I'm referrring to pve.

 

And this entire thread is referring to PvP

DUDE NO WAY !!!!, i have to go respec carnage now. Lol

As an annihilation marauder, I decided to respec to carnage to see what all the fuss was about. Admittedly, I only gave it a few days but I didn't really like it.

 

I'm a newish 50 with a couple of BM pieces but stat % are pretty close to where they need to be, except of course the lower numbers of str/end/exp. Overall, I was just feeling less powerful than annih and didn't really notice a significant advantage to the supposed "burst" effect. Survivability also felt much lower and I had a harder time managing CDs.

 

I understand that some of this is lack of time/experience with the spec. But until you get at the very least all BM gear, but not really until you have a decent amount of WH, do you really have a chance of being competitive due to the emphasis on expertise.

 

As carnage, I just wasn't seeing any of these impressive crits often mentioned. Most of the time it seemed like I was doing hardly any damage at all and certainly had to work a lot more damage someone down. As it is, I'm no spring chicken and in the heat of battle find it hard to quickly identify what the other person is doing and how I should counter, etc. That's a conceit and a disadvantage no matter what spec or armor I'm in.

 

I just feel that annihilation is more up my alley and for some reason a bit easier to manage. Getting bleeds on lets me still do damage without having to constantly work on someone or I can break off an attack. Even after several days of heavy pvp as carnage, I was doing nowhere near the amount of damage that I could do with annihilation.

 

I have since switched back and will probably continue to do so until I start getting into WH armor. I'm sure I'll hear a lot about how wrong I am or that I should have stuck with it. That's fine and I'll still welcome any advice with the spec and keep it in mind.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Voxx_Voltaare

Alright, so this thread has been a hot topic for a while now and I thought I would chime in. I have been playing a marauder since the beta tests, I was one of the first level 50 marauders, playing 14 hours a day and I took a week off of work for this game etc. I didn't do a lot of pvp until the last 3 months or so though, for me it was just a casual thing to do when not raiding, as being in a top 20 world guild took a lot of my time. For reference, I am the guy in that annihilation video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p5bv4D6Za0

 

First off, this is a long read - I'm at work waiting for computers to update. Second, I have no preference for one spec over the other, I have played and love them all, they all have their merits in particular warzones and situations. Switching to one spec over the other after playing one for an extended time is like seeing an old friend after being apart for years. Rather than tear down people for supporting one spec or another, we should be thanking Bioware for getting, if nothing else, the warrior class right. Warriors in general, and particularly marauders, are just the right balance and offer 3 unique and fun play styles that will appeal to every keyboard smashing melee maniac out there, and I applaud Bioware for that. Whoever was/is in charge of the warrior class design needs a raise.

 

I want to take this time to address some of the OPs remarks, and I have had similar remarks on the youtube page from others who, although they are not necessarily bad intentioned, have made their comments without truly thinking them through and with the intention of picking apart my play because they are critical of good pvp (which is fine).

 

So first off, the lack of movement. This is not because I am a bad player. The lack of movement in that video is for several reasons.

1.) Economy of motion - Pressing more keys for the sake of pressing more keys does not make you better, in fact many times it makes you play imperfectly by missing key abilities in your rotation, rage starving yourself, etc. I move when it benefits me or someone else on my team, especially in hectic melee situations, as melee players are often confused by this and will not get as much damage off on me. When ranged players are shooting me while I am burning down a healer, it hardly matters whether I am running in circles or standing still.

2.) Situational Positioning - What you don't see in that video, are the player behind me, particularly healers. I had somewhat of an idea of where my healers were. Running in circles around my enemies would have given me two disadvantages: Going out of range of my healers and forcing them to move up, and giving my enemies the chance to knock me back AWAY from my healers. I always try to position myself with knockbacks, stuns, and cc in mind, so that if I am knocked away, it is into the fray with more enemies to hit + near healers that can heal me.

 

I have said this again and again, and I will say it one more time: Running around like a retard at a rave with glowsticks is not always the best thing to do in any given situation. Sometimes movement is great, and when it helps, you bet that I do my best to flank, run through, and generally make the other class have a very hard time hitting me. There was not much cause to do that in this game. When I finally finish remodding/enhancing my WH set (still need like 1 mod and 2 enhances) I will be putting out carnage and Rage videos. In those videos you will likely see more movement, because the opposing team will not be so terrible.

 

Next up: Time it takes to kill targets. Yes, Annihilation takes a little longer to kill someone because it has more ramp up time. What you need to keep in mind is that in the video mentioned, there were at times 2-3 healers circle jerking each other with heals. Anyone knows that even a fully geared carnage marauder is going to have trouble killing 3 healers that are all healing each other and blowing cool downs on you. This is the main difference between carnage and annihilation - survivability. Carnage kills targets faster because of more burst (note, it does not do more dps, it just has more burst. Over time annihilation will do just as much damage), but it also dies much faster. Sometimes, like in rated or premade play, this is a sacrifice that I am willing to make for the better burst and utility that Carnage offers over annihilation. In Solo queue however, I prefer to live and do sustained dps + heals. In fact, you could go so far as to say that particular war zones favor particular specs.

 

Other advantages to annihilation:

-Great at solo defending nodes. Anni marauder with all cooldowns up in good gear is very hard to kill. They are the class/spec most notorious for doing 1v2s, 1v3s, etc. You can see me take on 3 sorcs in the intro to my video at once - and I started the fight at 20% hp.

-The heals really do help your team, especially with lots of power/expertise.

 

Every spec has it's place in PvP. Knowing your place when in any given spec, and utilizing it to it's fullest, makes you a great marauder.

 

Getting heals helps every spec immensely, and the 4 piece vindicators bonus is by far the best for every spec. In theory, the burst damage of carnage and rage both tend to favor the 10% bonus more, however with annihilation spec, you get to charge more frequently, and so the uptime is greater, meaning that the bonus is worth more, so in reality it's just great for every spec.

 

In general I like to play each spec with a specific scenario:

Carnage: team play with no other marauders and in rateds where I have good healers and we need to focus fire/burst down healers.

Annihilation: Solo queuing with no or few healers, and for defending nodes. Especially in games where I face many other marauders. Annihilation is by far, hands down, the best 1v1 spec or 1vmany spec that a maraader has. All things being equal (gear, skill, cool downs, no other outside interference), an annihilation marauder will beat a marauder or jugg of any other spec, every time. One of the things that makes me want to go annihilation is when I don't have healers and I go up against other anni spec marauders - it is very hard to beat them, unless you play perfectly and they make mistakes.

Rage: Whereas Carnage bursts down players, Rage bursts down groups. Rage has the highest potential damage output of all the specs in pvp. It excels at killing yes, but it's main goal is to put pressure on healers by doing massive burst damage to the other team. A Rage spec + Carnage spec together work great; Rage bursts the group down low and carnage finishes them off with crazy single target burst. Rage is also capable of some of the biggest "instant" burst in the game, or the biggest numbers possible.

Hybrid Anni/Carnage: I am one of the few marauders that has tried and mastered this spec. It is a bit different to play, but essentially you get watered down bleeds from annihilation with their heals plus some of the burst of carnage with gore. You use Vicious Slash in place of Massacre and Juyo form. This is a fun spec to play when mastered, and it will confuse the hell out of people as they see you apply bleeds and then gore / ravage them for 15k+ damage. This spec has some of the highest survivability and is great in 1vmany situations. It does not get the sustained dps of annihilation, nor the full "burstiness" of carnage, but a little of both. It will usually get beaten in straight dps by a "pure spec" though.

 

Learn them all. Play them all. They are all good in certain situations. Expand your play style to include all the specs and you will become better at each individual spec for it, and increase your mastery of the class. If you think you have mastered the class, but can't get similar numbers on any of these 4 specs, then you are gravely mistaken. I have hit 750k+ minimum at one time or another on all of those 4 specs. My record for a non cheesy, 15 minute or less game, is 890k as annihilation, 900k rage, 750k carnage. One thing to note, the annihilation game also had close to 150k heals done, so in total my "contribution" to the team effort of killing and healing was over 1 million. I have had much higher damage, but those games were "1 cap on each side" civil wars and other cheesy 20 minute + games, so I don't count them.

Also one quick note to the person asking about whether ~1200 exp with more power is better than 1280 exp with less power: I did some math on it just now, and I think that yes, swapping 82 expertise for 82 power (crystals) is worth it. You gain about 20 bonus damage, which comes out to a roughly 3.3% gain in base damage, which is what all other damage is derived from. The expertise gain gives you about 1.2% on damage, damage reduction, and a little under 1% on healing. My math may be a little off, as this is basically paper napkin math with a calculator, but I think that you'll gain more on the whole, between dmg increase and dmg reduction, by going power. I would never want to go below 1200 EXP though, as around there is the soft cap where diminishing returns really start to hit it hard.

I'm fairly certain that you have to do that as every single class in this game, including every spec of Marauder.

 

I'm not one of those people who tries to say that one spec is "easier" than another simply because I enjoy playing Carnage, but I can at least be honest about neither spec being "harder" than the other.

 

I will say, however, that it is MUCH easier to top scoreboards (lol, like this matters) as Annihilation if you're savvy w/ your Rupture spam. Some misinformed people like to equate this to Annihilation being a "better" spec.

 

Personally, I think carnage is a better spec, but I still believe Annihilation is harder to play. You need to keep that annihilator stack up, which can be a pain, as you have about a 1 second window to use annihilate in the first stack - at which point you often get stunned, mezzed, rooted or knocked back. You need to keep your dots going as well.

 

For carnage, you just massacre, gore, scream, ravage. It really doesn't matter when you hit abilities other than that gore window. It's a thoughtless playstyle.

What Cooldowns? You mean Rupture and Deadly Saber? Yes, you should be spamming your DAMAGING abilities on CD's, just like Carnage Mara's need to use Gore and Force Scream on CD...

 

"Hi, Annihilation Marauders have to actually to be on top of using their damaging abilities on CD more than any other class"

 

WHAT?

 

Than any other class? Lol, I didn't say anything like that.

@ Aluvi:

 

Awesome post man, very inspirational

 

Too bad many if not most maras/sents dont have ur point of view and keep thinking one-dimensional about their spec without ever realizing the true potential they could do with others.

 

I for myself have started out as Focus/Rage since launch then tried Watchman to see why most people prefered it and then changed back to Rage. Really would like to try Carnage out but given the information i see so far its best used in a team with a pocket healer and not for solo-queing because of survivability issues...

 

But oh well, this post has convinced me to check it out and for that thx again

It's really not all that bad w/out a pocket healer...

 

You'll go down easier than Annihilation certainly, but as long as you use your defensive abilities and Camo, it can still be a pretty formidable spec in most situations. And of course, sometimes the best defense can be a strong offense as well. : )

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/5cd48d26-1023-401d-a166-527b62574fe8

Next, VINDICATION VINDICATION VINDICATION. Every one of you guys who have made the mistake of getting the full Weaponmaster Armor all I can truly say to you is I'm sorry. 10% more damage after force charge is the way to go, not 15 seconds off the Undying Rage CD.

 

Well, as a Carnage myself, I am geared with 4 WH Vind armorings. But the 10% damage buff is better for Annihilation than for Carnage. I don't think it's 100x better than Annihilation, I am more comfortable using Annihilation on raids, I play Carnage in pvp.. It's just a matter of preference bud.

Edited September 13, 2012 by zxckakel

Ok, so first off, let's all be honest here (and will someone try to put some sort of a number on this), how much of an actual difference is there in Survivability between the 3 Specs? My first 50 PvP character was a Jedi Shadow, and when I hear people talk about "This spec has more survivability" I always feel a little P.T.S.D. about different Specs' so called "survivability". As with a Shadow Tank Spec obviously gives you tank-worthy survivability, Balance Spec gives you baby self heals for crit DoT ticks (they really add up), and then the Stealth Spec has possibly the WORST survivability in the entire game (Light Armor, no self heals, no bubble, etc)

 

I've only gotten my Marauder up to 37 now, and went Annihilation from 11-35, then tried Carnage for 1 level, and Rage for 1 level. Currently back to Annihilation because, unlike the other Specs (at this point in time) I don't have to worry about any procs. I just do my thing, and everything goes as regular, as opposed to having to get 4 Force Choke ticks before a Smash, or checking if my Force Scream procs are all up.

 

From what I've noticed is the baby heals from Annihilation add up, but so far that's all they do - is add up and give me a Healing Total, but doesn't really have much actual impact on my matches, except for in 1v1 situations.

 

The biggest thing I missed when I checked out the other Specs was I was SO used to having no Minimum Distance on Force Charge that I found myself trying to Force Charge people while I'm right in their face.

 

My god though, nothing beats watching a single Smash hit 3-5 people all for 2.5k+

 

Also, 2 more personal things I had gotten used to (and miss) from Carnage Spec was the abundance of Immobilize. Force Charge, Deadly Throw and Ravage all Immobilize people, which is amazing in Huttball! Also, the other thing I miss about the Carnage was being a Predation FACTORY. I never used Berserk in Carnage Spec, as it never really seemed to suit my situation/playstyle, so I would have Predation going round the clock. There was 1 match on Novare Coast where I was allowed to live long enough to fire off 3 Predations for my team!

 

Really excited to continue this character and get to level 40, where we start to get super beefcake.

 

Also, DEATH TO THE INFIDEL GUNSLINGERS!!! I cannot for the life of me take down a Gunslinger unless I catch them with their pants down. Even with Rage Spec, Obliterate has such a short range, it doesn't really make that much of a difference against them *sad face*

Admittedly, I haven't played carnage much, but I do think Anni is a little harder to dps as.

 

Things Carnage has to worry about while dpsing:

Gore CD

Force Scream CD

Pooling rage for Beserk - Massacre spam

 

Things Anni has to worry about:

Anni Stacks when starting rotation - you have a small window to go from 1 stack to 2. This also comes into play for bosses with breaks in damage - where you have no choice but to let stacks fall, messing up your rotation

Rage pooling for anni - 5 rage for your main dd attack is not trivial

Rupture CD

Deadly Saber CD

Clipping the Rupture dot when Pulverize procs

Using charge as a rage builder vs. needing to use it for mobility - Bosses like Gharj, Foreman come to mind

 

I didn't include battering assault or assault vs vicious/massacre because both specs deal with those, although I'd ague that assault vs. vicious is a more important decision for anni because of the rage requirement on anni.

 

These aren't huge differences, but I do think anni has much more to worry about to reach top dps. Of course, I have little experience with Carnage, so maybe I'm missing some tricks to the carnage rotation.

 

I have experience with all 3 mara spec's but I feel my playstyle is gear'd twords Annihilation. Both spec's when played optimally will wreck ****. AAs far as healer killing goes anni can do the job carn does but you just need a different time frame/situation vice-versa with carnage. From the perspective with someone who currently has 1.2k power stacked I feel that Anni is a risk-reward spec opposed to carn's constant flat numbers. Carn is squishy and vulnerable (VERY) vulnerable to KB's and CC's annihalation can deal with this better but as said so many times damage ramps up and also is dealt differently. However with 1.2k power my Annihilate crits for 4.2k-5k on squishy targets, ravage can be used as a filler after rupture dot for the first 2 ticks (that also apply bleeds/dots) and the constant assault spam to rev up for the rupture/Deadly saber/annihilate will add to your overall damage. Not to mention the self-sustaining heals. My bleeds have crit for a near 1.4k on an unfortunae sorc healer when bezerk is up. You cannot ignore 700-1300 dot ticks along with the self-hot's and the possible RAW physical damage dealt.

 

I like carnage as well but it's not my playstyle. Trust me I know what it feels like to one shot a sage with a gore-buffed ravage.

I always saw Carnage as a higher risk / reward spec, personally, as you aren't receiving heals unless you're queued w/ one. Then again, I've been Carnage pretty much 100% of the time (my fiance plays Annihilation very well, so we compare notes from time to time).

 

Anni is more mobile via shorter cd Force Charge (which can be used to get out of trouble) and shuts down casters almost brainlessly w/ multiple interrupts. Carnage hits harder up front (although I haven't caught a good player w/ a full Gore-buffed Ravage in a while), but has a lot less staying power than Anni under fire.

 

Anni does have a higher ramp-up time than Carnage, but it also has a lot more leeway in order to reach those milestones. The trade-off is that you need to watch your opponent's debuffs and your own rage bar more closely, which can be complicated if you're not used to doing so. Carnage, on the other hand, needs to watch its surroundings more closely because it's just so very easy to get caught w/ your pants down, and has the weakest defenses and lowest mobility of all 3 specs.

 

Also, from a pure total damage standpoint, Annihilation has the easiest time of all 3 specs getting to the top of the scoreboard if you just spam Rupture on everyone around you on cd, which also increases your healing at the same time, allowing you to deal damage for a longer period of time. Carnage has no similar mechanic to increase its staying power.

 

Just my 2 creds. /shrug

Edited September 5, 2012 by Varicite

Oright, after two days of trying out Combat/Carnage here are my thoughts so far:

 

First thing i noticed is: I can take down a player twice as fast as before if he lets me (compared to watchman/anni)

 

2nd thing is: i die twice as much as before, which on the other hand was kinda to be expected specially since i never played this spec at lvl 50 before

 

And so i currently try to fix point 2 as much as i can, trying to find ways how to keep me alive when we have no competent healer in my team or position and move myself strategically in such a way that ill become less affected by the stunfest which always happens in wzs. Everything, absolutely everything changed.

 

And yet it was much fun

 

Damagewise im still lacking a bit behind watchman/anni but that can surely be improved. But i doubt i could top Focus/Rage. One thing i really miss from the other specs is my old self-confidence in engaging fights with multiple opponents. If its one on one i can handle it just like the other specs. But if there is more than one at same time i might be able to burst down the first but dont have enough health/time to finish the rest. I know that when i was Watchman/Anni or Focus/Rage i could do 1vs2 or even 1vs3s many times and still emerge as the victor. But since im trying to improve point 2 i have to avoid these fights for now as much as possible...

Well yeah, my ego has to live with that lol

 

Oh yeah, and before anyone wants to point out i should get a premade with a good healer - yep that is totally doable but i still wanna test how far i can go on my own with this spec since i never really needed a premade for me to unleash my full potential in the other 2 specs.

Focus/Rage spec was horrible for 1 v 2+ and never dealt consistent enough damage for me imo. It's like a one-trick pony, and against experienced players they simply knock you back when they see your stacks of singularity (or the imp equivalent is) get up. Sure, smashing an entire node in Novare Coast is fun, but the other three warzones, not so much. Even in Voidstar, unless a team has 4 healers/rdps stacked together, you'll do substantially less damage than Carnage or Watchman, and ditto in Civil War. That has been my experience playing Focus/Rage spec I guess.

Yes, i see that many players share this opinion of urs and thats why i guess that players with this spec will always be the minority among sentinels/marauders. Other than that it is said that a guardian/juggernaut will excel much more in theory. But in reality i never saw that happen.

 

I played Focus/Rage since i chose sentinel as AC back in december, i leveled with it until 50 and sticked with it long time after until one day i got defeated by another sentinel for the first time who was watchman spec. It has its weaknesses, yeah sure, but so does Combat/Carnage and Watchman/Anni. Depending on the situatiion, one spec shines over the other. But one thing i can tell u, if one plays Focus/Rage like a one-trick pony then one will always get shut down no matter what. When i was this spec i always tried to play unpredictable as i can. U dont have to use sweep/smash every time as soon as u got the stacks up, u have a fair amount of time to choose when this happens and position urself to make the most out of it. And u certainly shouldnt rely soley on this ability for max damage and wait every time till its up. There are so many other tools one can use, for example spamming 6 free slahses which can hit 2 enemies at the same time can confuse the hell out of people, force exhaustion/crush in combination with rupture/cauterize gives u very nice dot damage, master strike when the opportunity is good etc. I know that this spec isnt for all, but for me its lots of fun and if i can perform well with it others can surely too.

Focus/Rage spec was horrible for 1 v 2+ and never dealt consistent enough damage for me imo. It's like a one-trick pony, and against experienced players they simply knock you back when they see your stacks of singularity (or the imp equivalent is) get up. Sure, smashing an entire node in Novare Coast is fun, but the other three warzones, not so much. Even in Voidstar, unless a team has 4 healers/rdps stacked together, you'll do substantially less damage than Carnage or Watchman, and ditto in Civil War. That has been my experience playing Focus/Rage spec I guess.

Your experience is entirely different from my own.

 

I found Rage to do the most damage of all 3 specs. In Voidstar especially, which is just a frag fest, it's easy to get a 20k+ smash on a group of enemies. I also like that extra little charge that Rage gives you (I never remember the names of these skills). You can leap to snipers in cover with it, so it's really nice against those pesky jerks.

 

For me, Rage was a lot of fun, and something I'll likely do again some time, but I find Annihilation to be my bread n butter.

 

Personally, I would very highly recommend all Marauders put a good week or so into each of the 3 specs. Become good at all of them. Truth of the matter is we are lucky as hell to have a class with 3 viable specs. If you're good at all 3 then you don't need to worry about the inevitable questionable decisions BioWare makes with the class in the future.

I've been queuing for rateds a lot more lately, and just playing with healers in general. I've been almost exclusively Carnage for this time, and I have learned one new thing:

 

As Carnage, Predation is amazing, and many times I use it over Berserk because it has so much more utility. It also takes skill to use it properly and not mess up your rotation/targetting etc. Basically, if you blow predation, you get defensive boosts and speed boosts, and honestly the speed boosts are what help the most. That 80% speed man, it makes it so incredibly hard for melee and even ranged dps to follow you as you zoom around them, overwhelming them with fast hits and faster movement.

 

Plus, running that fast with red streaks and lightsabers swinging around someone looks fuggin baller as hell.

 

I've had people whisper me after imp vs imp warzones saying stuff like "my god you are insane, I can't even begin to keep up with your playstyle!". It's an extremely frenetic, super charged play style that goes very well with fast paced heavy metal =). And, it counters people that are getting knocked out of range, helps your healers easily kite melee that are on them, etc. Try it, you'll thank me, and your team will thank you. The dps loss from not having 1 second GCD Massacres for a short time is worth what you gain in most cases.

I've been queuing for rateds a lot more lately, and just playing with healers in general. I've been almost exclusively Carnage for this time, and I have learned one new thing:

 

As Carnage, Predation is amazing, and many times I use it over Berserk because it has so much more utility. It also takes skill to use it properly and not mess up your rotation/targetting etc. Basically, if you blow predation, you get defensive boosts and speed boosts, and honestly the speed boosts are what help the most. That 80% speed man, it makes it so incredibly hard for melee and even ranged dps to follow you as you zoom around them, overwhelming them with fast hits and faster movement.

 

Plus, running that fast with red streaks and lightsabers swinging around someone looks fuggin baller as hell.

 

I've had people whisper me after imp vs imp warzones saying stuff like "my god you are insane, I can't even begin to keep up with your playstyle!". It's an extremely frenetic, super charged play style that goes very well with fast paced heavy metal =). And, it counters people that are getting knocked out of range, helps your healers easily kite melee that are on them, etc. Try it, you'll thank me, and your team will thank you. The dps loss from not having 1 second GCD Massacres for a short time is worth what you gain in most cases.

 

It's totally dependent on the situation. Massacre spam with Berserk puts an insane amount of pressure on someone, especially with Gore active. It's especially nice for those pesky Operative healers.