Which spec for Mara?

[SithVincere]

I was wondering for PvE which tree is best to use? I respecced from Anni to Carnage but it seems kinda weak unless im using it wrong. Looking for some pointers, im fresh hitting 55 and not geared if thats any factor.

[LtBombshell]

I play Annihilation, and it's pretty fun. In terms of just the rotation, I find (personally) that it's kind of complicated. Building up stacks of Annihilator requires time and there are a lot of fillers, but I'm not very good at the spec :-P

 

Carnage is apparently the hardest mara spec, and revolves solely around fitting as much damage as possible into the gore windows. Looking at the rotation on Dulfy, there are a crap ton of abilities used in the spec, in addition to a lot of fillers.

 

Rage is the easiest and has some great AoE (smash ftw?).

 

Hope that helps a bit.

[SevastraX]

I have a mara as my main, and while there are no hard and fast rules as to how to play it, I personally prefer Carnage spec and use a rotation that builds rage and burns rage in rapid succession.

 

1 - Force leap (where possible) this will build enough rage for

2 - Smash (if in a mob only, the AOE damage and stun is usefull) / OR - Ravage if single opponent

3 - Double Saber Throw (Again, only if in mob, and where it will not pull another on top of you)/ OR Force Scream if facing single opponent

4 - Battering assault, this will generate a high amount of rage and will allow you to use Massacre a few times, though throw in a vicious throw when it comes up, and rupture to make sure you're not burning down your rage points too fast.

 

Force choke should only be used when just about everything else is on cool down, or as a secondary interrupt, it will build 2 rage while doing some damage

 

There's a lot of fillers to be used, and really its up to you which ones you prefer.

 

Gear can be a problem - if you're undergeared in any class you'll get squished pretty quick.

 

Hope this helps.

[Faardor]

annihilation has the highest PVE damage, the others I wouldn't really call ideal for PVE damage and are more orientated towards PVP or utility

[g_mK]

All 3 specs work nicely for PVE

[DarthMurdek]

I use primarily carnage for endgame PVE (although i respec Rage for some bosses)

 

Carnage is a difficult spec to get into but it is very worth it once you do.

 

The rotation revolves around getting your hardest hitting abilities into gore windows. (ravage,force scream, dispatch) while maintaining the massacre buff and not doubling up on procs. or flunking a gore. you also want to be trying to get the most out of your raid buffs (but the uses of them are dependent on the boss/raid leader anyway so i wont cover those)

 

I have never seen the discussion between anni vs carnage go anywhere but (they are both viable) so don't be afraid to play the spec you have the most fun playing.

 

Tips: You can throw dual sabre throw before gore (during berserk) and still fit in ravage/dispatch/FS. This is useful because the dual sabre throw has enough of a delay that it will hit within the gore window without taking the full GCD away from the timing. However if you dont have impeccable timing (or good ping) it is better to avoid trying this.

 

You can get two dispatches in one gore window if you timed your opener well and get lucky in your second gore.

One other thing to note is that if you flunk a slaughter proc 90% of the time when your gore comes back up you can still gore FS and massacre/massacre to get the proc and still fit it in the window. keeping in mind that the proc comes off of the ataru proc so stalling the next ability to wait for the proc is a bit of a gamble, but pays off if you get off the dispatch early enough.

[Horano_Heresy]

Each of the three specs are all best in certain situations, so I suggest learning all 3 of them.

 

In summary:

 

* Annihilation is a single-target sustained DPS spec focused around DoT abilities, specifically Rupture and Deadly Saber.

 

* Carnage is a single-target burst DPS spec focused around extreme burst during Gore windows. Ravage, Force Scream, Massacre and Vicious Throw are your key abilities.

 

* Rage is a multiple-target (AoE) burst DPS spec that focuses mainly on buffing your Smash ability, to hit massive amounts of damage on multiple targets at once.

 

I personally prefer the burst specs Carnage and Rage, because I love it when I get huge 11k or 12k crits on Force Scream (Carnage) and Smash (Rage). Annihilation is also fun to play, but you don't really have any hard-hitting abilities.

 

Carnage and Rage are preferred for fights where you'll be changing targets often, or fights with burn phases where you need to destroy your opponent as quickly as possible.

 

Annihilation is preferred for fights where you'll be sticking to a single target for an extended period of time.

[Faardor]

Probably gonna get flamed for this but

Kinda mis information in the thread here, Rage is meant to be a AOE pvp spec due to the fact that there are several PVP orientated skill tree masteries / abilities in it

 

 

Force crush: Stop players from fleeing / helps your team to stick to targets

Undying: Meant to reduce the CD of your oh **** defensive cooldown (in PVE ops this is rarely used due to the fact that healers are meant to keep you up and you using it relies on them being informed you're gonna drop in health and to only heal you after the fact)

Obliterate: another catch up ability

Force jump: Can use obliterate while immobilized, self explanatory

Interceptor: meant to snare your opponent when you use force charge or obliterate, again allowing you to stick to your target

Strangulate: reduces CD of force choke, using force choke in any operation will severely reduce your DPS as the tick rate and damage is just too slow / low, again mainly meant to be a pain in the *** to players and keep them unable to do anything for 3 seconds while you and your buddies either force a CC break (ideally you already made them CC break with vicious roar) or just out right kill someone.

Cloak of rage: another skill that increases your defensives, Absolutely useless most of the time in PVE operations since you wont be the one getting attacked

 

im sure someone will get on my *** for saying this but both annihilation and carnage are much better PVE specs.

Even in non operation areas a rage tree AOE smash on 3 enemies (since I would say thats the average amount of adds most planetary areas have) would kill the 2 non silver / elite / champion adds. At the same time a normal smash +dual saber throw in anni or carny would kill the 2 adds while providing better single target damage on the silver / gold / champion.

[Projawa]

BW's philosophy around the 3 trees is: annihilation is for sustained dps, rage is for burst, carnage is a balance of the two. All 3 should do good aoe damage.

 

It seems they are really designing around this philosophy for 3.0.

 

Carnage is easier than it used to be (it was arguably the hardest dps spec prior to 2.10) but it still takes practice.

Annihilation gets better results with less effort atm.

 

In terms of "fun", that's up to you. I prefer the fast pace of carnage. All nightmare content can be cleared with any spec, it's just easier with annihilation.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Projawa