I'm a long time player and have made a sorcerer and an assassin my mains ever since beta. I have many other 50s and every other class in the 30s to 40s. But the reason I'm writing this is because I recently went back to leveling my marauder and have been getting close to the 50s bracket, so I'm enjoying all the mobility perks, which made me think hard on the actual lack of mobility on my mains, mainly the sorc.

I am leveling and pvping as a rage mara, and maybe it's because I have many hours under the belt and I'm going against f2pers but this class is a damn beast! And I seriously don't know how any mara can let me kill him/her when I'm on my sorc. There is absolutely no reason a mara should die to a sorc for example -- their gap closers are far stronger than the sorc's kiting tools. Here, let's look into them.

As a rage mara I already have higher potential speed than a sorc, if played well. Obliterate (which is also a leap, but more on that later), gives me 40% speed for 5 seconds on average every 10 seconds (other skills lower its cooldown). So that's 40% speed with a 50% uptime, or a 20% overall speed increase. A sorc has a 150% sprint for 2 seconds, every 20 seconds or 10% uptime. It also gives them an overall 7.5% speed increase if used on cooldown. 150spd/20sec

So, just looking at the class and spec speed boosts, over the course of the fight, the mara has higher speed benefits and Obliterate 40% speed boost counters Force Speed over the length of the fight.

On top of this, a rage mara has Predation available to them very, very often. Pred is 50% speed for 10 seconds. 2 second cooldown, needs 30 fury. Fury can be built so fast with the right talents in the other two trees (Short Fuse/Anni and Defensive Forms/Carnage) that you will never miss a Berserk Smash and be able to hit pred the next time 30 fury is up. This gives mara a huge advantage over the sorc as far as speed goes.

Next the sorc has a Force Slow which is 6 seconds for 50% speed, on a 12 second cooldown. The mara has a 12 second slow Crippling Slash, which has no cooldown and costs 1 rage. It is much harder to get off though as you have to be in the 4m range to apply it. You decide which one is better here.

The sorc also has a directional knockback, which has about the range of my second leap Obliterate, and I will most often counter a knockback with Obliterate, which we also know gives a secondary benefit of 40% speed.

What's left is a 2 second root for a sorc on a 9 sec CD, and a 30m leap and an extra super slow Force Crush on 18 seconds for mara. Force Crush is a second slow for mara and lasts 5 seconds, bringing the target down to a near full stop - 60% to 10% slow. I'd say the Force Crush, lasting 2.5 times longer than Creeping Terror root on twice the cooldown is a counter to it. With those two canceling each other out it leaves one extra tool for the mara -- a 30m leap, Force Charge every 15 seconds. Sure, Force Crush can be cleansed by a good sorc, but in the majority of situations it will tick almost full length.

I haven't met a sorc yet that could kite me and that doesn't say much for the lowbie bracket, but in full 50s gear I expect it won't change much as I know sorcs and I know they don't get any extra tools later on, in fact they perform better in the lowbies than they do in the 50s. Mara tool-set just outclasses the sorc one. Yes there is also the stuns, 4 sec for sorc and 3 sec Choke for mara, in addition a 10 second WW for madness sorc, but those pretty much instantly fill the resolve bar and make the mara unstoppable if the mara is smart and saves the CC breaker for full white bar.

Am I wrong here, good maras? Given all the tools we have and the far greater overall speeds we can achieve, have you ever been kited by a good sorc? What does this say about the kiting/anti-kiting tools in the game? Why is it so much harder to keep a player out of your range than to be in someone's face?

And this is the mara tree that people say is the easiest to kite?

The sorc needs to be constantly moving in the opposite direction. If you time your knock back and start moving sideways at the same time it's impossible for them to leap > KB > obliterate. They won't be in 10m range, then you hit your snare and start your rotation.

I've been kited by good sorcs on my mara, kited by bubble stunners easily and by madness it's a bit less annoying, they have to be good.

If you knockback then immediately hit your 9 s root they can't obliterate as you walk away, then snare, then they have to pop invis but you just keep walking away from where they camo'd, etc.

No question about it if you have 2 average players the marauder will win easily.

Not sure about the rest of the rage maras out there, but I run 3/7/31 which sacrifices the interceptor talent (40% speed on obliterate) for defensive roll (-30% aoe dmg) to avoid being smashed for 5k by every other smasher on the opposing team. I would really love to have the extra speed on obliterate to line up my smashes more efficiently, but defensive roll really is a mandatory talent when you're constantly in the thick of the fight.

Yeah, I only take 1 point in AoE reduction in my build, but it makes you pretty much unkite-able, unless it's a sniper or a hybrid sorc.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#100bZhMzZRMRrdfRrfz.2

It can be done. Need to chain a root right after the knockback (while strafing away) or have points in electric bindings. Then Obliterate isn't a problem. And actually, with the lightning madness hybrid, you've got a ton of ways to counter just about everything the rage warrior might want to do.

However, if you have a rage jugg and go far enough into the middle tree for unstoppable, I know of no reason why the warrior should lose this matchup ever. Maybe someone else has had better luck than me.

I preferred to run Carnage, and if you switch to it you will see why. Carnage is absolutely unkiteable, I don't know how any Mara can lose to a Sorc/Sage but for that spec it's even more unbelievable.

Don't forget all you have to do is touch the Sorc/Sage a couple of times to kill them. They take about 30 seconds of continuous kiting to actually kill you, and that's if you just stand there stupidly and won't use any defensives or attack them yourself. You have so many tools and can just LOS them anyway. Their biggest damage roots them, either the channeled FL or one of the cast spells like Turbulence. But you can just force leap to cancel it, it takes so long even with Polarity Shift that it's unlikely they can get one off. Add to that the fact that wzs are not 1v1s, and running around kiting will draw attention, Sorc/Sage should never beat a good Mara, especially Carnage but really any of them.

I think what's even more sad is that the Mara actually has better roots and snares lol.

Not sure about the rest of the rage maras out there, but I run 3/7/31 which sacrifices the interceptor talent (40% speed on obliterate) for defensive roll (-30% aoe dmg) to avoid being smashed for 5k by every other smasher on the opposing team.fight.

As a Sorc I love this, but also having a mara now I understand it too.

I preferred to run Carnage, and if you switch to it you will see why. Carnage is absolutely unkiteable, I don't know how any Mara can lose to a Sorc/Sage but for that spec it's even more unbelievable.

 

Don't forget all you have to do is touch the Sorc/Sage a couple of times to kill them. They take about 30 seconds of continuous kiting to actually kill you, and that's if you just stand there stupidly and won't use any defensives or attack them yourself. You have so many tools and can just LOS them anyway. Their biggest damage roots them, either the channeled FL or one of the cast spells like Turbulence. But you can just force leap to cancel it, it takes so long even with Polarity Shift that it's unlikely they can get one off. Add to that the fact that wzs are not 1v1s, and running around kiting will draw attention, Sorc/Sage should never beat a good Mara, especially Carnage but really any of them.

 

I think what's even more sad is that the Mara actually has better roots and snares lol.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever lost this matchup as a carnage marauder and I've only won it as a sorc against keyboard turners. Maybe once against an actual player...in 70 valor levels worth of warzones...and I probably had to use grenades.

Thank God the people who spec Carnage are rare.

You can beat a rage marauder 1v1 as a sorc/sage dps, its easily possible if you use your cooldowns exactly right. Sadly making one mistake will generally end the fight for you and it requires a sterile environment with around 35 seconds before you can kill the marauder.

Sadly a warzone is far from a sterile environment and any involvement of another class will generally make you lose the fight immediately.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. Sorcerers have gap openers and gap maintainers. Marauders have gap closers and gap shrinkers. A well-played 1v1 is a pretty good chess match of who uses what when.

If I encounter a marauder while playing my sorc, and our gear and cooldowns are in the same state, I would feel pretty confident that the winner is the person with more skill, and the same would be true if I was playing my marauder and met a Sorc.

One class that would have the edge on my sorc, I think, is a Jugg, if just from the reset of leap after push.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. Sorcerers have gap openers and gap maintainers. Marauders have gap closers and gap shrinkers. A well-played 1v1 is a pretty good chess match of who uses what when.

 

If I encounter a marauder while playing my sorc, and our gear and cooldowns are in the same state, I would feel pretty confident that the winner is the person with more skill, and the same would be true if I was playing my marauder and met a Sorc.

 

One class that would have the edge on my sorc, I think, is a Jugg, if just from the reset of leap after push.

Juggernauts are just as easy assuming then are vengeance spec. The problem is that it isn't always a chess match with other classes. With a sorceror you have to use your limited tools in all the optimal situations to pull off a win while other classes can achieve victory wiht much less effort. This combined with the fact that damage done while kiting is pathetically low creates a situation where you have no survivability if you don't kite and no damage if you do kite.

IF this game was only 1v1 sorcerer/sage would be in a pretty decent place. The mobility of the sage/sorc class is their survivability but it is easily shut down by roots and cc which creates problems when almost every class has a root (sometimes multiple roots) and a stun. In a group setting a class that has low survivability, low damage under pressure and only decent utility is far from valued and wanted for rated.

In a sterile 1v1 situation the only classes you should lose to though is

Assassin

Concealment operative (has to be a knowledgeable/good player)

Sniper without LOS

However being decent 1v1 is far from relevant when people tend to tunnel vision sorcerer/sage players simply because of the class they play

Juggernauts are just as easy assuming then are vengeance spec. The problem is that it isn't always a chess match with other classes. With a sorceror you have to use your limited tools in all the optimal situations to pull off a win while other classes can achieve victory wiht much less effort. This combined with the fact that damage done while kiting is pathetically low creates a situation where you have no survivability if you don't kite and no damage if you do kite.

 

IF this game was only 1v1 sorcerer/sage would be in a pretty decent place. The mobility of the sage/sorc class is their survivability but it is easily shut down by roots and cc which creates problems when almost every class has a root (sometimes multiple roots) and a stun. In a group setting a class that has low survivability, low damage under pressure and only decent utility is far from valued and wanted for rated.

 

In a sterile 1v1 situation the only classes you should lose to though is

Assassin

Concealment operative (has to be a knowledgeable/good player)

Sniper without LOS

 

However being decent 1v1 is far from relevant when people tend to tunnel vision sorcerer/sage players simply because of the class they play

I agree with this 100%

when you compare the 2 classes let's say madness sorcerer and rage marauder, their mobility is about the same, because the madness sorc can damage from range, but when you start looking at things like defensive cooldowns, the sorcerer has a shield and a self heal which are more 1v1 defensives and don't mitigate damage from multiply sources like marauder cooldowns

when you start talking about people sitting on sorcerers and you factor in healing and tanking (where the game is more balanced around) the marauder still does the same damage (maybe even more), just as good of mobility, might have slightly weaker utility (if there is only one sorcerer around), but most importantly is a lot easier to keep alive, whereas a dps sorcerer has a harder time living in group play

Juggernauts are just as easy assuming then are vengeance spec. The problem is that it isn't always a chess match with other classes. With a sorceror you have to use your limited tools in all the optimal situations to pull off a win while other classes can achieve victory wiht much less effort. This combined with the fact that damage done while kiting is pathetically low creates a situation where you have no survivability if you don't kite and no damage if you do kite.

 

IF this game was only 1v1 sorcerer/sage would be in a pretty decent place. The mobility of the sage/sorc class is their survivability but it is easily shut down by roots and cc which creates problems when almost every class has a root (sometimes multiple roots) and a stun. In a group setting a class that has low survivability, low damage under pressure and only decent utility is far from valued and wanted for rated.

 

In a sterile 1v1 situation the only classes you should lose to though is

Assassin

Concealment operative (has to be a knowledgeable/good player)

Sniper without LOS

 

However being decent 1v1 is far from relevant when people tend to tunnel vision sorcerer/sage players simply because of the class they play

Agree with this. Finally some honestly from what seems like a good sorc. Good rated analysis too.

But simple math shows that, if a matchup between a sorc and a marauder were a chess match, the mara would start with an extra bishop and a few more pawns. That's what I tried to show in the original post.

I mean, just the number of tools a mara has should pretty much guarantee a victory over an equally skilled sorc and that's true in live game also. People don't realize that, for example Predation, even the basic one at 50% is a direct counter to every slow in this game. Most slows are 50%, and they last from 6 to 12 seconds, if I'm right on that. The 10 sec pred, not only cancels out all those slows but usually lasts longer than them. On top of that you get a couple of leaps, roots on leaps and TWO slows of your own in Rage.

Simply going by numbers, a marauder should not lose to an equally geared and skilled sorc, and I'm not even talking about damage or defensive cooldowns here -- only the ability to be in the 4m range over the sorc tools to keep them out of it.

I'm a long time player and have made a sorcerer and an assassin my mains ever since beta. I have many other 50s and every other class in the 30s to 40s. But the reason I'm writing this is because I recently went back to leveling my marauder and have been getting close to the 50s bracket, so I'm enjoying all the mobility perks, which made me think hard on the actual lack of mobility on my mains, mainly the sorc.

 

I am leveling and pvping as a rage mara, and maybe it's because I have many hours under the belt and I'm going against f2pers but this class is a damn beast! And I seriously don't know how any mara can let me kill him/her when I'm on my sorc. There is absolutely no reason a mara should die to a sorc for example -- their gap closers are far stronger than the sorc's kiting tools. Here, let's look into them.

 

As a rage mara I already have higher potential speed than a sorc, if played well. Obliterate (which is also a leap, but more on that later), gives me 40% speed for 5 seconds on average every 10 seconds (other skills lower its cooldown). So that's 40% speed with a 50% uptime, or a 20% overall speed increase. A sorc has a 150% sprint for 2 seconds, every 20 seconds or 10% uptime. It also gives them an overall 7.5% speed increase if used on cooldown. 150spd/20sec

 

So, just looking at the class and spec speed boosts, over the course of the fight, the mara has higher speed benefits and Obliterate 40% speed boost counters Force Speed over the length of the fight.

 

On top of this, a rage mara has Predation available to them very, very often. Pred is 50% speed for 10 seconds. 2 second cooldown, needs 30 fury. Fury can be built so fast with the right talents in the other two trees (Short Fuse/Anni and Defensive Forms/Carnage) that you will never miss a Berserk Smash and be able to hit pred the next time 30 fury is up. This gives mara a huge advantage over the sorc as far as speed goes.

 

Next the sorc has a Force Slow which is 6 seconds for 50% speed, on a 12 second cooldown. The mara has a 12 second slow Crippling Slash, which has no cooldown and costs 1 rage. It is much harder to get off though as you have to be in the 4m range to apply it. You decide which one is better here.

 

The sorc also has a directional knockback, which has about the range of my second leap Obliterate, and I will most often counter a knockback with Obliterate, which we also know gives a secondary benefit of 40% speed.

 

What's left is a 2 second root for a sorc on a 9 sec CD, and a 30m leap and an extra super slow Force Crush on 18 seconds for mara. Force Crush is a second slow for mara and lasts 5 seconds, bringing the target down to a near full stop - 60% to 10% slow. I'd say the Force Crush, lasting 2.5 times longer than Creeping Terror root on twice the cooldown is a counter to it. With those two canceling each other out it leaves one extra tool for the mara -- a 30m leap, Force Charge every 15 seconds. Sure, Force Crush can be cleansed by a good sorc, but in the majority of situations it will tick almost full length.

 

I haven't met a sorc yet that could kite me and that doesn't say much for the lowbie bracket, but in full 50s gear I expect it won't change much as I know sorcs and I know they don't get any extra tools later on, in fact they perform better in the lowbies than they do in the 50s. Mara tool-set just outclasses the sorc one. Yes there is also the stuns, 4 sec for sorc and 3 sec Choke for mara, in addition a 10 second WW for madness sorc, but those pretty much instantly fill the resolve bar and make the mara unstoppable if the mara is smart and saves the CC breaker for full white bar.

 

Am I wrong here, good maras? Given all the tools we have and the far greater overall speeds we can achieve, have you ever been kited by a good sorc? What does this say about the kiting/anti-kiting tools in the game? Why is it so much harder to keep a player out of your range than to be in someone's face?

 

And this is the mara tree that people say is the easiest to kite?

Do you see the bolded part? I stopped reading there. You are a high lvl 40s marauder beating on most likely lvl 1-35 sorcs and saying its easy. Well DUH. Most sorcs in lowbie warzones dont have bubble stun yet, and very few that do know how to use it and their other tools properly.

Vs. a good sorc, here's how the scenario goes: I charge in, smash, stunned. Sorc applies dots and slows, and runs away. I catch up by using force crush to slow + build stacks, obliterate to them, smash, bubble stunned again, sorc keeps walking. At this point I charge in lets say I choke. Sorc breaks it and uses knockback + root. At this point I might be at 50% resolve, the sorc will be at 1/2-3/4. Notice that my one choke caused the same amount of resolve as his 2 stuns + knockback, but lasted half as long? Sorc proceeds to heal himself up, then force speeds away. I slowly walk towards him, get into charge range, charge, and he has a new bubble up. I dot him, try to get away from him in time to not get hit by bubble, but I get stunned anyway because he right clicks it off. Finally, I am closing in on full resolve. Again, he kites me while dotting and healing himself. I catch up to him, do some solid damage. At this point I will get stunned, either from the sorcs stun ability or a bubble stun, and get full resolve. Sorc applies dots/slows and runs the hell away, typically line of sighting me. Sorc heals himself as much as possible, and my resolve runs out before I can even get to him. I now have zero resolve again, and this process basically repeats itself.

I have met maybe 3-4 sorcs that play in this manner as bubblestun sorcs, and I can tell you that it is near impossible to kill them. GOOD sorcs will use a knockback, bubblestun, or force speed + slows at the first sign of trouble, ie, when I jump on them. 99.999% of sorcs sit there and let me beat on them, they don't even move away when bubblestun hits me, they just sit there. These same sorcs then come on the forums and cry about getting killed by smashers, when they are only playing their class at about 1/10th of their true potential. Good bubble stun sorcs are the hardest healer to deal with as a marauder, by far. Operatives and mercs are much easier to kill, unless the sorc in question is one of the 1000000000 mindless players that doesn't know how to play.

But simple math shows that, if a matchup between a sorc and a marauder were a chess match, the mara would start with an extra bishop and a few more pawns. That's what I tried to show in the original post.

 

I mean, just the number of tools a mara has should pretty much guarantee a victory over an equally skilled sorc and that's true in live game also. People don't realize that, for example Predation, even the basic one at 50% is a direct counter to every slow in this game. Most slows are 50%, and they last from 6 to 12 seconds, if I'm right on that. The 10 sec pred, not only cancels out all those slows but usually lasts longer than them. On top of that you get a couple of leaps, roots on leaps and TWO slows of your own in Rage.

 

Simply going by numbers, a marauder should not lose to an equally geared and skilled sorc, and I'm not even talking about damage or defensive cooldowns here -- only the ability to be in the 4m range over the sorc tools to keep them out of it.

You are speaking from the experience you gained as a lvl 40 something marauder in lowbie warzones. Please refrain from using lowbie players as examples of what each class is capable of. Get to 50 in a game with a fully min/maxed bubble stun sorc that really knows how to play and you might feel differently.

Aluvi, I understand your points. And that good sorc that would kite you and eventually kill you that you were referring to are the likes of me or Depreva that left a couple of posts. We're the sorcs that have been doing this for a long time now, among a few good others. But now that I see all these tools I have available to me as a mara, I'm just looking back and wondering how any mara could have let me kill him on my sorc.

And I understand that comparing lowbies is taboo and I agree, but all the basic mechanics between these classes remain regardless of my level of experience with the class. And in the original post, I did the math on the class and spec as a whole, at level 50. Yes I haven't had time to test this in ranked yet, but the math will remain the same, I imagine.