@ BioWare: Is the population wrong or did Marauders Need Buffs & Mercs Nerfs?

[Thiella]

Marauders/Sentinel have insane burst. They kill you too quick. I don't know if their total damage is fine but their burst must drop. This is one more unbalanced class. If we want to play an unbalanced game we could stay at wow. If you want us to pay for this game you must balanced it soon....

 

So yes, marauders need nerf

Edited October 1, 2012 by Thiella

[Kontraz]

Marauders/Sentinel have insane burst. They kill you too quick. I don't know if their total damage is fine but their burst must drop. This is one more unbalanced class. If we want to play an unbalanced game we could stay at wow. If you want us to pay for this game you must balanced it soon....

 

So yes, marauders need nerf

 

I am SERIOUSLY confused as to why so many people claim this is "one more unbalanced class"

 

What classes are so uber that they are completely unbalanced?

 

Snipers have highest single-target burst in the game from what I've seen.

Mercs (if played properly) are effectively able to DoT, kite, or otherwise out-dps most melee classes, with the proper use of stuns

marauders have great burst, but are squishy as hell. against them it is a dps race, pure and simple.

 

I mean, I just don't get why so many people are crying for better balance. I used to subscribe to the idea that certain classes are just better than others. After seeing what other classes in the right hands are capable of, I have changed my opinion to that of certain classes are not better than others, but instead EASIER than others.

 

Some classes have easier rotations, simpler abilities, etc etc. Other classes, like merc, are completely capable of outperforming other classes, but require a lot more time invested into the class in order to master them. It does not make them a worse class, just a more difficult class.

[Thiella]

Marauders/Sentinels have insane burst. The highest at the game. Snipers can't kill so fast. They do pretty much damage but they can't compare to Marauders/Sentinels. And my chars are geared. Maybe not the best geared out there but all Marauders/Sentinels kill me really FAST. At 1.4 are by far the most unbalanced class. And this must be change soon. Not after 3-4 months. They are OP already enough time....

 

And ofc you can't compare them to any dot class. Maybe their dps is fine, I don't know. But their burst isn't...

Edited October 1, 2012 by Thiella

[Siorac]

It's my personal belief that Sentinels/Marauders are designed to be better at 1v1 than other classes, and I like it that way (I actually have neither a Sentinel nor a Marauder, but I do have a 46 Commando). I don't want all classes to have equal abilities in all situations. I'm not saying that Commandos don't maybe need another buff, but in my ideal world, classes like Commandos and Sages do their best to get away from a 1v1 with a Sentinel or Marauder of equal player skill, while providing more to the team fight than a Sentinel would (this is the part that might not currently be true).

 

I don't know if Bioware thinks the same way, but it seems that way.

 

And that is why the spec that revolves around an AoE ability got a huge buff?

 

Marauders had two insanely good specs before 1.4 and one that was slightly inferior but still much better than most specs in the game. Now they just have three insane ones. They can dish out the AoE pain now without worrying about resource management and such while their PvP tanking potential is still there (the "Marauders are squishy" comments always make me laugh).

 

Yes, I'm quite bitter that Vigilance was nerfed, that many other specs were not touched but Bioware ensured that Sentinels/Marauders have three equally powerful specs so that someone who wants to wield two lightsabers can be certain of being at the very top of the food chain.

[Xerain]

Marauders/Sentinels have insane burst. The highest at the game. Snipers can't kill so fast. They do pretty much damage but they can't compare to Marauders/Sentinels. And my chars are geared. Maybe not the best geared out there but all Marauders/Sentinels kill me really FAST. At 1.4 are by far the most unbalanced class. And this must be change soon. Not after 3-4 months. They are OP already enough time....

 

And ofc you can't compare them to any dot class. Maybe their dps is fine, I don't know. But their burst isn't...

 

Marauders still can't burst as well as a sniper or pyro merc/pt... so what are you talking about?

[Larry_Dallas]

 

marauders have great burst, but are squishy as hell. against them it is a dps race, pure and simple.

 

Mayyyyybe that could be said about Carnage, but that's about it. Which DPS (dps, not tank hybrid) is more durable than an anni marauder? Nothing. Than a Rage mara? An annihilation mara and that's it (Rage Jugg's probably on par).

[Hexdoll]

No one said at 99% damage reduction. Did I say that? You quoted my post so it's now on this page twice for you to read.

 

And I guess 1v1's = most important pvp now huh.

 

Then I dont know what you are talking about .....

 

yes 1v1 is a micro of the macro....so what combination levels out the Mara OPness? 8 marauders vs. 8 other dps or tank.....what combo of other dps or tank wins? all other things being equal.

[L-RANDLE]

Marauders are "killing machines" because you fill their resolve before Undying Rage. L2P and shut up

 

Which is why they shouldn't be CC'd early in a fight, but the question is can you win a DPS race without filling their resolve, and most of the time the answer is no.

 

 

But I stil have no luv for the TM spammers, its just funny how the TM spammers and facestompping maras are locked in the heat of a troll battle.

 

 

EPIC!!:D

[Xerain]

Which is why they shouldn't be CC'd early in a fight, but the question is can you win a DPS race without filling their resolve, and most of the time the answer is no.

 

 

But I stil have no luv for the TM spammers, its just funny how the TM spammers and facestompping maras are locked in the heat of a troll battle.

 

 

EPIC!!:D

 

You need to soft CC them down... aka snare and root, then keep distance on them. Either that or hard CC them and focus them down right away. There's your options.

[L-RANDLE]

You need to soft CC them down... aka snare and root, then keep distance on them. Either that or hard CC them and focus them down right away. There's your options.

 

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. (As Jay Cutler says, "Whatever"...). My main is a Sage, I know how to TRY to kite them.....

 

Maras/Sents still need a real nerf though. I won't hate on the Rage buff, but UDR/GBF should have been nerfed to 40% reduction, and moved into the freaking RAGE tree instead of "buffing" the tree. Screw the timer change crap, your DPS is your defense. It's too much, you have better CD's than my PvP tank.

[Jo-Han]

Marauders still can't burst as well as a sniper or pyro merc/pt... so what are you talking about?

 

This. A good pyro has insane burst damage. It makes the Marauder/Sentinel burst look silly in comparison. And the highest Marauder/Sentinel burst spec is also the squishiest. So there is a trade-off. I play a combat sentinel myself and I have pretty high burst damage, but if a pyro gets me I die every time if I dont have guarded by the force on CD and even then its a toss up.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Jo-Han

[kcol]

When TTK was higher, and people didn't understand sent/mara mechanics(pre 1.2), they were fine. You can't establish a high enough HP for the damage that is being delt by all classes.....hence the dieing in 6secs. If the situation was truly a 1v1, you should have a 50/50 chance of a win or loss. But in the small scale of these 8 man wz's, there is not enough space to create separation which allows 1v2 1v3 and sometimes 1v4 with the current FOTM of rage/focus mara/sent and past (combat/focus).

[Xerain]

When TTK was higher, and people didn't understand sent/mara mechanics(pre 1.2), they were fine. You can't establish a high enough HP for the damage that is being delt by all classes.....hence the dieing in 6secs. If the situation was truly a 1v1, you should have a 50/50 chance of a win or loss. But in the small scale of these 8 man wz's, there is not enough space to create separation which allows 1v2 1v3 and sometimes 1v4 with the current FOTM of rage/focus mara/sent and past (combat/focus).

 

I seriously see no problem in TTK from pre 1.2 to post. Things still die just as fast to me no matter what spec I am.

[Thiella]

This. A good pyro has insane burst damage. It makes the Marauder/Sentinel burst look silly in comparison. And the highest Marauder/Sentinel burst spec is also the squishiest. So there is a trade-off. I play a combat sentinel myself and I have pretty high burst damage, but if a pyro gets me I die every time if I dont have guarded by the force on CD and even then its a toss up.

 

So, pyro needs a nerf. No problems with that. But for sure you need a nerf too. And fast. As, you say you have pretty high damage. This must change asap. Marauder/Sentinel must not permitted to have this burst. Its quite unbalanced. If you can't understand why the high burst is a problem at pvp I can't do anything ....

[Siorac]

So, pyro needs a nerf. No problems with that. But for sure you need a nerf too. And fast. As, you say you have pretty high damage. This must change asap. Marauder/Sentinel must not permitted to have this burst. Its quite unbalanced. If you can't understand why the high burst is a problem at pvp I can't do anything ....

 

Meh, they're welcome to their damage. It's their defensive cooldowns that cause the problem. Having both stealth and an invincibility button - oh, and a great flat damage reduction CD that can be up for 30 seconds every minute - is quite insanely brilliant for a pure DPS class.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Siorac

[DkSharktooth]

They uses lightsabers and force choke people. Thats why.

 

You cant argue with devs when they play warriors, and this game is about starwars which is all about lightsabers.

 

I don't think the Devs or their testers actually play this game.

[ArchangelLBC]

Allow me to offer some critique to your analysis.

 

I doubt that it will convince anyone since facts have little to no power in this community, but here is a guide on how to kite a marauder (this works the same for scoundrels, with just a few differences). I know you already convinced that it is wrong before even reading it, but maybe that someone that read this post will find it useful:

 

I will analyze the most common spec of 1.3 (this could change with 1.4), annihilation:

 

I should tell you right now that in the opening week or so of 1.4 the main spec we seem to be facing is Rage/Focus. Lots of smashes abounding. Also I'd be much more concerned with Carnage but you admit they're unkiteable, so I'll leave that be.

 

Analysis: He has 3 main ways to keep you in melee range, a 12 sec gap closer and 2 snares that last the first 6 sec with a dot and the second 12 sec. He has the ravager skill that you absolutely do not want to inflict the last hit. He has 2 jolly cards in the channeled stun and the force cloak.

 

With you so far. Don't forget the DoTs which heal him, which to my knowledge cannot be cleansed by DPS commandos whose cleanse doesn't work on their DoTs (I honestly am not sure about this actually. I just start cleansing whenever I see an unwanted effect on me, but pretty sure their DoTs aren't cleansable by baseline commando cleanse).

 

Execution: He jumps on you and you are on a 3 sec root. One GCD later he will snare you and another CGD later you are free of the root and he will start the ravager or maul you in the way he most prefers. Assuming 1 GCD due to latency, targeting him and reacting you will start when he snares you. First of all root him. You will be out of CGD roughly at the same time the root ends. Remove the snares and dots and get away, even if he interrupts the ravager he still has 2-3 secs of root. Now you have 2 possible ways to continue from here:

 

Understand that at this point in the analysis, if we're rooting him then we're in Gunnery spec, which is the only Commando spec which offers a root (though in your scenario we're certainly in range to apply it). This will be pertinent in a second. Also, again I'm not sure we're able to cleanse Mara DoTs and Snares. Not all cleanses are created equally you know. My personal opinion here btw would be to save concussion charge for the Ravage here. It interrupts the ravage, knocks them back, and snares them, and if they opened with a leap they can't quickly close the gap (though my snare will run out before theirs will).

 

1) Run and shoot without caring of distance. The snare proc will make you gain additional ground, so you can try to squeeze a full auto in. 9 secs later he jumps on you again and you are back to square 1. If he is not reliant on ravager and understands that snaring you is not a good plan then he will use the 3 sec roots to actually inflict damage on you and this will turn the duel into a damage run. He is only active for 2 GCDs every 12 sec and you can cleanse his dots, but you can use only instant cast. Also after you are under 30% he will start being a menace at range and he has plenty of defenses. This is why choice 2 will not work against good marauders.

 

Ah now see if we're running and snaring we're in Assault spec, which is a totally different spec, so we couldn't have rooted him. Again the knockback is probably my goto, though honestly in the confusion of a big furball I prefer to use my knockback a little more aggressively but still, the point stands.

 

2) Melee him on your terms. Your root will get out of cooldown roughly at the same time his jump will. This is your timer. Shoot instants until you have 1 or 2 secs left on cooldown. Now run towards him and spam that root key. As soon as you get into 4m range the skill will hit and root him. He will probably get one hit on you, probably a snare. You are on the 4 m edge and he is rooted, so even if snared you can get out of range before he gets a second hit in. Cleanse, position yourself at 8-9m (you can see the exact distance from him on his portrait) and execute an 1.5 sec skill, then go into full auto. He will get out of root while under the effect of full auto. Start running again shooting instants. Now he will run in the opposite direction for a second and jump on you. Back to square 1. This is a more damage effective version of choice 2, but requires a bit more from the player to pull off.

 

Again I just want to point out that Commandos receive no baseline snare or root, outside of the short duration snare attached to concussion charge. I will continue assuming that this is advice for gunnery commandos since you also talked about full auto, but you're talking about Annihilation spec which has a 0m minimum range on leap so nothing's stopping them from leaping to you at 8-9m unless you assume they leapt to you on cooldown. Stockstrike is on a 9s cooldown actually so you might want to run a tad sooner to bait that Leap. Also I'd honestly back up to 5-7m. Going further is a waste of time.

 

Both these choices still work even if he is at full resolve.

 

I know, the commando has to work a lot more than the marauder. I'm sorry to say this, but you enrolled for a hard class to play with when you rolled a commando.

 

Notice that until now i have not considered the use of the the force choke or cloak, while at the same time i have not considered the use of concussion charge and cryo grenade.

 

Well admittedly the knockback option doesn't work if he's at full resolve, but again we can either root him for 4 seconds, or we can snare and run. We can't do both. Also yes, thank you for telling us we rolled a class which is very difficult to squeeze top performance out of in PVP. As low an opinion as you have of us "whiners" let me assure you that we are aware of this fact.

 

Concussion charge is a nice way to get away if you screwed up somewhere.

The use of force cloak and force choke differs a lot from marauder to marauder, cryo grenade should be your way out of the situations they will be able to create. Also remember to use your defensive CD if he gets a prolonged burst on you.

 

My opinion is that Reactive Shield and Adrenaline Rush should be used almost immediately. It's a very poor defensive cooldown for an emergency situation. But it lasts awhile, so my opinion is you should use it early to try to blunt his ability to get a lead. Also know that Cryo is our only real hard defense against UR unless Tech Override is up (which, it IS funny to Concussion Round someone then heal yourself up right in front of them).

 

This is it for annihilation spec. For other specs i don't have enough experience fighting them, but while i see rage being kiteable with standard methods in the fact that it has a 15 sec cd on the long jump, i don't see carnage kiteable with that many roots, and after all they are pretty much specced to avoid that so it would be a bit unfair for you to be able to.

 

I see Force Exhaustion (or whatever the Warrior equivalent is) being an issue creating distance since I assume most will leap in and immediately use this ability to get their 4 singularity stacks (or whatever Imps call their stacks). Keep in mind they also get a 10m leap, and I THINk they can use that against targets in cover from second hand reports I'm getting from some of my guild gunslingers. I have a combat sent myself (still level 46) so while it's the spec I know the best, it's also the one I see us having the least viable tools against.

 

I thank you for attempt at helping us. It's very well meaning and I do appreciate someone doing more than saying "L2P", but you did seem to have some confusion between assault spec vs. gunnery spec which seems to majorly impact what you admit is probably our best option.

 

Snipers have highest single-target burst in the game from what I've seen.

Mercs (if played properly) are effectively able to DoT, kite, or otherwise out-dps most melee classes, with the proper use of stuns

marauders have great burst, but are squishy as hell. against them it is a dps race, pure and simple.

 

I'll grant you that snipers have some incredibly sick single target burst. Having a lot of fun on my lowbie sniper. Just got followthrough and it's pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie. Being able to cast without fear of interrupts isn't too shaby either.

 

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take issue on the DoT, kite, or otherwise out-dps most melee classes with proper use of stuns comment though. DoT perhaps, but seriously the kiting tools available to merc/commando are very....subpar shall we say. I'm glad you don't seem to see a problem and please post a guide on how to do it properly. I really am willing to give it a fair shake, but blatantly asserting crap like that under the "if properly played" line is a little irksome. Also Sent/Maras and Infil Shadows/Deception Sins can out burst us, which is all the DPS that matters in PVP (though those Shadows/Sins are very squishy when their cooldowns are well on cooldown).

 

Maras squishy as hell though? What are you smoking? I mean poorly geared maras are squishy. They kinda make me giggle because I think they read all the things people (including me) post about commandos being free kills and think we're talking to THEM, and then they discover that they let us actually get off 2-3 grav rounds and now they have a 9-10k burst coming to the face, and since they're poorly geared that's probably the rest of their health. Good ones though with good gear? Not so squishy. Ones with healers? Freaking wrecking balls. Yes I know we should be focusing down the healer, but that mara is gonna kill at least one person while that happens, maybe two, so you better have a LOT available to focus that mara (of course if CCs are up then yeah Hard CC and super focus down ftw).

 

Honestly one of the biggest problems for commandos is they work best in a team setting, but pugs coordinate badly. Premades coordinate a lot better of course, but that works both ways because their premades know to focus healers, take out DPS that are easily shutdown, then focus on the rest. Feels like a pretty big Catch 22 some days.

[Jherad]

Honestly one of the biggest problems for commandos is they work best in a team setting, but pugs coordinate badly. Premades coordinate a lot better of course, but that works both ways because their premades know to focus healers, take out DPS that are easily shutdown, then focus on the rest. Feels like a pretty big Catch 22 some days.

 

That's pretty much the heart of the problem right there. DPS commandos require a lot of support, but when both teams are organized (eg. in ranked), then the commando is the obvious focus choice, and effectively nullified right from the start. Our intended role appears to be 'owning undergeared pugs in a premade standard warzone'.

 

Btw yeah annihilation dots are cleanse-able and you should hit it as soon as you get that weird 'force fire' look on you. Nobody (good) is running annihilation for PvP these days though, except maybe for giggles.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Jherad

[Spoletta]

Well thought and appreciated post

 

So let me understand, you read my awfully long post, tried to understand it, and then proceeded to answer: " I don't think this will work due to x,y and z reason"?

 

Someone please clone this guy immediately, we need at least 100 more of him on this forum!

 

I'm serious, i really appreciated your answer.

 

Now on the topic:

 

1) I don't consider commandos whiners, that comment had a much less generic target. If that came as offensive to the whole commandos community, then i'm sorry, it was not my intention.

 

2) I can tell you that all effects applied by marauders/sentinels are physical, and so can be cleansed. The only effects that you can't remove alone are the leap root and the force crush.

 

3) Since many commandos complained that they were screwed in pvp (which made me assume gunnery) due to the nerf to sweltering heat i thought that gunnery commandos run with 7 points in the assault tree. If that is not the case then what do you have to take out to get those 7 points? Assuming that you have that snare, would you consider that guide in a different way? I'm seriously interested in your opinion.

 

4) I know that UR is usually countered with a grenade, but in the case that you get to kite them in an effective way then UR is nothing more than having to kite for 4 more secs, he is still getting rooted/snared as normal.

 

5) Indeed i was wrong on the minimum range of the leap for annihilation. Nothing serious, it means that he does not need to run away, but thanks for pointing it out.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Spoletta

[Jherad]

3) Since many commandos complained that they were screwed in pvp (which made me assume gunnery) due to the nerf to sweltering heat i thought that gunnery commandos run with 7 points in the assault tree. If that is not the case then what do you have to take out to get those 7 points? Assuming that you have that snare, would you consider that guide in a different way? I'm seriously interested in your opinion.

 

Gunnery commandos typically run with armor piercing cell rather than plasma, so there is no synergy with sweltering heat. Usually gunnery commandos will go 3 or 5 points into assault, with the rest in CM. The people complaining about that particular nerf are assault spec.

 

If there is anything else you'd like to know about commandos in order for you to teach us how to play our class, please do let me know.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Jherad

[DkSharktooth]

the problem with that is you cant jump to snipers but u sure as h3ll can jump to any other ranged class. so enlighten everyone how to stay at range when a) ranged classes are turrets and b) stay out of the way from being jumped to while we are being a turret

 

An essential flaw of the merc class.

[Chaoskyx]

If there is anything else you'd like to know about commandos in order for you to teach us how to play our class, please do let me know.

 

lulz

 

Spoletta, while I appreciate your relative civility, you clearly do not have enough experience with the class to make a guide on it.

[Spoletta]

Hmm i had to remove that guy from ignore to read that. Quite a blunder to not take the cells into consideration, so no snare.

Still i think that in response to a leap is possible to root, cleanse and get away then play with instants and spare the concussive charge for the second leap. This should give you some more damage on him.

[anwg]

Hmm i had to remove that guy from ignore to read that. Quite a blunder to not take the cells into consideration, so no snare.

Still i think that in response to a leap is possible to root, cleanse and get away then play with instants and spare the concussive charge for the second leap. This should give you some more damage on him.

 

Might work against a marauder that can't be bothered to use cooldowns, like predation, camo, cc breaker, choke, fear and so on.

[Spoletta]

You are going to eat them anyway, giving them something more to counter surely is not helpful for them. If you don't rely on this new root, your answers to a leap are concussive charge and...?