Please help me understand Marine (and debuff support in general)

[Sirrocco]

I'm trying to run the Marine pool, and with a lot of it being debuffs that have a particular duration, i'm having real trouble understanding which bits to prioritize, which bits are useful at which times, and so forth.

 

I like to get an understanding of my powers in play.  For damage-dealing, this is really easy.  I take swings, I can see how much end it eats and how much damage it does, how often it hits and when it refreshes.  Some of the secondary effects get a little wobbly but it's pretty straightforward.  DoTs aren't much harder.  Heals and HoTs are very similar.  Endurance management abilities (in both directions) are also pretty straightforward.  Resists are manageable, defense is a little iffy but I can work with it if I pay enough attention.  temporary buffs on myself require a degree of attention, but I can work with them as well as I need to to get a gist of what's going on.  CC is actually pretty easy because it's nice and obvious, and I can see how it reduces the enemy's ability to function and what other effects it has.  -Recharge is a bit harder to track on properly, but I can at least see how I'd come to understand it.  Always-on buffs and debuff auras I can look at, say "yet, this is probably worthwhile on general principles", slot endurance management appropriately and mostly just have them on full-time.  All of this stuff I can work with.

 

Then we get to duration-based debuffs, and my ability to understand what I'm doing and which ones are more important and what to slot for and what to open with and all of that stuff just falls apart.  I can basically figure that the stuff that I'm doing is generally useful, and I should do it, but I'm having real difficulty getting that gut understanding on things like "How long is this effect lasting?", "Who did I actually manage to stick that to anyway?", "Were they or were they not in my cone, and what would I have to do to fix that?", and "How significant *was* that effect?"  That, in turn, means that my ability to figure out useful rotations, figure out reasonable slotting, know what things I should be using to burn through minion packs versus prioritizing against single individual threats... it's all pretty much a mess.  I want to learn, because it seems like it's an interesting game to play, but it's a game based on deeper understanding that I straight-up don't have, and in-the-moment information that I have real trouble keeping track of.

 

I figure that for Defender mains, this is all bread-and-butter stuff.  You have to have solutions for this already... so I'm asking for some clue.  I'm currently most directly concerned with Marine, but I'm sure that the same basic skillset of "how do I make sense of this stuff anyway" applies to Trick Arrow and Poison and probably Kinetics and almost certainly a few others as well.  So suggestions of specific advice for specific powers aren't unwelcome or anything, but mostly what I'm interested in is knowing how to put together the tools for figuring this all out for myself.  I mean, *is* there a way for coming to understand it intuitively?  Is it just all spreadsheet madness, all the way down?  I sure hope not, but if it is, then I do what to know that.

 

Thank you for whatever time or attention you see fit to offer.

[Without_Pause]

I'm not the one to help with Marine, but you are asking rather open questions.

 

 

A lot of what you are asking about can be researched via the following links with adding in the in-game text. IIRC no single source of data is 100% accurate.

 

Wiki.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

 

City of Data

https://cod.uberguy.net/

 

Additional guides.

 

 

 

I ODed on Kin while playing on Live, so if you do have specific questions for it, ask away.

[Erratic1]

Marine as I see it is more of a buff powerset than a debuff one.

 

Torroidal Bubble buffs Recovery, Resistance, and grants Endurance. You should keep this one up all the time on your group. Its effects are easy for recipients to miss, but there will be fewer deaths and more uptime.

 

Tide Pool does debuff enemy damage and movement speed (Slows). It also buffs the damage of friends  standing in it. Solo play you can place it under yourself to boost your damage then when foes come at you retreat, leaving them to be slowed. In groups, drop it where the fighting will occur and your melees will love it.

 

Shifting Tides boosts Damage, To-Hit, and Recharge. Drop on a melee, pet if running solo, or even an enemy if need be. This is the big power of the set, eclipsing the T9. 

 

Take the above and your heal (Soothing Wave), and anything else is optional (often good but none necessarily critical).

[lyra]

good questions!
i would say go with smaller teams to see the effect of your actions better.read all the the details from a power.some powers have massive stamina costs, some recharge longer.
and try out all the powersets as most require different playstyles

with time many things become clearer.we have many helpful people here.some are so old,god are they old.
Use the help channel ingame.
 

 

 

 

 

[Auroxis]

One power that's not explained fully is how Brine's stackable -MaxHP works.

 

If you apply a -500 MaxHP debuff on a target at 10000/10000 HP, the target loses 500 HP and becomes 9500/9500.

 

If you apply a -500 Max HP debuff on a target at 5000/10000 HP, the target loses 250 HP and becomes 4750/9500.

 

If your -500 Max HP debuff expires while the target is at 4750/9500 HP, the target gains 250 HP and becomes 5000/10000.

 

In addition, the debuff is not resistable. But when considering whether to use it again on your target after already applying it once, keep in mind it does not benefit from resistance debuffs or damage buffs like your attacks.

[Teklord]

Marine is a more complex set to play than most of the original ones but in a steamroll pug team it is pretty simple.

 

You have two buffs and one toggle that you want to keep up.

• Toroidal Bubble - slotted this one is endurance positive, it helps endurance, recovery and resistance. Cast it when it is up, it recharges quickly.
• Barrier Reef   - this is your pet, cast it when it dies off or just before (every 240 sec). The pet pulses an absorb buff and +defense.
• Shifting Tides - This is the toggle and the hardest one. Pick someone who is sticking with you and the bulk of the team and is in melee. keep it on them. Check that this is still active and if it isn't then pick someone who seems to fit the criteria.

You have a non-perma buff you want to cast:

• Power of the Depths. - cast this one in combat while in your tide pool.

now you have debuffs and spawn breakers. 

• Whitecap -  a teleport, a debuff -res, it does damage, and knockup.
• Tide Pool - a buff, a debuff, a slow and it also modifies your powers,
• Brine - a debuff -res and a pseudo attack with -HP. Single target
• Shoal Rush - slow, -def, and it interacts with Tide Pool.
• Soothing Wave - heal and -dmg debuff to enemies

Really here the question is do you open with Tide Pool or Whitecap. I lean hard on opening with WhiteCap and casting whitecap when it is up. It does aoe damage and the knockup is good mitigation. I then immediately follow with Tide Pool. This is good since Tide Pool is a bit slow and locks you for over 2 seconds. The benefit is huge so use it. Now I will wait a bit before opening to have my rabbit (with Shifting Tides on them) run in. I don't let them do much, I just WhiteCap in while they are in range of the spawn, or maybe it is a rolling fight with more coming and I just whitecap in to move myself to the new center.

 

Brine I just make part of my single target attack chain. It does good damage to undamaged targets AND has a debuff -30% res. I am disappointed in Shoa Rush and will be switching it out for Soothing Wave on my next respec.

 

So at this point you are basically casting buffs when they are available. You open with Whitecap and add in Tide Pool. You then use as much radial AOEs as possible (I am water so that means Whirlpool and Water Burst and Geyser ). As a defender I basically am casting all my stuff all the time. With good slotting on Toroidal Bubble you are great on endurance. If leveling then you can spend some inf on recovery serum to keep going.

 

I normally just stick in the main murder bubble of the pug and break spawns with whomever is also doing that. Everything has fast recharge except the T9. I will skip either Skoal Rush or Soothing Wave. I have a preference to Soothing Wave as a keeper right now because my defenses are a bit patchwork atm and that heal is better sustain.

 

This is a busy set BUT many of the buffs/debuffs also do damage so you really are just augmenting your attack chain with stuff like Whitecap and Brine.

 

Solo is a different story and isn't quite so Murderbot (throw myself at the enemy while they throw themselves at me until one of us is disabled)

 

I will make one comment. DO NOT SAVE powers and stuff for the perfect spawn size. Just fire that off and clean up your mobs. Marine is not for waiting on a tank to grab 3 spawns together in one pile and then doing something. This loose guide is based on a steamroll moving murderball pug, and that is something that Marine excels at.

 

[Psyonico]

4 minutes ago, Teklord said:

Really here the question is do you open with Tide Pool or Whitecap. I lean hard on opening with WhiteCap

I'm about 99% sure that tide pool doesn't draw aggro, also, landing in it with whitecap also briefly turns it into a knockdown pool, which is helpful.

[Teklord]

3 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

I'm about 99% sure that tide pool doesn't draw aggro, also, landing in it with whitecap also briefly turns it into a knockdown pool, which is helpful.

You are correct and I did this for a long time, but that has me missing the buff portion of tide pool on my own group. So now I lean on Whitecap as the opener, which also does knockup, damage and a -15% res debuff.

[Sirrocco]

Why would it miss the buff on your own team?  You tide pool, you whitecap into the tide pool, the enemy focuses on you for a (hopefully brief) moment, and then the rest of the melee comes in and starts getting tide pool buffs.  Is that not how it works?

 

Or if you don't like taking alpha strikes, you tide pool, you let the other poor schmuck run in and get all the attention (thus getting tide pool buffs), *then* you whitecap in and etc etc etc.

7 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

A lot of what you are asking about can be researched via the following links with adding in the in-game text. IIRC no single source of data is 100% accurate.

So, that's all useful stuff for the "how do I play my character" question.

 

The question I'm trying to ask is "how do I get the information that will help me figure out how to play my character for myself".  I feel like for everything by the support trees, I can mostly get it by feel.  Some pools are more complicated than others, but I can manage it for basically all of them.  For the support pools, though, especially the heavy debuff parts, I can't.

[Without_Pause]

10 minutes ago, Sirrocco said:

The question I'm trying to ask is "how do I get the information that will help me figure out how to play my character for myself".  I feel like for everything by the support trees, I can mostly get it by feel.  Some pools are more complicated than others, but I can manage it for basically all of them.  For the support pools, though, especially the heavy debuff parts, I can't.

By playing the builds and seeing what is happening. I would suggest soloing some of the characters and getting some experience that way. For debuffs, you should be seeing a difference in things like how much damage you do or take and how often you or your target hit. Part of the reason I solo so much is to get a better understanding of the character I am playing and it helps force me to understand what mobs can do. I had a recent build planned out based on previous experience with both power sets getting them to 50. I got it to 50, upped to my standard diff settings for that point, and then went, "Wait, this doesn't work." I wouldn't have noticed it that much if I was on a team. 

 

Also note you can create builds in Mid's and then put them on the Beta server so you can play around with things there. I have currently done two builds there which I have rolled on a active server once I decided I liked them well enough. I have plans for another build going on Beta for the same type of test. I also need to put a modified version of a build on there to try out a power I've never used before so I want to figure out if it's worth doing a respec for.