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Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

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zediscool
Posts: 7

Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#1 » Tue Sep 08, 2020 4:28 pm

1. Could marauder be geared defensively before the defensive Sov set? i.e. Are there any +toughness or +armor bonus from sets prior to defensive Sov? I dont see any on the pve sets like sentinel or bloodlord but wanted to confirm.

2. If not, would a defensive marauder work around rr73 with a mix of warlord/invader set? is it even worth slotting armor or toughness talismans in them even though they do not have defensive set bonuses? Or just wait till rr78 and do it with defensive Sov gear?

3. Stack armor or toughness? Which synergizes better with monstrocity proc? Also I am assuming hulking brute tactic is a must. Having both +160 toughness and initiative sounds too good to pass on with defense build, especially if stacking toughness.

4. Defensive marauder looks great on paper. Is this not the case realistically? Because I never see any defensive marauders in game. As all marauders know, damage is not our strong suit. So why not leave damage to other bursty classes who can seriously dish it out, like choppas, mSH and WE, not to mention the ranged nukers, sorc and magus, and just be a tough offtanky utility machine? Aoe kd, aoe WS/init debuff, aoe interrupt with disorient tactic, morale stopper tactic from monstro tree and maybe AP drain tactic if you choose Sav tree. Stay alive and cause as much havoc and disruption as possible. This is assuming decent group setup of course. But it seems most marauders just go dps monstro build without utility and meh damage and little survivability, and offer very little to group/WB/city. Marauders need to play to their strong suit in groups, which is to utilize the tiny self heal sustain and great armor penetration ignore mechanic in conjunction with the great utility mentioned above (it's still decent and viable despite the morale drain nerf). So why not stack armor/toughness to stay alive longer?

5. I wish Savagery tree would get some love and attention... at least revert it back to how it was during Live. I feel like it lost some if its potency now. Maybe some day. Staying hopeful...

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Pandastyle
Posts: 129

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#2 » Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:31 pm

1. AFAIK its the same for the mara as for every other class. There is a off set and a deff set. I think e.g. vanq is offensive while oppressor is defensive (or "rvr" set and "sc" set). But yes from vanq+ there is only invader which is offensive and then sov. Not sure about the pve sets as well tbh. Would have to take a look.

2. Going warlord/inv means mixing two offensive sets. Slotting them with defensive talis seems weird to me. That just means that you do less dmg to be slightly more tanky. I'd rather go and dish out more dmg then.

3. I think the usual way is stacking armor but I am not 100% since they changed toughness recently. Someone else has to answer that question :P
The general opinion is that the 3pt tactics are not worth a tactic slot. Idk about that in defensive gear tbh. Again someone else has to answer that

4. I have seen high rr maras who go full deff sov and slot armour talis. I have to disagree with your comment about the mara dmg. With high rr and gear you get your dmg. I am pretty sure quite a few people were surprised in sc about the dmg potential (love those 1k snare or heal debuff crits) and maras frequently top the dmg scores in citys. Ofc if you are aoe specc you are not doing much dmg to one individual, its more the overall pressure you can apply on the blob.
I know maras who go ap drain specc but afaik the morale stop is still bugged. Ofc you can go and do that while being tanky with defensive gear and talis but I never had issues being kept alive in dmg gear. Assuming a decent group setup ofc (which you assumed as well ;) ) so why not go utility with dmg gear and talis and dish out dmg on top of that. Keeping you alive is dependend on the grp either way, you know what I mean?

5. Agreed in general

I hope this helped and I hope I didnt talked bullshit. If I did, I am sure some other high rr mara will clear things up :)
85 Mara
80 Choppa
80 Zealot

Foofmonger
Posts: 524

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#3 » Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:59 pm

zediscool wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2020 4:28 pm
4. Defensive marauder looks great on paper. Is this not the case realistically? Because I never see any defensive marauders in game. As all marauders know, damage is not our strong suit. So why not leave damage to other bursty classes who can seriously dish it out, like choppas, mSH and WE, not to mention the ranged nukers, sorc and magus, and just be a tough offtanky utility machine? Aoe kd, aoe WS/init debuff, aoe interrupt with disorient tactic, morale stopper tactic from monstro tree and maybe AP drain tactic if you choose Sav tree. Stay alive and cause as much havoc and disruption as possible. This is assuming decent group setup of course. But it seems most marauders just go dps monstro build without utility and meh damage and little survivability, and offer very little to group/WB/city. Marauders need to play to their strong suit in groups, which is to utilize the tiny self heal sustain and great armor penetration ignore mechanic in conjunction with the great utility mentioned above (it's still decent and viable despite the morale drain nerf). So why not stack armor/toughness to stay alive longer?
It used to be much more viable (on live) there are a number of changes on this server that have heavily reduced it's potential.

1. First of all, you can just go damage and let your team keep you alive. You are still, even without gearing defensively, tankier than other DPS classes, and all you really need is Monstro proc and good positioning. So all you are really doing is just sacrificing DPS to make up for more or less poor positioning/play.

2. It's not enough utility. You are still a DPS class, and you are still taking up a DPS spot, but now you are doing less DPS than 2h tanks? The Marauder doesn't bring enough utility to justify bringing if they also do no damage, you still can't heal or guard or challenge. A damage focused Marauder still brings all the same utility, you don't need to stack defensive stats to survive.

3. Morale stopper tactic is broken and has never worked.

4. AP drain tactic is much worse then it used to be (40 over 3 seconds, versus 40 drained).

5. The probably best reason to try to go "defensive" and stay alive in weird positions is the Warlord 7 piece AP drain proc, which is on an offensive set that you can't pair with basically anything besides sentinel +2 (also another offensive set). You could though, theoretically run defensive renown/talismans though if you wanted with that spec. It also requires basically BIS end-game gear, so there's that too.

zediscool
Posts: 7

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#4 » Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:00 pm

Thank you both for your valuable inputs. Lately I have been putting more effort towards befriending competent SnB tanks, so with Guard + incoming heals + switching to monstro upon retreat does wonders for surviving. I currently run Foofmonger's Brut/monstro build mostly for WB play, sometimes switching to Monstro/brut for more wrecking ball aoe pressure.

Follow up question, as I am now approaching rr mid-70s and have accumulated some royal crests, I would like an update on how I should gear. I have read 2-6 month old threads about BiS and gear and here are my findings (still up to date?):

1. 5 offensive sov/3 warlord. Set bonuses pretty solid.
+wounds
+str x2
+WS
+6% armor pen
+6% crit.
You can achieve around 55% crit rate with this gear set up (assuming picking up full crit from renown, FoF tactic, fortress/anathema axes). I think this setup is what I have seen on high rr maras in game.

2. 5 Warlord/3 offensive Sov. I am wondering if this is better. Seems like theres more raw melee dmg here. Compare bonuses with #1:
+wounds
+str x2
+WS
+AA haste
+99 melee power
With this set up, you would have less crit rate, at about 49%. You dropped the crit and armor pen for AA haste and melee power. Is this worth it? Because really:

a) How much crit rate is sufficient? seems like there is no soft cap on it like stats, so is higher the better? and of course what good is high crit without having soft cap str, high enough WS (with PB tactic), then some melee power on top for even more damage. So maybe sacrificing the 6% crit from set bonus in favor of 99 melee power is a good approach? But that depends on how melee power functions, which brings us..

b) How good is 99 melee power really? once str is soft capped of course. I can imagine we would be hitting squishies for bigger numbers but not so much on tanks (this is where the 6% armor pen set bonus from option#1 above is more favorable)

c) AA haste bonus looks underwhelming. Ok so we get to AA more often. Which is NOT the source of our big hits unfortunately now that PB tactic is "fixed/working as intended for mutation-required abilities". Btw PB would not be game breaking if they left it working for all attacks and abilities (AA included) but I digress.. so AA haste as a set bonus is pretty meh to me unless someone else proves otherwise.

3. 5 Sov/2warlord/2 sentinel. You get now 3 str bonuses instead of 2. I think thats the worst of the options because the 3rd str bonus should not be needed to soft cap str.

4. I saw one post about mara rocking a full defensive sov to fulfill a specific guild role. Intetesting but seems out of the ordinary.

Any insight is always appreciated.

Thanks again!

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wildwindblows
Posts: 423

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#5 » Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:48 pm

zediscool wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:00 pm c) AA haste bonus looks underwhelming. Ok so we get to AA more often. Which is NOT the source of our big hits unfortunately now that PB tactic is "fixed/working as intended for mutation-required abilities". Btw PB would not be game breaking if they left it working for all attacks and abilities (AA included) but I digress.. so AA haste as a set bonus is pretty meh to me unless someone else proves otherwise.
I agree with you about PB tactic. I think mara is not effective like any other mdps classes because of this. But I don't know how old PB tactic will affect the balance.

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Pandastyle
Posts: 129

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#6 » Fri Sep 25, 2020 5:45 pm

zediscool wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:00 pm Thank you both for your valuable inputs. Lately I have been putting more effort towards befriending competent SnB tanks, so with Guard + incoming heals + switching to monstro upon retreat does wonders for surviving. I currently run Foofmonger's Brut/monstro build mostly for WB play, sometimes switching to Monstro/brut for more wrecking ball aoe pressure.

Follow up question, as I am now approaching rr mid-70s and have accumulated some royal crests, I would like an update on how I should gear. I have read 2-6 month old threads about BiS and gear and here are my findings (still up to date?):

1. 5 offensive sov/3 warlord. Set bonuses pretty solid.
+wounds
+str x2
+WS
+6% armor pen
+6% crit.
You can achieve around 55% crit rate with this gear set up (assuming picking up full crit from renown, FoF tactic, fortress/anathema axes). I think this setup is what I have seen on high rr maras in game.

2. 5 Warlord/3 offensive Sov. I am wondering if this is better. Seems like theres more raw melee dmg here. Compare bonuses with #1:
+wounds
+str x2
+WS
+AA haste
+99 melee power
With this set up, you would have less crit rate, at about 49%. You dropped the crit and armor pen for AA haste and melee power. Is this worth it? Because really:

a) How much crit rate is sufficient? seems like there is no soft cap on it like stats, so is higher the better? and of course what good is high crit without having soft cap str, high enough WS (with PB tactic), then some melee power on top for even more damage. So maybe sacrificing the 6% crit from set bonus in favor of 99 melee power is a good approach? But that depends on how melee power functions, which brings us..

b) How good is 99 melee power really? once str is soft capped of course. I can imagine we would be hitting squishies for bigger numbers but not so much on tanks (this is where the 6% armor pen set bonus from option#1 above is more favorable)

c) AA haste bonus looks underwhelming. Ok so we get to AA more often. Which is NOT the source of our big hits unfortunately now that PB tactic is "fixed/working as intended for mutation-required abilities". Btw PB would not be game breaking if they left it working for all attacks and abilities (AA included) but I digress.. so AA haste as a set bonus is pretty meh to me unless someone else proves otherwise.

3. 5 Sov/2warlord/2 sentinel. You get now 3 str bonuses instead of 2. I think thats the worst of the options because the 3rd str bonus should not be needed to soft cap str.

4. I saw one post about mara rocking a full defensive sov to fulfill a specific guild role. Intetesting but seems out of the ordinary.

Any insight is always appreciated.

Thanks again!
Foofmongers brut/monstro build is amazing and it is my favourite build to run. Though, I suggest if you play wb better go monstro/brut all the time because you stay alive longer and apply more pressure with harder hitting aoe and its still very good without high end gear whereas the other speccs imo begin to get viable with almost BiS gear...
I personally go like this:
WB/city = monstro/brut
scenarios (without another healdebuffer like chopper) = sav/brut
scenarios (with another heal debuffer)/roaming = brut/monstro
Although I will try to go ap drain specc or brut/monstro sometime in city.

1./2. : How you gear is your choice. I went for 5pc/3pc sov first and then went on to get another 2pc sov to switch around but I also see many maras who go for 5pc sov/3pc warlord first.
Like I switch my speccs on where or what I play I tend to switch my gear with the specc.
For wb/city: 5pc sov/3pc warlord for crit and armor pen and big pressure on blobs.
sc (sav/brut): I go 5warlord/3sov for the 99 melee power and the AA haste
roaming : I actually experiment with full vanq (sov cloak and sov jewel for str. bonus) on this one because the 4% more damage. In this specc I slot flanking with results in 19% more raw dmg from behind.

a) a high crit rate is essential as mara because much dps is coming from your crits due to crit dmg tactic! so the higher the crit the better. Tho you almost always has FoF slotted which is a 20% crit buff with almost all time uptime once triggered. Right now I am between 23 and ~28crit depending on gear and I think this is sufficent. Ofc you can go higher with sentinel jewel etc pp

b) 99 melee power is not that big of a dps increase actually (around 17 I think) but yes if you are soft capped str this is bascially the only way to increase dps.

c) AA is quite a good source of dps imo. Especially with brut proc (maybe I should try the AA haste gear with brut/monstro in retroperspectice lol) I would not underestimate your AA hits (critting for 700+)

3) it all depends...if you get 3 str bonues you can slot wounds talis and be more alive. But yes in gerenal it is sufficient to mix 2 sets. Mixing 3 sets is something even I ahvent got into. Imo the "best" BiS mix is sov/triumphan/sent (warlord) but I have to experiment with that

4) yes I actually think I know who you are talking about. This particular mara is the MA in the guild city wb and as such he has to stay alive as long as possible to call out targets and to debuff them....the killing is the task of the other dps who assist on him

TL;DR: Imo it all depends on gear and specc and how you want to play. That is what I love about the mara. There are many possibilites to play where other classes literally have one and only one viable specc

If you have more questions feel free to add me as a friend in game and ask me when I am online. My char is "Navek"
85 Mara
80 Choppa
80 Zealot

Moonbiter
Posts: 66

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#7 » Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:24 pm

Hi. Can you provide a link to "Foofmongers amazing brut/monstro build", please?

User avatar
Pandastyle
Posts: 129

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#8 » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:09 pm

afaik its something like this:

RoR.builders - Marauder

note that the "amazing" is my personal opinion! Its sad that we basically cant have the heal debuff and the KD without sacrificing much dmg but hey we are no WL ;) (although tbh idk if WL can have both)

you can put the remaining 2 points in brut (thats what I do) or you can put it in monstro but I dont see much sense in that. If you got the endgame gear you can swap brute force tactic for e.g. flanking
85 Mara
80 Choppa
80 Zealot

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zediscool
Posts: 7

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#9 » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:39 pm

Pandastyle wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:09 pm afaik its something like this:

RoR.builders - Marauder

note that the "amazing" is my personal opinion! Its sad that we basically cant have the heal debuff and the KD without sacrificing much dmg but hey we are no WL ;) (although tbh idk if WL can have both)

you can put the remaining 2 points in brut (thats what I do) or you can put it in monstro but I dont see much sense in that. If you got the endgame gear you can swap brute force tactic for e.g. flanking
Yeah the burst is quite decent given that you are high rr (w/ max or 3 crit levels) and have some sov pieces. IMO all brutality tree needs is CD reduction on MA to 30s, better unstable convulsions tactic i.e. 100% chance to remove enchantments, or keep the 50% but make it work on both enchantments and blessings, and.. this is a stretch, but.. a pounce to adress marauder lack of mobility. Maybe have it sit at 13 pt. deep in brut tree and replace the m4 that no one uses? Closing the gap is very hard with marauder to apply burst and we need to be smart about when to engage. The only reliable gap closing tool mara has is terrible embrace which is best used on the targets back since undefendable from behind, or on rdps/heal classes who dont stack parry. However when smart opponents retreat and see mara tendril, they will jump to do a 180 to face you momentarily so they will have a chance to block/parry it. So TE is only useful when target retreats and if mara can maintain a distance of 50-60 ft. Honestly if mara gets a pounce then that would be a Godsend. Perhaps a tendril that wraps around the victim, pulling the mara forward at great speed (exactly opposite of TE) with long 40s CD, or with 30s CD shared with TE, so mara has to choose between pounce or pull not have both available. And the fact that pounce would be 13pt into brut tree means it is not easily accessable to other mara playstyles: debuff and aoe. But Im sure I will get lots of pushback from players and devs alike.

User avatar
Kalt
Posts: 103

Re: Marauder questions, thoughts and hopes

Post#10 » Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:22 pm

I'm curious about how a full invader set + warlord cloak , sentinel jewel with crit tali perform for a brutality build.
You have 55% crit for brut ability , 45% crit for AA , 29% auto attack haste (aa each 1.7 second ) and 25% aa damage who stack with the brut proc (125 % main hand , 100% offhand when both proc together )
Seems like a solid choice for a brut build imo. Anyone try it ?
And how it perform against the regular 5sov/2senti/2warlord or 5 warlord/2 sov/ 2 senti ?

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