Return of Reckoning

Hey folks,

Love my 40/44 marauder, but I can't shake the feeling that my DPS output isn't quite what it should be. I realize that the marauder's strengths are largely in its debuffs rather than burst, but I notice that I often fall behind other marauders in SCs in terms of pure damage. What, if anything, am I doing wrong?

Build: I run the cookie-cutter single target build, and generally use the same skill rotation as others (Wounds debuff, armor debuff, heal-debuff, maybe toughness debuff... Flail once or twice, switch to brutality, apply dmg buff, use guillotine if their health is appropriately low). Tactics are fairly standard (deadly clutch, feeding on fear, growing instability, piercing bite).

Gear: Currently wearing 4 Ruin pieces with Drengi boots for +crit, soon to be replaced with full merc. Weapons are RvR crit axe and one epic quest weapon. Jewelry is kind of a mix of renown gear (Vanguard stuff buffing toughness, wounds and strength) with one RvR ring.

Renown point expenditure: Crit and strength. The net result of my renown points and gear is +15% crit and 820 strength (with a pot). Could my low strength be the culprit? I've done my best to keep it as high as possible with talismans, etc. Theoretically I could swap out Deadly Clutch for the strength tactic. Worth it?

Playstyle: Since I'm virtually always a PuG player, I tend to play a little bit defensively, assuming I will only intermittently receive heals and guard. Lurk behind the friendly front-line, and only charge in or flank to hit targets of oppurtunity if it looks like insta-death will not be the result.

Whats the difference in killing blows against other marauders? They could be just spamming AOE and getting higher overall damage done numbers.

megadeath wrote:Whats the difference in killing blows against other marauders? They could be just spamming AOE and getting higher overall damage done numbers.

Yeah, I've considered this. The difference in KBs isn't as dramatic. I'd say I'm about average in that regard (which is to say that RDPs stands in the backlines and steals kills on all the squishies I've prepped for death )

But I'm still worried that my damage is sub-par. Does 15% crit and 820 strength sound low for a mpds class?

Sounds about right. My WE has about 840 str with 160 str tactic, but without pot. My merc BG has about 500 str.

spacegoat wrote:

megadeath wrote:Whats the difference in killing blows against other marauders? They could be just spamming AOE and getting higher overall damage done numbers.

Yeah, I've considered this. The difference in KBs isn't as dramatic. I'd say I'm about average in that regard (which is to say that RDPs stands in the backlines and steals kills on all the squishies I've prepped for death )

But I'm still worried that my damage is sub-par. Does 15% crit and 820 strength sound low for a mpds class?

That is low. You should be aiming to hit softcap as a DPS. Which is 1040 iirc.

Gachimuchi wrote:

spacegoat wrote:

megadeath wrote:Whats the difference in killing blows against other marauders? They could be just spamming AOE and getting higher overall damage done numbers.

Yeah, I've considered this. The difference in KBs isn't as dramatic. I'd say I'm about average in that regard (which is to say that RDPs stands in the backlines and steals kills on all the squishies I've prepped for death )

But I'm still worried that my damage is sub-par. Does 15% crit and 820 strength sound low for a mpds class?

That is low. You should be aiming to hit softcap as a DPS. Which is 1040 iirc.

How do people typically hit the soft-cap? As mentioned, I could swap in a strength tactic (+160 iirc), but I would have to sacrifice 50% heal-debuff, 50% armor penetration, or a significant amount of crit damage to do so.

Well i feel like i hit pretty hard My current gear is https://www.returnofreckoning.com/armor ... me=Khorlar with a 22 tally in every slot and while i would like one of the other genesis pieces beggars cant be choosers.

My stats without buffs curently sit at
Strength 979
Weapon Skill 288
Initiative 148 (20.6% chance to be crit eek!)
Toughness 188
HP 5810

Damage bonus 204
Crit 13%

Tactics wise im running Flanking, piercing bite, Brute Force and Growing instability.

Maybe that will give you something to aim for? I recommend at least 1 cleansing winds for this spec.

Current highest hit in orvr is 2043 on guillotine.

Hm. What's your rr?

Edit: just noticed you're slotting Brute Force. Hell, maybe I'll just try it out. Deadly Clutch will have to go.

MDPS requires constant guard/heals to function, if you are primarily PUG players you should just save yourself the trouble and reroll RDPS.

59 but only 25 of that is spent on offensive stats 10 in str 15 in crit. One other thing i would like to mention at this point is mara is currently under an experimental phase. Our debuffs are very strong and the gm's increased the cool down of one of our main damage skills (Thunderous blows) the change however only reduced our dps not our capacity to debuff.

Looking at your rotation You have a decent one with a few flaws, first mutated aggressor should be popped before you start dpsing don't waste a gcd mid rotation Second corruption and flail are low damage skills try to avoid using them mid rotation although that is something i think you may find difficult.

Though it should be said of corruption that it is a good cover debuff.