Just a quick update on the mutation animations, as this is turning out to be one of my favourite facets of the class. Every so often you get a little surprise, sometimes as subtle as an extra spike or two on your arm. In fact half the time I wonder if I’m imagining it, and looking for changes where there is none. I should really document them more closely. Either way, it all just adds to the feeling of the whole “Changes of ways” theme in my mind.

First up, the Monstrosity wrecking ball. I didn’t use Monstrosity at first, and have to say although this sort of appearance makes perfect sense for the stance, I didn’t find it very visually appealing. With it moving up onto my shoulder though, and the additional spikes I’m really warming to it.

Next onto spiky shark mouth guy. Somehow I don’t have an original picture of this guy, which I suppose is somewhat unhelpful. It’d basically done the same thing as the others, moved from my elbow up over my shoulder, and gained a bunch of spikes. This one also seems to have taken on an eerie metallic blue glow, which I’m sure it didn’t have before.

Next… well I don’t have an amusing name for this one. Spiky blue eyed baseball bat amputee hand? (spikes seem to be the recurring theme). Not the best picture to compare the two, but you can see the trandisiton.

Finally, I managed to break 90k damage in a scenario! This was done at rank 21.Emerald is a fellow guildie, sorceress who in the right conditions I seem to be able to just about keep up with damage wise. Ranged damage deals definitely seem to have the advantage as far as total damage goes in these scenarios, especially when they have aoe opportunities. However I’ve found Marauder robust enough to keep up with most ranged damage dealers, and exceed them if you get lucky with a dedicated healer and unorganised Order.

Nothing particularly exciting or rare I’m sure, but I got a tome unlock recently for killing 1,000 empire and was pleased to find out it rewarded me with a trophy for my troubles. The idea of having a little (very little) visual reward on my character for having killed a bunch of Bright Wizards tickles me in a very special way.

So off I trundled to the Inevitable City to collect my reward from one of the librarians. Quite why librarians are giving our trophies rather than dealing with the demands of the dewy decimal system I’m not sure, but I suppose they have their reasons. I have to say the library in the Inevitable City is one of my favourite places, I just love the scrolls trailing down the walls, its so… unwholesome. The whole city reminds me of the Hellraiser films, which have a special place in my heart.

Behold the magnificence that is my Empire killing trophy! Yes, that tiny little medal on the back of my skirt.

Wait, did I say skirt? I actually mean….well, I suppose it is a skirt, yes.

The highlight of this little trip was discovering a little hidden alcove in the library. Just like in old movies, there is a secret area behind the fireplace in the library! Sitting behind the brick wall is a skull, which I could select, but didn’t get a tome unlock for and nothing seemed to happen. I can only assume it’s not secret at all, and actually serves some purpose in a quest I’ve yet to do. However I was still extremely pleased with myself.

That’s right!

I am now level 20, and have bought myself a pretty horsie. I call him George. He’s a female, but it’s the boys name George, not the girls name. That’s just how Chaos rolls, or something.

I also got a…. I don’t know what you’d classify it as, an escape skill? Basically when one of those annoying Bright Wizards fire cage me, or the pesky Engineers barb wire me, I can now escape from it instantly. It’s on a 60 second cool down, so you have to use it at the right times, but it’s still better than standing there while they pound on you from afar.

Level 20 also rewarded me with an extra inventory bag, and one more career tactic slot, yay!

*snip*

Did that work? It was supposed to be a play on the whole Marauder crab claw thing…

*snap snap*

Aaaanyway… Up until recently, I’d been focused almost entirely on Brutality spec; the single target burst dps mutation. This was due to two main reasons:

1. The mutations looks cool (the most important factor)
2. Front loaded burst dps usually serves well in pvp

Entering Mourkadin (I have no idea how to spell that) Temple recently, it occurred to me that this scenario is mainly one big zerg. There’s no splitting of team members towards control points, or people coming from all different directions; its basically like taking two bin liners full of rubbish and slamming them together for 15mins. In this metaphor, orders bin bag would be full of organic food packages and banana peels, whereas destructions would be full of rotten meat and dog excrement. Anyway, I digress.

I therefore decided to try out Monstrosity stance, as I figured I’d be able to up the damage I did a bit with all the targets there are crammed into one space. The extra toughness wasn’t going to hurt my survivability either. Not that Brutality hadn’t been serving me well, but managing to get yourself onto the back of a squishie without 3 people healing them and 3 others pounding on you is nigh on impossible in scenarios. Also, the fact that Dan has recently leveled a sorceress, which is very hard to keep up with damage wise, had nothing at all to do with my desire to increase my damage… yes, it’s very much an ego thing. Man-pride is delicate.

From what I’ve done so far, I’m extremely impressed. my position on the damage charts has switched from being “sometimes high sometimes low”, to “consistently high” (if not top). This is without respeccing my mastery points out of Brutality, so it should only get better if I respec too. These are the following advantages I see for Monstrosity spec, bearing in mind these only really apply in group zerg conditions.

My points will be interspersed randomly with screen shots of damage charts from scenarios I’ve done. It’ll subliminally start to make you think I’m a really good player.

(It’s a trick, I’m actually not)

(or was that false modesty?)

1. My survivability is much increased – The extra toughness helps, and the play-style is less prone to getting ganked, as you don’t feel the need to get to the back lines and eviscerate mage classes 100% of the time. I can stick to the front lines, lay down damage across as many targets as possible, and if we happen to be on the retreat I can back-pedal whilst continuing to spam my damage moves.

(See, you’re already thinking “Wow that Schozie must be good, look at those numbers!”)

2. Damage is consistently higher – Mainly due to the fact I’m hitting 5-6 targets at once. I’ve debated with myself to what extent I am genuinely helping the team, and how far this is just a big ego boost for me when looking at the charts; however the number of killing blows is usually pretty high too. In situations where kills counts, I think the damage spread across the team (and thus distracting/straining healers) makes up for the loss of any burst single target dps.

3. Targeting – I have big problems targeting in this game. Tab targeting (my preferred choice, clicking people is hard in big groups) seems to randomly scroll through enemy targets; presumably from left to right. However there’s no easy way to automatically target the enemy right in front of you. Either I click them (=anger) or I hit escape and then tab, which will take me to the target in front of me most of the time (also =anger). With the frontal aoe move, I just need to point myself in the right direction and I’m good.

4. Frontal attacking – no need to get behind people, makes things infinitely easier. Nuff said.

5. Fontal aoe disrupt - Great for when we push through their front line and I see a group of Rune Priests and Bright Wizards in front of me. Hit them with the interrupt, then spam the normal aoe move and they’ll usually start to scatter. Its hard to know which way to go when I’m manically running in circles round your group though eh? This also leaves any remaining order front line fighters exposed and with less (or no) healing on them.

(Sorceress damage in these is insane. Clearly the class for IWIN noobs)

6. It has that nice attack which causes people to do damage to themselves whenever they perform a melee attack. This is great for slapping onto tanks or…. well any melee class come to think of it!

Downsides:

1. I chew through my action points like an American at McDonalds
2. Single target dps is a bit low. There’s no massive burst when you manage to get behind a Bright Wizard (I hate Bright Wizards, and their stupid fire cages, gtfo)
3. The mutations don’t look quite as cool (though still cooler than Savagery ones).
4. It’s too easy, sometimes I end up spamming aoe and not really being strategic in any way.

My latest move has been to set some nice key bindings for the different stances/mutations. I’m starting to try and switch between Brutality and Monstrosity mid fight (only when necessarily or appropriate) and it seems to be working out really well so far. I can’t say I’ve noticed many other Marauders trying this so far to be honest. Spam the crap out of the squishes, when only one is left or their start to rout switch to Brutality and stab ‘em in the kidneys.

As far as mastery points go, I’m currently one point away from Guillotine, which is a big damage move in the Brutality tree that requires the target to be below 50% HP (execute anyone?). I’ve been really looking forward to trying this, so that’s next. I was considering speccing entirely into Monstrosity, but Brutality is nice for single targets and pve questing, so I’m going to leave my points there for the time being. After Guillotine I will start putting my next points into Monstrosity, for a while at least. I’m going to see how a dual spec suits me. 

*snip snip*