Watchman/Annihilation Analyzation: Fearless Victor vs Dispatcher?

Step Lith, one of my many Marauder alts.

Annihilation Analyzation: Fearless Victor versus Dispatcher?

Lithisto (Star Forge NA)

    This analyzation is a continuation of the comparison I did between Dispatcher and Fearless Victor in my combo Annihilation/Watchman Guide here: https://lithistoswtor.blogspot.com/2022/03/watchman-sentinel-annihilation-marauder.html

    The second Legendary debate is hot. Both Legendary Items apply a Melee damage buff to the spec, but in different ways. I'm going to try and analyze and compare these in an unbiased way here with my best parses with each Legendary. My primary Legendary is always the Berserker's Call Package. I'll go over some general and advanced spec knowledge as well in the form of passives and how each Legendary Item interacts with these passives.

    Fair warning, this one will be a bit more of a read than my other guides. I won't really have a tl;dr anywhere.

The Competitors

Fearless Victor

Dispatcher

What do they bring to the class?

Fearless Victor

    Fearless Victor is used alongside the Bleed/Burning Center choice at Level 43: "Critically hitting with periodic bleed/burn damage builds 2 Fury/Centering, even during Berserk/Zen."

    Fearless Victor brings a permanent 10% Melee damage buff. Annihilation has been coined the "slash spam class." While mildly accurate, Annihilation uses almost all of it's Melee abilities frequently for Rage management and Rage generation. This is due to 3 passives given to the class:

• Bloodlust [Level 51] - Melee attacks that critically hit a bleeding target build 1 Rage. Cannot occur more than once per second.
• Hemorrhage [Level 35] - Your bleed effects have a 20% chance to build 1 rage when they deal damage. Cannot occur more than once per second. 
• Enraged Slash [Level 15] - Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Vicious Throw, Massacre, Annihilate and Furious Strike refund 1 Rage when used. (General Marauder passive).

    Hemorrhage builds Rage because Slash/Dispatch/Twin Saber Throw force a tick of Cauterize/Rupture, which rolls against that 20% chance to build 1 Rage.

    So, with these passives in mind, what else would build Rage for Anni? Ravage and DST will build Rage for Annihilation if they critically hit. Ravage can build 2 Rage as well, as it hits multiple times over the 1.4s Global Cooldown, and a few of the hits are at least 1 second apart. 

    Aside from Rage generation, how much of a buff does Fearless Victor actually influence the DPS output of the class? Annihilation's damage output is around 40-45% Melee damage. If FV gives us a 10% Melee damage bonus, then the overall DPS bonus it will give us is 4-4.5% in the grand scheme of things. I used a personal Sentinel parse to calculate the Melee Damage Output percentage.

Percentages

27,466 6.5m Dummy Parse using Fearless Victor Package: https://parsely.io/parser/view/634885

• Slash: 19.2% or 1,250,092/6,517,479
• Merciless Slash: 12.4% or 808,703/6,517,459
• Blade Barrage: 3.2% or 210,585/6,517,479
• Dispatch: 2.5% or 164,860/6,517,479
• Twin Saber Throw 2.5% or 164,655/6,517,479
• Zealous Strike: 2% or 131,672/6,517,479

Grand Total: 44% or 2,730,567

Per Activations:

• Slash: 1,250,092/69 Slashes used: 18,117.27
• Merciless Slash 1,250,092/26 used: 31,103.96
• Blade Barrage: 210,585/9 used: 23,398.333
• Dispatch: 164,860/6 used: 27,476.666
• Twin Saber Throw: 164,655/6 used: 27,442.5
• Zealous Strike: 131,672/13 used: 10,128.61

    Typical Annihilation parse. I probably could've used some more DST's and Dispatches.

Dispatcher

    Dispatcher brings us a guaranteed critical Vicious Slash or Vicious Throw after every use of Dual Saber Throw. It also grants us some extra Rage generation, but with a 3 second rate limit. The thing with the Rage generation, is the Melee Attack must critically hit for it to generate rage.

    Dispatcher is used alongside the Bloodfury/Burning Zen choice at Level 43: "All melee attacks deal <1> additional Bleed/Burn damage while Berserk/Zen is active. Cannot occur more than once every second." We take this because the extra Fury/Centering from Bleeding/Burning Center is not needed due to our excess of Rage generation, and by extension Fury generation, using Dispatcher.  

    Dispatcher also synergizes well with all the passives I mentioned previously under the Fearless Victor section. Critical Melee hits now refund 3-4 Rage total. 1 from Enraged Slash, 1 from Bloodlust, 1 from Dispatcher, and possibly 1 from forcing a Rupture tick and rolling against the 20% chance from Hemorrhage.

Percentages

27,856 6.5m Dummy Parse using Dispatcher Package: https://parsely.io/parser/view/636483

• Slash: 18.8% or 1,221,101/6,507,530
• Merciless Slash: 12.6% or 822,107/6,507,530
• Twin Saber Throw: 5% or 324,375/6,507,530
• Blade Barrage: 3.5% or 225,707/6,507,530
• Dispatch: 2.9% or 188,005/6,507,530
• Zealous Strike: 102,035/6,507,530
• Strike: 0.7% or 48,026/6,507,530

Grand Total: 43.5% or 2,931,356

Per Activations:

• Slash: 1,221,101/70 used: 17,444.3
• Merciless Slash: 822,107/25 used: 32,884.28
• Twin Saber Throw: 324,375/13 used: 24,951.92
• Blade Barrage: 225,707/11 used: 20,518
• Dispatch 188,005/6 used: 31,344
• Zealous Strike: 102,035/10 used: 10,203.5
• Strike: 48,026/5 used: 9605.2

Burning Zen damage

• Burning Zen: 1.8% or 117,247/6,507,530.

Also a pretty typical Annihilation parse. I used a few more Dual Saber Throws here deliberately to make sure I had as many autocrit slashes/dispatches as possible.I wasn't able to use DST exactly on cooldown as often it would come off CD in the middle of an Overload Saber window, and we must be careful about DST and Overload Saber.

Playstyle Changes

General 7.0 Changes

    The playstyle changes to the Annihilation spec really come from the changes to Rend/Melt. The ideal use of Zen has always been before the 3rd stack of Overload Saber so the 3rd stack Autocrits and deals the most damage possible. I am personally very guilty of hitting Zen as soon as I reach 30 stacks in 6.0 for the group healing effect. Now, to keep your DPS inline or ahead of other specs, you must use it before Force Melt/Rend. Not a big deal at all really, just have to play the class 100% correctly now. Fortunately, Zen always hit 30 stacks like 1 or 2 GCDs max before Rend, so it's almost like mashing it on cooldown!

Fearless Victor

    No significant changes, really. As far as the use of this Legendary Item goes, now we're not mashing Force Clarity/Furious Power every time it is generated from the Descent of the Fearless set bonus from 6.0, which really was not more than an Action per Minute fluff. Making the DotF bonus a passive bonus was genius and is nothing if not a buff to the health of our hands more than anything. 58-62 APMs on the dummy in 6.0 to 52 APMs on the dummy in 7.0. Bleeding/Burning Center is a very passive Skill tree choice as well. It just happens, you don't have to actively use it. Bleeding/Burning Center is the go-to choice with Fearless Victor as the extra Fury built is essential for having 30 stacks of Fury/Centering for a Berserk/Zen in the right spot.

Dispatcher

    Use of this one is felt as well. This Legendary Item really enforces the "slash spam" stereotype that Annihilation got in 6.0. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with that, but I know a lot of us have developed some habits with Ravage/DST that are being changed up and may take a while to get used to. You also need to think about which fillers you use after hitting Zen since we are taking the Bloodfury/Burning Zen choice instead of Bleeding/Burning Center. This extra burn damage does consume stacks of Zen, so you'll need to actively stretch out your Zen stacks after you use Force Melt. Definitely don't hit Zen + Blade Barrage for your 2nd Overload Saber stack or you'll immediately blow all of your Zen stacks, because the "once per second" rate limit on Bloodfury is wrong, there is no active rate limit. Blade Barrage hits like 5 or 6 times too, if you didn't know.

Comparisons and Conclusions

    Dispatcher has a 7.35% Melee damage gain over Fearless Victor between these two parses. These are only two parses of many that I have now lost in my 5+ GB of combat logs that I really need to clear out of my computer. 

    I personally prefer the playstyle of Fearless Victor/Bleeding Center. It's the most consistent option and plays the most similar to 6.0 Annihilation.

    Dispatcher's results can be a little inconsistent sometimes. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but you can use a lot less Battering Assault and Assaults as the Implant's effect generates so much extra Rage. 

    In conclusion, I would argue that Dispatcher is the better option for Annihilation. If you just play Annihilation like I do, grab a Dispatcher Package and upgrade it all the way. Once you get used to the extra Rage and using Bloodfury, you will definitely see a higher yield.