Camaalot Marauder Annihilation 2.4 PVP

[TheCourier-]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proof

[JackNader]

Crit rating is linked to annihilation's survivability. None of the math done takes that into consideration.

[TheCourier-]

Crit rating is linked to annihilation's survivability. None of the math done takes that into consideration.

 

+5% crit chance slightly buffs self healing at the expense of considerable bonus damage.

[PoliteAssasin]

You have NEVER said ANY evidence that you are right. All you do is say that you are right. You have not shown any proof at all that more than 100 crit rating works well for annihilation spec.

 

In case you do not know what proof is, go look at a dictionary.

 

I recommend people disregard Politeassassin's opinion about annihilation spec, since he will not admit that mathematical proof is proof.

 

Yep. You're absolutely right. I must be playing a different version of annihilation than everyone else. The version of the spec I have is greatly superior to the crappy spec that is currently available to all else in game. I must be lying about my gear and purposefully handicapping myself with my crit just for the sake of it. Bioware must be completely wrong about how annihilation is supposed to play. The Star Wars lore must be completely wrong about what Juyo is intended to do, and not do. You have offered up SO much irrefutable evidence to back up your claims, and it is especially convincing given your tendency to run around with a pocket healer (by your own admission) and have all the time in the world to decimate your foes with your 0 crit rating gear. How I could ever have hoped to contend with you in this battle of words, I know not.

 

+5% crit chance slightly buffs self healing at the expense of considerable bonus damage in my opinion, which is not proven fact.

 

I've taken the liberty of fixing this statement for you.

Edited October 31, 2013 by PoliteAssasin

[TheCourier-]

Yep. You're absolutely right. I must be playing a different version of annihilation than everyone else. The version of the spec I have is greatly superior to the crappy spec that is currently available to all else in game. I must be lying about my gear and purposefully handicapping myself with my crit just for the sake of it. Bioware must be completely wrong about how annihilation is supposed to play. The Star Wars lore must be completely wrong about what Juyo is intended to do, and not do. You have offered up SO much irrefutable evidence to back up your claims, and it is especially convincing given your tendency to run around with a pocket healer (by your own admission) and have all the time in the world to decimate your foes with your 0 crit rating gear. How I could ever have hoped to contend with you in this battle of words, I know not.

 

You try to act like you're an outstanding player, but you have never shown any evidence of that, probably because you have none.

[TheCourier-]

 

I've taken the liberty of fixing this statement for you.

 

In America, mathematical proof is proof. In Canada, mathematical proof is proof. In England, mathematical proof is proof. In France, mathematical proof is proof.

[PoliteAssasin]

You try to act like you're an outstanding player, but you have never shown any evidence of that, probably because you have none.

 

Maybe because I have nothing to prove to anyone, least of all someone who can't play their class without a healer crutch (by their own admission).

[JackNader]

@courier

 

lol.. You didn't do ANY calculations on how 5% more crit affects survivability.. you simply stated that is was "slightly" more survivable and then dismissed it whole heatedly.

 

The statement you made about bonus damage % increases due to power is a blatant misrepresentation. I don't know whether or not you did it intentionally, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

 

Power may provide a linear damage increase but its affect as a percentage of every abilities base damage decreases as the base gets larger. Crit provides a non linear return on investment. It's actual affect is a static % gain on base damage.

 

To spell out what I'm talking about

 

Adding 100 damage to 100 base damage = 100% gain

alternately

Adding 5% crit to 100 base damage = 2.5% gain ---- power is a no brainer

 

Adding 100 damage to 10,000 base damage = 1% gain

Adding 5% crit to 10,000 base damage = 2.5% gain --- power is no longer the way to go.

 

You need to go back and redo your math and incorporate all the variables.

[TheCourier-]

@courier

 

lol.. You didn't do ANY calculations on how 5% more crit affects survivability.. you simply stated that is was "slightly" more survivable and then dismissed it whole heatedly.

 

The statement you made about bonus damage % increases due to power is a blatant misrepresentation. I don't know whether or not you did it intentionally, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

 

Power may provide a linear damage increase but its affect as a percentage of every abilities base damage decreases as the base gets larger. Crit provides a non linear return on investment. It's actual affect is a static % gain on base damage.

 

To spell out what I'm talking about

 

Adding 100 damage to 100 base damage = 100% gain

alternately

Adding 5% crit to 100 base damage = 2.5% gain ---- power is a no brainer

 

Adding 100 damage to 10,000 base damage = 1% gain

Adding 5% crit to 10,000 base damage = 2.5% gain --- power is no longer the way to go.

 

You need to go back and redo your math and incorporate all the variables.

 

Go read one of Bioware's posts where they admitted that they overnerfed crit rating.

[PoliteAssasin]

Go read one of Bioware's posts where they admitted that they overnerfed crit rating.

 

Translation: I have no response so here's a deflection. You know whats amusing? You'll point to Bioware for the crit nerf, yet they consider Annihilation fine, and you don't agree. Picking and choosing based on your opinions, hmm?

Edited October 31, 2013 by PoliteAssasin

[TheCourier-]

Translation: I have no response so here's a deflection. You know whats amusing? You'll point to Bioware for the crit nerf, yet they consider Annihilation fine, and you don't agree. Picking and choosing based on your opinions, hmm?

 

They don't consider annihilation spec fine. Go read the sentinel questions and answers.

[PoliteAssasin]

They don't consider annihilation spec fine. Go read the sentinel questions and answers.

 

The only thing they are going to address is the stack durations. Dude, seriously? Please tell me you have better arguments than this.

[TheCourier-]

Bioware's post:

 

As for a faster way to ramp up, we plan to give you something to help in this regard, but it will not be coming anytime soon. We may also experiment with decrementing the stacks on expiration, rather than removing all of them at once, but we cannot make any promises at this time that you will ever see it decrement stacks in the Live game.

 

Annihilation/Watchman is intended to be the top sustained damage spec for Marauders/Sentinels, while Carnage/Combat is meant to be better sustained damage than Rage/Focus (but worse than Annihilation/Watchman) and better burst damage than Annihilation/Watchman (but worse than Rage/Focus). As a result, the top damage over an extended period should go to Annihilation/Watchman. The top damage in a short fight should go to Rage/Focus. Carnage/Combat should hold its own in both situations, while not being the best at either – think of its strength as versatility.

[PoliteAssasin]

Bioware's post:

 

As for a faster way to ramp up, we plan to give you something to help in this regard, but it will not be coming anytime soon. We may also experiment with decrementing the stacks on expiration, rather than removing all of them at once, but we cannot make any promises at this time that you will ever see it decrement stacks in the Live game.

 

Annihilation/Watchman is intended to be the top sustained damage spec for Marauders/Sentinels, while Carnage/Combat is meant to be better sustained damage than Rage/Focus (but worse than Annihilation/Watchman) and better burst damage than Annihilation/Watchman (but worse than Rage/Focus). As a result, the top damage over an extended period should go to Annihilation/Watchman. The top damage in a short fight should go to Rage/Focus. Carnage/Combat should hold its own in both situations, while not being the best at either – think of its strength as versatility.

 

I don't see how you think this supports your claim.

[Yeochins]

It is clear to me that a lot of players:

 

1. Have never played a Marauder.
   
2. Have never played all classes.
   
3. Have never played all specializations.
   

 

 

First thing needing to be clarified about the Annihilation specialization - your PvE gear math does not work on the Annihilation specialization. Soo many ignorant marauders don't understand the resource-refunding nature of critical hits for an Annihilation Marauder. Stacking purely power is a sign of a smash-n00b claiming to be an expert at using a Marauder.

 

Stacking some critical hit rating pieces drastically improves the resource management of the class. The people having issues keeping 3 stacks of Annihilate up are the very same people who stack nothing but power. Yes purges hurt the spec's damage output. Yes it has a long ramp up time.

 

 

 

The only issue with the spec is it has less volatility over its burst than Carnage has. The resource management on an Annihilation marauder makes its burst more predictable and therefore easier to heal over.

[znihilist]

The people having issues keeping 3 stacks of Annihilate up are the very same people who stack nothing but power.

 

No! Those are the people who can't count, and they have the same problem in PvE.

You have 6 or less rage and Annihilate is about to come off CD at 1 stack, what do you do ?

If you can't count, then you use vicious slash, lose 2 rage ( 3-1) and you have to use something to generate rage (Assault), 1.5 seconds later you lose the stacks and you are held back 12 seconds.

Arguing the use of crit chance is debatable at best, being able to generate one rage every 4.5~6 seconds does not out perform stacking power due to the short nature of the fights in PvP

Edited October 31, 2013 by znihilist

[JediMasterSLC]

Someone said that all this silly math stuff only applies to PVE. That's completely false- it's just a little harder to do said math in context of PvP.

 

None of the data presented in this thread thus far is adequate in determining how much crit rating one should have. The math involved in calculating this is considerably more complicated than most of you realize. Also, I haven't done any number crunching since obroan gear came out (believe it or not, the increase in stats from obroan to conqueror could possibly make a difference, and if it did, it would be in favor of getting a little crit rating), so my previous post- claiming 0 crit rating is best from a pure DPS perspective- can only be said of full min-maxed conqueror gear.

 

To achieve a completely accurate result, you actually have to estimate what % of your dps comes from what abilities. Then you have to punch in the sum of those percentages times the damage formulas for all those abilities as a function of power and crit rating. Even if they're both melee or both force, and even if they benefit or don't benefit from the same crit chance and crit damage talents, the abilities have different base damages that all have different ratios with their bouns damage scaling coefficients, making it necessary to type in the formulas for said abilities separately. For example, something like (1.984(966.3+(.23(1353-x)))+489.7)(1+(.01)(32+30(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((x/55)/0.9)))(.87)) was what I used as the formula for blade storm in focus spec (that was the only formula I managed to find that I could just copy paste, and I don't feel like typing in a formula that's applicable to watchman right now-maybe another time). Here's the graph of it-zoom out if you can't see anything- with the X axis representing your crit rating, and Y axis the ability's damage. For weapon based attacks it is more complicated because of the off hand factor.

 

That's what you need to do to calculate how much crit you should run exactly. Thankfully, we are only able to adjust the crit rating in our gear in intervals of a couple dozen, and thus such fine precision is unnecessary. However, the steps I described above are still required for the most part- you just have room for some estimations, making the time required for this number crunching not completely insane.

 

Remember, this is all from a pure dps perspective, and does not factor in focus generation or self heals from crits. Factoring such things into the calculations would be practically impossible, especially for the self heals. Here's where the subjective judgment of the player comes in, but remember that even with a little crit rating (you still definitely don't want more than a couple hundred), you won't be accessing these talents very much more than you would be accessing them without any crit rating, since most of your crit chance obviously comes from sources other than crit rating.

 

Math is important and you should use it (whether you do your own crunching, or rely on someone you trust to do it for you). It's more reliable than your perception of your performance in game, which is far too volatile to provide accurate information on which gear setup is better. Your in-game perception should only be used to help assign qualitative values to things like energy regen and self healing from crit, to then be used in your personal decision on how much those talents should affect the pure DPS calculations.

Edited October 31, 2013 by JediMasterSLC

[Racter]

lolwat

 

Is this even a thing? Annihilation is the squishiest spec we have. Go play rage or carnage for a while and come back. 0 crit rating gives more damage than having any at all period. There are 100s of parses that prove this, not to mention it's napkin math as best to work it out yourself. Maybe if the healing was burst healing (you heal for half of annihilate's damage or something) instead of off dots it would be okay but as is it's a joke. Even 2% healing would be **** in today's game because burst damage has gone up so much relative to what it was. Ignoring that, you're playing the squishiest of the three specs with the least burst in a meta built around burst. Makes zero sense.

 

I mean really even with 100% crit chance you'd still be doing at most 4-500HPS? Congrats you can maybe out heal affliction? lol

[JediMasterSLC]

it's napkin math as best to work it out yourself.

 

Nope, see my above post. Assuming stimmed full min-maxed conqueror for watchman, 0 crit rating is only very marginally better in the pure DPS formula than something like 100 crit rating, and arguments can easily be made that the perks from critting outweigh this. People who say that running 0 crit is bad are wrong, and people who say running any crit whatsoever as watchman are wrong. BW did nerf crit rating too hard, but only slightly. For most specs in the game, it's almost even with power for dps increase for the first couple hundred points.

 

Maybe if the healing was burst healing (you heal for half of annihilate's damage or something) instead of off dots it would be okay but as is it's a joke. Even 2% healing would be **** in today's game because burst damage has gone up so much relative to what it was.

 

Yep, though half of annihilate's damage is a bit much don't you think lol. Not saying that would make it OP obviously, it's just not what the spec needs.

[PoliteAssasin]

lolwat

 

Is this even a thing? Annihilation is the squishiest spec we have. Go play rage or carnage for a while and come back. 0 crit rating gives more damage than having any at all period. There are 100s of parses that prove this, not to mention it's napkin math as best to work it out yourself. Maybe if the healing was burst healing (you heal for half of annihilate's damage or something) instead of off dots it would be okay but as is it's a joke. Even 2% healing would be **** in today's game because burst damage has gone up so much relative to what it was. Ignoring that, you're playing the squishiest of the three specs with the least burst in a meta built around burst. Makes zero sense.

 

I mean really even with 100% crit chance you'd still be doing at most 4-500HPS? Congrats you can maybe out heal affliction? lol

 

Lolwut? Thanks for the laugh man, been cracking up over this post all day. Its so easy to tell the FOTM rerollers from the class vets.

[JediMasterSLC]

[i probably repeat myself a couple times in this because I didn't type up the paragraphs in order and skipped around a little- sorry for any confusion this may cause]

 

...As for your closing line, basically I can use your line of thinking and suggest that all classes should be able to tank and heal.

 

You could, but it would be a gross mis-characterization of my argument. How about I put it like this: would you feel okay if an entire AC was subpar for ranked arenas? Because to me, that's only a little worse than a spec being subpar for ranked arenas. I have a 55 of all 8 classes, which I try to spend a roughly equal amount of time on, and a good chunk of the PvP community also has multiple toons that they play on regularly . Telling someone that it's acceptable for them to have a lower chance of performing well in ranked 4v4s with one spec of an AC than with another spec of that AC, because they can just respec, is almost like telling them that it's acceptable for them to have a lower chance of performing well in ranked 4v4s with one class than another class, because they can just switch characters or reroll. Respecing....relogging onto a different class.... there isn't much of a functional difference. The fact that the shared trees of a technical "class"'s 2 ACs are more similar to each other than they are to other specs of their ACs (this probably applies more to focus/rage than the other 3 shared specs) further breaks down the functional difference between spec and class. Otherwise, you end up with a balkanization of

1) your characters, to the point where it can be said that "this is my PvE toon, that's my 8v8 regs toon, and that's my ranked 4v4 toon", because your favorite specs on each of those toons are only optimal in certain game types, even if those ACs are balanced in general for each game type. This seems silly to me. Also, it seems to me that a lot of players are more likely to have a favorite spec, or favorite specs spread out across the classes they play (i.e. my favorite class might be sentinel?, but I'd rather play lightning or madness sorc, gunnery mando, tank shadow etc. than smash sent), than to have an actual favorite AC. This is another reason why I think specs should be balanced as functionally separate entities, rather than as sub-classes of their AC.

2) the specs you encounter within certain game modes. The diversity of classes/specs you encounter within a given game mode suffers from the concept that different specs are more suited to different game modes than others. I think this decreased level of diversity hurts the player experience in general, i.e. people being tired of seeing a disproportionate amount smash maras, op healers, and AP pt tanks in arenas. This isn't the greatest example, but my point is clear.

 

You keep going back to this idea that "this is an mmo, and that's just how things are done". The thing is, there isn't anything intrinsic to massive multiplayer online role playing games that mandates that a particular spec can never be competitively viable for all game modes, or that in order to get the very most out of your class, you should have to respec differently for 8v8s, 4v4s, etc. Like I said before, I think it makes more sense to view the 24 specs as distinct units, not merely as things that the ACs can change between (especially given the respec lockout since 2.4- which I support). I think they should balance them as if one was locked into a certain spec and could never ever switch after choosing. You obviously don't agree. I never really played WoW, but from what I hear and read, people usually refer to themselves as their spec, as well as their class (i.e. "I am a Fury Warrior", or "I am a Retribution Paladin"). This seems to indicate that there is a sense within the community that all specs should be competitively viable within all of the major fields of play in the game. I could totally be wrong about WoW here, but it doesn't really matter. Even if every mmorpg currently held to the balancing theory that you uphold (which I doubt), they would not lose any of the qualities essential to an mmorpg by going with the balancing theory that I uphold and attempting to make all the specs competitively viable within all the major game modes.

 

To specifically address your first paragraphs: I think it's pretty damn obvious to anyone reading that I don't want to homogenize the specs. I'm starting to think that you just have a pessimistic view on the ability of devs to make classes/specs substantively different but still truly balanced. Balance does not mean "X has a slight advantage in 8v8s, but it's ok because Y has a slight advantage in 4v4s. See, balance!". That's a ridiculously easy and lazy as s*** solution. Real balance means they have an equal chance in both, despite being completely different in play style, combat role, and strengths and weaknesses within the game type in question. If you don't agree with that, then there's nothing else I can say on this point. Something tells me you won't.

 

Oh, and as far as your distinction between "penalization" and "optimal choices".... it's trivial. If the spec you want to play in ranked is subpar for that game mode, you are functionally being penalized for not changing to a better spec. I know you might be tempted to answer this with another "but this is an mmo so balancing is different", but 1) that really has nothing to do with it 2) I answered that above.

 

Not sure what you mean when you say that I've shifted my position on what I think watchman needs. My posts have been mostly about the way class balance should function, since that's where I think our fundamental disagreement lies. But if you insist on hearing my personal opinion on why watchman is weak... I think you're wrong that dot cleansing isn't a crippling issue, and that there either needs to be some kind of talent introduced that combats this, or that the dots should be considered force effects instead of physical effects, so that only sorcs can cleanse them instead of all three healers. Especially In a world where most healers are scoundrels who can cleanse with the regular 5 second cd cleanse, as well as with dodge/evasion which has a very short function CD, watchman needs something to check against cleansing/purging. Trust me, it is not difficult at all as a scoundrel/op to ensure that 3 stacks OS never gets to the 2nd tick (nevermind the 3rd), and to make sure that a cleanse/purge is up when zen/berserk gets activated. The reason I'd like the 2% heals back is mostly for s**** and giggles, and I don't think survivability is a major problem. I do think merciless slash/annihilate should hit a little harder, but I doubt that the damage of that ability will ever get buffed due to PvE balance. Perhaps they could tie in a damage or crit chance increasing- talent who's activation requires the granting of a buff/stacks of a buff; this buff would only be possible to be (or at least only be likely to be) granted in a PvP environment. The simplest way would obviously be to say "Merciless slash does X% more damage when targeting/hitting a player target" but that would be a lazy solution that I probably wouldn't be a huge fan of. I think that some additional utility buffs would be completely justified, given that the spec isn't as bursty as others, and thus can be given some compensation in areas other than actual DPS, dueo the fact that the meta is centered more around burst than around sustained damage. Remember that's not homogenization, that's balancing a spec's strengths and weaknesses of a spec with the different strengths and weaknesses of other specs. As far as what such utility buffs would be, I feel like others have given this more thought than I have, and are more qualified to speak on what these buffs should look like. I think a more potent healing-received debuff on crippling throw is probably a good idea and in line with the concept of the spec.

Edited November 1, 2013 by JediMasterSLC

[PoliteAssasin]

I'm sorry but there's nothing in your previous statements that suggests that is worth reading. I'd sooner watch paint dry.

[JediMasterSLC]

I'm sorry but there's nothing in your previous statements that suggests that is worth reading. I'd sooner watch paint dry.

 

What a shame. Oh well, at least others can benefit from my insight.

Edited November 1, 2013 by JediMasterSLC

[JediMasterSLC]

Oh, and does this mean you'll stop poisoning sentinel/mara threads from now on? Edited November 1, 2013 by JediMasterSLC

[PoliteAssasin]

Oh, and does this mean you'll stop poisoning sentinel/mara threads from now on?

 

Thats something you can take credit for actually. Unlike you I'm not in the business of spreading misinformation, as fact no less. I've been playing this class since launch, I've tested countless builds and gear setups. Watchman has always been my bread and butter spec. No matter how many times you repeat yourself, in the end you're still wrong about it. It's as simple as that. Beauty of it is, people can choose who they want to believe. You and I have no control over that. And as I said earlier the fewer people who know what the spec is really capable of the better. I and others who do will continue to dominate with it, and you and those who follow your opinions can enjoy your "superior" spec.