Darkmad vs Marauder/Sentinel

[Astarica]

There's a lot of crazy exaggerations on both sides.

 

You can only get 3 stacks of HD in 6 seconds if you started with 100 Force and your Thrash proced Energize. You can only do this once (at the start of a fight, if you started with 100 Force). It takes more like 10 seconds to get 3 stacks consistently just due to Force regen consideration. This is why you shouldn't try to get 3 stacks against a Marauder because they do have a lot of ways to interrupt it.

 

Force Lightning is uninterruptible with ANY stack of HD. Cast it with any stacks of HD and you'll see the Unshakeable buff pop up while casting.

 

This fight is close enough that you either never played anyone good or are exaggerating if you say it definitely goes one way or another. Force Camo and Undying Rage are very difficult CDs to handle, and on the flip side the Darknesss's Assassin's durability + ability to kite + Force Shroud similarly presents a huge problem for the Marauder. While it's not a cliche 'best player will win' but it can certainly go either way depending on how the fight started.

[Abiza]

Thats still quite some time for a mara/sent to chew on you, and surely enough to put you on half health if you don't use CD's like u say.

 

Not as much time as you think. I won't be at half HP by then. 75% maybe at most. I'm too good at slowing down your damage.

 

You can only get 3 stacks of HD in 6 seconds if you started with 100 Force and your Thrash proced Energize.

 

I'm 31/0/10, unlike you(I believe if memory serves me correctly). I don't need to hope for an energize proc to build another HD and can reliably build them much faster.

 

-I'm done with this thread and it's "imma do this when you do that, bulls&*t." If any of you "good maras/sents" happen to be on Dark Reaper, hit me up. I'd be more than happy to silence all you naysayers. I'll even record it. Inbox me if so.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Abiza

[Astarica]

The cheapest way to generate 3 stacks of HD in terms of Force would be Wither X 2 + Shock + FL. This uses 129 Force.

 

This takes 12.4 seconds to regen enough Force at 10.4/s. To go faster than that is a mathematical impossibilty just on Force regen arguments.

 

Sure you start with 100 Force, so you can model this as if you're 3 seconds away from getting 3 stacks of HD. After that you're still stuck with 1 FL every 12.4 seconds.

 

Of course this assumes you start with 100 Force, which is actually pretty rare in anything but a duel for a Darkness spec (ability to get rid of Force quickly is a strong point of Darkness), and that you never used any other Force consuming ability.

 

By the way if you go by this, in a fight that lasted 28 seconds you could get 3 FLs off if you never used any other ability that consumed Force, though it's not hard for a Marauder to avoid 2 of them (Force Choke, Force Camo). He can do better but those two abilities will definitely stop a FL without drawback (UR stops FL but might not be smart to use it just because you saw someone do a FL). So your strategy against a good Marauder is hoping a single 3 stack HD FL killed him?

 

This fight is very close and can swing either way. Assassin probably has a small advantage due to range + speed, but since this fight tends to be over rather quickly (28s is a very long time for both characters to be alive given their relative power) it's quite possible you never get any full FLs off. You can actually beat them with just Wither/Shock but you got to have some very amazing footwork to kite them like that.

 

And if you're talking about 1on1 in some kind of duel, might as well go get Shockfrozen water (those still work for 1 charge I think) and then you'll never lose any particular duel. Force Cloak + Mind Trap + Seethe is generally instant win in a duel but I've never seen anyone pull that off in an actual WZ unless two guys are literally fighting in the middle of nowhere.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Astarica

[Sengar]

All depends on how the combat begins. If the darkness assassin starts the fight from stealth, jumping the marauder, in my experience I win every time. If the marauder comes at me without jumping (turn a corner and both see each other in melee range), it'll be a tough fight. If he jumps at me to start the fight, I win.

 

For the darkness folks, go 11 points up deception for 15% run speed, faster interrupts/stun breaks, and allow blackout to regen your force. That really helps with dueling, especially on healers and marauders.

 

 

And yes, cloak + mind trap + seethe is just evil Especially since we have no dots if you go darkness.

[Sengar]

This takes 12.4 seconds to regen enough Force at 10.4/s. To go faster than that is a mathematical impossibilty just on Force regen arguments.

 

Look up the talent dark embrace (tier 1), then redo your maths.

[Astarica]

Look up the talent dark embrace (tier 1), then redo your maths.

 

No one with Harnessed Darkness is going to have Dark Embrace. Those two trees literally don't make sense together since Darkness Assassins tend to stay in combat forever due to not dying.

[Sengar]

27/11/0 build

 

Picks up run speed, increased stealth, increased interrupts, with the extra force you need to take down the very resilient targets using darkswell + dark embrace. Harnessed darkness with deception goodies.

 

Can click blackout to gain the force regeneration, or force cloak.

 

Build is extremely useful in current wz's, and is ONLY designed for pvp. Wouldn't try to tank much in it.

 

 

There is not much you can get for those 10 points over in madness. Thrash/shocks cost less, and the double shock chance. For me, the utility of deception is superior.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Sengar

[-Oreos-]

you won't be getting whither which i doubt u'll be able to build 3 ticks of harnessed in a sufficient amount of time. apparently the godlike tanksin that speaks in this thread can build 3 ticks in 6 seconds.

 

too bad i'm not on reaper or i'd duel that tank sin.

Edited April 6, 2012 by -Oreos-

[Astarica]

I dusted my Assassin to make sure I haven't forgotten how to play him and it seems like 1/3 of the WZ are Marauder these days. Fought quite a few of them and I find that at least for 31/0/10, it's all about how good your footwork is. Keep them at 5-9m and you pretty much never lose, though of course that's easier said than done. Outside 4m they do basically do no damage and can't generate rage, so even when they do close in with a charge they can't do much damage.

 

Without Wither, kiting is probably not possible because you're the same speed (Force Slow uses up a GCD for basically no damage, which is usually a bad trade, and it won't last long enough anyway). I don't think you can actually beat a Marauder in a toe-to-toe fight (doesn't necessarily mean you stay still, as long as you can't get him out of the 4m range it can be considered a toe-to-toe fight) but nobody says you've to fight fair. It's actually pretty funny when you Force Speed out of their Charge root and you'll see them sort of just walk around dazed because they're slower than you and have no possible way of get to melee range. Granted this strat works on virtually any melee class but it's actually needed to win versus Marauders, whereas other classes you don't need to be so fancy.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Astarica

[Sengar]

I dusted my Assassin to make sure I haven't forgotten how to play him and it seems like 1/3 of the WZ are Marauder these days. Fought quite a few of them and I find that at least for 31/0/10, it's all about how good your footwork is. Keep them at 5-9m and you pretty much never lose, though of course that's easier said than done. Outside 4m they do basically do no damage and can't generate rage, so even when they do close in with a charge they can't do much damage.

 

Without Wither, kiting is probably not possible because you're the same speed (Force Slow uses up a GCD for basically no damage, which is usually a bad trade, and it won't last long enough anyway). I don't think you can actually beat a Marauder in a toe-to-toe fight (doesn't necessarily mean you stay still, as long as you can't get him out of the 4m range it can be considered a toe-to-toe fight) but nobody says you've to fight fair. It's actually pretty funny when you Force Speed out of their Charge root and you'll see them sort of just walk around dazed because they're slower than you and have no possible way of get to melee range. Granted this strat works on virtually any melee class but it's actually needed to win versus Marauders, whereas other classes you don't need to be so fancy.

 

Aye, which is why I have deception rather than madness talents. 15% in combat run speed means kiting is an option for alot of the melee types, and the 10m range on shock means I can be stacking HD charges while I'm kiting. I find that very little of the combat is actually spent kiting, just long enough to get 2 charges down. So 6-10 secs of dancing to get things set up.

 

I've also noticed that a huge number of marauders are pvping right now. Jumping around combined with highly publicized dps ability has folks coming out in droves, which makes for easy pickings. Finding really well played marauders is rare.

[Astarica]

Aye, which is why I have deception rather than madness talents. 15% in combat run speed means kiting is an option for alot of the melee types, and the 10m range on shock means I can be stacking HD charges while I'm kiting. I find that very little of the combat is actually spent kiting, just long enough to get 2 charges down. So 6-10 secs of dancing to get things set up.

 

I've also noticed that a huge number of marauders are pvping right now. Jumping around combined with highly publicized dps ability has folks coming out in droves, which makes for easy pickings. Finding really well played marauders is rare.

 

Well if you got Wither you're basically 50% faster than the enemy (100% vs 70%) so you wouldn't need the runspeed boost. If you're going for 27/X/X it might make sense but the mid tier Madness talents are really good too.

 

It's not so much that you're trying to kill the Marauder from range (he will always get back in melee range when you FL for sure), but that you spend the time building HD stacks so that he can't hit you to build more rage. Also forcing them to use up their charge early means your KB can really mess them when used at the right time.

 

All the Marauders I went against didn't use Force Camo and without it, Marauders are quite easy to beat. Of course, Force Camo is their strongest defensive CD, so that's not saying much, but I'll take the easy wins.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Astarica