Marauder New Builds

[Reclusiarh]

Hey guys new mara player here, I was looking through the old guides and I noticed that draining swipe and thunderous blow have switched places in the savagery tree. Is it worth going for it still or are other builds and rotations viable now?
Thanks for any help!

[Foofmonger]

Hello! I don't know much about the history of Mara changes in RoR, so maybe I'm not the best person to answer it, but I haven't seen too much changed in the mastery trees besides this swap, so I'm happy to help the best I can.

From back in the day - now, there have been a variety of viable Marauder builds. You can do a lot with the class, but I'll cover the basics here, nearly all the combinations of mastery trees are viable on some level.

So first to answer your question, Thunderous Blows is a very powerful wounds debuff, but.. it doesn't stack with the Black Guards wounds debuff (AFAIK), so you want to be mindful that it may not be something you need if you have a dedicated BG friend. That being said, its a huge burst of damage if you hit something at max hp with this, and even if you don't get the effect from the debuff translated into hp lost immediately, it allows for a much easier time bursting down someone who is being healed.

Draining Swipes is ok. It's not a bad ability, and it was one of the lynchpins of the old "drain AP build", which still works. It's got a long cooldown so knowing when to use it is important to get the most out of it.

So on to the specs!

Savagery Specs: (Focus on Debuffs/Sustained ST damage)

2 Main Variants:

Sav/Brut: Grab TB/Cutting Claw/Growing Instability. You can spend your other points as you like, Deadly Clutch, Mutated Aggressor, etc.. are all options. This is the "high damage debuffer" spec. You'll have the best debuffs, while having solid DPS.

Sav/Monstro: Grab the same as you did before in Sav in the Brut spec. This time instead of going Brut, you go Monstro, mostly for the AOE KD. You can grab Wave of Horror too if you'd like, it's not a bad skill. This was when I was playing in live, the most common and most viable strategy on the Marauder. Things may have changed though.

Brut Specs: (Focus on burst damage)

Brut/Sav: Honestly, Sav/Brut is probably better now that TB has been moved. The 11pt Brut tactic and 13 pt Brut ability aren't fantastic (although Wave of Terror is better then most give it credit for, reducing morale generation by 50% in an AOE is pretty nice, it just doesn't synergize with the rest of the what you're trying to be doing int he path). That being said, you can go this route for the morale debuff, giving up your wounds debuff (and likely deadly clutch). However if you run in a group that already has a dedicate heal debuff/wounds debuff, you could make the case that this is the most damaging and useful spec. It would be very conditional though, I don't recommend.

Brut/Monstro: Treat it like you treat Monstro above in the Sav specs. You are here for the AoE knockdown. Significantly you lose Cutting Claw, which makes dealing with highly armored targets much more painful, and reduces your effectiveness as a MA in a melee train. However, you are a squishy killer in this spec, having access to your own AoE KD and the burst damage of the Brutality spec. I recommend this spec over Brut/Sav if you want a full Brut spec.

Monstro Specs: (Focus on AoE utility)

Monstro/Brut: The good old AoE damage spec. I guess you can run it if you for some reason want to play like that (bomb Marauder), not sure how viable that is right now in ROR, but that was always the point of this spec. Use Mutated Aggressor and Growing Instability to boost your damage, then spam AoE. Not my favorite playstyle, but some may like it.

Monstro/Savagery: The AoE debuff spec. This is the lowest damage spec of a Marauder, but with the highest utility. You can run a bunch of utility tactics (such as morale drains, AP drains, etc..), to just be super annoying. Your role in this spec is to spam your AOE, mostly not to kill people, but to debuff them, and then swap to ST savagery damage/debuffs as needed. Note that this spec is probably the one most hurt by the thunderous blows swap as you can no longer get TB + the higher level Monstrosity abilities (WB + Crushing Blows).


So TLDR: TB is still worth it, but requires a high investment meaning that dedicated Savagery builds are probably the way to go currently versus Brut or Monstro builds that simply "dip" into Savagery. Brut/Monstro or Monstro/Brut works as they always have, since it never dipped into the Sav tree anyway.

[Reclusiarh]

Thanks so much for your help, I think I'm gonna go for a deadly clutch build, what would be the tactics and morales to go for, oh and the rotation and renown abilities?

I'm thinking something like this atm:
waronlinebuilder.org - Marauder build

Thoughts?

[ahorts]

Thanks so much for your help, I think I'm gonna go for a deadly clutch build, what would be the tactics and morales to go for, oh and the rotation and renown abilities?

I'm thinking something like this atm:
waronlinebuilder.org - Marauder build

Thoughts?

Careful, you're using the old and not updated career builder, your build would look like this RoR.builders - Marauder
4th tactic would be either Feeding on Fear or Deadly Clutch, depending on the situation. The rotation I use with this build is a priority system: CC>TC>TB>DS>Debilitate>Switch to Brut>Pulverize>Guillotine(if you can use it)>Impale until you can use CC again
For renown I recommend at first that you take defensive abilities, 3 levels into parry and dodge&disrupt are nice. Then you can spend them into more crit chance, more strength (you must be at 1050 str with pots) and weapon skill.

[Foofmonger]

If you do end up grabbing Thunderous Blow, you'll want to use it first in the vast majority of rotations. Wounds debuffs should generally always be used as the first attack, assuming you are attacking a target with max/near max hp. If you are attacking a low hp target, then the situation may be different (depends on a variety of factors, such as how intensely they are being healed or focus fired, etc..).

[ahorts]

If you do end up grabbing Thunderous Blow, you'll want to use it first in the vast majority of rotations. Wounds debuffs should generally always be used as the first attack, assuming you are attacking a target with max/near max hp. If you are attacking a low hp target, then the situation may be different (depends on a variety of factors, such as how intensely they are being healed or focus fired, etc..).

Well, for damage amplification for the rest of your abilities, debuffing armor first is a must, hence you should use it first and afterwards apply the wounds debuff.

[Aerogath]

A Sticky Thread for each class with builds is needed for so long.

[germ32]

If you do end up grabbing Thunderous Blow, you'll want to use it first in the vast majority of rotations. Wounds debuffs should generally always be used as the first attack, assuming you are attacking a target with max/near max hp. If you are attacking a low hp target, then the situation may be different (depends on a variety of factors, such as how intensely they are being healed or focus fired, etc..).

Well, for damage amplification for the rest of your abilities, debuffing armor first is a must, hence you should use it first and afterwards apply the wounds debuff.

Not to be rude, but Foof had it right. You always want to debuff wounds first on targets with full hp. If you apply a wounds debuff to someone who has max hp, it will subtract that amount of hp from their total hp pool, this bypasses mitigation and absorbs because it is a debuff. On a target that has lost hp already they will take damage from thunderous blow but the wounds debuff will only lower their max hp not their current hp at that point. Unless you are attacking a squishie and your auto + cutting claw can hit higher than ~2k, always use thunderous first on full hp targets.

[Skitup]

TB sounds debuff is not 150 anymore its actually 95 with a 10 second CD. Still great.

[ahorts]

If you do end up grabbing Thunderous Blow, you'll want to use it first in the vast majority of rotations. Wounds debuffs should generally always be used as the first attack, assuming you are attacking a target with max/near max hp. If you are attacking a low hp target, then the situation may be different (depends on a variety of factors, such as how intensely they are being healed or focus fired, etc..).

Well, for damage amplification for the rest of your abilities, debuffing armor first is a must, hence you should use it first and afterwards apply the wounds debuff.

Not to be rude, but Foof had it right. You always want to debuff wounds first on targets with full hp. If you apply a wounds debuff to someone who has max hp, it will subtract that amount of hp from their total hp pool, this bypasses mitigation and absorbs because it is a debuff. On a target that has lost hp already they will take damage from thunderous blow but the wounds debuff will only lower their max hp not their current hp at that point. Unless you are attacking a squishie and your auto + cutting claw can hit higher than ~2k, always use thunderous first on full hp targets.

I stand corrected. Yes, if your target is full health use thunderous blow first, then cutting claw.