Ships & Modules

Hi all,

I was wondering how the Marauders are compared to each other as of 2015. I've read alot of posts dating back to 2013 and 2014 and I'm guessing most of it from back then isn't up to date anymore with changes added to the game constantly over the years.

Not that I'm asking "which Marauder is the best Marauder?", but I'm certainly curious as to the positive and negative points of each of the four ships. Especially regarding mission running (obviously) and general PvE (ratting, incursions).

Also, I'm aware that some pirate faction Battleships are preferable over a Marauder. Why is that, and which pirate faction ship over which Marauder exactly?

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

Says the guy that must not do anything with Marauders.

I can do The Score, Blockade or Worlds Collide in 15 mins.

I regularly make 25 - 30 mil isk ticks in Null farming Sansha rats in Forsaken Hubs.

Paladins are great if you know how to fly them properly. (Hint: I don't use Bastion.)

The reason the OP's questions can't really be answered is because there is no real answer - The variables rely too heavily on pilot skill, which type of PVE you're doing and how you're fit. It's exactly the same argument that's been going on since Marauders were buffed two years ago.

For missions, Vargur is probably the best general purpose marauder. Variable damage type, good range, etc.

Paladin is best against EM weak. Tachyon or Pulse w/Scorch work well. Bring a mobile depot and switch as needed.

Kronos is also good since so many things are weak to kin or therm.

Golem is meh because missiles are meh (and because people tend to use Rigor rigs in place of warp speed rigs.) You need to dedicate a lot of mids/rigs to damage application. Cruise/torps have a 7-8 second cycle time which results in DPS loss to overkill (by comparison a Vargur's ACs have a ~3s cycle.) Torps are just too range limited and slow moving (DPS loss if you don't volley count.) Using Fury cruise missiles is the way to go. Basically, gunships clear things faster than the Golem despite the on-paper advantages.

Having said that, any of the marauders will serve you well, assuming you don't do something silly such as run a Paladin against Angels. The differences between them generally come down to personal preference and how much of a min/max-er you are.




Pirate ships tend to bring some unique qualities to the plate over standard battleships and marauders. Rattlesnake is good in terms of raw DPS (~1400 DPS,) however no warp speed rigs. Mach has always been a good all around level 4 ship, especially now with its warp speed bonus. The Nightmare has been "replaced" by the Paladin. The other pirate ships aren't normally used for level 4s, as far as I'm aware.

Golem is the best, by far.

Best tank, best low-usage of cap (most of the dead golems are ****-fitted by idiots that have no idea how to shield tank, just because it's purple doesn't make it good for the fit). You can change your damage type, hit up to 250km, and the list goes on.

For PVP it's absurd, most gangs ignore them since they can't kill them. Very OP ship that can burst tank better than a carrier.

I have used every laserboat. Nothing compares to my paladin but I think a lot that might be me roleplaying an Amarrian knight with my poor dog being the blood raider upon whom pennies are hurled and plenty of "Piskewpewpewpews" are directed.

But seriously the Paladin is really, really good. As a "grind sansha and blood raider rats for isk" it's probably the best. Salvage is not what it used to be, but multitasking the tractors and the savalger + drones is a nice addition to build your APM from a 5 to a 30. Actaully makes missions fun trying to savalgage everything, burn to the gate, bastion and kill rats all at the same time.I have moved more into speed running L4's and no BS is terribly great at that xD

Thank you all for commenting. Getting some up-to-date information about these ships is very appreciated!

For L4's I am looking into training for a Marauder.
The L4's I'm doing are in Caldari space and I am currently using a CNR. Checking the volleys is something I am used to by now but using missiles all this character's life is getting pretty boring and is causing me having unvaried, dedicated skills. So I'm thinking I want to invest in training into one of the turret Marauders first.

Even though my missile skills are currently better than any turret skills, just blindly going for the Golem because I have the skills seems stupid (and boring), without having done some research and getting some feedback.

Which turret Marauder would perform best in Caldari space L4's, resistance/tank wise and damage selectability wise?

And also, in which area of L4 Empire space would the pirate faction Battleships the Machariel and Rattlesnake perform best (same as above, restistance and damage wise)?

Thanks!

I'll share some of the experience I have with marauders. I use two, the Paladin and Kronos. I started off with the Paladin because of my fondness for energy weapons while using the Zealot. After a while I got the Kronos because as was said before, a lot of rats are vulnerable to that kin/therm damage. Here's what I've taken away so far.


--Paladin

*Easily my favorite of the two. By far. The Amarr have a fantastic T2 advantage most people don't seem to bring up often, but their T2 resist profile seals up the hole in armor resist normally present in T1 ships. That means they have phenomenal tanking ability.

*The cap is awesome. Paladin actually has better cap than the Kronos when firing their top-tier weapons.

*Both beams and pulse on the large level are in a fantastic place. I have fits for both and switch out as needed for the mission. They do great damage, and have a great mix of range and tracking for either weapon

*The EM/therm damage lock isn't as bad as it seems. For a long time I only had the Paladin and had no trouble whatsoever in doing all missions not antagonizing an empire. The Angels missions take longer, sure, but because they favor close range, you just have to MJD out and melt everything from range as they try to slowboat at you.

*I have access to, but haven't yet used the T2 ammo. But the standard ammo works great, and I use Navy Multi often. Those crystals last a long, long time before they shatter.


--Kronos

*Fantaistic against a wider variety of rats. Because of the kin damage from hybrids, I use my Kronos against Angels, and it works out better than the Paladin.

*Blasters track a lot better than pulse, so up-close targets get wrecked. But you'll be working with less range than Pulse provides. Tech II ammo for blasters provides more on-paper DPS than pulse, but at the expense of having even less range.


These two Marauders overall...

The native MJD role bonus lends a lot to the versatility of the class. You can MJD with a range-focused fit and pick off the frigates from afar while their transversal is low. Or load up long range ammo in your short guns and still pick 'em off, just with a shorter window of opportunity. If you're good at some mental geometry you can do a two-part MJD jump and get wherever you need to on the grid (though under 20k it is more time efficient to afterburn or MWD there), so long-distance gates are no issue.

I find it best to try to avoid using Bastion whenever possible. Mobility is what gets missions done quickly, whether it's burning to a gate or burning a certain direction to get good transversal verses a target. If you do bastion, whether for tank or range bonuses, have a mobile depot with you to deploy. Your bastion cycle is 1 minute anyway, so by the time your cycle is complete you'll have the depot to refit certain things (I often switch out some mids if I have to do an extended bastion at range. Or online/offline modules I don't need normally like small remote armor/hull reps to repair drones).

All this having been said, I get the impression that the best overall marauder is probably the Vargur. But I say this having no experience with the Vargur itself or projectile weapons. I say this from what I read on the forums and my own experience with shield boost fits and turret weapons. The boost to active reps from bastion is insane, and yes, there are some missions where putting a x-large shield booster + amplifier in my mids actually helps me tank more than my armor repper in a Paladin (but that's because the game is designed so active tanking works better with shield, and buffer is better with armor). I can only imagine how insane active shield tanking is like in a shield focused ship like the Vargur.

Damage type selection is always nice, but I think there may be too much emphasis on it. Like I said earlier, I used a Pali no problem for months. And keep in mind that with projectiles, you'll almost always be shooting into falloff, so your paper DPS isn't going to reflect what happens in the mission pocket. Your DPS will likely still be great if you are piloting well and managing range and transversal, but that's a good bit of effort that you may not be used to with having a background in missiles.

Because the Vargur is Minnmitar and is opposite Amarr, you'll find the native T2 resist profile partially covers up the EM hole in the shields, giving you phenomenal tanking ability on top of the active rep bonuse and bastion. And capless weapons are always nice.

I recommend going autocannons, as artillery has long refire times, and overkilling a target doesn't do anyone any good.

On the other hand, you only have so many mids. Tank, propulsion, and application mods are going to be competing for very limited space. Those compromises are part of what makes EVE great, just think long and hard about what sort of equipment you want to take with you into the mission. And keep in mind you can carry that mobile depot with you and switch between rooms if you are familiar enough with the territory.

I do agree. There's nothing "wrong" with the Golem, but neither is it the "best" as some earlier poster stated.

It's like fitting a Rattlesnake in EFT vs actually flying one. Sure, you may have like 1500 paper dps but you've got missiles that are slow as ****. Drones that are either slow as **** or stationary and don't hit very well at certain ranges. You still have to reload your launchers, and you're agility is terrible. There are a lot of factors that you have to consider about the application of your dps and your ability to complete missions that a lot of people forget. The same concepts apply to the Golem as well.

Compared to the Pally, you may have lower base dps but you warp in anywhere from 50-90km and you can instapop the first 10-15 frigs/dessies/cruisers in 30 seconds flat with one volley each. Then start working on the BS, which, if they're EM/Therm weak, usually melt in 4 volleys if not 3. Drones are not even a consideration because nothing gets within 40km of you.

I'm not saying that the Pally is the best either. For missions like the Damsel where rats spawn at 0, I'd imagine that the Kronos would be an absolute beast. Same thing for Anoms where all the rats spawn at 0. Only downside there would be that you'd probably be using Bastion to tank the dps at that range, and at least where I live, ratting with Bastion is a Marauder loss waiting to happen. (You shouldn't be using a Marauder with anything but blues in local anyway, but you don't want to be in Bastion on the rare occasion that a hotdropping neut does pop into local and dscans you at a site.)

I think that the Vargur is probably the best of the 4. I've never flown anything but the Paladin, but with long range guns and a similar approach, I can see the Vargur functioning a lot like the Pally with the added benefit of being able to select damage type.

Agree with the paper vs. Applied dps alot

I did alot of c4 wormhole site soloing and some level 4 missions and holy crap do the drones take forever to get where they are going. You get that high dps number after about 10 seconds of drone travel time and missle speed

Simply not true especially now with the new missile damage mods.
There have always been missions I can clear significantly faster in my Golem than corp mates can in their Vargur, Paladin or Kronos depite the paper advantage of faster cycle time and no damage delay due to missile travel time.. With all of use being all level 5 skills those are not a factor either. And yes there are mission they clear substantially faster than I can, but this only serves to illustrate my point in these debates. There is no "best" ship because it all comes down to personal preferences and which NPC you fight most often.

I like and fly all of the marauders because each offers unique capabilities and strengths against specific NPC.
If I had to choose just one and based on my expectations / preferences I would take the Golem because of it's consistency.
While each of the others will kill some npc faster than the Golem they are slower to kill other NPC. The Golem just runs along in the middle killing everything at the same rate no matter what NPC you are shooting at.

One caution for anyone considering a Marauder with bastion.
If you DC with bastion active the ship will not safe warp.
So if you are going this route place a heavy emphasis in your fit choices with this in mind.
On the other hand if you have a very stable internet connection and rarely if ever DC then ignore this.