Fix It, But How...

[KammerTime]

I have been reading, and agreeing, with a lot of the thoughts on the Marauder at launch. It is a fun class, but it just feels a bit lacking in a few ways. I feel we should have a buff in a few areas, but how they are going to accomplish this without destroying the lvling play like WoW did i am not sure about. Anyways this is my list of things that I personaly would like to see, soon if possible. Before we start, i am not 50, i am no "expert" at MMOs, i have played Aion and WoW always melee dps because i just love the class idea as a whole.

 

--First thing is what makes a marauder unique, the dual wield. It looks cool and you think it would be amazing The idea here is to increase dps in a dps class, right give the hand doing nothing something to do. And we are 1 of 2 dps ONLY classes, the sniper is the other, so if we have dual wield then the two weapons combined should be the equivalent of a 2haned weapon, what makes it unique is having abils that say need "offhand to work". But after looking at the offhand stats, dual wield is just bad. Abilities are not locked out for dual wielding, they just say can hit with both sabers. The off hand has next to no accuracy, it hits for like 3 or 4 times less than main hand, which is fine you need a limiter here, but this is just straight up dumb. And as a DPS only class i feel that the master of melee combat would be able to wield all types of lightsabers, why not, no lore lost by the choice. And i feel a 2hander would blow my crappy 2 light sabers to bit in dps. THE DUAL WIELD RATIOS NEED TO BE BUFFED.

 

--Next on my list is the no auto attack/all global CDs. The no auto attack is nice, its different, its refreshing, but our rage builder/would be auto is on the same global CD as all other abils, and i do mean all. There are very very few rage spenders not on GCD. In WoW a warrior could rage dump because as he was at/using excess rage he would be in the process of building it up as well, so he could dump but not starve. We have few "dumps" and we have to pick to build or spend, we cant do both. I feel this needs to change. At least assault should come off GCD, give it a 2-3 second cd to keep it from being spammed but this would help. And please make it do some kind of dmg. back to warriors from WoW, in dps their auto-attacks were usually in the top 3 of their dmg dealers, thats huge. i feel out rage builder is just that, rage and next to no dmg, like using a cheese stick to attack.

 

--The cooldown system needs some attention as well. In the last paragraph i mentioned the GCD a bit. And thats the thing we have very very few things not linked on the GCD, one maybe two. and not defensive shields but things like retaliation. Why??? yes we have timed cooldowns but i feel force abils and melee abils would be able to separate on different CDs. like use viscous strike with force scream at the same time, keep in mind it seems OP but thats a huge rage dump and would not be able to be pulled off every 12 seconds unless planned. but would be nice to have that burst option since again we are DPS only so we should be able to do some dmg that makes you go wow.

 

--The range on some abilities needs to be buffed, nothing huge but something. I forget if they use meters or yards so i just going to call them units. Smash is an amazing ability, and really our only real AoE, but its range in only 5 units. Keep in mind that our melee range is 4 units, no in order to do AoE they have to be able to hit you anyways. There have been many times where i use smash and people that seem to be right there arent hit by it. A small buff to 7 units would make soooo much of a difference, i would be able to charge in hit smash and hit the entire circle of mobs keeping them from running to my companion, healing or dmg they always pull off. And the saber throw would be nice to go to say 12-15 units too and maybe add something like a daze so they channel spells slower or something.

 

--The Fury system needs an overhaul. I just dont get it, its ramp up is terrible, the benefits simply dont seem worth it for the time it takes to build. I mostly forget its there, if it left i wouldnt miss it, honestly.

 

--a bit more mobility. in pvp, or pve lvling, we get kited like its the cool thing to do. we have one major gap closer and like i said above our range is something to be desired. In pvp i charge and instantly get locked up and they run away while slowing me, cool. ok but pve cant be that bad right. Most mobs have more npcs using blasters than melee, and most abils again slow. just one or MAYBE two decent mid ranged closers, like 15-20 yard type things just to stay at least in the fight.

 

--We also have a lot of abils that look amazing on paper and then realize they do nothing to real mobs. i call silvers real mobs cause you dont really worry about "weak" npcs, they have weak in the name. But we have a few abilities that do dmg, lots of it, to stunned or incapacitated enemies. cool, silvers and up cant be in that state, and it they are not for long. It like have an ability in WoW that does 10,000% weapon dmg to critters, cool but in the end it doesnt mean a thing in a real fight. if these abilities did high dmg to weak enemies and regular to anything else, that would be fine.

 

Anyways those are my feelings our the state of the marauders at the time of this post. I really didnt mean to complain/write this much but i just started and moved to new points when they came to mind, hopefully its a bit helpful to hear whats a bit off and some minor ideas on how to improve them. And i would love to hear anyones thoughts on these things if you managed to read this all too

[E_c_c_e]

I understand where most of your issues come from but the difficulty with melee classes is that they can get insanely powerful real fast just with a few tiny tweaks...

 

The fury thing is really just a soft cooldown for an immense buff (check out what berserk really does, it's ridiculously strong)

 

2-hander vs 2 1-handers is also difficult...what with all the hit bonuses you can pick up as a marauder it would be really difficult to balance it, if you never miss with a 2-hander that has higher burst as well you might get op real quick...

 

Gapclosers is always a big one...if cor example you look at WoW they are still struggling to find a good way to balance melee vs ranged in pvp what with all the slows and stuns flying around...as soon as melee classes have 2 or more reliable gap closers all hell brakes loose (the qq about charge + intercept lead to the elimination of the latter)...

And remember that force camouflage is your friend, especially when playing carnage...

 

Smash range is a bit low I agree...

 

Melee classes are always difficult to balance and so far I don't feel up or op really...

[KammerTime]

really my main complaint is the weapon choice. maras are supposed to melee experts, an acrobatic assault with sabers. but we have one choice on what to use. and again we are a dps only class but right now i feel no reason to be picked for a group, anything we can do someone else can do it better, why take a marauder. if we are going to be a damage class then we need to hit like nukes, have a reason to be picked over a sorc/sniper/assassin. like in wow, why take a rouge? well they had a sap, ok, but their single target dps was if not the best then very close to it. this is what we need to be, if not top dps (we should be top because melee gets crapped on by boss lvl AoE) then very close to it, plain and simple.

 

and my point with the dual wield came from the comments in this link: http://www.torhead.com/ability/161ZtwX#comments

 

but we have no auto attacks so no real offhand dmg, and the dmg scaling seems again odd to me, it seems to go more by buying the upgraded ability than gear, bleeds in particular. i guess if i had a better understanding where our numbers came from this would be an easier (but still complex) problem to attack. WoW basically said, or you could get an add-on *cough cough* that would let you know what stat did what in the calculations of that ability

 

edit: I also would like to fly around the screen with a double-sided saber, just the option for looks only would be nice to have

Edited December 26, 2011 by KammerTime