factors being equal.

 

You're correct. My Bladestorm tool tip damage is a max of 2022 with 579 bonus damage, while with 656 bonus damage it went up to 2165 which is actually only a 7% damage increase. Assuming that and a surge of 79%, bladestorm with the vindicator bonus would do about 5541 damage with 656 bonus damage. Without vindicator bonus and the bonus damage being 579, it would do around 4705 damage. That's a 17.75% damage increase assuming all my napkin math is correct (and this is napkin math working only with bonus damage effect on tool tip damage).

 

Without the vindicator set bonus, that would remain a static 7% damage increase.

[-Yui-]

is this comment for real? or are you just one of those that post ss and vids about how you did 400k dmg in a warzone with a pocket healer, calling your self pro?

 

Wz's are completly situational, there is no way that this is comparable, you would have to have two exact same wz with the exact same things happening in both, but two seperate geared ppl to be even close to comparing.

 

These guys are trying to compare mathematical based stats in order to get that cookie cutter gear setup. wich is going to go on forever seeing how some ppl favor power, some favor crit.

 

I personally agree with OP, the build hes made is imo very good, and with todays mods/enhancements, there is no way to have a good amount of both, specially seeing how all the gear is moddable. i think BW did a good thing letting us mod gear to this extent, giving us options, instead og one certain specc and one certain gear layout.

 

Are you a complete retard? Smart enough to post, not smart enough to read. Why don't you look at my past posts then see if I'm not one of those "guys comparing mathematical based stats".

 

Yes, no two warzones are the same. But law of large numbers should balance "luck" out, and allow you to have a highest dps warzone which can be compared reliably with other people.

 

And please, ad hominem doesn't work here. Especially if you think 400k even with a pocket heals is a lot of damage.

 

Now, compare 2 marauders both with vindicator set - one with WH min/max gear and another with BM min/max gear. Their % difference in dps would be about 13% indeed, assuming arkitip was right in his str/power calculations between optimized WH and optimized BM gear. You may notice significantly you kill people easily in wz, but that's just a ripple effect of being able to stay alive and kill the next target while a lesser geared marauder would be dead and do 0 dps while waiting for respawn. That has nothing to do with % difference in dps. You still just do 13% more damage.

 

I was doing some testing in recruit gear yesterday, and this seems to hold true. You feel exponentially weaker than in full min/max WH, but damage output in regular warzones (running with same pre-mades) seems to be a set % below WH.

 

I would like to mention that this difference would probably be more in rateds. One of the major losses of dps or heals can be attributed to running back or waiting for re-spawn timer from death. Greater survivalbility in a heated warzone through increased damage makes a big difference in those close battles (which merits discussion, but that has been my experience).

Edited September 21, 2012 by -Yui-

[zoranporan]

Are you a complete retard? Smart enough to post, not smart enough to read. Why don't you look at my past posts then see if I'm not one of those "guys comparing mathematical based stats".

 

Yes, no two warzones are the same. But law of large numbers should balance "luck" out, and allow you to have a highest dps warzone which can be compared reliably with other people.

 

And please, ad hominem doesn't work here. Especially if you think 400k even with a pocket heals is a lot of damage.

 

 

 

I was doing some testing in recruit gear yesterday, and this seems to hold true. You feel exponentially weaker than in full min/max WH, but damage output in regular warzones (running with same pre-mades) seems to be a set % below WH.

 

I would like to mention that this difference would probably be more in rateds. One of the major losses of dps or heals can be attributed to running back or waiting for re-spawn timer from death. Greater survivalbility in a heated warzone through increased damage makes a big difference in those close battles (which merits discussion, but that has been my experience).

 

Your comment comes off as ignorant no matter what you wrote earilier, and the reason i comment it is because i just don't see how this community can verify what is better between power and crit builds, and it most certainly can't be compared with a screenshot. So even if you do make a point, its not an solution.

 

The difference in DPS between them comes down to such a small percentage that its really no correct answer here, no matter how much math you do.

[jsoulpersonas]

Why not use vind. Saber as offhand also? In a diff shell of course

[-Yui-]

Your comment comes off as ignorant no matter what you wrote earilier, and the reason i comment it is because i just don't see how this community can verify what is better between power and crit builds, and it most certainly can't be compared with a screenshot. So even if you do make a point, its not an solution.

 

The difference in DPS between them comes down to such a small percentage that its really no correct answer here, no matter how much math you do.

 

Which is exactly what I stated in this thread:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=528052&page=3

Edited September 22, 2012 by -Yui-

[Megatfx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-maxing

 

Been getting a lot of questions on what min-maxing means.

[BurnedRemains]

So what the new gear setup?

[Megatfx]

I'll post it tomorrow Edited September 27, 2012 by Megatfx

[DarkWingedEagle]

My advice for gearing a mar is pvp till 50 to ensure you have 2000 wz comms and some rwz comms if you want. When you hit 50 get the rec gear then get a bm piece and trade rwz comms for wz comms to get more bm or use them to insta upgrade to wh. Next run hm flashpoints till u get tio/colum then run ops and continue upgrading gear.(this is for a pve build). For pvp do the same except do pvp instead of flash points for more comms to get more bm. Once you are in full bm start upgrading to wh if you kept all the rwz comms from weeklies and dailies you should be near ready for at least one piece. I would suggest staying with weaponmaster instead of ripping out mods due to the undying rage boost. This doesnt seem worthwile but it can easily change the course of a fight. Ive tanked Soa at the end of EV for a pylon drop before while he was in enrage with this easily. Of course this is my personal preference. My biggest piece of advice is to specailize it to your play-stile. As a side note if you run ops with a heal that has trouble run annihilation just be sure to avoid group heals against the infernal council on EV. Hope people find this helpful . ( I am a hardcore raider for reference so that does color my opinion.) Edited September 28, 2012 by DarkWingedEagle

[BurnedRemains]

I'll post it tomorrow

 

*in Spongebob narrator voice*

 

Two days later...

 

[Dacer]

So why the the foestoppers instead of the pummelers ear piece?

 

Is it just for more surge? or are you trying to keep your crit up a little too?

 

i would have thought you'd want the Pummelers for more power stacking.