Emperor Norton's guide to Annihiliation Marauder

Spoiler

ADVANCED GEARING



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SKILL TREE



36/8/2



General purpose spec for most fights that do not allow you to proc Retaliation effectively.

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Retaliation reduces 6-secs from Cloak of Pain, maximizing damage potential.

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36/10/0



Used for 30% AoE damage reduction

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ABILITY DAMAGE TYPES



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As you can see Energy Damage type abilities account for a lot Annihilations DPS . Energy damage type abilities are mitigated by armor rating so having an armor penetration debuff up is very beneficial in order to maximize DPS. Armor penetration debuffs can be applied by Juggernauts, Snipers and Arsenal Mercenaries



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Class Mechanic



Fury - is a mechanic unique to Marauders. Each ability that spends Rage generates stacks of Fury. At 30 stacks Fury can be consumed to buff your group with Predation, Bloodthirst. More importantly though Fury is used to activate Berserk which works differently depending on your specialization.



Berserk - gives you 6 Berserk stacks. In Juyo form, each stack gives 100% critical chance on your bleed effects, with one bleed effect consuming 1 stack. In Ataru form, increases alacrity by 30% with each attack consuming 1 stack.

• Short Fuse - increases your Fury generation and lowers the cooldown on Frenzy

OFFENSIVE COOLDOWNS



Berserk - In Juyo Form gives your bleed effects a 100% chance to crit and healing your raid for 1% of the damage dealt. Berserk has 6 stacks with one stack being used up by 1 dot that crits.



Frenzy - immediately gant you 30 stacks of Fury. Fury is used to activate Berserk which gives unique buffs depending on your stance



Bloodthirst - is one of the most desired group utility buffs in the game. The damage increase helps in burn phases and when you need to push DPS a little bit harder.



DEFENSIVE COOLDOWNS



Saber Ward - a strong defensive cooldown on a long timer. It gives 100% defense chance during the first 2 seconds due to Blade Turning and 50% for the rest of its duration. Increases your damage reduction from Force and Tech attacks as well



Undying Rage - another very strong defensive ability that can be used to negate PvE mechanics that would otherwise 1-shot any other class. Only lasts for 4 seconds where afterwards 50% of your HP is lost.



Force Camouflage - the movement speed debuff is useful for reposition in PvE. Aside from that, this is the Marauder's threat dump ability and reduces your threat to all targets by a certain amount. Using any direct damage attacks will remove the stealth



Phantom - the extra movement speed bonus you get from a longer Force Camouflage can come in handy for positioning



Cloak of Pain - Reduces damage taken by 20% and inflicts moderate damage to attacker. Lasts for 6s or up to 30s if you are taking continuous damage.



Intimidating Roar (also Utility) - is a strong AoE damage reduction ability when used on targets that can be incapcacited and stunned'



UTILITY



Predation - more notably used as a movement speed buff (rather than the defense buff) for you and your group. A very nice group utility useful for quick positioning of the entire raid to prepare or evade PvE mechanics. Predation can even be used to save the raid from an almost certain wipe. For example when the the OT tanking Bestia dies and goes to the MT tanking Calphayus; the Marauder can pop Frenzy+Predation to allow the MT to taunt Bestia and kite the 2 bosses around the room while waiting for the OT to battle rez and get topped off.



Bloodthirst - is one of the most desired group utility buffs in the game. The damage increase helps in burn phases and when you need to push DPS a little bit harder. Effective use of Bloodthirst is from 0 Fury → Frenzy + Bloodthirst. Generally it is a good offensive cooldown to use when starting a fight. Other raid groups prefer saving Frenzy + Bloodthirst for burn phases towards the end of boss fights like Writhing Horror, Kephess the Undying, Bestia, Calphayus, and during the Dread Masters' Dreaded Channel.



Obfuscate - the accuracy reduction can mitigate a lot of damage and help your healers a lot when used on high DPS adds in a fight like the Artillery/Siege droids in Scum and Villainy. Does not work on bosses



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ABILITIES & TALENTS



Key Passive Skills



Pulverize - Grants your direct damage attacks, Vicious Slash and Vicious Throw and Annihilate a chance to reset Rupture. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds



Hemorrhage - increases your bleed's damage and gives each tick a 30% chance to refund 1 Rage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds



Bloodlust - gives you 1 Rage whenever your direct damage attacks critically hits a bleeding target. This is a new talent added to Marauders in Patch 2.0 and is a great DPS gain by providing rage starved Annihilation Marauders plenty of resource regeneration



Juyo Form - the DPS stance for the DoT spec Marauder. Increases your damage dealt by 10% This is further increased by Indefatigable Onslaught

• Juyo Mastery - increases critical strike chance of your bleeds


• Bleed Out - increases critical strike damage over your dots


• Indefatigable Onslaught - a direct DPS increase. In essence it reduces the cooldown of Annihilate ever further and allows you to use it more often so long as you maintain your Annihilate stacks

Damage over time



Deadly Saber - activating Deadly Saber (which is off the GCD) gives you a buff that applies one stack of Deadly Saber on your target and stacks up to 3 times. The dot lasts for 6 seconds if no new stack is applied. This ability should last for 9 seconds before it wears off. Delaying Deadly Saber is definitely a bad thing and should be used on cooldown at all times.



Rupture - The Marauders short duration dot, it does slightly more damage than Annihilate and Vicious Throw and is very rage efficient. The dot is pretty simple, ticking once every second for six seconds. The lockout for Pulverize makes things pretty simple where a good phase simply keeps this dot ticking continuously. You never want to clip the end of the dot, so only apply the ability 3 GCD's after the last activation.

• Deep Wound - increases the initial damage done by Rupture

Berserk - In Juyo form, causes all your bleed attacks by 100% and causes bleed damage to heal your group for 1% of max health each tick. Berserk isn't a dot, but it is related to them so I am placing this here. The optimal time to use Berserk from a damage standpoint is when you have two stacks of DS and are about to activate the ability that will apply the third stack



Direct damage attacks



Annihilate - The capstone ability for Annihilation, it does a considerable amount of damage. As an Annihilation Marauder it is your job to keep this ability on cooldown at all times. Each use of Annihilate gives you a buff that reduces its cooldown consequently after every use and caps out at 6 seconds wit the Indefatigable Onslaught talent.

• Indefatigable Onslaught - a direct DPS increase. In essence it reduces the cooldown of Annihilate ever further and allows you to use it more often so long as you maintain your Annihilate stacks


• Enraged Slash - refunds 1 rage when used

Ravage - The ideal spot to use this ability is after Rupture with enough rage to pay for Annihilate when the channel ends. The thing about Ravage is that it hits hard. Really hard. The DPS done by Ravage is slightly higher than the total DPS the spec can put out (which includes Ravage), so delaying it by much is a bad thing



Vicious Throw - deals around the same damage as Annihilate for much less rage cost. Using this on cooldown becomes a priority as you hit the execute range since it can proc Rupture as well and only slightly deals less damage than Annihilate.

• Enraged Slash - refunds 1 rage when used


• Pulverize - allows Vicious Throw to reset your Rupture. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds

Dual Saber Throw - The 30 meter, AOE, and filler attack given to Marauders in 2.0. It does higher damage than Vicious Slash and if you can aim it at multiple targets it does an incredible amount of damage. It is still certainly useful for Single Target however.



Vicious Slash - Your general rage dump. Has a fairly low chance to proc Pulverize, but before the execute phase it is a decent enough ability.

• Enraged Slassh - refunds 1 rage when used


• Pulverize - allows Vicious Throw to reset your Rupture. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds

Rage builders



Battering Assault - This ability gives a large amount of Rage (and gives the most rage per second when used on CD). Preferably used either after Annihilate or right before it.



Force Charge - Your Gap Closer that has been re-purposed to feed the Annihilate engine. If you can get the necessary rage with just using Charge and have both Charge and BA available, just use Charge. This keeps space between the CD on Charge and BA, which smooths out Rage Generation.



Assault - Your standard rage builder with no cooldown. It builds two rage but because it has so many little attacks (4 in total; 3 MH, 1 OH) it will very often generate 3 rage per use due to Bloodlust. Beyond that, there is not much to say about this ability. Use it when you need rage but Charge and Battering aren't available.



AOE ROTATION/ABILITIES

1. Dual Saber Throw


2. Smash


3. Sweeping Slash

Note: You don't really want to spend too much time trying to use Smash and Sweeping Slash on adds. It would be better to just use 1 DST (or 1 Smash depending on how many adds) and then just proceed to your Anni rotation.



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ROTATION & DAMAGE DISTRIBUTION



A quick rundown of your rotation is something like this:

1. Use Annihilate to proc Pulverize to give you Rupture


2. Use Deadly Saber on cooldown. Have Rage ready to pay for it.


3. Use Berserk right before applying third stack of Deadly Saber


4. Use Ravage on CD, but only if it won't delay Annihilate and Rupture (either from not having enough Rage or having the abilities come upduring your channel).


5. Use Charge over Battering Assault if either gives you Rage

Damage Distribution



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Annihilate and your bleed effects should make up the most of your damage. It has a high chance of resetting the cool down on Rupture thanks to Pulverize thus allowing Rupture to have a high uptime on your target. This ability needs to be used on cooldown to proc Rupture more effectively. If Pulverize isn't aligned with Annihilate then you should delay Annihilate to realign it with Pulverize's lockout.



Bleed effects can make up up to 38% of your total damage done with a huge portion of it coming from Deadly Saber which is your hardest hitting dot. 3 ticks of Rupture does as much damage as 1 tick of Deadly Saber at three stacks. This ability does the second most damage per cast and will typically pay for itself in rage cost due to it's high uptime allowing you to consistently get rage from Bloodlust.



Rupture fits in quite nicely in the Annihilation rotation. Annihilate has a cooldown of 12 seconds which is reduced down to 6 seconds with full stacks of the Annihilator buff. Using Annihilate (and Vicious Slash ) to consistentently proc Pulverize allows you to increase the uptime of thte DoT and ideally, use Rupture every 6 seconds. Because Pulverize has a 6 second internal cooldown, you want to try and proc Rupture 3 GCDs after its last activation.



Ravage is your next priority ability after the 3 abilities above, Deadly Saber, Annihilate and Rupture. The best use of Ravage is when you have both your bleed effects up on the target and Annihilate is on cooldown. Ravage should make up around 10% of your total damage done. Ravage will not always sync in your rotation window and requires practice in order to pull off without conflicting with your main DPS abilities. For example you do not want to be caught chaneling Ravage and have your Rupture DoT wear off or miss your Annihilate by 1-2 GCDs. Doing so is going to be a big DPS loss.



Dual Saber Throw - Dual Saber Throw make up the lower portion of your damage done but is still above Vicious Slash. It is a good filler in place of Vicious Slash on single target and it is worth to note that it deals more damage than Rupture when hitting 3 or more targets.



Vicious Slash along with Dual Saber Throw make up the lower part of your DPS. Vicious Slash is used to burn extra rage; A tip from Gorband is to dump rage efficiently by using Vicious Slash when bove 7 Rage but make sure you always have enough rage when Annihilate and your Deadly Saber and Rupture come off cooldown.



Vicious Throw becomes a priority ability as soon as you hit the sub 30% phase. Aside from being able to proc Pulverize, it does a good deal of damage and should be used when you have Deadly Saber up and Annihilate on cooldown. When in the Sub-30% Range, you'll focus on these primary dps abilities including Rupture. Rage consumption becomes tight during this phase, so getting effective criticals for Bloodlust , helps to smooth out this phase. In Gorband's Annihilation guide, he prioritizes the execute range in the order below:



Priority Sub 30% HP

1. Deadly Saber


2. Annihilate


3. Vicious Throw


4. Rupture


5. Battering Assault


6. Force Charge


7. Ravage (with Ravage having the least priority in order to using Battering Assault and Force Charge to supply the rage)

Emperor Norton prioritizes this phase in a different but similar way where Vicious Throw is used in place of Annihilate, but use Annihilate when Vicious Throw fails to proc Rupture. This setup does have the advantage of being very easy on rage management.



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PRIORITY LIST (MAIN)

1. Frenzy & Berserk


2. Deadly Saber


3. Annihilate


4. Rupture


5. Ravage


6. Retaliation


7. Battering Assault


8. Force Charge


9. Vicious Slash (used to burn extra rage, effective use when one is above 7 rage)


10. Assault

Priority List (SUB 30%)

1. Deadly Saber


2. Annihilate


3. Vicious Throw


4. Rupture


5. Battering Assault


6. Force Charge


7. Ravage

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OPENER



Basic Opener

Force Charge + Deadly Saber > Battering Assault > Rupture > Annihilate > Ravage > Rupture ...



Extended Opener

Force Charge + Deadly Saber > Battering Assault > Rupture > Annihilate > Ravage > Rupture (if procced, if not ignore) > Dual Saber Throw > Force Charge + Deadly Saber (if no Rupture proc, there will be a filler before) > Filler > Filler (normally Vicious Slash then Assault) > Annihilate > Rupture (if not ignore) > Battering Assault > Filler > Filler > Force Charge + Deadly Saber > Filler > Annihilate > Rupture > Dual Saber Throw > Filler > Filler > Battering Assault > Annihilate > Rupture > Ravage > Force Charge + Deadly Saber > Annihilate