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Linguica

The Marauder didn't seem that bad to me after following the directions

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17 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

The problem I have is having the SSG and Ballista weapons pre-selected, and the Marauder would kill me as I did that.

 

For me, the Ballista is bound to 6 on the top row of the keyboard, and SSG on 5. I'd have to select 5, 6 and then the weapon wheel key. And when I have to select the weapons, I take my hand off the main control keys and then have to immediately put them back. My reflexes are not up to it, I don't think.

 


Are you using WASD for movement?

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2 minutes ago, NoXion said:


Are you using WASD for movement?

 

No, I have always used A, Z, LCtrl and LAlt and S for Jump and X for Crouch (not in DE, obviously). I've used these keys for as long as M+K has been around. And I'm never switching to WASD, I'd be 100x worse than I am now.

 

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1 minute ago, Foebane72 said:

 

No, I have always used A, Z, LCtrl and LAlt and S for Jump and X for Crouch (not in DE, obviously). I've used these keys for as long as M+K has been around. And I'm never switching to WASD, I'd be 100x worse than I am now.

 


Just trying to get a feel for your setup. Are you still using Q for the weapon switch/weapon wheel function?

If so, I think you can still pre-select your weapons without moving your hands too much. Hold down Q to bring up the weapon wheel. Select a weapon by shifting your mouse. Release the weapon wheel. Repeat the procedure for your second weapon. Once you have released the weapon wheel a second time, you should be set up. I'm pretty sure this can be done without moving your hands around as much as pressing the individual weapon keys. Time slows down when you bring up the weapon wheel, which should help if you get some distance from the enemy while doing the aforementioned.


I went through Taras Nabad a couple of days ago to re-experience the Marauder fights myself. When using the Ballista, I suggest you stick with the primary fire, as hitting the Marauder with a charged shot is tricky even when the weapon is fully upgraded.

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I bound SSG and Ballista to Z and X because using number keys such as 5 and 6 takes too much time. You can't have the controls limiting you in a skill demanding game like Eternal. If a control configuration feels slightly clunky you should change it. 

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11 hours ago, Foebane72 said:

 

No, I have always used A, Z, LCtrl and LAlt and S for Jump and X for Crouch (not in DE, obviously). I've used these keys for as long as M+K has been around. And I'm never switching to WASD, I'd be 100x worse than I am now.

 

Thats almost insane! According to your previous post I assume you're using the mouse with your right hand and arrow keys with your left hand. So you have to move your left hand ~ 25 cm (on my keyboard) to access A, Z and so on?!?

 

I have three suggestions for you, depending on whether you're willing to switch to WASD or not.

 

a) Switch to WASD. Q -> wheapon wheel, E -> flame belch, F -> glory kill, C -> chainsaw, V -> crucible, Space -> jump, L Alt -> Switch weapon mode, L Ctrl -> Mission objectives, L Shift -> Dash. The longest distance you're fingers have to pass is about 2 cm (V). Your thumb will always be next to Alt and Space.

 

Switching to WASD is not hard since the layout is almost the same as arrow keys (except W is a little more left than the arrow key for up).

You will benefit in any first person shooter if you switch to WASD: Almost every shooter has a use key (e. g. E), crouch (C), run (Shift), jump (Space).

 

You're 47 now. You will live for another ~ 33 years. Assuming you started your first person career with Wolf 3D (1992) you're playing shooters for 28 years now, so you're still in the first half of you're ego shooter life, so it's still useful to learn a much better key binding :-)

 

b) Stick with up/down/left/back. You should try using the mouse for your most important actions, to spare some time.

 

b1) (thats what I use combined with WASD) Mouse 1 -> fire, mouse 2 -> secondary fire, mouse 3 (wheel) -> grenade, mouse 4 -> switch grenade type, mouse 5 -> SSG, wheel up -> shotgun, wheel down -> Heavy cannon.

 

b2) Mouse 1 -> fire, mouse 2 -> secondary fire, mouse 3 (wheel) -> wheapon wheel, mouse 4 -> switch grenade type, mouse 5 -> grenade, wheel up -> Ballista, wheel down -> SSG.

 

Each of the three options (a, b1, b2) will make your life much easier. A is the one you will benefit most.

 

Of course you should learn this new binding by replaying some of the early missions first.

Edited by igg

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12 hours ago, Foebane72 said:

 

No, I have always used A, Z, LCtrl and LAlt and S for Jump and X for Crouch

 

Hello, sorry but I am very curious. Would you possible post a picture of your hand(s) doing this?

 

As to the general topic, I have found that quick-switching SSG+balista is the way to deal with Marauders. They can be stun-locked, but I usually lack the quickness required to do this. They won't spawn the fire-wolf companion if you do not shoot their shield, so my preferred tactic is to dash away from a Marauder, ignoring him almost while I clear anything more troublesome than an imp. Once I've got a bit of space to maneuver I slow down, let the Marauder close the distance while dodging any of his axes. This baits his melee, giving you to opportunity to SSG+balista the bastard. If possible, I try and lob a frag as well as quick swap back to SSG and dash behind him for another hit.

 

I like the Marauder, game would be too easy without them. Quick swapping seems to be the key to higher tier play. I have been practicing with the following setup: heavy cannon (1), combat shotty (2), SSG (3), chaingun (4), rlauncher (5), balista (z), bfg (x), plasma (c) -- clustered around WASD of course!

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Sorry peeps, I am set in my ways. My control keys or no control keys.

 

Besides, I've been looking ahead in the game (via a walkthrough video) and if that Marauder is stopping me now, others would, and so would a lot of the puzzles and battles later on in Nekravol and especially Urdak (even though the latter looks so pretty). And I wince in fear when I see the Final Sin battle. I said it before and I'll say it again, there's no way in hell I could do that. I barely got past the final boss in Doom 2016, and that was after two dozen tries, going back and forth for tips.

 

In any case, I've been going back to the game less and less often even before that third Marauder showed up, as I'm less enthusiastic about trying to beat it at all, now.

 

I may as well face it, Doom Eternal has bested me. It's like Final Doom in that regard (the other Doom game I tried and couldn't beat).

 

And I'm starting to wonder if the sheer number of monsters these games throw at you is more than those in the original Doom 1+2, combined, times x2!

 

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Damn, wouldya believe it? I tried again just now, after putting my keys back to how I originally had them for most of the campaign, and I BEAT the bastard!

 

I put the mouse wheel back to selecting the next and previous weapons, and I remembered that the SSG is next to the Ballista in the weapon roster, so it was easy to use the wheel to switch between the weapons when fighting the Marauder.

 

This time, I lured it away from the intended battle scene, back to the well, and managed to finish it off with the SSG and Ballista, as others had said. It just takes concentration and an awareness of what the damn bastard is doing, and the environment, and that was it, it was vapourised in the last shot, which surprised me. Luckily, this time, there was a zombie to provide ammo.

 

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This has taken me awhile. I have to really reach to tap 7 for the chaingun or 8 for the BFG for instance, and switching to the ballista can still trip me up. It does unavoidably take my hand off the directional keys briefly, but with enough practice I'm starting to be able to do this while only pausing for a brief fraction of a second.

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9 hours ago, Foebane72 said:

Sorry peeps, I am set in my ways. My control keys or no control keys.

 

By all means, use the control method that you prefer best. I am just curious to see how it works, as (no offense) your described setup baffles me lol. Good job taking down the Marauder though!

 

5 hours ago, GoatLord said:

This has taken me awhile. I have to really reach to tap 7 for the chaingun or 8 for the BFG for instance

 

This is the reason I decided to rebind these around WASD. I'm really good at hitting 1-5 on the number row (thank you Killing Floor) so I set these up to mirror classic Doom, but 6 and beyond is too far to reach reliably -- especially on my ergonomic keyboard. Taking hand away from WASD is not something I can do easily.

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On 4/16/2020 at 1:42 PM, Phobos Anomaly said:

It's sad Hugo has to spell it out for all the Marauder haters.

 

Most of those who hate the Marauder hate him simply because they don't fight him properly - they have not honed their skills. Bottom line is - They have not yet attained the level of skill the game is demanding from them. They need to practice.

So, essentially what you're saying is: git gud. Which is not a valid argument. I finished the game, pretty much learned to fight the Marauder, but that doesn't mean that fighting him became enjoyable in any way.

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7 minutes ago, TheRedTide said:

So, essentially what you're saying is: git gud. Which is not a valid argument. I finished the game, pretty much learned to fight the Marauder, but that doesn't mean that fighting him became enjoyable in any way.

 

Normally I agree with you, but the Marauder is one case in which I think it actually is valid. There are specific rules to follow in order to defeat him - if you don't play by those rules, then you lose.

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quick switching between ballista and ssg does the trick for me...as seen HERE @ 30:45

 

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Marauder has been a challenge in my Unmodded UV run. In my NM run he was a breeze.

I didn't take the quick-swapping praetor park lol

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On 4/21/2020 at 4:42 AM, Phobos Anomaly said:

 

Normally I agree with you, but the Marauder is one case in which I think it actually is valid. There are specific rules to follow in order to defeat him - if you don't play by those rules, then you lose.

 

Well, i would say, the only thing you have to know, is that you can not fight him directly, how you would do with other Demons.

Besides the super effective Way to deal Damage with the SSG, you can also use rockets, shoot an ice bomb over him (he will turn around) and use sticky bombs on the Ground.

 

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On 4/24/2020 at 7:18 AM, FNSG said:

quick switching between ballista and ssg does the trick for me...as seen HERE @ 30:45

That was great to watch. The circling kept him staggered the whole time, good job 

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About the only trouble the Marauder gives me anymore is triggering his green eyes with other demons around to get you from behind. I found the purple goo and toxic water to be far more annoying than the Marauder.

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My two cents:

The in-game tutorial suggests there's a "sweet spot" and that you should stand within firing distance of your SSG to take down the Marauder.  That's bad advice.  He will circle around you and attack, often faster than you can turn, especially on console.

Keeping your distance is good advice but it's also impractical.  I've played up to Nekravol, and I can only think of two encounters where I really had a large amount of room to move and get away from the Marauder.

Switching back and forth between the SSG and another weapon is also good advice but again, it's impractical.  I don't understand these videos where players stagger the Marauder multiple times in a row.  That hasn't been my experience at all.  You can stagger him once and you better get off that second shot quick because he will a) dash away, b) shoot you, or c) circle and attack.  And this is regardless of difficulty.  (Honestly, lowering the difficulty from Ultra-Violence doesn't seem to have much of an effect on the Marauder.  He melee attacks more, maybe?)

I never realized shooting his energy shield is what triggers him to spawn the wolf.  That's something the game could and should communicate better to the player.

And speaking of the Marauder's shield, I hate it.  I understand what id was going for, and I don't hate the Marauder, but his shield is overpowered.  Players should either be able to destroy the Marauder's shield entirely or at least temporarily.  It's absolutely ridiculous that I can slice through Barons and Arch-Viles with the Crucible yet not do a damn thing to the Marauder.  And it makes even less sense when he doesn't have his shield up.

Lastly, I didn't see it mentioned here but I have some very specific advice on how to deal with the Marauder secret encounter in Taras Nabad.  Just kill the fodder enemies and run away.  If you put enough distance between him and you before the timer expires, the game will automatically kill him.  (Climbing up the well should do the trick.)  I'm assuming the game does this because the area he's in is being unloaded from memory.  I'm also assuming this will eventually be patched so you may want to act fast! :P

 

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1 hour ago, KainXavier said:

I don't understand these videos where players stagger the Marauder multiple times in a row.  That hasn't been my experience at all.  You can stagger him once and you better get off that second shot quick because he will a) dash away, b) shoot you, or c) circle and attack.

 

I'm not sure how it works exactly either but you are able to consistently stagger him multiple times if you use Frag Grenades in the middle of your weapon-swap-shooting or circle around him to hit him from behind.

 

A tactic I've seen some speedrunners use is throwing an Ice Bomb over and behind him - he'll turn around to block it, then you shoot his exposed back. Another one is hitting him once with the Ballista, then swapping to BFG to finish him off instantly (he should stay staggered long enough) - though this one deprives you of your most powerful weapon in future fights.

 

Practicing tactics on Taras Nabad is a good idea since there's a Marauder at the start of the map.

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@AtimZarr1

Thanks for the suggestions!  I didn't know the Marauder would turn around if an ice grenade flies past him.  I also didn't know shooting him in the back makes a difference.  I'll have to try both of those things.

 

As for lobbing frag grenades in between shots, that's good advice and something I already employ.  I haven't noticed being able to stagger the Marauder multiple times that way, but I don't doubt you.  I'll have to experiment with it more.  The one thing I feel I can confidently say is that you still won't deal enough DPS to take him out in 30 seconds.  (I spent a lot of time on that fight. :p)

 

Regarding your Ballista-BFG suggestion, are we talking an unmodded shot from the Ballista?

Lastly, I completely agree about the beginning of Taras Nabad being a good place to practice against the Marauder.  That's one of the few areas where you really have the time and space to see how the AI will react.

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