Is Malice Worthless for Carnage Marauders?

[Ceile]

I've been min-maxing my character for my guild's progression team and I've come across an interesting fact.

Malice only affects Force crit and the only items affected by that are ataru form procs and Force Scream. (At least that's true in my rotation) This makes me wonder if it's even useful since the 3 points could be used in other places.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZGGMRRrbdGzZMz.2

This is my build idea if the above is really valid, but I have to do testing and since my college finals are this week, I will not be able to test it until next week, so any ideas regarding this would be helpful.

My rotation has been something to the extent of this:

Battering and Gore->Scream->Ravage when up.

If 30 stacks, prepare 7 rage and berserk then 6 massacres.

Finally massacre otherwise or assault if less than 3 rage.

 

My build idea may be adding in cloak of pain whenever it is up, and maybe retaliation if it is useful to lower cloak of pain's cooldown. Any ideas would be helpful, especially if you could test these ideas and figure out if it's actually useful.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Ceile

[Omophorus]

I've been min-maxing my character for my guild's progression team and I've come across an interesting fact.

Malice only affects Force crit and the only items affected by that are ataru form procs and Force Scream. (At least that's true in my rotation) This makes me wonder if it's even useful since the 3 points could be used in other places.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZGGMRRrbdGzZMz.2

This is my build idea if the above is really valid, but I have to do testing and since my college finals are this week, I will not be able to test it until next week, so any ideas regarding this would be helpful.

My rotation has been something to the extent of this:

Battering and Gore->Scream->Ravage when up.

If 30 stacks, prepare 7 rage and berserk then 6 massacres.

Finally massacre otherwise or assault if less than 3 rage.

 

My build idea may be adding in cloak of pain whenever it is up, and maybe retaliation if it is useful to lower cloak of pain's cooldown. Any ideas would be helpful, especially if you could test these ideas and figure out if it's actually useful.

 

Malice is not tremendously useful, but using Rupture is a DPS gain and benefits from it, and it's just a little extra safety net should a Scream miss Blood Frenzy for one reason or another. For those reasons, I talent it, knowing that they're the least useful talent points I've spent.

 

I do NOT take the Overwhelm talent for PVE, because part of a tank's job is to keep something still so that I can kill it. If I need to be rooting during Ravage, there are deeper problems.

 

Retaliation is pretty much a waste of Rage, and rather than using CoP to the timer, it should be used when it will gain maximum effect (in other words... know each fight and when you're going to be taking damage for a sustained period, and use CoP accordingly).

 

Also, from a rotation standpoint, I would make every effort to sync Berserk with Gore (for the every-other time that Ravage is on CD) to squeeze 3 Massacres into that Gore window instead of 2. As tempting as it is to use Berserk to the CD all the time, during normal PVE grouping you won't take enough extraneous damage to seriously desync Berserk from Gore (due to extra Fury generation), and one way or another Carnage plays very bursty (either your burst kills something, or encounter phases limit opportunities to do max DPS), so using Berserk to maximize burst just makes sense in the real world, regardless of what Ops Dummy DPS numbers say.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Omophorus

[Ceile]

Malice is not tremendously useful, but using Rupture is a DPS gain and benefits from it, and it's just a little extra safety net should a Scream miss Blood Frenzy for one reason or another. For those reasons, I talent it, knowing that they're the least useful talent points I've spent.

 

I do NOT take the Overwhelm talent for PVE, because part of a tank's job is to keep something still so that I can kill it. If I need to be rooting during Ravage, there are deeper problems.

 

Retaliation is pretty much a waste of Rage, and rather than using CoP to the timer, it should be used when it will gain maximum effect (in other words... know each fight and when you're going to be taking damage for a sustained period, and use CoP accordingly).

 

Also, from a rotation standpoint, I would make every effort to sync Berserk with Gore (for the every-other time that Ravage is on CD) to squeeze 3 Massacres into that Gore window instead of 2. As tempting as it is to use Berserk to the CD all the time, during normal PVE grouping you won't take enough extraneous damage to seriously desync Berserk from Gore (due to extra Fury generation), and one way or another Carnage plays very bursty (either your burst kills something, or encounter phases limit opportunities to do max DPS), so using Berserk to maximize burst just makes sense in the real world, regardless of what Ops Dummy DPS numbers say.

 

I guessed as much on Retaliation, just wanted to make sure.

With the similar timers on Force Scream and Gore, I always link them together. I've done testing on using ravage or a massacre afterwards and ravage is better dps.

Never have considered using gore without force scream because force scream is the largest damage and thus would benefit most from Gore. Haven't tested using Gore with Massacres, but I'll test it.

Most of the fights I do include a large amount of raid damage and thus, I doubt berserk will stick to the cooldown of Gore, while force scream keeps it rather standard.

[Andrew_Past]

With the gore timer, you can squeeze 3 beserk massacres and end with a scream in the same gore. You just need to make sure that you get your timing right

[Aurojiin]

1. Ataru Procs are physical.

 

2. Rupture is a DPS gain, but the net effect on DPS of Malice via Rupture is incredibly small. Personally I think the points are much better spent on Decimate (I plugged my last remaining point into Hungering for the heck of it).

[Riggz]

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZhrrRRrrdGzZM.2

 

win

[Omophorus]

I guessed as much on Retaliation, just wanted to make sure.

With the similar timers on Force Scream and Gore, I always link them together. I've done testing on using ravage or a massacre afterwards and ravage is better dps.

Never have considered using gore without force scream because force scream is the largest damage and thus would benefit most from Gore. Haven't tested using Gore with Massacres, but I'll test it.

Most of the fights I do include a large amount of raid damage and thus, I doubt berserk will stick to the cooldown of Gore, while force scream keeps it rather standard.

 

Generally speaking, yes, Force Scream is a part of any Gore window.

 

However, there should be 1 Gore window every 15 seconds, and only Ravage every 27 seconds (so really, 30 seconds), so there's a Gore window where you can't use Ravage, and thus the best DPS option is a Berserk'd trio of Massacres and a Scream.

 

And you'd be surprised. Berserk is generally not as badly desync'd as you'd think. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part Berserk comes up no more than 5-6 seconds before the Gore with which it would be paired. It's a better move to wait until no more than ~3s before that Gore to use it and start burning charges (you want 3 charges, plus 7 Rage available as soon as Gore comes off CD).

 

If you have low latency and excellent coordination, you have 2 basic Gore scenarios.

 

(Massacre) > Gore + Ravage > Force Scream.

 

Berserk > (Massacre) > Gore + Force Scream > 3x Massacre.

 

With the 2nd pattern, if you use Force Scream again (without Gore) the instant it comes off CD, it will be available again to follow up Ravage in the next Gore window.

 

For the first patter, Ravage should ALWAYS be first, because Force Scream is NOT your biggest hitter. A crit on the final hit of Ravage is. You do not want it to miss the end of the Gore window, and it will if you use Ravage after scream (you would require perfect coordination and 0 latency to avoid that happening).

 

Gore > Ravage > Scream means that the full channel + Scream land within the Gore window. Gore > Scream > Ravage all but guarantees that the last hit of Ravage does not. It's a DPS loss to do it that way.

[KarethRiker]

This is extremely helpful! I've been going scream then ravage and of course never hit the the last ravage so knew I was doing something wrong. Will adjust my gores appropriately.

 

Skill tree debate for Ops only (not PVP, not random mobs):

- I ignore Overwhelm and Stagger for Ops

- Only spec into Unbound for special fights like Kephess in EC HM/NiM

- I take Malice because it's a dps gain even if small and...

- I spec up the focus tree into Brutality for the buff on Viscious Throw

 

So the last one is the most debated because it costs me two points in Enraged Slash. I haven't done the calculations or testing in an Ops to see if the buff to Vicious throw is worth the decreased amount of massacres. Any thoughts on that?

 

I'm relatively new to Carnage so appreciate any thoughts there. Also would love to know how much Crit you all are stacking. I saw a spreadsheet that suggested 35% was a dps gain over 30%. I'm chasing a ****** PT who is out DPSing me in progression so need some hints to catch up.

[BlznSmri]

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZhrrRRrrdGzZM.2

 

win

 

For PvE that's anything but win.

 

5/31/5 (with Malice) Is pretty much the "Optimal" single target build for Combat, whereas 5/31/5 (with Decimate) is the "Optimal" AoE build for Combat.

[KarethRiker]

You don't like 3/31/7 for boss fights? Edited December 6, 2012 by KarethRiker

[BlznSmri]

You don't like 3/31/7 for boss fights?

 

the loss of Rage "generation" far out weighs the 15% benefit to Vicious Throw...