Hello everyone, Ponyo here!  This article is part of the “101” series, which gives an overview of each role or class in the game.  Please be aware that this is not an extensive how-to guide nor does it provide optimal skill rotations.  Instead, this is an introductory orientation to the class with some general hints and tips to get you started.

A Little Lore

Marauders are combat specialists whose weapon of choice is the greataxe–a fearsome arm long associated with Eorzea’s pirates.  Their approach to battle is one of brute force, as they rely on pure strength and good steel to crush enemies and sunder weapons.  They are highly sought after for their ferocity and intimidating presence and are often employed to hunt down monsters plaguing the land or to turn the tide of battle between warring nations.  Skilled marauders have been known to take on entire packs of slavering beasts and emerge with little more than a few scrapes and bruises.

Marauder’s Role

See the Tanking 101 guide for an introduction to the tank role.

Where to Start

The marauder class can be unlocked in Limsa Lominsa at the Marauder’s Guild.  Wyrnzoen will give you your first axe, and then you can start gaining skills!  At every 5th level, you can go back to Wyrnzoen and pick up a new quest that will give you a new skill and new armor and/or weapons.

As You Level

The skills you get as marauder may not mean much when you’re leveling in the open-world, but once you are level 16 and can enter dungeons, the mechanics of marauder become more important.

Since you are a tank class, you will be taking a lot of damage – and you don’t want your healers to hate healing you!  So do them a favor and practice using your “buffs.”  These are skills like Foresight and Bloodbath that make you take less damage and/or help you regain HP.  These skills make you “tankier” and able to sustain more hits without taking as much damage.  Practice popping these one at a time whenever you are fighting mobs and especially when you are fighting bosses.  Your healers will thank you (and you’ll stay alive longer!).

Your primary goal as a tank is to maximize enmity generation, which means that enemies are more likely to attack you.  Skills like Overpower, Skull Sunder, Tomahawk, and Butcher’s Block all increase enmity and help you maintain aggro.  Overpower is especially important since it attack all enemies in a cone in front of you, making it an AOE damage-dealing enmity-generator.  At lower levels, it can sometimes be difficult to hold aggro with just Skull Sunder and Butcher’s Block combs.  Because of this, it is recommended to Overpower every couple of skills to make sure you hold hate.

In order to be the best tank that no one ever was, marauders do need to borrow a skill from their gladiator cousins.  Cross-class skills are discussed in more detail in Tanking 101, but marauders should really level gladiator to level 22 so they have access to the Provoke ability.  Sometimes you can’t hold hate even when you Overpower consistently.  Sometimes you have an aggressive DPS in the party who just really, really wants to fight that jellyfish add themselves.  And that’s okay.  But if the DPS is stealing the boss away from you, or if something is trying to eat your healer, then maybe it’s time to use Provoke.  Provoke immediately tells a single target to “Hey! Look at me!”  You will now have the aggro for that target.  Like you’re supposed to.

Finally, when you’ve got solid aggro, do some DPS with your Heavy Swing combos and stun enemy attacks with Brutal Swing.  Fracture is a damage-over-time (DoT) skill that you can put on and then let it tick away while you continue to hit the enemy with your axe.  Marauders have skills like Maim and Berserk that make them good at pumping out DPS in addition to being tanky, so try to start whacking at things and putting out those high DPS numbers.

Cross-Role Skills

Please see the Tanking 101 guide for more information about cross-role skills.

Acquiring Your Job

At level 30, you can evolve from marauder to warrior.  This is like getting a promotion – you become a better tank, get new skills, new armor, and new weapons.  In order to unlock warrior, you must be a level 30 marauder and have completed the marauder questline. It is no longer necessary to level a sub-class to 15 to unlock your job, as of Stormblood.

And that’s it, an introduction to the marauder class.  Happy tanking!