Why does Smash hit harder than Annihilate?

[Tykhelituss]

You are clueless in regards to rage spec. You put one point in Malice because it is literally required to advance up the tree, no more. The talent is only good for annihilation Marauders and vengeance juggs.

 

Then maybe you'd like to explain how most Juggs and Marauders run with next to if not 0 Crit rating, sub 1700 Strength and still manage to have nearly 30% Force Crit Chance? We both know the rest goes into Power for Smash. Go look at the PvP Records. Who holds the highest hit? A Warrior playing Smash. Big surprise, right? All of the attacks that do the damage people whine about are Force based (minus Dispatch, Ravage and Slash. But who's really enough of an idiot to take a full Ravage or Slash Spam to the face?). The norm. is between 26% and 28% from what I've personally seen. It certainly isn't from putting only one point into Malice because I refuse to believe they have almost 25% without having Crit rating or a higher Main Stat. Sure, they can get the Crit buff but that only puts them around 20 (give or take about two percent).

[Omophorus]

Force Choke is purely to stun + generate Shockwave. It does squat for damage with or without Malice.

 

Force Crush is purely to snare + generate Shockwave. It does little damage with or without Malice.

 

Force Scream is used to pop stun bubbles. Crits are helpful, but it's used so infrequently I wouldn't put talent points into Malice for this reason.

 

You basically choose between 2% Force crit or pushback immunity on Force Choke. The latter is so much better for Rage it's not even worth discussing 3/3 Malice.

 

And a *PVE* Carnage Marauder should be putting 3 points in Malice. It helps with Rupture. It is useful on the occasion that Force Scream manages to dodge Blood Frenzy (it happens, don't pretend it doesn't). There are no alternate places to put those 3 points that increase DPS, and while Malice might be incredibly marginal for Carnage, it's better than nothing.

 

So I stand by my prior statement. It's a direct nerf to Annihilation (and your justification of "enough crit" is laughable). It's a small but direct nerf to PVE Carnage. It's basically nothing for Rage because you shouldn't be using more than the one requisite point anyway.

 

Then maybe you'd like to explain how most Juggs and Marauders run with next to if not 0 Crit rating, sub 1700 Strength and still manage to have nearly 30% Force Crit Chance? We both know the rest goes into Power for Smash. Go look at the PvP Records. Who holds the highest hit? A Warrior playing Smash. Big surprise, right? All of the attacks that do the damage people whine about are Force based (minus Dispatch, Ravage and Slash. But who's really enough of an idiot to take a full Ravage or Slash Spam to the face?). The norm. is between 26% and 28% from what I've personally seen. It certainly isn't from putting only one point into Malice because I refuse to believe they have almost 25% without having Crit rating or a higher Main Stat. Sure, they can get the Crit buff but that only puts them around 20 (give or take about two percent).

 

A Jugg or Mara with sub-1700 Strength and nearly 0 Crit rating doesn't have almost 30% Force Crit chance.

 

With full Strength augments, they'll be right around 25% without Malice in the picture (and 1850 STR, but that's neither here nor there). With Power augments, it's more like 23.5% before Malice (and under 1700 STR).

 

That's assuming BIS optimized for Rage (27 hilts, Vindicator armorings, Might 27 belt/bracer armorings, all EWH Deft mods, all EWH Adept enhancements, Hawkeye crystals, WH Pummeler ears/implants, EWH Power relics) .

 

But even then, who cares about 30% Force Crit chance when the only Force attack really used for damage is auto-crit?

Edited February 9, 2013 by Omophorus

[Racter]

They don't. That is a random number range you pulled from thin air and is irrelevant. Crit and all crit related talents are ignored. Maras take short fuse, defensive forms and dual wield mastery. Remaining points can go wherever, I personally give up the speed boost on obliterate for defensive roll. I would assume Juggs take the.main stat talent in vengeance and/or free scream after leap/oblit from immortal.

 

^ what he said. It's not like Annihilation needs any more nerfs, why you would want to take away one of the best talents is beyond me.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Racter

[Omophorus]

They don't. That is a random number range you pulled from thin air and is irrelevant. Crit and all crit related talents are ignored. Maras take short fuse, defensive forms and dual wield mastery. Remaining points can go wherever, I personally give up the speed boost on obliterate for defensive roll. I would assume Juggs take the.main stat talent in vengeance and/or free scream after leap/oblit from immortal.

 

^ what he said. It's not like Annihilation needs any more nerfs, why you would want to take away one of the best talents is beyond me.

 

I would put Defensive Roll as a near-required talent with the current metagame, because of the sheer quantity of AoE damage in most WZs.

[Zamppa]

This topic is getting more and more ridiculous by the day Sith Marauder is the only melee class concentrated only on damage so of course it will do the most damage numbers, that is clear. There are three completely different builds for this and each one has it own pros and cons:

 

1) Annihilation is based on DoTs and has some small self heals, but the downside is the smallest burst damage of the three.

2) Carnage has the biggest burts for single target but lacks the AoE/multitarget damage.

3) Rage has one big AoE/multitarget attack but has no self heals or as big single target burst as Carnage has and the big AoE-hit has to be build up with fury or other tallents which takes time.

 

Yes Rage probably does the biggest dps numbers with buffed up smash but please remember one has to build up fury for it or use Charge/Obliterate AND Force Crush/Force Choke. Obliterate + Force Crush demand 6 rage, Choke has 60s CD and Rage spec can only use Charge from 10-30 metres away from target so building up the buffed smash takes time when Annihilation and Carnage have shorter CD and less rage demanding 31 point talents.

 

I see many people whining "why does Rage's smash hit so hard against 5 enemies, nerf nerf nerf!" but Smash has a rather limited area of effect for those 5 targets! If people are hugging their teammates and let Rage marauder to charge in and hit with buffed smash it's THEIR poor positioning, not smash's overpoweredness. Rage is not overpowered, but most people whining about it are bad players who don't know how to deal with it.

[Omophorus]

Yes Rage probably does the biggest dps numbers with buffed up smash but please remember one has to build up fury for it or use Charge/Obliterate AND Force Crush/Force Choke. Obliterate + Force Crush demand 6 rage, Choke has 60s CD and Rage spec can only use Charge from 10-30 metres away from target so building up the buffed smash takes time when Annihilation and Carnage have shorter CD and less rage demanding 31 point talents.

 

I see many people whining "why does Rage's smash hit so hard against 5 enemies, nerf nerf nerf!" but Smash has a rather limited area of effect for those 5 targets! If people are hugging their teammates and let Rage marauder to charge in and hit with buffed smash it's THEIR poor positioning, not smash's overpoweredness. Rage is not overpowered, but most people whining about it are bad players who don't know how to deal with it.

 

To the first part of this, you make it sound like it's difficult. You gain Fury per target hit by Smash, you gain Fury from using Obliterate, You gain Fury from using Crush, you gain Fury from Vicious Slash, you gain Fury from Defensive forms. Or, in other words, you've got Berserk available a LOT.

 

Also, Force Crush is 3 Rage (4 - 1 point cost reduction from talent). Yes, Obliterate is another 3 Rage, but that doesn't magically make Crush 6.

 

And since Berserk is up a LOT, you are gaining full bars of Rage a LOT. Rage has basically no resource constraints whatsoever.

 

A competent Marauder should have Shockwave (from Crush, Choke, or Berserk) nearly constantly. Using Charge or Obliterate is not onerous either. So, basically, the limiting factor to cracking out 5k+ burst damage on up to 5 targets is the CD on Smash.

 

You are trying to justify an OP spec. Stop it. The sooner we all talk openly and honestly about the state of the game, the less likely we are to see overkill downward adjustments that seriously negatively impact Marauder overall. I DO think Marauder is at the top of the heap for all DPS ACs. I DO think Marauder deserves to be there, as it takes the most work to actually achieve results. I don't necessarily think that the balance is as tight as it should be across all the DPS ACs, and I would rather see small, targeted adjustments to outliers and buffs to underperformers before they drop the floor out from under Marauder as a whole.

 

Forced-crit AoE attacks are bad game design, period. The entire Rage spec is built around a forced-crit AoE attack. Right now, it is *the* go-to DPS for RWZ activity specifically because it is so dominant. People love to justify how one can "deal" with Smash, and how it's not OP because of that, but that's just the kings of the hill not wanting to be dethroned.

 

I roll Rage very nearly constantly for PVP because it *is* OP, and I don't pretend or rationalize otherwise. Until they tone down Smash, it has burst with less setup than Carnage, burst that's harder to counter than Carnage, and no Achilles' heel like cleanse-able bleeds. It really doesn't matter how good people are at "dealing" with Rage, if I'm better at avoiding being dealt with. It's easier to avoid being dealt with than it is to deal with Rage, if you're at all competent in PVP.

 

Thus, why I post so much on the subject, and why I keep saying "nerf Smash, buff single target DPS". Marauder needs a talent tree with non-trivial AoE damage capability, but the way Smash is designed right now is ridiculous. I would *love* Rage to be viable for more than trash-clearing in PVE, and more than a one-trick-pony in PVP.

[Tykhelituss]

To the first part of this, you make it sound like it's difficult. You gain Fury per target hit by Smash, you gain Fury from using Obliterate, You gain Fury from using Crush, you gain Fury from Vicious Slash, you gain Fury from Defensive forms. Or, in other words, you've got Berserk available a LOT.

 

Also, Force Crush is 3 Rage (4 - 1 point cost reduction from talent). Yes, Obliterate is another 3 Rage, but that doesn't magically make Crush 6.

 

And since Berserk is up a LOT, you are gaining full bars of Rage a LOT. Rage has basically no resource constraints whatsoever.

 

A competent Marauder should have Shockwave (from Crush, Choke, or Berserk) nearly constantly. Using Charge or Obliterate is not onerous either. So, basically, the limiting factor to cracking out 5k+ burst damage on up to 5 targets is the CD on Smash.

 

You are trying to justify an OP spec. Stop it. The sooner we all talk openly and honestly about the state of the game, the less likely we are to see overkill downward adjustments that seriously negatively impact Marauder overall. I DO think Marauder is at the top of the heap for all DPS ACs. I DO think Marauder deserves to be there, as it takes the most work to actually achieve results. I don't necessarily think that the balance is as tight as it should be across all the DPS ACs, and I would rather see small, targeted adjustments to outliers and buffs to underperformers before they drop the floor out from under Marauder as a whole.

 

Forced-crit AoE attacks are bad game design, period. The entire Rage spec is built around a forced-crit AoE attack. Right now, it is *the* go-to DPS for RWZ activity specifically because it is so dominant. People love to justify how one can "deal" with Smash, and how it's not OP because of that, but that's just the kings of the hill not wanting to be dethroned.

 

I roll Rage very nearly constantly for PVP because it *is* OP, and I don't pretend or rationalize otherwise. Until they tone down Smash, it has burst with less setup than Carnage, burst that's harder to counter than Carnage, and no Achilles' heel like cleanse-able bleeds. It really doesn't matter how good people are at "dealing" with Rage, if I'm better at avoiding being dealt with. It's easier to avoid being dealt with than it is to deal with Rage, if you're at all competent in PVP.

 

Thus, why I post so much on the subject, and why I keep saying "nerf Smash, buff single target DPS". Marauder needs a talent tree with non-trivial AoE damage capability, but the way Smash is designed right now is ridiculous. I would *love* Rage to be viable for more than trash-clearing in PVE, and more than a one-trick-pony in PVP.

 

I agree with you on Marauder being the "Top DPS AC" and I believe it should stay there. I feel if they "readjust" Marauders much more though, they won't be. Carnage and Annihilation have much more single target damage than Rage, but their damage is easily avoidable, especially with the Bubble Stuns. That's an entirely different issue though. The single target DPS of Rage is mediocre at best compared to the other two. The burst that Rage can provide as a whole is alright though. Vicious Slash hits for mediocre numbers, and decent when it Crits but nothing to be impressed with. Scream being used for popping Bubbles is handy, but even aside that it hits pretty good overall. I've seen numbers upward of 4500 personally. I think the main difference between the other two specs and Rage is the fact of Simplicity. You don't need as many buttons for Rage as you do for Carnage or Anni. Whether that's even two less or however many, that's still less to have to worry about. I would also actually be interested to see Rage be used more frequently in Operations because as-is, it's not viable. TFB HM is still glitched on Operator IX so that AoE's can't be used on the Data Cores (last I was informed). It's viable in PvP but it's still just as predictable as it was in 1.0. That can lead to players becoming bored with the spec and that'll deplete the numbers in PvP quickly. No PvPer in the right mind would want less numbers out there. I do want to pose a question though: How would you change Rage to make it usable in Ops (not just for trash clearing) and less predictable without destroying it?

[Zamppa]

Nice story...

 

Also, Force Crush is 3 Rage (4 - 1 point cost reduction from talent). Yes, Obliterate is another 3 Rage, but that doesn't magically make Crush 6.

 

...and more nice story

 

I said "Obliterate+ Force Crush demand 6 rage". Didn't you notice the +-mark there? I never said Crush demanded 6 rage.

 

And what comes to the other questions, yes Rage Mara gets quite a lot of rage and fury but building it up still takes time! It's far from "insta hit this and then insta Smash" as you are describing it. One has to use a lot of talents to build up 30 fury OR several rage demanding talents with CDs to build up the buffed Smash. Either of those demand more rage and time compared to Annihilate and Massacre which are the 2 other 31 point tallents. That's why buffed Smash hits harder because it demands other skills to be used to get it, Annihilate and Massacre do not. That's a very simple thing and I repeat myself again when I say Smash has a very limited AoE-range so it's completely your and your teammates' fault if a Rage Mara gets you all with one Smash.

 

Rage spec would be totally useless if buffed Smash hit with the same amount as Annihilate and Massacre do because it needs more time and building to get it buffed. In PVP Rage Mara usually smashes only 1-2 targets a time so speaking about "OP AoE-attack" is complete bull, if the mara hits more targets it's again because of your poor positioning.

 

Rage mara is completely okey as it is! I already compared the three builds in my latter post and brought up Annihilation lacks some burst because of its self heals and Carnage lacks AoE because of its single target burst. Rage lacks self heals(=has lover survivability than Annihilation) and lacks single target damage and burst when compared to Carnage. Rage instead has slowing and controlling powers with more powerful Choke(with no pushback) and with Crush which also build up a powerful close quarter small area Smash over time which is slightly more powerful than Annihilate and Massacre because it demands more time and rage to be built up. I find it amusing that most of you don't understand these mechanics even though I have already explained them to you several times.

[Wainamoinen]

About 80% of all 5k+ single attacks come from Smash/Sweep. If that doesn't tell you that Rage/Focus is about as strong a PVP spec as exists in the game, I don't know what does. Burst is king in PVP, and Rage/Focus is the king of burst.

 

If anyone is interested in figures about the abilities that score 5k+ hits, I posted a thread on just that subject a little while ago.

 

Always good to have data and not rely solely upon your initial prejudices when forming a judgment.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=588575

[Racter]

I went back to annihilation a few days ago. After reading the new abilities we're supposedly getting it seems like it will be #1 again. I have found out several somewhat surprising things.

 

Bubble stun is no longer a problem.

My damage is consistent, but overall kill time is much faster 1v1. If you get locked out during a gore window GG. No such issue with annihilation.

Annihilate still gets my 5k medal easily most matches.

Pyro pts are no longer an issue.

Top 3 damage every game, regardless of either team's composition.

Only beat by a smash jugg once in damage, pyros would usually be neck and neck damage wise.

I miss my 75k healing medals =( Got close several times. 69k 68k 71k 72k 74k.

Even when being cleansed, had no trouble killing targets and cranking out damage.

 

Overall I've really missed it and am enjoying playing it again. I do miss the roots from Carnage and the occasional 1-2-3 dead moments. I actually came pretty close to beating my all time high damage wise last night in a voidstar, too. 5 more seconds of up time and I would have passed it. Considering that was an acw that went without a cap on either side for over 2 minutes and mid was never capped AND I was smashing in mid the entire time, I'd say the spec is still very strong overall when played well.

 

Smash is not at all the go to dps class for rateds, either. You would have to stack several to be useful at all and it would still be a bad idea. You'd be giving up a PT (way more burst, taunt two stuns and a pull), a Carnage mara (real pred, roots for days, better burst) or a sniper (burst, roots for days, knock back, node protection services) for a smash mara (****** pred, less effective burst) or a smash jugg (taunts, intercede, push, aoe slow, same burst). A smash jugg over a second sniper or second carnage mara, sure. But giving up any one of those for multiple smash? No chance. Would not be interested in a rage mara, either.

 

Tbh I don't think there's an issue with rage at all. It's only a problem if you're a bad or the other team has a train full of them. The latter is a matchmaking issue on BWs end and the former is on you.

[Omophorus]

Rage mara is completely okey as it is! I already compared the three builds in my latter post and brought up Annihilation lacks some burst because of its self heals and Carnage lacks AoE because of its single target burst. Rage lacks self heals(=has lover survivability than Annihilation) and lacks single target damage and burst when compared to Carnage. Rage instead has slowing and controlling powers with more powerful Choke(with no pushback) and with Crush which also build up a powerful close quarter small area Smash over time which is slightly more powerful than Annihilate and Massacre because it demands more time and rage to be built up. I find it amusing that most of you don't understand these mechanics even though I have already explained them to you several times.

 

I understand what you're saying perfectly well.

 

I also understand that in a real WZ, with real players on real teams, coordinating via real voice chat, that every single thing you've said flies out the window.

 

In PUGstravaganzas, anything goes, and maybe what you're saying has some validity to it. Of course, in PUGstravangazas, the defining characteristic is a vast gap in skill+gear between players (and often teams) meaning that any cream will rise to the top, regardless of class or spec.

 

There's a reason the DPSs of choice in RWZ are Pyro PTs and smashers (with at least 1 Marauder who can field respec to Carnage for 80% Pred when it's needed). They're the best. By a big distance.

 

I find it amusing that you refuse to face reality, and keep clinging to your position of pretentious superiority, arguing that the sky isn't blue.

 

I, at least, don't make any excuses for it. I don't like how Rage plays very much (it's very clunky), but it is so dominant that it is stupid not to use except when I have a very particular reason to respec. I'd say that I'm spec'd Rage at least 80% of the time in WZ because it's the best tool for the job when the only job you need to fill is "efficient killing machine".

[Zamppa]

I understand what you're saying perfectly well.

 

I also understand that in a real WZ, with real players on real teams, coordinating via real voice chat, that every single thing you've said flies out the window.

 

In PUGstravaganzas, anything goes, and maybe what you're saying has some validity to it. Of course, in PUGstravangazas, the defining characteristic is a vast gap in skill+gear between players (and often teams) meaning that any cream will rise to the top, regardless of class or spec.

 

There's a reason the DPSs of choice in RWZ are Pyro PTs and smashers (with at least 1 Marauder who can field respec to Carnage for 80% Pred when it's needed). They're the best. By a big distance.

 

I find it amusing that you refuse to face reality, and keep clinging to your position of pretentious superiority, arguing that the sky isn't blue.

 

I, at least, don't make any excuses for it. I don't like how Rage plays very much (it's very clunky), but it is so dominant that it is stupid not to use except when I have a very particular reason to respec. I'd say that I'm spec'd Rage at least 80% of the time in WZ because it's the best tool for the job when the only job you need to fill is "efficient killing machine".

 

I'm not interested in how you cordinate in your WarZones. If your cordination and success in warzones are that highly dependable about how much Rage spec maras hit with their smash it's kinda hilarious! Many people with different classes have said here they can manage and contain Rage maras quite well and that the spec is not OP when people know how to play against it. I have noticed the same thing even though I'm mostly PvE-player who does maybe 2-3 WZs/week just because PVP in this game is a boring joke anyway: every time people see my mara sorcs just stun me and run away and other classes use stun+stealth to escape. Although when I rarely find a player who is willing to actually fight me I notice my Rage spec is not anything OP which would give me an easy kill! Yes it helps me to kill the other one more often than s/he kills me, but nothing what I would say OP.

 

Marauders are wanted in WZs/Ops and stuff as they are the best dps class in the game because they are the only melee class designed for dps. It's just that simple as every other class has a chance to spec also as a healer or tank and do combospecs.

 

I see it's your problem to see the reality even though many people here in this thread have said they have no trouble with Rage mara and they can survive against it. I have also told you TWICE already why Rage's Smash is more powerful than the other 2 31 point talents, because building the buffed smash up takes more rage and time than the other 2 31 point talents and still you don't seem to understand or recognize this. I also want to say Rage is a very good spec for end game PvE-content. Of course there are few fights Carnage or Annihilation are better but overall Rage is as good as the others and there are several places where Rage is better than the others. I'm saying this about PvE because I hope you understand Rage spec would be nerfed to the point of quite total uselessness in PvE if the smash was nerfed down, at that point using Rage in any PvE end game environment would be totally useless.

 

I have now made all my points and in return you have made yours which mainly are "I think Rage mara is OP, clunky and boring...Nerf, nerf, neeeerf!" when others have told you it is not OP when one knows how to deal with it. You also have not given us any options how you would make Rage spec "better" or "less OP and clunky" even though someone just asked you to do so on the latter page so I'm going to rest my case here and ignore your future whines before you actually come up with some concrete suggestions that would actually work in reality also in PvE-environment without making Rage significantly weaker when compared to Annihilation and Carnage. Until then /ignore.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Zamppa

[Rockerfox]

I've played both trees on my Marauder and I can say that Annihilate is better in pvp. You can't run away from Dot's. Smash is so insanely easy to get away from: Knockback, slow, root...Coupled with the fact that it doesn't immediately cool down like Annihilate does and there is no way to lower the cool down from what I remember. Annihilate is a far more versatile tree in pvp and pve compare to Rage.

 

As fun as it is to watch people's health evaporate when Smash hits, you can't count on that tree like you can count on Annihilate to get the job done.

[Omophorus]

I'm not interested in how you cordinate in your WarZones... If your cordination and success in warzones are that highly dependable about how much Rage spec maras hit with their smash it's kinda hilarious... I have noticed the same thing even though I'm mostly PvE-player who does maybe 2-3 WZs/week just because PVP in this game is a boring joke anyway: every time people see my mara sorcs just stun me and run away and other classes use stun+stealth to escape. Although when I rarely find a player who is willing to actually fight me I notice my Rage spec is not anything OP which would give me an easy kill! Yes it helps me to kill the other one more often than s/he kills me, but nothing what I would say OP.

 

Ah hah! So what we have here is a scrub talking like he has a clue! Not really surprising, but hey!

 

1) You talk about people "willing to fight you". PVP is not about dueling. It's about team-based objectives. Killing the other team is key to achieving objectives, and Rage is amazingly good at it.

 

2) You don't care about coordinated WZs, so in other words you just PUG and act like that's real PVP. lol...

 

3) You downplay that one of the best team-killing specs also happens to be a very good dueling spec. Rage will win most 1v1s even though 1v1s aren't its strength.

 

Marauders are wanted in WZs/Ops and stuff as they are the best dps class in the game because they are the only melee class designed for dps. It's just that simple as every other class has a chance to spec also as a healer or tank and do combospecs.

 

Uh, what?

 

They are the best DPS class in the game because they do the most DPS. The fact that they're melee-only or only designed for DPS is irrelevant. The current state of game balance has Marauder on the top of the heap. That could change at any time due to adjustments to the class, independent of the fact that we are melee and designed for DPS.

 

We're wanted in WZs because we have the strongest utility buff (Predation), and the strongest DPS spec (Rage). We are wanted in Ops because of DPS and Bloodthirst.

 

The fact that another class can spec to tank or healer is irrelevant, because their DPS specs, as stated by BioWare, are *supposed* to be tuned to basically be equal. This may not be the case in practice, but this is the design goal by BioWare. There is no inherent design choice to make Marauder stronger, it just happens to be that way right now.

 

I see it's your problem to see the reality even though many people here in this thread have said they have no trouble with Rage mara and they can survive against it. I have also told you TWICE already why Rage's Smash is more powerful than the other 2 31 point talents, because building the buffed smash up takes more rage and time than the other 2 31 point talents and still you don't seem to understand or recognize this. I also want to say Rage is a very good spec for end game PvE-content. Of course there are few fights Carnage or Annihilation are better but overall Rage is as good as the others and there are several places where Rage is better than the others. I'm saying this about PvE because I hope you understand Rage spec would be nerfed to the point of quite total uselessness in PvE if the smash was nerfed down, at that point using Rage in any PvE end game environment would be totally useless.

 

Rage is a TERRIBLE PVE spec for everything but trash clearing. It's good for a couple HM FPs (BT, Kaon). It's good for a few spots between bosses in Operations when you have big groups of weaker mobs to kill. It's utterly useless the rest of the time because it's about 20% LOWER in single-target DPS compared to properly-executed Carnage or Annihilation.

 

The more you talk, the more obvious it is that you are an average-at-best player who doesn't get involved in ANY content at a high level, PVP or PVE. When you don't know what you're talking about, you shouldn't say anything, and it is blatantly obvious that you don't know what you're talking about.

 

You've even defended that Rage can be countered. Yes, it can. So can literally every spec of every AC in the game. That fact does not mean anything about game balance, and the simple fact is that Rage *can* be countered, but not reliably, and not without considerably more effort than most other specs require.

 

I have now made all my points and in return you have made yours which mainly are "I think Rage mara is OP, clunky and boring...Nerf, nerf, neeeerf!" when others have told you it is not OP when one knows how to deal with it. You also have not given us any options how you would make Rage spec "better" or "less OP and clunky" even though someone just asked you to do so on the latter page so I'm going to rest my case here and ignore your future whines before you actually come up with some concrete suggestions that would actually work in reality also in PvE-environment without making Rage significantly weaker when compared to Annihilation and Carnage. Until then /ignore.

 

Good, don't let the door hit you on the *** on the way out. You can live easy in your bubble apart from reality, and not have to hear people who understand the actual state of the game better than you tell you the way things really are.

 

I've commented more than once on what I think needs to be done to Rage (remove auto-crit from Smash, improve single-target DPS from any of a variety of mechanisms, including but not limited to a PPA-esque CD reset and cost reduction on Force Scream). That would be a great boon for PVE as well, because it might actually give Rage a place in boss fights rather than just for trash clearing.

 

Not that you're going to read this, but if you're not playing WZs in premades against other premades (or doing ranked), and you're not at MINIMUM farming TFB HM, you really have no room to talk about anything as it relates to Marauder class design or balance. For everything else you can just overgear and underskill your way to victory and never even know what you're doing wrong.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Omophorus

[bbare]

Why does a thread about a simple question have 64 responses?

[BlznSmri]

Why does a thread about a simple question have 64 responses?

 

Statement.

Opinion on statement.

Counter opinion (NO UR WRONG)

No U

No U

No U...

 

And so on, regardless of who's correct.

[Zamppa]

Ranting. shouting and calling other people names...

 

It seems reasonable conversation is impossible with you as you start shouting and calling other people names when they aren't agreeing with you. Also you still don't bring up anything serious to improve Rage spec but only some random bull...So I'm going to continue my /ignore on you.

[Zamppa]

Why does a thread about a simple question have 64 responses?

 

I find this rather amusing aswell as I have already TWICE stated here why buffed smash hits bigger numbers than annihilate and still some people refuse to accept and/or understand it. Even though it's a very simple explanation and simple logic: building up buffed smash takes more time and rage/fury than using annihilate and even so Smash does not hit that much harder than annihilate when buffed up.

[BlznSmri]

It seems reasonable conversation is impossible with you as you start shouting and calling other people names when they aren't agreeing with you. Also you still don't bring up anything serious to improve Rage spec but only some random bull...So I'm going to continue my /ignore on you.

 

He's right though. Rage isn't the easiest to counter and it's a terrible PvE spec outside of Trash and all of two current tier fights (Trandoshan phase of Kephass and Add Duty on The Writhing Horror). Rage NEEDS tweaking and more balance between Single Target and AoE.

 

I find this rather amusing aswell as I have already TWICE stated here why buffed smash hits bigger numbers than annihilate and still some people refuse to accept and/or understand it. Even though it's a very simple explanation and simple logic: building up buffed smash takes more time and rage/fury than using annihilate and even so Smash does not hit that much harder than annihilate when buffed up.

 

Four abilities and two globals and I just hit up to five people for 5-7k (three abilities if I'm playing a Jugg), and I can do it again in about 9 seconds. Smash hits on average for 20% more damage than Annihilate and multiple targets, not to mention that unless you manage to keep Annihilator stacks up you have 10.5 seconds before you can use it again on top of it costing 5 rage.

 

Hint: Those abilities are Frenzy, Berserk, Charge and Smash. The second cycle is Crush, Obliterate, Assault/ Battering or Slash then Smash once it's off CD (this is with you still having excess Rage). The third Smash would be done using Choke for shockwave stacks + Rage and Charge for the Auto Crit, using Assault and Vicious Slash to lower your Smash CD (assuming you didn't have enough Fury to use Berzerk again).

 

It's so damn easy to build Shockwave stacks and you rarely have to wait more than 9 seconds to use Smash again if you stay on your toes.

[Zamppa]

He's right though. Rage isn't the easiest to counter and it's a terrible PvE spec outside of Trash and all of two current tier fights (Trandoshan phase of Kephass and Add Duty on The Writhing Horror). Rage NEEDS tweaking and more balance between Single Target and AoE.

 

 

 

Four abilities and two globals and I just hit up to five people for 5-7k (three abilities if I'm playing a Jugg), and I can do it again in about 9 seconds. Smash hits on average for 20% more damage than Annihilate and multiple targets, not to mention that unless you manage to keep Annihilator stacks up you have 10.5 seconds before you can use it again on top of it costing 5 rage.

 

Hint: Those abilities are Frenzy, Berserk, Charge and Smash. The second cycle is Crush, Obliterate, Assault/ Battering or Slash then Smash once it's off CD (this is with you still having excess Rage). The third Smash would be done using Choke for shockwave stacks + Rage and Charge for the Auto Crit, using Assault and Vicious Slash to lower your Smash CD (assuming you didn't have enough Fury to use Berzerk again).

 

It's so damn easy to build Shockwave stacks and you rarely have to wait more than 9 seconds to use Smash again if you stay on your toes.

 

Yes it is not the easiest to counter in PvP but it's still far from OP as some people here have been complaining. Every spec has its highs and downs and every spec has something the opponent has to be careful against.

 

Again, if a Rage Mara succeeds to hit 5 opponents in PvP with 6k with their Smash the opponents are doing something terribly wrong by sitting 5 metres away from their teammates. Annihilation usually also has some bleeding DoTs on at the same time when using Annihilate too so we actually just can't compare only Annihilate and Smash here and all DoT-specs have less burst when compared to AoE-specs or single target burst specs.

 

That rotation is good BUT Frenzy has over 2 minute CD(depending on what points you put into other trees after 31 points in Rage tree), Berserk needs 30 fury and building it up takes time, Charge has a CD and 10-30 metre range, Crush has over 10 sec cooldown, Obliterate has a similar CD too. Building up shockwave is not difficult but as you can see it's very highly dependable on talents with over 10 sec CDs or Berserk which requires building up fury by using attacking tallents. It's highly situational how quickly one can get new buffed smash going after the last one, because of those CDs.

 

I'm not saying here Rage spec could not be tuned a bit in 1.7/expansion but I think Smash here is working rather nicely and is far from OP so tuning it down too much would break the spec and make it useless in many situations. I agree taking maybe 1k damage off from Smash and adding it into Scream and possibly buffing up Ravage and maybe some other pure single target attacks could balance the spec a bit rather nicely.

[BlznSmri]

Again, if a Rage Mara succeeds to hit 5 opponents in PvP with 6k with their Smash the opponents are doing something terribly wrong by sitting 5 metres away from their teammates. Annihilation usually also has some bleeding DoTs on at the same time when using Annihilate too so we actually just can't compare only Annihilate and Smash here and all DoT-specs have less burst when compared to AoE-specs or single target burst specs.

 

The thing that makes Rage a better Team spec than Annihilation isn't just that Smash hits 20% harder than Annihilate and more frequently, it's that 40% of Annihilation's damage and survivability is cleanse-able. Smash is already hitting one target harder than Annihilate, and if it hits two targets Smash just did more damage than Ravage with full stacks of Juyo form.

 

That rotation is good BUT Frenzy has over 2 minute CD(depending on what points you put into other trees after 31 points in Rage tree), Berserk needs 30 fury and building it up takes time, Charge has a CD and 10-30 metre range, Crush has over 10 sec cooldown, Obliterate has a similar CD too. Building up shockwave is not difficult but as you can see it's very highly dependable on talents with over 10 sec CDs or Berserk which requires building up fury by using attacking tallents. It's highly situational how quickly one can get new buffed smash going after the last one, because of those CDs.

 

A skilled player can build 30 stacks of Fury in about 15 seconds. That's full rage and 4 singularity stacks every 15 seconds not counting Choke or Crush and not even using Frenzy. Rage's burst may be less than Carnage but it requires less setup and execution time than Carnage and is far more difficult to deny (Leap in + root > Knocked Back > Leap in a gain with another root).

 

I'm not saying nerf the spec, I'm saying balance out the damage it does. Remove the Auto Crit from Smash, buff single target damage.

[Zamppa]

The thing that makes Rage a better Team spec than Annihilation isn't just that Smash hits 20% harder than Annihilate and more frequently, it's that 40% of Annihilation's damage and survivability is cleanse-able. Smash is already hitting one target harder than Annihilate, and if it hits two targets Smash just did more damage than Ravage with full stacks of Juyo form.

 

 

 

A skilled player can build 30 stacks of Fury in about 15 seconds. That's full rage and 4 singularity stacks every 15 seconds not counting Choke or Crush and not even using Frenzy. Rage's burst may be less than Carnage but it requires less setup and execution time than Carnage and is far more difficult to deny (Leap in + root > Knocked Back > Leap in a gain with another root).

 

I'm not saying nerf the spec, I'm saying balance out the damage it does. Remove the Auto Crit from Smash, buff single target damage.

 

Annihilate probably suffers the lack of burst damage because of its potential self heals which boosts its survival some bit. I'm not completely sure if devs thought it like this but it sounds like the reasonable solution and explanation.

 

15 seconds or even a bit more is often a rather long time, atleast in PvP environment. I still think buffed smash takes long enough time to be more devestating attack than annihilation. Of course that's only my opinnion. Annihilation spec has more choices to use in its rotation as Annihilate does not require so much specific tallents to use as Rage spec requires. And again that's only my opinnion.

 

I don't think nerfing the autocrit from Rage would be a good thing as fully optimized Rage maras have some above 30 % crit chance(+ the possible class buff) so roughly 2/3 times of using their strongest move it would only hit HALFLY as hard(Rage maras have ~100 % Force crit multiplier so taking off the autocrit would make "buffed smash" to hit halfly as hard as it hits now 2/3 of the times as non-crit smash only does 1/2 of the damage compared to crit). This would totally nerf down the spec but if the devs wanted to tune down smash dps and put in some more single target dps they could tune down some of the skill on the second top line of the skill tree which buffs up Force crit multiplier and put some dps boost into Scream or some other single target attack.

[BlznSmri]

Annihilation spec has more choices to use in its rotation as Annihilate does not require so much specific tallents to use as Rage spec requires. And again that's only my opinnion.

 

I lol'd a bit. About 60% of Annihilation's damage comes from talented abilities. Another 15% is from Rupture + it's bleed. All that damage comes from talents that affect Juyo form (increase DoT Crit chance by 15% with juyo's inherent damage stacks) and talents that directly affect bleed damage. Then there's also the talents that affect Force Charge, allowing the spec to have the resources to use the abilities.

 

Simply stating that one spec require fewer "specific" talents to augment abilities is laughably wrong.

 

I don't think nerfing the autocrit from Rage would be a good thing as fully optimized Rage maras have some above 30 % crit chance(+ the possible class buff) so roughly 2/3 times of using their strongest move it would only hit HALFLY as hard(Rage maras have ~100 % Force crit multiplier so taking off the autocrit would make "buffed smash" to hit halfly as hard as it hits now 2/3 of the times as non-crit smash only does 1/2 of the damage compared to crit). This would totally nerf down the spec but if the devs wanted to tune down smash dps and put in some more single target dps they could tune down some of the skill on the second top line of the skill tree which buffs up Force crit multiplier and put some dps boost into Scream or some other single target attack.

 

As of right now, fully optimized Rage (for pvp, don't even bother bringing Rage into progression PvE right now) is to stack all Power and Surge Mods/ Augments, so at best, with the class buff they'd have around 20% base crit chance.

 

What should happen is that they should remove the auto crit from smash, buff Crush and Obliterate (possibly even include more talents that affect Blade Storm) to increase Rage's single target damage potential and change the Dominate talent to only increase Crit chance by 20%.

 

You've also got to remember that in a single target fight (i.e. Boss fight) Smash is only about 30% of Rage's damage making all those talents that directly set up Smash to hit like a semi a bit of a waste because it falls behind in between smashes. This would help bring balance to PvP and help make the spec comparable for PvE.

[Zamppa]

I lol'd a bit. About 60% of Annihilation's damage comes from talented abilities. Another 15% is from Rupture + it's bleed. All that damage comes from talents that affect Juyo form (increase DoT Crit chance by 15% with juyo's inherent damage stacks) and talents that directly affect bleed damage. Then there's also the talents that affect Force Charge, allowing the spec to have the resources to use the abilities.

 

Simply stating that one spec require fewer "specific" talents to augment abilities is laughably wrong.

 

 

 

As of right now, fully optimized Rage (for pvp, don't even bother bringing Rage into progression PvE right now) is to stack all Power and Surge Mods/ Augments, so at best, with the class buff they'd have around 20% base crit chance.

 

What should happen is that they should remove the auto crit from smash, buff Crush and Obliterate (possibly even include more talents that affect Blade Storm) to increase Rage's single target damage potential and change the Dominate talent to only increase Crit chance by 20%.

 

You've also got to remember that in a single target fight (i.e. Boss fight) Smash is only about 30% of Rage's damage making all those talents that directly set up Smash to hit like a semi a bit of a waste because it falls behind in between smashes. This would help bring balance to PvP and help make the spec comparable for PvE.

 

I still stick with my opinnion: Rage requires specific talents to be used in rather certain order. Annihilation on the other hand has a little more chances and variations. Of course every spec has its own main talents to use but anyway.

 

And again removing the autocrit from Smash would make it hit as hard as it hits now too rarely, small boost to other single target talents in the spec is not good enough if that is done. Again if they tuned down the Force Crit multiplier, lets say, maybe 10-15 % that would make buffed smash to hit aprox. 1000 dmg less than it does now. In addition they indeed should add more dmg to Crush, Choke, Scream and maybe Vicious Slash and possibly to Vicious Throw to make the rotation of the spec more versatile and offer more choices. Removing autocrit from Smash would destroy Rage spec both in PvE and in PvP.

[Dire]

This is such nonsense. DPS classes should be balanced, otherwise there is no point in DPSing with any class other than Marauder/Sentinel, particularly in PvE. If you want to keep the ridiculously OP derp-smash spec for PvP, fine, but they need to take away your AOE mez and every other bit of utility Marauders get.

 

DPS classes are balanced. The dps pecking order is not determined by the highest number, it is determined by the lowest. Compare that lowest number against others that play that class well, and I guarantee you balance.

 

Bad players are the ones who spend less time perfecting their craft and more time on these forums asking for buffs/nerfs.

 

Grow up.