DH Marauder’s Rework Suggestions

General Discussion
1

I had this post in draft for quite some time, better to share it now while the forum is sleepy. Enjoy.

The Marauder’s Set Rework

If I were to nominate a DH set rework it’d be Embodiment of the Marauder. Mainly because this set overlaps Unhallowed Essence’s skills. UE6 is smooth, whereas Marauder is redundant.

Many expected Marauder’s to play like the N6M4 hybrid, damage dealt through Sentries, however, Marauder’s empowers the player by a factor 12 compared to the Sentry.

More complaints voiced about Marauder’s include:

  1. Slow damage ramp up through Sentry deployment, the cooldown is too long.
  2. Defense is not built into the set, but rather tight item synergies: Zoey’s Secret and Cloak of the Garwulf.
  3. Item locked with Zoey’s Secret while two other belts are valuable: Hellcat Waistguard, Captain Crimson Belt, etc.
  4. Item locked with Bombardier’s Rucksack+Dawn Combo, the set optimal for skills requiring only one(1) legendary weapon.
  5. Slow run speed and travel. This set is discipline starved unless the player uses Captain Crimson+Yangs.

That all said, I propose 3 concepts for a Marauder’s rework:

:one: SIMPLE SENTRY POWER
Allow M6 and M4 to multiply out together, make Marauder’s what N6M4 is today.

(2) Set:
Companion calls all companions to your side.
(4) Set:
Sentries deal 400% increased damage and cast Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow when you do.
(6) Set:
Your Primary skills, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, Cluster Arrow, Companions, and Vengeance deal 12,000% 5,000% increased damage for every active Sentry.

The set mechanics stay the same, except Sentries now do most of the damage due to the 6pc bonus providing an overarching buff to Player and Sentry damage. The set becomes approximately 3.74x stronger than N6M4 in Season 16 due to the introduction of Vengeance, Captain Crimson and the 6pc buff. Expect 5k paragon clears in the realm of GR138-139.

:two: HUNTER OF MANY DEVICES
A radically different concept for Marauder’s based on the Devices line of skills – fitting neatly into the item lore.

(2) Set:
You may move unhindered through enemies after casting Sentry. Each Sentry deployed reduces damage taken by 12% and increases your movement speed by 12%.
(4) Set:
Fan of Knives exclusively detonates Spike Trap. Enemies hit by Spike Trap take 100% more damage from Cluster Arrow for 8 seconds. Spike Trap damage equals your last Fan of Knives.
(6) Set:
Cluster Arrow, Fan of Knives, Sentry and Vengeance deal 50,000% more damage. Sentries cast Cluster Arrow when you do.

This set concept is about using your devices. Plant Spike Traps then detonate them with a fully charged Fan of Knives, all while spamming Cluster Arrow.

There are a few build variants that the player can choose from:

  • FoK and Spike Trap (LGF + Dawn + Demon Demise)
  • Full Cluster Arrow (Manticore + Dawn + Bombardier Rucksack)
  • Hybrid FoK/Cluster Arrow (LGF + Manticore + Bombardier Rucksack)

Elemental Arrow and Chakram can be added as well, though this seems to work best with skills that only have a single legendary item to equip in main hand/offhand/cube.

:three: AUTOCAST HATRED SPENDERS
A set concept from the past, but borrowed from Knightnico’s post with number tweaks. This is like old school Marauders, where Sentries automatically cast your skills.

(2) Set:
Sentries automatically cast your equipped hatred spenders.
(4) Set:
Increase Hatred Generation by 2 and gain 15% reduction damage for every active Sentry.
(6) Set:
You and your Sentries deal 40,000% increased damage for 5 seconds after hitting an enemy with a Hatred Spender. Reduces the cooldown of Vengeance and Sentry by 2 seconds each time you hit an enemy with a Hatred Spender.

Bombardier Rucksack
You may have 1 additional Sentry. Increases the damage of Sentry by 400%. Increases Sentry attack speed by 50%.*

Limit of 4 Sentries for lag reduction.

Here’s the comparison of damage for Concept #3:

OLD M6
You: 601x (12,000% x 5 Sentries)
Sentry: 25x (400% x 5 Sentries)
Bombardier Rucksack: 77% to Sentry (1.3x → 2.3x)
Vengeance/CoE/Crimson Combo: 3.15x
Total: 2,032x
Total w/ Hellcat: 8,127x (rated GR126-127 @ 5k paragon)

N6M4
All: 141x (14,000% N6)
Sentry: 25x (400% x 5 Sentries)
Bombardier Rucksack: 77% to Sentry (1.3x → 2.3x)
Total: 6,380x (rated GR125-126 @ 5k paragon)

NEW M6
You: 401x (straight from 6pc)
Sentry: 1604x (40,000% x 4 Sentries)
Bombardier Rucksack: 5 * 1.5 (crude number) = 7.5x
Vengeance/CoE/Crimson Combo: 3.15x
Total: 37,895x + 1,263x = 39,158x (rated GR137 @ 5k paragon)

Extra information found on the Marauder’s Set.

MARAUDER’S SET PIECE CAPTIONS
“One day, your quivers will run empty, your traps will fail, and the enemy will surge forward. You will be left with nothing but the grip you keep on your blade. Never forget this.”—Hunter Cie Wyrtam

“We channel our anger, the fury of the demons, the rage of the beasts, into power. We become the face of destruction.”—Hunter Val Amark

“You will learn to walk as we do. You will stalk these monsters, and after you have made your kill and faded away, the demons will find naught but their own treads upon the earth.”—Hunter Aoron Gunes

“One of the hunter’s greatest tools is fear. Whenever possible, we terrify our foes, break their ranks, and pick them off.”—Hunter John Yang

“I envelop myself in the trappings of my foes, and I learn their ways. I can bathe in the foul darkness of their kind and emerge clean, for I am purified by my vengeance.”—Hunter Kee Morse

“We can wear the demons’ armaments, their very flesh, upon our bodies, and become something more than human—a nightmare reflection of demonkind—to sow chaos and death among them.”—Hunter Esche Maithe

Which set concept do you like/dislike?

8 Likes
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I’d take the concept 1. In my opnion the Marauder set should be about buffing sentries themselves and not the sentries buffing the player.

Definitely would not take concept 3. The idea of letting sentries do everything automatically while you stand somewhere safe doing absolutely nothing yourself is stupid. All builds, powerful builds in particular, should involve active gameplay and concept 3 has almost none besides dropping sentries.

Concept 1 retains the active playstyle which concept 3 does not.

2 Likes
3

I would like the sentries doing the damage.
Perhaps work in an offhand that buffs sentri damage when using a trap, buff the bracer trap item as well

2 Likes
4

Gave the suggestion a like and I’m all for changes and improvements to underperforming sets… but I can’t help thinking about how they (seemingly) mindlessly destroyed the GoD build.

1 Like
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I absolutely agree. There are two requirements that force the player to make contact.

  1. Must hit enemy with hatred spender at least every 5 seconds to maintain the 6pc buff.
  1. Must continually hit enemies with your hatred spender to reduce Vengeance cooldown. This lets the player drop Dawn for a supporting item like Odyssey’s End or Leonine or Fortress or Echoing Fury. It also makes the use of other skills like Chakram and Elemental Arrow practical as they require two(2) legendary items.

If the player carries 10% CDR, they have to make 31 hits within 20 seconds to keep Vengeance going.

If the player carries 50% CDR, they have to hit the enemy 13 times within 20 seconds.

The only cheapness I see is Chakram going through walls, which would still carry the 1 hit every 5 seconds requirement to maintain the 6pc.

6

There’s two things they need to do…

  1. Add CA, EA and Chakram to UE (though, I’d personally prefer Chakram be added to S6 to give it another option for gearing)

  2. Rework M6

Personally, I want the original concept with sentries that autocast back but also rework other complimentary items and skills in the following way:

(2) Set:
Companion and Sentry gains all runes and have their effects doubled
(4) Set:
Sentries autocast your equipped spenders excluding Strafe or Rapid Fire. Every time your sentries hit an enemy, the cooldown of Sentry reduces by 1 second.
(6) Set:
You and your Sentries deal 40,000% increased damage for 5 seconds after hitting an enemy with a Hatred Spender.

  • the Guardian Turret rune for Sentry be revised to grant yourself and your allies the damage reduction buff

  • the Custom Engineering passive increases the number of sentries by two.

  • Bombardier’s Rucksack changed to “Gain 60% damage increase, 50% damage reduction and 10 hatred per second when Vengeance is not active.”

In short, we need to remove Vengeance from the skill bar to make way for at least 3 spenders, Sentry, Companion and either Vault or Smoke Screen. Making BR effectively grant the key Vengeance buffs will do this.

This will also remove the need for Dawn so we can use any weapon/quiver combo we want now. The player can specialise in MS, CA, EA, or Impale. They can even use HA and CA with FnR!

The aim for tweaking Guardian Turret is to reward the player with extra toughness for hanging around the sentry. If the player plonks down sentries and runs away, I would expect them to be squishy as a handicap.

Whilst we’re updating sets, the S6 4pc bonus needs to double Shadow Power’s effects. Just sayin.

2 Likes
7

Was there any advantage to running the old build with multiple skills on the bar?

With all of the percent damage increases via items like DML, Yang’s, Manticore, wouldn’t it be more advantageous to running a single, heavily buffed hatred spender?

1 Like
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Some mobility skills would also be handy in the set.

2 Likes
9

You’ve reminded me of a prior suggestion I made that introduced a power to effectively make Sentries not gain from skill damage multipliers such as Yangs, DML, Manticore etc but just gain a straight damage for all skills it attacks with. It may have been on Bombardier’s Rucksack seeing how it had the +Sentry damage.

As for.

Frost Arrow would slow enemies pretty much anywhere they were on the screen. The Sentry cold rune wasn’t used. Sentries would use the fire rocket run and along with the CA and MS rocket runes, would provide the damage.

Plus the visual effect of these 4 skills looked pretty damn cool.

2 Likes
10

I really like the 2pc effect from #2. Currently, the set is super slow and more mobility would be awesome.

The #1 concept is the better one, imo. Current gameplay on Marauder is fine, just need to shift damage from the player to the sentries as you said. Add mobility and other utility on top and I think we have a winner.

2 Likes
11

As Tandem wrote, the effect on 2pc from #2 is great.
I would love a sentry set, perhaps make the traps deployed buff the sentries, buff the trap bracer as well to not cost anything and buff sentry damage by x amount.
Or buff the chakram sword and elemental arrow offhand to allow us to use chakram or elemental arrow with the build

1 Like
12

I like the set. I have played thousands of hours of it way back in the day. The problem is everyone wants to play fast builds. Marauders is more like playing tower command. I think a way to balance the slowness is to make it a 140+ build and gear it towards slow pushes. DH already have numerous fast builds. Id just boost the damage…

2 Likes
13

I think this too idealistic with where the game is headed. Wudijo recently put out a video with many points I’ve been thinking about, and which I fully agree with. Basically, the main game is about speed GRs nowadays. Pushing is less important with the expanded leaderboards. Since you’re spending all your time in speed GRs, keeping a specific set only for pushing doesn’t make a ton of sense, especially when the playerbase would like to see all sets equal at pushing potential. No one will want to play Marauder if all the DH sets are faster.

If the devs can find a way to accommodate both styles in one set, awesome. If not, they should definitely not scrimp on speed potential.

1 Like
14

Why don’t we just remove the Companions from the 2pc? It is weird and thematically doesn’t belong. Stick the Call all Companions legendary effect on Cloak of the Garwulf. Update Zoey’s secret to give 4-5% Damage and DR per pet. Let 35% Damage and DR help LoN Builds. Not quite as strong as Captain Crimson, but compatible with certain Aughild’s builds. (S6 Impale)

Build Option #1 Becomes:

(2) Set:
You may move unhindered through enemies after casting Sentry. Each Sentry deployed reduces damage taken by 12% and increases your movement speed by 12%.

(4) Set:
Sentries deal 400% increased damage and cast Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow when you do.

(6) Set:
Your Primary skills, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, Cluster Arrow, Companions, and Vengeance deal 12,000% 5,000% increased damage for every active Sentry.

Buffing the Trag’Oul Coils results in no Wraps of Clarity. Any buff to Coils should supplement the defense lost from Wraps.

Coils is confusing and doesn’t behave as expected. This item has no caption so it can become anything.

You are correct in suggesting that power attracts players in regardless of speed, AoV used to be sluggish and clunky right before Norvald’s, but it hit like a truck and people played it. Sentry builds are middle ground, the damage is distributed.

If this build pushes GR140+ at 5k nobody will play any other DH build. There needs to be an item swap that allows it to flourish in groups but die miserably in solo push. Trag’Oul Coil could be that item, with some effect like:

Sentry damage is increased by 300%, but you can only have a maximum of 3 Sentries.

This would hammer defense badly in solo: 50% lost from Wraps and then another 38% DR lost from taking only 3 Sentries per the 2pc bonus. The player would likely swap CoE for Elusive.

1 Like
15

If people play AoV (especially lazy shotgun) people will play this too.

1 Like
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One of my long-time beliefs is that the set or related items should change Sentries to follow the player and persist between floors. This could be baked into the 2pc or added to Zoey’s, I don’t really care. An AI change to correlate would be they fire at what the DH fires at, and if not specifically targeting, the closest target to the mouse cursor.

Pragmatically, however, we need to reflect on how mediocre a skill Cluster Arrow and its related runes have been for pretty the majority of the class’ existence. Pushing aside the class’ reliance on Dawn/Vengeance, use of CA has mandated significant RCR on top for a relatively narrow attack radius. And while we could just flatly increase the skill’s damage/multipliers, other routes could be taken like increasing damage (for the whole party) when repeatedly cast on a specific target within 5s or something that the sentries could also benefit from.

1 Like
17

If they made the turrets orbit you, that would solve the speed issue, lol.

18

Cloak of the Garwulf change… Companions carry sentries on their backs!

2 Likes
19

Let’s face it, players who want to play old school M6 should now play Typhoons.

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There was an idea some time ago about having possibly a belt or other item to make sentries auto fire spenders. Perhaps it could work to have alternative 1 then add an item to make it a speedier but weaker alternative.

1 Like