SWTOR 3.0 Carnage Marauder DPS Guide by Aria

SWTOR 3.0 Carnage Marauder DPS guide written by Aria of Harbinger.

Contents

• 1 Intro to Carnage Marauder
  • 1.1 Ratings
  • 1.2 Utilities
  • 1.3 Gearing and Stats Priority
• 2 Abilities and Rotation
• 3 Sample Parse
• 4 About the Author

Intro to Carnage Marauder

Carnage has received many changes in 3.0, with a major change being to Gore. Now, Gore has a 3 second window of 100% armor penetration on a target with a 12 second Cooldown. This gives a 25% uptime on Gore unlike previously in 2.x where we had a 33% uptime with a 10.5 second CD and 4.5 second Gore Window.

Ratings

• Single Target DPS: 8
• AOE DPS: 3
• Group Utility: 9
• Burst: 10
• Difficulty: 7
• Execute Bonus: 6

Utilities

Skillful:

• Defensive Forms
• Cloak of Carnage
• Path Carver

Masterful:

• Defensive Roll
• Phantom
• Subjugation

Heroic:

• Brooding
• Unbound
• Expunging Camouflage

The 3 points in Skillful should always be taken regardless for PvE content as the other utilities are more PvP focused. The Masterful and Heroic utilities should be picked depending on what a certain boss encounter would benefit you as well as your raid team.

Gearing and Stats Priority

Accuracy – With the removal of all accuracy talents from all DPS specs, Carnage now requires the same amount of Accuracy Rating as every other DPS class. You need approximately 750 rating or more to get 100% Melee and 110% Force Accuracy.

Surge and Alacrity – Since Carnage now grants 3% alacrity from Ataru Form, with the current tiers of gear alacrity is not very useful for Carnage. Down the road with newer tiers of gear however, 1-2 pieces may be beneficial. For now, Surge should be prioritized for Carnage, and 300+ rating is recommended.

Critical Rating – Pre 3.0, critical rating was not very useful for carnage and minimal amounts were required (Approximately 100 or less rating). With the changes in 3.0, more critical rating is beneficial for Carnage. Due to the increased damage on Massacre and increased 30% critical damage bonus to it from Sever in the Discipline, Critical rating is much more beneficial.

186 Gear Rating: 200-280 Rating

192 Gear Rating: 250-330 Rating

198 Gear Rating: 280-380 Rating

Relics – The best choice for relics are the Serendipitous Assault and Focused Retribution, although Boundless Ages may be substituted for fights that require on demand burst.

Set bonus – I would recommend keeping the old 4 piece 180/186 setbonus until you can acquire the new 4 piece bonus. Belt and Bracer set bonus would ideally be the best to acquire first while keeping the old 4 piece to use a 2 + 4 combination until the rest can be replaced.

Mods and Enhancements: Unlettered Deft and Potent Mods are the best choice for gearing. In addition, using low Endurance enhancements such as Initiative and Acute for accuracy and Adept and Battle for Surge.

Abilities and Rotation

Things to Know

One thing to note about Carnage, is that there are only 2 main procs that you need to deal with, one is Slaughter, and the other is Execute.

• Execute – the next Force Scream or Devastating Blast to automatically critically hit the target, while dealing 5% more damage and sundering the target.
• Slaughter – Makes Vicious Throw usable at any health level and consumes no rage (in actuality it refunds 1 rage).

Key Abilities in Rotation

• Devastating Blast
• Massacre
• Gore
• Vicious Throw
• Ravage
• Dual Saber Throw
• Assault
• Force Charge

Basically, in between Gore Windows, you will basically spam Massacre and keep up enough rage to use for each upcoming Gore Window. Assault is used very minimally as a filler.

Opening Rotation with 30 stacks of Fury from Brooding ( [ ] indicate Gore Window duration):

Force Charge > Berserk + Battering Assault > Frenzy + Bloodthirst + Adrenal/Relic > Massacre > [Gore + Ravage (clipped) > Devastating Blast]> Massacre > Dual Saber Throw

Rotation Strategy

The rotation has become much easier than before, with much more use on Massacre since Carnage no longer can use Rupture, and consists of basically 3 different Gore Window Situations:

• Berserked Ravage + Devastating Blast
• Vicious Throw + Devastating Blast
• Devastating Blast + Massacre

Gore is now on a 12 second CD, but when used under Berserk, the next Gore will be on a an 8.4 second CD so you still get 2 Gore Windows in a 20 second time frame, but only a total of 6 seconds vs 9 seconds from pre 3.0. One key difference is that you will only get the reduced Gore cooldown if you activate it while under Berserk. This applies to all abilities.

A Gore Window with the use of Berserk [Ravage + Devastating Blast] will consume 3 of the 6 charges from Berserk. This will set Gore, Ravage and Devastating Blast on a shorter CD than normal (33% shorter). With the following remaining Charges after the Gore Window has ended, follow up with:

Massacre > Battering Assault > Dual Saber Throw

This will give Battering Assault and Dual Saber Throw a shorter CD to use again before the next Gore Window, while keeping the buff up from Massacre.

The rest of the filler rotations in between Gore Windows consist of Massacre and Assault to keep up enough rage for each Gore Window.

Ideally, each Gore Window after the opener will alternate between a Berserked Ravage + Devastating Blast or a Vicious Throw + Devastating Blast. In the cases where your Slaughter Procs a Vicious Throw and your next Gore Window will not come off CD quick enough to use Vicious Throw before the proc expires, use Vicious Throw outside of Gore and the next Gore window will consist of a Devastating Blast + Massacre. Dual Saber Throw should never be used in the Gore Window to replace Vicious Throw or Massacre unless you are hitting 3+ Targets with it or it will be a DPS loss. Berserk should be used on CD and typically will be ready for use right before a Ravage + Devastating Blast Gore Window.

You want to use Massacre each time right before starting a Gore Window, so you have the Massacre buff up for the duration. Regardless, the Massacre buff should be up at all times for maximum DPS in the filler rotation between Gores.

AoE Rotation

As far as AOE rotations go, Carnage is not very good at AOE damage and only has 3 main AOE abilities:

• Dual Saber Throw
• Smash
• Sweeping Slash

With the damage bonus from Sweeping Slash in the utility tree, this does quite a bit of damage and would be your best bet, best used with 4+ targets. Smash damage has been reduced significantly outside of the Fury Discipline and I would not recommend using it unless there are 4-5+ targets to really get the damage/rage cost out of it.

Defensive Cooldowns:

• Cloak of Pain
• Saber Ward
• Undying Rage
• Force Camouflage
• Obfuscate

Raid Utility Skills

• Bloodthirst
• Predation

Sample Parse

This parse was done in BIS 186 gear with Dread Master 4 piece set bonus, old 28 augments, and a new Anodyne Stim. BloodThirst and Adrenals were NOT used. Standard 1mil HP dummy + 20% armor reduction were applied.

The APM should be around 50-51 (where the parse shows as just under 49) due to the lag on the Harbinger Server since 3.0 launch.

About the Author

I am Aria, a top tier progression raider on the Harbinger, and proud member of <YES> and <Concept>. My marauder, Furiyous, has been my main DPS progression toon since game launch (with my mirror Jedi Sentinel). I have cleared Dread Fortress and Dread Palace Nightmare and Timed Runs with both of my guilds in two different roles. While my main role has been a tank for past progression, my Marauder has always been my favorite class. Unlike many others, I have not given up on my Marauder post 3.0 and don’t have any intention to do so.

I would like to thank Noodles and Beastfury, two of my fellow raiders and good friends that helped me become the player I am today. I also like to thank my little brother Clickx from Louisiana, who helped to bail me out of jail.