need help with DPS issues, also need help with spec decisions.

[XantosCledwin]

Okay, here's the deal. I have a level 55 Marauder (Necrer) who I am comfortable enough with during Solo and small group PvE using both the Annihilation and Carnage Specs. However, I recently did some Parsing with both of those specs, and have come to realize that I am either doing something wrong with my character's rotation, or I am seriously in need of getting better gear and finishing out the datacron runs.

 

Here is a brief run down of the gear and datacrons I currently have on said character:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/dc9c27b5-6981-4d97-873a-1366602d9765

 

Advice and help on how to improve the character would be appreciated. I am kind of wanting to use this character as a PvP character and as a PvE-Raids character, but if I can't get it's DPS number up from around the 1300's range against a Testing Dummy, I am not sure I will be able to do either of those things.

Edited August 6, 2013 by XantosCledwin

[Maelael]

Gearing:

 

Step 1: Unless its for set bonus considerations, upgrade all of your armorings to 66 grade. It's super cheap to do.

 

Step 2: Get rid of all of your lettered mods for unlettered mods. If you have to go with crafted 66 mods (Deft A mods), be sure to replace those asap. Use deft mods ONLY.

 

Step 3: Actually, this should be first - get rid of all of your bad enhancements. You need 395 accuracy between your ear, implants, and enhancements. You can actually get by on just grade 66 accuracy enhancements getting you to 395 (6 of them), leaving ear, implants, and 1 enhancement open for surge.

 

See Oof's guide:

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-1202.html

 

Step 4: MK-9 augment your gear. All of it. Even if its the blue augments, its a big difference.

 

 

After that, run a 55hm fp every day. Without fail. Do the simple sm Ops be it with friends/guild or Pugs when you can as well. Get all your gear to grade 69 as the above.

 

Save money, purchase (or have someone make them for you, for mats) the 72 grade hilts.

 

Biggest issue you're facing is the gear optimization - 395 accuracy, unlettered mods. Past that read up on the Combat/Carnage and Watchman/Anni rotations to ensure you're doing it right. I parse way better (like 300+ dps better) than another better geared guildie because I'm better at my rotation, and can utilize Combat or Watchman depending on the boss fight.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Maelael

[XantosCledwin]

I have been looking at several level 55 Marauders on my Server's Fleet. And a large chunk of them have Crit Rating more so than they do Accuracy Rating. I had heard stacking Crit Rating these days is the wrong way to go for a Marauder. Is this true or false?

[Maelael]

I have been looking at several level 55 Marauders on my Server's Fleet. And a large chunk of them have Crit Rating more so than they do Accuracy Rating. I had heard stacking Crit Rating these days is the wrong way to go for a Marauder. Is this true or false?

 

Made a long targeted post so I spoilered it.

 

 

It's because they don't read the forums, or are just grabbing whatever 69 gear comes their way (Most of the 69 dropped stuff comes with crit). I ran with like 2 accuracy enhancements for a bit because the others were still crafting, and had surge ones in their place - the difference was night and day for me.

 

I still have a few 66 enhancements because I haven't found/been able to buy or get crafted the 69/72 accuracy ones yet, and have otherwise full 69 with 72 hilts. I annihilate the 69/72 mix crowd with crit and bogus lettered stuff in terms of DPS - and I still have mostly blue augs. Even when I was in 66/69 gear (appropriate mods and enhancements) I was doing better than the guys in full 69 gear but with crit tertiaries/lettered mods.

 

There is about 20+ posts of people going "I was totally into crit, I took your advice KBN/Oof/Random guy, and WOW my DPS jumped huge!"

 

Oof's post is right on the money. What they did was run simulations and dummy parses to prove where your accuracy should be vs operation bosses, and switched out for lower/higher accuracy vs surge and tested that too. Nibbon did a huge thing on it with Sorcs/Sages and outright proved the importance of accuracy in DPS. Lots of people proved crit is garbage because of the return of damage not being comparable to accuracy (to a point) or surge. They found as near as possible to 100% melee accuracy was best for Sents/Maras, but like with sorcs, 110% force accuracy was best. Dunno I read the studies, I played with the spreadsheets, as far as I can tell they are correct.

 

Rotation wise, I follow Oof's post on Watchman/Anni (And Ive tried different methods, he's 100% correct on the rotation), and KBN's post for Combat/Carnage in PvE. Only difference is I do the Dispatch right before PS thing they're talking about, and don't use cauterize as often as I could (which might up my DPS if I used cauterize a bit more). But KBN's written method is solid, as is his spec. If anything I like Combat for FPs because you can take the higher smash/sweep damage for trash/adds - and if the tank sucks you can easily rip aggro off the healer.

 

Learn to play both specs (Really, all three). I use focus/rage for PvP mostly and clearing daily trash, Combat/Carnage I use sparingly in PvP but for most fights in PvE, and Watchman/Anni in longer tank and spanks, especially if I'm not on add duty.

 

The fact I can play Combat/Carnage or Watchman/Anni allows me to fit multiple roles for the Op, and spec out to ensure I have top (or 2nd place) DD in 8 or 16m Ops on each boss (I run with people in mostly 69s). I have two guildies who don't switch specs (One plays Focus, one plays watchman), and the watchman one usually comes similar DPS (I have a better connection and maybe do a better rotation even with my DoT clipping habit) and focus is always 5-10% behind...because its not a good single target spec. They have almost the same gear I do (the watchman guy's enhancements are better than mine for sure).

 

By far, Sents/Maras are an amazing and flexible melee DPS class - only Gunslingers/Snipers really outdamage us in PvE, and not by a whole lot either. Inspiration is a big deal to Ops (well, Ops that you aren't overgearing the content at least). Learn all of the specs and when to use them, gear appropriately, and it's fun as hell.

 

Edited August 8, 2013 by Maelael

[XantosCledwin]

thanks for the info. I don't suppose you could get me a link to where KBN outlines the rotation you mentioned?

[Maelael]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=659058

 

Always troll/read both forums for your class (Sentinel/Marauder in this case). Same class, different names.

[kennethdale]

Just throwing a second opinion into the mix, I tend to agree with everything Maelael said except for the HM FP. SM Ops are made for 66 level gear so if you are buying those mods you are geared enough for them. HM FPs are good ONLY for Armorings and Comms because there are 0 good mods and enhancements that drop. Its sad but BW did it on purpose to incentivize raiding (particularly higher end).

 

I also highly agree that you be able to play all 3 specs because there are many fights where Carnage or Annihilation will be significantly better than the other and even a few (HM Dash'roode, Withering Horror, etc) that Rage can be king of. That said, at some point it is very beneficial to have a few pieces of gear that can be swapped for Carnage because that spec has an in-built +3% Accuracy as opposed to the other two specs. I like to switch out implants: One set of Surge/Power for Carnage and one of Accuracy/Power for Annihilation/Rage.

 

One final note: Don't get discouraged if you are not doing so well in numbers because there are several very important factors when it comes to Marauders:

 

1) Marauders are EXTREMELY gear dependant - the worse the gear, the exponentially worse the DPS.

 

2) While Rage is stupidly simple to play and Annihilation is pretty straight forward, Carnage is INSANELY complex often coming down to split second decisions that depend entirely on your awareness of buffs/resources/what stage of your rotation your in, and a million other factors. You're going to make mistakes. Any Marauder who claims they don't is straight out lying because after a certain point you stop thinking about what you do next and you will have times when you simply react and react wrong.

 

3) Carnage is MASSIVELY random. Sometimes your Procs will line up perfectly and your DPS will shoot through the roof, others your will get executes and slaughters at all the wrong times and your DPS will absolutely plummet. Its not your fault.

 

4) Annihilation, at the moment at least, requires you to Annihilate every 15 seconds. There are bosses where this is just not possible and again, your DPS WILL suffer. Its not your fault.

[AscendentReality]

The "random" ness of carnage can be mitigated by in game reactions, and calculations. In other words skill, which is why many of the highest parsing marauders are in fact, using carnage.

If your more comfortable sticking with a more set rotation than working your butt off for a complex spec that no one can truly master. it's really up to you.

 

RNG is important , but making use of what you have is what separate someone from class mastery to someone who is merely familiar.

[XantosCledwin]

for those of us who are not all that familiar with the wide world of MMORPG Acronyms... what does RNG stand for... I assume it stands for Random Number Generator... but the way you are using the Acronym tends to make it sound like that is not the case.

[kennethdale]

for those of us who are not all that familiar with the wide world of MMORPG Acronyms... what does RNG stand for... I assume it stands for Random Number Generator... but the way you are using the Acronym tends to make it sound like that is not the case.

 

You are correct in your reading of that acronym.

 

The "random" ness of carnage can be mitigated by in game reactions, and calculations. In other words skill, which is why many of the highest parsing marauders are in fact, using carnage.

If your more comfortable sticking with a more set rotation than working your butt off for a complex spec that no one can truly master. it's really up to you.

 

RNG is important, but making use of what you have is what separate someone from class mastery to someone who is merely familiar.

 

While I agree that it is highly possible to handle situations wherein RNG play a major issue for Carnage (IE: long periods without Execute, Slaughter Procs during Gore window or after second window, etc.) I think you are missing and simplifying several important points:

 

1) While the Devs currently believe that Annihilation is the highest single-target, sustained DPS this is simple not true by a large margin and that is the reason for the highest parsing Marauders using Carnage - because it simply is the best at the moment. I won't lie, I am much better at Annihilation than I am at Carnage and yet 99% of the time I parse better at Carnage in spite of my mistakes. Using your logic this should not happen.

 

2) Annihilation does have a significantly less complex priority system than Carnage, it is still very difficult in many instances to play it optimally without analyzing a fight to determine how and when CDs and abilities need to be used to maximize DPS.

 

3) If you have ever watched Carnage DPS in real time you will understand better what I mean by "skyrocket" and "plummet". I have watched my DPS shoot up by 300-400 in a matter of seconds when RNG favored me only to then drop back down to where it was before or even lower in some cases. This is mitigated partially by the one's ability to handle the bad RNG, which as I insinuated previously I would bet a large sum of my money that I do not do as well as many others but I do decently well, it is mitigated more by the law of large numbers:

 

The average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed.

 

Carnage relies on the fact that there are so many hits on a given target that the number of times you have bad RNG will be rivaled by the number of times you have great RNG. Take for example, the current top dummy parse on TORParse for Marauders:

 

In looking at the damage charted over time, we see massive peaks and valleys indicating that there is some significant lull periods but even comparing the highest peaks to the lowest there is a significant difference. The largest peak (ignoring the opening burst as it is artificially inflated) I can see is at second 116 when 11,965 damage is dealt at that moment. The lowest significant peak (I'm ignoring the obvious lulls between Gore windows) is at second 31 when 5,363 damage is dealt. That is a huge gap and it all comes to RNG.

 

If we instead look at the DPS charted over time, we see a different pattern: The huge random peaks and valleys are replaced by an increasingly smooth, downward sloping curve indicating that as the fight progresses and more data is accumulated his DPS is reaching a level that more accurately reflects what should the correct theoretical DPS given his gear. Looking at the used abilities we can clearly see that he even used Force Scream outside of a Gore window which is a theoretical no-no but in spite of this achieved the highest recorded parse for the class.

 

In order to compare this with Annihilation, we have to go significantly far down the list of top Parses but the effect is worth seeing: In general, Annihilation DPS spikes at the start, drops and then begins to rise unlike Carnage which spikes high and then begins dropping. The possible effect of this is that if the encounters were long enough, we would begin to see Annihilation DPS over-taking Carnage. I have no proof of this, it is just a theory based on looking at the DPS charts and the only comparison I have is a poor one.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Speaking of things related to Carnage, I had an idea for Ravage and Carnage. Since we have the Ravage Root, why not add something else to Ravage. Like a Damage booster after a complete Ravage channel, lets say 10% for 8 Seconds, and to make Ravage more useful give us a 15 Sec CD on ravage (i know Ravage is a bit high on damage so for a comprimise nerf Ravage's damage by about 5% to compensate for this change) This WOULD add another Proc to put in with our other 2 BUT it would be a consitent 100% proc. Then you could line up a Ravage > Gore > Execute FS > Massacre > (Granted a Slaughter Procs) > Gore > VT and it would all deal 10% more damage than without the Ravage Buff. Making Carnage's damage a bit more consistent and on par with other classes (say Deception Sin or Lethality/Engi Sniper)

[ishbindeinvater]

Speaking of things related to Carnage, I had an idea for Ravage and Carnage. Since we have the Ravage Root, why not add something else to Ravage. Like a Damage booster after a complete Ravage channel, lets say 10% for 8 Seconds, and to make Ravage more useful give us a 15 Sec CD on ravage (i know Ravage is a bit high on damage so for a comprimise nerf Ravage's damage by about 5% to compensate for this change) This WOULD add another Proc to put in with our other 2 BUT it would be a consitent 100% proc. Then you could line up a Ravage > Gore > Execute FS > Massacre > (Granted a Slaughter Procs) > Gore > VT and it would all deal 10% more damage than without the Ravage Buff. Making Carnage's damage a bit more consistent and on par with other classes (say Deception Sin or Lethality/Engi Sniper)

 

lol you are joking, yes? on par with deception? mhm