Marauder, The Best R50 DPS , info and tips.

[Savier]

Having Archer, Lancer, Marauder, and Gladiator R50, Marauder being my main, I can confidently say that Marauder is hands-down the best melee DPS in-game and even a better hate holder than gladiator or any other class.

Naturally , Marauder by itself, just like most other classes, aren't very impressive with what is given to them at first, however, thanks to the armory system that allows any other class too borrow abilities from each other, Marauder can utilize these abilities to enhance itself and become what it was meant to be.

I'd Like to share some tips and info for those who'd like more knowledge on understanding the Marauder's roll as Heaviest Melee DPS and how to excel at it.

Here's some info on my bar set up and what makes my character work first off...

Stats/Traits

Highlander
STR:134 Fire:55 (Having fire at 55, allows for you too be able to obtain the "Delicious" message for whenever you eat shepherd's pies, which further increase HP and ATK)
VIT:133 Water:95
DEX:100 Lightning:55
INT:13 Wind:92
MND:15 Earth:95
PIE:12 Ice:95

Traits:
Swordsmanship, Pikemanship, Bowmanship, Prime Conditioning, Will to Power, Will to Power II. Intimidation, and Axemanship.

Note: Working on obtaining either Conjurer or Thaumaturge R36 is a smart idea. This will allow for you too purchase stat conversion traits such as Will to Power (+5 STR, -5 INT) , and Will to Power II ( +10 STR ,-10 INT) thus, increasing damage output.

Attack/Weaponskills

Bar 1: Light Swing,Heavy Swing, Broad Swing, Brutal Swing II, Skull Sunder II, Maim, Fracture II , Brandish II, Storm's Path. ( I'll switch Brandish II and Storm's Path for Bloodletter, and Twisting Vice whenever on single targets.)

Attack Buffs

Bar 2: Bloodbath II, Hawk Eye, Raging Strike II, Ferocity II, Cadence, Invigorate II Siphon TP

Hate gain/Defence

Bar 3: Provoke II, Taunt, Warmonger, Defender II, Sentinel, Diversion, Foresight II, Emulate

This is my trait and bar setup, it works best for me, and I highly recommend it to every other marauder out there. It allow for full DPS and fairly good defense if the need ever rises.

Equipment

-Axes

Engraved Bhuj
This weapon is going to be your all-around main, I use a +2, but if you can obtain a +1 or higher quality , it will be a huge improvement over a NQ bhuj. There are plenty of mobs out there which you'll be fighting where the 70% Slashing, 30% Blunt
does most damage.

Vintage Bill & Barbarian's Bardiche

These two axes are situational, you'll gain the most use out of these mostly on R50 NMs. The vintage bill would be the strongest weapon against Uraeus due too the 10% piercing damage the axe offers. The Barbarian's Bardiche which is 60%Blunt and 40% Slashing, is best against Bloatbelly and his gang as they are weaker towards blunt damage.

Every marauder shouldn't settle for an NQ version of an axe, I highly suggest to try to obtain an HQ , the ATK & ACC gain makes a huge diffence.

-Armor

Your basic Silver Tricorne, Vintage Haubergeon, Iron Gauntlets, Penance Belt, Tarred Leather trousers/Leather Skirt, Cavalry Sollerets for main equipment will do. You gain 17-18+ STR and +7 DEX off that alone. As for accessories, I suggest going for +STR rings, as Accuracy isn't much of an issue nearing R50.

Actual Fighting/Tanking

-DPSing

Heavy Swing is your best friend on single targets, it makes it so you hit harder than any other class by a good margin and nets you more TP over a regular Light Swing. Depending on the situation, if you are fighting multiple mobs at once, your best bet is to use Broad Swing. For each individual hit that lands with Broad Swing , not only are you doing damage to multiple targets, but are gaining additional TP per mob hit. A single well placed broad swing can let you gain enough TP for either a Brandish II or Storm's Path.

Once under the effect of steadfast, Brutal Swing II, and Skull Sunder II have the ability to hit any target within a cone range. Skull Sunder II may be better in this case as you can land the damage over time debuff across multiple targets.

Remember those Attack buffs?, well it's best to save them only for weaponskills. The attack increase is substantial and work great during Battle Regiments.

The faster TP you gain, the more damage you do. Remember that! Invigorate and Siphon TP can give off some decent TP, so use them whenever available!


-Tanking

For the most part, it's all about keeping mobs off others, even though Marauder doesn't have the highest defense, it holds hate the best..gladiators on the other hand...if you can't hold hate..then what's the point right? heh

Using Defender while under steadfast increases your enmity gain. Storm's Path is also great on single or multiple targets. Using your Hawk Eye, Raging Strike, Ferocity etc... are also great ways to gain loads of hate and the best thing is, they cost no stamina and they can be stacked with a WS gaining even more hate, making sure that mob doesn't go nowhere.

On NMs, having Sentinel is great, it cuts damage taken by 2/3s , generates quite a bit of enmity , and can be used every minute. Abilities such as Diversion, at the cost of 250 tp, lets you avoid an attack or weaponskill, such as the Great Buffalo's onrush or etc..., Always try to keep Foresight up whenever possible, as soon as you parry and take 0 damage, quickly use Fracture to lock enemies from using weaponskills on you and your comrades. If you manage to obtain Emulate, you basically become the ultimate tank; with a number of ways to grab hate via dishing out damage or generating mob hate under the natural abilities of steadfast.


Compared to other melee classes on NMs

Note: Even though damage difference on NMs aren't huge. These small number gains are what actually matter. Thus showing that Marauder is a stronger melee DPS.
Remember, NMs are under different properties , certain NMs have a damage cap you can't pass.

example; a Lancer's Light Thrust/Pierce does the same damage on Uraeus as Full thrust; which on regular mobs does half that of light/pierce.

Uraeus

- Marauder against Archer/Pugilist/Lancer

Silver Francisca/Light Swing w/ Vintage Bill does 4-7 more points of damage over an archers light shot.

Archer hitting 29-31
Pugilist hitting 30-34
Lancer hitting 30-34
Marauder hitting 33-38

Great Buffalo

-Marauder damage is noticeable. Clearly shows marauder is best melee DPS.

Archer hitting 28-33
Pugilist 30-34
Lancer 30-35
Marauder 42-62 (Crits can go up to 70-85ish)

Bloatbelly/Dodore/Mosshorn

There's no question too who will perform best here. Marauder wins, hands-down. All about the AoE.

And that's it for this post, thank you for taking a look. Hopefully you can take into consideration on some of these things too help you out on taking your Marauder to its full potential.

I am open to discussion/questions etc...

once again Thank You!

[Grundy]

I love my Marauder but there is one glaring error in your arguement.

Stamina regeneration vs Stamina cost.

Lancer and Archer have Marauder beat hands down. I can get full TP in 6 hits with Lancer and break out Twisting Vice, Heavy Trammel, SkullSunder II and Skewer II which will put your Marauder figures to shame. Sorry, but that is the truth of it.

EDIT: Why add Axemanship to your bar playing Marauder, it does nothing for the job?

[Physic]

pug hits twice

[Savier]

I love my Marauder but there is one glaring error in your arguement.

Stamina regeneration vs Stamina cost.

Lancer and Archer have Marauder beat hands down. I can get full TP in 6 hits with Lancer and break out Twisting Vice, Heavy Trammel, SkullSunder II and Skewer II which will put your Marauder figures to shame. Sorry, but that is the truth of it.

EDIT: Why add Axemanship to your bar playing Marauder, it does nothing for the job?

Remember that most of the games current content, such as Leves/Faction NMs/World NMs, and soon dungeons, are going to have you fighting multiple mobs at once , this is where Marauders AoE comes in, one swing on a group of lets say..3 mobs, can gain you a decent amount of TP . Allowing you too spam AoE Skull Sunder/Brutal Swing etc... rinse and repeat.

Being able to do damage across multiple mobs is more efficient than only focusing on one with Lancer/Archer.

Having Invigorate/siphon TP can help further.

For the Axemenship, I didn't have anything else. so I just keep it up there.

[Savier]

pug hits twice

Marauder hits 2-3 times as hard

against a Pugilists heavy strike damage combined of course.

[Physic]

Marauder hits 2-3 times as hard

against a Pugilists heavy strike damage combined of course.

id like to see this, havent hung out with a marauder my level in awhile, not saying it may not be true, but i dunno, i hit pretty hard.

[Peregrine]

Whole argument is based on damage per hit, which is an irrelevant statistic. As others have stated, lancer beats marauder because it has mini-haste. Archer beats marauder because it has superior attack design and abilities.

MRD actually parses about what a pugilist does at NMs. 17-19%
Lancer about 20-21%
Magest 21-23%
Archer 23-25% of party damage.

These are decked out, endgame classes in comparison to each other. Sorry. Marauder is actually at the bottom of the damage spectrum. They may hit for the most per melee swing, but their ability sets are D-grade and their weaponskills didn't get the luck of the draw like pugilist and lancers' did in a party debuffed situation.

In isolation, of course you can argue that marauders hit the most per swing. Duh, they have the highest attack rating on the weapons.

That doesn't mean **** though. They're tied for last-best DD class on a single target, and honestly If you want AoE Damage hello. That's what a mage is for. You can't compete with tier II rotations and DoT AoE stacking. Archer is actually better than marauder at AoE physical damage.

You know your argument is flawed when you start saying stupid things like marauders beat archers at Dodore. Not only will an archer destroy you in damage per second, they have better AoEs than you do that will hit more eyes more reliably, faster. It's not even close.

Your equipment should focus less on stats, more on attributes. Conquistador Elmo, Kokoroon Darkshell Mail, accuracy rings are the correct "endgame" equip choices for marauder, what little any of it matters. The primary stats are a waste of equipment slots, just like in FFXI.

I always get a chuckle at players with 15 MND VIT and PIE going ****-crazy on primary meleeing stats. The system was not designed for min-maxing. In fact, it was designed to combat it.

[Savier]

You failed too see that I mentioned Melee DPS within the first phrase, so theres no reason to compare against Conjurer/Thaumaturge, and I also stated once abilties are borrowed from other classes, on-top of doing the heaviest damage per swing, and being able to dish out AoE , a Marauder becomes just as useful with using abilities like Twisting Vice/Bloodletter, which is what makes Lancer/Archer useful during NMs.

Don't forget, I'm a R50 Archer/Lancer.

[Peregrine]

You're not the best melee DPS. Lancer is, by the parse DPS. The actual number, not your subjective reasoning that doesn't pan out. The reason is haste. You can't make up for it.

Doesn't sound like you're taking archer and lancer seriously to be honest. You can mention the word DPS all you want. None of your argument involved it. What little numbers you propose are irrelevant to the discussion.

And no, you're not just as good using twisting vice and bloodletter. You're a substitute for the people who are.

[Filtiarne]

You're not the best melee DPS. Lancer is, by the parse DPS. The actual number, not your subjective reasoning that doesn't pan out. The reason is haste. You can't make up for it.

Doesn't sound like you're taking archer and lancer seriously to be honest. You can mention the word DPS all you want. None of your argument involved it. What little numbers you propose are irrelevant to the discussion.

And no, you're not just as good using twisting vice and bloodletter. You're a substitute for the people who are.

A Mrd may parse just 5% below the total party damage on ONE mob, but you fail to take into account that skullsunder, brutal swing, full swing and storm's path are ALL AOE, so while you are doing 25% to one mob, we are doing 20+% to ALL of them.