Marauder Class Review

Monstrosity

Switching from Brutality to Monstrosity, I’m firm in the belief that
Monstrosity is not gimp at all like people think it is. Monstrosity’s strength is threefold:

Survivability, AoE, and Healer Disruption. Arguably Savagery will be the better healer killer with the 75% debuff (would have to test), but the ability for me to AoE knockdown is certainly valuable (you can do the AoE interrupt in Savagery, so both specs/arms have that advantage), but Savagery can’t live up to the survivability power of Monstrosity. With the tactic to boost
toughness, and the monstrosity arm active, I gain a whopping 45 toughness. Combined with the +1 toughness per level
tactic, that’s 65 toughness in all (and brings a template level 20 marauder to 204 toughness). The difference in my survivability when switching these specs is astronomical.

Monstrosity, however, does not live up to it’s AoE name at all, and has a very weak single target game (flail being the main move, my tooltip registers a total 106 damage on flail, I’m 8 points in monstrosity). My AoE combo is Demolition (70 dmg), Concussive Jolt (93), Mouth of Tzeentch (70), Demolition (70)…and then I have to wait 17 seconds for concussive jolt to cooldown before I do it again. Total damage (by tooltip) of this combo is: 203.

In reality I’m sure it hits for more (seems to), but still is rather weak. Usually I can take out only 15-20% of a Bright Wizard’s health with this combo, and less on targets with more toughness. It’s honestly not worth AoEing anything. It could POSSIBLY work with stacking a bunch of AoEers in an organized group (I doubt it…1 AoE heal negates 4-5 dps’ers worth of AoE damage)… but Chosen are much better suited to doing this with Quake + Raze.

My suggestion to Monstrosity is to do 1 of these 4:

• Make Monstrosity into a AoE support line.
• Savagery is already a sort of single target offensive support line,
  Monstrosity could be the same but with AoEs.
• Make Demolition spammable.
• Make Demolition do substantially more damage, and give it a 3s cooldown instead of 5.
• Raise the damage on all our AoE abilities.

Overall

Monstrosity is much more enjoyable then Brutality imo. I have lower DPS, sure, but with some DPS support, we can actually kill a healer with a well timed Concussive Jolt and enough damage.

Problems with Marauder as a Whole

The biggest problem we have is that we’re extremely, as much as Chosen, healer dependent. It’s a requirement to kill anything that isn’t alone. In mass situations (5v5 or more) I still feel like we sit behind the lines way too much because of tab target -> death. Speccing Monstrosity has helped me enormously, but I still can’t contribute without a dedicated healer or 3+ DoKs spamming
AoE heals.

We lack appropriate damage. I’m well out damaged by any RDPS class, even when I’m on top of them (let alone when I’m not!). To me, if I have to brave the front lines, there should be some (huge) benefit to it. Either my damage should be superior, or my CC/control should. Currently RDPS outdo me in both categories, as well as having superior
AoE damage. It’s very frustrating to be rooted, break it, and then be rooted again right afterwards…then a 5s disable after that. I have no way of preventing a group of RDPS from doing these things to me. I’ve said it many times, and with all my heart and head believe it to be the right thing: but CC should be concentrated on defensively specced tanks (Corruption spec for Chosen for example). By putting the CC on tanks, you gain these benefits:

You can always do something about avoiding CC

Stay out of melee range. With the CC focused on the ranged classes as it is, you can’t do this as they CC you from range…or CC you to get out of range. Since healers/RDPS are the best first targets (you won’t kill a SM with a healer), and those 2 archetypes have a thing for standing next to each other, it’s pretty unavoidable that you’re going to have to run into them and be rooted.

Tanks truly become the “protector” types. Still, as they have been for all of the time I’ve been in beta, tanks are still the weakest archetype by far. They don’t contribute anything really meaningful when compared to other classes. Why bring a tank who can debuff things for -30% damage when you can bring a RDPS to root it for -100% damage, or disable it for the same? Their damage also doesn’t compare to RDPS or even melee DPS (to be expected, but I’m listing all the ways they could contribute). The only thing they do well is die well…literally, and most people have figured out they’re no threat, so they ignore them…making that role pretty much obsolete as well.
RDPS become the true squishies they should be (imo the challenge of playing a RDPS should be your own survival…prekiting should be a must), and gain a dependence on having other classes (tanks) around, just like everyone else does atm. This is my biggest gripe about RDPS atm: they depend on no one else in order to be effective, while every other archetype is dependent on another archetype to do their job (all melee need healers atm, and healers generally need DPS, with the exception of the melee healers, but I do know you guys are focusing a lot on adjusting the melee healers so I’ll leave that be). If everyone else is dependent on someone else, it’s only fair to make RDPS depend on something.

Praises to Marauder as a Whole

Ok, praises: first, Wave of Horror. I wish my tanks had this. It’s a (dark) godsend. Second, a renewable snare. Ya, I think it should last much longer (WE snare lasts 15 seconds, mine is 5…which allows for only 2 skills to be used before I have to renew it), but it is SO vital to have such a tool on any melee class. Third: Mutating Release. Consider giving tanks this skill too. Often enough I use it and am just re-rooted, but sometimes that isn’t the case and it allows me to get back in the fight.

I also think the marauder’s look is superb. He still needs tons of polish graphics wise (but that’s the whole game yet), but he looks like a barbaric psycho with a temper…exactly what he should look like! In addition, Convulsive Slashing is my favorite animation so far, and I do like seeing the wave animation of
Demolition spread out over my foes (although it’s bugged yet and doesn’t always fire).

Miscellaneous Improvements that Would be Nice

Some of the animations/sounds I don’t like, they don’t have enough impact. Flail is a good example. It only feels like I’m grazing my target’s skin, not Flailing it off. The same is with animations/sounds for a lot of different skills: they just don’t feel like they have BAM! impact. Take Slam (or any melee stun) in DAoC for example. The sound, the way your target’s body rocks, and the red streaks that circle his feet give a feeling of “BAM! you’ve just been stunned!” (or “BAM! AAAH CRAP!” if you’re the other guy). Eviscerate from WoW rogues produces a similar effect. The explosion of light and telltale sound let you know exactly what just happened. They’re crisp, impactful animations and sounds.

Mouth of Tzeentch, when it interrupts a target, should have some sort of after-effect. I know there’s a tactic that increases your target’s build times by 1s afterwards, but 1s more to spellcasting (and it’s an anti-spellcasting tool) is rather pitiful. It’s better used on melee due to all the instant casts. I rather see, “When
Mouth of Tzeentch interrupts a target, that target can not use skills for X seconds,” with X being approx. 3 seconds.

Monstrosity needs 1 more skill dedicated to it. It only has 4 skills (Flail isn’t listed on the appropriate mastery page btw), while
Savagery and Brutality have 5.