Low level MRD, have a few questions

[juniglee]

Hi all,

I already have a Level 50 Paladin, so I'm training up a Marauder/Warrior for an alternative tanking class as needed, if I need to change around at all. Got a few questions.

Obviously, while they are both tanks, but I find they play somewhat differently. I am only Level 24, but here's a few of my observations:

1. Marauders use Overpower for group enmity rather than Flash. Flash is nice to have, but my Marauder runs out of mana after 3 Flashes, which means it's better to use Overpower to hold group aggro. My problem here is how do I manage TP. I tend to like to chain groups of mobs as a Paladin, so assuming I adopt the same playstyle, I'd be stunning the last mob in a group, then running ahead and pulling the next group. If I play like this, I tend to run out of TP rather quickly, and have to stop to regen TP every 3 or 4 groups or so.

2. At a higher level, Marauders will have 2 different combos - Heavy Swing/Skull Sunder/Butcher's Block (single target enmity combo), and Heavy Swing/Maim/Storm's Path (Maim buff, damage reduction debuff). At a lower level, I find I don't have a lot of opportunities to set up Maim, so I am mostly always using the HS/SS combo to maintain enmity. A Paladin only really has to know the Fast Blade/Savage Blade/Rage of Halone combo, which generates huge enmity (similar to BB combo), AND provides a strength debuff reduction (inferior but similar to SP combo). At what point should I ever consider using the SP combo, as it doesn't maintain enmity? How important is it to maintain the Maim buff? How important is it to spread the damage reduction debuff on mobs in the group, without losing enmity on the main mob?

Thanks for any help out there. I'm having a blast playing as a Marauder, although the squishiness tends to worry me a little.

[Judge_Xero]

With the enmity buff to overpower you should only need a couple uses of it on group pulls to hold hate. If you can get the Maim buff up first you might be fine with a single overpower and then single target.

on trash mobs you will eventually have inner beast and paired with vengeance that will be fine. On a single boss is where SP debuff will be used as you will have time to get a lead on enmity. Late game you will find that with single target keeping enmity is fine with just SE SP after starting with a couple BB.

[SpookyGhost]

1. 1-2x OP is all you'll need before you start HS -> SSing. Fracture is actually really good at low level, so what I tended to do was (OP x2) -> (HS -> SS main target) -> (Fracture second target) -> (HS -> SS main target) -> (Fracture third target if there is one) -> etc. Later on Fracture will be next to worthless, but for now it'll be really helpful to keep hate.

2. Once you have access to Butcher's Block you'll have much more wiggle room to keep your Maim buff up. After enough HS -> SSs you can take the short risk of applying Maim, which will give you more enmity for the SS combos you do while it's up. As long as the mob isn't about to go and rip open your DPS/healers face then it's safe to go for Maim as it'll be helpful in the long run. When you have access to Vengeance and/or Berserk, you'll have a lot of time to apply the SP debuff to the other mobs. If you're worried you can do HS -> Maim on your main target, and then tab to the other target and SP. Any damage generates enmity so applying Maim also gives some enmity, which is why it's usually not a risk to go for it.

[juniglee]

Hmmm...so it's not worth it to apply SP debuff to multiple mobs then? I usually spread my Halone combo as Paladin, so each mob has the strength reduction debuff.

From what I gather, it seems it is not essential to keep Maim up as much as possible at lower levels, until I get Butcher's Block. I never use Fracture, because it's a loss of 2.5s GCD, when I could be rotating HS->SS to keep up enmity. I may have to try it.

[peaches]

I almost always open by using Tomahawk>Flash>Overpower x2. Then I do my Heavy Swing>Skull Sunder>Butcher's Block on the #1 target. The two overpowers is almost always enough to hold enmity on the other targets if people are using AoE, and from there I use Maim>Storm's Path on the last #3 target. After getting the buff from Maim, I use Fracture on every enemy, then do the Butcher's Block combo on #1 again if it's still alive to make sure I have max enmity on it again. Then I just split the Butcher's block combo between the rest of the enemies, Skull Sunder on one, Butcher's Block on the other.

I pretty much always keep Maim up 100% of the time as well as Fracture. You don't really need Storm's Path up, but if you're using Maim you may as well toss it on the last enemy, as he'll be alive the longest. If its a boss, keep it up 100% of the time. I find Storm's Eye to be nearly useless unless you're DPSing. If you basically do what I said above you should be fine, but judging from the situation you may have to Overpower once or twice throughout, if people are full out attacking someone other than #1. But for the most part if people follow the order you should never have to Overpower more than twice in the start, and you can chain pull for a good long while.

Luckily low level Marauder is much easier than low level Gladiator. The same advice works, and I've never had enmity issues at low levels. Just keep Maim and Fracture up, and although you don't have Butcher's Block to rotate between enemies it works basically the same, maybe requiring an extra Overpower here or there.

[SpookyGhost]

Fracture is a gain of 2 GCDs in terms of holding hate on multiple mobs. You'd have to alternate HS -> SS on all the other mobs, whereas with Fracture you just need to toss one on each and you're good. Plus it's a pretty long DoT, so it's handy if your DPS is taking awhile on mob #1.

[Paikis]

Fracture is a gain of 2 GCDs in terms of holding hate on multiple mobs. You'd have to alternate HS -> SS on all the other mobs, whereas with Fracture you just need to toss one on each and you're good. Plus it's a pretty long DoT, so it's handy if your DPS is taking awhile on mob #1.

Fracture is terrible at holding hate as it doesn't have a threat modifier. It exists to do damage, not increase threat.

[SpookyGhost]

Fracture is terrible at holding hate as it doesn't have a threat modifier. It exists to do damage, not increase threat.

Damage is threat. It doesn't need a threat modifier when you are trying to hold hate on multiple mobs but need to focus on one. That's why this is true at low levels, but not true at high levels. At high levels you have an infinite amount of threat to work with - this isn't the case at low levels. You also won't see many people AOEing at low levels (literally just BLM blizzard 2 and that is just a bad BLM), so you won't need to cycle your hate combo through all the mobs... especially when it's just HS - > SS.

[peaches]

Damage is threat. It doesn't need a threat modifier when you are trying to hold hate on multiple mobs but need to focus on one. That's why this is true at low levels, but not true at high levels. At high levels you have an infinite amount of threat to work with - this isn't the case at low levels. You also won't see many people AOEing at low levels (literally just BLM blizzard 2 and that is just a bad BLM), so you won't need to cycle your hate combo through all the mobs... especially when it's just HS - > SS.

While what you say is true to an extent, for tanks it hardly seems to apply. As a Paladin, you can't use Riot Blade instead of Savage Blade to get enmity, despite the fact that Riot Blade has a higher combo potency. Either we don't have enough DPS for our DPS to hold enmity, or the actual DPS class abilities have hidden enmity values that our non enmity abilities don't.

I just use Fracture purely for the extra damage, and because I know two Overpowers is enough to get the Maim buff, and hit everyone with Fracture before I need to start working on Enmity again.

[SpookyGhost]

FB -> RB is 2 GCDs. Fracture is 1. Fracture does damage, keeps enmity, and is a DoT. It is literally your best option for holding hate on multiple mobs at a low level in every possible way. I don't know what you're trying to counterpoint here - you use it to do damage, and damage is enmity. Enmity modifiers do matter, yes, but you don't NEED one on Fracture for it to be the superior option in every possible way for low levels.