[Review] [Mara] Gift of monstrosity

[peterthepan3]

A lot of you have been making good, informed posts, so above comment doesn't apply to all.

[Oldschool]

I Play a Marauder and I have tried GoM just for few days, cause it is not worth it in PvP.
You can not kill somebody and you didnt do such a damage what inflicts Problems to the enemy WB healers. Maybe you will stay a second or 2 longer cause of the reach of your skills and that you have not to make pressure on a enemy healer or DD (you cant do this in GoM skills....).
In a WB fight and Group Play we talk about crits and damage what Need to be inflicted in a short time to kill the healers and DDs.
Mara GoM skilled didnt do this.
Only Point for GoM is PvE farming. Easy Farm machine, no doubt.
For 1 vs 1 PvP I will never go GoM cause you have NO Chance to kill a healer or somebody who get some heals cause of missing damage and skills.
And compared Marauder to (example) Slayer for 1:1 Marauder will die quick cause of Slayer skills like Rune of Absorb and anti parry skills. So please dont say Marauder is a good 1:1 class, it is not.
Mara lacks alot of pushing damage if the Counter is avoiding damage (parry/block or cause of range).
Marauders shine in PvP grp Play 6vs6 or smallscale if mara is skilled for killing healers (savage/Brute) AND get the Support from healer and tank. If not, mara is rubbish.
In WB fights i can not say marauder is good, not enough damage as GoM and always dead as a Savag/Brute skilled Mara (depends on the Support ofc) cause of the Need to step in the Close combat Zone 1:1 fight. Therefore Mara always have to wait for there right time to step into the fight.
If you want to nerf or change a class, think about the classes with skills/tactics what make damage unavoidable over a few seconds and/or what reflects damage into heal AND get pushed by parry tactics/skills/points. This is the easy win Buttons for some classes like Slayer or WHs. They avoid damge, They do damage and they heal themself (slayer) AND in case of WH easy to step outside the fights if things turn.
Leave Mara like it is and give us a Chance that our skill terrible embrace is not so much disrupted.....

[daniilpb]

I Play a Marauder and I have tried GoM just for few days, cause it is not worth it in PvP.
You can not kill somebody and you didnt do such a damage what inflicts Problems to the enemy WB healers. Maybe you will stay a second or 2 longer cause of the reach of your skills and that you have not to make pressure on a enemy healer or DD (you cant do this in GoM skills....).
In a WB fight and Group Play we talk about crits and damage what Need to be inflicted in a short time to kill the healers and DDs.
Mara GoM skilled didnt do this.
Only Point for GoM is PvE farming. Easy Farm machine, no doubt.
For 1 vs 1 PvP I will never go GoM cause you have NO Chance to kill a healer or somebody who get some heals cause of missing damage and skills.
And compared Marauder to (example) Slayer for 1:1 Marauder will die quick cause of Slayer skills like Rune of Absorb and anti parry skills. So please dont say Marauder is a good 1:1 class, it is not.
Mara lacks alot of pushing damage if the Counter is avoiding damage (parry/block or cause of range).
Marauders shine in PvP grp Play 6vs6 or smallscale if mara is skilled for killing healers (savage/Brute) AND get the Support from healer and tank. If not, mara is rubbish.
In WB fights i can not say marauder is good, not enough damage as GoM and always dead as a Savag/Brute skilled Mara (depends on the Support ofc) cause of the Need to step in the Close combat Zone 1:1 fight. Therefore Mara always have to wait for there right time to step into the fight.
If you want to nerf or change a class, think about the classes with skills/tactics what make damage unavoidable over a few seconds and/or what reflects damage into heal AND get pushed by parry tactics/skills/points. This is the easy win Buttons for some classes like Slayer or WHs. They avoid damge, They do damage and they heal themself (slayer) AND in case of WH easy to step outside the fights if things turn.
Leave Mara like it is and give us a Chance that our skill terrible embrace is not so much disrupted.....

Actually, mostro mara is very relivant in 1v1. Yea, he can’t kill healers but he can 1v2+ most of other classes (actually, montro mara can delete SW in 10 seconds and Weron is a perfect example) so gid gud if you can’t.
Also monstro mara has a lot of tools for WB play. Yes, it’s not about damage mostly but about moral drain, aoe interupts and cast times increase. Basically, one class (build actually) counters whole RvR meta which based on moral dumps. Add here high survivability against order ph dps classes.
To sum up, marauder prevents morals pushes and can easily survive through enemy push based on basic abilities until he and his warband get morals ready to delete order wb that don’t have counter play to morals push.

[Tosher85]

As for the 1v1, I am absolutely sure that the game is not about it. And not worth discussing.

As for the 6v6:
Given the fact that the Marauder has 2800 armor, and after an armor debuff(1000-1500) and tanks moral(1000), which in sum removes 2000-2500 armor, these remaining 300-800 armor will not give any useful bonus from gift of monstrosity. I even will not speak about runing in monstro spec = no damage, and, if you switch on the occasion, there is a proc chance (25%).

As for wb:
At this stage of the game the main damage in the warband is magic. Therefore, this proc does not bring any actual benefit. Why warband uses more magic damage and not physical is another question. But obviously not because of the abilities of the Marauder.

Off topic:
If you start to think about, is there a place for the Marauder in a warband. I will say this, if the fights happen in open RvR, the Marauder is a waste of slot, due to the fact that the utility of the single Marauder almost equal to zero, and if u use 2, and ideally 3 Marauders, It reduces damage of the warband just enough to keep enemy healers out of strain while you fight against superior forces. And if we think over pure 24v24, its hard to say, perhaps it makes sense to try. But again we are faced with a lack of damage. Plus, there's the remarkable Shatter Limbs ability, which in certain sense reduces the usefulness of the Marauder(such as aoe moral drain, aoe interupt + disorient for 5 sec with 10 sec cd - and it takes two tactic slots) , as well as the damage of the whole warband.

Faithfully yours, Shooga.

[dansari]

Survivability has to be balanced on what else a class brings. That's why defensive tanks are able to have more survivability. As their value decreases in other areas, their survivability can increase. Because having more uptime on a lower value can be equal to a lower uptime on a higher value.

Fair assessment, but I argue that's the OP's whole point. Your analogy involves a tank who has specced defensively, i.e. put wounds, armor, toughness talismans in slot, running defensive gear, etc. Does a sav/brut Mara gain "too much" from the monstro stance at its core because of the armor pen reduction? There's been a lot of "monstro Mara can't kill anything because of low damage" arguments, neglecting that the point of the discussion is on the performance of GoM in XvX situations. Basically, I think discussion should focus on whether or not Mara gets *an overperforming* amount of defense by utilizing GoM.

[Aurandilaz]

As for the 1v1, I am absolutely sure that the game is not about it. And not worth discussing.

As for the 6v6:
Given the fact that the Marauder has 2800 armor, and after an armor debuff(1000-1500) and tanks moral(1000), which in sum removes 2000-2500 armor, these remaining 300-800 armor will not give any useful bonus from gift of monstrosity. I even will not speak about runing in monstro spec = no damage, and, if you switch on the occasion, there is a proc chance (25%).

As for wb:
At this stage of the game the main damage in the warband is magic. Therefore, this proc does not bring any actual benefit. Why warband uses more magic damage and not physical is another question. But obviously not because of the abilities of the Marauder.

Off topic:
If you start to think about, is there a place for the Marauder in a warband. I will say this, if the fights happen in open RvR, the Marauder is a waste of slot, due to the fact that the utility of the single Marauder almost equal to zero, and if u use 2, and ideally 3 Marauders, It reduces damage of the warband just enough to keep enemy healers out of strain while you fight against superior forces. And if we think over pure 24v24, its hard to say, perhaps it makes sense to try. But again we are faced with a lack of damage. Plus, there's the remarkable Shatter Limbs ability, which in certain sense reduces the usefulness of the Marauder(such as aoe moral drain, aoe interupt + disorient for 5 sec with 10 sec cd - and it takes two tactic slots) , as well as the damage of the whole warband.

Faithfully yours, Shooga.

Regarding 6v6; WE conq gives 1100 arm, mara 2200. after 600 pot, 1700 vs 2800. Choppa is a walking timebomb, either it exhausts rage before it dies, or it dies like a WE. Mara somehow doesn't come close to the squishyness that the other 2 mdps choices have. The occasional switch to montro does sound like a good way to survive far longer than WE or Choppa might in a melee battle. Question is, is the advantage too much, or is the opportunity cost of not using other 2 stances right?
Slayers explode like Choppas and WHs go poof like WEs, but WL on the other hand becomes neutered when pet is killed time after time, should mara have a similar handicap, or perhaps have its "survival stance" maybe adjusted bit? (Guardian WL can be very tough and have high wounds, but the pet is still a weak spot - in other specs the pet goes poof faster than a slayer charging at 8 AoE sorcs) Obviously I should not be comparing to other classes, but since balance does not exist in a vacuum, you have to take into account how the other mdps do their "surviving".


bit off-tangent regarding WB + mara role in it:
Interestingly enough, before Disrupt changes, we would run more Marauders in warband. The reason being, that we wanted good firepower (Sorcs) and good utility dmg combined into our WB bomb. Then after the Disrupt changes, well Sorcs got neutered. Where previously 3 sorcs were able to pump out solid pressure, now to attain same pressure you needed 4-5 Sorcs.
Then came the moral nerfs. When Mara M2 was good pick for bomb, it stopped existing because of the general moral gain nerf.
If we previously had some Sorcs, Squigs, Magi, Maras, Choppas, dps Zealot contending for warband slots... Choppas WB utility got nerfed when Chop Fasta no longer helped Sorcs. Squigs lost M2 and their main dmg, STY got nerfed, bye. Mara, while retaining its dmg and utility, lost their purpose as moral bomber. So if 2-4 Maras for WB was okay because they aided with their M2s, now you need about 1 mara for the utility debuffing and healer harassing. Second mara is fine, but, bit unnecessary if the 1st mara does the moral debuffing well enough at enemy BWs/tanks.
The trend of nerfing one class after another out of WB meta is somewhat worrisome, but I hope our devs have some plans regarding future WB balance so that the setups can bring back classes that for now just have been nerfed too much.

Maybe, once enough Order Warbands realize that 6-7 BWs is the way to go with M2 R&D, Maras demand will increase to debuff the enemy morals even more. Which however means that Monstro making mara tougher against physical doesn't do much to help them against BW bomb, so not sure if OPs suggestion will any relevance at all regarding WB scale balance. On the other hand since Order runs quite a bunch of pug WBs, with various subpar physical damage classes, Maras will shine there with their Monstro survival kit.
Assuming the balance goes through and Maras now ignore less ArmPen, it will have abysmal effect on organized vs organized WB balance. But might matter more on pug wb vs pug wb balance due to their setups involving random classes and less heavy on magical dmg.

[OldSerpenT]

Again, the proposal isn't about if monstro mara can "kill" targets. If you'd like to make a proposal about the damage Mara can deal while in monstro, do that. This proposal is about the ability for monstro mara "to be killed," specifically regarding its armor pen reduction proc.

Well, the whole thing of this topic is about "allmighty mara can't be killed". Yes, when you sacrifice everything for defense, and tank guards you, and healers make sure you don't die. You can spec any medium armor class to be like that. The problem of maras is that unlike some other class they can't kill when they sacrifice strength for toughness and wounds. And unlike some other class mara has to choose - either being tanky or being capable to kill. Also, unlike some other class, mara is dual-wield, which means more parry, that contributes to defense, but less damage from abilities, therefore reducing strength affects mara more than some other class that has 2h weapon

Spoiler:

and pet, who's damage output (oh paradox) is proportional to how hard it is to kill the master.

Guardian WL has nothing to do with GoM - Dan

Why to put the whole message under the spoiler if you don't like only last line of it?

[dansari]

Spoiler:

Again, the proposal isn't about if monstro mara can "kill" targets. If you'd like to make a proposal about the damage Mara can deal while in monstro, do that. This proposal is about the ability for monstro mara "to be killed," specifically regarding its armor pen reduction proc.

Well, the whole thing of this topic is about "allmighty mara can't be killed". Yes, when you sacrifice everything for defense, and tank guards you, and healers make sure you don't die. You can spec any medium armor class to be like that. The problem of maras is that unlike some other class they can't kill when they sacrifice strength for toughness and wounds. And unlike some other class mara has to choose - either being tanky or being capable to kill. Also, unlike some other class, mara is dual-wield, which means more parry, that contributes to defense, but less damage from abilities, therefore reducing strength affects mara more than some other class that has 2h weapon

Spoiler:

and pet, who's damage output (oh paradox) is proportional to how hard it is to kill the master.

Guardian WL has nothing to do with GoM - Dan

Why to put the whole message under the spoiler if you don't like only last line of it?

You sure the majority of your post wasn't focused on Guardian WL whine? I start to see a trend around sentence 4.

[OldSerpenT]

Negative.
I'm explaining the idea of dual-wield helps tankness of mara, which means more defense and less offense, and more effect on abilities damage when sacrificing strength for survivability. Offhand DPS doesn't affect abilities damage and AA happens bit more rare than from main hand.
Also under "spec" I'm not referencing career trees only, I assume it includes renown points put in certain perks, like incoming crit rate reduction and incoming damage reduction, as well as different set of gear. Most sets give % survivability bonus when you have whole set on you, means you sacrifice main stat from mix to have that bonus - back to "in dual wield damage suffers from strength reduction"

[dansari]

How does more defense = less offense in regard to dual-wield? Slayer and Choppa both have dual-wield.