LVL 32 Marauder leveling "guide"

[Bwzimmerman]

Hey all, I have searched and searched and searched but cant find a recent Marauder leveling guide. I am not looking for an in-depth guide, just something to help me redo my skill tree and learn the rotations and game craft behind the game these days. All the guide I find are for old versions of SWTOR and not 2.5. I am afraid that ill pick a guide that is too out dated and wont work.

 

I haven't played in about a year and I am completely lost. I know that from lvl 32 Annihilation is the way to go, but I don't remember what attacks or abilities are good for the build. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have a lot of catching up to do and its overwhelming...

[Bwzimmerman]

No responses

[HaoZhao]

Well, once you get past 30, annihilation gets pretty linear. It's kind of a no brainer. Annihilation is only good for PVE, so build it for PVE. Ignore anything that adds stuff like slows when possible. Ignore boosts to stealth and the like. When you get Annihilate at level 45, move to the carnage tree and get the AOE reduction.

[TACeMossie]

For crafting: The guides wont go out of date really. Well, apart from a possible out-of-date statement of synthweaving being useless (its now used for augments) and having 2 companions available that get +5 mission efficiency and +1 crafting crit rate (or was it the other way around?).

 

For leveling:

Each spec builds up differently, until 45, where they start to even out a bit more.

 

Heres what the level 44 versions of each tree should looks like:

 

RAGE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bZZfrMkbGkRfc.3

CARNAGE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100ZhGMRRrorMIM.3

ANNIHILATION: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bIbRrorfsr.3

DOTSMASH: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bZZfrMkbGkRfc.3

 

Level 45 just moves up the tree for Carnage and Annihilation, and Rage/Dotsmash change there:

RAGE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100ZZfrMkbGkRffz.3

DOTSMASH: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bzZZfrMkbGkRfc.3

 

Finally, Level 55:

RAGE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZhMZfrMkbGkRffz.3

CARNAGE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bcZhGMRRrorMIRZf.3

ANNIHILATION: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bIbRrRMfsrzZhGZM.3

DOTSMASH: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100rcdoZbZfrMkbGkRfc.3

 

So, for explanations on each spec:

 

RAGE:

 

Rage is a spec designed around spamming smash, preferably smashes that are boosted by singularities. Strikes, Slashes and Ravage reduce the cooldown on Smash and Obliterate, while using Smash boosts damage temporarily. Activating Beserk will almost instantly fill up your rage bar, while also (specced) building shockwaves, boosting smash's damage, and using Obliterate or Force Charge will cause your next smash that hits something to crit (at level 32, you should definately have what you need). Rage runs in Shi-Cho and gets a bonus 30% armor pen over the other specs.

 

Things to remember:

1. After using either Obliterate or Force Charge, Force Scream becomes free. If you aren't at 30 stacks of Fury, then use the free Force Scream to build up Fury and do decent damage.

2. Spam Viscous Slash often. It builds up centering and does more damage than in other specs because of armor pen and added force damage (specced)

3. Always follow up a Beserk with Force Charge -> Smash. Pre-45, dont worry about shockwaves for smash, though post-45 every smash should be done under a triple shockwave stack with the auto-crit from Obliterate/Force Charge.

 

Oh and this is also the best PvP Spec, because of its survivability

 

ANNIHILATION:

 

Since you've passed level 30, Annihilation is no longer the "pretty much only viable marauder spec" - Rage and Carnage need stuff higher up in the tree to be useful, and Dotsmash is the same when leveling as Rage until level 45. The goal of Annihilation is simply, keep them bleeding. Deadly Saber and rupture must be spammed as much as possible, and with the nice no-minimum-range force charge, you get an easy time keeping high on focus. Though you should watch out for when you hit 45 - the entire rotation changes upon getting Annihilate. Once you get it, you get a second top-priority goal of spam that move whenever its up - and so you run out of focus incredibly fast once you get there, and everything becomes a lot more frustrating.

 

Things to remember:

1. Vicious slash has a chance to reset the cooldown on rupture, and you want to try and use rupture on cooldown

2. Beserk makes your next 6 bleeds auto-crit, so use it when you have 3 stacks of deadly saber on the target and rupture about to be used

3. Annihilate costs a ton of rage and does ludicrous damage, so once you get it, keep it on its ever-decreasing cooldown (each use reduces its cooldown), and spam rage builders in the time between uses - though keep Rupture and Deadly saber on cooldown as well.

 

CARNAGE:

I suck at carnage, so just know its not really anywhere near as good as the other 2 until level 45, where you get Massacre, and it becomes a lot better. Carnage also needs less accuracy than the other specs, due to +3% accuracy from Atayru stance.

 

I can't really give tips here, but what I can give you is KeyboardNinja's Guide to Combat Spec (or: How to sentinel tank) - its a guide for the sentinel version of Carnage, but it does come with a Sentinel -> Marauder translation

 

DOTSMASH:

A recently discovered incredibly powerful build, that adds deadly saber and rupture to smash spec, force crush (and by extension, every second shockwave boost) for significantly more sustained damage. I can't really comment here, as I never picked it up, Dotsmash only has +2% accuracy so it needs significantly more accuracy than the other 2 specs. However it also has +15% surge on everything, and heals on bleed crits, so it is more likely to perform well with crit than the other specs do.

There is a guide here - I'd say until level 45, play it exactly like a focus, and after that it gets interesting... very, very interesting...