Marauders need some adjusting (endless archive)

FantasticFreddie

Aside from no save points and a 3 wipe limit being extremely un-fun points about the endless archive, the marauders add another element of not-fun IMHO.
In a duo, mid-tier players, tankheal/dd comp with some reasonable defensive and offensive balance, the marauder in the 3rd arc wrecked my companion immediately. I might have been able to save him if I had taunted him when he spawned, but due to the line of sight of the dungeon and my own reaction times, I was not able to.

A 1-shot mechanic in a "3 strikes and you're out" situation is in my opinion, unreasonable.

Overall, Endless archive is beautiful, interesting concept, the verses and visions are fun, but I'd love to see the marauders adjusted, the 3 lives rule abandoned completely, and a save point.

Add a couple of achievements for reaching x arc without a death for those who like that sort of thing.

AJTC5000

Yeah, had some trouble with the marauders as a solo player myself. Really don't want to have to bubble-wrap my character in Arc 2 just on the off-chance I encounter Gothmau/the fire one.

Fire is the worst. Storm seems to be better now than it was on PTS but I can still see it being more difficult down the line as it becomes more of a DPS race to kill it before the arena gets consumed by tornadoes. Tidal I haven't really had a problem with mostly, his attacks are slow, well-telegraphed and more avoidable than the other two.

Jaimeh

I think the first marauder is OK, but you need to build really defensively; I use more defensive skills from the beginning of arc 2, and keep an eye for the boss health bar appearing on the screen at the start of a stage, and save my ulti until then. When I see the boss health bar appearing, I try to kill as many adds as I can, since it will take him a moment to come closer, and then try and leave one add alive (preferably not a sun-eater or any of the more dangerous adds) and then basically kite him away from the add and take my time, minding my health and resources, and playing it safe. The second marauder in the arc 3 is a different story though. I still haven't beaten him, though I got him once to execute stage, but even his basic attacks take away a lot of my health, so if I don't heal up between two basic hits, it's already game over, therefore I think for that one, health regen needs to be extremely high (along with resists and so on).

Carcharodontosaurus

Marauders are pretty fun with a friend, I imagine they could be a pain solo.

I've been tanking for my friend, and they add a lot of challenge and uncertainty to each add pull. It's fun to have that sense of danger that a Marauder could spawn in.

I did find it much easier to leave one add alive in the wave the marauder spawned to whittle down the Marauders hp as quickly as possible, otherwise I just tell my dps friend to focus adds while I hold boss, because the risk of being overwhelmed is pretty high, especially with the fire one.

Necrotech_Master

yeah i found the dmg they did was pretty absurd

on one of my dps toons a marauder spawned on me and 1 shotted me with an 18k dmg light attack (i have like 22k max hp so not a lot of margin)

this was only like arc 2 as well

once i knew to expect them on future runs i always made sure i was ready, but some of them are still a bit overtuned in terms of dmg

the water one seems to be the "least" difficult of the 3, i havent had any issues with that one outside of the absurdly high light attack dmg

the lightning one gets very annoying, the longer the fight goes on, the more tornados are active, there was a few times 80% of the entire arena was covered in tornados (light attack dmg was also too high too)

i havent even seen the fire one yet (its the last one im missing for the achievement to kill all of them at least once lol)

Nebs

I don't really like that the marauders can appear on the first stage, possibly ambushing us before we get the chance to acquire a Verse, but if they only appeared in the second stage I could see how it'd be disappointing if they were too predictable. ( I wouldn't mind getting a verse with our visions 😉 )

I actually started quickslotting the random verse consumables so I can pop one when a marauder arrives. Getting a lucky one could make all the difference!

notyuu

This I can agree with, as it currently stands marauders are basically "you rolled a 1, lose a life" cuz they one-shot your ass thought blocvk, not to mention the issue s they cause you while dealing with the other mobs

IncultaWolf

The four-armed fire tornado marauder is insane, stronger than anything in the entire endless archive, after arc 3-4 his LIGHT ATTACKS hit you for 26-28k. He's stolen several lives from me and my friends lol

Kikazaru

As soon as I engaged the marauder. I'm dead. 20k hit. This is on solo with a companion. I did put a bit more defense on my build, but didn't matter lol.

Tensar

Maraudeurs seem ok to me but they should give a vision and not a verset, like every bosses.

The problem of the archive is there is no save point

adirondack

Fresh Meat!

Mayrael

IMHO high HP bosses should have low damage but engage us to break their defensive mechanics. High hitting bosses though should have lower HP - for high intensity combat, so it will engage our defensive moves but when it gets to long it becomes boring kite experience.

IZZEFlameLash

What is worse is that you have all the adds attacking you as well. It wasn't enough for the Marauders to hit for 12k+ with just regular attacks clearly. It is frustrating to fight discount Magma Incarnate in that.

FantasticFreddie

There's also the frustrating catch 22 about building a toon with more survivability: yes, we could sacrifice damage for more HP and resists, but we still have the same 2.5 hours to play. If we slow down too much, we aren't going to get very far. With 1 tank and 1 dd I think the maximum we could do is 4 arcs, maybe slightly farther if we are fast and skip all side content.

ssewallb14_ESO

Wrong thread delete pls.

FantasticFreddie

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Stamina + physical resist pots are nice for dealing with Gothmau's 12k light attack spam as a glass cannon or otherwise squishy build. A source of minor maim is also very helpful, even if it's just elemental susceptibility. Undeath and the Scion ult are really nice if you're a vamp, and don't have a better defensive ult.

Warden tank with tt/olo/oz. Brings major vuln, major courage, increased healing and resistances, minor toughness, and major resolve. Slap on ele sus, and healing orb and you've got most of your bases covered.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Just out of curiosity what if your an NB or a Stage 4 Vampire and go into stealth the moment the maruder appears, can you avoid them entirely?

notyuu

Personally I wish they'd change maruders so that they show up AFTER you've killed all the add groups but stopping the verse/portal spawning until they die or kill you

Theignson

The first marauder in arc 2 isnt so bad.

The real problem is Marauder Gothmau (sp?) in arc three. He destroyed my DK in 2 seconds, rapid hits of 12k each. Much harder than any of the bosses/Tho'ats in the first 3 arcs imo

One tip about marauders: kill all the trash except one. If youcan avoid killing one of the trash, the next waves of trash wont come. Leave one trash npc and pull the maruader away from them.

Necrotech_Master

i had another run where i lost a thread from the fire marauder, arc 3 had a 26k dmg light attack hit me

the fire one is by far the worst, though the lightning one is pretty bad too, with the increasing number of tornados

Theignson

Ok, we finally killed this fire marauder (Marauder Gothmau) twice.
The first time I essentially soloed him because my duo died.
Here is how I did it:
1) it is impractical to save one add from the first wave. The fight is too long, the last add always dies. So you need to kill all three waves. This is annoying in the higher arcs but theres no way around it for this fight.
2) I did this on a DK. So basically I dotted him, and kited him (he's slow) while I killed the adds
3) if he is near you, and starts his frenzy or other melee, you have to either dodge roll or block or else you'll die
4) from a distance he casts a fire thing. It can go the whole arena. You have to dodge roll that
5) When I built my ultimate (standard in this case), I went to melee him, held block, loaded the dots and popped the ultimate. Then start kiting again.
6) When you kite use the whole arena and use LOS like in PvP. Run up stairs and jump back down.

When there were two of us the second time, we killed all the adds, then one person kited him while the other person poured damage. Very effective strategy for him

Necrotech_Master

over the past week ive kill all 3 marauders several times

the only one i think that is balanced correctly is likely the water one (only suggestion for this one is reduce light attack dmg a bit)

the electric one is kind of a middle ground, he also has a problem with light attacks, but also there is a problem where if the fight goes on he continues spawning more tornados, so theres moving dots that cover up to 80% of the arena which is impractical to try dodging (suggestions for this one: reduce light attack dmg, and either reduce the size or quantity of the tornados)

the fire one i think was only slightly worse than the electric one, the multi hit light attacks followed by a heavy, that if you dont block also applies a bleed on you, the other attacks i think were fine and not too hard to avoid, i dont remember there being any large dmg aoe from this one (primary suggestion for this: remove the bleed from light attacks since none of the other ones have it, and reduce light attack dmg)

LouisaB75

Theignson wrote: »

The first marauder in arc 2 isnt so bad.

The real problem is Marauder Gothmau (sp?) in arc three. He destroyed my DK in 2 seconds, rapid hits of 12k each. Much harder than any of the bosses/Tho'ats in the first 3 arcs imo.

He can turn up in arc 2 as well. I have pulled him there twice, including in the first round of mobs in my first attempt at arc 2. He is a nightmare whenever he randomly appears.

Panderbander

The other night my friend and I duo'd into arc 7 and through that every single marauder save for one was Gothmau. Absolutely ridiculously overtuned compared to the others, and seems to spawn twice as often as the other two for me lol

dcam86b14_ESO

I keep saying this but those bosses shouldn't auto-attack, they should be a choice for the player. Let them stay in a corner and let us choose to fight them or not simple.

dk_dunkirk

The 3-and-out rule stinks. If you want to keep bashing your head against the wall, you should be allowed to. It helps learn more of what’s going on for the next time.

Araneae6537

I’m lucky I got the easiest marauder first! The other two are beasts, especially Gothmau — he can hit hard and yet either has a lot of HP or is very resistant to damage. Maybe once I figure out which attacks to block vs dodge, and further increase my pen… And then too I was worried about accidentally hitting the one add I’d left running around and who seemed to be trying to get themselves killed at that point!

JiveSalts

I agree that the fire and storm marauders could use some tuning.

The water one, in my experience duoing, is the most balanced. There's enough mechs to keep you on your toes, but they aren't too punishing if you mess up. The other two...oh boy are they not fun.

It's way too easy to get overwhelmed by the storm marauder's storms if you can't melt him. That's the main problem I've experienced. The fight with him devolved into running around while spamming shields and heals while shooting when I had some distance.

The fire one is the worst one to fight. His light attacks hit hard and give you a bleed which he then immediately follows up with a heavy attack. His blade throw attack hits hard and hits twice. Then he has a twirl attack that leaves a fire tornado AOE behind for a few minutes. I've had to solo this marauder twice on my bow/bow stamsorc because he insta-killed my partner. It took about 15-20 minutes, but I did get him down both times.

It honestly feels like the storm and fire marauders were more meant with a tank/DPS duo in mind. That isn't a problem per se, but it can make the fights a slog if you're soloing or have a different group comp.

IZZEFlameLash

JiveSalts wrote: »

I agree that the fire and storm marauders could use some tuning.

The water one, in my experience duoing, is the most balanced. There's enough mechs to keep you on your toes, but they aren't too punishing if you mess up. The other two...oh boy are they not fun.

It's way too easy to get overwhelmed by the storm marauder's storms if you can't melt him. That's the main problem I've experienced. The fight with him devolved into running around while spamming shields and heals while shooting when I had some distance.

The fire one is the worst one to fight. His light attacks hit hard and give you a bleed which he then immediately follows up with a heavy attack. His blade throw attack hits hard and hits twice. Then he has a twirl attack that leaves a fire tornado AOE behind for a few minutes. I've had to solo this marauder twice on my bow/bow stamsorc because he insta-killed my partner. It took about 15-20 minutes, but I did get him down both times.

It honestly feels like the storm and fire marauders were more meant with a tank/DPS duo in mind. That isn't a problem per se, but it can make the fights a slog if you're soloing or have a different group comp.

This has been my exact impression fighting the discount magma incarnate.