As a player, I mainly stick to Story, PVE, Strongholds, Space Missions / Starfighter, and playing the market. I generally love this game. However, Leveling a Combat Sentinel, even during 2x exp event, felt horrid. It felt Maple Story Early 2nd Job levels of horrid. It felt like an abused child forced to live under the stairs. It feels like I'm playing the Discipline of BioWare's Contempt. It felt so bad that I, the customer, had to stop playing YOUR game, come here, research ability names, and write this as some hail Mary attempt to be heard in a void.

Cons:

- Discipline Rotation does not smooth out until lv 60:

This is far worse than Pyrotech's / Plasmatech's lv 44 power spike (Railshot / HIB auto-crit). Due to the Zen / Berserk Perk swap, Combat / Carnage goes thru cycles Focus / Rage starvation until Lv 60 Dual Saber Throw 2 Focus / Rage Generation Upgrade. For 30-ish levels, The only spec to spam Saber Strike.... every rotation!

SWAP those perks! The mid-level burst cycle is resource hungry enough as it is, being the only mofo slathering "saber strike" feels gimped.

- Underperforming Burst Cycle:

To keep this short, there are Hybrid Classes that DPS better than the "Precision / Massacre Cycle" using their regular, individual, global cooldown skills. Precision / Opportune Strike Buffed Clashing Blast hits weaker than: Lacerate, Buffed Force Scream, Hew, Buffed Force Rage, Reaping Strike, Turbulence, RailShot, Heatseeker Missiles, PowerLode Cell Burst.

By the numbers, It's better to bring a Hybrid Class since they can DPS as well as Combat / Carnage but also DPS / Guard / Off-tank, Stealth / Heal / CC / DPS / Res, Stealth / Off-tank / CC / DPS, or Heal / DPS / Res.

Even on Parsely,io 6.5mil dummy, Combat / Carnage is 2 to 4 sec from any leaderboard representation.

I get it. Everquest cloned MMOs have a damage bias. No need for weird escalation.

In my honest opinion, This class just needs a nudge to be inline with the rest of the band: Buff Damage of Clashing Blast / Devastating Blast, Lance / Gore, and Ataru Form. If you want to throw the PvP'ers a bone, Swap Ataru to Force Damage.

- Animations:

OK. I'm gonna be honest, It's bad. It's just bad. The animations... they're FLAT. No Spectacle. No Value. No references.

For an Ataru Master, There is a sparse amount of jumps / acrobatics in it's animations.

Honestly Carnage / Combat looks like the Youngling Consular who could barely master Shi-Cho and Makashi before hitting Acolyte / Padawan. To be blunt, Blade Rush / Massacre's flailing animation looks like the desperation move of a Swordmaster who's only ever handled pool noodles.

For professionals handling a fantasy genre, this mess needs to be cleaned up, especially considering how many customers attempt to enjoy the Sentinel / Marauder Class.

Cultural Examples of Better Ataru Include:

SWTOR Examples of Better Ataru Include:

Juggernaut's Vengeance Spec does more Attaru with Impale, Shatter, and Ravage, feeling more like a Globetrotter or LoL's Darius Dunking on enemies.

Annihilaiton / Watchman doing more Ataru with every Rupture / Cauterize flip.

Fury / Concentration does more Ataru with Obliterate / Zealous Leap.

PowerTech closes in on Ataru with Rocket Punch / Flaming Fist (Shoryuuken!).

Hell. The Mercenary mastered more Ataru with Rocket Out & Death From Above.

Sorry Bioware. Pool Noodle Swordsmanship and Lens Flares does not equal Ataru. You screwed the Pooch on this one.

The fix is actually easy: Upgrade the animation of Blade Rush / Rupture. Make it look like Nioh's Jin Hayabusa's Full Moon Slash or Dragon Dogma's Skull Splitter Skill.

Honestly, I can understand not wanting to reanimate again (like from 4.0), but at least swap the flavor text around. Make Watchman / Annihilation the Ataru Master, and state that Combat uses Shien or Shi-Cho.

Pros:

- The Late Game Rotation:

Opinion: Building Focus / Rage to overturn a Cargo hold of Whoop-*** is exciting and satisfying. Planning and tension go into combining Leaps, Zealous Strike / Battering Assault , Dual Saber Throw to build 10 - 12 Focus Rage. Precision has an absurdly low Cooldown. Then the PC just pushes two Off-Global buffs and maybe one trinket to start a V-ism combo of absurd damage that'd make Cin Drallig yeet expletives. With Ataru's extra attacks chiming in, Blade Blitz / Mad Dash, Rebuke / Cloak of Pain, Combat / Carnage feels like a heavy-handed skirmisher earning their nom-de-guerre one ruinated dissident at a time.

As a player, I mainly stick to Story, PVE, Strongholds, Space Missions / Starfighter, and playing the market. I generally love this game. However, Leveling a Combat Sentinel, even during 2x exp event, felt horrid. It felt Maple Story Early 2nd Job levels of horrid. It felt like an abused child forced to live under the stairs. It feels like I'm playing the Discipline of BioWare's Contempt. It felt so bad that I, the customer, had to stop playing YOUR game, come here, research ability names, and write this as some hail Mary attempt to be heard in a void.

Cons:

- Discipline Rotation does not smooth out until lv 60:

This is far worse than Pyrotech's / Plasmatech's lv 44 power spike (Railshot / HIB auto-crit). Due to the Zen / Berserk Perk swap, Combat / Carnage goes thru cycles Focus / Rage starvation until Lv 60 Dual Saber Throw 2 Focus / Rage Generation Upgrade. For 30-ish levels, The only spec to spam Saber Strike.... every rotation!

SWAP those perks! The mid-level burst cycle is resource hungry enough as it is, being the only mofo slathering "saber strike" feels gimped.

- Underperforming Burst Cycle:

To keep this short, there are Hybrid Classes that DPS better than the "Precision / Massacre Cycle" using their regular, individual, global cooldown skills. Precision / Opportune Strike Buffed Clashing Blast hits weaker than: Lacerate, Buffed Force Scream, Hew, Buffed Force Rage, Reaping Strike, Turbulence, RailShot, Heatseeker Missiles, PowerLode Cell Burst.

By the numbers, It's better to bring a Hybrid Class since they can DPS as well as Combat / Carnage but also DPS / Guard / Off-tank, Stealth / Heal / CC / DPS / Res, Stealth / Off-tank / CC / DPS, or Heal / DPS / Res.

Even on Parsely,io 6.5mil dummy, Combat / Carnage is 2 to 4 sec from any leaderboard representation.

I get it. Everquest cloned MMOs have a damage bias. No need for weird escalation.

In my honest opinion, This class just needs a nudge to be inline with the rest of the band: Buff Damage of Clashing Blast / Devastating Blast, Lance / Gore, and Ataru Form. If you want to throw the PvP'ers a bone, Swap Ataru to Force Damage.

- Animations:

OK. I'm gonna be honest, It's bad. It's just bad. The animations... they're FLAT. No Spectacle. No Value. No references.

For an Ataru Master, There is a sparse amount of jumps / acrobatics in it's animations.

Honestly Carnage / Combat looks like the Youngling Consular who could barely master Shi-Cho and Makashi before hitting Acolyte / Padawan. To be blunt, Blade Rush / Massacre's flailing animation looks like the desperation move of a Swordmaster who's only ever handled pool noodles.

For professionals handling a fantasy genre, this mess needs to be cleaned up, especially considering how many customers attempt to enjoy the Sentinel / Marauder Class.

Cultural Examples of Better Ataru Include:

SWTOR Examples of Better Ataru Include:

Juggernaut's Vengeance Spec does more Attaru with Impale, Shatter, and Ravage, feeling more like a Globetrotter or LoL's Darius Dunking on enemies.

Annihilaiton / Watchman doing more Ataru with every Rupture / Cauterize flip.

Fury / Concentration does more Ataru with Obliterate / Zealous Leap.

PowerTech closes in on Ataru with Rocket Punch / Flaming Fist (Shoryuuken!).

Hell. The Mercenary mastered more Ataru with Rocket Out & Death From Above.

Sorry Bioware. Pool Noodle Swordsmanship and Lens Flares does not equal Ataru. You screwed the Pooch on this one.

The fix is actually easy: Upgrade the animation of Blade Rush / Rupture. Make it look like Nioh's Jin Hayabusa's Full Moon Slash or Dragon Dogma's Skull Splitter Skill.

Honestly, I can understand not wanting to reanimate again (like from 4.0), but at least swap the flavor text around. Make Watchman / Annihilation the Ataru Master, and state that Combat uses Shien or Shi-Cho.

Pros:

- The Late Game Rotation:

Opinion: Building Focus / Rage to overturn a Cargo hold of Whoop-*** is exciting and satisfying. Planning and tension go into combining Leaps, Zealous Strike / Battering Assault , Dual Saber Throw to build 10 - 12 Focus Rage. Precision has an absurdly low Cooldown. Then the PC just pushes two Off-Global buffs and maybe one trinket to start a V-ism combo of absurd damage that'd make Cin Drallig yeet expletives. With Ataru's extra attacks chiming in, Blade Blitz / Mad Dash, Rebuke / Cloak of Pain, Combat / Carnage feels like a heavy-handed skirmisher earning their nom-de-guerre one ruinated dissident at a time.

150% agree boss. All dps class, burst spec.. one of the lowest parsing in pve and underperforming in pvp. Very low overall damage, and heavy setup for mediocre burst damage. Carny's defense was always its offense. They've damn near turned it onto a hybrid/sustain spec. A good start would be for them to let the severe passive affect: vicious throw, gore, ravage, and sweeping slash. That alone would be a substantial overall damage boost.

Yea what do you take now "overwhelmed Offense" best tactical for carnage/combat...

Seriously NOW

thats some crap u do with that spec since like 5.0 it gets worse with every change.

i guess devs literally hate combat/carnage

i would have figured the loss of Fanged God would have gotten a bit more outrage than this.

Nah. Most people stopped caring about Carnage/Combat back in 6.0 when it really became apparent how weak the spec was. At this point, it’s less killing the spec and more like spitting on the grave. No sense in getting madder about it than folks already were.

i would have figured the loss of Fanged God would have gotten a bit more outrage than this.

Most of the people that cared about the class/spec wrote guides etc left the game ages ago. Only people left are either playing fury or just swapped to something else.

I have been quite vocal for years now about how carnage/combat is designed and have multiple posts about they can change. To be honest they are so out of touch with this spec they left it without a tactical. They can maybe do something like changing the lance bleed to tick its remaining damage when lance is used again but that would be too much to ask for cause they dont give a **** about this spec. I had some semblence of hope that 7.0 will fix it and well... they didnt. Its worse than before in fact. That being said there is one thing they might have considered and thats the passive that makes blade rush/massecare do more damage based on movement speed buffs. If it stacks up to 50% with the new passive that gives you ms and crit up to 5 stacks, the damage could be quite good(currently a bugged passive). But the biggest issue are the animations. While i like blade rush/massecare, i think lance/gore needs a new animation, something more flashy and acrobatic. Clashing blast too, the motion of it makes no sense.

PS: The dash on lance was a suggestion made specifically by me, though it was a part of a massive change revolving around dispatch and they didnt add that.

I had a lot of fun playing Carnage before 7.0.. It was fast moving and could keep up with Fury in terms of damage. My fury marauder is now doing twice as much damage as carnage even with obfuscate and with it the ability to use vicious throw on cd removed.

It isn't just carnage that has suffered this willful neglect though, there are other classes that have suffered similarly and the end result is that everyone is now playing a sorc in pvp. *clap clap clap*

I spend an obsene amount of time in this game just on trying out new things and trying to improve on the characters i like to play. BIOWARE have spent an obsene amount of time making sure that people like me feel like we've been **** on.

I... and the end result is that everyone is now playing a sorc in pvp. *clap clap clap*

Now? Only in PvP?

Sorcs were and is only one class they care and they not really touch. They always come out on top... even if they are one of the simplest classes and ranged. Other classes, especially melee, don't really exist for the devs. They can't play them, they can't balance them so they just don't care.

i agree as well... combat sent has been my primary toon since launch.. it's usually at least on par with other classes.. right now it's horrible. i have switched to concentration for the moment just to be able to raid. I wish BW would stop breaking toon with "bright ideas... "

post this in Suggestions box.. maybe they'll at least read it... they won't read it here.

I gave it another shot but... nope. I still run out of rage way too much, the AoE sucks, basically the spec is a joke.

All my marauders/sentinels are now fury/concentration. Such a shame.

I our guild we have mentors for the different specs of the classes and as the mentor for Combat Sentinel I have tried really hard to find a way to play combat sentinel in raids and PvE group content.

I failed!

So I sought help with the theory crafters discord. And found a rotation that works, but the performance of the combat sentinel/carnage mara is...

(how can I say this in a polite way?)

Total Crap! (Sorry was the politest way I could imagine for this)

My main character has been combat sentinel since release of the game, now I switched to concentration

The class balance is broken, more than ever!

Look at these dummy parses:

https://parsely.io/parser/leaderboard/sentinel/all/6500000/all/live/0/

Where a concentration sentinel does about 32k DPS, combat sentinels reach a maximum of 25k DPS

A difference of 3-4k in a dummy parse would be abolutely okay. I don't even complain about the awkward rotation that breaks whenever you make the slightest mistake.

Please dear Devs, make Combat (and Carnage) great again! Pretty Pleeease!

Based on the ability tree, it seems as though Bioware wants Carnage to specialize in speed, movement bonuses stacking and fast attacks. If Carnage doesn't hit particularly hard WITH a high crit build, it will likely convince players to run a high alacrity build for Carnage which isn't too difficult to do with their constant alacrity buffs and passives.

While this idea sounds fun in certain circumstances, I'd much rather have Carnage be a hard-hitting, lethal spec. They need to give Carnage a supercrit like they did for Fury and beserk. Or at least make another implant which gives furious power generation like DOTF did back in 7.0 so I can have fun with Prosecution.

i would have figured the loss of Fanged God would have gotten a bit more outrage than this.

God Fang was alright. but the rotation was pretty boring. Man how i miss the days as you got an opener, main & execute phase in your rotation. well back then carnage/combat did pack some serious dps. i doubt these days will come ever again. But spec isnt as bad as i was afraid at first in 7.0 u have to take up your gear and then u have to decide do you want to go for speed or crit whatever suits you best. imao

They gave players the choice to play Fury or not to play a Marauder at all.