I am a decent player, .. not the best, not a baddie. I do make mistakes. I DO play the objectives, and I do win matches because of it. I primarily run a deception assassin (pvp), and a vengeance jug in {pve). I rarely PVE. I top the leaderboards with objectives, .. usually in top 5 in damage, really don't look at my damage much. I just play the Warzone as needed.

I have had a carnage mara on the backburner for the last 2 years. I level him up when new content comes, I hit the target dummy, I take him on raids on occasion. Although I play an assassin and jug mostly, .. deep down inside - I am a Carnage Mara.

After reading some of the posts this last month on here, I decided to play him again. Quickly geared him up with gear, "easy mode here, I can buy min max from the start". I head into the warzones. .. for the last 3 weeks its been interesting .. really its been tough. very tough. Constantly CC'd, constantly focused down by range. Sometimes shine in a one on one, .. sometimes get a healer backing me, and I get to run around and actually do my job. Predation is pretty cool.

I usually try to ravage my target, then unload the gore burst window. that's really it .. yes obiscarate, use my defensive cooldowns when I can. CC .. etc.

so simple .. yet so hard. I don't play any of the easy range classes, I like melee. I really feel for you guys trying to make your claim that Mara really needs help. It really does. Anyone saying they are fine, .. well .. they are just that much better at the keyboard then me.

My job is to DPS. My job is to kill, and kill fast. My job is to assist the team with speed. I don't just jump into a group of baddies, .. butr I do find myself surrounded by a group of baddies. Yes, my jug can survive longer, yes my assassin can pansy his stealthy arse out of there. Mara can escape, but a DIRT nap always follows unless healers show up and actually focus healing me.

What concerns me most is when the developers did the character change preview videos before 3.0 came out. Marauders came up in the conversation a couple times. The devs were quickly to dismiss them stating any buff would make them overpowered, .. end of story move on. I recall the one dev stating it very factually that maras were fine and dominated in PVP. I think I actually laughed out loud when he said that, and it became very real to me. They don't play maras, and if they do .. they have a healer stuck on them. At the time, I did not play my mara much, but I also never really saw them much in WZ's. There are times when I NEVER see a mara thru a night of PVP.

I know they can do well at times. They pop on me, and sometimes send me home to the respawn faster than I can go "look, two lightsabers, its a MARAUDER" .. those times, I want to play one again. I want to main one. The discipline is in my blood.

ouch.

Bottom line: all the whining is real. Its tough out there. I do shine in WZ's when the opposing team is bad, really bad. this is rare. If its regular pug on pug, .. ok. I may be able to kinda do my job. But if its against some decent pvp;ers. poke -poke - lights out!!

If we could get a little bit more immunity to stuns and roots/slows then I think we would be perfectly fine. Problem being is we don't and because of that we are left very vulnerable against classes such as: Scoundrels, Shadows, and Gunslingers (its rather easy to counter a gunslinger though so that's not so bad.) Not to mention its somewhat difficult to chase around troopers because we can't slow or root or keep up really when they run around with their speed/movement impairing buff they employ often.

Of course this is usually a problem in endgame pvp. In midbies and lowbies marauders are decent.

I've returned to PvP after a hiatus. I'm still playing my first character (marauder) from early access. I'm annihilation. Mobility and survivability don't seem to the biggest problem for me. I have a bunch of escapes to get away and survive.

The problem is that my damage seems to be really low. Putting pressure on a healer seems impossible because I rarely see their healthbar drop. (Even with the 20% healing debuff.)

I'm mostly sticking to guarding objectives/calling incs or buffing ballcarrier/hindering followers in PvP to contribute. Honestly it seems this class is a lot less fun then it used to be.

Constantly CC'd

This is what kills all enjoyment of marauder in pvp for me. Endless CC fest, and nothing I can do about it.

This is what kills all enjoyment of marauder in pvp for me. Endless CC fest, and nothing I can do about it.

And ppl tell you to go Concentration then for CC immunity. But I dont like Concentration damnit! Everyone should be able to play his favourite spec, not be forced to play certain disciplines to be viable.

And ppl tell you to go Concentration then for CC immunity. But I dont like Concentration damnit! Everyone should be able to play his favourite spec, not be forced to play certain disciplines to be viable.

You CAN play carnage viably, but the main problem to Carnage is it's main burst is HIGHLY CC dependant. You cannot be stunned, otherwise your burst is dead... Fury does not have this issue. And you get a free 6s of "You Can't CC me!" And has superior burst (you can chain 10k - 14k Crits pretty easily in Fury, whereas you have to settle with 10k - 11k crits in Carnage [With Gore Active])

And ppl tell you to go Concentration then for CC immunity. But I dont like Concentration damnit! Everyone should be able to play his favourite spec, not be forced to play certain disciplines to be viable.

I actually do like that spec (Fury) and I have been playing it, but what irks me about it is the cc immunity is only every other Force Crush, which to me is dumb for two reasons; First, since it's tied to a DoT that's part of our damage rotation (why?.....makes no sense) we really don't have any control over when we actually get the immunity, and Second, why the arbitrary internal cooldown? It's not like we have any way to reset the cooldown on Force Crush, like, say, Juggernauts being able to reset Force Leap (which is where their immunity comes from) from Force Push and ending combat.

I have to be completely honest when I say I am just baffled by some of their design decisions.

I actually do like that spec (Fury) and I have been playing it, but what irks me about it is the cc immunity is only every other Force Crush, which to me is dumb for two reasons; First, since it's tied to a DoT that's part of our damage rotation (why?.....makes no sense) we really don't have any control over when we actually get the immunity, and Second, why the arbitrary internal cooldown? It's not like we have any way to reset the cooldown on Force Crush, like, say, Juggernauts being able to reset Force Leap (which is where their immunity comes from) from Force Push and ending combat.

 

I have to be completely honest when I say I am just baffled by some of their design decisions.

The immunity DOES need an internal CD, mate, Fury maras already have the most uptime of CC immunity...

The immunity DOES need an internal CD, mate, Fury maras already have the most uptime of CC immunity...

Do you mean out of the 3 Mara specs (obvious winner, it's the only one with any cc immunity at all) or classes in general? Vengeance Juggs speced and played properly have nearly 50% CC immunity lol

Warbringer brings the average CD on charge down to about 9s. Immunity lasts 4. Leap on CD = almost never get CC'd. Assassins have 12s (Deflection) 5 more seconds (Shroud) 4 more seconds (Vanish with talents) for a whopping 21 continuous seconds if they really want/need it. They can also break roots and snares every 15s (half the CD of ours, assuming you take the 2 Predation talents, and you definitely should). PTs are outright immune to roots and snares nearly half the time + 15m range and auto slow on their spam ability. Concealment can basically ignore a snare for 6s every 45 with Sneak, either spec can full cleanse every ~25s (talented Evasion) and break roots every 45s (talented Countermeasures, not worth it IMO).

I'm generally pretty conservative when it comes to immunities and controlling effects (need less immunities, zero rotational snares/roots, all cc should have an opportunity cost IMO) and even I think it wouldn't be a big deal to remove the ICD on Fury's CC immunity. With the cooldown on crush it only works out to one more immunity window a minute, totaling 18s a minute.

Do you mean out of the 3 Mara specs (obvious winner, it's the only one with any cc immunity at all) or classes in general? Vengeance Juggs speced and played properly have nearly 50% CC immunity lol

 

Warbringer brings the average CD on charge down to about 9s. Immunity lasts 4. Leap on CD = almost never get CC'd. Assassins have 12s (Deflection) 5 more seconds (Shroud) 4 more seconds (Vanish with talents) for a whopping 21 continuous seconds if they really want/need it. They can also break roots and snares every 15s (half the CD of ours, assuming you take the 2 Predation talents, and you definitely should). PTs are outright immune to roots and snares nearly half the time + 15m range and auto slow on their spam ability. Concealment can basically ignore a snare for 6s every 45 with Sneak, either spec can full cleanse every ~25s (talented Evasion) and break roots every 45s (talented Countermeasures, not worth it IMO).

 

I'm generally pretty conservative when it comes to immunities and controlling effects (need less immunities, zero rotational snares/roots, all cc should have an opportunity cost IMO) and even I think it wouldn't be a big deal to remove the ICD on Fury's CC immunity. With the cooldown on crush it only works out to one more immunity window a minute, totaling 18s a minute.

Vengeance jugg's immunity is tied to Force Charge which has 10m minimal range, so if I stay in 10m range, they have no immunity. Sins have less uptime than mara with Deflection. And everything else you listed doesnt prevent stuns/mezzes/sleeps.

Vengeance jugg's immunity is tied to Force Charge which has 10m minimal range, so if I stay in 10m range, they have no immunity.

You can't stay in 10m minimal range, because force push and intercede. They will always have immunity up on demand. Fury Marauders do not. 6 seconds of immunity out of every 36 seconds? That's nothing compared to what Juggernauts can do.

But in the end, at least Fury has some CC immunity. Carnage is completely screwed.

Sins have less uptime than mara with Deflection.

Haven't played my sin in awhile, but don't they also have root and snare immunity on force speed, every 12 seconds?

You can't stay in 10m minimal range, because force push and intercede. They will always have immunity up on demand. Fury Marauders do not. 6 seconds of immunity out of every 36 seconds? That's nothing compared to what Juggernauts can do.

 

But in the end, at least Fury has some CC immunity. Carnage is completely screwed.

 

 

 

Haven't played my sin in awhile, but don't they also have root and snare immunity on force speed, every 12 seconds?

Ok clearly we dont speak the same language: you are talking about CC, im talking about hardstun and mezzes. Every class has some kind of MI breaker, but only a few has immunity to stuns and mezzes. And from thise classes, mara has the most uptime rotationally, while juggs need to outplay their opponents to get more immunity, sins have much less uptime.

Ok clearly we dont speak the same language: you are talking about CC, im talking about hardstun and mezzes. Every class has some kind of MI breaker, but only a few has immunity to stuns and mezzes. And from thise classes, mara has the most uptime rotationally, while juggs need to outplay their opponents to get more immunity, sins have much less uptime.

Roots and 70%+ slows are hard cc to melee (especially marauders) when facing ranged. I have far more immunity to all cc on my jug in any spec than I do on my marauder, and then only in Fury spec. Not to mention rotation - Juggs get their immunity the second they land from their leap, which is when 99% of cc gets thrown their way. Fury Mara's are one or two gcd away from CC immunity after their leap (depending on which rotation you follow), which is almost always too late. Hard stun or kb+root+snare combo almost always accompanies a marauder's leap, before they even get a chance to fire an ability off.

Ok clearly we dont speak the same language: you are talking about CC, im talking about hardstun and mezzes. Every class has some kind of MI breaker, but only a few has immunity to stuns and mezzes. And from thise classes, mara has the most uptime rotationally, while juggs need to outplay their opponents to get more immunity, sins have much less uptime.

lol using force charge is out playing people now? Good joke. Juggs that want to use charge every 10s, can always use charge every 10s. The only exception is if you were to play a team consisting entirely of snipers, which is basically unheard of. There is always SOMEONE to leap to.

All of which is beside the point. It seems to me that you're trying to argue that one facet of one spec of mara is strong at the moment. There are two things Maras still have going for them, neither of those things is the CC immunity for Fury or indeed spec dependent at all. Currently, combined with 10m range on most attacks, it makes Fury the best of the 3, but it's still no where near strong.

"I usually try to ravage my target, then unload the gore burst window. that's really it .. yes obiscarate, use my defensive cooldowns when I can. CC .. etc. "

Try using bloodlust, for the alacrity, then gore---ravage---devastating blast. this should be when you want to ravage for dps. try to not use ravage outside a gore window.

Well put and i couldn't agree more.

My Shadow has ranged dots as well as good damage coupled with stealth, self heals, and other nice tricks as well as some decent aoe.

As for my Sorc it is so much more fun than my marauder in PvP. But more than this so much more useful and worst of all as someone with a carnage spec marauder I don't like healing Marauders. Nothing against them but the healing is better used on dps sorcs or pt's or people that I can actually keep up that don't get chain stunned and burnt down the moment their defence cool downs expire.

Being a carnage spec marauder is always hard work cause your a drain on your poor healer and often lose los or range cause you have to chase people being mdps.

Well put and i couldn't agree more.

 

My Shadow has ranged dots as well as good damage coupled with stealth, self heals, and other nice tricks as well as some decent aoe.

 

As for my Sorc it is so much more fun than my marauder in PvP. But more than this so much more useful and worst of all as someone with a carnage spec marauder I don't like healing Marauders. Nothing against them but the healing is better used on dps sorcs or pt's or people that I can actually keep up that don't get chain stunned and burnt down the moment their defence cool downs expire.

 

Being a carnage spec marauder is always hard work cause your a drain on your poor healer and often lose los or range cause you have to chase people being mdps.

As frustrating as it may be to hear, if you're chasing people out of los of your team you're probably playing melee wrong. You need to be willing to let people go and just target swap, overextending to Africa will get you killed 9/10 times. This is especially true in maps like AHG and NC, where you are very obviously in the middle of their ranged and will get swapped to immediately by good players. You can get away with it more in ACW/Huttball/Voidstar.

There was a time when this class could overextend all day and almost always get away with it. That time is long gone, especially on servers that are ranged/fotm heavy. For example, on Bastion/POT5 there are generally less ranged DPS, and especially good ranged DPS. On Harb, the average skill level isn't really any better, but you can bet the farm there are 3-5 Sorcs waiting to blow you up if you so much as look at one of them lol

Mara is hard to play good- and i am not one of those people...

But i love my carnage mara... In the end, its still fun to play (im addicted to the speed). I am scared though, that the expansion will make everyone elses map movement faster... That "might" be a deal breaker. Until then, ill keep on keepin' on.

"I usually try to ravage my target, then unload the gore burst window. that's really it .. yes obiscarate, use my defensive cooldowns when I can. CC .. etc. "

 

Try using bloodlust, for the alacrity, then gore---ravage---devastating blast. this should be when you want to ravage for dps. try to not use ravage outside a gore window.

I use ravage to pull the interrupt, or CC .. etc. That way, my real burst is waiting after they blow it on the crap ravage.

As frustrating as it may be to hear, if you're chasing people out of los of your team you're probably playing melee wrong. You need to be willing to let people go and just target swap, overextending to Africa will get you killed 9/10 times. This is especially true in maps like AHG and NC, where you are very obviously in the middle of their ranged and will get swapped to immediately by good players. You can get away with it more in ACW/Huttball/Voidstar.

 

There was a time when this class could overextend all day and almost always get away with it. That time is long gone, especially on servers that are ranged/fotm heavy. For example, on Bastion/POT5 there are generally less ranged DPS, and especially good ranged DPS. On Harb, the average skill level isn't really any better, but you can bet the farm there are 3-5 Sorcs waiting to blow you up if you so much as look at one of them lol

As my PvP character has range (dots, healing, bubbles, immunity, cleanse, channeled aoe as well) the idea of switching targets from a nearly dead opponent to a full health one is what loses matches or if the enemy is doing it wins our match.

Now PvP forum is full of people stating how OP healing is so I wont rehash that but in my limited experience generally the turning point of most matches is when you kill a couple of their people and you have your full team left. They have a chance of getting stuck behind the force field which can be a long time on the front line. Even if that is not the case they have to get back into the fight which gives you a chance to gank their friends. So the most sucessful wins are when we focus kill, focus kill, focus kill. Getting someone to one third health then switching off them to someone else does nothing to reduce their level of dpes or healing where as killing someone reduces it by an 8th or 4th.

Now if you have a 30+ meter kill zone as opposed to a 4m one you just have more option to focus fire and to target people on low health. I wish it werent the way but the old adage of don't bring a knife to a gun fire holds true, ranged has tactical advantages that melee doesn't. Its why throughout history the side with automatic guns would beat the side with clubs and sticks. Now in SW Jedi and Sith evened things up by using the force and deflecting blaster bolts with ease. However in TOR all classes had to be balanced so jedi aren't as superior as they are in the films it leads to ranged just having more options; with marauders/sents lacking stealth or self heals further limited tactical options that should be addressed by the combat team but hasn't been.

And ppl tell you to go Concentration then for CC immunity. But I dont like Concentration damnit! Everyone should be able to play his favourite spec, not be forced to play certain disciplines to be viable.

I feel you man, what i really hate is being forced into the stupid utilities that buff guarded by the force and blade ward... they are just for 4v4 yolos with no healers, which is like 70% of them, the problem is, when the healers are qing, you can try your luck and switch those 2 utilities to cleanse/root cleanse (all heroic tier, yey! ¬¬)....

good thing i actually LOVE concentration, the concept is beautiful and i have the rotation/adaptability/target switching every time tighter in my grasp... also the numbers in my gear which are secret ;p it makes you really feel powerful when you burst that sage before he can use bubble with a 20k hit combo.

I have not played since 2.5, and am just now coming back to the game, my game has not even finished downloading yet. I was curious, what does everyone think about Marauders/Sentinels (in general, any spec) right now compared to 2.5?

I think they are fine, right behind sages, pt, sins, scoundrels, guardians, so... 6th position (out of 8 classes XD)!? LOL