Annihilation Marauder
Last Updated: 5/29/21
Table of Contents
Overview
About the Class
Annihilation is a melee DoT DPS class. When played well, a Annihilation should be among the top DPS classes. The Annihilation rotation focuses on maintaining maximum uptime on 3 DoTs, using Annihilate on cooldown, and properly managing resources to use higher damage filler abilities while accomplishing the first two objectives.
Utility and Mobility
Marauders bring a lot to the table in these areas. The Marauder offers Bloodthirst as arguably the best group buff increasing damage and healing by 10% for 10 seconds. For mobility, the Marauder can use Predation to increase team movement speed by 40% (can be buffed higher with a Utility) for 10 seconds. In addition, Marauders can use Force Camouflage as a semi-stealth ability. Marauders can also use Force Charge and Mad Dash to quickly move around. Also, Annihilation brings an additional perk in that Berserk usage allows for team-wide healing.
Survivability
Marauders gain benefits to direct and AoE damage reduction through skills and Utilities, wear medium armor, and have several strong defensive cool-downs (Saber Ward, Force Camouflage, Undying Rage). As noted above, Berserk crits can provide healing to further improve survivability.
Role in Operations
Annihilation players are sustained DPS ideal for single target damage over medium to long periods of time. Annihilation is not well suited for rapid target swapping and AoE DPS is okay but not exceptional. As such, Annihilation are optimally designated as DPS to stay on the boss while other burst DPS handle add duties.
6.0 Impact on Discipline
The new expansion was good to Annihilation and should see it maintain its place as one of the top sustained DPS disciplines. It received a helpful new offensive cooldown, Furious Power, that can be used frequently to buff the damage of Annihilate (the discipline’s highest damage ability). The ideal set bonus for the discipline, Descent of the Fearless, should provide a high-uptime 10% damage boost and much more frequent use of Furious Power.
With respect to tactical items and situational gameplay, Annihilation received a very strong option in Spiteful Saber that makes Rupture a one-time application DoT that can be refreshed via the rotation (i.e., in a similar fashion to how Lightning Sorc can refresh Affliction or AP Powertech can refresh Retractable Blade) as well as making the filler ability much more powerful via its extra tick of DoT damage.
The remaining tactical options for Annihilation are far less impressive and likely not relevant in PVE operations, though they could be extremely useful in running heroics and flashpoints to increase burst AoE damage and enable more frequent use of Annihilate without needing to steadily decrease its cooldown through sustained use.
Between the new ability and set bonus (and their strong synergy) and the powerful tactical, the discipline is as strong as ever in 6.0.
Utilities
I usually take some combination of the following Utilities, though the optimal combination can change from fight to fight. As of 6.0, the tiers have been reorganized.
Skillfull Tier
You must take 3 to advanced to Masterful.
Brazen – Increases your damage reduction by 2%, and you build 2 Fury when attacked. This Fury building effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.
Brazen should always be taken as it provides a permanent damage reduction and increased Fury generation, which leads to more frequent Berserk use. Always take.
Cloak of Carnage – Increases the damage dealt by Cloak of Pain by 15% and increases its duration by 4 seconds.
This utility provides a sizable buff to Cloak of Pain damage and should be taken in any fights where it is useful.
Cloak of Rage – While Cloak of Pain is active, it generates 1 Rage whenever you are attacked. This effect cannot occur more than once every 2 seconds.
A useful utility on fights where Cloak of Pain will trigger frequently to further buff Rage generation.
Inexorable - You generate 4 Rage when stunned, immobilized, put to sleep, or knocked around. Also, the cooldown of Unleash is reduced by 30 seconds.
Situational utility for fights with lots of physics effects (e.g., Underlurker) can lead to effectively unlimited Rage. Only take in those situations.
Path Carver - Sweeping Slash deals 25% more damage.
Usually not taken due to better benefits from other Skillful utilities. However, any situations with sustained AoE (e.g., Hive Queen Veteran Mode) could greatly benefit from this utility due to Sweeping Slash replacing Vicious Slash in the rotation.
Defensive Roll – Reduces damage taken from area effects by 30% and increases internal and elemental damage reduction by 3%.
Another great mitigation utility that should always be taken. AoE damage is present in nearly every fight and I/E damage is unable to be mitigated except through utilities like these.
Masterful Tier
You must take 6 between Heroic and Masterful.
Relentless – Predation no longer requires or consumes Fury, but will go on cooldown for 30 seconds when activated.
This should always be taken for any fights where movement is relevant or where the 10% defense buff is helpful. Having to use Fury stacks to trigger Predation is a notable DPS loss by being unable to use Berserk instead. I pretty much always take this utility, though in some circumstances I might trade for another utility.
Expunging Camouflage - Force Camouflage removes all cleanseable effects when activated.
This utility provides Marauders a relatively short cooldown (45s) self-cleanse and should be taken for any fights with heavy hitting DoTs (e.g., Dread Council fight to self-cleanse Death Mark).
Cloak of Annihilation - Each use of Assault, Battering Assault, and Crippling Slash reduces the active cooldown of Cloak of Pain by 3 seconds.
Another utility that buffs Rebuke, this utility significantly reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Pain. In fights where Marauders take damage that procs Cloak of Pain, this utility can significantly increase DPS.
Undying - Increases the duration of Undying Rage by 2 seconds and reduces its cooldown by 30 seconds.
The default duration for Undying Rage is 4 seconds, so this utility provides a 50% increase in duration. For any fights where those extra 2 seconds are meaningful for non-instant short duration high damage mechanics, it should be taken. However, most high damage mechanics are nearly instant, in which case the default 4 seconds is plenty. An example of a useful situation is in Master & Blaster encounter in Ravagers operation, if helping take stacks of Ion Cutter from Master the extra duration could be useful. Given the long cooldown I rarely take this utility.
Heroic Tier
A maximum of 3 utilities
Unbound - When Predation is applied or refreshed, it purges movement-impairing effects. Also, the movement speed bonus of Predation is increased by 30%.
This utility synergizes with Relentless to make Predation a very powerful movement utility. It isn’t beneficial on every fight and can be swapped for other utilities when not useful.
Brooding - Reduces the cooldown of Intimidating Roar by 15 seconds. Also, you build up to 30 Fury over the course of using Channel Hatred. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
Brooding is frequently taken for QoL purposes despite having no benefit after a fight starts. The optimal setup is to take it, use energy regen to get 30 stacks of Fury, then respec utilities to take another choice.
Interloper - Force Charge grants Interloper, allowing you to activate Force Charge a second time. Interloper lasts up to 7.5 seconds and is removed if Force Charge is reused. If Interloper is not utilized by the end of its duration, Force Charge is placed on a 7.5 second cooldown. Also, Force Charge now builds 2 Fury.
This utility is very situational utility for fights with lots of movement between adds (e.g., Draxus fight in Dread Fortress). Otherwise should not be taken.
Through Victory - Mad Dash can be used while immobilized, purges movement-impairing effects when activated, and deal 50% more damage. Also, the cooldown of Mad Dash is reduced by 10 seconds.
This utility is highly situational where roots are common and Mad Dash can be used. Mad Dash also has great potential to cheese high damage mechanics, so a lower cooldown could be helpful. Again, highly situational.
Ruthless Aggressor - Vicious Throw refunds 2 Rage when used on any targeted affected by your Obfuscate, regardless of remaining health. Also, activating Obfuscate grants Ruthless Aggressor, reducing the damage you take from Force and Tech attacks by 75% for 6 seconds.
I do not usually take this utility but it has some potential as a defensive cooldown in any instances where it can trigger.
Thirst for Rage - Bloodthirst generates 12 Rage when activated, and you heal for 1% of your maximum health whenever you activate an ability that consumes Rage.
I do not usually take this utility but it can be very useful for early energy generation if you can hit your raid buff on pull. If so, you can skip your leap and Battering Assault and move more quickly into damaging abilities.
Example Utility Build
Here is what I run for most encounters, though I frequently take other situational utilities for specific fights.
Key Passives
Hemorrhaging Smash - Reduces the cooldown of Smash by 9 seconds and the focus it consumes by 1. Also, Smash deals 30% more damage and spreads your Rupture and Force Rend burns to targets it hits, if it hits a target already affected by those burns.
This early utility provides for DoT spreading by Annihilation. Smash is a strong filler so utilizing it each time you re-apply DoTs is typically not a single target DPS loss but provides for enormous sustained AoE DPS.
Juyo Form - Utilize an offensive lightsaber form, causing your melee attacks to increase all damage dealt by 1% for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.
Juyo Form is one of two discipline traits that make it challenging to deal strong burst damage. When beginning an encounter or having at least 30s of downtime, the spec loses damage that takes several GCDs to rebuild. Annihilation players should always seek out any opportunity to get in at least one hit to keep Juyo stacks up. Juyo stacks are further buffed by Juyo Mastery, so the buff provides +6% damage and +6% critical chance.
Hungering - Your Rupture, Deadly Saber, and Force Rend burns heal you for 15% of the damage they deal.
Annihilation provides very strong rotational self-heals through this passive ability and Berserk usage.
Hemorrhage - Your burn effects have a 20% chance to build 1 Rage when dealing damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.
Annihilation generates a LOT of Rage via free fillers and many Rage building abilities, which is further strengthened through this passive. Keeping full uptime on DoTs should proc 1 Focus every 2-3 seconds.
Juyo Mastery - Your burn effects are 1% more likely to critically hit per stack of Juyo Form. Also, the effects of your Berserk ability are modified.
As discussed above, maintaining Juyo stacks is critical to DPS and burst damage when swapping targets.
Bloodlust - Your direct damage attacks that critically hit a burning target build 1 Rage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds. Also, Annihilate makes its targets Assailable (+7% elemental/internal damage) for 45 seconds.
Another passive ability that provides additional Rage generation, as well as a very strong debuff.
Indefatigable Onslaught - Juyo Form can now stack up to 6 times, and Annihilate can now stack up to 4 times in total.
This increase in stacks now enables +6% damage and critical chance for maximum Juyo stacks and gets Annihilate’s cooldown down to 9s / 6 GCDs to align with Rupture.
Pulverize - Your burning effects have a 20% chance to grant Pulverize which increases the damage of your next Dual Saber Throw by 100%. This effect can only occur once every 18 seconds.
This passive provides for Dual Saber Throw proccing and becoming glowy. It doesn’t need to be used immediately due to the long cooldown of Pulverize proccing, but the proc should never be wasted.
Swift Demise - Juyo Form and Annihilator build two stacks at a time. Also, Annihilate has a 50% chance to build Swift Demise when activated, increased the damage your next Vicious Slash or Vicious Throw deals by 5% per stack. Stacks up to 2 times.
This passive is a huge buff to opening DPS by halving the time necessary to reach maximum Juyo and Annihilator stacks. Since Annihilate is the primary burst damage ability, Annihilation DPS is relatively weak until Annihilate has 4 stacks and is down to a 9s / 6 GCD cooldown.
Devious Wounds - Annihilate increases the burn damage you deal by 3% for 4.5 seconds after use.
Annihilate is already a very powerful melee ability, but now provides a strong though short duration damage buff. It should be used on cooldown, which will maintain the 3% buff for half of the time (9s cooldown and buff will be up for 4.5s).
Fury - Activating an attack that spends Rage and defeating opponents builds Fury. When 30 stacks of Fury are built, you become Furious, enabling the use of Berserk, Predation and Bloodthirst.
Fury is the unique Marauder resource that powers Berserk and Bloodthirst. The Relentless utility should always be taken whenever Predation is needed to ensure it does not consume Fury.
Enraged Slash - Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Vicious Throw, Massacre, Annihilate, and Furious Strike refund 1 Rage when used. Also, Battering Assault beats down its target for 45 seconds. Beat Down targets take 5% more damage from melee attacks.
This passive causes a disconnect between the Rage required to activate the ability versus the Rage consumed by the ability. For example, Vicious Slash requires 3 Rage to be able to activate the ability but it will only use 2 Rage.
Short Fuse - Increases the amount of Fury built by 2 when activating abilities that consume Rage, and reduces the cooldown of Frenzy by 30 seconds.
This passive is helpful in that it effectively doubles the rate of generating Fury and the frequency of Berserk being available.
Gearing in 6.0
Gearing Stat Allocation
Please see my Gearing Guide for a detailed overview of gearing in 6.x in SWTOR. Please also see my Alacrity Guide for a much more in-depth look at alacrity.
For Annihilation Marauder, I gear as follows:
Set Bonus: Descent of the Fearless
Tactical: Spiteful Saber (I usually keep Spiteful Saber even in AoE situations due to Annihilation's great DoT spread)
Amplifiers: Periodic Intensity
Mods: Unlettered Lethal Mods
Relics: Devastating Vengeance & Primeval Fatesealer (Serendipitous Assault & Focused Retribution for Dxun/PVP)
Stim: Proficient
Adrenal: Critical (Attack for Dxun only)
For Annihilation Marauder, I allocate my tertiary stats as follows:
Accuracy: 1,585 - 1,630 (anything outside this approximate range and I usually try to re-optimize by swapping around enhancements and augments)
Alacrity: around 1,400 (at least 1,895 if the Zeal guild perk applies)
Critical: all remaining tertiary points go into Critical
Shield: None
Absorb: None
Set Bonus
Descent of the Fearless
Increased drop rate from daily missions.
(2) +2% Mastery
(4) Whenever you gain or use a Furious Power ability charge while in combat, your damage is increased by 10% for 10 seconds.
(6) Dealing damage has a 10% chance to build a Furious Power ability charge. Can only occur once every 5 seconds.
Analysis: The only set bonus that is BIS across multiple advanced classes, Descent of the Fearless is BIS for all Juggernaut and Marauder DPS disciplines. The set bonus should provide a very high uptime on a straight 10% damage buff. Annihilation should benefit from this set bonus even more than Carnage or Fury as each DoT tick can proc the set bonus to build stacks of Furious Power, providing a further buff through more frequent use of the new 6.0 ability to buff specific ability damage by 25%.
As the discipline dual-wields lightsabers, many attacks deal damage multiple times and offer multiple chances to proc the 6-piece set bonus. Also, the discipline frequently has 3 DoTs ticking between Rupture, Force Rend and Deadly Saber. When taken together, the discipline will frequently have 3-5 chances each GCD to trigger the 6-piece set bonus to build a stack of Furious Power (and refresh the 4-piece set bonus 10% damage buff). These should provide high uptime of the ability to buff damage 25% and nearly continuous uptime of the 10% damage buff.
Impact on Rotation: No impact on the rotation for existing abilities and their priority. Maintaining maximum uptime of DoTs is already the main priority for the discipline, which is further magnified as it maximizes the change of triggering the 6-piece set bonus to generate additional stacks of Furious Power.
For use of the new ability Furious Power, Annihilate is by far the best ability to buff as it has the highest non-DoT damage per activation. The rate limit of 5 seconds for generating stacks via the 6-piece set bonus is significantly less than the 9 second cooldown of Annihilate at 4 stacks of Annihilator, so absent really bad RNG every use of Annihilate should be buffed.
Additional charges should follow the filler ability priority discussed below. Advanced players should strive to “bank” the additional charges and try to use them on filler abilities used right as the 10% damage buff is about to fall off if Annihilate is still on cooldown.
When to Take: All situations. Descent of the Fearless is easily the BIS set bonus for all Sith Warrior disciplines.
Tactical Items
Spiteful Saber
Increased drop rate from daily missions.
Vicious Slash, Vicious Throw and Dual Saber Throw refresh the duration of Rupture's burn effect and ticks its damage.
Analysis: Rupture does very high overall damage in the discipline and its only drawback is a relatively short cooldown of 9 seconds / 6 GCDs requiring it to be reapplied far more often than more DoTs in the game. This tactical makes the rotation incredibly easy for Annihilation while also significantly buffing DPS and making the discipline’s spammable filler Vicious Slash far stronger.
Enabling an automatic refresh of Rupture grants an extra ability slot to deal damage very 6 GCDs (a 17% increase) without any DPS loss versus having to use the ability to directly re-apply the DoT as would be necessary without the tactical. Rupture does deal some direct damage upon its use but even a basic attack deals more damage thus literally any other ability use will be a DPS increase solely based on freeing up the GCD.
What makes the tactical really strong though is the ability to “tick its damage” via your spammable filler Vicious Slash and two other cooldown fillers. In addition to their base damage and refreshing the Dot for another 6 GCDs, it also causes Rupture to tick an additional time. Given Rupture does a high amount of damage over relatively few ticks (due to its low duration), that is a very sizable increase in damage.
Lastly, the excess energy generated by Annihilation further increases the power of this tactical. The discipline already features very heavy spam of Vicious Slash even prior to eliminating the need to use Rupture every 6 GCDs, so that spam further magnifies the benefit by it being being ticked very frequently on a typical encounter.
Impact on Rotation: After the initial opener to apply Rupture, it should no longer be used unless there is downtime or target swapping. AFTER the opener, this leads to a steady state rotation beginning with Annihilate and then following the filler priority of Force Rend then everything else. Vicious Slash in particular will do far more damage and should be used when necessary to ensure the Rupture DoT is refreshed without expiring (it should generally be used far more often anyway).
When to Take: Nearly all operations or when prioritizing single target sustained damage. Malmourral Mask is a good alternative when running solo or small group content with lots of AoE situations, or in a very few specific operation encounters (e.g., Hive Queen, Dxun Holding Pens, etc.)
Malmourral Mask
Increased drop rate from flashpoints.
When Annihilate deals damage to an enemy affected by Force Rend, it triggers a burst of damage to up to 8 targets around them.
Analysis: Annihilate should nearly always be the top overall damage per activation ability in the Annihilation discipline. Making it an AoE effect 2 of every 3 uses (i.e., it has a 6 GCD cooldown after the first two uses while Force Rend has a 9 GCD cooldown so it can only buff 2 of every 3 uses) is very powerful.
Combining the Malmourral Mask tactical with the Path Carver utility to buff the spammable AoE filler and the low-cooldown use of Smash (itself a strong AoE ability) to spread 2 high damage DoTs, this tactical makes Annihilation an insanely powerful AoE spec for both AoE burst and sustained AoE damage.
However, the discipline already provides very high sustained AoE damage so it becomes difficult to recommend the tactical since it provides no increase to sustained damage and very few situations in operations require such high levels of AoE damage. Where it shines is when soloing heroics or running flashpoints or uprisings, where many groups of adds are present and adding burst AoE is very helpful to shortening the time required to clear the content.
Impact on Rotation: When pulling a group, recommended opener to maximize burst damage should be to target the enemy with the most health and use the following opener:
Force Rend - Used to build energy and immediately set up Malmourral Mask’s AoE effect in the second GCD
Deadly Saber OFF GCD - Used for extra damage on main target.
Annihilate - Used to do very high single and AoE damage
Rupture - If enemies are still alive, we need to set up a DoT spread to do sustained AoE so applying second DoT that can be spread
Smash - High AoE damage and spreading DoTs for Force Rend and Rupture to all nearby enemies.
At this point, the AoE rotation described below should be utilized. Force Rend has a 12 second / 8 GCD cooldown, in comparison to Annihilate’s 9s / 6GCD cooldown after reaching 4 stacks of Annihilator. Thus, not every Annihilate can be buffed by this Tactical but no delay of Force Rend is necessary as its duration is sufficiently long to ensure it’s buff always affects the next use of Annihilate.
When to Take: Recommended for solo content such as heroics and small group content in flashpoints or uprisings. In most cases this tactical should be swapped for Spiteful Saber (or alternatively, Thirsty Blade) for boss encounters in flashpoints, though. Not recommended for operations.
Thirsty Blade
Increased drop rate from flashpoints.
Ravage deals 5% more damage for each burn stacked on the target, up to 25%.
Analysis: Getting up to a 25% damage boost on a high damage filler sounds great. If Annihilation was able to reset the cooldown of Ravage in a similar fashion to Juggernaut Vengeance, or if this tactical were available to that discipline, it might be really strong.
Unfortunately, the main drawback here is the ability cooldown. Ravage has an 18 second / 12 GCD cooldown. Thus the buff can only apply on around 8% of ability usage and may frequently buff damage 10-15% rather than 25% depending on the number of stacks of Deadly Saber, or would require delaying use of Deadly Saber which might end up as an overall DPS loss. These limitations greatly reduce its benefit to sustained single target DPS and make it very difficult to recommend.
Impact on Rotation: N/A as it is not recommended.
When to Take: Not recommended for use in any situations.
No Time for Fools
Increased drop rate from daily missions.
Annihilate automatically kills standard and weak enemies with less than 30% health. Killing an enemy this way resets the cooldown of Annihilate.
Analysis: This tactical has essentially no relevance to PVE operations or PVP, outside of perhaps a few trash pulls in Ops (though in general most trash are at least strong level so probably still not helpful at all). That said, in solo or smaller group content this tactical can be situationally helpful. The problem is that standard and weak enemies often do not have that much health, so the 30% health limitation is a big drawback. At that level, Vicious Throw or any other high damage filler should be enough to kill the enemy.
Given the prevalence of groups of enemies in heroics and flashpoints, for that type of content I would much more strongly recommend Malmourral Mask to make Annihilate a very powerful burst AoE attack. It does not have a health requirement for its effects which makes all the difference. If this tactical reset the cooldown after killing ANY ENEMY (in a similar fashion to how Deception Assassin players can take a utility to reset the cooldown on Phantom Stride after killing an enemy within a short time of its use to enable rapid spam of Discharge), then this would be much more useful in solo / small group content and situationally useful even in Operations.
Impact on Rotation: N/A as it is not recommended.
When to Take: Not recommended for use in any situations.
Amplifiers
Periodic Intensity (or secondarily, Weapon Expertise)
Nearly half of the discipline’s average DPS is generated by DoTs (Rupture, Force Rend, Deadly Saber). The attack types are evenly split between weapon and force type damage, while the damage dealt is energy damage for non-DoT damage and internal damage for DoTs. As such, the percentage of damage buffed by each potential amplifier is fairly similar, with those being Periodic Intensity (DoTs), Weapon Expertise (weapon type attacks), Force Sensitivity (force type attacks) and Armor Penetration (kinetic/energy type damage).
Periodic Intensity is preferable for the reason that it provides a much larger damage boost than Weapon Expertise or Force Sensitivity (around double) and while its percentage buff is slightly lower than Armor Penetration it provides a direct boost to damage (unlike Armor Penetration which provides a reduction in armor that typically provides around a 40% reduction in damage, thus it’s effect is greatly diminished relative to its raw statistical amount in the tooltips.) As a result, Periodic Intensity should be expected to provide around double the buff to DPS as compared to other options.
If attempting to synergize a Descent of the Fearless set of gear between Sith Warrior DPS disciplines, Weapon Expertise is likely the best option as it provides either the best or usually second best DPS boost for nearly all disciplines.
Key Abilities
Furious Power NEW IN 6.0 - Consumes all ability charges and applies Furious Power stacks to you. Each stack increases your next direct single target melee attack by 25% and is consumed whenever you deal damage with these attacks. Recharges 1 ability charge every 30 seconds.
A new offensive cooldown, it can be used in the opener to buff you heaviest hitting ability for +100% damage or used every ~30 seconds to buff an ability damage +25%. With the Descent of the Fearless set bonus, it also provides a +10% damage buff and can generate extra charges during combat.
Berserk (costs 30 Fury, no cooldown) - Requires and converts 30 stacks of Fury to enter a Berserk state, increasing the critical chance of your burn attacks by 100% and causing the burn damage you deal to heal your group for 1% of max health. Lasts for 6 seconds.
Berserk is a unique off-GCD offensive cooldown to Marauder that provides different effects for each Marauder discipline. For Annihilation, this provides 6 seconds / 4 GCDs of guaranteed crits on all DoTs and provides low levels of self heals. See below for discussion on using Berserk under rotation.
Annihilate (4 Rage, 15s cooldown, range 4m) - Strikes the target with both lightsabers for high weapon damage. Each use of this ability grants Annihilator for 30 seconds, lowering the cooldown of your next Annihilate by 1.5 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times.
Annihilation’s biggest hitting ability and the primary source of its burst damage capability, Annihilate should always be used on cooldown.
Rupture (2 Rage, no cooldown, range 4m) - Strikes the target for low damage and causes it to burn for moderate elemental damage over 9 seconds.
Rupture is the only DoT that Annihilation Marauders really have to watch carefully, as it is possible to re-apply it before it expires (unlike Force Rend and Deadly Saber that can be used on CD since their duration is shorter than their cooldown). A big part of maximizing DPS is refreshing Rupture exactly as it expires after 9s / 6 GCDs. Establishing a fixed rotation where another ability’s cooldown reminds you to refresh Rupture works well. See the rotation section below, as I generally recommend using Annihilate as after the opener it has an identical cooldown.
Force Rend (free, 12s cooldown, range 10m) - Calls on the power of the Force to build 3 Rage and melt the target, causing it to burn for moderate elemental damage over 9 seconds.
Force Rend is a powerful DoT and also generates a lot of Rage. It should be used on cooldown even if doing so will waste Rage generation, though if possible use of Vicious Slash spam and Rage builders should be managed so that Force Rend’s Rage generation is never wasted.
Deadly Saber (3 Rage, 12s cooldown, off-GCD) - Charges your lightsabers with deadly energy for 15 seconds, causing your next 3 successful melee attacks to make the target burn for low elemental damage over 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
Deadly Saber is off-GCD and should be used relatively close to on cooldown. The only exception is for highly skilled players where delaying Deadly Saber 1 GCD will cause it to better overlap with Force Rend for an upcoming Berserk usage.
Ravage (free, 18s cooldown, range 4m) - Performs a series of lightsaber attacks that deal moderate weapon damage.
Ravage is a free filler ability and takes top priority except (1) when sub-30% and have Focus to use Vicious Throw; or (2) when Dual Saber Throw is procced.
Cloak of Pain (free, 1 minute cooldown) - Reduces all damage taken by 20% and deals low energy damage to attackers. This effect cannot occur more than once every second. Lasts 10 seconds. Cloak of Pain refreshes to its full duration when attacked, but this effect cannot last more than 30 seconds in total.
Cloak of Pain is a unique ability for Marauders that serves as both a defensive cooldown and provides a low level of reflect damage to attackers. It can be buffed in a variety of ways through utilities. Be aware of how it works and in which operations to use it (and when to do so), as skillful use of Cloak of Pain is a big part of reaching elite levels of DPS as a Annihilation Marauder.
Vicious Throw (3 Rage, 10s cooldown, range 10m) - Throws the main-hand lightsaber at a target, dealing high energy damage. Only usable on targets at or below 30% max health.
Vicious Throw is a strong execute ability and can be utilized above 30% boss health via a utility.
Dual Saber Throw (free, 18s cooldown, ranged 30m) - Throws both lightsabers in a straight line towards the target, dealing moderate weapon damage to up to 8 enemies directly in front of you up to 30 meters away. Affected enemies are slowed by 50% for 6 seconds.
This ability is another free filler and when procced deals strong filler damage. Any time multiple enemies are present, make sure to position yourself so that the conal attack hits as many enemies as possible.
Force Charge (free, 15s cooldown, range 10-30m) - Jumps to a distant target, dealing low damage with the main-hand weapon, immobilizing the target for 2 seconds and interrupting the target’s current action. Builds 3 Rage.
Force Charge is the Sith Warrior (Juggernaut & Marauder) gap closer and also serves to generate Rage. It also functions as an interrupt. Use any time needed to get into melee range and generate Rage. It does very little damage so is not generally worth stepping outside of melee range to leap, except when an additional interrupt is needed.
Battering Assault (free, 15s cooldown, range 4m) - Strikes the target multiples times with both lightsabers, dealing low weapon damage and building 6 Rage.
Marauder’s main Rage building ability. Annihilation generates a LOT of Rage through its various Rage building abilities and passively through DoTs ticking on targets. Outside of prioritizing Annihilate, Rupture and Force Rend, Battering Assault should be prioritized when its use won’t cap energy (i.e., you can only earn less than 6 Rage) and when Force Rend is NOT going to be off CD in the next 2-3 GCDs. In general, maximizing Rage will help DPS by enabling more frequent use of Vicious Slash as a spammable filler.
Vicious Slash (3 Rage, no cooldown, range 4m) - Slashes the target for moderate weapon damage.
Vicious Slash is a straight forward spammable filler. Due to the high amount of Rage generation and most fillers being free (Ravage, Dual Saber Throw), Vicious Slash should be used a lot in most rotations.
Assault (free, no cooldown, range 4m) - Inflicts low weapon damage with a series of quick melee attacks. Generates 2 Rage.
Assault should not be used very often if at all in a good Annihilation parse, as per the heavy Rage generation generally Vicious Slash can be used instead. The only time Assault should be used is to make up for using Vicious Slash too often to ensure adequate Rage for Annihilate, Deadly Saber and Rupture.
Rotation
Basic Rotation Priority System
The Annihilation Marauder rotation is a priority system that evolves into a pretty simple and short standard rotation. Your general priority should be as follows:
1. Maintain full uptime on Rupture. Rupture has a 9s cooldown so you should refresh Rupture every 6 GCD’s. This is the only DoT you need to watch for this spec but is very important. If you are using the Spiteful Saber tactical, after initial application you should never have to refresh Rupture except during downtime in an encounter. If so, a key consideration in your rotation is making sure to refresh/tick Rupture so that it does not expire.
2. Use Annihilate, Force Rend on cooldown. After you gain full stacks, Annihilate will also have a 9s / 6 GCD cooldown (the same as Rupture) so you should fall into a comfortable pattern. Force Rend has a 12s / 8 GCD cooldown so will float in the rotation but should also be used on cooldown.
3. Use Deadly Saber and Berserk on cooldown. Deadly Saber deals a lot of your DoT damage and is off-GCD so should be used on cooldown. Berserk should generally be used on cooldown as well due to the extra Fury generated by additional use of Vicious Slash due to the Spiteful Saber tactical.
4. See below for Filler Priority
This priority system evolves into a simple and short rotation. Once 4 stacks of Annihilator are gained (2 stacks per use of Annihilate, so it only takes 2 uses), Annihilate has its cooldown reduced to 9s or 6 GCDs. Thus, the core rotation after the opener will be 6 GCDs with Annihilate always taking the same slot. Force Rend (the other key “use on CD” ability) will float between slots in the rotation, with all other spots being used for filler damage or Rage generation.
Basic Opener
Please note that I am not assuming the player is taking the Thirst for Rage utility to use the raid buff pre-pull for energy. My personal preference is to not take Thirst for Rage as I find better synergy for the raid buff is a few seconds after the pull and in some fights it may be desirable to delay raid buffs anyway.
I am similarly structuring this opener for actual content rather than parsing and thus include your leap since relatively few fights let you begin combat from melee range. This opener also assumes the player is equipping the Spiteful Saber tactical.
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Force Charge IF ENGAGING FROM RANGE
Deadly Saber OFF GCD
Battering Assault Need to ensure enough Rage to use Annihilate, adds 1st Deadly Saber DoT and Beat Down debuff
Adrenal OFF GCD Used before first use of Annihilate
Bloodthirst OFF GCD Used before first use of Annihilate
Furious Power OFF GCD Use to apply DotF damage buff and to buff Annihilate
Annihilate Biggest hitting single ability, adds 2nd Deadly Saber DoT
Force Rend Applying DoT, adds 3rd Deadly Saber DoT
Frenzy OFF GCD Used to regain 30 Fury
Rupture Applying last DoT. If using Spiteful Saber tactical will not need to re-apply.
Berserk OFF GCD Used here to maximize DPS after Rupture is applied
Dual Saber Throw High damage filler (use if procced and glowing, otherwise skip and begin Vicious Slash spam and use Dual Saber Throw when it procs)
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
Ravage High damage filler and free, can use an extra Vicious Slash if enough energy
Deadly Saber OFF GCD Use on cooldown
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
Force Rend Use on cooldown
Furious Power OFF GCD Use to buff Annihilate
Annihilate Use on cooldown, ability is now down to 6 GCD cooldown
(begin Core rotation)
Basic Opener w/ Thirst for Rage
The basic opener can be tweaked further depending on the utilities being taken and how much energy is available when beginning the opener.
If taking the Third for Rage utility and opening with Inspiration, Force Charge and Battering Assault can be eliminated unless Force Charge is needed as a gap closer. Also, Rupture should generally be applied prior to Annihilate so that it starts ticking earlier. Rupture takes higher priority than Annihilate since without any stacks of Annihilation you can only use Annihilate once within 10 seconds, so can only use once within the raid buff duration regardless.
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Bloodthirst OFF GCD Inspiration OFF GCD Used before pull for energy and raid buff
Furious Power OFF GCD Use to apply DotF damage buff and to buff Annihilate
Deadly Saber OFF GCD
Rupture Applying DoT
Adrenal OFF GCD Used before first use of Annihilate
Frenzy OFF GCD Used to regain 30 Fury
Annihilate Biggest hitting single ability
Berserk OFF GCD Used here to maximize DPS
Force Rend Applying DoT
Dual Saber Throw High damage filler (use if procced and glowing, otherwise skip and begin Vicious Slash spam and use Dual Saber Throw when it procs)
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
Vicious Slash Spammable filler, ticks/refreshes Rupture via tactical
(begin Core rotation)
Core Rotation
The Annihilation Marauder "rotation" is super simple in 6.0 especially with the Spiteful Saber tactical equipped. With maximum stacks of Annihilation, the rotation revolves around the use of Annihilate on cooldown every 6 GCDs. With the Spiteful Saber tactical item equipped, Rupture should be refreshed automatically without any need to re-apply. That leads to our second key goal to keep Rupture up by using Vicious Throw, Dual Saber Throw or Vicious Slash to refresh Rupture once every 6 GCDs.
Outside these two goals, the rest falls into a pretty natural priority and some energy management with lots of slots for fillers.
The key abilities for the rotation in Annihilate and Force Rend float through four blocks of 6 GCDs as follows below. This enables both abilities to be used on cooldown.
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Block 1 - Annihilate w/ Furious Power, Force Rend, Filler x4
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Block 2 - Annihilate w/ Furious Power, Filler x2, Force Rend, Filler x2
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Block 3 - Annihilate w/ Furious Power, Filler x4, Force Rend
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Block 4 - Annihilate w/ Furious Power, Filler x5
Ability Priority
Annihilation Marauder will work best for most players as a priority rotation rather than a set rotation, since so many of the ability slots are fillers. This breaks down to several key abilities to use on cooldown, with several of those being off-GCD, and then a list of fillers.
OFF GCD / "Fire and Forget" Abilities
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Rupture - Rupture should be applied in the opener and then should be continually refreshed via Dual Saber Throw, Vicious Throw or Vicious Slash at least once every 6 GCDs to avoid Rupture expiring. If Rupture does fall off, it should be re-applied immediately unless the target will die in less than 6 GCDs (8-9 seconds).
Deadly Saber - Deadly Saber is an off-GCD ability that applies a stacking DoT as you hit the target with weapon attacks. It stacks up to 3 times and deals very high periodic damage. It should be used on cooldown unless the target is about to die or downtime will occur in the next 3-5 seconds.
Furious Power - Furious Power should be used regularly to buff ability damage and maintain uptime of the Descent of the Fearless +10% damage buff. Furious Power should generally be used immediately before Annihilate.
Berserk - Berserk requires 30 stacks of Fury and increases the critical chance of DoT periodic damage by 100% for 6 charges. Generally Berserk should be activated on cooldown.
Priority GCD Abilities
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Annihilate - Deals very high damage and applies important buffs so must be used on cooldown.
Force Rend - Deals high periodic damage and generates energy. Make sure to apply Force Rend in GCD #2/4/6 so that it floats without overlapping with Annihilate in GCD #1, as by doing so you can easily ensure both of these abilities can always be used on cooldown.
Fillers
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Vicious Slash - Top priority filler only if Rupture is about to expire
Battering Assault - Priority filler for energy generation but only if you will not cap on energy immediately or if Force Rend will cap energy in a few GCDs. See below for further discussion about energy management.
Vicious Throw - Top priority for damage and ticks/refreshes Rupture with the Spiteful Saber tactical, but is generally only usable when boss is below 30% health.
Dual Saber Throw - Priority filler when procced by Pulverize passive ability once every 18 seconds. Dual Saber Throw ticks/refreshes Rupture. Dual Saber Throw generally does more damage with the Pulverize proc than Vicious Throw, but since the proc's cooldown is independent of when Dual Saber Throw is used I find that during execute it is more efficient to prioritize Vicious Throw to get it on cooldown then to immediately use Dual Saber Throw.
Vicious Slash - Spammable filler that deals much stronger damage than normal as it ticks/refreshes Rupture
Ravage - Free filler that deals higher base damage than Vicious Slash but does not tick/refresh Rupture so deals less damage overall, it should primarily be used when you have insufficient energy to use Vicious Slash but an energy builder is about to come off cooldown so you do not need to use Assault. Ravage is especially helpful to use during Berserk when low on Rage, since it conserves energy to use Vicious Slash more often outside Berserk.
Assault - Free basic attack that builds energy, it should be used sparingly if at all by skilled Annihilation players as the discipline has ample, though sometimes unpredictable, energy generation
AoE Rotation
Modified Single Target Rotation
For nearly all AoE situations, I recommend continuing the single target rotation above only with one change to substitute Smash for a use of Vicious Slash. Smash should be used once every 6 GCDs. Thanks to the Hemorrhaging Smash passive skill, Smash will spread the DoTs applied by Rupture and Force Rend to nearby targets provided they are in range of and damaged by Smash.
Smash normally has a 15 second cooldown prior to alacrity but it is reduced by Hemorrhaging Smash down to 6 seconds. Rupture and Force Rend both apply DoTs with a 9 second duration prior to alacrity, although Rupture has no cooldown and Force Rend has a 12 second cooldown.
This all leads to the simple recommendation to use Smash once per rotation cycle every 6 GCDs. This aligns Smash's use with Rupture's DoT duration and should keep essentially full uptime on Rupture on nearby targets. Combined with using Spiteful Saber to continually tick/refresh Rupture on the main target, this leads to high sustained AoE DPS while maintaining high single target DPS.
Here is an example 6 GCD mini-rotation assuming Rupture has already been applied to the main target and ignoring any off-GCD abilities like Furious Power, Deadly Saber or Berserk. Smash can naturally slot into GCD #3 or 5 and be used every time in that slot to consistently line up with the duration of Rupture on nearby enemies so that just as Rupture drops off it is re-applied via Smash. Just do that and otherwise follow the single target priority and watch your amazing AoE DPS kill everything!
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AoE Priority Rotation
For players seeking to tailor their rotation to maximize AoE DPS, the priority rotation can be modified somewhat. These changes emphasize DoT application and spreading over Annihilate (though Annihilate should still be used essentially on cooldown). It can also take advantage of Dual Saber Throw ticking/refreshing Rupture via the Spiteful Saber tactical.
It is worth noting that playing Annihilation following the AoE priority with Spiteful Saber should still look very similar to the single target rotation swapping in Smash.
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Rupture - Apply to your main target and make sure to refresh via the Spiteful Saber tactical, spread via Force Sweep
Force Rend - Use on cooldown and spread via Smash
Furious Power + Smash - High AoE damage and spreads your DoTs.
Dual Saber Throw - Dual Saber Throw ticks/refreshes Rupture and does conal damage, make sure to face towards the biggest group of adds to deal additional damage via the Spiteful Saber tactical after spreading Rupture. Unlike the single target rotation, Dual Saber Throw should be used on cooldown in AoE situations.
Annihilate - Annihilate still does very high single target damage so it should continue to be used for overall damage and to maintain stacks of Annihilation so that a transition to pure single target can be made efficiently.
Battering Assault - Used as necessary for energy generation, avoid using it if above 5-6 energy to avoid capping but prioritize its use above the below abilities if it can be used without capping energy
Sweeping Slash - A spammable AoE filler ability that can be used in pure AoE situations
Vicious Slash - Vicious Slash refreshes/ticks Rupture via the Spiteful Saber tactical and should be used once every 6 GCDs on the main target to refresh Rupture on the main target. This sacrifices a use of Sweeping Slash but by refreshing Rupture it frees up another use of Sweeping Slash later.
Note - Off-GCD abilities such Deadly Saber and Berserk should continue to be used on cooldown as discussed above.
Tactical for AoE Situations - Spiteful Saber or Malmourral Mask?
As discussed above, Spiteful Saber should generally be the tactical choice in end game PVE content while Malmourral Mask provides an AoE-focused tactical option. This begs the question as to in which situations, if any, should Malmourral Mask be taken? I would propose that it should almost never be taken, but this is somewhat based on personal preference and open to some debate.
First, let’s briefly recap on how each tactical operates:
Spiteful Saber - Vicious Slash, Vicious Throw and Dual Saber Throw refresh the duration of Rupture's burn effect and ticks its damage.
Malmourral Mask - When Annihilate deals damage to an enemy affected by Force Rend, it triggers a burst of damage to up to 8 targets around them.
Malmourral Mask is clearly a winner when it comes to maximizing AoE DPS because Annihilate already does very high burst damage, so making it an AoE ability is very powerful.
Spiteful Saber does provide an increase in AoE DPS as Dual Saber Throw’s conal AoE effect can tick and refresh Rupture on multiple targets. However, Dual Saber Throw’s cooldown is too long to enable continuous uptime on Rupture. If only Sweeping Slash could also trigger Spiteful Saber…
So Malmourral Mask is better for AoE DPS, so why is there any debate as to which tactical to take? The short version is that there are no AoE DPS checks in the entire game, so sacrificing meaningful single target DPS to maximize AoE DPS is rarely if ever going to increase the team’s chance of clearing a boss encounter.
Let’s consider a few operation boss encounters that have the potential for high or very high AoE DPS:
Foreman Crusher (Karagga’s Palace) - Adds spawn several times throughout the fight and they deal relatively high damage to non-tanks. However, they can be easily burst down so there is not sufficient uptime to be worthwhile to prioritize AoE DPS.
Draxus (Dread Fortress) - Numerous add waves have 3 adds grouped tightly together and offer nice AoE DPS potential. The burn phase also appreciates high AoE DPS if you can group Guardians near Draxus. However, single target DPS is more important to kill Corruptors, Despoiler, Dismantlers, Guardians and lastly Draxus himself.
Corruptor Zero (Dread Fortress) - Most group strategies LoS adds so they stack very close to Corruptor Zero, which offers great DoT spread and AoE DPS potential. Yet again, I would argue single target DPS is more important to quickly burst down the champion add to prevent its AoE stun and then keeping maximum damage on Draxus while DoT spreads kill the remaining trash.
Torque (Ravagers) - The Torque encounter in Veteran Mode offers lots of DoT spread opportunities given the close proximity and many targets (Torque, Shoots Lasers, Fire Device and turrets on the consoles). The DPS check on this fight is Torque himself as most groups can burn him down before he can crash the ship, so prioritizing AoE DPS will actually lengthen the fight and make it more likely people die to fire.
Revanite Commanders (Temple of Sacrifice) - The Revanite Commanders have lots of adds and frequently are close together during the burn phase. However, single target DPS is more important since the key to success is killing the first Commander as quickly as possible to keep incoming damage manageable for healers. Higher AoE DPS sounds nice to burn down adds but honestly regular DoT spread should be plenty to keep some adds off the healers, which is all you really need in that phase.
Tyth (Gods) - Tyth involves numerous add waves that ideally should be grouped up for efficient AoE DPS. Yet again, the adds can be burst down relatively quickly and the DPS check remains single target burst on Tyth once you get below 30% and becomes primarily a single target burn so AoE is not super relevant.
Izax (Gods) - Izax does not have a ton of AoE DPS though the Hull Cutters are a constant pain. Malmourral would not help in this fight since the AoE damage from Annihilate would be heavily mitigated by the Hull Cutter’s AoE DR, so Spiteful Saber would be better. Even if it weren’t, single target DPS is still more important for all phases of the fight where DPS is relevant.
Hive Queen - Hive Queen is the co-ruler of AoE DPS along with Control Center in Dxun. However, even this fight is still fundamentally a single target DPS check. The key to success is maintaining high DPS on the Queen so that you can kill her before the second Rally that summons loads of Berserker adds. DoT spread kills the trash adds very quickly anyway and trading some fluff AoE DPS in exchange for lower DPS on the Queen and the Royal Guards is a bad trade.
Control Center (Dxun) - Control Center is a very high AoE DPS encounter and is the only fight in the game where I might consider taking Malmourral Mask due to the high concentration of adds with relatively high health. I would still generally recommend Spiteful Saber even here to maximize DPS on the Reapers and Droids to get them down quickly and let DoT spread kill the other adds. However, if my group composition contained primarily non-DoT classes that have comparatively weaker AoE DPS I might swap to Malmourral Mask for that fight only.
So as you can see, Malmourral Mask is a lot of fun and can increase your AoE DPS, but Spiteful Saber will still be optimal in most situations for primary target DPS and group success.
Energy Management
Annihilation Marauder is an interesting discipline in that it gets a LOT of energy generation from passive skills and also from some utilities if taken. This introduces a bit of randomness into the rotation as to when the energy will be there and when it may leave you hanging.
Energy Management Utilities/Passives
Cloak of Rage (Skillful Utility) - While Cloak of Pain is active, it generates 1 Rage whenever you are attacked. This effect cannot occur more than once every 2 seconds.
Inexorable (Skillful Utility) - You generate 4 Rage when stunned, immobilized, put to sleep, or knocked around. Also, the cooldown of Unleash is reduced by 30 seconds.
Thirst for Rage (Heroic Utility) - Bloodlust generates 12 Rage when activated, and you heal for 1% of your maximum health whenever you activate an ability that consumes Rage.
Hemorrhage (Annihilation Passive) - Your bleed effects have a 20% chance to build 1 Rage when dealing damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.
Bloodlust (Annihilation Passive) - Your direct damage attacks that critically hit a bleeding target build 1 Rage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 seconds.
Enraged Slash (Marauder Passive) - Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Vicious Throw, Ravage, Annihilate, and Furious Strike refund 1 Rage when used.
The utility options above can be helpful in various circumstances but should not generally be relied upon for most encounters. However, the passive abilities are very important to Annihilation's energy management and rotation.
Enraged Slash is great in that it makes all abilities cheaper. The key to remember is that the base energy cost still applies to activate the ability and then refunds 1. For example, Annihilate will still require 4 Rage to activate the ability but it will only cost you 3 net Focus.
The Hemorrhage passive ability will generate pretty steady Rage but is highly dependent on RNG. Annihilation applies 3 DoTs (Rupture, Force Rend, Deadly Saber) that all tick once every three seconds. Rupture should have 100% uptime and should get regular extra ticks of damage thanks to Spiteful Saber, while Deadly Saber should have very high uptime and Force Rend should have 75% uptime. Altogether this should lead to getting extra Rage every few seconds but due to the randomness this can lead to unexpectedly capping energy or being temporarily energy starved.
The Bloodlust passive ability is similarly subject to RNG. DoTs have higher average critical rates due to passive abilities and the effects of Berserk making all DoTs temporarily auto-crits. This should result in getting 2-3 Rage during each Berserk window and getting steady Rage even outside of Berserk windows though less often.
Energy Management - Vicious Slash Spam
The last thing to discuss is the use of Vicious Slash spam. Vicious Slash is great with the Spiteful Saber tactical because every use will add a tick of Rupture, which increases Vicious Slash’s overall damage per activation by over 50%. The challenge to spamming Vicious Slash is getting too low on Rage and being unable to activate Annihilate (requires 4 Rage, consumes 3) or some other ability.
My thought process for when to Vicious Slash spam and when to wait depends mostly on my energy level, as follows:
Rage >6, Battering Assault is coming up - Vicious Slash spam
Rage >8, Force Rend is coming up - Vicious Slash spam but stay above 4 unless Battering Assault is coming up prior to Annihilate
Rage >5, Annihilate coming up prior to Rage builder - Vicious Slash but be careful to stay about 4 Rage so Annihilate does not have to be delayed
Rage <4, Annihilate coming up prior to Rage builder - Assault until 4 or higher Rage
This is very much a matter of feel that you get used to with practice. The keys to remember are to make sure you have Rage to use Annihilate and Deadly Saber on cooldown so be careful with energy management to accomplish that goal and get more aggressive as you get more comfortable.
Execute Phase & Vicious Throw
How does Vicious Throw factor into the Annihilation rotation?
Simple! It replaces Vicious Slash anytime it is off cooldown and available. Both abilities have an identical energy cost so it has no impact on your rotation. Both abilities also tick/refresh Rupture via the Spiteful Saber tactical item. Vicious Throw simply does more damage.
The only nuance to consider is making sure you manage your energy so you can always use Vicious Throw on cooldown or close to it after using higher priority abilities such as Annihilate or Force Rend. This may sometimes mean slipping in an Assault in place of a Vicious Slash so that you have Rage to use on Vicious Throw.
Use of Furious Power
As of 6.0, Furious Power is a very important off GCD ability to consider in the discipline.
If you have a full 6 piece Descent of the Fearless set bonus (and if you don't, you should), then the set bonus provides a 10% overall damage buff and can generate additional charges of Furious Power. Furious Power itself provides a 25% damage buff to the next single target melee attack. Only 1 charge can be used at a time so if you use Furious Power with multiple stacks then it will automatically consume 1 stack per eligible ability until the charges as of its activation are all consumed.
For the Annihilation discipline the key question becomes how often and when to use Furious Power. We have two goals for Furious Power in the rotation:
Use Furious Power's 25% single ability damage buff on our strongest damage abilities
Keep our uptime on the 10% overall damage as high as possible
This becomes really simple for Annihilation: Use Furious Power to buff Annihilate.
Simple. Annihilate does the most non-periodic damage so it will get the most mileage of Furious Power's +25% damage buff for a specific ability.
Annihilate has a 9 second cooldown at 4 stacks of Annihilator (i.e., after 2 uses of Annihilate in the opener), so this frequency uses Furious Power often enough to maintain uptime on the +10% damage buff given it’s 10 second duration.
Annihilation also has lots of extra ticks of damage from DoTs and extra ticks of Rupture from abilities via the Spiteful Saber tactical. As such, you should nearly always get a stack of Furious Power in between each use of Annihilation.
What should we do if Annihilation comes up with a stack of Furious Power available? Just go ahead and use Annihilation and wait until the next one. The odds are really high you will get a stack of Furious Power in the meantime and getting a stack will refresh the +10% damage buff anyway, so generally you shouldn’t have to worry about the overall damage buff falling off.
Fury & Use of Berserk
Berserk
A big key to maximizing DPS as Annihilation Marauder is timing the use of Berserk. Berserk provides 6 charges of guaranteed crits on all DoT damage, which is powerful but has a short duration. Thus maximizing the DoTs ticking on the target while avoiding a significant delay is key to its effective use.
Here is a brief reminder of each DoT and how its timing interacts with Berserk:
Rupture - This DoT should have 100% uptime on the target, so Berserk's timing is not impacted. Rupture deals the highest damage per DoT tick.
Force Rend - This DoT has a 12s cooldown and a 9s duration (before alacrity), so there is a small window where Force Rend is not ticking on the target. Force Rend deals less damage than Rupture or 3 stacks of Deadly Saber but deals more damage than 1 or 2 stacks of Deadly Saber.
Deadly Saber - This DoT applies 3 stacks sequentially through successful melee attacks (so takes at least 3 GCDs to apply a full 3 stacks) and each stack refreshes the cooldown. The duration of 6s / 4 GCDs lasts from the time 3 stacks are applied, so effectively it usually lasts 9s / 6 GCDs from the first attack that applies a stack to the expiration of the buff. Deadly Saber deals the least DoT damage for ticks at 1 or 2 stacks but deals the second most damage per tick at 3 stacks.
Fury
Berserk requires 30 Fury to activate. We build Fury through activating an attack that spends Rage and defeating opponents. We can divide abilities between building or not building Fury as follows:
Do NOT build Fury - Assault, Ravage, Dual Saber Throw, Battering Assault (they do not consume Rage)
Build 4 Fury - Annihilate, Rupture, Vicious Throw, Vicious Slash (these abilities consume Rage)
Another important thing to remember is that Annihilation Marauder cannot build Fury while Berserk is active. This is generally true of all Marauder disciplines and Fury/Berserk, though there are some exceptions.
Fury can be affected by several passive abilities and utilities:
Fury (Marauder passive ability) - Activating an attack that spends Rage and defeating opponents builds Fury. When 30 stacks of Fury are built, you become Furious, enabling the use of Berserk, Predation and Bloodthirst.
Short Fuse (Marauder passive ability) - Increases the amount of Fury built by 2 when activating abilities that consume Rage, and reduces the cooldown of Frenzy by 30 seconds.
Brazen (Marauder Skillful utility) – Increases your damage reduction by 2%, and you build 2 Fury when attacked. This Fury building effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.
Relentless (Marauder Masterful utility) – Predation no longer requires or consumes Fury, but will go on cooldown for 30 seconds when activated.
Brooding (Marauder Heroic utility) - Reduces the cooldown of Intimidating Roar by 15 seconds. Also, you build up to 30 Fury over the course of using Channel Hatred. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
The Fury passive ability provides the buff and Short Fuse doubles the Fury gain from 2 to 4 for most abilities. I always take the Brazen utility since it provides damage resistance and free Fury when I am attacked, which is great for survivability and more frequent Berserk use in combat. I also always take Relentless so that I can use Predation for team mobility without sacrificing any Berserk uptime. I frequently take Brooding so that I always have Berserk ready for each boss opener.
Berserk Strategy
The overall strategy for Berserk use by Annihilation Marauders is to use it on cooldown. Some Marauder players may remember when the recommended strategy was to delay Berserk in some cases, so I would like to briefly discuss the analysis that leads to this recommendation.
Berserk functions slightly differently than it once did. I believe the change was made in 5.0 but am not positive. Prior to the change, Berserk increased the critical chance of DoTs by 100% for a fixed 6 seconds instead of applying 6 charges as it does now. This led to a strategy where a player might delay Berserk 1-2 GCDs to align its use with Deadly Saber being at 2-3 stacks and Force Rend being active on the target, thereby making sure you had all 3 DoTs ticking for most/all of its duration and got as much extra critical damage as possible per use of Berserk.
As Berserk is currently designed as of 6.2, Berserk gives us 6 charges and so essentially makes the next 6 DoT ticks auto-crits. This design changes our strategy to having two goals that partially conflict:
Maximize the uptime of Berserk to get as many auto-crit DoT ticks in a fight as possible
Maximize the damage from Berserk's charges by ensuring it applies to higher damaging DoTs
Goal #1 is easily served by simply using Berserk on cooldown. Goal #2 is impossible to optimize without either delaying Berserk (breaking goal #1) or delaying abilities like Force Rend or Deadly Saber that would be an overall DPS decrease by having lower uptime on DoT damage.
Technically, we would be best served to have Berserk consume our DoTs in the following order to maximize its damage, though again either delaying Berserk or delaying Deadly Saber or Force Rend would be a DPS decrease:
Deadly Saber @ 2-3 stacks
Rupture
Force Rend
Deadly Saber @ 1 stacks
Each DoT ticks once every 3 seconds except for additional ticks of Rupture through use of Dual Saber Throw, Vicious Throw or Vicious Slash via the Spiteful Saber tactical.
The other factor to remember is that Berserk's uptime depends on how quickly we can build Centering. Recall that we cannot build Fury while under the effects of Berserk. This means the faster we can consume Berserk's charges the quicker we can resume building Fury and get to another Berserk.
DoTs generally tick once every 3 seconds prior to alacrity. The fastest we can consume Berserk's 6 charges without Spiteful Saber is about 4 seconds, assuming that we get a tick of all 3 DoTs right after Berserk then another 3 ticks after 3 more seconds. The longest it could take is as much as 8-9 seconds if Berserk is applied with just Rupture active on the target and you have to wait a few seconds to apply Deadly Saber and Force Rend to get more ticks. 9 seconds or 6 GCDs being unable to build Fury is a lot of wasted time that could be spent building to another Berserk...
Enter the Spiteful Saber tactical. Not only does it let you force additional DoT ticks (and uses of Berserk charges) once per GCD via Dual Saber Throw, Vicious Throw and/or Vicious Slash, but Rupture is already our highest damaging DoT per tick so this helps us get closer to optimizing Berserk's charges as well. This accelerates our window for consuming all Berserk charges from 4-9 seconds down to 3-6 seconds. Over the course of a fight this can lead to significantly more uses of Berserk and higher DPS.
The downside to spamming Vicious Slash during Berserk is that you will not build Fury until all 6 Berserk charges are consumed. If you find yourself in a high energy situation this is fine to get all the Berserk charges used and start building Fury again.
However, if you find yourself low on Rage then it may be optimal to use abilities that do not consume Fury during those GCDs. Using Dual Saber Throw, Ravage or Battering Assault would not generate Fury anyway, so using those during Berserk can give your DoTs time to tick and consume Berserk charges and conserving your Rage to spam Vicious Slash after Berserk to start building Fury again.
My approach is usually based on avoiding capping Rage. If I am high on Rage going into Berserk then I would rather spam Vicious Slash to avoid wasting energy. I may also spam Vicious Slash if I enter Berserk without Deadly Saber or if it is only at 1 stack to try and consume more ticks with Rupture. If I am low on Rage or if Deadly Saber is at 2 stacks I will usually let it ride and use Ravage and Dual Saber Throw.
Defensive Abilities
Marauders have a strong arsenal of defensive cooldowns and abilities. Compared to the other Sith Warrior advanced class, the Sith Juggernaut, Marauders require a bit more skill to take full advantage of their defensive abilities. Nevertheless, when played well Marauders can mitigate significant damage and in many cases return damage to the enemy.
Cloak of Pain (1 minute cooldown) - Reduces all damage taken by 20% and deals energy damage to attackers. This effect cannot occur more than once every second. Lasts 10 seconds. Cloak of Pain refreshes to its full duration when attacked, but this effect cannot last more than 30 seconds in total.
Cloak of Pain can also be buffed by a variety of utilities:
Cloak of Carnage (Skillful utility) – Increases the damage dealt by Cloak of Pain by 15% and increases its duration by 4 seconds.
Cloak of Rage (Skillful utility) – While Cloak of Pain is active, it generates 1 Rage whenever you are attacked. This effect cannot occur more than once every 2 seconds.
Subjugation (Masterful utility) - Cloak of Pain can be used while stunned.
Cloak of Annihilation (Masterful utility) - Each use of Assault, Battering Assault, and Crippling Slash reduces the active cooldown of Cloak of Pain by 3 seconds.
Cloak of Pain is a great defensive ability that also contributes damage if used optimally. Reducing damage taken by 20% is not enough to mitigate massive damage at high health but is amazing for sustained high damage phases (e.g., burn phase in Dread Council, etc.). I usually take Cloak of Carnage and Cloak of Rage for operations. Subjugation is situationally useful for fights with stun mechanics (e.g., Dismantler swipe in Draxus encounter). I do not recommend Cloak of Annihilation as its abilities are not used frequently enough to be that beneficial.
Saber Ward (3 minute cooldown) - Raises a lightsaber ward, increasing melee and ranged defenses by 50% and absorbing 25% of the damage taken from Force and Tech attacks. Lasts 12 seconds.
Saber Ward can be buffed by the Blood Ward Heroic utility. If taking the utility, activating Saber Ward grants immunity to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating effects for 6 seconds, and getting attacked while Saber Ward is active heals you for 3% of your maximum health. This healing effect cannot occur more than once every second.
Saber Ward is the Marauder's long duration / long cooldown big defensive ability. Marauders have a base defense chance of 5% assuming no gearing for Defense, so with Saber Ward active the defense chance is buffed to 55%. That level of defense chance is nice but is risky for mitigating high damage attacks if you fail to dodge. Fortunately, weapon attack mechanics tend to consist of multiple attacks so the defense buff is still helpful. The 25% reduction to Force/Tech damage taken is far more reliable to help mitigate damage mechanics in my opinion.
I rarely take the Blood Ward utility. The immunity to various effects could be situationally helpful for a few specific mechanics but the heal is unlikely to be useful outside of PvP.
Force Camouflage (45 second cooldown) - Obscures yourself with the Force, becoming difficult to detect, reducing your threat towards all enemies, reducing all damage taken by 50%, granting immunity to controlling effects, and increasing movement speed by 30%. Lasts 4 seconds. Dealing direct damage ends the effect prematurely.
Expunging Camouflage (Masterful utility) - Force Camouflage removes all cleansable effects when activated.
Phantom (Masterful utility) - Increases your movement speed by 15% and the movement speed bonus of Force Camouflage by 20%. Additionally, increases the duration of Force Camouflage by 2 seconds.
Hidden Savagery (Heroic utility) - While Force Camouflage is active, you gain a charge of Hidden Savagery every 0.5 seconds. Each charge of Hidden Savagery increases the damage dealt by your next melee attack by 4%. Stacks up to 12 charges and lasts for up to 6 seconds after exiting Force Camouflage.
Force Camouflage is a really great defensive ability but requires skill to use effectively. The threat drop effect is the only way for Marauders to drop aggro, which is nice. The self cleanse (with utility) is extremely useful for fights that require cleanses, especially if your team’s composition involves Powertechs or Snipers that cannot self cleanse.
The 50% reduction in damage taken for 4 seconds (6 with utility) is amazingly strong if used properly. The key to its use is timing Force Camouflage immediately prior to a predictable high damage mechanic and waiting to activate any attack abilities until after the damage goes out and is successfully mitigated.
I frequently take Expunging Camouflage for any fights where a self cleanse is useful. I may take Phantom for fights with predictable high damage mechanics to give me a little more margin for error when using it to mitigate damage.
Hidden Savagery is extremely situational and rarely useful as it changes Force Camouflage from a strong defensive ability and self-cleanse to a very specific offensive cooldown for downtime. The key to using Hidden Savagery is activating Force Camouflage during downtime or transition phases where you have 6 seconds of downtime. This lets you build 12 charges and buffs your first ability when re-engaging the boss by 48%. This is also frequently used in parsing to add more damage in the opener. I do not recommend Hidden Savagery as few fights have enough downtime to be useful and Force Camouflage is more useful as a self cleanse and defensive ability in my opinion.
Undying Rage (2:30 minute cooldown) - Reduces the damage you take by 99% for 6 seconds.
Undying Rage can be buffed by the Undying Masterful utility. The utility increases the duration of Undying Rage by 2 seconds and reduces its cooldown by 30 seconds.
Undying Rage is a great ability to mitigate one hit kill mechanics. Unlike cheese abilities like Force Shroud or Saber Reflect (or Blade Blitz…), there are some abilities that Undying Rage will not mitigate since they deal so much damage that even taking 1% will still kill you. However, the majority of one hit kill mechanics can be mitigated with Undying Rage. It can also be really useful if a tank dies and you get aggro, since Undying Rage will give you just enough time taking no damage for a healer to get a battle rez out and a couple heals on the tank so they can grab the boss back.
I do not usually take Undying but may take it if I think there is a decent chance I could end up with aggro on a boss due to a tank death or pulling aggro. Absent that situation, I feel that the extra duration is not helpful since most big hitting mechanics last less than 4 seconds, and the cooldown reduction is not that helpful on most fights either.
Mad Dash (45 second cooldown) - Madly dash forward 20 meters, dealing weapon damage to enemies in your path and increasing your defense chance by 100% while blitzing. Cannot be used while immobilized or hindered.
Mad Dash can be buffed by the Through Victory Heroic utility. With the utility, Mad Dash can be used while immobilized, purges movement-impairing effects when activated, and deals 50% more damage. Additionally, the cooldown of Mad Dash is reduced by 10 seconds.
Mad Dash is a great mobility and defensive ability. It can be used to move around the map together with Force Charge and Predation, but it really shines as a defensive ability. Most damage mechanics can be mitigated through good timing of Mad Dash. However, timing it correctly can take some practice so be careful with it until you get comfortable with the timing for a given mechanic.
Obfuscate (1 minute cooldown, 4m range) - Obscures the target's vision, reducing its melee and ranged accuracy by 90% for 6 seconds. Cannot be used on Operation bosses. This ability does not respect the global cooldown.
Pacify can be buffed by various utilities:
Ruthless Aggressor (Heroic utility) - Vicious Throw refunds 2 Rage when used on a target affected by your Obfuscate and can be used on any target affected by your Obfuscate, regardless of remaining health. Additionally, activating Obfuscate grants Ruthless Aggressor, reducing the damage you take from Force and Tech attacks by 75% for 6 seconds.
Subjugation (Masterful utility) - Reduces the cooldown of Obfuscate by 15 seconds and increases its range by 6 meters. In addition, the cooldown of Disruption is reduced by 2 seconds, and Cloak of Pain can be used while stunned.
Obfuscate is a neat defensive cooldown that is primarily PvP oriented but with the Ruthless Aggressor utility it becomes a really powerful defensive cooldown. The big downside to this option is that operations bosses cannot be targeted by Obfuscate to activate the damage resistance. However, it could be useful on fights with adds that can be targeted by Obfuscate.
The Marauder can also take a variety of other utilities that help improve overall survivability:
Brazen (Skillful utility) - Increases your damage reduction by 2%
Defensive Roll (Skillful utility) - Reduces damage taken from area effects by 30% and increases internal and elemental damage reduction by 3%.
I usually take both Brazen and Defensive Roll. Extra damage resistance is always helpful and internal/elemental damage resistance is particularly valuable since it is very uncommon.
The Marauder also has a variety of active and passive abilities that help improve overall survivability:
Berserk (no cooldown, requires and consumes 30 Fury) - Requires and converts 30 stacks of Fury to go Berserk, increasing the critical chance of your bleed attacks by 100% and causing the bleed damage you deal to heal your group for 1% of max health. Lasts for 6 charges.
Hungering (passive skill) - Your Rupture, Deadly Saber, and Force Rend burns heal you for 15% of the damage they deal.
Blood Guard (passive skill) - Dealing bleed damage to a target increases your damage reduction by 5% for 3 seconds.
These passives give Annihilation pretty awesome self heals and damage resistance. If taking Brazen and keeping three DoTs up most of the time per the rotation, Annihilation Marauder receives +17% damage reduction at all times. On top of that, Berserk and Hungering together typically give Annihilation Marauders 2-3k of self heals during a fight and adds 1-2k of group self heals. This self healing isn’t usually highly effective healing but on the margins can be really helpful especially in fights with lots of group wide damage.