Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion

Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Printable Version

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RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Kaedis - 11-30-2011 10:00 AM

Quote:It isnt really apples and oranges when it helps the same cause which is successfully killing bosses,Rallying Cry was pronounced as "God sent blessing" on Chimaeron fight yet raid werent stacking warriors for that fight.

Rallying Cry shares a CD with Last Stand, and the tanks are really the only major benefit from that. Since max health is largely irrelevant on that fight (Rallying Cry doesn't exactly increase incoming healing), the only benefit it gives is a quick boost of healing for a Massacre, or helping out with the Feud phases, neither of which are really a big deal. Definitely apples and oranges, especially since this only applies to a single fight.

Also, Rallying Cry was added in 4.1, when Chimaeron become obsolete.

Quote:Going by above logic i mentioned all major guilds in WoW should have stacked ret paladins in ICC/Naxx which didnt happen.

How so? Perhaps I'm forgetting something (wouldn't be the first time), but Ret's didn't really have any major stacking or chainable buffs/debuffs back then that I recall.

Quote:Reason why shamans were stacked in Sunwell was because of Bloodlust/totems (Bloodlust and totems were affecting individual groups and not full raid back then) and to some extent Chain Heal

Exactly. This seems to be party only, and heroism is an insanely powerful buff, just like this one. That's precisely the point I was making, and this exact issue was corrected by adding a debuff to Heroism and making totems raid wide.

Quote:Guilds wont stack Marauders for many reasons such as buff duration of 15 seconds + its cooldown and probability that only affects your party and not full raid are simple enough

Heroism never had this issue, but totems did, and shaman were stacked for that alone. Heroism also had the massive duration/cooldown ratio, and it was still used. As I said before, judging an ability on just it's overall damage is a very poor way to do so, and completely discounts the benefit of properly timed burst cooldowns, particularly when layered with other cooldowns.

Quote:Assuming raid of 16 players (3 tanks 5 healers and 8 dps , stacking 8 marauders for this buff that doesnt even have decent uptime will hurt your raid more than it will benefit it due to synergy between certain classes/specs

This can't actually be maintained until we have better data on the class damage mechanics. Also, excluding the class party buffs (which can be covered by the tanks/healers), and the tank debuffs (covered by the tanks), there aren't really any major necessary buffs or debuffs, particularly damage-increasing ones.

Quote:I doubt we will see Marauders stacking in raids because of this buff , i am more concerned about class stacking for certain debuffs on bosses like armor reduction,accuracy reduction and damage reduction because some of them have low or no cd and can be chained to offer raid a great boost making boss easier than it should be.

The only specs that have most of those debuffs are tanks, and most of those abilities have 100% uptime or near 100% already. I seriously doubt if they stack, incidentally.

That said, as far as ones we do think stack, one of them (a quite powerful one, I might add) is provided my marauders: Obfuscate

Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Rage: -1
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 secs
Mirror: Pacify

Obscures the target's vision, reducing its melee and ranged accuracy by 90% for 6 seconds.

. Yet more reason to stack them (assuming it works on bosses).

Quote:For example take a look at Oil Slick

1 minute cd , 18 sec duration , with 3 BH tanks in raid u can have almost 100% uptime on that one not to mention Combust which can stack up to 12% debuff on boss with said scenario.

This is a valid stacking issue.

Quote:Armor reduction debuff stacks from different players/mobs on same target without overriding it which will/can cause problems aswell.

Using mobs as proof isn't proof. For example, mob-cast armor debuffs stacked in WoW, but player ones did not.

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Pantelijus - 12-01-2011 01:19 AM

(11-30-2011 10:00 AM)Kore Wrote: Rallying Cry shares a CD with Last Stand, and the tanks are really the only major benefit from that. Since max health is largely irrelevant on that fight (Rallying Cry doesn't exactly increase incoming healing), the only benefit it gives is a quick boost of healing for a Massacre, or helping out with the Feud phases, neither of which are really a big deal. Definitely apples and oranges, especially since this only applies to a single fight.

Also, Rallying Cry was added in 4.1, when Chimaeron become obsolete.

Rallying Cry shares CD with Last Stand but it stacks with Last Stand when used by another warrior, on apples and oranges part it seems we cannot agree on that one since we have different views and opinions .

Quote:How so? Perhaps I'm forgetting something (wouldn't be the first time), but Ret's didn't really have any major stacking or chainable buffs/debuffs back then that I recall.

Ret paladins in general offered more utility than certain specs such as Fury warr or UH dk as candidates for Shadowmourne + they had several talents and abilities that were pretty much designed versus undead creatures .

Quote:Exactly. This seems to be party only, and heroism is an insanely powerful buff, just like this one. That's precisely the point I was making, and this exact issue was corrected by adding a debuff to Heroism and making totems raid wide.

Bloodlust/Heroism is powerfull but it had specific duration of 40 seconds which was going perfectly for burn phase on certain boss for example while Bloodthirst buff only lasts 15 seconds which wont make it up as a viable candidate for burn phase.

If Bloodthirst buff lasted 30-45 seconds i would be on same boat as you here but it isnt , i think u are overestimating its value atleast in my opinion.

Quote:This can't actually be maintained until we have better data on the class damage mechanics. Also, excluding the class party buffs (which can be covered by the tanks/healers), and the tank debuffs (covered by the tanks), there aren't really any major necessary buffs or debuffs, particularly damage-increasing ones.

Well we still need to see mechanics about player debuffs stacking on bosses before we discuss it further .

Quote:The only specs that have most of those debuffs are tanks, and most of those abilities have 100% uptime or near 100% already. I seriously doubt if they stack, incidentally.

That said, as far as ones we do think stack, one of them (a quite powerful one, I might add) is provided my marauders: Obfuscate
Obfuscate
Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Rage: -1
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 secs
Mirror: Pacify

Obscures the target's vision, reducing its melee and ranged accuracy by 90% for 6 seconds.
. Yet more reason to stack them (assuming it works on bosses).

Duration of Obfuscate is 6 seconds with 1 minute cd pretty much makes it impossible (even in theory) to stack Marauders for that benefit.

Quote:Using mobs as proof isn't proof. For example, mob-cast armor debuffs stacked in WoW, but player ones did not.

We need someone who played Juggernaut and grouped with other Juggs to share their opinions on that one but i am kinda skeptical considering we havent saw any major testing on Operation bosses .

If u remember the issue with Doomguards Cripple on bosses which was 45% and was stacking with Thunder Clap so i wouldnt be surprised if this problem with debuff stacking slipped BioWare's radar of fixes.

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Kaedis - 12-01-2011 05:37 AM

Quote:Ret paladins in general offered more utility than certain specs such as Fury warr or UH dk as candidates for Shadowmourne + they had several talents and abilities that were pretty much designed versus undead creatures .

If I recall correctly, in both ICC and Naxx, DKs were still superior to Pallies for overall dps, and Fury was certainly superior in ICC. Their utility was pretty crappy for undead at that point (short AoE stun that only worked on the weaker trash, a short fear that was just as good at pulling other mobs as a warlock's). The only benefit they had was that they had slightly better scaling with the strength proc on Shadowmourne, and stacking one class for the benefit they get from a legendary that you'd be lucky to have 3 of in the raid isn't really rational.

Quote:Duration of Obfuscate is 6 seconds with 1 minute cd pretty much makes it impossible (even in theory) to stack Marauders for that benefit.

Only impossible if you're aiming for 100% uptime, which is hardly needed. Also, you'd only need 10 to get 100% uptime (though if you're operating under the assumption of max 8 dps, 80% uptime is the cap). Still, you only really need enough so that when all those massively powerful one-hit wonders come rolling around, you can drop it on the boss as a tanking CD. Likely no more than 3-4 from that, but I could still see it being powerful enough that it becomes required to have a marauder around for certain boss mechanics.

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Pantelijus - 12-02-2011 10:44 AM

1.12.2011 patch notes(for upcoming beta test)

Sith Warriors can now obtain the “Darth” title.

Marauder

Healing done by Berserk has been decreased to 1% per tick while Juyo Form is active.

Hurray for Darth title Smile

(Berserk part was just a tooltip fix)

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Gorodetski - 12-02-2011 12:43 PM

Oooh man.. Darth Delphine Eraclea...

So much badassery in that name...

Can we have Swtor now, I wanna start working on my Marauder Big Grin

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Malifik - 12-06-2011 06:05 AM

So I haven't seen a whole lot of recent discussion regarding optimal Annihilation talent builds for PvE dps, which I figured could use some debate since the final pre-release patch has been pushed.

Currently, I'm looking at a base like this:
31/3/0 +7
(the +7 means we have 7 points which can be debated upon).

I believe the 31 points in the Annihilation tree itself are pretty self-explanatory, and don't leave a lot of room for discussion. The only argument would be placing two points into Subjugation (15s off Obfuscate

) if we find out Obfuscate affects raid bosses (assuming no, but confirmation still needed).

From looking at the first two tiers of the Carnage and Rage trees, it seems Carnage is the sure-fire winner as to where we should place our final 10 points, as the extra 3% hit from Narrowed Hatred beats out anything in the second tier of the Rage tree. The major question, in my mind, is Cloak of Carnage versus Defensive Forms in tier one Carnage.

What needs to be determined is, does Cloak of Pain

Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 secs
Mirror: Rebuke

Reduces all damage taken by 20% and deals [?] energy damage to attackers. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. Lasts 6 seconds. Cloak of Pain refreshes to its full duration when attacked, but this effect cannot last more than 30 seconds in total.

do its damage when the player is damaged from an indirect attack (i.e. an AoE ability)? If so, then Cloak of Carnage is the optimal choice, as we have another way to generate rage (equate it to how anti-magic shell worked for Death Knights in WoW during Wrath).

If Cloak of Pain does not do its damage when we get hit with AoE, then Defensive Forms is the only other option. Since we'll be in Juyo form for Annihilation dps, how much damage mitigation are we really seeing with 4% less damage from Internal and Elemental attacks? Would we rather still have Cloak of Carnage for those few circumstances where a stray add may be hitting us and we can use our talented Cloak of Pain for additional Rage?

Once we get past the first tier of the Carnage tree, we of course will pick up Narrowed Hatred, as already mentioned. Then, we have another decision to make between Defensive Roll and Enraged Charge. While the extra one rage from using Force Charge

Sith Warrior

Rage: 3
Range: 10m - 30m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Force Leap

Jumps to a distant target, dealing <> damage with the main hand weapon, immoblizing the target for 2 seconds and interrupting the target's current action. Builds 3 rage. Cannot be used against targets in cover.

is definitely nice, and allows us more leeway when we begin a fight, the 30% extra damage mitigation from all AoE attacks may be necessary (or at least highly desired) for specific end-game fights, especially on the higher difficulties.

I simply do not see any talents in the Rage tree being desired when considering an optimal PvE dps spec, besides Malice. Stagger is completely PvP oriented; Ravager is lackluster when compared to second tier Carnage talents; all second tier Rage talents are worthless for a PvE Annihilation Marauder, besides maybe the full-heal from Payback, but a cooldown like that on a pure-DPS class only seems like planning for failure.

Thoughts?

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Freehugs - 12-06-2011 02:28 PM

I consider both Defensive Roll and Enraged Charge to be required, at the expense of Narrowed Hatred.
Granted Defensive Roll is fight specific as you say, it's extremely likely that Operation bosses will deal significant AoE damage. In fact I'll be surprised if more than a few don't.
Enraged Charge is not just for opening the fight. Annihilation has talents to both lower the cooldown and remove the minimum range of Force Charge

, making it the secondary Rage builder after Battering Assault

Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Rage: 6
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Zealous Strike

Strikes the target multiple times with both lightsabers, dealing (LvlRankDmgAmnt * 0.05 WeaponDamage * 0.5) weapon damage and building 6 rage. Requires two lightsabers.

. Force Charge

does about the same damage as Assault

Sith Warrior

Rage: 2
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Strike

Inflicts <> damage with a series of quick melee attacks. Builds 2 Rage. Attacks with both weapons if dual wielding.

but builds twice the Rage, and is key to building the Rage you need for .

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - neocoma - 12-06-2011 10:58 PM

Okay here's my strict pve build, created to deal as much damage as possible.

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_warrior/marauder/#::efefede2fe4de6f3ef8efef24

If Ops are designed to have AE damage sources one will swap narrowed hatred with defensive rolls. Other than that this might be the strongest Anni dps build that comes to my mind atm.

Take note that it isnt quite clear yet at what extent we will use force based attacks so 6% force crit might be superior and vary that build once this becomes clear.

So the alternative version whould look like this

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_warrior/marauder/#::efefede2fe4de5f4ef8efef15ef8

Conclusion: As always the core is set on stone and there are only a cuple of points which can be varied at all.

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Malifik - 12-07-2011 12:14 AM

(12-06-2011 02:28 PM)Freehugs Wrote: I consider both Defensive Roll and Enraged Charge to be required, at the expense of Narrowed Hatred.
Granted Defensive Roll is fight specific as you say, it's extremely likely that Operation bosses will deal significant AoE damage. In fact I'll be surprised if more than a few don't.
Enraged Charge is not just for opening the fight. Annihilation has talents to both lower the cooldown and remove the minimum range of Force Charge
Force Charge
Sith Warrior

Rage: 3
Range: 10m - 30m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Force Leap

Jumps to a distant target, dealing <> damage with the main hand weapon, immoblizing the target for 2 seconds and interrupting the target's current action. Builds 3 rage. Cannot be used against targets in cover.
, making it the secondary Rage builder after Battering Assault
Battering Assault
Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Rage: 6
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Zealous Strike

Strikes the target multiple times with both lightsabers, dealing (LvlRankDmgAmnt * 0.05 WeaponDamage * 0.5) weapon damage and building 6 rage. Requires two lightsabers.
. Force Charge
Force Charge
Sith Warrior

Rage: 3
Range: 10m - 30m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Force Leap

Jumps to a distant target, dealing <> damage with the main hand weapon, immoblizing the target for 2 seconds and interrupting the target's current action. Builds 3 rage. Cannot be used against targets in cover.
does about the same damage as Assault
Assault
Sith Warrior

Rage: 2
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Strike

Inflicts <> damage with a series of quick melee attacks. Builds 2 Rage. Attacks with both weapons if dual wielding.
but builds twice the Rage, and is key to building the Rage you need for .

I'm surprised that Narrowed Hatred would be up for debate. Yes, Enraged Charge allows a single additional rage point to be generated, which will add up over the course of a fight. As an example, if an average fight lasts 5 minutes (300s) and we can Force Charge once every 12 seconds, that's a total of 25 additional rage that we can build. Therefore, Enraged Charge becomes more valuable the longer the encounter runs.
However, would we see more gain from having 25 additional rage, or the 3% extra Accuracy we get from Narrowed Hatred, which would get us closer to the hit cap? I assume when we first reach end-game content, we will not be hit capped, which would further increase the value of Accuracy rating, and the Narrowed Hatred talent allows us to get closer to that cap.

Defensive Roll, as we both agree, is going to be situationally dependent on the specific encounter, seeing increasing value during situations where relying on our basic damage avoidance skills (e.g., Cloak of Pain, Saber Ward, talented Force Camo) and normal raid healing will not be enough to guarantee survival.

If an encounter boils down to us choosing additional survivability or additional DPS through the second tier of the Carnage tree, I'd say the talent choices would then be between Defensive Roll and Enraged Charge, respectively.

The caveat to requiring Narrowed Hatred in a build would seem to be, that once we're hit capped through gear, whether we see additional DPS gain through Enraged Charge's extra rage generation or through the defense reduction to targets that we see through going over the hit cap.

(12-06-2011 10:58 PM)neocoma Wrote: Okay here's my strict pve build, created to deal as much damage as possible.

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_warrior/marauder/#::efefede2fe4de6f3ef8efef24

Neocoma, what is your reasoning behind only going 2/3 in Pulverize to take 1 point in Ferocity? In a raid encounter, I would not see us using Predation

Sith Warrior (Marauder)

Activation time: Instant
Mirror: Transcendence

Requires and converts 30 stacks of Fury to issue Predation to you and your party, increasing movement speed by 50% and melee and ranged defense by 10%. Lasts 10 seconds.

over Berserk

Sith Warrior

Activation time: Instant
Mirror: Combat Focus

Requires and converts 30 stacks of Fury to go Berserk. Lasts for 6 charges. This effect varies based on your current lightsaber form: Shii-cho Form: Vicious Slash costs no rage and strikes 1 additional nearby enemy. Juyo Form: Increases the critical chance of your bleed attacks by 100% and causes bleed damage to heal your party for 1% of max health each tick. Ataru Form: Reduces the rage cost of Vicious Slash and Massacre by 1 and reduces their global cooldown by 0.5 seconds.

unless we're in a very circumstantial situation that requires our group movement speed buff to be used.

RE: Annihilation Discipline abilities and rotation discussion - Pantelijus - 12-07-2011 12:49 AM

For Annihilation Malice is more valuable than Narrowed Hatred for obvious reasons,Defensive Roll should be required for raids at the expense of Enraged Charge which will be personal choice i guess(some will want more rage and others better survivability)

Predation seems like a defensive cooldown which can be used between phases or to benefit your party in time of need as a minor survival cooldown considering it increases defense by 10%.