ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

http://te4.org/characters/11353/tome/6d ... dcb963e5a9

My first winner

I don't know, I love playing Marauders and keep hearing how bad they are. This is not my experience. In the vault most of the Marauder lv 50's and winners all go Heavy armor, due to their being almost zero rogue armors past tier 2ish barring randarts. For this particular build I felt I had to keep my fatigue as low as possible as it was going to be super stamina heavy, however the lack of armor wasn't a huge issue, for most of the game as the t1/2 artifact mage robes usually have +10 defense and enough other bonuses that I never felt the lack. This isn't to say I would not love to see more rogue armors in the game in general.

The goal of this build was to be super focused, getting a cat point in dual weapons and getting Momentum to a point where I had +100% speed up all the time (I ended up modifying this by adding in a cat point enhanced Combat Techniques solely for Precise Strikes, for about 180% speed and 90ish percent crit rate. I completely ignored Cunning as a stat and the trees one can unlock, as I feel they don't offer enough for the investment. The poison tree could be decent, but requires a TON of points I simply did not have to spare and the other cunning trees don't have enough to warrant the cat point+investment (at least for this character).

The only really odd choice for this build was buying into the Combat Veteran tree, which almost no one does. This had two reasons. The only issues I ever seem to have as a skele marauder are when I do the Crypt (and mid game in general) and get some bad level spawns (4 casters or more in an open room). Flurry/stun with rush and Move Up takes care of most of the issues, but being unable to resist spells was always an issue due to not having infusion access. So a huge amount of +spell save and the stamina regen (for momentum) make this character run.

I didnt bother getting momentum running until about lv 25/30, before that it is simply too expensive. Greater Weapon Focus, when maxed out adds a ton of damage, as I was getting 3k headbutts with Garkul's Helm and flurries up to insane numbers. I died once to nearly falling asleep doing a Dreadfell Vault and twice when I got stubborn on a random orc patrol with 3 necros positioned in a way that I couldn't Steamroller on the first turn and ended up with 6+ Skele Magicians casting at me from places I couldn't get to. Nothing gave me any big issues as almost every boss was rush/headbutt/flurried to death and even if it lived through that, I had something like 8 more attacks against a confused/stunned target before I had to teleport away to recharge.

GENERAL NOTES:
--Steamroller+move up+global speed is basically the bread and butter of the character, allowing me to clear entire rooms in a matter of a turn or two.
--Garkul's Helm is such an insane make or break item for Marauders that I really hope some kind of fix can be made so that it isnt an all or nothing prospect.
--Mid and end game rogue themed armor, or specifically Marauder themed armor would be nice. The two rogue armors I can recall (rogues plight and...the other one..) both offer nothing at all to a Marauder, and I was wearing Mage robes until I found the second crystalline piece. The same might also apply to mid/end game daggers, or maybe my luck is just bad.
--Flexible Combat is not working, correct? I don't recall ever seeing it go off once I purchased it.
--End of tree abilties, and the ones a Marauder has access to specifically, are generally terrible. Momentum is decent but requires a TON of setup to get working, and mathematically is not a ton better than Blinding Speed in terms of stamina versus return. Total Thuggery really needs an overhall as it has a large stamina cost and offers nothing that isn't better covered by other trees. True Grit is just terrible for the stamina cost, and even without it would barely warrant a look. No reason to buy Whirlwind, or at least no reason to put more than a point in it.
--I would love to see a revamp of the Marauder class, fixing some of what I think are the 'dead' trees (Does anyone put points into the Field Control tree?) and talents (probably most of the Cunning/Survival tree other than Evasion)

Just my random thoughts. Honestly, I'd love to debate this.

I won with skeleton marauder on roguelike using true grit, and I'd say it is pretty good. You might have missed it, but the cost goes down with talent level. It is a great ability - being on 50% hp would push my resist all to about 60% in the late game (I went for stone alchemy to get more resists and got frozen shroud), and since I relied on shields rather than healing, that means my shields could hold out longer. Thanks to the stamina regen on items and talents I was able to sustain true grit at -0.1 stamina drain. One other effective way would be to go thalore and play with 2 heroism infusions to be able to go even lower on hp (and you'd get 10% resist all from the racial tree).

I'm not sure how effective this is compared to running momentum, but I didn't really feel like I ever needed more damage. I did need the extra defensive ability.

I also went with light armor and ran into the same problem late game. Lack of good artifact light armor is telling, especially since it seems to me that there are too many good t5 heavy armors (I can remember at least 4 off the top of my head).

Total thuggery is good in theory but very situational and when you compare it to momentum it falls short. Whether momentum is too good (and needs to cost stamina/strike rather than /turn), or total thuggery is too weak, I cannot say (maybe both).

I had great experiences using the poison tree (just 5 points in the first talent). Reduced enemy damage and chance to fail their talents is pretty good. It does cost a cat point though.

I didn't really find marauders that fun, or good. Struggling with stamina for a big part of the game is a definite killjoy, at least until I got combat veteran and some stamina regen gear going. I just felt like I had a whole bunch of abilities that I can't afford to use. Hopefully that will be better in the next version since combat veteran will start unlocked for them. Also, flexible combat will work properly on melee so second wind procs on gloves...yeah.

I'll try to respond to your points in order...roughly:P

True Grit: When maxed out it is at 6? Sta a turn? I also was running shields as my main defense and honestly wasn't 100% sure of the order that shield and damage resist are applied, so was not sure if the resistance reduction would apply before the shield ate up damage, but mainly, I just look at that talent and never felt it was enough. If I was at less than full hp for any length of time, then my shields were down (ran one shield rune+2 teleport runes), my heals were down (had racial and a paladin escort heal) and I was usually looking to escape unless the fight was almost over at that point. I can see uses for the talent, I just feel the cost is too much for the benefit gained. With a sustain cost of seventy (!!) Stamina and a maintain cost that only adds to the stamina issues I'd have. You would need to have it up all the time to really get any use out of it. It has a one turn use, so is not really viable to use after the damage. That is a lot of stamina to tie up on a reactive ability, though on non skeleton races it could be more important to survivability.

Total Thuggery: 100% agree, it could be good but it gives bonus to crit % and phys penetration, neither of which I had issues finding elsewhere, either in other trees or gear. Also it costs stamina per strike, which on a dual wielding class ends up pretty hideous. I tried out a TT build on Stabitron 5002 I think, and my entire sta bar would be gone after the first flurry for not nearly enough benefit. For something to cost per strike, it better do something AMAZING for a dual wield class and + crit% is not it. MAYBE if it upped the crit damage modifier also, or caused some other effect. Marauders already tend to have a lot of stamina issues for most of the game in my experience, simply because the early game requires a ton of points in defensive talents just to get them survivable and a certain number of offensive talents to allow them to kill anything. This doesn't leave a lot of time early game for anything else. Late game, some of it can be overcome with gear and talents, but also, with the way the end tree talents are set up for Marauders, it's pick one you like and run that, because you sure as heck aren't going to run Total Thuggery/Momentum or True Grit/Momentum or any combination of two.

The Poison tree looks good. The reason I ignored it on this build is that it requires cunning, a cat point and a lot of investment (say...10-12 talent points) to make really get the most out of it, and even ignoring the stat issues, I was short on class points. I have used it on other builds that did use Cunning and therefore could make use of the trees. I like the Cunning/Tactical tree a lot. Tactical Expert is good, and Exploit Weakness isn't terrible for an end tree talent. It doesn't really balance out until you run into things with 30-40% physical resistance for the 10% off the top damage you lose to start being worth it.

The class: I just prefer playing melee classes and Marauder is everything I wanted Berzerker to be. The Marauder has all the mobility one needs to overcome the range issues and a lot of survivability. I really want to like Reavers but they have the opposite problem, zero mobility and every time I try one they die painfully due to ending in positioned poorly and having fewer escape options than every other class. For Zerkers, I have issues with the 2 Handed weapon trees being somewhat bad compared to the dual wield trees, but that may just be me. The main reason I like Momentum over the other talents, more speed. I can get anywhere I need to within one turn, so I end up avoiding a ton of possible incoming damage just by always being well positioned and able to close distance across entire screens almost instantly. I can rush in, kill something, getting the steamroller damage bonus, take five or six steps then rush another 7 without taking a hit, making sure casters didn't have a good line of site or that I could always get to and kill the most dangerous thing in sight and keep steamrollering more or less until I ran out of stamina or enemies. That is really the only thing the class has is insane mobility. Everything else is done better by other classes.

Momentum: I feel Momentum is fine, as it gives a good benefit but you definitely have to build to it. If it weren't a choice or changed to a per strike, I really doubt I would bother with it and definitely not get Total Thuggery instead. Blinding Speed is an option, but taking a full turn to use kills it for me. You use up a full turn then get...60%? speed bonus for five turns, so you end up getting what, effectively two turns over the course of five rounds? It isn't bad, just noticeably less effective than the alternatives. Blinding Speed also works as a stand alone ability, with no sustain cost or cost to maintain, so it has that going for it.

I'm just spitballing here anyway.

Blinding speed's instant, actually. No turn use. Pretty sexy, honestly, and full investment gives you a nice hefty chunk of global speed.

So it is...odd, I guess I keep assuming Eden's Guile is the same, which does require a turn to use. Shrug

Mm... technically, all active items consume a turn, regardless as to if the talent they use is instant or not. The blinding speed cloaks do chew up a turn when you activate them, but blinding speed itself is instant, ferex. I think it's the same with the arcane eye ones too, and probably a few others. S'probably an easy thing to miss, yeah.