Dungeons as a Marauder at level 30

In the last beta, I had the opportunity to do many dungeons on the Marauder job. For the most part, I was doing the dungeon as a tank, but there were two dungeons where I was a DD. I figure I'd do a post on how combat in a dungeon felt like as a Marauder.

Basic Combat
While Zurar complains that combat in FFXI is simpler due to removing the idea of elemental weaknesses, I think compared to FFXI, combat is a little more complex due to the introduction of combos. This is where you string specific attacks together for increased effects.

At level 30, Marauder has two basic combos:
1. Heavy Swing -> Maim -- This gives you a buff so that you deal 10% more damage
2. Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butchers Block -- This combo not only does more damage compared to doing the skills individually, but also has an increased enmity effect

The yellow dashes surrounding the box show which actions will have an added combo effect if I were to use them next

Essentially, most of the time you end up smashing these four buttons, #1 to get the damage buff, and #2 to do a bunch of damage and get a bunch of hate. On random same-level open world mobs, I rarely go through this cycle more than twice.

My only complaint about this system is that to use the different combos, you really have to be conscious of which buttons you're pressing. For example, for me, I have to make sure I hit B->X->A in order to pull off the enmity combo. Tera, on the other hand, has all the combo buttons on one button, so to do a combo, all I have to do is start the combo by hitting one button, then all subsequent skills are automatically mapped to the X button so I only have to hit that with the correct timing.

Other combat skills
At level 30, there are a few other combat skills that are situationally useful.

Tomahawk - A basic ranged attack. It comes with increased enmity, so it's also useful for pulling mobs off the mages if you're not in direct melee range
Fracture - Applies a damage-over-time effect. Not very useful unless it's for boss fights simply because most mobs do not last very long
Mercy Stroke - A hard hitting attack that can only be done in the last 20% of a mob's life. If you kill the mob with Mercy Stroke, you get up to 20% of your own HP back.
Overpower - A conal AoE which has increased enmity
Brutal Swing - A stun move that is *not* subject to the global cooldown

Overpower is probably the most useful skill here since you can get the attention of a bunch of mobs and keep hate on them at the same time. Of course, since you're doing damage here, you really have to coordinate with the other party members and make sure there is no THM sleeping the mobs. I found myself spamming this a lot, especially when we're cleaning up small mobs between bosses in a dungeon when TP was not an issue.

Tomahawk is also very useful, especially as a tank in order to pull the groups of mobs in the dungeon.

Brutal Swing can interrupt many moves, though I'm not sure how many boss moves it actually interrupts.

Spamming Overpower on little mobs

Buffs, cross-class skills
Foresight - Increased defense for a short period of time
Bloodbath - Converts damage dealt to HP for a period of time
Berserk - Increases attack power for a period of time, but after it wears, you can't use weaponskills for 5 seconds.

Fairly descriptive moves. Bloodbath is pretty useful as it's one of the few ways that a Marauder can get HP back.

As you may know, FFXIV lets you "steal" abilities from other classes as long as you've unlocked them by leveling them up. In beta phase 3, you can unlock all jobs to level 15 by talking to specific NPCs after you reach level 20 in at least one job. The instructions are in the beta patch notes :)

Some of the cross-class abilities I've found very useful are:
Flash(Gladiator) - AoE enmity without doing damage! Even though as a Marauder, you have a low MP pool, this skill is still extremely useful in locking down hate.
Keen Fury (Lancer) - Increases parry rate. A 2nd defensive move for tanking
Raging Strikes (Archer) - Increases damage done by 20%
Second Wind (Pugilist) - Instantly restores % of max HP

Putting it all together
The nice thing about the buffs that most of them appear to be near-instant cast and are not subject to the global cooldown. This lets you do some fun things on Marauder.

For example, if you pop all your offensive abilities and Bloodbath, you end up doing a ton of damage while absorbing a lot of HP. Combine this with the Overthrow AoE attack and you end up not only doing a ton of damage, but you'll get a lot of healing and lock down hate on a bunch of mobs. For boss battles, doing Bloodbath + heavy hitting attacks lets you get some of your health back and gives the healer a breather.

As a tank, FFXIV is fairly simple. Boss fights become a matter of going through your combos, choosing if you want to try to stun certain moves, or move out of the attack radius, and keeping an eye on the healer to make sure they aren't being attacked by other mobs. The hate meters in the party list make it very easy to see where the other members of the party are, and if you need to use some hate spiking tools.

The only real challenge so far in dungeon fights is accounting for special fight mechanics. It appears that after the first dungeon, each boss fight has their own special mechanic that needs to be tackled. Sometimes, the tank has to hold a boss for something special while other party members interact with the environment. Others, it's where to position the mob and what to attack at the appropriate time.

I'm a little torn on these boss mechanics. On one hand, they are interesting to discover and figure out on our own, on the other, well... people don't like to lose, so learning all you can before starting the fight might be for the best. One example was one of the fights in the Copperbell Mines dungeon. The first time I did it, it was with a group and we had no idea what would happen. We ended up nearly wiping, but managed to pull out a win at the last moment once we figured out what to do. It felt like an accomplishment as we recovered from the near-disaster. The second time I did it, I briefed the team on what was going to happen and what to do, and we smashed the mob easily... maybe a little too easily.

What do you prefer? Experimenting, or knowing what will happen? Comment below!

(Latest screenshot from the latest beta. This just like the promo pictures from when 2.0 was first announced. I didn't think it was real when they first showed the action!)

Hi Dragon!