Annihilation buffs

[Crazykidddd]

Please, for the love of the spec and all marauder players who are fed up everywhere, give annihilation cc immunity tied to deadly saber, similarly to what you guys gave carnage, and please increase smash's damage from a miserable 13k to at least 19-20k, its currently a laughable version of vengeance.
There is literally no reason not to do so, as the changes would mainly affect pvp and give the spec the changes it desperately needs, nothing more.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Crazykidddd

[AdjeYo]

CC immunity for pvp seems good, not so sure about buffing smash though. Anni already has excellent single target damage and great utility, with okayish AoE. I feel like if you buff their AoE you take away their one real weakness. 

[Crazykidddd]

I disagree, annihilation has good aoe, its only downfall is they get cc'd so much there's no enjoyable or real way to maintain a high aoe uptime unless you'e allowed to freecast a bit.
The issue is that it's all tied to dots and you only have 2 of them, one which is on a longish cd, so smash needs to be buffed to help with aoe (which was always really it's strong suit) because in reality your smash, especially with all the aoe damage reduction in the game, is going to hit targets for miserable damage and thus desperately needs a buff because it hits less than an auto attack unless you crit.
I also disagree with anni having excellent single target damage, the damage is mediocre at best, don't trust all the parses you see, they're in no way a proper representation of actual real performance, especially in pvp. 
The truth is rn the only thing Anni has going for it is it's self healing and the fact it's fun to play (though most would even argue that because it's a lot of slash spamming) but the actual damage output is miserable and a lot slower (almost no burst). If a class is dot based and doesnt have any burst to speak of, the least you can do for it is give it high sustained damage, but anni parses easily 4-5k less than Rage, and about 6-8k less than single target lightning in real world parses without all the fancy items tricks and gimmicks, just using the class as it is.
It's why you see almost no one playing it atm, it gets outmatched, outplayed, outdps'd, and outperformed by so many classes there's no real reason to play it other than for its self healing and for fun.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Crazykidddd

[AdjeYo]

3 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

I disagree, annihilation has good aoe, its only downfall is they get cc'd so much there's no enjoyable or real way to maintain a high aoe uptime unless you'e allowed to freecast a bit.
The issue is that it's all tied to dots and you only have 2 of them, one which is on a longish cd, so smash needs to be buffed to help with aoe (which was always really it's strong suit) because in reality your smash, especially with all the aoe damage reduction in the game, is going to hit targets for miserable damage and thus desperately needs a buff because it hits less than an auto attack unless you crit.
I also disagree with anni having excellent single target damage, the damage is mediocre at best, don't trust all the parses you see, they're in no way a proper representation of actual real performance, especially in pvp. 
The truth is rn the only thing Anni has going for it is it's self healing and the fact it's fun to play (though most would even argue that because it's a lot of slash spamming) but the actual damage output is miserable and a lot slower (almost no burst). If a class is dot based and doesnt have any burst to speak of, the least you can do for it is give it high sustained damage, but anni parses easily 4-5k less than Rage, and about 6-8k less than single target lightning in real world parses without all the fancy items tricks and gimmicks, just using the class as it is.
It's why you see almost no one playing it atm, it gets outmatched, outplayed, outdps'd, and outperformed by so many classes there's no real reason to play it other than for its self healing and for fun.

I can't speak for pvp, but Anni has excellent sinlge target damage, on dummy parse it is literally the fourth highest parsing spec, certainly above Rage and Lightning, and it does quite well on ops parses as well. And it gets played a ton in pve, because it is so good. It's got top tier single target damage, great raid utility and passable AoE (it's main weakness). 

For instance, if we look at the amount of parses on R4 HM, it's at 3001. There's only 3 dps specs that get played more. There;'s Pyro and Vengeance. Both have ridiculous AoE, and both are getting nerfed (though Pyro significantly more than Vengeance admittedly). And there's Madness, arguably the best ranged dps spec right now. To say almost no one is playing it, is just factually wrong. At least as far as PvE is concerned. It is one of the most popular specs, and with good reasons. It's very strong. There's absolutely no reason to buff it for PvE. A CC immunity would help it in PvP, while barely impacting PvE, so that'd be a great buff. Buffing its AoE, not so much.

[Crazykidddd]

Yeah I'm speaking mainly for pvp, but I truly don't understand how annihilation is considered a top dps when it's literally the second lowest parsing single target spec after lethality atm.
For reference, I play every single spec in the game, and in terms of skill level im in the top 0.1% of the game, and have been parsing Anni and getting ~27-28k dps, this is compared to the 33-35k I usually get on Rage and 35k+ I get on single target ling.
Furthermore single target madness is actually a joke dps wise compared to lightning, it doesnt even compare.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Crazykidddd

[AdjeYo]

10 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

Yeah I'm speaking mainly for pvp, but I truly don't understand how annihilation is considered a top dps when it's literally the second lowest parsing single target spec after lethality atm.
For reference, I play every single spec in the game, and in terms of skill level im in the top 0.1% of the game, and have been parsing Anni and getting ~27-28k dps, this is compared to the 33-35k I usually get on Rage and 35k+ I get on single target ling.
Furthermore single target madness is actually a joke dps wise compared to lightning, it doesnt even compare.

Because it literally is not the second lowest parsing spec, it's the 4th highest (before 7.4 at least, we'll need a little while to wait if and what changes with 7.4). And Madness also parses more on single target than lightning. Are you parsing on 2 million dummies and using your own personal parses to compare or something? 

You play every spec, sure. But if you're only hitting 27k-28k dps on Anni that's a you problem. You can parse, far, far higher than that on Watchman. More than with Rage for sure, more than most specs. And 35k+ on lightning, that's several thousand dps higher than the top lightning parse anywhere. Again, what in the hell are you parsing on? 

Edited December 6, 2023 by AdjeYo

[AdjeYo]

Just look back on parsely. Only Hatred, Lethality and Virulence have higher parses on 10 million dummy during 7.3.1 (latest patch before current) and I don't see any reason why that would change with 7.4. Anni's single target sustained dps is excellent. It's its burst that is lacking (as one would expect from a dot spec) and its AoE that is okayish (which is fine for a spec with such high single target and great utility).

Anni absolutely needs no buffs for PvE. 

[ZUHFB]

12 minutes ago, AdjeYo said:

Anni absolutely needs no buffs for PvE. 

comparing pve to parses is unrealistic because anni needs very high confidence and knowledge on how to get infinite DS. The 2 stack -> zen -> rend with 1 stack left works more reliable but on dummy you should have 0 stacks left. It requires very high skill to pull that of reliably after having downtime, thus if compared to specs like viru this downtime or issue rather has to be considered too. I doubt anni parses that high without any infinite DS.

 

[AdjeYo]

2 minutes ago, ZUHFB said:

comparing pve to parses is unrealistic because anni needs very high confidence and knowledge on how to get infinite DS. The 2 stack -> zen -> rend with 1 stack left works more reliable but on dummy you should have 0 stacks left. It requires very high skill to pull that of reliably after having downtime, thus if compared to specs like viru this downtime or issue rather has to be considered too. I doubt anni parses that high without any infinite DS.

 

Even without DS it parses more than fine. And in ops too parses very solidly. It generally doesn't beat Pyro (which has just been nerfed a fair deal) and specs with better cleave like Vengeance and Virulence. But more than fine. Keeping up DS is a minor dps difference. 

Most important is to hit Berserk for every Rend, which is actually easier in ops because of Brazen. Not to mention you can always greed some damage with Cloak of Pain. Anni is more than okay right now. It's very good, so it's no surprise how often it's brought to some of the hardest bosses in the game.

[ZUHFB]

49 minutes ago, AdjeYo said:

so it's no surprise how often it's brought to some of the hardest bosses in the game

it could do 4k less it would still be good for prog

[Crazykidddd]

6 hours ago, AdjeYo said:

Just look back on parsely. Only Hatred, Lethality and Virulence have higher parses on 10 million dummy during 7.3.1 (latest patch before current) and I don't see any reason why that would change with 7.4. Anni's single target sustained dps is excellent. It's its burst that is lacking (as one would expect from a dot spec) and its AoE that is okayish (which is fine for a spec with such high single target and great utility).

Anni absolutely needs no buffs for PvE. 

I've already addressed Parsely being the worst possible proof for actual class/spec performance, exponentially more so if we're talking about PvP.
Parsely is a *top* parse application, where people parse to no end and use every possible trick, cheese and items in the game, with pre-casts and buildups, and take utility points that wouldnt even work for pvp or would require an unrealistic amount of freedom to properly use (between you being hit, cc'd, your target dying, running away, cloaking, bubbling, phasing etcetcetc). 
Parsely parses are, again, in no way an actual representation of general and, more importantly, consistent spec performance and are thus completely irrelevant, and this is without even taking into account that the players who get top parses on one spec aren't the players who are at the top parses for the other specs, so player skill is obviously a huge factor at play in those parses, furthering Parsely's inability to properly grade or compare a spec's performance.

I parse on warzone dummies on Rishi to recreate pvp instance performance, and being that I don't need accuracy it's prob the reason why my ling parses are higher than the pve ones, even though your stats are way higher than mine due to gear IR differences.

[Crazykidddd]

7 hours ago, AdjeYo said:

Anni absolutely needs no buffs for PvE. 

This is why I'm saying the changes would mainly affect pvp anyways and there's absolutely no reason they shouldnt be implemented.

[ZUHFB]

2 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

This is why I'm saying the changes would mainly affect pvp anyways and there's absolutely no reason they shouldnt be implemented.

it would change nothing but the number on a leaderboard that doesn't matter, there simply isn't any reason besides ego funnel - just premade if you want big numbers

[AdjeYo]

3 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

I've already addressed Parsely being the worst possible proof for actual class/spec performance, exponentially more so if we're talking about PvP.
Parsely is a *top* parse application, where people parse to no end and use every possible trick, cheese and items in the game, with pre-casts and buildups, and take utility points that wouldnt even work for pvp or would require an unrealistic amount of freedom to properly use (between you being hit, cc'd, your target dying, running away, cloaking, bubbling, phasing etcetcetc). 
Parsely parses are, again, in no way an actual representation of general and, more importantly, consistent spec performance and are thus completely irrelevant, and this is without even taking into account that the players who get top parses on one spec aren't the players who are at the top parses for the other specs, so player skill is obviously a huge factor at play in those parses, furthering Parsely's inability to properly grade or compare a spec's performance.

I parse on warzone dummies on Rishi to recreate pvp instance performance, and being that I don't need accuracy it's prob the reason why my ling parses are higher than the pve ones, even though your stats are way higher than mine due to gear IR differences.

Parsely parses might not be perfect, but for measuring single target sustained dps, they're pretty okay. Better than just you claiming oh I parse 28k on Anni and 35k+ on Ling. As for skill factor, the top parses are from the top players of each specs (or top parses anyway), so that more or less evens out. Unles you think that people playing Anni are just better at doing high dps than people parsing Lightning as a group, which is a pretty dubious assumption.

You wondered why people consider Anni to be a top dps. It's because it's near the top in sustained damage, with great utility. Giving it more AoE damage is just silly from a pve perspective. The CC immunity you suggested seems like a great way to specifically address some pvp related weaknesses without impacting pvp, and I've been all for that from the start. I just see no reason to buff smash. If anything to help in pvp maybe make it easier to build/maintain some stacks (maybe just get rid of Annihilator stacks alltogether and reduce Annihilate's CD to what it is with stacks now?)

Edited December 6, 2023 by AdjeYo

[Crazykidddd]

On 12/6/2023 at 5:35 PM, ZUHFB said:

it would change nothing but the number on a leaderboard that doesn't matter, there simply isn't any reason besides ego funnel - just premade if you want big numbers

That's a dumb thing to say, more damage equals more pressure and more kills, also if that's your reasoning then why not nerf all classes' damage, let's do next to no damage while we're at it because anything else would just be number fluffing... get real.
Also you're only speaking to the increased damage on smash, not the cc immunity which is a MUST for the spec.
 

 

On 12/6/2023 at 5:49 PM, AdjeYo said:

Parsely parses might not be perfect, but for measuring single target sustained dps, they're pretty okay. Better than just you claiming oh I parse 28k on Anni and 35k+ on Ling. As for skill factor, the top parses are from the top players of each specs (or top parses anyway), so that more or less evens out. Unles you think that people playing Anni are just better at doing high dps than people parsing Lightning as a group, which is a pretty dubious assumption.

You wondered why people consider Anni to be a top dps. It's because it's near the top in sustained damage, with great utility. Giving it more AoE damage is just silly from a pve perspective. The CC immunity you suggested seems like a great way to specifically address some pvp related weaknesses without impacting pvp, and I've been all for that from the start. I just see no reason to buff smash. If anything to help in pvp maybe make it easier to build/maintain some stacks (maybe just get rid of Annihilator stacks alltogether and reduce Annihilate's CD to what it is with stacks now?)

It's in no way better I assure you, and no, parsely is in absolutely no way whatsoever a valid measure of a spec's performance for all of the reasons I mentioned above, and again even less so in pvp.
The other reason I ask to buff smash damage apart from once again it having miserable damage, is because anni's single target damage is absolute crap, and again, showing me parsely means absolutely nothing, I assure you if you knew who I was then you'd be smart to trust me over parsely.
But all of this is meaningless, you can all go parse yourselves and see the damage difference. Actual real world performance, Anni's single target is HEAVILY lacking, and this is on top of it needing relatively tight uptime to maintain dots and whatnot, and especially without the cc immunity (not to mention all the abysmal fps drops and desync issues where you spend a solid 4 seconds just wondering where your target is) it's not so easy to do. 
I know you don't know me, and I'd rather not divulge who I am, so there's no real reason for you to just go off of what I'm saying, which is why I'm saying grab your mara, take your pvp utilities and go parse on a warzone dummy and see for yourself.
Also, the vast majority if not all the pvpers I know agree Anni is garbo atm. Spamming a 4 meter attack that even with a proc'd dot crit deals ~ 20-30k damage is dumb by all standards.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Crazykidddd

[sithBracer]

14 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

It's in no way better I assure you, and no, parsely is in absolutely no way whatsoever a valid measure of a spec's performance for all of the reasons I mentioned above, and again even less so in pvp.

While I agree that a parsing dummy is pretty much almost useless in terms of deciding balance, we do have boss statistics on anni as well and it shows that it is pretty much in line with the other specs for some of the harder boss battles. It's not at the top, but considering its amazing raid buffs, self heals and defenses, it honestly shouldn't be.

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/dread-master-styrak/8/MM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/dread-master-brontes/8/MM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/ (a fight it should be terrible at)

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/dread-council/8/MM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/revan/8/VM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/nahut/8/MM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/

https://parsely.io/parser/operation-stats/apex-vanguard/8/MM/dps/7.3.1/25/50/90/100/

14 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

But all of this is meaningless, you can all go parse yourselves and see the damage difference. Actual real world performance, Anni's single target is HEAVILY lacking, and this is on top of it needing relatively tight uptime to maintain dots and whatnot, and especially without the cc immunity (not to mention all the abysmal fps drops and desync issues where you spend a solid 4 seconds just wondering where your target is) it's not so easy to do.

I'm pretty sure no one was against giving them similar cc immunity to the other 2 specs. As for desync, well that's something every class has to deal with. Do you know how many times my deception assassin just stays in place for 4-7 seconds after I try to use stealth phantom stride for shadowcraft burst? Pretty much at last 2 times a wz (and please keep in mind, that is literally all the burst/damage deception has). Desync is here to stay and we just have to make the best of it. It is what it is.

 

14 hours ago, Crazykidddd said:

Also, the vast majority if not all the pvpers I know agree Anni is garbo atm. Spamming a 4 meter attack that even with a proc'd dot crit deals ~ 20-30k damage is dumb by all standards.

The vast majority of people always think their spec is under powered and every other spec is broken, the "please nerf paper and buff rock, scissors is fine. signed rock" is a meme for a reason.

Edited December 14, 2023 by sithBracer

[AdjeYo]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:49 AM, Crazykidddd said:

The other reason I ask to buff smash damage apart from once again it having miserable damage, is because anni's single target damage is absolute crap, and again, showing me parsely means absolutely nothing, I assure you if you knew who I was then you'd be smart to trust me over parsely.
But all of this is meaningless, you can all go parse yourselves and see the damage difference. Actual real world performance, Anni's single target is HEAVILY lacking, and this is on top of it needing relatively tight uptime to maintain dots and whatnot, and especially without the cc immunity (not to mention all the abysmal fps drops and desync issues where you spend a solid 4 seconds just wondering where your target is) it's not so easy to do. 
I know you don't know me, and I'd rather not divulge who I am, so there's no real reason for you to just go off of what I'm saying, which is why I'm saying grab your mara, take your pvp utilities and go parse on a warzone dummy and see for yourself.
Also, the vast majority if not all the pvpers I know agree Anni is garbo atm. Spamming a 4 meter attack that even with a proc'd dot crit deals ~ 20-30k damage is dumb by all standards.

It just doesn't have miserable single target damage. Yes, parsely does mean something, it shows how specs perform on long term sustained dps. That does not always translate perfectly into raids, but it is definitely something. And when looking at actual boss parses, we can again see Anni performing just fine. Anni's sustained damage is not its problem.

If Anni performs so poorly in pvp, and I'll fully take your word for that, that's not my area of expertise, then surely your suggested CC immunity seems like a great help. Maybe buff some other PvP related options perhaps? In PvE Annihilation is already very, very good. It brings great sustained single target damage, coupled with frankly insane raid healing and great raid utilities.

 

All I've said, and you've brought me nothing to dispute this, is that Anni already has great single target sustained damage in PvE, which translates to solid damage in raid settings and brings great utility. Anni doesn't need anything to buff it in PvE right now. So CC immunity is fantastic. Strong in PvP, mediocre in PvE. Great way to help Anni in PvP without impacting PvE too much. And will also help translate Anni's theoretical sustained damage into actual damage, since CC immunity guarantees you better uptime in PvP. But you can't just keep claiming Anni's single target is bad just because you say so. It just isn't.

[meddani]

anni has been a pve specc for years now, the last time (atleast in my memory) that specc was somewhat viable in pvp was pre 1.4 before the self heal nerf and even then no one used it in ranked