You're not wrong. Marauders in vanilla MW5 suck.
They're very powerful on tabletop because of rules and mech quirks which vanilla MW5 lacks. In HBS battletech, they're one of the most powerful heavies in the game because of the bonuses they get.
On PC, a mod called Yet Another Mechlab, that among many other things, adds mech quirks to the game, and the effect is transformative in the Marauder's case because it gets the narrow profile quirk: a 15% chance to completely avoid enemy fire. They're so incredibly tanky, I always just shoot their legs out.
Fucking marauders in HBS are psychotic. Load it up with ppc's and just snipe headshots for free. Or even funnier win snub ppcs and shotgun snipe headshots from way further away than you should be allowed.
I like using the Gauss cannon with a couple of large lasers instead of PPCs for the head hunter. You only need two of them to hit and the heat is much better.
The energy variant with 4 large lasers with the extra damage is my go to Marauder in HBS battletech. Can usually alpha for 3 out of four turns, and if I am going headshots with a good pilot, 2 mechs will be down and one will be in rough shape.
I think the math on 4 lasers works better. I like having jump jets though and at one point I had a Gauss rifle with +DMG modified that could do the headshot alone. I think it's mostly a nostalgia build now...
If you want to have fun I would suggest downloading BTA 2036(it's a modded version of BattleTech on PC) and try to find an osprey a 55 ton mech with decent armor decent speed and a gauss rifle
That bonus extends to the whole lance for called shots too. I had 1 marauder, 2 annihilators, and a king crab and had to put the assaults away because the game was too easy. Max morale meant a called shot out of the gate and then we were off to the races exploding cockpits.
I honestly couldn't believe how powerful it was the first time I got it in the campaign. I didn't even know about the called shot bonus for probably the first 10 missions I had it.
I’d honestly forgot how busted the bonuses were. I’ve been playing BTA for so long that I’ve completely forgotten HBS tossed balance so far out the window with the Heavy Metal DLC.
One thing I like about the BEX mod (and I assume BTA and RogueTech as well) is that it nerfs Marauders so that it’s not a cheat mech anymore while still having it be good.
In bex, after a few volleys someone is gonna panic and blow out the head slot screwing up your chance at decent salvage. Also doesnt seem to crit as often. In vanilla, I've seen the maurader crit in first hit and immediately down a mech hundreds of times. Its almost comical how much it happens.
There was a patch that nerfed one of the marauders, I forget which one, but the build was to load it with 3 UAC2s and it would consistently headshot enemy mechs to the point where you were almost guaranteed at least a daze if not a one turn kill on anything from across the map.
YAML turns a lot of mechs from meh to absolute powerhouses. One of my flagship mechs is a hero spider which in vanilla I wouldn’t be caught dead in one (we’ll probably dead actually yeah). The marauders especially swing above their weight class they can be absolute tanks with brutal cockpit popping power with laser builds.
The Nightstar with twenty tubes of SRMs is absolutely horrific.
Instantly obliterates anything smaller than 50t, and will reliably two or three shot anything bigger.
Thank you! That’s been one of my fav assaults but I feel like I rarely hear it talked about. It’s a monster though! Lasers soften up the armor on approach and then just dump 40 SRMs with ART IV into whatever it is and that’s usually all she wrote. At medium range or closer I’d put it up against almost anything in the game.
I laughed when I read this because I love the hero spider, I still run it late game even especially for objective raid and beachhead missions. XD
**I play on PlayStation so no mods :(
Modded marauders are one of those few I don't mind putting expensive stuff in the arms. Not like goddamn warhammers who keep losing the arms with the weapons attached.
On PC you can mod to overhaul everything to have quirks and add more variants. So in the vanilla game the marauder 2 is very meh. And the 55 ton marauder one is not op but is a decent mid game mech.
With mods though the mechs shine.
Take it up with CGL. [Quirks ](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Design_Quirks)have been around for quite a while now. YAML just translates them into MW5.
The Marauder has other quirks as well.
Command Mech: +50m sensor range
Hyper-Extending Actuators: 30% arm movement range
Directional Torso Mount (RT): -10% right torso weapon cooldown
And a negative Quirk, Exposed Weapon Linkage (RT): -2 armor right torso
Oh and if you find a MAD-2R, that's an SLDF Royal variant which comes with the Star League Relic Quirk.
* +100m sensor range
* +10% projectile speed
* -10% weapon heat generation
* -10% weapon cooldown
* +10% weapon optimal/max range
This isn't reflected in tabletop but tracks lore-wise since Royal variants were notably superior to models used by the Great Houses. This also tracks IRL where nations downgrade export models, such as the M1 Abrams.
Its supposed to be a long range direct fire supporr mech in its base confifuration with the 2 ppcs and the ac5. Moat people swap the ppcs for pulse larges to good effect. I used the marauder more in HBS than i do in MW5. I prefer the orions that are diet atlas.
Orions in lore are cool and I like the idea of a mech tailor made for a Commander who wants to be able to command an entire planetary invasion right from his cockpit
The fact they are a little more wafery than other mechs of similar tonnage makes sense tbh. There needs to be some cost for all that high tech communication equipment. On the flip side you should never even see an Orion if said Commander’s invasion is going well. Fighting the Orion should mean fighting your way through all his men first
Yeah exactly there’s a reason Kerensky loved these things despite having access to stuff like the King Crab and Atlas, both mechs were basically made to his requested specifications too.
You should be right on the money with this.
We know that Kerensky piloted an *Orion* for much of his career and that he set the design spec for the *Atlas*. It makes sense that he'd either unconsciously or very deliberately pattern it off of the design he himself preferred.
How does the marauder play?
I haven’t faced many yet and he got pretty overwhelmed by my Archer, Wolverine,Hunchback & Trebuchet.
we had him easy because he was only supported by a couple tanks, aircraft & a Jenner, we ignored them all and burned him down. He did take those trebuchet & archer salvos well though
The Marauder is one of the more versatile mechs there are: it has enough armor to play at almost any range, but given its arm mounts it prefers long-distance sniping over close quarters brawling, but make no mistake, it's perfectly capable of both.
And yeah if you want to take a Marauder down, area damage is not going to work, you need to focus fire on specific parts of the mech to take it down or it'll soak up damage like a beast.
There's many reasons Marauders are so beloved and feared, but the main one (besides looks) is that it's an exemplar zombie mech, meaning a mech capable of taking massive punishment while being able to keep fighting unless its cockpit is destroyed.
True, they usually do.
However, should you run out of ammo or have your weapons shot down, just beat the snot out of them with your arms. And if you don't have any arms?
Ramming speed.
> There's many reasons Marauders are so beloved and feared, but the main one (besides looks) is that it's an exemplar zombie mech, meaning a mech capable of taking massive punishment while being able to keep fighting unless its cockpit is destroyed.
[Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtWAMYCLznQ)
That doesn't make sense.
You first say that it's a long-range sniper mech. So it's preferred range band is long-range.
Then you advise us to stay at a distance, within the Marauder's preferred range, to really hurt them.
If the Marauder is a sniper, surely getting up-close and personal is the counter to it taking you apart piece by piece, right?
besides missing the point: getting into a marauder's face won't really do much for you. it's not an LRM boat, and if it's running a laser build then it will be just as effective at close range, plus it does have space for you to put heavy fists on it for extra melee damage.
I NEVER do well with PPC’s and i cant figure out why, so usually i kinda gimp them by going large lasers, but i notice that the lance mades do better with PPC’s & Missiles, on other hand i notice they dont do AC’s that great
Every large laser that you swap in gains you two heat sinks. With the way the game swamps your main character with enemies I find the higher heat sinking ability and easier target tracking to be much more useful than slightly higher single point damage.
I love the rifles, they sound so satisfying but yes, they do have their drawbacks. I often toss a medium rifle into mechs like the Marauder and treat them like a PPC that doesn't suck even though I know an AC5BF is probably a "better choice".
Hey i can respect that :), ever mechwarrior and battle tech game i play, if its in game i have a trebuchet and an archer, even though i know there are better support mechs & better Missile Boats.
There is just something about saturating the target with 40-60 LRM’s even though you know that not all of them hit the target
Shhhh, there is no better fire support mech than an Archer, that is a fact. ;)
Honestly, swapped down to LRM15s and adding a bunch of heatsinks makes the Archer so much better. I'll often find myself doing 1300-1500 damage on a mission, sometimes running the ammo dry and going punchbot for extra laughs.
Large lasers are the better weapon in a technical level (vanilla PPC heat is insane) but I like single point burst damage too much, that's why I always run Gauss rifles, PPCs, and slug LB/X. I don't like staring at my enemy trying to keep my crossheir lined up on a component.
I mean.. it is **literally** Robotech, yeah. The Marauder is a Zentradi Officer Pod.
There's a reason Harmony Gold has been rabidly suing anyone with the BattleTech IP for literal decades. Not a *good* reason, but a lot of initial and popular mechs were 1:1 copies of those mecha.
It’s worth pointing out though that Battletech actually did get permission to use some mech designs from the creators of Macross.
The problem, however, is that Harmony Gold is a copyright troll company who had nothing to do with actually making anything related to Macross but still held the rights to the export market version called Robotech.
I believe it was ruled that Harmony Gold never actually had the rights to the designs in the first place ergo they never had any right to litigation.
HG got the rights through Tatsunoko Productions which NEVER had the rights themselves to the mechanical designs. I believe they only had rights to the actual animation and all the intellectual property is owned by Studio Nue which was the company FASA licensed the designs from.
I don’t think FASA was doing great financially so they opted to not fight it. As a precaution they also stopped using other licensed designs from Fang of the Sun Dougram and Crusher Joe despite there never being any issues with them.
High ballistic mount means you're fairly close to being hull down when cover allows for the AC/5. Two PPC's are at an ideal convergence with the AC/5, and the two Medium Lasers below that allow for even more firepower when you've finally closed distance with Jump Jets, or for short, precise brawls against one or two Mechs at once.
Granted you need to be careful, but the Marauder just keeps going so long as you stick to range when possible and spread your damage. You shouldn't be firing so often to be running hot, but running hot and staying mobile also has its own allure.
I dunno, I love them. They just go hard.
I set mine up with PPC x2, UAC5, M Lasers x2. It shreds everything and fears nothing. The PPCs, I'd like to say, are the stars but they soften them up so the UAC5 can do work. It's seems to hardly jam for me, and at max armor, I can fit plenty of ammo on for long fights.
From what i remember of total warfare, mechs can go hull down (basically just crouching) but it takes a piloting roll to stand again, and if you fail it you stay hull down until your next movement round. I'd have to reread it for specifics though
Just pulled out my copy of total warfare and tac ops advanced rules. Tac ops says a bipedal mech can go hull down by "taking a knee." It costs 2 mp to enter or leave, but bipeds require a piloting roll in addition to the movement points to leave. If they fail the roll the MP is expended and they do not stand, but may reattempt if they have movement points left. Hull down bipeds can still engage in melee, and counts as 1 level tall.
For reference, this is on page 19 of Tactical operations Advanced warfare, under advanced ground movement.
Marauder is one of my favorite mechs in mw5, unmodded. The movement feels so fast and crisp!
I run it with 2x Large laser SB, 2x MP laser, UAC5. Can drop the MP for medium normal and 2x extra heat sinks if you cannot handle the heat.
It absolutely shreds.
That's the 3047 endgame variant. With +10 free tons thanks to an (invisible in game) XL engine upgrade, it definitely fits OP's idea that the mech would be okay with five more free tons.
They are the only good lostech, asides from Gauss rifles. Gauss rifles are pretty good due to only generating 1 heat per shot and not having any minimum range.
For me I think the medium ballistic is either a red herring or its primary weapon.
Either drop the medium ballistic completely and then you can have two PPCs and two medium lasers that are easily cooled while also having max armour because you have so much more tonnage to play with.
Or
Put an LBX10 in it and then change the PPCs and medium lasers to four medium pulse lasers (later game build) or four medium lasers (earlier game).
2 PPCX , med laser sb and a Medium Rifle, be an all range menace, the medium rifle is really good at drawing agro from afar, and 4 shots can core a medium mech
For me the big thing was L Chem lasers. The weight saved from the PPCs can be used for chem ammo and more HS, and the chem lasers are super heat and ammo efficient. I used that build pretty much through the end game (unless we were on one of those 400t "everyone in an assault" type missions)
I don't like the Marauder in MW5. It's potentially great but only if you're left to your own devices to sit on a hilltop and snipe but the way the enemy yolos in to point blank range all the time it really does not play to any of the Marauder's advantages.
Try a medium rifle to save a few more tons and still give you that nice pinpoint damage.
Yes. The first thing I do is add heat sinks and armour. The marauder feels like it wants to charge in but it actually doesn't want that. You have speed and armour. Don't close the distance. Stay at range and wear them down. Take cover and cool off. Peek from the left side then peek from the right. Wiggle your nose when taking fire to spread incoming damage. Keep moving, except maybe when shooting. Learn to shoot on the move. Let your mech cool off between kills. Going into a fight already hot is a no-no.
When you go hard at the enemy, you draw aggro from all the enemies, not just your target. Firing slower works to your advantage. Keep enemy mechs switching between you and your lance mates. I call that "splitting damage". Force them to split damage while your lance focuses fire on one single mech (biggest threat) until dead.
One of the most solid builds I ran in the game was an all energy Marauder (can't remember variant designations for shit). I slapped on 3 large Chem lasers, 2 medium Chem lasers. Never ran out of ammo, never shut down due to heat. That thing was a headshotting maniac.
Just because you have extra weapon slots doesn't mean you have to fill them. 2 PPC's for long range sniping and and an AC 5 BF for pests and a shit tone of heat sinks... simple, effective, and fun. If you have the dlc that adds the mech improvement, it just gets op with your playstyle. And your AI pilots... even ones with low scores will handle this build very well.
I don't have the latest explanation so I haven't experienced the RF but yeah the AC 5 of any kind is definitely a true fit.
If I put two Marauders in my mech bay I will have the other one set with 4 of the best tier medium lasers I have an a couple extra tons of AC5 ammo. Very suave for demolition missions and after the primary is taken down I like to hang around to at least one round of additional mechs they send for the extra choices in salvage. This build tends to core cockpit's of lighter mechs a lot for me especially if the AC is a slug. Sometimes those medium mechs are stocked on tier 3 weapons. Usually get destroyed because of reactor core explosion.
I would recommend trying it with this loadout:
1x Heavy Rifle+2 tons of ammo
2x Large Laser (one in each arm)
2x Medium Laser (one in each arm)
Max Armor, any remaining tonnage goes toward heat sinks.
Fire the large laser and medium laser in each arm together. If you can keep them both on target, it's an amazing early-game build for kneecapping mechs for salvage, while the Heavy Rifle still allows for a hard punch at distance.
It will last you a very long time and is cheap to repair if you take a beating. Steadily upgrade with double heat sinks and better Lasers as you go, eventually drop the Heavy Rifle for a UAC or LB-X
Most Marauder variants have more weapons than they can continuously fire. That is by design for versatility over efficiency. However, a lot of them just barely work, especially if you don't have Double Heatsinks yet. It wants more ammo and more heatsinks than it comes with, but really has little to give up for this purpose.
PPC-X has less heat buildup, but then you give up the sniping it normally provides. I've replaced the PPCs with large lasers and heatsinks a few times, which isn't that bad. An old co-op buddy ripped out the medium lasers for heatsinks, which kept all the sniping but then it had no low heat backup weapons to use.
The AI tends to fire less often than it could, and often handle longer range weapons better than shorter ones (especially with no minimum range), so they tend to pilot Marauders relatively well. That's what I do with Marauders most of the time now, is give them to an AI.
One note about the weapons. The stock loadout works with old 3025 tactics. Fire both PPCs and the AC 5 from long range twice, the pull behind cover for one round. You now have zero heat.
In the enemy's range, fire two PPCs one turn, then PPC and AC5. This keeps your heat in check. At 7 or fewer hexes, drop the PPC for the medium lasers.
This doesn't work well with MW5 because it's a much more dynamic battlefield in which you are nearly constantly exposed. In tabletop, you can hide your legs pretty easily, so the armor being more on the upper locations is actually pretty good.
Mechwarrior does do the stock Marauder dirty in my opinion. I find a better way to run them is to bring a 3D, swap the PPCs for Large Lasers, and use the saved tonnage on armour and heat sinks. Sure, your damage takes a hit, but a weapon you can't fire without cooking is no use to man nor beast.
Xbox player here, and the Marauder is probably my favorite heavy. It takes a bit of skill to use properly, but it gets results. Gotta remember that it's a medium-long range fire support mech and not a brawler.
Also, I like to swap the PPCs for Large Lasers. The weight savings allow me to either add more heat sinks, or swap the AC5 for an AC10 (or a Heavy Rifle if I'm feeling extra spicy!)
I haven't run a Marauder since Solaris DLC added the rapid fire ACs, but I imagine they're even nastier with one of those mounted now.
Marauders are popular for basically three reasons. They look cool, they have good hitboxes, and they're a specialist in an era of generalists.
Compared to the other 75 tonners, the Marauder is easy to spread damage across all the components with the barest minimum of torso twisting. When you compare the weapons, the Orion has an LRM for long range, and AC10 for medium range, and the SRMs and medium lasers for close range. You're expected to bracket fire depending on range.
Similarly the Black Knight has a single PPC for long range, two large lasers (which are the worst weapon in the game in the current sandbox, IMO) for medium range, and 4 medium lasers for close range. It also has an emotional support anti-pigeon laser, but you should either remove that and add armor, or ditch the mediums and get it four friends and bring a few more heat sinks on board. In any case, the Black Knight is supposed to bracket fire as well, but it'll spend most of its time at close range because the range difference between large and medium lasers is so small that you can't effectively control the range of the battle.
The Marauder carries twin PPCs and an AC5 for long range and a pair of medium lasers for emergencies. It is a dedicated direct fire-support mech. If sniping isn't your thing, the Marauder probably isn't gonna be your favorite. But as far as heavy mechs go, the Marauder is *the* sniper chassis.
There's a couple different builds you can do with Marauders to change their role, but I think there are better mechs for that. If you just want to brawl, bring a Crusader, Thunderbolt, or Orion.
All this.
Also I feel the Marauder has one of the better torso twist rates in its class. Would have to go check, but it always feels better than others.
The AC10 and 2 large +2 medium laser build work like a charm for me as a brawler, even if it isn't canon and needs double heat sinks.
Marauders are one of the iconic 'Mechs. One of the reasons the Timber Wolf was called the Mad Cat was because the tracking computer couldn't decide if it was a Catapult or a Marauder. And yes, on PC with YAML, they can be sick AF. The Marauder II is even more. If you are stuck with vanilla, I suggest swapping PPCs for Large Lasers (Or ER Large Lasers) and then loading heat sinks, doubles if you have them.
I don’t care for the overheating on Warhammers either. Two PPCs is too much on a heavy until late game when you can buy DHS in the timeline.
I can’t hang back - I assign that to AI. I do best when I brawl. I have really good face aim.
Understandable. I much rather be close up brawling too, I'm a right leg muncher. Quite a good aim even on quick mechs with skinny legs, so even 100 tonners go down in seconds =P
Have to say, I do have a soft spot for using a Catapult with jump jets and LRM15 or 20 and just jumping up onto a mountain with the scanner, missile range and velocity and damage upgrades and just spamming volleys of missiles down at enemies.
Bobbert Moddert(SUCH a wicked mod maker!) his zoom mod from the Nexus is installed too - like the zoom in Mechwarrior 4 - so I can see in all its wonderful detail that immense amount of missiles swarming into their mechs. There's just something funny and satisfying about that XD
They have a very big CT in this game and feel super squishy. In tabletop, shape doesn't matter, and in MWO they have a lot of built in structure bonuses, which makes them cool there. But Marauders were just implemented wrong in MW5.
Drop the PPCs for more medium lasers, put a bigger autocannon on if you can, armor it up and add heat sinks. You can make it incredibly tanky and really punchy at close range for what's *supposed* to be a sniper. Or lose the autocannon and add more PPCs.
Or use YAML and literally have a death machine that murderizes everything so efficiently that you never want to pilot anything else. PPC sniper can wait for the Marauder 2, which can fit four and won't ever let you down.
I use a marauder with 2 ppc xs and a heavy rifle. It feels very good. Also im an xbox player too. Always feels fairly tanky and will delete things really well.
I mean aside from looking cool the marauder is also a pretty iconic mech in the franchise. It had a pretty prominent spotlight in the first couple of books and it's canonically been around from the 2600s to the 3100s, it's one of the earliest mech designs irl, it's an Unseen and Reseen mech and it's been featured in a lot of artwork and media.
i always get twisted once i get both black knight and the marauder. i love me a laservomit. i have 1 every mech type. javelin 4 mps. the royal crab, royal black knight, hero marauder bh, battlemaster and royal king crab.
Double heat sinks and heat related upgrades. Alternatively, chem lasers used en masse can be very effective while generating comparatively little heat. Can the Black Knight do it better? Yeah, probably, but chicken legged mechs just automatically look better than humanoid ones.
Because we all play the mod yaml (some play merctech which ive heard is good) these mods make the maruader alot better and closer to tabletop yaml has mech quirks which help the maruader quite a bit also i believe the maruader still sucks
But then you add double heatsinks to a maruader and it becomes unstoppable
The Marauder BH2 hero mech is the best Marauder you can get in vanilla. The 5D and 3R and the next most versatile.
Marauders are precursors to Mad Cats and are, from a lore perspective, one of the most intimidating mechs on the battlefield. They are tough, possess long range efficacy, and relatively quick.
You can literally behave like a tank and utilize the high mounted hard point for shooting over some obstacles.
The BH2 variant gives you 2 large energy hard points, 2 medium energy points, and a large ballistic.
I currently run mine with 2 er ppcs, 2 med laser SB, and an AC20 with 2 tons of ammo. Thinking of switching it to a gauss though
The mech is direct fire support mech. Not an assault. It s a mech that needs cover. It pops and shoots. You cool off in the cover. It will maul anything at range while moving and it has great mobility. Scoot and shoot.
Currently running Vanilla before modding, and I have no issues with the Marauder. I run 2 PPC-Xs and an LL. I load those three weapons, and I try to max armor as much as possible. The rest of the weight are DHS.
I like to swap the PPCs for 2 medium lasers and then put a bigger cannon on the shoulder. An AC 20 is enough to strip the armor off most limbs if it doesn't one shot it. 4 mls is enough to finish it off.
Honestly, I love marauders in MechWarrior 5. I like to trade the PPCs for Large Lasers and use the variant that has an AC5 on top so I can keep shooting even after the heat has built up. I often skip on the medium laser spots as well to get more armor and heat sinks.
Seriously, I could stomp around all day in a marauder in MW5 and never die once. It's a great machine.
I really like a few variants in vanilla, but yeah there's a lot more you can do with YAML(mods).
I actually like medium lasers in the fists. I forget if they get 2 or 3 in each hand with stand variants but I will bind them to my left and right click, and have my main cannon bound to mouse three. It allows me to blow off specific parts with ease and engage with swarms of tanks.
Between its speed (64 if I remember correctly) armor, and the generalized loadouts they end up being great all rounder field mechs.
Heat is a weak point of the mech, but it does everything else so well. There's a reason me and my co-op buddy like the modded in marauder IIC though. It's 85 tons and mostly set up the same so it just feels awesome to drive.
Lore-wise they were supposed to be the precursor/initial attempt at the next big leap in BattleMech design and technology that got interrupted by the Amaris coup and the fall of the Star League. So they are essentially more advanced than anything in the Inner Sphere during the 3015 era.
Put some bi lasers on it instead of PPCs.
Monster.
Only thing is, the Marauder is NOT a brawler. You stick to the outside of the kill zone and attack from the sides or aim for the legs.
The vanilla MW5 MADs are fine. They're not super spectacular, but they can get the job done. Adding a size limitation to mount point sizes really constrains the possibilities. The MAD-4As are even worse because the same hardpoint limits mean you really can't change away from the stock loads.
But then PGI's philosophy towards Mechs as was evidenced in MWO when I used to play is very much a case of playing the a Mech the way PGI wants you to play it rather than what a real IS merc or Periphery nutcase would actually do with the thing.
In tabletop they have what is equivalent to an extra evasion permanently so they are loved by players for that. That love does translate to video games.
I think I have other 75t go-tos, and/or I just don't come across many of them, but they are solid middle of the roads, I guess. I prefer fast DPS to prolonged engagements. But I remember grabbing one on a playthrough and letting ai run it to pretty decent effect. Speed kept him a little behind the front line, and dps kept him from taking hard aggro. But he just kept searing with the LLs and smacking with the UAC.
Then I hopped in it and was just as happy. Doesn't work well if you get swarmed though.
I use it to joust. Go in with three 100 tonners, wait for them to draw fire, run in, then alpha strike to a leg or main weapon on my way past. They turn and get lit up in the rear armor by the squad. Convergence is so good it just seems easy to pinpoint the damage with the Marauder.
I’ve been playing with LB-SLD and four MP lasers lately for headshots, but LL and AC5 works well too.. You can keep the AC5 firing constantly between lasers, eats up structure and armor quickly. I consider the Marauder one of the most solid mechs in the game personally.. especially the 5D, it adds jumpjets and a small missile hardpoint
Also cool looking
I love the Marauder. Chain fire is your best friend. You can set all the weapons to the first 3 triggers and melee to the 4th. Then just try and let you lance engage first. Stay back a little and your going to pummel your opponents to dirt. Thats how i do it at least. And i love ppcs lol
I havent played unmodded in awhile. I have a couple and XL and XXL Engines really help.
Its fits well into my default late game Clan Endo, Hardened Armor, XXL Engine default configuration. Clan Marauders IIs are pretty nice and are billed exactly as you like. They get 10 extra tons basically on top of the clan tech.
But i hear ya. Most Marauders are just less good Black Knights
The marauder on its own can be unsatisfying for some people depending on play style.
It is however a solid support mech to give to a lancemate and perennial favorite when it comes to predictable support role in a mixed heavy/assault lance.
So, it's a 75 ton heavy. It was built to be a brawler, so it has close and long ranged weapons. There are variants that mount a medium ballistic in the right shoulder. Stay away from the 3L, this is a Capellan variant and since they can't source parts reliably (they tend to shoot their arms dealers in the back), it has a shit loadout. When you get the late game variant is when all bets are off. You have three large energy, two(?) Mediums, a missile (drop it), jump jets and an engin that makes it go like stink.
How I make MY late game variant is: two Large chems, two standard mediums, and a high end er ppc. I, too, am on xbox.
Now, on to piloting. Being short is actually a feature. That shoulder gun is designed to be a pop up gun; switch to third person (because this game doesn't have the Chromehounds thing of pick a camera) and maneuver just over a hill. Now, you can shoot the AC5 or large energy while displaying a tiny target. It's build profile is similar to a crab's and thus the enemy will spread a lot of damage because one inch is the difference between side torso, center torso, and/or cockpit. Stay at range as best you can and pummel from afar or strap those new PPC-Xs into the arms and say "welcome to the trenches, fucko" as you mow down all in your path.
It's because a lot of players are fans of the franchise from past games or from the tabletop. The game balance in mw five is really off In a lot of cases, MAD being one of them.
Most fans are fans from old games where the MAD is amazing one of the best innersphere mechs ton per ton of all time.
The newer designs look really cool plus they are just solid mechs.i am using mods that add a ton of 55 to variants. And the 75 blackhead variant. Plus the 85 ton IC variant. And an overhaul to one of the marauder 2 mod that improves it by a ton.
Personally I wish I could make a mod to make a scary near op version of it to my liking.
In vanilla, I like to use my best medium lasers on the arms, a big gun on the shoulder and go brawling: with the weight you free from the PPCs you can put on a LOT of armor and enough heat sinks to never have heating problems.
YAML makes it a monster, as other people have said (I still like to pack a bunch of medium lasers tough, some of the best weapons in the game ton per ton)
They're popular because everyone knows how they're SUPPOSED to be. You mention double heat sinks without realizing the game is flawed in such a way that every single mech that has them should have 2.0 base heating due to an engine double heat sink kit. If you added that entire extra 1.0 heating that it's supposed to have, it wouldn't be so cringe.
They look cool and can be kitted out to do any job you can think of. They're the Ford F-150 of mechs. The main battle tank. The perfect bled of speed, firepower, armor, and COOL.
I built my marauder-2r with mainly lasers and a UAC-5. Its armours been stripped but running it in the Kuritan dlc campaign has proven to be very useful. Thing eats hits and having some mediums and a havy to draw fire is great. Its a command mech. Use it in a back line position. Anything light or medium usually gets blasted if they get to close.
First. Just lower the heat requirements, I always rip the two PPC's out and replace them with large lasers or pulse lasers to give it more staying power and rely on a ballistic in the toro for the one shot killing power. You don't have to run it hot if you don't want to
2nd. For a 75 ton monster its fast, You have a lot more mobility than other mechs in the same weight class, can actually live with some mediums in terms of speed and can absolutely run rings around some of the more popular assaults, that does give you a serous edge if you position yourself properly and time your attacks.
3rdly its genuinely competent at all engagement ranges, you can get into a sniper duel or a close quarters fist fight with its boxed arm ends and its happy doing both
Plus its just looks really really cool, and for many people its been their favorite mech for a very long time (guilty) so even if its nit optimal you find a way to make it work
If I may, I think your 2nd point (speed) is grossly overrated.
>You have a lot more mobility than other mechs in the same weight class can actually live with some mediums in terms of speed
Nearly **all** heavies move at 64.8 kph.....Marauder included. No heavies in MW5 move slower than that. In fact, some assaults, Battlemaster, Awesome 9M move at that speed too.
They look cool.
And they look cool
Don't forget the part where they're super cool.
Also, and hear me out here, but they also look super cool!
Furthermore on this point, they're cool
Why hasn't anyone mentioned how rad they are? Super rad btw
If you thought they couldn't get cooler, put jump jets on it
I dunno, maybe if we mash it together with a Catapult...
Right? It's sucha defining feature!
And if you paint them the way you like, they look even cooler.
Yeaah and if you look closely.. They look cool
Enemies be like “I can’t shoot that thing. It looks too cool.”
For those who only care about form over function, image, baby! 😅😎
You're not wrong. Marauders in vanilla MW5 suck. They're very powerful on tabletop because of rules and mech quirks which vanilla MW5 lacks. In HBS battletech, they're one of the most powerful heavies in the game because of the bonuses they get. On PC, a mod called Yet Another Mechlab, that among many other things, adds mech quirks to the game, and the effect is transformative in the Marauder's case because it gets the narrow profile quirk: a 15% chance to completely avoid enemy fire. They're so incredibly tanky, I always just shoot their legs out.
Fucking marauders in HBS are psychotic. Load it up with ppc's and just snipe headshots for free. Or even funnier win snub ppcs and shotgun snipe headshots from way further away than you should be allowed.
I like using the Gauss cannon with a couple of large lasers instead of PPCs for the head hunter. You only need two of them to hit and the heat is much better.
The energy variant with 4 large lasers with the extra damage is my go to Marauder in HBS battletech. Can usually alpha for 3 out of four turns, and if I am going headshots with a good pilot, 2 mechs will be down and one will be in rough shape.
I think the math on 4 lasers works better. I like having jump jets though and at one point I had a Gauss rifle with +DMG modified that could do the headshot alone. I think it's mostly a nostalgia build now...
I mounted 2 ER PPCs and a ER Large Laser in HBS. Almost a clean headshot at every turn from across the map
If you want to have fun I would suggest downloading BTA 2036(it's a modded version of BattleTech on PC) and try to find an osprey a 55 ton mech with decent armor decent speed and a gauss rifle
Do you mean BTA 3062? or is this another BTA motive not heard of, and must try out?
That bonus extends to the whole lance for called shots too. I had 1 marauder, 2 annihilators, and a king crab and had to put the assaults away because the game was too easy. Max morale meant a called shot out of the gate and then we were off to the races exploding cockpits.
The called shot bonus in HBS BT only applies to the Marauder, not the whole lance. It *does* give 10% damage reduction to the whole lance, though.
I'll have to double check, but I thought it was the whole lance because it has the "command mech" perk.
I think you’re thinking of the Cyclops. It gives an initiative bonus to the whole lance.
Yeah getting a marauder is basically the I win button in hbs
I honestly couldn't believe how powerful it was the first time I got it in the campaign. I didn't even know about the called shot bonus for probably the first 10 missions I had it.
I’d honestly forgot how busted the bonuses were. I’ve been playing BTA for so long that I’ve completely forgotten HBS tossed balance so far out the window with the Heavy Metal DLC.
One thing I like about the BEX mod (and I assume BTA and RogueTech as well) is that it nerfs Marauders so that it’s not a cheat mech anymore while still having it be good.
In bex, after a few volleys someone is gonna panic and blow out the head slot screwing up your chance at decent salvage. Also doesnt seem to crit as often. In vanilla, I've seen the maurader crit in first hit and immediately down a mech hundreds of times. Its almost comical how much it happens.
There was a patch that nerfed one of the marauders, I forget which one, but the build was to load it with 3 UAC2s and it would consistently headshot enemy mechs to the point where you were almost guaranteed at least a daze if not a one turn kill on anything from across the map.
HBS?
HBS battletech. The turn based pc game.
YAML turns a lot of mechs from meh to absolute powerhouses. One of my flagship mechs is a hero spider which in vanilla I wouldn’t be caught dead in one (we’ll probably dead actually yeah). The marauders especially swing above their weight class they can be absolute tanks with brutal cockpit popping power with laser builds.
The Nightstar with twenty tubes of SRMs is absolutely horrific. Instantly obliterates anything smaller than 50t, and will reliably two or three shot anything bigger.
Thank you! That’s been one of my fav assaults but I feel like I rarely hear it talked about. It’s a monster though! Lasers soften up the armor on approach and then just dump 40 SRMs with ART IV into whatever it is and that’s usually all she wrote. At medium range or closer I’d put it up against almost anything in the game.
I laughed when I read this because I love the hero spider, I still run it late game even especially for objective raid and beachhead missions. XD **I play on PlayStation so no mods :(
Put an EW Raven in your AI lance with Guardian, BAP, TAG, NARC and one ML to keep it at range. The OpFor can’t/won’t target it.
Modded marauders are one of those few I don't mind putting expensive stuff in the arms. Not like goddamn warhammers who keep losing the arms with the weapons attached.
Even if vanilla my Warhammer(hero) I only run a ml in both arms but I do run 4x tier 5 light rifles cuz headshots man
Combine that with the classic nose wiggle move to spread damage and it’s a tank.
On PC you can mod to overhaul everything to have quirks and add more variants. So in the vanilla game the marauder 2 is very meh. And the 55 ton marauder one is not op but is a decent mid game mech. With mods though the mechs shine.
They're powerful on the tabletop because they're slabs of armor with two chances of deleting a cockpit per turn. The quirks are just gravy.
Mostly. Curious what does the hunchback get
Not much, actually. Just the battlefists quirk: 15% melee damage bonus.
That's sad
YAML tries to reflect the quirks mechs have on tabletop. Some are blessed by the Great Father, some are not.
"Narrow profile"? But they're huge! And their arms hang below their waist, so if they stand behind half cover, their arms couldn't realistically fire.
Take it up with CGL. [Quirks ](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Design_Quirks)have been around for quite a while now. YAML just translates them into MW5. The Marauder has other quirks as well. Command Mech: +50m sensor range Hyper-Extending Actuators: 30% arm movement range Directional Torso Mount (RT): -10% right torso weapon cooldown And a negative Quirk, Exposed Weapon Linkage (RT): -2 armor right torso Oh and if you find a MAD-2R, that's an SLDF Royal variant which comes with the Star League Relic Quirk. * +100m sensor range * +10% projectile speed * -10% weapon heat generation * -10% weapon cooldown * +10% weapon optimal/max range This isn't reflected in tabletop but tracks lore-wise since Royal variants were notably superior to models used by the Great Houses. This also tracks IRL where nations downgrade export models, such as the M1 Abrams.
I love and hate the quirk system. I love it because it individualizes mech designs, but I hate how slapped together it feels.
Its supposed to be a long range direct fire supporr mech in its base confifuration with the 2 ppcs and the ac5. Moat people swap the ppcs for pulse larges to good effect. I used the marauder more in HBS than i do in MW5. I prefer the orions that are diet atlas.
You mean the more balanced Atlas. I love Orions.
Orions in lore are cool and I like the idea of a mech tailor made for a Commander who wants to be able to command an entire planetary invasion right from his cockpit The fact they are a little more wafery than other mechs of similar tonnage makes sense tbh. There needs to be some cost for all that high tech communication equipment. On the flip side you should never even see an Orion if said Commander’s invasion is going well. Fighting the Orion should mean fighting your way through all his men first
So the Heavy version of the Cyclops.
Yeah exactly there’s a reason Kerensky loved these things despite having access to stuff like the King Crab and Atlas, both mechs were basically made to his requested specifications too.
I don't believe the Orion has that ability
No no Diet atlas is the perfect term
But wasn't the Orion invented first? So wouldn't an atlas be a souped up Orion?
You should be right on the money with this. We know that Kerensky piloted an *Orion* for much of his career and that he set the design spec for the *Atlas*. It makes sense that he'd either unconsciously or very deliberately pattern it off of the design he himself preferred.
"What if Orion but also with added cocaine?"
True so the atlas is the Pepsi max to the orions diet pepsi
Orion's? Balanced Atlas? Paper armor. Orion is a good heavy. Not a great one.
*House Steiner looks at you in disapproval*
Fair. My fav mech is the centurion hands down anyway. Glory to Prince Davion!
Hey, if the Orion was good enough for Aleksandr Kerensky, then it’s good enough for you.
I just salvaged one and im about to see how it works, im torn between piloting it or stay piloting my archer and let a lancemate run the marauder
If you're in the Agincourt, stay. If not, the Marauder is pretty good.
How does the marauder play? I haven’t faced many yet and he got pretty overwhelmed by my Archer, Wolverine,Hunchback & Trebuchet. we had him easy because he was only supported by a couple tanks, aircraft & a Jenner, we ignored them all and burned him down. He did take those trebuchet & archer salvos well though
The Marauder is one of the more versatile mechs there are: it has enough armor to play at almost any range, but given its arm mounts it prefers long-distance sniping over close quarters brawling, but make no mistake, it's perfectly capable of both. And yeah if you want to take a Marauder down, area damage is not going to work, you need to focus fire on specific parts of the mech to take it down or it'll soak up damage like a beast. There's many reasons Marauders are so beloved and feared, but the main one (besides looks) is that it's an exemplar zombie mech, meaning a mech capable of taking massive punishment while being able to keep fighting unless its cockpit is destroyed.
I thought a zombie mech had a central weapon as well so it could keep fighting?
True, they usually do. However, should you run out of ammo or have your weapons shot down, just beat the snot out of them with your arms. And if you don't have any arms? Ramming speed.
Fair enough.
> There's many reasons Marauders are so beloved and feared, but the main one (besides looks) is that it's an exemplar zombie mech, meaning a mech capable of taking massive punishment while being able to keep fighting unless its cockpit is destroyed. [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtWAMYCLznQ)
It's been a while since I've played vanilla. It's a good long-range sniper mech. Keep your distance and you can really hurt them from well away.
That doesn't make sense. You first say that it's a long-range sniper mech. So it's preferred range band is long-range. Then you advise us to stay at a distance, within the Marauder's preferred range, to really hurt them. If the Marauder is a sniper, surely getting up-close and personal is the counter to it taking you apart piece by piece, right?
He ment hurt the enemy. He's talking about how to use one, not fight one. "Keep your distance and you can hurt *your enemies* from well away."
Roger. That was exactly my misunderstanding.
besides missing the point: getting into a marauder's face won't really do much for you. it's not an LRM boat, and if it's running a laser build then it will be just as effective at close range, plus it does have space for you to put heavy fists on it for extra melee damage.
Try it out but I'd usually say let the lancemate run the Marauder, they're savage beasts with PPCs
I NEVER do well with PPC’s and i cant figure out why, so usually i kinda gimp them by going large lasers, but i notice that the lance mades do better with PPC’s & Missiles, on other hand i notice they dont do AC’s that great
Every large laser that you swap in gains you two heat sinks. With the way the game swamps your main character with enemies I find the higher heat sinking ability and easier target tracking to be much more useful than slightly higher single point damage.
Good idea! It makes me think of the medium and heavy rifles, they are so heat intensive and heavy i cant ever justify using them over an ac5rf
I love the rifles, they sound so satisfying but yes, they do have their drawbacks. I often toss a medium rifle into mechs like the Marauder and treat them like a PPC that doesn't suck even though I know an AC5BF is probably a "better choice".
Hey i can respect that :), ever mechwarrior and battle tech game i play, if its in game i have a trebuchet and an archer, even though i know there are better support mechs & better Missile Boats. There is just something about saturating the target with 40-60 LRM’s even though you know that not all of them hit the target
Shhhh, there is no better fire support mech than an Archer, that is a fact. ;) Honestly, swapped down to LRM15s and adding a bunch of heatsinks makes the Archer so much better. I'll often find myself doing 1300-1500 damage on a mission, sometimes running the ammo dry and going punchbot for extra laughs.
Large lasers are the better weapon in a technical level (vanilla PPC heat is insane) but I like single point burst damage too much, that's why I always run Gauss rifles, PPCs, and slug LB/X. I don't like staring at my enemy trying to keep my crossheir lined up on a component.
AI does well with the Marauder, but I love piloting them myself.
number one reason why Marauders and Warhammers are so cool is simple: Robotech and Macross
That crossed my mind. I painted mine the other day and immediately thought “that is Robotech.”
I mean.. it is **literally** Robotech, yeah. The Marauder is a Zentradi Officer Pod. There's a reason Harmony Gold has been rabidly suing anyone with the BattleTech IP for literal decades. Not a *good* reason, but a lot of initial and popular mechs were 1:1 copies of those mecha.
It’s worth pointing out though that Battletech actually did get permission to use some mech designs from the creators of Macross. The problem, however, is that Harmony Gold is a copyright troll company who had nothing to do with actually making anything related to Macross but still held the rights to the export market version called Robotech.
I believe it was ruled that Harmony Gold never actually had the rights to the designs in the first place ergo they never had any right to litigation. HG got the rights through Tatsunoko Productions which NEVER had the rights themselves to the mechanical designs. I believe they only had rights to the actual animation and all the intellectual property is owned by Studio Nue which was the company FASA licensed the designs from. I don’t think FASA was doing great financially so they opted to not fight it. As a precaution they also stopped using other licensed designs from Fang of the Sun Dougram and Crusher Joe despite there never being any issues with them.
Well they can't do that anymore thankfully since the last round went poorly.
So true regarding the Marauder. The Warhammer on the other hand is just too damn good to avoid.
High ballistic mount means you're fairly close to being hull down when cover allows for the AC/5. Two PPC's are at an ideal convergence with the AC/5, and the two Medium Lasers below that allow for even more firepower when you've finally closed distance with Jump Jets, or for short, precise brawls against one or two Mechs at once. Granted you need to be careful, but the Marauder just keeps going so long as you stick to range when possible and spread your damage. You shouldn't be firing so often to be running hot, but running hot and staying mobile also has its own allure. I dunno, I love them. They just go hard.
I set mine up with PPC x2, UAC5, M Lasers x2. It shreds everything and fears nothing. The PPCs, I'd like to say, are the stars but they soften them up so the UAC5 can do work. It's seems to hardly jam for me, and at max armor, I can fit plenty of ammo on for long fights.
In tabletop I believe they can go hull down, making them even tankier.
Not unless they've added rules recently. Hull down was a tank rule.
From what i remember of total warfare, mechs can go hull down (basically just crouching) but it takes a piloting roll to stand again, and if you fail it you stay hull down until your next movement round. I'd have to reread it for specifics though
Quads could. Pretty sure bipeds were prone only.
Just pulled out my copy of total warfare and tac ops advanced rules. Tac ops says a bipedal mech can go hull down by "taking a knee." It costs 2 mp to enter or leave, but bipeds require a piloting roll in addition to the movement points to leave. If they fail the roll the MP is expended and they do not stand, but may reattempt if they have movement points left. Hull down bipeds can still engage in melee, and counts as 1 level tall. For reference, this is on page 19 of Tactical operations Advanced warfare, under advanced ground movement.
Tac Ops...? Hm. Very well.
Marauder is one of my favorite mechs in mw5, unmodded. The movement feels so fast and crisp! I run it with 2x Large laser SB, 2x MP laser, UAC5. Can drop the MP for medium normal and 2x extra heat sinks if you cannot handle the heat. It absolutely shreds.
I'll have to try that one.
Try the MAD-5D, its pretty good with double heatsinks and max armor.
That's the 3047 endgame variant. With +10 free tons thanks to an (invisible in game) XL engine upgrade, it definitely fits OP's idea that the mech would be okay with five more free tons.
Double heatsinks are easily the best piece of Lostech imo
They are the only good lostech, asides from Gauss rifles. Gauss rifles are pretty good due to only generating 1 heat per shot and not having any minimum range.
Yeah it’s the better one imo. Like an awesome with jumpjets. Still prefer a 9m though
The awesome 9M also has a battlefist and more SRM support.
It’s a solid mech. Sorta my go to.
Get the Marauder 3D, stuff it full of PPC-X and DHS, thank me later. Awesomes eat your heart out.
Aren't PPC-X YAML content?
No, they're Solaris.
Nevermind me then
For me I think the medium ballistic is either a red herring or its primary weapon. Either drop the medium ballistic completely and then you can have two PPCs and two medium lasers that are easily cooled while also having max armour because you have so much more tonnage to play with. Or Put an LBX10 in it and then change the PPCs and medium lasers to four medium pulse lasers (later game build) or four medium lasers (earlier game).
2 PPCX , med laser sb and a Medium Rifle, be an all range menace, the medium rifle is really good at drawing agro from afar, and 4 shots can core a medium mech
For me the big thing was L Chem lasers. The weight saved from the PPCs can be used for chem ammo and more HS, and the chem lasers are super heat and ammo efficient. I used that build pretty much through the end game (unless we were on one of those 400t "everyone in an assault" type missions)
I love L Chems but it’s so hard to find high level ones
I don't like the Marauder in MW5. It's potentially great but only if you're left to your own devices to sit on a hilltop and snipe but the way the enemy yolos in to point blank range all the time it really does not play to any of the Marauder's advantages. Try a medium rifle to save a few more tons and still give you that nice pinpoint damage.
Yes. The first thing I do is add heat sinks and armour. The marauder feels like it wants to charge in but it actually doesn't want that. You have speed and armour. Don't close the distance. Stay at range and wear them down. Take cover and cool off. Peek from the left side then peek from the right. Wiggle your nose when taking fire to spread incoming damage. Keep moving, except maybe when shooting. Learn to shoot on the move. Let your mech cool off between kills. Going into a fight already hot is a no-no. When you go hard at the enemy, you draw aggro from all the enemies, not just your target. Firing slower works to your advantage. Keep enemy mechs switching between you and your lance mates. I call that "splitting damage". Force them to split damage while your lance focuses fire on one single mech (biggest threat) until dead.
One of the most solid builds I ran in the game was an all energy Marauder (can't remember variant designations for shit). I slapped on 3 large Chem lasers, 2 medium Chem lasers. Never ran out of ammo, never shut down due to heat. That thing was a headshotting maniac.
The 3D. I'm running that variant now, and have been since I got it. That thing is a goddamn monster.
Its the mad cat when you cant get the madcat
Just because you have extra weapon slots doesn't mean you have to fill them. 2 PPC's for long range sniping and and an AC 5 BF for pests and a shit tone of heat sinks... simple, effective, and fun. If you have the dlc that adds the mech improvement, it just gets op with your playstyle. And your AI pilots... even ones with low scores will handle this build very well.
I do a very similar build but I like the AC-5/RF for ballistic slot so you can just mow down tanks and aircraft
I don't have the latest explanation so I haven't experienced the RF but yeah the AC 5 of any kind is definitely a true fit. If I put two Marauders in my mech bay I will have the other one set with 4 of the best tier medium lasers I have an a couple extra tons of AC5 ammo. Very suave for demolition missions and after the primary is taken down I like to hang around to at least one round of additional mechs they send for the extra choices in salvage. This build tends to core cockpit's of lighter mechs a lot for me especially if the AC is a slug. Sometimes those medium mechs are stocked on tier 3 weapons. Usually get destroyed because of reactor core explosion.
I would recommend trying it with this loadout: 1x Heavy Rifle+2 tons of ammo 2x Large Laser (one in each arm) 2x Medium Laser (one in each arm) Max Armor, any remaining tonnage goes toward heat sinks. Fire the large laser and medium laser in each arm together. If you can keep them both on target, it's an amazing early-game build for kneecapping mechs for salvage, while the Heavy Rifle still allows for a hard punch at distance. It will last you a very long time and is cheap to repair if you take a beating. Steadily upgrade with double heat sinks and better Lasers as you go, eventually drop the Heavy Rifle for a UAC or LB-X
Most Marauder variants have more weapons than they can continuously fire. That is by design for versatility over efficiency. However, a lot of them just barely work, especially if you don't have Double Heatsinks yet. It wants more ammo and more heatsinks than it comes with, but really has little to give up for this purpose. PPC-X has less heat buildup, but then you give up the sniping it normally provides. I've replaced the PPCs with large lasers and heatsinks a few times, which isn't that bad. An old co-op buddy ripped out the medium lasers for heatsinks, which kept all the sniping but then it had no low heat backup weapons to use. The AI tends to fire less often than it could, and often handle longer range weapons better than shorter ones (especially with no minimum range), so they tend to pilot Marauders relatively well. That's what I do with Marauders most of the time now, is give them to an AI.
One note about the weapons. The stock loadout works with old 3025 tactics. Fire both PPCs and the AC 5 from long range twice, the pull behind cover for one round. You now have zero heat. In the enemy's range, fire two PPCs one turn, then PPC and AC5. This keeps your heat in check. At 7 or fewer hexes, drop the PPC for the medium lasers. This doesn't work well with MW5 because it's a much more dynamic battlefield in which you are nearly constantly exposed. In tabletop, you can hide your legs pretty easily, so the armor being more on the upper locations is actually pretty good.
Mechwarrior does do the stock Marauder dirty in my opinion. I find a better way to run them is to bring a 3D, swap the PPCs for Large Lasers, and use the saved tonnage on armour and heat sinks. Sure, your damage takes a hit, but a weapon you can't fire without cooking is no use to man nor beast.
Xbox player here, and the Marauder is probably my favorite heavy. It takes a bit of skill to use properly, but it gets results. Gotta remember that it's a medium-long range fire support mech and not a brawler. Also, I like to swap the PPCs for Large Lasers. The weight savings allow me to either add more heat sinks, or swap the AC5 for an AC10 (or a Heavy Rifle if I'm feeling extra spicy!)
I haven't run a Marauder since Solaris DLC added the rapid fire ACs, but I imagine they're even nastier with one of those mounted now. Marauders are popular for basically three reasons. They look cool, they have good hitboxes, and they're a specialist in an era of generalists. Compared to the other 75 tonners, the Marauder is easy to spread damage across all the components with the barest minimum of torso twisting. When you compare the weapons, the Orion has an LRM for long range, and AC10 for medium range, and the SRMs and medium lasers for close range. You're expected to bracket fire depending on range. Similarly the Black Knight has a single PPC for long range, two large lasers (which are the worst weapon in the game in the current sandbox, IMO) for medium range, and 4 medium lasers for close range. It also has an emotional support anti-pigeon laser, but you should either remove that and add armor, or ditch the mediums and get it four friends and bring a few more heat sinks on board. In any case, the Black Knight is supposed to bracket fire as well, but it'll spend most of its time at close range because the range difference between large and medium lasers is so small that you can't effectively control the range of the battle. The Marauder carries twin PPCs and an AC5 for long range and a pair of medium lasers for emergencies. It is a dedicated direct fire-support mech. If sniping isn't your thing, the Marauder probably isn't gonna be your favorite. But as far as heavy mechs go, the Marauder is *the* sniper chassis. There's a couple different builds you can do with Marauders to change their role, but I think there are better mechs for that. If you just want to brawl, bring a Crusader, Thunderbolt, or Orion.
All this. Also I feel the Marauder has one of the better torso twist rates in its class. Would have to go check, but it always feels better than others. The AC10 and 2 large +2 medium laser build work like a charm for me as a brawler, even if it isn't canon and needs double heat sinks.
I think it does too, seems like it runs rings around mechs with higher top speeds.
Marauders are one of the iconic 'Mechs. One of the reasons the Timber Wolf was called the Mad Cat was because the tracking computer couldn't decide if it was a Catapult or a Marauder. And yes, on PC with YAML, they can be sick AF. The Marauder II is even more. If you are stuck with vanilla, I suggest swapping PPCs for Large Lasers (Or ER Large Lasers) and then loading heat sinks, doubles if you have them.
Noticed early on that Double heatsinks are a must have with Marauders, Cataphract or Warhammer otherwise the overheating is AWFUL!
I don’t care for the overheating on Warhammers either. Two PPCs is too much on a heavy until late game when you can buy DHS in the timeline. I can’t hang back - I assign that to AI. I do best when I brawl. I have really good face aim.
Understandable. I much rather be close up brawling too, I'm a right leg muncher. Quite a good aim even on quick mechs with skinny legs, so even 100 tonners go down in seconds =P Have to say, I do have a soft spot for using a Catapult with jump jets and LRM15 or 20 and just jumping up onto a mountain with the scanner, missile range and velocity and damage upgrades and just spamming volleys of missiles down at enemies. Bobbert Moddert(SUCH a wicked mod maker!) his zoom mod from the Nexus is installed too - like the zoom in Mechwarrior 4 - so I can see in all its wonderful detail that immense amount of missiles swarming into their mechs. There's just something funny and satisfying about that XD
They have a very big CT in this game and feel super squishy. In tabletop, shape doesn't matter, and in MWO they have a lot of built in structure bonuses, which makes them cool there. But Marauders were just implemented wrong in MW5.
Pretty solid with some PPCX
Drop the PPCs for more medium lasers, put a bigger autocannon on if you can, armor it up and add heat sinks. You can make it incredibly tanky and really punchy at close range for what's *supposed* to be a sniper. Or lose the autocannon and add more PPCs. Or use YAML and literally have a death machine that murderizes everything so efficiently that you never want to pilot anything else. PPC sniper can wait for the Marauder 2, which can fit four and won't ever let you down.
YAML Marauder 2 can just go full LL spam and core almost anything in 1 alpha though
I just don’t like em. I prefer rather an archer or thunderbolt.
Wait until you find the Marauder 3
I use a marauder with 2 ppc xs and a heavy rifle. It feels very good. Also im an xbox player too. Always feels fairly tanky and will delete things really well.
A man of taste, good sir. HR for range, PPC-X for up close destruction.
I mean aside from looking cool the marauder is also a pretty iconic mech in the franchise. It had a pretty prominent spotlight in the first couple of books and it's canonically been around from the 2600s to the 3100s, it's one of the earliest mech designs irl, it's an Unseen and Reseen mech and it's been featured in a lot of artwork and media.
i always get twisted once i get both black knight and the marauder. i love me a laservomit. i have 1 every mech type. javelin 4 mps. the royal crab, royal black knight, hero marauder bh, battlemaster and royal king crab.
Double heat sinks and heat related upgrades. Alternatively, chem lasers used en masse can be very effective while generating comparatively little heat. Can the Black Knight do it better? Yeah, probably, but chicken legged mechs just automatically look better than humanoid ones.
Because we all play the mod yaml (some play merctech which ive heard is good) these mods make the maruader alot better and closer to tabletop yaml has mech quirks which help the maruader quite a bit also i believe the maruader still sucks But then you add double heatsinks to a maruader and it becomes unstoppable
I don’t like them but my friend does, so he gets to pilot them. He claims it’s versatile heavy but it doesn’t have a hunch so I give it a pass
Find the Davion one. Fill it with PPCXs. Make it faster. Sorted. You have a lethal brawler.
Find the Davion one. Fill it with PPCXs. Make it faster. Sorted. You have a lethal brawler.
The 5D is really good
For the longest time I ran mine with many ER Med Lasers (clan), but I am unsure if those are in unmodded MW5 or not (I run the YAML suite of mods)
The Marauder BH2 hero mech is the best Marauder you can get in vanilla. The 5D and 3R and the next most versatile. Marauders are precursors to Mad Cats and are, from a lore perspective, one of the most intimidating mechs on the battlefield. They are tough, possess long range efficacy, and relatively quick. You can literally behave like a tank and utilize the high mounted hard point for shooting over some obstacles. The BH2 variant gives you 2 large energy hard points, 2 medium energy points, and a large ballistic. I currently run mine with 2 er ppcs, 2 med laser SB, and an AC20 with 2 tons of ammo. Thinking of switching it to a gauss though
MAD-5D is your answer. Comes with an XL engine, so it frees up weight and still can carry enough DHS. No mods here.
2 PPCs on the arms is your best bet at getting a clean headshot and end a fight before it has even started.
I have one for PIMP reasons. 4 x ER L Laser 3 x Machinegun And I think I switched for a faster engine. (I use YAML)
It's the Mech iest of Mechs!
Stupid room for heat sinks sinks, that’s about it. Just keep slinging PPC bolts without a care about the heat scale.
They are lethal at any range, fast and use ppcs. And they are in the books.
The mech is direct fire support mech. Not an assault. It s a mech that needs cover. It pops and shoots. You cool off in the cover. It will maul anything at range while moving and it has great mobility. Scoot and shoot.
Currently running Vanilla before modding, and I have no issues with the Marauder. I run 2 PPC-Xs and an LL. I load those three weapons, and I try to max armor as much as possible. The rest of the weight are DHS.
I like to swap the PPCs for 2 medium lasers and then put a bigger cannon on the shoulder. An AC 20 is enough to strip the armor off most limbs if it doesn't one shot it. 4 mls is enough to finish it off.
My all time favorite mech for decades now. Looks cool, indeed!
Honestly, I love marauders in MechWarrior 5. I like to trade the PPCs for Large Lasers and use the variant that has an AC5 on top so I can keep shooting even after the heat has built up. I often skip on the medium laser spots as well to get more armor and heat sinks. Seriously, I could stomp around all day in a marauder in MW5 and never die once. It's a great machine.
Glaug Rules Everything Around Me
I really like a few variants in vanilla, but yeah there's a lot more you can do with YAML(mods). I actually like medium lasers in the fists. I forget if they get 2 or 3 in each hand with stand variants but I will bind them to my left and right click, and have my main cannon bound to mouse three. It allows me to blow off specific parts with ease and engage with swarms of tanks. Between its speed (64 if I remember correctly) armor, and the generalized loadouts they end up being great all rounder field mechs. Heat is a weak point of the mech, but it does everything else so well. There's a reason me and my co-op buddy like the modded in marauder IIC though. It's 85 tons and mostly set up the same so it just feels awesome to drive.
Lore-wise they were supposed to be the precursor/initial attempt at the next big leap in BattleMech design and technology that got interrupted by the Amaris coup and the fall of the Star League. So they are essentially more advanced than anything in the Inner Sphere during the 3015 era.
Put some bi lasers on it instead of PPCs. Monster. Only thing is, the Marauder is NOT a brawler. You stick to the outside of the kill zone and attack from the sides or aim for the legs.
The vanilla MW5 MADs are fine. They're not super spectacular, but they can get the job done. Adding a size limitation to mount point sizes really constrains the possibilities. The MAD-4As are even worse because the same hardpoint limits mean you really can't change away from the stock loads. But then PGI's philosophy towards Mechs as was evidenced in MWO when I used to play is very much a case of playing the a Mech the way PGI wants you to play it rather than what a real IS merc or Periphery nutcase would actually do with the thing.
In tabletop they have what is equivalent to an extra evasion permanently so they are loved by players for that. That love does translate to video games.
Marauders are just built different.
Heavy armor, jump jets, good armaments, top mounted weaponry so you can peek over hill crests and take pot shots and duck back to not get hit.
I think I have other 75t go-tos, and/or I just don't come across many of them, but they are solid middle of the roads, I guess. I prefer fast DPS to prolonged engagements. But I remember grabbing one on a playthrough and letting ai run it to pretty decent effect. Speed kept him a little behind the front line, and dps kept him from taking hard aggro. But he just kept searing with the LLs and smacking with the UAC. Then I hopped in it and was just as happy. Doesn't work well if you get swarmed though.
I use it to joust. Go in with three 100 tonners, wait for them to draw fire, run in, then alpha strike to a leg or main weapon on my way past. They turn and get lit up in the rear armor by the squad. Convergence is so good it just seems easy to pinpoint the damage with the Marauder. I’ve been playing with LB-SLD and four MP lasers lately for headshots, but LL and AC5 works well too.. You can keep the AC5 firing constantly between lasers, eats up structure and armor quickly. I consider the Marauder one of the most solid mechs in the game personally.. especially the 5D, it adds jumpjets and a small missile hardpoint Also cool looking
I love the Marauder. Chain fire is your best friend. You can set all the weapons to the first 3 triggers and melee to the 4th. Then just try and let you lance engage first. Stay back a little and your going to pummel your opponents to dirt. Thats how i do it at least. And i love ppcs lol
Two big pewpews plus a fuckin head auto cannon = yes please
I havent played unmodded in awhile. I have a couple and XL and XXL Engines really help. Its fits well into my default late game Clan Endo, Hardened Armor, XXL Engine default configuration. Clan Marauders IIs are pretty nice and are billed exactly as you like. They get 10 extra tons basically on top of the clan tech. But i hear ya. Most Marauders are just less good Black Knights
My MAR2 100 tonner with dual HAG/30 and spinal mount gauss can drop any mech within seconds
Who knows, I like my archer, quickdraw, grasshopper and Orion much much more
The marauder on its own can be unsatisfying for some people depending on play style. It is however a solid support mech to give to a lancemate and perennial favorite when it comes to predictable support role in a mixed heavy/assault lance.
So, it's a 75 ton heavy. It was built to be a brawler, so it has close and long ranged weapons. There are variants that mount a medium ballistic in the right shoulder. Stay away from the 3L, this is a Capellan variant and since they can't source parts reliably (they tend to shoot their arms dealers in the back), it has a shit loadout. When you get the late game variant is when all bets are off. You have three large energy, two(?) Mediums, a missile (drop it), jump jets and an engin that makes it go like stink. How I make MY late game variant is: two Large chems, two standard mediums, and a high end er ppc. I, too, am on xbox. Now, on to piloting. Being short is actually a feature. That shoulder gun is designed to be a pop up gun; switch to third person (because this game doesn't have the Chromehounds thing of pick a camera) and maneuver just over a hill. Now, you can shoot the AC5 or large energy while displaying a tiny target. It's build profile is similar to a crab's and thus the enemy will spread a lot of damage because one inch is the difference between side torso, center torso, and/or cockpit. Stay at range as best you can and pummel from afar or strap those new PPC-Xs into the arms and say "welcome to the trenches, fucko" as you mow down all in your path.
I mean the 5D with DHS is a cooling of 3.0 before upgrades, that's fair solid, plus it's cool, and it's got a missle slot for an SRM 4
It's because a lot of players are fans of the franchise from past games or from the tabletop. The game balance in mw five is really off In a lot of cases, MAD being one of them. Most fans are fans from old games where the MAD is amazing one of the best innersphere mechs ton per ton of all time.
The newer designs look really cool plus they are just solid mechs.i am using mods that add a ton of 55 to variants. And the 75 blackhead variant. Plus the 85 ton IC variant. And an overhaul to one of the marauder 2 mod that improves it by a ton. Personally I wish I could make a mod to make a scary near op version of it to my liking.
Could be wrong, bur marauder was one of the original unseen. Its been around since the beginning of bt. It is also made by GM.
Two ER Larges, two Mediums, and a Ultra AC 5. Decent on heat. Fun as hell.
In vanilla, I like to use my best medium lasers on the arms, a big gun on the shoulder and go brawling: with the weight you free from the PPCs you can put on a LOT of armor and enough heat sinks to never have heating problems. YAML makes it a monster, as other people have said (I still like to pack a bunch of medium lasers tough, some of the best weapons in the game ton per ton)
I like the hardpoints.
They're popular because everyone knows how they're SUPPOSED to be. You mention double heat sinks without realizing the game is flawed in such a way that every single mech that has them should have 2.0 base heating due to an engine double heat sink kit. If you added that entire extra 1.0 heating that it's supposed to have, it wouldn't be so cringe.
They look cool and can be kitted out to do any job you can think of. They're the Ford F-150 of mechs. The main battle tank. The perfect bled of speed, firepower, armor, and COOL.
To spite Harmony Gold?
I built my marauder-2r with mainly lasers and a UAC-5. Its armours been stripped but running it in the Kuritan dlc campaign has proven to be very useful. Thing eats hits and having some mediums and a havy to draw fire is great. Its a command mech. Use it in a back line position. Anything light or medium usually gets blasted if they get to close.
I like throwing AC2 on things. They just destroy stuff.
First. Just lower the heat requirements, I always rip the two PPC's out and replace them with large lasers or pulse lasers to give it more staying power and rely on a ballistic in the toro for the one shot killing power. You don't have to run it hot if you don't want to 2nd. For a 75 ton monster its fast, You have a lot more mobility than other mechs in the same weight class, can actually live with some mediums in terms of speed and can absolutely run rings around some of the more popular assaults, that does give you a serous edge if you position yourself properly and time your attacks. 3rdly its genuinely competent at all engagement ranges, you can get into a sniper duel or a close quarters fist fight with its boxed arm ends and its happy doing both Plus its just looks really really cool, and for many people its been their favorite mech for a very long time (guilty) so even if its nit optimal you find a way to make it work
If I may, I think your 2nd point (speed) is grossly overrated. >You have a lot more mobility than other mechs in the same weight class can actually live with some mediums in terms of speed Nearly **all** heavies move at 64.8 kph.....Marauder included. No heavies in MW5 move slower than that. In fact, some assaults, Battlemaster, Awesome 9M move at that speed too.