Annihilation rage starved since 3.0

[DieseWiese]

Hey guys,

 

Annihilation is my favourite way to go on Marauder simply because the DPS is ok and I prefere it's playstyle over Carnage and Fury. Since 3.0 I'm dealing with a problem that destroys the good feeling of Anni and makes a good rotation nearly impossible to do. The DPS is still fine compared to other specs but I find myself losing a lot of damage because of a big lack of rage. I want to discuss mostly the playstyle of singe target PvE and because of that I will leave out or not go into detail on skills like Crippling Slash.

 

We still have 3 skills to build up rage:

1. Assault - 2 Rage

2. Force Charge - 4 Rage (12 sec CD)

3. Battering Assault 6 - Rage (15 sec CD)

 

And we have passive skills that generate rage or reduce rage costs:

1. Enraged slash - refunds 1 rage when using Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Vicious Throw, Massacre, Annihilate or Furious Strike

2. Hemorrhage - 20% chance that bleeding effects generate 1 rage, 4 sec lockout

3. Bloodlust - critical hits on a bleeding target generate 1 rage, 4 sec lockout

4. Swift demise - Stacks up to 3 times when using Annihilate and reduces costs of Force Rend by 1 rage per stack

 

And we have skills we want to spend our rage on:

1. Deadly Saber - 3 Rage (18 sec CD)

2. Rupture - 2 Rage

3. Force Rend - 3 Rage

4. Annihilate - 4 Rage (12 sec CD)

5. Vicious Throw - 3 Rage (10 sec CD)

6. Force Scream - 4 Rage (12 sec CD)

7. Vicious Slash - 3 Rage

 

And free skills to fill into our rotation:

1. Dual Saber Throw (18 sec CD)

2. Ravage (18 sec CD)

 

Now that all relevant skills to use are listed, I want to explain my problems concerning the playstyle of Annihilation.

When playing Anni we want to keep up all of our 3 DoTs as long as possible, this means:

 

• Deadly Saber on CD (skill is off GCD)
  
• Rupture no longer has a CD, target bleeds for 12 sec
  
• Force Rend has no CD, target bleeds for 18 sec

 

 

And we want to use Annihilate on CD because of it's great damage, buffs to our elemental and internal damage, reduced rage costs of Force Rend and reduced CD on Annihilate.

We can spend remaining rage on Force Scream, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw (targets below 30% HP)

 

My priority list for Annihilation would look like this:

1. Deadly Saber

2. Vicious Throw

3. Annihilate

4. Force Rend

5. Rupture

6. Vicious Slash

7. Dual Saber Throw

8. Ravage

 

 

So what's left to do is filling in Force Charge and Battering Assault, but these skills only give us 10 rage and our 4 basic skills (Deadly Saber, Rupture, Force Rend, Annihilation) already use at least 8 rage. Deadly Saber is off GCD and so they only use 3 GCDs. Means after 3 secs we only have left 2 rage but Force Charge and Battering Assault are still on CD. This is the place to fill in our free skills Dual Saber Throw (preferred with Pulverize) and Ravage. In this case Ravage is the better choice.

 

In total this took 8 sec so far: Force Charge, Battering Assault (2 GCD), Deadly Saber, Annihilate, Rupture, Force Rend (3 GCD) and Ravage (3 GCD). In this space of time, considering we are incredibly lucky, we got 4 rage from Bloodlust and Hemorrhage. Annihilate is off CD again, so we want to use it. At this point we have 3 rage left, using Assault and Vicious Slash afterwards. (2+3+3+3=11) Only Dual Saber Throw left until Force Charge is ready once more. So after Force Charge we got 7(+2 of passives) rage to spend on Vicious Slash and Annihilate. It's time to use Rupture. Battering Assault gets us to 8(+2 of passive) rage. We have to spend our rage but our DoTs are active and Annihilate is on CD, we have to use Vicious Slash twice and Assault once. 8 rage left for Deadly Saber and Annihilate. 2(+2 of passives) rage left. After Vicious Slash it's time for Force Rend. After Ravage we can spend our 2(+2 of passvies) rage on Rupture again.

 

We can do this almost infinitly but I think you can see the problem. Annihilation works but you are forced to use Vicious Slash a lot and the example I showed above works in this way only on ideal conditions. I assumed that both passive skills are triggered every 4 seconds which is very unlikely. Also in the beginning of the fight we wouldn't have Annihilator buff which lowers Annihilate CD from 12 sec to 6 and makes Force Rend free to use.

 

All the differences between my ideal exampe above and reality have to be compensated by players, which is not bad at all but in the end will lead to replacing Vicious Slash by Assault. So what's left is our 4 basic skills (Annihilate, Deadly Saber, Rupture, Force Rend), our free ones (Dual Saber Throw, Ravage) and our skills to build up rage (Force Charge, Battering Assault) will be used on CD and in those huge gaps between we have to use Assault over and over again and Force Scream to prevent rage overcaping before Battering Assault.

 

As said in the beginning, the DPS is not that bad at all but it's not exactly a fun way to play, especially compared to Annihilation Marauder before 3.0. I would love to hear your opinion on this issue, maybe I missed something or there are simply better ways to play this spec.

 

Greetz,

Edited December 7, 2014 by DieseWiese

[Ailaria]

I haven't played Anni that much yet, so I can't comment on most of this, but the bit about Force Scream stood out to me. At least pre-3.0 Force Scream was not a part of the Anni rotation, and they haven't added any skills that synergize with it so I don't see why we would use it now.

 

You said that Force Scream is better than Vicious Slash "per rage consumed", but I don't think that's the case. Just looking at the tooltips of my abilities on a level 60 sent in DM/DF gear, Vicious Slash deals 3378-3774 damage and Force Scream deals 4028-4155 damage. Even if you just look at the base rage costs of 3 and 4 rage respectively, Vicious Slash beats Force Scream (though part of that is lost due to off-hand accuracy). But when you factor in that Vicious Slash refunds rage and Force Scream does not, it's clear that Force Scream is useless unless you really need to dump rage quickly, which of course isn't the case for us (or if you're out of melee range, which is irrelevant for priority lists).

 

Finally, since Vicious Slash has two attacks (MH + OH) while Force Scream has just one, it has a higher chance of procing the extra rage from critically hitting a burning target.

 

Also, this may be a bit nitpicking, but Vicious Throw should probably be above Annihilate in the priority list, and in your list of rage-spending skills Deadly Saber should have a 12 sec CD and Vicious Throw should be 6 sec.

 

EDIT: I seem to have forgotten about one detail that brings Force Scream closer to being useful. Just because it consumes twice as much rage as Vicious Slash doesn't actually mean it needs to do twice as much damage; in fact, in the absolute worst-case it would only need to do 50% more (assuming the rage comes from Assaults). The reason for this is that (ignoring CDs and such, this is just a damage comparison) with 6 GCDs you can either do four Assaults and two Force Screams or three Assaults and three Vicious Slashes. Summing those up, using the average damage from my tooltips of 2237, 3576 and 4091.5 damage for Assault, Vicious Slash and Force Scream respectively gives a total of 17131 damage for the Force Scream option and 17439 damage from the Vicious Slash option. This is however a worst-case scenario in the sense that assuming the rage comes from Assaults is really unfair to Vicious Slash.

 

Also, sorry this turned into such a long post, didn't account for having to do a lengthy edit.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Ailaria

[Emperor-Norton]

The problem with Rage in Anni is imo mostly due to the 4 second ICDs they added to the two procs that generate resource. Before 3.0 between 50-60% of your resource came from using abilities like Zealous Strike, Force Leap, and Strike. The other half came from the two procs. When I did some math and compared parses from before 3.0 with parses with the new Watchman, the Focus per second I was getting went from .61 to .40. This translates into getting over 1 less Focus point for every time you use Merciless Slash. Still, I don't think Focus management is all that bad (I preferred Watchman before 2.8 when it required a well finessed rotation to keep the Merciless Slash engine going without issue).

 

I also think adding the ICDs helped contribute to making the spec feel even more boring, which everyone is against.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Emperor-Norton

[DieseWiese]

....

You said that Force Scream is better than Vicious Slash "per rage consumed", but I don't think that's the case. Just looking at the tooltips of my abilities on a level 60 sent in DM/DF gear, Vicious Slash deals 3378-3774 damage and Force Scream deals 4028-4155 damage. Even if you just look at the base rage costs of 3 and 4 rage respectively, Vicious Slash beats Force Scream (though part of that is lost due to off-hand accuracy). But when you factor in that Vicious Slash refunds rage and Force Scream does not, it's clear that Force Scream is useless unless you really need to dump rage quickly, which of course isn't the case for us (or if you're out of melee range, which is irrelevant for priority lists).

....

 

Yeah it seems like I forgot about the rage refund of Vicious Slash when I calculated the damage per rage. In this case I will take it from the list and only use it to avoid overcaping rage. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

.....

Also, a few things to note, Dispatch is now your lowest priority filler, everything is above it (especially with the 6 piece for Sentinels). Generally you won't use it except to replace Cauterize when the target is going to die before Cauterize can do that much damage. Also, feel free to clip Master Strike halfway through the channel (aka 1.5/3.0 seconds), if you won't have enough Focus for the next Merciless. A lot of it's new usefulness since it's damage nerf is the 6 piece which is triggered on Activation, not a full channel. Also, Force Melt/Rend does vastly more damage per GCD than any of your GCD based attacks. So place it over Rupture.

 

I don't think Dispatch/Vicious Throw is worse than Vicious Slash so it's not the lowest filler on the list but your idea on the 6 set piece bonus of Master Strike/Ravage is good. Still I wouldn't want to waste the other half of this skill as it's a pretty good and free filler for your rotation. The reason why I placed Rupture over Force Melt/Rend was because you need to reuse it more often and not because of it's DPS. This is a bit missleading and I will change that. thanks for your feedback.

Edited December 7, 2014 by DieseWiese

[bluemustache]

there are two skillful utilities that helps with rage, Cloak of Rage - during cloak of pain, generates 1 rage every 3 seconds if attacked - and there is Unyelding - generates 4 rage when root/stun/KB

plus, you are forgetting Force Choke, generates 3 rage, free to walk channeling, 1 GCD only

yes, i know its a 1 minute CD, but anything helps, right?

besides, you are treating assault like it's a huge decrease.. deals dmg, generates rage, helps adding stacks of deadly saber, helps critting a bleeding target and generate that extra rage... nothing but positive things

[ML_DoubleTap]

I've not really found it to be that bad. We had to use strike some already and it doesn't feel like much more now. Force melt/rend should be free every time after the first application.. Or second if you don't want to delay by a gcd.

[TACeMossie]

The problem with Rage in Anni is imo mostly due to the 4 second ICDs they added to the two procs that generate resource. Before 3.0 between 50-60% of your resource came from using abilities like Zealous Strike, Force Leap, and Strike. The other half came from the two procs. When I did some math and compared parses from before 3.0 with parses with the new Watchman, the Focus per second I was getting went from .61 to .40. This translates into getting over 1 less Focus point for every time you use Merciless Slash. Still, I don't think Focus management is all that bad (I preferred Watchman before 2.8 when it required a well finessed rotation to keep the Merciless Slash engine going without issue).

 

I also think adding the ICDs helped contribute to making the spec feel even more boring, which everyone is against.

 

Also, a few things to note, Dispatch is now your lowest priority filler, everything is above it (especially with the 6 piece for Sentinels). Generally you won't use it except to replace Cauterize when the target is going to die before Cauterize can do that much damage. Also, feel free to clip Master Strike halfway through the channel (aka 1.5/3.0 seconds), if you won't have enough Focus for the next Merciless. A lot of it's new usefulness since it's damage nerf is the 6 piece which is triggered on Activation, not a full channel. Also, Force Melt/Rend does vastly more damage per GCD than any of your GCD based attacks. So place it over Rupture.

 

This rotation is good and all, but its not accurate with a 12 second rupture (only a 6 second one).

 

Simply use the following rotation:

 

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Replace Strike with Vicious Slash/Vicious Throw every time you have rage for it (which should happen at least every 2 cycles, though im pretty sure you can go without strike at all with the lack of cost on Rend and rupture being every 12 seconds. If you're lucky)

 

(You can delay the DST if procs don't happen, but then its annoying and stuff. And the procs tend to happen on time anyway)

Edited December 10, 2014 by TACeMossie

[ML_DoubleTap]

This rotation is good and all, but its not accurate with a 12 second rupture (only a 6 second one).

 

Simply use the following rotation:

 

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Replace Strike with Vicious Slash/Vicious Throw every time you have rage for it (which should happen at least every 2 cycles, though im pretty sure you can go without strike at all with the lack of cost on Rend and rupture being every 12 seconds. If you're lucky)

 

(You can delay the DST if procs don't happen, but then its annoying and stuff. And the procs tend to happen on time anyway)

 

That looks way too complicated for me to remember

 

I basically keep deadly and rupture together as the cool down/duration match up and use melt after every 3rd annihilate when it's free activation procs. Everything else is basically filler. Makes keeping track of things much easier for me anyways.

[TACeMossie]

That looks way too complicated for me to remember

 

I basically keep deadly and rupture together as the cool down/duration match up and use melt after every 3rd annihilate when it's free activation procs. Everything else is basically filler. Makes keeping track of things much easier for me anyways.

 

Ok, more simple way of explaining it. After every Annihilate, either use Rupture or use Force Charge. Afterwards, use either a Battering Assault/Force Rend combo, a [filler]/DST combo, or just use Ravage - depending on what cooldowns are available. Should only use Force Rend if its free.

 

Filler being either strike or a 0-cooldown focus user

[znihilist]

This rotation is good and all, but its not accurate with a 12 second rupture (only a 6 second one).

 

Simply use the following rotation:

 

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Ravage ->

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Strike -> DST ->

Annihilate -> Charge + Deadly -> Battering Assault -> Force Rend ->

 

Replace Strike with Vicious Slash/Vicious Throw every time you have rage for it (which should happen at least every 2 cycles, though im pretty sure you can go without strike at all with the lack of cost on Rend and rupture being every 12 seconds. If you're lucky)

 

(You can delay the DST if procs don't happen, but then its annoying and stuff. And the procs tend to happen on time anyway)

 

Why are you splitting the dots ?

[TACeMossie]

Why are you splitting the dots ?

 

Mainly cause I prefer to use Deadly Saber with Force Charge. You can just use Deadly Saber with Rupture if you want though.

 

Force Rend got delayed because i'm only using it when its free, but in reality you'd probably have the Force Rend section used first.

[znihilist]

Mainly cause I prefer to use Deadly Saber with Force Charge. You can just use Deadly Saber with Rupture if you want though.

 

Force Rend got delayed because i'm only using it when its free, but in reality you'd probably have the Force Rend section used first.

Good point!

 

I am actually wondering whether it is possible to come up with a suitable opener that let you do this:

(Note DS is applied before the melee attack in DS+ GCD)

 

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> Rend ->

Annihilate -> GCD -> GCD -> GCD ->

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> GCD ->

Annihialte -> GCD -> GCD -> Rend ->

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> GCD ->

Annihialte -> GCD -> GCD -> GCD ->

Then repeat from the top.

 

I am aware that this puts a strain on the resource management because of those 5 GCDs: Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> Rend -> Annihilate, but with Rend being a force attack I would like to delay applying the third stack of DS for 1 GCD (extra tick of 2 stacks). Although I could possibly move Rupture from the DS block to the next and replace it with a rage builder, but I have a feeling it is a dps loss somehow (for which I could be wrong about!).

[TACeMossie]

Good point!

 

I am actually wondering whether it is possible to come up with a suitable opener that let you do this:

(Note DS is applied before the melee attack in DS+ GCD)

 

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> Rend ->

Annihilate -> GCD -> GCD -> GCD ->

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> GCD ->

Annihialte -> GCD -> GCD -> Rend ->

Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> GCD ->

Annihialte -> GCD -> GCD -> GCD ->

Then repeat from the top.

 

I am aware that this puts a strain on the resource management because of those 5 GCDs: Annihilate -> DS + GCD -> Rupture -> Rend -> Annihilate, but with Rend being a force attack I would like to delay applying the third stack of DS for 1 GCD (extra tick of 2 stacks). Although I could possibly move Rupture from the DS block to the next and replace it with a rage builder, but I have a feeling it is a dps loss somehow (for which I could be wrong about!).

 

If there is a DPS loss, its cause ravage is forced into either a 24 second cooldown, or every second one is clipped

[znihilist]

If there is a DPS loss, its cause ravage is forced into either a 24 second cooldown, or every second one is clipped

 

So I guess splitting the dots is the answer...

[Kurkina]

Simply use the following rotation:

 

Annihilate -> Rupture -> Ravage ->

(etc.)

 

A few requests:

1 - what is the opener before you can start that rotation?

2 - could you provide Republic equivalents for the skill names?

3 - is this actually viable in the new movement-intensive ops?

 

With regards to this last question, I just don't see this working. What if you have to move? What if you have to switch targets? It seems that the smallest interruption will completely mess up your damage output, as opposed to the combat spec, which is highly mobile and flexible.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Mainly cause I prefer to use Deadly Saber with Force Charge. You can just use Deadly Saber with Rupture if you want though.

 

Force Rend got delayed because i'm only using it when its free, but in reality you'd probably have the Force Rend section used first.

 

I completely agree on the Deadly Saber with Force Charge. I've always tried to keep the two in sync because of their CD's if i do this little opener (this is my Pre 60 opener my mara isnt 60 yet so i havent figured out where to put Force Rend) solely to sync Deadly Saber and Force Charge, typically, they dont come de-synced.

 

Charge > Deadly Saber > Battering Assault > Rupture > Annihilate > DST (If Proc'd) > Proceed to Rotation

[KaiserTNT]

The problem is that a rotation on this spec works on a dummy now, but in an actual ops boss where you will miss lots of GCDs due to movement or having to burn adds, etc....not so much. In practice, I find I'm having to just say "screw it" and use Force Rend a lot without it being free, because waiting is just too much of a dps loss. And Rupture sometimes lines up with DS, but I'm not going to hold back DS for it if I have to suddenly force leap to a new target, which puts it all out of whack again.

 

Overall, DPS with the spec isn't terrible...I'm managing to pull 3500-3600 in most fights in 186 gear, but it definitely doesn't flow well -- and I get eye strain from constantly trying to watch my bleeds and my toon's positioning at the same time .

Edited December 11, 2014 by KaiserTNT

[Katendal]

The problem is that a rotation on this spec works on a dummy now, but in an actual ops boss where you will miss lots of GCDs due to movement or having to burn adds, etc....not so much. In practice, I find I'm having to just say "screw it" and use Force Rend a lot without it being free, because waiting is just too much of a dps loss. And Rupture sometimes lines up with DS, but I'm not going to hold back DS for it if I have to suddenly force leap to a new target, which puts it all out of whack again.

 

Overall, DPS with the spec isn't terrible...I'm managing to pull 3500-3600 in most fights in 186 gear, but it definitely doesn't flow well -- and I get eye strain from constantly trying to watch my bleeds and my toon's positioning at the same time .

 

This is it in a nutshell, on a dummy the rotation while messy and completly dull, works perfectly, however transfer this to an operation and its a steaming pile of crap. watchman dps is fully dependant on all your dots being used on cd and merciless being used on cd, this isnt possible on any boss Ive encountered, and I've done all of them. And while 3500 might be respectable on these bosses, my dps counterpart VG ect are spanking out 4400 without breaking sweat, watchman is broken. I would switch to one of the other trees but so far they seem worse. Seems 3.0 Killed the sentinel.

[KarathAnno]

One of the things that really bothers me about the new Annihilation is that almost the exact same playstyle already existed in the Madness (now Hatred) Sin.

 

Both have two long ticking DoTs they need to maintain at all times.

 

Both have one DoT with limited up time they need to combine with melee attacks to use properly.

 

Both have a hard hitting AoE they use on cooldown.

 

Both have a hard hitting melee attack they use on cooldown.

 

Before 3.0 the two classes shared a similar theme but played very differently. So did they decide that everyone playing Annihilation/Watchman really would have been happier if they rolled a Sin or did they really not see what they were doing?

[Emperor-Norton]

One of the things that really bothers me about the new Annihilation is that almost the exact same playstyle already existed in the Madness (now Hatred) Sin.

 

Both have two long ticking DoTs they need to maintain at all times.

 

Both have one DoT with limited up time they need to combine with melee attacks to use properly.

 

Both have a hard hitting AoE they use on cooldown.

 

Both have a hard hitting melee attack they use on cooldown.

 

Before 3.0 the two classes shared a similar theme but played very differently. So did they decide that everyone playing Annihilation/Watchman really would have been happier if they rolled a Sin or did they really not see what they were doing?

They decided that everyone that complaining about RNG spoke for the majority of players, and they were going to design spec with no RNG. Except they didn't speak for the general playerbase, so we have this situation where we all get to twiddle our thumbs until it gets to the time for major combat changes and hope the Watchman rotation is on their list to address. And I do think their list is going to be pretty long. Kind of important to remember that we are not even 2 full weeks into the expansion, and based on their patch cycle it is likely to be a while before we see any changes. IO Merc is pretty fun though.

 

Still having said that, I do think the combat team can make positive changes when they get around to it. I doubt they really had much time to get QoL testing done for 24 Disciplines and then balance them all relative to one another. Based on posts from Reddit, there was a time where Cauterize lasted 9 seconds, FM wasn't free, and there was no proc for TST. Hopefully their claim that Disciplines will make balancing easy proves to be true.

[Jubilee]

Yeah i'm not enjoying the ICDs at all. It was not asked for and not necessary. I think managing the merciless slash engine and juggling dots while playing the melee game in the very AOE heavy ops is more than enough work without adding too it.

 

I'd really appreciate if they fixed or clarified what the **** force expunge is supposed to expunge, too. It's not that goddamn hard. Showin my *** in an op should not be the time I figure out the *********** talent does not cleanse all cleansable ****.

 

Sometimes it feels like they have two competent coders, one of which can't multitask and the other has ADHD.

[Ailaria]

I'd really appreciate if they fixed or clarified what the **** force expunge is supposed to expunge, too. It's not that gosh darn hard. Showin my *** in an op should not be the time I figure out the *********** talent does not cleanse all cleansable ****.

 

The problem with that utility isn't the tooltip, the problem is that it's bugged and fails to remove about 90% of the effects it's supposed to work on. It doesn't work on movement impairs and it doesn't work on PvE dots (of course it shouldn't work on PvP dots, since they aren't cleansable).

 

On a related note, Fleetfooted or whatever the imp equivalent is called (the thing that improves predation's speed bonus) is also bugged, but in a positive way: in addition to its other effects, it also makes Force Camo remove movement impairs.