wish i was seeing parses.

I wish you'd understand that these people are talking about Sims.

It's cool though, not the first time someone's tried to start stuff in on of my Guide threads.

I wish you'd understand that these people are talking about Sims.

 

It's cool though, not the first time someone's tried to start stuff in on of my Guide threads.

Haha, yeah mate this is theory crafting not parsing. Anyways, I've still settled on it being a variable between 3-5% damage increase because napkin math shows it over an average being 2% ish, but in practice you start to end up with your 5s time spans being a lot of your burst hits, only once during 15 minute long parses have I actually noticed a time span where I used assault for example (simply because you almost never use assault following a force charge). What does happen frequently though are strong combinations like ravage+annihilate, berserk windows, VS etc. in raid, I've never seen annihilation perform so strongly to be honest, quite honestly this set bonus almost replicates the burst of carnage to the point where performing your opener becomes just as effective burst, if not more so depending on crits/proc. to me, this has made annihilation the de facto raiding spec once again. A change I am very happy about. As for a max expected output of 2215, I agree with that assuming no adrenals/arp but I do still feel as if the proc relic contributes more damage than what you attributed it to, it regularly contributes 50-60 dps for me, not counting a static 47 power. Theory crafting is great and all, but at least in this case I do think that it is better in practice. I'd estimate more that the relic contributes an overall 65-70 dps compared to the EWH at 29-3x, but the problem with the EWH is that it becomes more dependent on your actual crits than your APM. Assuming your APM stays constant your relic will always do about the same damage unlike the static power. As I said, I've never performed so strongly in raid as I have with this build, and even messing around in HM instances I'm scoring anywhere from 50-150 dps higher than I had before. I highly recommend this build for any annihilation maras, it's a very very beefy upgrade.

I wish you'd understand that these people are talking about Sims.

 

It's cool though, not the first time someone's tried to start stuff in on of my Guide threads.

Wish you would understand, you implied an amount you could parse. Also wish you would understand theory crafting really does nothing. Also why get so mad so quick bro?

#AngerLevel>9000

Wish you would understand, you implied an amount you could parse. Also wish you would understand theory crafting really does nothing. Also why get so mad so quick bro?

#AngerLevel>9000

1. I've never implied anything about my own personal skill. Hell, I'm happy with myself if I can manage 2k dps for 20 seconds with my current gear.

2. Neither does wailing on a Dummy.

3. I'm not mad, just don't care for your attitude. Like, ever.

Really intrigued by this, although with the next tier of gear the gap should shrink with Carnage.

However in the meantime are you adjusting your force charge rotation at all? Should you do force charge on cooldown regardless of which of your focus spenders are up or do you save it a few seconds to wait for an annihlation/ravage pair?

Haha, yeah mate this is theory crafting not parsing. Anyways, I've still settled on it being a variable between 3-5% damage increase because napkin math shows it over an average being 2% ish, but in practice you start to end up with your 5s time spans being a lot of your burst hits, only once during 15 minute long parses have I actually noticed a time span where I used assault for example (simply because you almost never use assault following a force charge). What does happen frequently though are strong combinations like ravage+annihilate, berserk windows, VS etc. in raid, I've never seen annihilation perform so strongly to be honest, quite honestly this set bonus almost replicates the burst of carnage to the point where performing your opener becomes just as effective burst, if not more so depending on crits/proc. to me, this has made annihilation the de facto raiding spec once again. A change I am very happy about. As for a max expected output of 2215, I agree with that assuming no adrenals/arp but I do still feel as if the proc relic contributes more damage than what you attributed it to, it regularly contributes 50-60 dps for me, not counting a static 47 power. Theory crafting is great and all, but at least in this case I do think that it is better in practice. I'd estimate more that the relic contributes an overall 65-70 dps compared to the EWH at 29-3x, but the problem with the EWH is that it becomes more dependent on your actual crits than your APM. Assuming your APM stays constant your relic will always do about the same damage unlike the static power. As I said, I've never performed so strongly in raid as I have with this build, and even messing around in HM instances I'm scoring anywhere from 50-150 dps higher than I had before. I highly recommend this build for any annihilation maras, it's a very very beefy upgrade.

Really intrigued by this, although with the next tier of gear the gap should shrink with Carnage.

 

However in the meantime are you adjusting your force charge rotation at all? Should you do force charge on cooldown regardless of which of your focus spenders are up or do you save it a few seconds to wait for an annihlation/ravage pair?

In a lot of situations where in normal non pvp set bonus situations I wouldn't use force charge and instead use batt assault, the priority becomes force charge if I know my next attacks are going to be high DPE abilities. I do tend to stick to ravage+annihilate when I can, and do modify the rotations a bit to fit with my highest DPE abilities over using it in conjunction with a period of time when I would be using lower damage abilities. This does in fact make it higher boost to damage than the aforementioned ~2% value. On boss fights in particular, making sure to have a charge before your highest burst attacks during a full adrenal/Relic/BT burst phase (Kephess walker drop) you will do more burst damage than carnage seems to be capable of. Even looking at it on a dummy, this force charge boost extends your big opening dps quite a bit extra length of time, and as well as that; if you do make a rotation mistake it does make it easier to recover to your previous number. As I already said, I do heavily advocate this to Anni maras, particularly if you're stubbornly using it in newer raids. There's no reason not to considering how quick it is to grind 4 pieces of WH.

In a lot of situations where in normal non pvp set bonus situations I wouldn't use force charge and instead use batt assault, the priority becomes force charge if I know my next attacks are going to be high DPE abilities. I do tend to stick to ravage+annihilate when I can, and do modify the rotations a bit to fit with my highest DPE abilities over using it in conjunction with a period of time when I would be using lower damage abilities. This does in fact make it higher boost to damage than the aforementioned ~2% value. On boss fights in particular, making sure to have a charge before your highest burst attacks during a full adrenal/Relic/BT burst phase (Kephess walker drop) you will do more burst damage than carnage seems to be capable of. Even looking at it on a dummy, this force charge boost extends your big opening dps quite a bit extra length of time, and as well as that; if you do make a rotation mistake it does make it easier to recover to your previous number. As I already said, I do heavily advocate this to Anni maras, particularly if you're stubbornly using it in newer raids. There's no reason not to considering how quick it is to grind 4 pieces of WH.

One small pushback on the particular situation you're pointing out here.

Kephess.

Tons of opportunity to Force Charge from range.

So, in theory, one might well be best served as *Carnage* with the PVP armorings for burst phases, because on everything in that fight where DPS is at a premium, you're already teed up to Charge in, and most those windows are short enough that you're basically getting one Gore burn in.

A better example might be TFB, since there's a bunch of repeated bursts with gaps, and not enough range on a platform to Charge as Carnage. In that situation, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could match/exceed Carnage burst as Anni with PVP armorings.

Hey folks - question about the vindicator set. I recently started using my mara again and was pissed to realize that since BM is gone, if i want the vindicator i have to use pvp armorings - however, its a heavy set so leaving the armorings in means I can't equip it anyway?

The Armoring just determine the Set Bonus and how much armor the shell (armor skin) offers. The Shell itself determines whether or not it's Heavy, Medium or Light armor (adaptive armor is bases it's armor level off of your character's maximum armor proficiency).

Could someone post suggested (or their personal) key bindings for both Annihilation and Carnage specs. I am having a lot of trouble figuring this out on my own.

Here's how I've got it set up for Combat (Carnage)

http://imgur.com/eggBY24

(here are the translations)

1. Charge

2. Assault

3. Massacre

4. Battering Assault

5. Force Scream

6. Gore

7. Rupture

R. Sweeping Slash

E. Obfuscate

F. Force Camou

Q. Unleash

T. Cloak of Pain

All modifiers are Shift:

S1. Berserk

S2. Frenzy

S3. Click Relic

S4. Bloodthirst

S5. Ravage

S6. Savage Kick

S7. Vicious Throw

SR. Smash

SE. Rocket Boost (Obviously use this for an Adrenal or Intimidating Roar

SF. Predation

SQ. Saber Ward

ST. Undying Rage

For Watchmen (Annihilation) it's largely the same.

http://imgur.com/ZWNyxR4

1. Charge

2. Assault

3. Viscious Slash

4. Battering Assault

5. Annihilate

6. Overload Saber

7. Rupture

R. Sweeping Slash

E. Obfuscate

F. Force Camouflage

Q. Unleash

T. Cloak of Pain

S1. Berserk

S2. Frenzy

S3. Click Relic

S4. Bloodthirst

S5. Ravage

S6. Savage Kick

S7. Vicious Throw

SR. Smash

SE. Rocket Boost (Obviously use this for an Adrenal or Intimidating Roar)

SF. Predation

SQ. Saber Ward

ST. Undying Rage

Note: I upscaled this dramatically so y'all can see this, it's at 1.25 scale in the image, where I'm typically at .8 scale. I also have 2 misc bars and obviously have my character portrait and target portrait. Enjoy my space ****.

Could someone post suggested (or their personal) key bindings for both Annihilation and Carnage specs. I am having a lot of trouble figuring this out on my own.

My first bar is set up like so

Slot 1 (side mouse button 4): Battering Assault

Slot 2 (side mouse button 9): Deadly Saber (Annihilation) || Rupture (Carnage) || Obliterate (Rage)

Slot 3 (side mouse button 7): Rupture (Annihilation) || Force Scream (Carnage) || Vicious Slash (Rage)

Slot 4 (side mouse button 8): Annihilate (Annihilation) || Massacre (Carnage) || Smash (Rage)

Slot 5 (keyboard E): Force Scream (Annihilation) || Gore (Carnage) || Force Crush (Rage)

Slot 6 (side mouse button 10): Ravage

Slot 7 (GShift + side mouse 9): Smash (Annihilation & Carnage) || Rupture (Rage)

Slot 8 (side mouse button 6): Force Charge

Slot 9 (GShift + side mouse 8): Vicious Slash (Annihilation & Carnage) || Force Scream (Rage)

Slot 10 (shift + E): Force Choke

Slot 11 (GShift + side mouse 12): Deadly Throw

Slot 12 (side mouse button 12): Vicious Throw

My first bar is broken up into 2 rows 7/5 (instead of 6/6) since no spec uses more than 6 primary DPS skills + BA, and the bottom half basically comprises utility attacks. If it isn't directly useful to all 3 specs (or is Assault, which has no CD and can easily be chucked off wherever out of the way), it doesn't go on bar 1.

I use an MMO mouse (Logitech G600) so my binds and bars are set up to make it as easy as possible to use core skills with minimum movement of my right thumb. Gore is on the keyboard so that I can use both hands to minimize wasted time between Gore and the following skill.

The main quickbar was set up so that I could shuffle the various core skills around and make the ones most useful on each spec the easiest to reach, based around side mouse button 8 (which is where the tip of my thumb naturally rests as I hold the mouse). I wanted to be able to have logical grouping of my mouse binds so that I wasn't flailing all over to use core skills, whilst having as few changes in position between specs as possible.

Fury buffs are on another quickslot bar, but kebound to 1-4 on the keyboard.

Defensive CDs are on side mouse buttons 1-3 (plus GShift+1) on the mouse, which are slightly harder to reach and thus slightly harder to fat finger by accident.

My interrupt is always bound to F. Intimidating Roar is bound to shift+F. Obfuscate is bound to ctrl+E.

Assault is bound to side mouse 5 (easy to reach) but stuffed way out of the way on my quickslot bars since there's never any reason to have to track it, merely be able to trigger it.

Other miscellaneous things, like medpacks, adrenals, grenades, etc. are bound as close around WASD as possible.

A little hard to visualize, and a little odd in setup, but very easy to actually use and track important CDs without devoting too much attention to quickslots instead of the rest of the screen.