Best Marauder DPS Spec?

[Flexecute]

Howdy,

I bought the game back in December and leveled a Jugg to 50 and then quit a couple months later. I have decided to try the game out again and intend to re-roll as a Marauder on a bigger server and would like to know if there is a consensus on which of the Marauder specs is the "best" for operations. I would like to know so that I can become comfortable with it while I am leveling.

Thanks in advance for the information and if you have any recommendations for a solid server with progression-minded guilds then I would appreciate that info as well.

[OzoneAl]

Currently the best spec for marauders in operations is Annihilation. Currently using a 31/5/5 spec that works wonders (though once you min/max you can go to 31/3/7).
If I were you I'd check out the guides on Noxxic. They can be quite informative.

[Deleted]

Depends what you mean by best...

Annihilation will generally provide better all round sustained DPS and survivability.

Carnage will allow for greater burst DPS.

Depends on what you want to achieve, and your regular group's composition or strengths / weaknesses, i.e. most will tell you annihilation is better, but if you have good healers, and you take into account some bosses have only a short window of opportunity to DPS (e.g. Soa and G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator in EV / Karagaa) then Carnage is just as viable.

Can't comment on Rage tree, no experience of that one.

edit: unless you're planning on Nightmare mode Ops the tree choice won't matter that much, both specs are totally viable. Today's buffed spec is the one that's nerfed tomorrow, so if you really just want to stick it out with a single tree - then just choose the one that fits your playstyle, i.e. managing DOTs for sustained DPS or managing CDs for burst DPS.

[Derah]

From my own experience, Annihilation is a fantastic tree, and far surpasses carnage. Sure Carnage has burst, but once your steam has run off, it falls behind considerably.

Annihilation has bleeds that would make an arms warrior from wow blush, strong sustained dmg, and good survival. All in all the one spec I recommend both for leveling, and for end-game PVE.

Dunno for pvp, not really my cup of tea.

[Stormcall]

Annihilation has bleeds that would make an arms warrior from wow blush, strong sustained dmg, and good survival. All in all the one spec I recommend both for leveling, and for end-game PVE.

Well, some people hate dot management though(or aren't good at it), and that's where that strong sustained dmg comes from. For those people, "bleeds that would make an arms warrior blush" is not a selling point, either.

My marauder will be Carnage, simply cause I want something other than dots. My Vanguard is Assault, my Jugg is Vengeance, and my assassin leveled as Madness, so I've had enough dot play, heh.

[Deleted]

As someone whos played A mara since day 1 i started as rage purely because burst dmg is more usefull when leveling, and with flash points because most targets are dead within a few seconds and burst dmg is just easier to burn shit down and move on. I agree annilation is the best sustained dps over time, but given the amount of moving around from target to target and how quickly ur team will burn down targets unless your on a boss your tick, and dot damage just aint effective on targets that only last 10 seconds. Ann shines when u have a heavy target which takes some burning down, then it comes into its own!! Im a lvl 50 mara at the moment i have battle gear/heroic pvp and columi geared pve and annilation is the end game spec i play now, it does take a while to perfect rotations and cd, especially in pvp, where ur swapping from target to target. More oftern then not, ur having to really focus on keeping ur target still long enough to apply ur ann dps, and most who come up against mara know to stay away, so its tricky. The only gripe i have with ann spec is you really need time on target to really see ur ann dps take crippling effect, and given the style of combat in pvp and fp, opportunity is rare to unleash the full crippling effect of all ur ann goodies. Having said that when you do use it, and use it right its great!!! But rage is great for jumping from target to target and boom boom dead, boom boom dead.

Hope this helps.

[Derah]

Well, some people hate dot management though(or aren't good at it), and that's where that strong sustained dmg comes from. For those people, "bleeds that would make an arms warrior blush" is not a selling point, either.

My marauder will be Carnage, simply cause I want something other than dots. My Vanguard is Assault, my Jugg is Vengeance, and my assassin leveled as Madness, so I've had enough dot play, heh.

Fair enough. I do admit that the dots have to be carefully managed in order to squeeze the most out of the spec, but if you do carefully manage it, its awesome.

[Flexecute]

Thanks all for the detailed information.

[Crimsonfiend76]

my mara is currently level 40, so approaching it from a leveling persepective, annihilation is good, love the survivability and great on strong, elite and champion mobs in heroics and fp's but when i get that itch to change it up, i like going rage since it the best aoe spec and while leveling it helps burn down groups of adds fast, with little downtime. given that you were interested in Ops, ive heard the former is THE best all around spec, but in the end it depends on your play style. Ive tried carnage a handful of times and hated it each time and ended up goin back to annihilation or rage.

btw, its not really that hard to keep track of your dots, usually as long as you keep your priority list up (refer to noxxic.com) and rupture on cd, it isnt that hard to keep sustained dmg. and as an aside, i find it ironic that carnage features the ataru form which is touted as an acrobatic style, yet i seem to fly around and force charge more in annihilation with close quarters talented.

[Stormcall]

btw, its not really that hard to keep track of your dots, usually as long as you keep your priority list up

Not everyone shares that opinion. Other people, like me, just find having to watch the dots annoying.

[Derah]

Not everyone shares that opinion. Other people, like me, just find having to watch the dots annoying.

Again, nobody here is saying our opinion is universal. Yours is just as valid. Its what's so gorgeous about Marauders, THEY ALL WORK. Can't say the same for other advanced classes =( I won't mention their names, but I bet you know which ones I mean. There are a few that have some specs that are simply useless or significantly behind the rest.

For me, the reason I like Annihilation so much is:

Leveling: For leveling you WANT to kill things fast, and this is something every spec can do. Rage has strong AoE thanks to those beefy Smashes with 100% crit chance. Carnage has strong burst thanks to the myriad of blows granted by Ataru form, and Annh has the very strong dots. However, (And this is a biggie) the reason why (for me at least) Annihilation is so beastly for leveling, is the Rage.

You are overflowing with rage. Currently I generate so much of it I barely have to use the auto-attack at all. Hell, once I get the talent that gives rage with bleed ticks (Empowerment) I may not have to use another auto attack ever again. Annh can buff Force Leap to have a shorter CD, and generate more rage, and be used at point-blank (instead of 10 yards away), which combined with stuff such as Force Choke, and Battering Assault I have more rage than I can spend on. Mobs are usually dead before I finish burning off all that exess rage.

Soloing: For soloing, Annh has a little edge over the others. Crits of your dots heal you, and this effect doesn't seem to have any internal CD (Could be wrong about this, if so, someone correct me). It may not seem like much, but hey, every little bit helps.

Elites: Again, with Carnage I noticed that I have a strong (HEAVY emphasis on STRONG) opening with elites, but after the initial rush, it slows down. Big burst, not so big DPS afterwards. I don't have that problem with Annh. Its an endless stream of pwnage due to such amounts of RAGE, hell, I use berserk to grant 100% crit chance to my bleeds, and in less than 15 seconds I have again another 30 stacks of fury to burn again.

Mileages may vary with this class, specially when all 3 specs are fully functional, but for me, Annihilation is simply the best, due to A: Lots of rage to spend. B: Good survival, C: strong sustained damage.

and as an aside, i find it ironic that carnage features the ataru form which is touted as an acrobatic style, yet i seem to fly around and force charge more in annihilation with close quarters talented.

=D yeah, I noticed that too. Ataru is described as "acrobatic" but it doesn't has any animation different from juyo or shii-cho, doesn't have an animation for when it procs either.

Annihilation does feels more acrobatic because with the other 2 specs, you only use force charge once per battle, afterwards its awkward to use again because you'd have to back away to charge again, and that's hard with melee enemies, or foes in close quarters. But with Annihilation, you can force charge all the time, and it does feels more acrobatic. Not to mention that they have more emphasis on Rupture (With a strong chance to reset its cooldown) and the animation of rupture is also acrobatic since you leap forward and stab with both blades at the same time.

[Stormcall]

s:

Leveling: For leveling you WANT to kill things fast, and this is something every spec can do. Rage has strong AoE thanks to those beefy Smashes with 100% crit chance. Carnage has strong burst thanks to the myriad of blows granted by Ataru form, and Annh has the very strong dots. However, (And this is a biggie) the reason why (for me at least) Annihilation is so beastly for leveling, is the Rage.

You are overflowing with rage. Currently I generate so much of it I barely have to use the auto-attack at all. Hell, once I get the talent that gives rage with bleed ticks (Empowerment) I may not have to use another auto attack ever again. Annh can buff Force Leap to have a shorter CD, and generate more rage, and be used at point-blank (instead of 10 yards away), which combined with stuff such as Force Choke, and Battering Assault I have more rage than I can spend on. Mobs are usually dead before I finish burning off all that exess rage.

Soloing: For soloing, Annh has a little edge over the others. Crits of your dots heal you, and this effect doesn't seem to have any internal CD (Could be wrong about this, if so, someone correct me). It may not seem like much, but hey, every little bit helps.

For leveling, you want to kill mobs fast then move on. Carnage's burst or Rage's superior AoE are better for that than dots are. Not to mention as Carnage you have a 15% increased run speed in Ataru form(thanks to Defensive Forms), which means all those stupid bunkers and stuff that you can't mount in are traveled through more quickly, another plus when leveling. And the Anni healing is basically negligible(it's a lot like the healing on Madness assassins), you could not have it at all and it would barely(if at all) even be noticed. I would give the edge to either Carnage or Rage for normal questing. For elites, Anni takes it for sure though.

[Arlee]

Personally I prefer carnage. I think this is affected by the fact that I leveled with a tank and a healer the whole way, so I always had a group for things and not having self-healing never slowed me down. Also, I think the fact that my main in wow is a shadow priest colors my feelings about the two specs, carnage just feels more different to me.

Like other people have mentioned though both are completely viable and you really should just mess around with both and see what you like.

[Derah]

For leveling, you want to kill mobs fast then move on. Carnage's burst or Rage's superior AoE are better for that than dots are. Not to mention as Carnage you have a 15% increased run speed in Ataru form(thanks to Defensive Forms), which means all those stupid bunkers and stuff that you can't mount in are traveled through more quickly, another plus when leveling. And the Anni healing is basically negligible(it's a lot like the healing on Madness assassins), you could not have it at all and it would barely(if at all) even be noticed. I would give the edge to either Carnage or Rage for normal questing. For elites, Anni takes it for sure though.

Except that those "dots" hit just as hard as the ataru free hits, have a 100% proc rate (instead of 20%) and don't have a global or internal CD

Plus you missed the part where Annihilation has A TON of rage to spend on stuff. Again, IMO the sweetest part of Annihilation is the 3 talents that buff Force Charge to produce more rage, have a smaller CD, and more importantly, be usable within any range. Someone as Annihilation will always be rage-capped, you can go on a Vicious Slash rampage, while at the same time applying a dot (Which serves as a counterpart to Ataru's free hits) and keep rolling.

[Arlee]

Except that those "dots" hit just as hard as the ataru free hits, have a 100% proc rate (instead of 20%) and don't have a global or internal CD.

Which is why one of the really important things about Carnage is keeping Massacre up, while not running out of rage to use your other skills when they are off CD.

[Stormcall]

Except that those "dots" hit just as hard as the ataru free hits, have a 100% proc rate (instead of 20%) and don't have a global or internal CD

Plus you missed the part where Annihilation has A TON of rage to spend on stuff. Again, IMO the sweetest part of Annihilation is the 3 talents that buff Force Charge to produce more rage, have a smaller CD, and more importantly, be usable within any range. Someone as Annihilation will always be rage-capped, you can go on a Vicious Slash rampage, while at the same time applying a dot (Which serves as a counterpart to Ataru's free hits) and keep rolling.

Having excess Rage is not an advantage though. Excess means more than you can use, and if you can't use it or don't need it, you may as well not have it. So as long as you have ENOUGH rage, you're fine(don't forget, Carnage can lower the CD of Battering Assault, gets rage via Blood Frenzy and Cloak of Pain, and lower the cost of Force Scream as well, Anni is not the only spec that has talents to aid in Rage gain). And yeah, the dots hit as hard as the Ataru hits, but the Ataru hits are not the main part of Carnage's damage, either, and happen as a side affect of one of your other hits.