2.8 - Tracking the Potential Marauder Quality of Life Changes

[revcrisis]

I want to utilize this thread to track potential Marauder QOL changes. This is not a buff the class thread, but specific QOL changes for Marauders that will benefit the class without making it overpowered. The idea here is to move around existing skill points or suggest small tweaks to existing skills. It is not a BUFF SMASH BY 40% type of thread.

 

General:

 

 

• Cloak of Rage: This should be on the first row/tier of skills, as Cloak of Carnage and Cloak of Annihilation are both currently on the first row. This will make all 3 "Cloak of xxxxx" exist on the first row, and allow players to pick up this skill if they feel it is defensively necessary, regardless of what tree they are specced. Perhaps Decimate can be moved up to the second row as it is a central "rage" tree skill, while Cloak of Rage moved to the first row.
  
• Force Vigor: Only the rage tree reaps the benefit of Force Vigor's 2 rage buildup from Dual Saber Throw. Rage has no rage issues, and does not really need this skill. Carnage has tight rage management and would benefit much more. Making Force Vigor on the first or second row of a skill tree would be beneficial to all specs.
  
• Battle Cry: Unlink this from the Shii-cho form. This will allow Carnage to benefit from the free Force Scream.
  
• Phantom - Force Camouflage Skill: This needs to be moved to the first or second row, so all 3 specs are able to pickup the additional seconds. Considering Carnage is one of the squishier specs, the additional 1 or 2 seconds on force camouflage is much needed.
  
• Enraged Slash is now a 2 point skill. GIves a 50%/100% change to refund 1 rage when used.
  

 

 

Tree Specific:

 

Annihilation:

 

• Cloak of Annihilation: In addition, reduces the rage cost of Retaliation by 1.
  
• Deadly Saber: Now requires Juyo form. This will end dot-smash.
  
• Berserk instantly grants ____ stacks of Juyo Form / _____ stacks of Annihilate upon activation. Perhaps 6/3 is a good amount.
  
• Dot protection as a skill point high-up in the Anni tree. Madness and Lethality both have this dot protection which is very crucial.
  
• Blood Ward now reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 7.5%/15% (Anni is the only dot spec without periodic damage reduction)
  

 

 

Carnage:

 

• Massacre now builds 1 stack. At 2~3 stacks, you are granted Execute. This will remove the RNG aspect that is quite frustrating. Considering Madness has recently gone to a "stack" type proc, this makes sense.
  
• Slaughter: The Devs have already said that they will NOT give us the "slaughter will only activate when the first Gore is on CD". This means we need to find a QOL change that addresses this reset issue but does not interfere with their intended Vicious Throw/Slaughter mechanic
  
• Execute: In addition to having force scream deal 10% more damage, force scream is now free. (This is if the Battle Cry change does not fly).
  

 

 

Rage

 

• Cascading Power: Now increases all damage dealt by 5/10/15% for 6 seconds after Smash (up from 3/6/9%).
  
• Force Lash: Quite useless at the moment. Suggestions welcome here. It's a rage specific skill so something revolving around the rage play style would make this skill point more viable.
  
• Brutality: It is now a 2 point skill. Increases critical strike chance of Vicious throw & vicious slash by 7.5%/15%.
  
• Back when Smash was initially nerfed, we lost a tick on Force Crush. A small buff to the damage of force crush would make it more representative of being the highest skill point in a tree.
  

 

 

 

Any additional suggestions will be added to this first post.

Edited May 1, 2014 by revcrisis

[twotilmidnite]

GENERAL

• Make Enraged Slash a 2 point skill. Make Short Fuse 1 point.
  
• Move Stagger to the Rage tree and replace it with Force Vigor. Or get rid of Stagger altogether.
  
• Add a skill to tier 1 of a skill tree - Wrath of a Sith - Boosts your Strength by 3/6/9%
  

 

CARNAGE

I like the idea for Massacre building stacks, but I could see that interfering with Slaughter. Unless one is Massacre builds stacks for Execute and Ataru form hits build stacks for Slaughter. I feel no real issues with Carnage, though. Also, lower the skill tier for Brooding (Channel Hatred builds Fury. Can't remember the name of it.) since every spec could benefit pretty nicely from it.

 

ANNIHILATION

For Annihilation, give berserk a couple more stacks. Remove the chance for Vicious Slash to proc Ruptures CD and make Annihilate/Vicious throw proc it 100% of the time. Also, have Deadly Saber require Juyo form (Will pretty much end DoTsmash)

 

RAGE

As for Rage? I don't really see any need to mess with it. I don't feel the need to change the Force Scream skill to all specs. Annihilation doesn't use Force Scream in its rotation, Carnage (If proposed changes are made) would be free from Execute, if not it's not a huge cost, and Rage would have it free from Obliterate/Charge.

Edited April 23, 2014 by twotilmidnite

[TACeMossie]

Honesly, My QoL things would be as follows:

 

ANNIHILATION:

 

Berserk instantly grants 6 stacks of Juyo Form upon using it. In addition, every stack of berserk that is used grants one stack of Annihilate

 

Standard Bleed damage reduced by 45%

 

Juyo Form now has the following effects:

Each stack increases normal damage by 2%, and bleed damage by 15%.

 

CARNAGE:

 

Slaughter is now a 100% chance to proc, but requires Gore to be active to proc.

Dual Wield Mastery combined with Narrowed Hatred, at Tier 1 of the tree

New skill in Tier 2: 33/67/100% chance to Generate 1 rage when doing damage, 1 second lockout.

 

RAGE:

 

Cascading power is now 5/10/15% (i've suggested this in the past, good to see it in the OP)

Force Lash: Increase its damage by 30%

Shii-Cho Mastery moved to Tier 3

Undying moved to Tier 5

Force Vigor moved to Tier 6

New ability: [im bad at making names up so heres a sentinel version of it] Focused Burns: Increases the critical hit chance of Cauterize by 25/50%

Edited April 23, 2014 by TACeMossie

[nimmir]

Been thinking on Anni changes, here goes. Feedback and theorycrafting very welcome.

 

Annihilate now has a base cooldown of 6 seconds. Using annihilate grats Annihilator which now increases the damage dealt by Annihilate by [3-5% - math needed]. Stacks up once (twice with Indefatigable Onslaught).

 

Indefatigable Onslaught now also causes Juyo Mastery's bonus to be applied to Annihilate. [math needed]

 

Close Quarters has been replaced by Enraged Pulverize (or something equally evil-ish sounding).

Enraged Pulverize gives Pulverize a 50%/100% chance to generate 3 rage when resetting the cooldown of Rupture.

 

Enraged Charge now also gives Enraged Pulverize a 50%/100% chance to generate 1 additional rage.

 

Deadly Saber no longer needs to be stacked. It now has 1 additional tick to account for the change.

 

Bloodlust now also causes Berserk in Juyo form to immidietely grant Annihilator and 3 stacks of Juyo.

 

Agonizing sabers now increase the ammount of healing generated by Hungering by x% [math needed]

 

Blood Ward now reduces the damage taken from all perioidic effects by 7,5%/15% [really, anni is the only DoT spec that lacks this]

 

Pulverize - Vicious Slash now has a 50% chance and Annihilate a 100% chance to reset the cooldown of Rupture. Cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.

 

Vicious Throw no longer affects Pulverize [read below]

 

In addition to its previous effects, Hemorrhage now gives Vicious Throw a 50%/100% chance to apply Rupture's damage over time effect when dealing damage. This cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds and shares this lockout with Pulverize.

 

Rupture and Deadly Saber's damage over time effects are now Force debuffs.

 

Rupture's initial hit now deals Force-based damage, instead of melee based damage. The damage is unchanged.

[Aztian]

give me heavy amor and better shields

[g_mK]

I want to utilize this thread to track potential Marauder QOL changes. This is not a buff the class thread, but specific QOL changes for Marauders that will benefit the class without making it overpowered. The idea here is to move around existing skill points or suggest small tweaks to existing skills. It is not a BUFF SMASH BY 40% type of thread.

 

General:

 

• Cloak of Rage: This should be on the first row/tier of skills, as Cloak of Carnage and Cloak of Annihilation are both currently on the first row. This will make all 3 "Cloak of xxxxx" exist on the first row, and allow players to pick up this skill if they feel it is defensively necessary, regardless of what tree they are specced.
  
• Force Vigor: Only the rage tree reaps the benefit of Force Vigor's 2 rage buildup from Dual Saber Throw. Rage has no rage issues, and does not really need this skill. Carnage has tight rage management and would benefit much more. Making Force Vigor on the first or second row of a skill tree would be beneficial to all specs.
  
• Battle Cry: Unlink this from the Shii-cho form. This will allow Carnage to benefit from the free Force Scream.
  
• Phantom - Force Camouflage Skill: This needs to be moved to the first or second row, so all 3 specs are able to pickup the additional seconds. Considering Carnage is one of the squishier specs, the additional 1 or 2 seconds on force camouflage is much needed.
  
• Enraged Slash is now a 2 point skill. GIves a 50%/100% change to refund 1 rage when used.
  

 

Tree Specific:

 

Annihilation:

• Suggestions here please.
  
• Cloak of Annihilation: In addition, reduces the rage cost of Retaliation by 1.
  
• Berserk instantly grants 6 stacks of Juyo Form upon activation
  

 

Carnage:

• Massacre now builds 1 stack. At 3 stacks, you are granted Execute. This will remove the RNG aspect that is quite frustrating. Considering Madness has recently gone to a "stack" type proc, this makes sense.
  
• Slaughter: The Devs have already said that they will NOT give us the "slaughter will only activate when the first Gore is on CD". This means we need to find a QOL change that addresses this reset issue but does not interfere with their intended Vicious Throw/Slaughter mechanic
  
• Execute: In addition to having force scream deal 10% more damage, force scream is now free. (This is if the Battle Cry change does not fly).
  

 

Rage

• Cascading Power: Now increases all damage dealt by 5/10/15% for 6 seconds after Smash (up from 3/6/9%).
  
• Force Lash: Quite useless at the moment. Suggestions welcome here. It's a rage specific skill so something revolving around the rage play style would make this skill point more viable.
  
• Brutality: It is now a 2 point skill. Increases critical strike chance of Vicious throw & vicious slash by 7.5%/15%.
  

 

Any additional suggestions will be added to this first post.

 

 

I actually like most of these ideas, a few changes I would do are

Carnage: Massacre now builds 1 stack. At 2 stacks, you are granted Execute. This will remove the RNG aspect that is quite frustrating. Considering Madness has recently gone to a "stack" type proc, this makes sense. This would allow to do Gore>FS>MS>MS>rage builder>gore>ravage or VT>TST>FS is a consistent manner

 

Annihilation: make Annihilate reduce the next Annihilate by 3 seconds and reduce the number of maximum stacks

 

Making FS free for carnage would be nice or allowing TST to generate focus for all skill trees

[znihilist]

I am going to be the dissenting voice here! Most of the suggestions here are either straight up OP or doesn't really address the underlying issues.

PvE wise:

Carnage: Very well balanced, the only issue (in my opinion) is execute's rng, fixing that either by stacks or some other mechanic would be great.

Annihilation: Could use some love on two fronts, dps/build up and rage issue in sub-30% rotation.

Increase the cd reduction of every stack of annihilator to 2 seconds and reduce the number of stacks to 3 (we will keep the same 6 seconds CD at full stacks), reduce the rage cost of vicious throw in that tree to 2 instead of 3 (with enraged slash still granting 1 back). A decreased rage cost of retaliation from cloak of annihilation is a great idea.

Rage: I don't think should be changed for PvE.

 

PvP wise:

Carnage: The fix on execute will play nice here.

Annihilation: An additional root breaker or root/slow immunity on some CD would be great (like on cloak of pain) + uncleansable dots.

Rage: Remove the target requirement of smash and increase perhaps Force Crush's damage to players.

Edited April 26, 2014 by znihilist

[UrbanSaint]

General changes:

-Undying Rage reverted back to its old mechanic (lose the health on activation, not after the effect ends)

-Deadly throw force cost reduced

 

Carnage changes

-channeled Hatred slowly giving you stacks of fury a tier 1 skill (sorry forgot the name of the skill lol)

-duel Weild mastery a tier 1 skill

-Massacre now stacks up to 2 times, and at 2 stacks you get either the Execute proc or a Vicous Throw proc

 

Annihilation changes

-Uncleansable DoTs from bleeds

-Annihilate stacks also increase the damage of your bleeding effects

 

I don't play Rage enough to recommend any changes for it XD

Edited April 27, 2014 by UrbanSaint

[vdbswong]

Execute - Now granted after 2 Massacres (/3 Ataru Form Procs?).

Slaughter - Now procs when Execute is consumed, same ICD.

 

This should also help players to see that Force Scream should only be used during a Gore window and that the best case scenario for Gore, Force Scream and Slaughter will always be:

 

Gore -> FS -> X -> X -> (Optional Builder) -> Gore -> X -> X -> FS

 

Probably could also squeeze out more DPS if you can pre-stack Rage and do back to back Gore Windows without any builder in between, however if you still put a builder in, there won't be any DPS change (apart from an average increase from having consistent procs).

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Ok i have some ideas for Watchman/Anni

 

1. Make Valorous Call/Frenzy grant 4 stacks of Merciless/Annihilate and 6 stacks of Juyo Form. this would reduce ramp up in Ops fights.

 

2. Each stack of Merciless/Annihilate gives 1% extra damage on Slash/Vicious Slash, Force Leap/Force Charge, and Cauterize/Rupture's melee damage. This increases our pitiful burst.

 

3. Give us some sort of useful level 30 skill, like say this. Centering Strike/Furious Slash

 

Centering Strike

 

Focus Cost: 1

Cooldown: 10s

Damage at 55: ~1100 - ~1300

 

Description: Strike the target using your Centered state, per 10 stacks of Centering this ability's damage goes up by 10%. Does not grant Centering. Also infilicts Burning damage on the target for 18 seconds. also when Zen, Inspiration, or Trancendence are active the damage of this ability goes up by 25%

 

Animation would be the animation for Ashara Zavaros' DoT ability (cant remember name). This would be a cool and unique mechanic for Watchman, allowing for more damage when your at 30 stacks of Centering. Also it would add a bit of skill as to when to use Zen, Inspiration or Trancendence because it isnt at peak damage when they are used, only at 25% instead of 30% when at 30 stacks of Centering. It's unique enough to work!

[DarthAkromious]

Rage

 

Move Decimate (Smash and Sweeping Slash increased by 10/20%) up to Row 3

- Smash is the central ability of rage spec, why should other specs be able to easily obtain a 20% damage boost to their AOE abilities when Rage is designed to provide more AOE Threat? I'd rather see it swapped with Interceptor, or Cloak of Rage.

 

Adjust the auto-crit to apply only to the primary target, in PVE.

 

- I'd also like to see Smash function more like Death Field in the sense that each target hit is not guaranteed to Crit. Even in PvE I find it incredibly OP to be able to smash four targets for upwards of 7k.

 

Force Lash

 

- Increase the damage dealt by Force Lash. The force damage dealt we deal is already increased by Shii-Cho Form, and it's a nice passive buff to our most frequently spammed ability, Vicious Slash.

 

Force Crush

 

- Increase the damage dealt by Force Crush. This ability deserves more value than simply proccing charges of Shockwave.

[Cebullba]

GENERAL

 

ANNIHILATION

For Annihilation, give berserk a couple more stacks. Remove the chance for Vicious Slash to proc Ruptures CD and make Annihilate/Vicious throw proc it 100% of the time. Also, have Deadly Saber require Juyo form (Will pretty much end DoTsmash)

.

 

100% /sign - Dotsmash would end instantly.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Cebullba

[revcrisis]

Some of your good suggestions added to the first post. Keep em coming! Edited May 1, 2014 by revcrisis

[KarethRiker]

Changes are up. Buff to Annihilation damage and reduction in focus cost. Change to rupture proccing, dots uncleansable. We'll have to see how much they upped damage

[oofalong]

Annihilate's damage was increased by 6.7%.

[Sosajoshua]

so i guess I have to start looking out for Anni Maras in pvp again

[Fejota]

Masaccre = Yellow damage!!! xD Edited May 6, 2014 by Fejota