What is marauder's role?

[Peregrine]

So I picked up marauder because xi warrior was just too much of a guilty pleasure to not do again, but judging by the abilities it's not being billed as a heavy dd so much as it is an enmity generator (aka glad subjob) or a "aoe melee specialist" which is probably the most futile specialty I've seen attempted in an online ff.

Was hoping there was a little more output on marauder eventually. They're kindof just 2nd or third...actually 4th best tanks, so no ones going to want them as that, and as far as aoe damage goes...not gonna work with that short range if it's not more powerful aoe than a Mage.

Even though all the meleers are generic I can't help but think marauder is the least defined.

Maim is cool though. Also, that locked triple power ability I want it!

[Goshzilla]

We were pretty useful back when Goblin NMs had a lot of mobs to which it was prefer for MRD to off-tank them separately. Not so much anymore, I feel that I'm just a burden to the team whenever I go out and just do "damage." Hell, my own LS even cracked jokes at my puny Heavy Swing damage and told me to start Battle Regime first.

[Arcell]

I'd say they're the 2nd best tanks as we've only got 3 (Gladiator, Marauder, Pugilist). Reason being Marauder has tons of native enmity generating abilities, some of which only work for them (Defender). Hell Pugilist only has 3 native enmity abilities, one of which is an evade attack. Not only that but most of their skills turn into AoE attacks during steadfast. Steadfast especially is another reason they're great tanks. While in steadfast parry rate goes up and parry negates ALL damage from an attack.

Damage against a single target is kind of lacking but again they do gain a decent amount of cone AoEs while in steadfast. It may not be more powerful than Mage AoEs but there's no cast time and it uses TP instead of MP.

I guess the group I run with doesn't really put emphasis on the most super optimal builds for everything. I don't have the kind of mentality required to care about the points you brought up that heavily. Yeah they're sub-par at a few things but look at Pugilist, they're even more so in some areas lol. Plus they're working on class uniqueness and balancing, changing the combat aspects of the game heavily.

[Lienn]

I'd say MRD is crowd controller. While we have GLA excel in one-on-one tanking, MRD excel in holding monster parties under control.

You can just assume that GLA is tank for 1 mob, MRD is tank for multiple mobs and PGL is Ninja wannabe (gogo featherfoot II + Foresight II)

But MRD does can DD well. They won't be at full potential unless we have multiple enemies due slow TP gain, but they do can DD well.

[Peregrine]

If pug is less of a tank than mrd, thaumaturge still takes the number two spot. So marauder is still third best tank on paper.

I just don't see crowd control and AoE as a viable asset to marauders. The features can't be relied on in any real, functional way past just saying "marauders are for crowd control" outloud and writing it down on paper. Doesn't make it true, because functionally no they're not. They can't sleep. They can't bind. Their AoEs are poorly designed for meleers (VERY small conal, not circular, causing you to break steadfast for proper positioning). They can't even *really* draw the attention of a crowd of mobs for more than a few seconds. They'd need the equivalent of two more warmonger-class abilities that enrage everything around them to a pretty far distance, like mage distance. And it's got to be class-specific so a gladiator or thauma cant' just equip it and spam crowd enmity moves.

Lancers, marauders, and pugilists really have no good roles in the game.
"Lancers are for party buffs"
"Marauders are for crowd control."
"Pugilists are for hate control."

These are all paper-thin statements without any real functional utility. It's one thing to say it based on reviewing their intended abilities. It's another thing to convince players they have a real use.

Still going to play it regardless. Played thief for 7 years in XI, in spite of the population not giving a **** about their designed role in parties.

[Lienn]

Sleep isn't the only way to control monsters you know.

MRD has the defender to boost defense and enmity with steadfast, it has enmity trait, enmity cone AoE basic attack, enmity radial AoE WS, bloodbath, that is mainly designed to be used against multiple monsters, warmonger, that helps controlling the monsters around and can still equip voke/taunt for eventual stray monsters and shock spikes incase no one is casting it in that party.

About gravity, you you're right. It does was one of the things i asked for MRD at my class specialization topic here...it does would be very nice for MRD. I asked for Iron Tempest (which is terribly useless right now) to become a knock back + gravity radial AoE WS.

And yep, that's the beauty about this game...the player can pick the way he will play. Its much better than FFXI, where you couldn't do a thing outside your role. If a dude is GLA and decide going with a DD setup he does can DDs...may not be as good as others (or may can since they have riot blade) but still they can play this way without hearing ppl whin all the time.

[Peregrine]

None of the abilities you just cited actually succeed at the task you implied they do. Doesn't matter what the ability says it does (makes enmity, a hidden number) if it doesn't matter (the mobs aren't on the marauder). You're not describing an actual marauder. You're speculating an ideal scenario based on the descriptions of their abities.

I can't hold a group of behest mobs at all. Not even close. Marauder might be crowd control on paper, but it doesn't actually do it. If you invite a marauder for crowd control now, it will fail its job.

My mrd is basically perfectly equipped and no. It isn't for crowd control. All you really have is warmonger, for mere seconds. So for 5 seconds you do your job. For the next minute and a half you stink.

The mages do your job better than med ever will. Not going to work.

[Lienn]

Excuse me? I never had problems holding groups of monsters away from others...maybe the mages that played with me were better than the ones that played with you...maybe behest AoE fest isn't the place for someone to try holding monsters... No provoke in earth will keep a monster away from a mage after he taking a nuke that eats half of its HP...it was exactly the same at FFXI...i bet in 7 years of FFXI, assuming you ever tanked there, you know what happens when a BLM would deal more than 25% of a mob HP in one nuke.

Also, how long you fights last? Crowd control here is something you do for 20~30 seconds tops (until current monster fought from party is dead) and your enmity generated doesn't need to be done against the monster...here enmity isn't like FFXI one...i can fight as MRD the claimed monster and that enmity will keep the unclaimed monster on me with no more than the starting voke/taunt/warmonger i used.

Try playing it in a less crazy situation, like a leve or a grind party, with defender, intimidation and all it has and you often will see it working exactly as planned. Just keep in mind that crowd controling = keep adds away from party...its slightly different of tanking since tank = keep the current monster on you while the others kill it...the enmity flow during crowd controlling and tanking are completely different.

[genma]

None of the abilities you just cited actually succeed at the task you implied they do. Doesn't matter what the ability says it does (makes enmity, a hidden number) if it doesn't matter (the mobs aren't on the marauder). You're not describing an actual marauder. You're speculating an ideal scenario based on the descriptions of their abities.

I can't hold a group of behest mobs at all. Not even close. Marauder might be crowd control on paper, but it doesn't actually do it. If you invite a marauder for crowd control now, it will fail its job.

My mrd is basically perfectly equipped and no. It isn't for crowd control. All you really have is warmonger, for mere seconds. So for 5 seconds you do your job. For the next minute and a half you stink.

The mages do your job better than med ever will. Not going to work.

DING! grats, your now a lvl10 troll

[Goshzilla]

I can't hold a group of behest mobs at all. Not even close. Marauder might be crowd control on paper, but it doesn't actually do it. If you invite a marauder for crowd control now, it will fail its job.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not, but using behest to show MRD fail at crowd controlling is one of the most silly things I've read in awhile. Hell, can you actually bring up a situation at high rank that requires crowd controlling besides Dodore in which THM tanks it?

Again, we shined back when Goblin NM had large number of adds and we were mandatory to be used if available (otherwise PGL). Currently, we have been placed into damage dealing, but it is blatant in anyone's eye our damage is the least damage output excluding GLA when it comes to melee.

Anyway, there are other abilities to make you gain TP quicker (Invigorate) while awaiting Steadfast to activate which you will then be able to do Skull Sunder II, Brutal Swing II, Brandish II, etc. followed by Warmonger. Like any off-tank you should always have Provoke and Taunt on your skill bar whenever an add does finally stem off. With these skills at your disposal you are as solid as any other tank for group leves with ease. I just hope dungeons will give us a solid role like we used to back when parties were 15 member capacity and NM didn't get nerf to cakewalk.