That moment in Solo Ranked..

[Aluvi]

When you realize that you have used every cooldown, played as perfectly as possible, yet the other team is all at 80%+ hp, and you're dead, and the 3 sages on your team are also at 80%+ HP. And you're going to win anyway, because sages are just that good.

 

I don't feel like I can make any discernible difference in Solo Ranked. Not in 4 dps vs 4 dps games, or any game that doesn't involve heals. The games that I win, really, anyone with half a brain and mediocre skill level, of basically any class or spec, would have won. Not because they are good, but because they got carried.

 

Maybe I'm getting too old for this, but Solo Queuing ranked pvp as a sentinel / mara, I just don't feel relevant. I don't feel like I matter or contribute, with all of the insane off healing and huge damage numbers that sages and operatives are pushing out, or the awesome burst and better defensive cooldowns that a Vanguard has. What do I get? Popping every defensive cooldown (Cloak of pain, Saber Ward, Warzone Adrenal), I get stunned and am at 30% hp in 3 GCDs, max. Stunned again, break, Undying Rage, medpack, have enough time to fight for maybe 5 or 6 more seconds before I have to use my force camo due to low health. And the enemy team hasn't even broken a sweat - nor has my team, while I'm fighting for my life and just barely holding on.

 

My teams try. They really do, and I so sincerely appreciate it. Sorcs trying to keep me up through off heals and bubbles, even pulling me out of bad situations. Huge props to them. But the reality is, I'm nothing more than a very limited health punching bag that does mediocre damage and doesn't contribute any healing to my group, or really anything at all other than damage.

 

WHAT *********** USE IS A PURE DPS CLASS THAT DOES MEDIOCRE SUB PAR DPS AND DIES WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS AT FULL HEALTH!?!?!?

 

I don't offer taunts. I don't offer off heals. I don't have self heals. I'm not tanky. And I'm OK with all of that, if I could at least push out insane dps. That used to be possible, in a little spec called Rage. It completely made Marauders / Sentinels viable for solo Ranked. The new Fury.. in a 4 dps vs 4 dps game where raw damage output is what really matters.. it just doesn't cut it. Nor does Carnage or Annihilation. And let's face it, Annihilation is just too damn clunky.

 

Sorry. I needed to vent. On another note, no one wants to take a mara or sent to group ranked either. Go get your sorc, sin, or PT, they say. I have those classes. I can play on them. But I want to play my gosh darn marauder or sentinel. I want to play my class. I want to be viable and relevant. And I'm not.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Aluvi

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Your playing the class wrong then. A good marauder knows when to engage, and when not to engage. you want to wait till a target is at 50% - 30% and then leap in and burst them the rest of the way down. Especially as Carnage.

[Aluvi]

Your playing the class wrong then. A good marauder knows when to engage, and when not to engage. you want to wait till a target is at 50% - 30% and then leap in and burst them the rest of the way down. Especially as Carnage.

 

Yes I am clearly terrible at this class. It's a L2P issue. I should do what exactly while the enemy team makes a bee line for me? Stealth out? Run away? Sorry, I thought warriors CHARGED into battle. I didn't realize we were supposed to play like a frightened mouse.

 

What exactly am I supposed to do to avoid all the ranged classes applying dots? Every second that I'm NOT fighting is a second that I'm not doing damage and not contributing, because even if I'm not fighting, I WILL be taking damage, and when you have a limited health pool with no way to self heal, that's a big deal.

 

I do wait until my team engages. It doesn't matter. Marauders are not self sufficient, and thus they are not viable for pvp. THE END.

 

Do you honestly find yourself able to stay out of combat, hiding somewhere, letting your team fight 3v4 until they get a player to 30% hp, and THEN you go in? Do you really think that's the sign of a balanced class? That I should have to try to find a place to hide until my team has almost already won ?

Edited June 30, 2015 by Aluvi

[DynamiCtagez]

You can reach relatively high rating as a Mara/Sent, but it will cause you a lot of frustration and you will have to play at your limit literally every match. But either way, you won't reach the ratings of a PT, Sin, Sorc or Operative.

The only Sent who reached 2k this season (at least I think he reached it, maybe he was just very close) in soloq is on my server and everybody knows his guild is q-syncing whenever they can. I find it pathetic on the one hand, on the other hand that's the only way to reach high rating in soloq as a pub on my server currently.

The 2nd best soloq Mara/Sent on my server is Skyrush and he is only at roughly 1,6k, being an honest player who just tried very hard.

 

I mean it's pretty obvious that balance is still ****ed.

Edited June 30, 2015 by DynamiCtagez

[Bryanseven]

I hear you aluvien, I also feel like my marauder is at best a distraction for the other team. I think it is just that the class offers very little in the way of couterplay in the current meta.

 

Dots are everywhere, we have no way to avoid..and with no self heals they HURT. We have ok burst but as melee it is hard to get any time on targets because EVERY other class has better mobility or longer range or both.

 

The predation buff helps in that you no longer have to choose between gutting your dps or actually standing a chance of reaching the target but it doesn't protect you from just getting rooted again...and the kicker is stuns gut carnage marauder and they are readily available to everyone...unlike Our nice counterplay ability Obfuscate which really only messes with (ironically) carnage marauders and MM sniper..another under represented class...at least THEY don't eat stuns to the face every other Global cooldown.

 

Don't get me wrong occasionally I fight a team that is completely oblivious and I can pump out 20-25k in 2 globals and annihilate someone...but this is rarely the case. Most of the time I spend chasing a target getting dotted up and rooted on the way to being stunned when I finally get in range.

 

Hopefully either BW will bring sorcs, assasins and pt's down a peg like they said they preffered to do...or they will give us some viable self heals so we can play at their level.

[jauvtus]

It's pretty ironic that mara and sniper, the pure dps classes have the worst dmg in solo (I know it's only part of the game, but mara has issues elsewhere, too) because they are countered and die too easily. Dmg of our key abilitites is nerfed (MS/Ravage, Dispatch/Vicious Throw, even offhand dmg bonus is not available to all and even for Ataru, its nerfed), we are the most susceptible to stunlock (mercs are just slightly better). Annihilation self-healing is laughable since the loss of 2%hp on crits, Carnage can never do anything during a Gore, but even if it couldits just mediocre burst compared to a self-sufficient OP or assa, Fury at least has some acceptable burst but smash nerf is very hard, too.

But no worries, sent/mara is working as intended

[Hei_Atzfel]

It's pretty ironic that mara and sniper, the pure dps classes have the worst dmg in solo

 

Just gonna stop you right there. Damage wise both Mara and Sniper are fine. Carnage/Fury have great burst and Marksman is fighting AP for the top burst spec in the game. Their issue isn't damage, it's self sustainability.

[Skettitangles]

I agree that our damage potential is good. Do any of the theory crafter types know what the implications of raising our defense chance value might be? Would it make a significant difference? My reasoning would be that agility would make the Sentinel/Marauder more capable of dodging melee attacks and deflecting ranged attacks and if we were to liken the class to the typical rogue/ninja type of class wouldn't our training involve some type of resistance to internal poisoning attacks which would justify taking medium armor to allow greater agility over heavy armor? I really think there's some justification to adjusting the baseline defense values for the class to improve our solo performance in ranked pvp but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how or where these should be applied. Also, I'd love it if obsfucate applied its debuff to all types of attacks and not just melee and ranged and had a base range of 10 meters extendable to 30 with the utility

[UrbanSaint]

Yea it gets pretty rough. Guess part of the masochist in me loves queueing despite the odds not being in my favor as far as class balance goes, but I won't deny that every so often I want to start queueing on something else because it will be so much easier for less effort lol. Or at the very least it would be nice to play more games with trinity comps so it isn't disasterous as 4 dps vs 4 dps matches are for us (as well as mercs ad slingers) Edited June 30, 2015 by UrbanSaint

[Aluvi]

I agree that our damage potential is good. Do any of the theory crafter types know what the implications of raising our defense chance value might be? Would it make a significant difference? My reasoning would be that agility would make the Sentinel/Marauder more capable of dodging melee attacks and deflecting ranged attacks and if we were to liken the class to the typical rogue/ninja type of class wouldn't our training involve some type of resistance to internal poisoning attacks which would justify taking medium armor to allow greater agility over heavy armor? I really think there's some justification to adjusting the baseline defense values for the class to improve our solo performance in ranked pvp but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how or where these should be applied. Also, I'd love it if obsfucate applied its debuff to all types of attacks and not just melee and ranged and had a base range of 10 meters extendable to 30 with the utility

 

Not sure that defense chance is the real issue. I think self healing is the big one. All 3 of the Alpha classes have significant self healing (sorc, PT, Assassin), although as we have seen, self healing on it's own is not enough to make a class good (juggs / mercs).

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

I have to chime in here. As a Shadow/Sin main, I've recently picked up Mara for solo queue and that **** is straight demoralizing. Just today, I had a match where I honestly felt that I contributed, I hit 12k DB and 10k VT in a Gore window as well as got off a few full Ravages and CC'd appropriately and burned through ALL of my DCDs and medpac and still only managed 53k Damage and got wrecked, while if I was in the same match on my sin with HALF the effort, I would have gotten 150k+ damage. It's truly amazing that as a pure dps class hat Mara struggles to put up good numbers. I even tried Annihilation since it's my fav spec and I felt more useless than Carnage because at least in carnage I could occasionally global an enemy before I died.

 

Truly is a humbling experience but I still will play mara in solo Q because it's fun The thing is too, I don't feel they have bad DCDs, it's a very sturdy class, there's just nothing that can be done when 70% of my matches are against 3 sins and a sorc, like what can you really do with 3/4 enemies using 12 sec Deflection immunity, you can't use Roar, all you can do is pop stealth or undying and pray that you can get off some melee damage through their Deflection since whenever I would go to Gore > DB they had shroud up

[Saikochoro]

I have to chime in here. As a Shadow/Sin main, I've recently picked up Mara for solo queue and that **** is straight demoralizing. Just today, I had a match where I honestly felt that I contributed, I hit 12k DB and 10k VT in a Gore window as well as got off a few full Ravages and CC'd appropriately and burned through ALL of my DCDs and medpac and still only managed 53k Damage and got wrecked, while if I was in the same match on my sin with HALF the effort, I would have gotten 150k+ damage. It's truly amazing that as a pure dps class hat Mara struggles to put up good numbers. I even tried Annihilation since it's my fav spec and I felt more useless than Carnage because at least in carnage I could occasionally global an enemy before I died.

 

Truly is a humbling experience but I still will play mara in solo Q because it's fun The thing is too, I don't feel they have bad DCDs, it's a very sturdy class, there's just nothing that can be done when 70% of my matches are against 3 sins and a sorc, like what can you really do with 3/4 enemies using 12 sec Deflection immunity, you can't use Roar, all you can do is pop stealth or undying and pray that you can get off some melee damage through their Deflection since whenever I would go to Gore > DB they had shroud up

 

I recently started playing my mara more as well. Its the funnest time I've had since I started playing ops. I haven't yet hopped into solo ranked because I still have a few augments to go and would like more ranked pieces of gear. I also want to make sure I have the class completely down before I try it out on ranked. I think I'm going to start playing ranked on it next season....and even though I know it will be very hard......I'm super excited about it. I can't believe I didn't do maras seriously before 3.0.

[wadecounty]

The problem isn't Marauder, its solo ranked, which is hugely imbalanced to favor classes with self heals and mobility, but especially self heals. 4 DPS vs 4 DPS games will never be balanced as long as some classes have decent self healing and others have slim to none.

 

Sorcs are king of the hill right now because not only do they have self healing, they have Barrier which is effectively Undying + heal to full almost rolled into one. The balance for that in regs is its only available every 3 minutes, but you get it every single arena so... Operatives are also super high up there with super easy to setup/maintain kolto probes and the incredible roll. Sins do it with decent self heals and insane damage via super easy dot spread (about to get nerfed some) along with the best stun immunity in the game, and PT's have the best mobility of all classes and absolutely nuts burst that can open on a target from range unlike Marauders, and can't really be kited. Then Juggs bring up the rear of viable solo ranked classes with decent damage, a semi decent dot spread and a couple heal to full combos.

 

Those are pretty much the 5 viable AC's in solo right now, and all but the PT's have very good self healing (with PT's getting in there with super easy to manage burst and the best kiting ability in the game).

 

If they want to balance the game around solo ranked, all DPS classes need some form of self healing. I don't think that's what the game should be balanced around, but that's how it would have to be if they want to do that. The only class with self heals that isn't solo ranked viable is Merc, and that's cause they have the weakest self heals of the 3 heal classes in DPS spec right now, and they're the only one of the three without a true disengage.

Edited July 1, 2015 by wadecounty

[jauvtus]

Just gonna stop you right there. Damage wise both Mara and Sniper are fine. Carnage/Fury have great burst and Marksman is fighting AP for the top burst spec in the game. Their issue isn't damage, it's self sustainability.

 

I meant that because of our low survivability and stun-susceptibility, we have low overall and burst dmg. Also, as I listed very important powers have been nerfed, so even our raw dmg is not that high either like it was pre3.0

[jauvtus]

I have to chime in here. As a Shadow/Sin main, I've recently picked up Mara for solo queue and that **** is straight demoralizing. Just today, I had a match where I honestly felt that I contributed, I hit 12k DB and 10k VT in a Gore window as well as got off a few full Ravages and CC'd appropriately and burned through ALL of my DCDs and medpac and still only managed 53k Damage and got wrecked, while if I was in the same match on my sin with HALF the effort, I would have gotten 150k+ damage. It's truly amazing that as a pure dps class hat Mara struggles to put up good numbers. I even tried Annihilation since it's my fav spec and I felt more useless than Carnage because at least in carnage I could occasionally global an enemy before I died.

 

Truly is a humbling experience but I still will play mara in solo Q because it's fun The thing is too, I don't feel they have bad DCDs, it's a very sturdy class, there's just nothing that can be done when 70% of my matches are against 3 sins and a sorc, like what can you really do with 3/4 enemies using 12 sec Deflection immunity, you can't use Roar, all you can do is pop stealth or undying and pray that you can get off some melee damage through their Deflection since whenever I would go to Gore > DB they had shroud up

 

In PvE, sents are still good, but in PvP, without a heal friend, who actually looks out for you, you have slight chances. I also try to focus sent/mara more if im healing

[Bryanseven]

Yeah on paper my marauder should be great in ranked solo's...but in practice the other classes simply have more tools to counter us than we have to counter them.

 

1 ) Really the most common but not only hard counter to carnage marauder is ANY class with a stun available or at the right time, the only way to counter by yourself is to use stun break and hope they don't have another stun or mez...otherwise pray you have a healer on the team who is watching out for you. Don't even talk to me about white bars...in solo's I am dead before I am white barred, the only thing that saves you is force camo or undying if you are quick...but that is defensive not offensive utility. Good counterplay to this would be a stacking buff based on how much resolve you have.

 

2) The most common but not only soft counter to marauder (and all the warriors really) is to have abilities with a greater than 10 m range and enough mobility to stay there. This is pretty much most of the other ac's in the game. Sure we get a good closer in force leap...and when we use it..see above. Good counterplay to this would be a secondary charge ability that does more damage based on how far you move before striking at the end.

 

I'll continue to play it, It's my main..but it is very frustrating...I never claimed to be a great player like Skyrush or Aluvien but I do have at least average ability and on a marauder that will get you a 900 rating unless you are really lucky so hopefully with more people playing the class recently and server transfers concentrating pvp the devs will get metrics that tell the true story of how we fare against the other classes....none of this "Statistically carnage marauders are one of the most successful AC's in the game..winning much more than they lose.."

[Aluvi]

The problem isn't Marauder, its solo ranked, which is hugely imbalanced to favor classes with self heals and mobility, but especially self heals. 4 DPS vs 4 DPS games will never be balanced as long as some classes have decent self healing and others have slim to none.

 

Sorcs are king of the hill right now because not only do they have self healing, they have Barrier which is effectively Undying + heal to full almost rolled into one. The balance for that in regs is its only available every 3 minutes, but you get it every single arena so... Operatives are also super high up there with super easy to setup/maintain kolto probes and the incredible roll. Sins do it with decent self heals and insane damage via super easy dot spread (about to get nerfed some) along with the best stun immunity in the game, and PT's have the best mobility of all classes and absolutely nuts burst that can open on a target from range unlike Marauders, and can't really be kited. Then Juggs bring up the rear of viable solo ranked classes with decent damage, a semi decent dot spread and a couple heal to full combos.

 

Those are pretty much the 5 viable AC's in solo right now, and all but the PT's have very good self healing (with PT's getting in there with super easy to manage burst and the best kiting ability in the game).

 

If they want to balance the game around solo ranked, all DPS classes need some form of self healing. I don't think that's what the game should be balanced around, but that's how it would have to be if they want to do that. The only class with self heals that isn't solo ranked viable is Merc, and that's cause they have the weakest self heals of the 3 heal classes in DPS spec right now, and they're the only one of the three without a true disengage.

 

I think you did a really nice job of summing it up. That's pretty much where ranked is right now. The thing is, when you play one of the classes that you mentioned.. it doesn't feel overpowered, it just feels... "complete", in my opinion. It feels self sufficient and fun. I really am an advocate of buffing the other classes rather than nerfing the strong ones, but BioWare disagrees, so meh.

[Skettitangles]

I think you did a really nice job of summing it up. That's pretty much where ranked is right now. The thing is, when you play one of the classes that you mentioned.. it doesn't feel overpowered, it just feels... "complete", in my opinion. It feels self sufficient and fun. I really am an advocate of buffing the other classes rather than nerfing the strong ones, but BioWare disagrees, so meh.

 

I wholeheartedly agree

[FourPawnBenoni]

The whole problem with Mara is you get controlled too easily with no DR on stuns.

 

Annihilation needs some help big time. You spend half the match knocked back, rooted and stunned so never have much of a chance to ramp up attacks.

 

In addition, all specs should have the ability to reduce CD on Saber Ward; such as "each time you receive periodic damage your cool down on Saber Ward is reduced by 3 seconds" sort of thing....three minute cool down is too long

[MisterPepssi]

Yes I am clearly terrible at this class. It's a L2P issue. I should do what exactly while the enemy team makes a bee line for me? Stealth out? Run away? Sorry, I thought warriors CHARGED into battle. I didn't realize we were supposed to play like a frightened mouse.

 

What exactly am I supposed to do to avoid all the ranged classes applying dots? Every second that I'm NOT fighting is a second that I'm not doing damage and not contributing, because even if I'm not fighting, I WILL be taking damage, and when you have a limited health pool with no way to self heal, that's a big deal.

 

I do wait until my team engages. It doesn't matter. Marauders are not self sufficient, and thus they are not viable for pvp. THE END.

 

Do you honestly find yourself able to stay out of combat, hiding somewhere, letting your team fight 3v4 until they get a player to 30% hp, and THEN you go in? Do you really think that's the sign of a balanced class? That I should have to try to find a place to hide until my team has almost already won ?

 

Marauder + Pt is a popular comp on my server atm and is perfectly viable, granted you have past experience with hard switches.

[milkandcereal]

I think marauders could use some mobility buffs like cc immunity while undying is up and a passive root, but other then that I think they are fine (outside of anni and carnage being destroyed with 3.0), if you want to play competitively in solo ranked you NEED to play Fury. I know it's not very fun but it's the only consistently viable spec for solo ranked. Take Mandalor/Carnagemarauder for example, he is a good carnage player but REFUSES to switch specs no matter how much I beg him and he has over 800 games played now and is sitting at 1370 rating. If he switched to fury I think he would probably be competing with me for top 3. Edited July 18, 2015 by milkandcereal

[kissingaiur]

I'll say this, you could be a fantastic Mara in solo rank and still contribute just as much as a mediocre Sorc or Sin.

 

It sucks. My friend who plays a Mara in solo spends all his time telling other Maras to stop queuing. No point in playing a Mara in solo unless you are extremely good at it then again you could just go against 3 Sins and loss anyways.

 

GG Bioware, GG.