A New MMO Player's Perspective on Marauders

[claihmsolais]

I am writing this because I just wanted to offer my own view on the Marauder advanced class to players new to TOR and those arguing on the forums alike. Keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion, with as many facts as I could gather, but ultimately, it is still based on my perception and experience in playing a Marauder.

 

 

 

While I'm not new to MMOs per se, I am new to this kind of MMO, never having played things like World of Warcraft before. I spent a couple of years playing EVE Online, and will likely someday go back there. While that makes me a complete newbie at these game mechanics, I did take a few things from EVE:

 

1) Teamwork and cooperation is key. In EVE, when you are running an operation, whether it's a combat fleet or a mining operation, everyone, even the person doing the most menial job, is important. Personally, I ran statistics and numbers for my Corporation in EVE, and flew CAP. What that means, effectively, was that I spent most of my time docked, and crunching numbers, or hauling ore for others while crunching numbers. Was it boring? Yes. But the company made it fun, and in the end, the job was important.

 

2) No man is an island...or a one-man army, as the case may be. Even a player kitted out in the best Navy-Issue warship in EVE will get blasted out of space if he tries to take on an entire fleet by himself in PvP. That's why there are fleets. You don't play alone. And because you don't play alone, you have a role to fulfill. You may choose your role, but in the end, to be effective, you have to play it well.

 

 

 

Now that that is out of the way, here is what I first thought when I played a Marauder:

 

"Holy crap, what the hell is this ****? I thought I was supposed to carve up stuff with my two lightsabers!"

 

And I didn't. To be honest, my PvE and PvP experience as a Marauder to begin with was utterly underwhelming. Many of the threads I read through to look for help argued about things - use Quinn (the healer companion), don't use him, keep your gear updated, learn to play, etc, etc...

 

In fact, when I first started playing a Marauder, I was so bad at it that even at level 40 or so I was consistently doing less than 50k damage in war zones. Yes, I admit it. I was terrible at playing this class. Then I hit 50, and it got even worse, because I actually rather enjoy the PvE aspect of this game more than the PvP aspect, and so I entered the 50s zone (after the 1.1 patch) woefully unprepared, not only gear-wise, but also skill-wise.

 

 

 

But I liked the class archetype, and decided to stick with it. And you know what I found out? Marauders really do take off after level 25 or so, for PvE and PvP. I rolled a Sentinel to try the same archetype but experience another class story. Played that until 34, and decided to switch servers to an RP-PvP server instead of the pure PvP server I was on.

 

I rolled yet another Marauder as a main. And I decided I would get a head start on the curve this time and try and PvP early. And something strange happened: Suddenly, I was doing, I wouldn't say "well", but definitely better in PvP. Suddenly, hitting 75k damage became not the exception, but the norm for me. In fact, I came to expect that in a game with heavy fighting, I could consistently do 150k or more. I was surviving more and dying less.

 

While I realize that this appears pathetically low compared to some of the 300k-500k damage done especially in the 50s war zones, bear with me here. For me, a new player in this genre, this was already a huge step up. I started instinctively knowing what abilities to use, when to interrupt, and when to engage and when to run, when to use my defensive abilities, and when to go all out offensive and burst someone down.

 

 

 

 

Even more than that...I finally realized that the Marauder, as average as I may be with it, fits my play style perfectly. I don't want to stand on the sidelines and fire into the big melee crowd. I don't want to be the guy that does ridiculous amounts of damage. I am content being the person who runs solo in a suicide run on The Civil War to one turret to try and draw a couple of opponents away from the real assault. Or charge away from my teammate capping the turret or planting the bomb, because I know most people will focus me down, be it because they think I'm a threat or because they think I'm a free kill. With my cooldowns I can last just long enough to buy an extra couple of seconds.

 

I am content to be the person who stands guarding one turret or door by myself even if it means I never get to engage anyone all game. I am content to skirt the edges of the fight and harass and pick my targets, burst them down, and vanish before they can counter attack.

 

And for that, I found that the Marauder has a superb tool set available. Defensive abilities, incredible burst damage, sustained damage (depending on the skill tree)...it more than makes up for the lack of crowd control abilities. Would it be nice if I had a Force Push? Yes, definitely, I wouldn't turn it down if it was offered to me. But can you learn to be effective without it? Absolutely.

 

 

 

I am guessing that, for me, it really was an issue of learning my class, and learning it well. I am still in the process of doing so, and I hope that the people I play with will bear with me as I try and do the class justice as I learn to use it to its full potential. It's really about more than just knowing your enemy...it's about knowing yourself, and your class's abilities, as well.

 

In the end, I can't speak for anyone who likes to see huge damage numbers floating up, and while it's certainly possible with a Marauder, there are easier classes to do that with. I do think the Marauder excels at what its name indicates, though - maraud, harass, and distract. More importantly, I'm having fun playing the class, and I'm looking forward to seeing how well I can do in the 50s bracket.

 

 

 

Now, on to the facts of this lengthy post:

 

1) I am using the Carnage skill tree. I have used Annihilation before, and while I respect the survivability it gives, and the incredible burst damage from Annihilate, there are two advantages that Carnage has: two root abilities (if skilled into it, although Displacement is almost unavoidable) that come in very, very handy for PvP. (Saber throw root over a Huttball fire pit, anyone?)

 

2) I did my best to keep my gear up to date while leveling. Mainly oranges with blue and purple mods, all the way up to 50. I did decently well with that in PvE, and after two operations, my guild was kind enough to grant me a couple of pieces of the loot, so I am now at four Columni pieces equivalent. I'm saving commendations/crystals for a Tionese main hand, hoping to have it soon-ish. That negated a lot of problems I had especially leveling (on my second time through, I didn't even need Quinn, I swapped out Vette and Jaesa for kicks, and will probably try and gear up Pierce next).

 

3) I did my best to keep my companion's gears up to date. For Vette and Jaesa, whom I used a lot, that means actually more focus on their weapons and Force Power stat (for Jaesa) than their armor, since I can hold aggro pretty reliably.

 

4) Learning when and where to use my defensive abilities. One forum post here said it best when he said, "They are not an OH ****" button. Cloak of Pain especially is meant to be used early to get the full 30 second duration if it is kept up. Most fights will not even last that long.

 

5) For PvP: Don't use everything at the same time. If you're stunned, and three people are ganging up on you, consider carefully if you want to use your breaker and defenses. Is help nearby, or are your team mates in the process of doing something vital (capping a point, planting a bomb)? If yes, then you should and try to buy them time. If not, perhaps it would be best to just die, keep your abilities off cooldown, and respawn.

 

That's about all I have to say. Kudos to everyone who made it through this wall of text, and I hoped it helped someone, at least.

 

 

 

TL;DR: It took me two Marauders and one Sentinel to learn to play the class effectively, but now I have, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

[Kibaken]

Carnage god-tier master race; I approve.

 

You're probably going to get flamed out the *** for the wall of text, but I'm glad you're having fun playing a Marauder.

[AGoldCrayon]

Didn't read it all, but glad you're enjoying the class.

[xDreegan]

Love it. Happy to see a fellow Carnage making that **** WORK! Glad I'm not the only one who feels most rewarded when a team would rather focus me down first instead if our healer.

[SnowVeliers]

Cool. I just subbed and created a marauder as a main character (Still level 11). One thing i could say is i am having fun and i could kill people in pvp especially sages. I don't really care if i die. Because that's it i just died i would still get the same commendation experience and credits anyways. I'll be inclined to do an annihilation spec for DoT's and hopefully i could pwn more @ss in pvp

[miliways]

Respect Knuckles! *pound*

[Foxcolt]

If you were able to overcome the huge learning curve in EVE I have no doubts that you'll do great in this game.

 

I always wanted to get into that game but man..the amount of information you had to process was just too much.

 

I would suggest giving the other specs rage/anni a try once you get some better gear, carnage is fun and all but it just lacks compared to the other two trees despite it being the most fun spec to play imo.

[Myrdoc]

Again, didn't read it all the way, but it's always good to see another carnage marauder having fun and making it work.

[MatAuc]

I'm happy to read a non-QQ thread.

 

Also, I like the fact that you understand that if you die it's because of your lack of experience (possibly skill, but you can only really judge your skill once you have enough experience). Analysing WHY you died, why HE didnt die and what you could have done better is what makes you better. People will just come and QQ on the forums instead of realizing that. You seem to do the opposite and I applaud.

 

And last, I understand you with the Carnage thing, it's fun and all, especially the fact you chain the gore effect and ataru procc with your other 25 abilities is fun and requires actual thinking and planning. BUT it's lacking in PvP for 2 reasons, there is like 1 sec missing on each buff (possibly 2) to squeeze that extra attack in affected by it. And 2nd reason, you might just get outranged after a gore and lose most of its duration making it useless and frustrating (It happens A LOT). Just for those 2 reasons the spec is not viable for PvP. Annihilation is interesting and fun to optimize.

[ZakPreston]

The saddest thing of all this article is:

OP would become much, much more powerful if he had sticked with a less gimped class or even spec.

 

I feel myself so much better playing 32 tankassin in 10-49 WZ:

• have a knockback
  
• have a pull
  
• have a ranged stun
  
• have stealth+kos+vanish
  
• have sap
  
• have a lot of ranged abilities, so I'm unkitable.
  
• my resource system doesn't need spamming low-dmg abilities to start bursting some1
  

But anyway i still keep grinding valor for my Carnage Marauder because i like this class more without any obvious reason. Yes, I rarely give more then 150k dmg and extremely rarely get more then 7 medals, none ever votes mvp for me or guards/heals my wounded butt, I fly like a puppet all over the map being constanly knocked back and die rapidly under focus of 2 or more enemies, and almost none wants to take this useless class in WZ-premades...

 

But I like my class, I like my most gimped spec of all 3 and hope that Bioware would fix our damage and utility somehow. Then I'll be even proud of my Marauder =)

Edited February 9, 2012 by ZakPreston