So does Minstrels, but I doubt you’ll hear many people suggesting you swap it out. Celestial has even higher raw stat totals, but it’s important to consider whether your build can take full advantage of more rounded stats, and whether they’re useful for you.
If you find that staying alive isn’t a problem for you, for example, it might be worthwhile to trade Marauder’s toughness for a little extra offense. On the other hand, if you need a little extra toughness, it might not affect your DPS that much to make a trade-off…
~The Storyteller – Elementalist – Jade Quarry~
Marauder has been better than berserker ever since it was introduced. Is this still news to anyone?
News to me. As people said above, it depends on your goal. If a little extra health helps you, then great. Otherwise, the more offensive stats, the faster stuff dies.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I think that some metabattle people have crunched the numbers and you lose about 10% DPS for 6k health with full Ascended.
As a rule of thumb, swapping out Berserker for Marauder costs you around 1% DPS per 1k health.
The exact amount of the DPS-to-health ratio is going to depend on buffs and class-specific traits somewhat; raw crit chance (which brings you to the crit cap faster) and stat conversions (precision to ferocity) are most relevant.
On something like a hammer Guardian, which benefits most from Marauder and has the least trait conflicts, going from full zerk to full Marauder costs you about 6% DPS for 6330 health with full buffs.
So on a low base health class like ele or guardian it comes down a 6% dps loss for more than 50% more health!
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
News to me. As people said above, it depends on your goal. If a little extra health helps you, then great. Otherwise, the more offensive stats, the faster stuff dies.
It comes down to how difficult the content you are playing is, for you and your group.
A simple way to think about it is that getting downed is a massive DPS loss – at best, you and at least one party member are going to do essentially zero DPS for several seconds. When the extra health from Marauder keeps you from being downed, that’s a massive DPS boost for those seconds at the cost of a very modest DPS hit most of the time.
If you take into account the times that being downed turns into a death – and when a death turns into a party wipe – that extra health can be a big, big effective DPS boost.
Now obviously if you’re doing content on farm mode, where you’re in full Berserker and never even sniff the floor over the course of full raid clear, don’t even look at Marauder. On the other hand, if another 3k, 5k health will prevent a down every couple pulls, stop being a snob and put on the Mara.
You realize that you just used more words to repeat what I said. If you need more health, Marauder’s is a better choice for you; if you don’t, zerker’s will kill things faster.
Which is why it’s news to me that “Marauder’s is better” all the time — it’s only better when you need the extra health.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
It’s good for thieves that are tired of getting one-shotted. Otherwise I’ll stick with Zerk. Enemies will burn through that passive health bonus pretty quickly anyways.
I have a sword, a dagger, and an estimated life span of 2.47 seconds.
PVE – its no brainer, Berserker is the Best. Don’t worry about those mobs and bosses, they are very predictable on the long run.
WvW – Frontline classes or Glass Cannon such as Thief should consider this Marauder. And maybe the solo roaming class.
It’s really about personal preference. Would you like to trade small portion of damage to small portion of hp?
This is the last MMORPG ill play.
You realize that you just used more words to repeat what I said. If you need more health, Marauder’s is a better choice for you; if you don’t, zerker’s will kill things faster.
Which is why it’s news to me that “Marauder’s is better” all the time — it’s only better when you need the extra health.
The only way to settle this is actually to answer a very specific question: “How much faster?” Because that actually would dictate whether it was always better or not. It doesn’t really matter if you need the health because you only need the health if you get hit.
Of course that’s the only way to settle it. People should use what works for them.
But that’s exactly my point: Marauder’s isn’t automatically better than Berserker’s, which was the fallacy to which I was responding.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
You realize that you just used more words to repeat what I said. If you need more health, Marauder’s is a better choice for you; if you don’t, zerker’s will kill things faster.
Which is why it’s news to me that “Marauder’s is better” all the time — it’s only better when you need the extra health.
The only way to settle this is actually to answer a very specific question: “How much faster?” Because that actually would dictate whether it was always better or not. It doesn’t really matter if you need the health because you only need the health if you get hit.
Of course that’s the only way to settle it. People should use what works for them.
But that’s exactly my point: Marauder’s isn’t automatically better than Berserker’s, which was the fallacy to which I was responding.
I think you misunderstand. Let’s say we have an enemy with 1.6m HP.
On average your zerker does 7,000.
On average your marauder does 6% less so 6,580.
1.6m / 7,000 = 229 strikes. (228.57… but you can’t have a partial strike)
1.6m / 6580 = 244 strikes (243.16… etc.)
244 – 229 = 15.
If the attack pattern were exactly 1 per second it would take 15 extra seconds but the total time of the slowest is 244s or simply 4 minutes and 4 seconds versus 3 minutes and 49 seconds.
Realistically you likely wouldn’t even notice and then you have a lot of realities in the game like the attack patterns are generally much faster than 1 per second and then quickness and alacrity and conditions you can tack on and all sorts of sexy goodness. Basically the time to deplete 1.6m HP alone wouldn’t vary enough to justify not taking Mauraders.
But these are made up numbers though that’s how you would test it. The rule of thumb is that the larger the number for the base (Berserker) the worse you will get for taking anything but (for Maurader) so there’s a substantial difference between attacks based on their base coefficients and the weapon being used to deliver it and a whole lot of other stuff that’s just not going to be accounted for here.
I’m sure someone will someday make that spreadsheet just to defend their choices.
I think you are still misunderstanding: “better” depends on the circumstances and the intended goal. There is no stat combination that is absolutely better for each and every player in each and every situation.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I think you are still misunderstanding: “better” depends on the circumstances and the intended goal. There is no stat combination that is absolutely better for each and every player in each and every situation.
The Economist in me disagrees but fortunately I’m less belligerent than I used to be!
I agree to disagree.
You are of the opinion that there is a single stat combination that is best for every player in the game in every possible situation? Or you are of the opinion that for any given situation, there is a single stat combination that is best for everyone?
I would have thought that economists would be more likely to understand that one size doesn’t fit all, which is why we have things like peak-load pricing, supply/demand curves, and differing prices on identical airplane seats.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
