[Mara] Deadly Clutch

[Gachimuchi]

I don't agree with this line of reasoning that Mara needs nerfs because it renders BG nearly useless.

If you look at IB and their relationship with the WL, IB is more centered around buffing as opposed to debuffing. WL's don't have self crit and parry buffs. IB does have an armor debuff, as does WL, but it isn't a big part of what IB brings to the table. This isn't a fault of Marauder being too good(in this case), this is just Blackguard being really bad, and needs to be looked at on it's own.

Mara gets all the hate for being a swiss-army knife of a mDPS + their debuffs while still putting out respectable damage. No other DPS in the game can match the debuffing power of a Marauder, and that is what makes them stand-out from all of the others, and allows them to work in situations others can't. I believe the problem lies in the fact they can soften up a target so much so that another DPS can tear through them like paper but still deal good damage themselves. Adjusting damage values on path of savagery abilities seems like it would be a step in the right direction.

[Stmichael1989]

The thing I find strange about it is that in addition to having access to just about every non-stat debuff in the game, at least two of their debuffs are also the strongest in the game. Cutting claw and TB are about 50% stronger than the next best in game. They combine versatility and potency on the utility front and still deal good damage AND are pretty tough to kill as well.

[NoRKaLKiLLa]

Spoiler:

This game is so absurdly range-favored that any reduction in the effectiveness of the abilities for a marauder to kill its target after he's being kited, punted, rooted, snared, knocked down and disarmed, dotted the whole time, burst upon and finally reaches his target is absolutely insane.

We are not discussing that - Penril

[blaqwar]

I don't agree with this line of reasoning that Mara needs nerfs because it renders BG nearly useless.

If you look at IB and their relationship with the WL, IB is more centered around buffing as opposed to debuffing. WL's don't have self crit and parry buffs. IB does have an armor debuff, as does WL, but it isn't a big part of what IB brings to the table. This isn't a fault of Marauder being too good(in this case), this is just Blackguard being really bad, and needs to be looked at on it's own.

Mara gets all the hate for being a swiss-army knife of a mDPS + their debuffs while still putting out respectable damage. No other DPS in the game can match the debuffing power of a Marauder, and that is what makes them stand-out from all of the others, and allows them to work in situations others can't. I believe the problem lies in the fact they can soften up a target so much so that another DPS can tear through them like paper but still deal good damage themselves. Adjusting damage values on path of savagery abilities seems like it would be a step in the right direction.

I've been holding out on commenting since my Mara on retail barely made it over RR40 and because my Mara here is stuck in T3 but I feel this sentiment right here is the true heart of the matter.

Nerfing Marauder's capability to debuff just so that BGs can have a spot in a group and be viable is a fool's errand. Not only does swapping the debuffer serve little purpose in the grand scheme of things but it also disrupts the balance between the two factions. The goal here is not the make Marauders less viable at the expense of BGs. It's to look at the utility and damage of a Marauder from the perspective of the role they play on Destruction. In that scope I would agree with the majority that Deadly Clutch by itself is a balanced tactic, for the drawbacks vs benefits reasons outlined in this thread.

But as the above post outlines Maras seem to suffer from the syndrome of being a "master of all trades", so to speak. They are supposed to be limited by their stance mechanic, which from a balance perspective enables them to primarly spec for strong debuffs and have a secondary spec in pure damage. However the fact that they can simply debuff their target to achieve the effect of a fully commited damage spec means that they can have the best of both worlds. It seems two factors play into this, the strength of their debuffs and how lackluster the Brutality tree gets the more point you are willing to invest.

Looking at adjusting the two mastery trees would in my opinion be the smart way of balancing things. And NOT to nerf the Mara's debuffing capability so that the BG can have the highest value debuffs on Destro.

[TenTonHammer]

No other DPS in the game can match the debuffing power of a Marauder, and that is what makes them stand-out from all of the others, and allows them to work in situations others can't.

You missed the part about maras being the most durable of all mDPS in the game, that is also another reason why x2 mara is so prevalent

Becuase on top of the sheer utlity and good dps they are also the safest combo to run

[Bobbiom]

The only problem with marauder is that they get access to everything that is good with mara at r40 rr40 and don't need a singel point after that to be at their full potential.
The problem isn't deadly clutch, the problem is that thunderous blow and cutting claw are too easy to get.
Thunderous blow should be on the top of the path of brutaliy tree and cutting claw should be on the top of the savagery tree.

If you read the class details it says: ''An offensive brawler, marauders are all about getting face to face with their opponents and POUNDING them into DUST.''


Meanwhile marauder got a dead ability called Wave of Terror that noone uses.

[Gachimuchi]

No other DPS in the game can match the debuffing power of a Marauder, and that is what makes them stand-out from all of the others, and allows them to work in situations others can't.

You missed the part about maras being the most durable of all mDPS in the game, that is also another reason why x2 mara is so prevalent

Becuase on top of the sheer utlity and good dps they are also the safest combo to run

You missed the part where running 2x Mara gimps yourself on damage. Also please explain to me how ignoring weaponskill and other armor bypass impacts Bright Wizards.

2xMara won't match damage of a Mara/Chop Mara/WE

[Penril]

Agreed. I haven't seen any "top" premade running double mara. It is definitely not meta.

[TenTonHammer]

You missed the part where running 2x Mara gimps yourself on damage. Also please explain to me how ignoring weaponskill and other armor bypass impacts Bright Wizards.

2xMara won't match damage of a Mara/Chop Mara/WE

Not gimping your party of damage per say, i remember it once being mentioned that some people once ran the numbers on live on some dummies that mara did ~30% less dmg than choppa


sure the dmg is not as high as mara+chop/WE but its compensated for by having a safe combo, with only mDoks being more durable


Also not sure what it has to do with anything but by not stacking weaponskill the lack of armor pen means that BW's cant take as much advantage of their high crit chance melee AA's

[spacegoat]

The thing I find strange about it is that in addition to having access to just about every non-stat debuff in the game, at least two of their debuffs are also the strongest in the game. Cutting claw and TB are about 50% stronger than the next best in game. They combine versatility and potency on the utility front and still deal good damage AND are pretty tough to kill as well.

It seems to me that you just described a functional MDPS class build. Class builds should be desirable to play. We should be able to enumerate (as you have) at least 3 good things (i.e, excellent debuffs + acceptable damage + acceptable survivability) about a class, shouldn't we? Of course, you didn't mention the weaknesses which come along with the package: (1) the debuffs are single target only, (2) the damage can only be delivered by being right next to the target, and carefully timing ones buffs, etc (3) being "pretty tough to kill" doesn't go very far in anything except a 1v1 situation, as group focus damage is high enough to vaporize anything besides a defensive tank in no time at all. We're talking about a survivability difference of a few seconds.

Edit: On the topic of TB, it reduces to this. A small change to Thunderous Blow would be reasonable (see my earlier post), simply to make its application less of a no-brainer. However, it is important to consider that the Sav/Brut marauder is currently one of the few class builds which is working well in the generally underperforming category of MDPS. In my view, it is the standard to which other MDPS classes/builds should be elevated. It seems, unfortunately, that its relative viability is being treated as an undesirable anomaly by some elements of our community.