Marauders are Still Unfun and Need a Significant Nerf

acastanza_ESO

Marauder Zulfimbul's Clobber attack hitting 30k one shots mid dodge in Arc 2 is insane.
How anyone at ZOS thinks this has any place in the game is absolutely baffling to me.

Edit: To the people spouting "get good" nonsense, I have no trouble beating Gothmau (the notoriously previously most difficult Marauder) on the same arc, even though I would argue that it is still not a balanced fight for the arc that it is on. And it absolutely was a one-shot mid dodge. Marauders are simply not fairly balanced for the arc that you get them on and it needs to be fixed.

Treeshka

It is a Minotaur so expect some heavy hits from them. They even hit hard in normal Falkreath Hold basically.

ApoAlaia

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Marauder Zulfimbul's Clobber attack hitting 30k one shots mid dodge in Arc 2 is insane.
How anyone at ZOS thinks this has any place in the game is absolutely baffling to me.

They have a thing for slog mino fights at the moment.

The mino group boss in Silorn was a precursor of how the mino marauder was going to turn out.

TDVM

They're fine

Dragonnord

They're perfectly fine. Stop asking for everything to be nerfed please.

This game is becoming for little kids with all the announced nerfs and hidden nerfs it's having.

Example: After complainers complained, in Lucent Citadel you now get a portal once one member gets to the top of the "going up" section. So the Devs create a FUN UNIQUE MECHANIC and days later it's nerfed.

Complains have already taken a lot of fun out of this game.
 

prof-dracko

Dragonnord wrote: »

They're perfectly fine. Stop asking for everything to be nerfed please.

This game is becoming for little kids with all the announced nerfs and hidden nerfs it's having.

Example: After complainers complained, in Lucent Citadel you now get a portal once one member gets to the top of the "going up" section. So the Devs create a FUN UNIQUE MECHANIC and days later it's nerfed.

Complains have already taken a lot of fun out of this game.
 

The difficulty is making it unfun for others though. I hate the marauders. The anxiety of going past Arc 1 knowing at any point I could get one-shot by that fire prick makes me much more likely to stop after the first Tho'at. It's not even that I can't beat them, I just hate not being able to prepare. They should scale with arc level, I shouldn't have to spend minutes dodging every basic attack knowing even one miss is an automatic lost thread.

And yes, I do think the best suggestion is to make an arc selection option so skilled players can skip to the harder stages. Ask for that if you want a challenge, but don't begrudge others just because they aren't on your level.

freespirit

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

spartaxoxo

Does it still cause you to lose a thread with the latest update? For some reason I thought Marauders no longer cause lost threads.

Anyway, I agree. At least below Arc 4. They make Th'oat look like a joke when she should be the big bad at least until her final form.

NoticeMeArkay

freespirit wrote: »

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

Are the 32k damage you received while blocking or the pure hit?

Major_Mangle

I don´t find the new marauders too overtuned tbh, the werewolf bleed and light attack sequence hurts yes but is manageable.
Goathmau however is still in need of some major adjustment.

My only problem with the marauders is the range and buggy nature of their regular "light attacks" together with the animation they come with. More often than not you´re already dead before the animation from the marauders are shown.

IA overall has a little too steep of a difficulty curve in my opinion. The difficulty itself is not too hard but would personally like to see it ramp up a bit slower so it´s not as punishing if you don´t get focused efforts (which shouldn´t be a requirement to farm the later arcs).

Dragonnord

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

Are the 32k damage you received while blocking or the pure hit?

Of course not. They are receiving the marauders with open arms.
 

DenverRalphy

If they keep one shotting you, perhaps consider slotting a damage shield in lieu of a dps skill.

IA is not kind to DPS load-out builds. Marauders make very short work of DPS glass cannons. Esoecially if you're goin solo with a companion.

ApoAlaia

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

Are the 32k damage you received while blocking or the pure hit?

OP said that they got hit for 32K mid dodge

IncultaWolf

Skill issue honestly. Sorry.

Dragonnord

ApoAlaia wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

Are the 32k damage you received while blocking or the pure hit?

OP said that they got hit for 32K mid dodge

You don't get hit while dodging. That's what dodging is for. Imagine an action that is made to doge hits that doesn't dodge hits.
 

xylena_lazarow

PvE one-shots don't need to exist. There's a difference between challenging and punishing.

ApoAlaia

Dragonnord wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Whilst I was quite shocked to see a hit for over 32k on my death recap and annoyed because the Mino was nearly dead.....

I learned to beat Gothmau and I will learn to beat the Mino but a hit for 32k in Arc 2 does seem quite high imo! 😲

Are the 32k damage you received while blocking or the pure hit?

OP said that they got hit for 32K mid dodge

You don't get hit while dodging. That's what dodging is for. Imagine an action that is made to doge hits that doesn't dodge hits.
 

Where I don't know the particulars of OP's situation not all damage can be dodged; some attacks/types of damage can only be blocked, others can neither be dodged or blocked, they can only be 'tanked'.

DenverRalphy

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

PvE one-shots don't need to exist. There's a difference between challenging and punishing.

Perhaps if there were no mechanics available to avoid being 1 shot. But since there are... <shrug>, while I'm loathe to say it, it falls under the category of "Git Gud".

jaws343

By ARC 3, you can't even block hits from Gothmau, you have to kite and dodge roll the entire fight. They already had one marauder that was certainly overtuned and I haven't even seen the new ones yet.

Morvan

They only show up once in every arc after you complete the first one, they are meant to be hard to kill in relation to the other bosses, that's why they disappear after you die to them, to not gatekeep you there and give you a chance to still go further.

If you have an issue with it being hard just build around it, adapt or get over it, most of the game is super casual friendly as it is, if they end up making the few difficult things accessible to everyone the game will end up getting stale with no challenges or sense of progression.

Just treat it as a challenge, not as a nuisance.

jaws343

Morvan wrote: »

They only show up once in every arc after you complete the first one, they are meant to be hard to kill in relation to the other bosses, that's why they disappear after you die to them, to not gatekeep you there and give you a chance to still go further.

If you have an issue with it being hard just build around it, adapt or get over it, most of the game is super casual friendly as it is, if they end up making the few difficult things accessible to everyone the game will end up getting stale with no challenges or sense of progression.

Just treat it as a challenge, not as a nuisance.

The problem is, there are outliers that are hard to kill amongst themselves. You get one of the properly balanced ones and in later ARCs they are still a challenge, but beatable. You get the overtuned ones and you might as well just stand still and die rather than waste your time waiting for the random one shot.

Morvan

prof-dracko wrote: »

And yes, I do think the best suggestion is to make an arc selection option so skilled players can skip to the harder stages. Ask for that if you want a challenge, but don't begrudge others just because they aren't on your level.

But it's an INFINITE Archive, it is MEANT to be a challenge, you already have the option to stop upon completing the first arc, it's actually that line of thought that is trying to begrudge others who want difficult content.

If you're going to progress in a place in which the main premise is to give you unending scaling difficulty, it's extremely nonsensical to complain about difficulty in the first place.

ApoAlaia

jaws343 wrote: »

By ARC 3, you can't even block hits from Gothmau, you have to kite and dodge roll the entire fight. They already had one marauder that was certainly overtuned and I haven't even seen the new ones yet.

In incremental 10.0.7 they reduced the damage of Viikor Brazen Hoof’s (Silorn PD group boss) Clobber ability; given that Marauder Zulfimbul is basically his cousin it probably needs some tuning down too.

Morvan

jaws343 wrote: »

The problem is, there are outliers that are hard to kill amongst themselves. You get one of the properly balanced ones and in later ARCs they are still a challenge, but beatable. You get the overtuned ones and you might as well just stand still and die rather than waste your time waiting for the random one shot.

I get that some marauders are much more tougher than others, but that goes for the normal bosses too, the outliers among them just become noticeable when you go further enough, but they're just as imbalanced in comparison to each other as all the marauders, if not worse.

The discrepancy among the marauders are only noticeable because they can be a challenge from the beginning if you're on a squishy setup, so you'll obviously see people complaining about them, they'll never go further enough to notice the same difference exist among the normal bosses.

It's still not an issue though, bosses aren't meant to be all equal, and the marauders won't be an exception for that rule.

jaws343

Morvan wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

The problem is, there are outliers that are hard to kill amongst themselves. You get one of the properly balanced ones and in later ARCs they are still a challenge, but beatable. You get the overtuned ones and you might as well just stand still and die rather than waste your time waiting for the random one shot.

I get that some marauders are much more tougher than others, but that goes for the normal bosses too, the outliers among them just become noticeable when you go further enough, but they're just as imbalanced in comparison to each other as all the marauders, if not worse.

The discrepancy among the marauders are only noticeable because they can be a challenge from the beginning if you're on a squishy setup, so you'll obviously see people complaining about them, they'll never go further enough to notice the same difference exist among the normal bosses.

It's still not an issue though, bosses aren't meant to be all equal, and the marauders won't be an exception for that rule.

Gothmau one shots you in ARC 2. The other original ones do not. Not even remotely. And it's not like I am some unprepared player running IA. I've been on top of the leaderboards, I play nearly daily, on a multitude of builds. Solo, with companions, with players. And when Gothmau is the ONLY thing in ARC 2 that can kill a tank companion, there is a problem.

Morvan

jaws343 wrote: »

Gothmau one shots you in ARC 2. The other original ones do not. Not even remotely. And it's not like I am some unprepared player running IA. I've been on top of the leaderboards, I play nearly daily, on a multitude of builds. Solo, with companions, with players. And when Gothmau is the ONLY thing in ARC 2 that can kill a tank companion, there is a problem.

Then again, that discrepancy isn't a problem, just compare Zhaj'hassa in later arcs to the overland or base dungeon bosses in there, if Gothmau hitting harder than the marauders is a problem, then all the other bosses are a problem too.

You could argue that the difficulty between marauders is a RNG issue and you'd rather get the easier ones every time, but the entire system there is RNG based if you consider the verses and visions you get, so...

It still won't gatekeep any newer player from completing the first arc or dailies just fine, I myself never built tanky status effect builds because I don't want to stay there for 6 hours, as a solo dps build with pale order on you can pretty much get to the dragon tho'at once or twice just fine.

Dying to a few marauders along the way won't stop you from getting there.

spartaxoxo

Morvan wrote: »

If you're going to progress in a place in which the main premise is to give you unending scaling difficulty, it's extremely nonsensical to complain about difficulty in the first place.

No. It isn't. The marauders take up threads in otherwise easy arcs and there's no skips. Which means when you finally get to the arcs where the entire thing is a challenge, you don't have the threads necessary to spend actually learning how to take on the challenge.

If I'm going to be forced to slog through an hour of uninteresting gameplay before I can get to the content that I actually want to do, it makes perfect sense to not want to encounter anything that is going to hinder that gameplay once I get to it. But the marauders in arc 2 are already at level where one small slip is a very quick death.

Now, if they fixed it so marauders don't take a thread, then that's fine. But I can't tell if they still do or not based on that patch notes and I haven't died to one since the patch.

jaws343

Morvan wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Gothmau one shots you in ARC 2. The other original ones do not. Not even remotely. And it's not like I am some unprepared player running IA. I've been on top of the leaderboards, I play nearly daily, on a multitude of builds. Solo, with companions, with players. And when Gothmau is the ONLY thing in ARC 2 that can kill a tank companion, there is a problem.

Then again, that discrepancy isn't a problem, just compare Zhaj'hassa in later arcs to the overland or base dungeon bosses in there, if Gothmau hitting harder than the marauders is a problem, then all the other bosses are a problem too.

You could argue that the difficulty between marauders is a RNG issue and you'd rather get the easier ones every time, but the entire system there is RNG based if you consider the verses and visions you get, so...

It still won't gatekeep any newer player from completing the first arc or dailies just fine, I myself never built tanky status effect builds because I don't want to stay there for 6 hours, as a solo dps build with pale order on you can pretty much get to the dragon tho'at once or twice just fine.

Dying to a few marauders along the way won't stop you from getting there.

But Zhal'hassa is easy in early rounds and ramps up in difficulty. Gothmau is balanced closer to ARC 4 in ARC 2, and then gets more difficult from there. Zhal'hassa in early ARCs can almost be slept through and the fight is more about static mechanic following than being a heavy hitting boss. People have trouble following the encounter mechanics, not the damage from the boss.

jaws343

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Morvan wrote: »

If you're going to progress in a place in which the main premise is to give you unending scaling difficulty, it's extremely nonsensical to complain about difficulty in the first place.

No. It isn't. The marauders take up threads in otherwise easy arcs and there's no skips. Which means when you finally get to the arcs where the entire thing is a challenge, you don't have the threads necessary to spend actually learning how to take on the challenge.

If I'm going to be forced to slog through an hour of uninteresting gameplay before I can get to the content that I actually want to do, it makes perfect sense to not want to encounter anything that is going to hinder that gameplay once I get to it. But the marauders in arc 2 are already at level where one small slip is a very quick death.

Now, if they fixed it so marauders don't take a thread, then that's fine. But I can't tell if they still do or not based on that patch notes and I haven't died to one since the patch.

This.

I can make it through ARC 5/6 or so without a death, as long as Gothmau doesn't show up. If Gothmau shows in ARC 2, maybe it is ok. But that is dependent on the enemies in the arena or missing a dodge roll. If Gothmau shows in ARC 2/3, it is pretty much a lost thread. And if he shows in ARC 4, I literally don't even try to fight him solo or with a companion. Waste of time. The other original marauders (haven't got the update yet on console to comment on the new ones), not a problem in early ARCs and a ramping difficulty in later ARCs, the way it should be.

Morvan

spartaxoxo wrote: »

No. It isn't. The marauders take up threads in otherwise easy arcs and there's no skips. Which means when you finally get to the arcs where the entire thing is a challenge, you don't have the threads necessary to spend actually learning how to take on the challenge.

I don't understand how you can see later stages as a challenging learning experience but a casual marauder taking you by surprise once every entire arc is a problem, that's probably a perspective thing I guess.

They are absurdly stronger than anything around them when they show up, yes, but that doesn't change at all on later stages.

Kisakee

If you want to go into higher arcs you'll need a dedicated build, your everyday DD setup won't cut it. It's also RNG dependent if you get the visions that suits your build. If you can kill everything before it kills you well there's that, otherwise it can be a real slog and restarting the run is the better solution.

I made an Oakensoul build with 33k resistances fully depending on Focussed Efforts but even without that we always made it past arc 4 no sweat without a designated tank. It's all about learning and improving and if your build doesn't work just change it to something that works and feels good to you.