How 2 Krab Part 8: Marauders

Marauders are great again! After 13 years we have a massive buff to these mini Dreads by way of the Bastions of War update. The key point here is that Bastion now doubles your rate of fire. Notably that means double DPS. And what does double DPS mean? It means half the site time and twice the ISK per hour. Drifters are also now possible to kill in high-class wh space with a Marauder thanks to this patch. Previously, the 40-minute requirement to kill put a severe damper on any attempt, but a Golem can now down a Drifter in just 15-16 minutes for an easy 300m ISK.

From the extensive testing I’ve done for this article, I’ve found that pretty much any Marauder can run C5 sites and some can even complete the hardest C6 sites if you’re willing to spend enough money. In order of preference for site times and Drifter kill times, you’re looking at something like Golem > Paladin > Vargur > Kronos. I’ll explain these differences as we go, but it mostly comes down to damage application to long-range targets for some sites and damage selection for killing the Drifter. The Paladin has good application and decent ammo, but the Golem has more sheer DPS and perfect ammo selection.

Let me also say this up front, Golems can earn you 800m ISK/hr easily solo, more if you’re a bit more optimal. Two Marauders can even push for 2b ISK/hr depending on ship choice too.

Strategy
Vargur
Paladin
Golem
Kronos

2023 update!!!
I have updated this article to make the Vargur and Kronos usable at least and am working on a better, more efficient article that cares less about Marauders 4 and low skills. There has been a lot of criticism of my fits here over the years but you have remember that I designed these for very different module prices and to be insanely stable. I wanted to be able to let anyone flying one of my fits go completely AFK in the hardest wave of a site to deal with their kids or whatever.

Method	Characters Needed	Initial Investment	ISK/hour***
Gas Huffing	1+	10m ISK	~75m ISK
Mining	1+	10m ISK+	Depends on setup/rocks
Planetary Interaction	1+	10m ISK+	~1b / month / account
Data/Relic Sites (C1-3)	1	10m ISK	Variable, <150m ISK
C2 Sites (T3D/Cruiser/BC)	1+	50-60m ISK	~75m ISK
C5 Wolf Rayet Fleet	3+	350m ISK	~450m ISK
C13 Wolf Rayet Sites	1+	150m ISK	~150m ISK
C3 Sites (Gila/Rattle)	1+	500m ISK	~250m ISK
Abyssal Frigates	3	~300m ISK	~4-600m ISK
Abyssal Cruisers	1	1-300m ISK+	~1-300m ISK
C5 Sites (Nestor)	2/3+	1.6b ISK	~450m ISK
C5 Sites + Drifter	2/3+	3b ISK	~1b ISK
C5/6 Dread Sites	2/3+	8-16b ISK	~2-3b ISK
Marauders	1+	2.2-4b ISK	800m – 1.2b ISK

*Abyssal sites included as they’re easily done inside your wormhole
**C4 sites can be ran using these methods for less ISK
***These are rough numbers. You can often earn more with better skills, more investment, luck etc.

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If the words ‘static’ and ‘probe launcher’ seem foreign then you best start with EVE Uni first. As before, this is also not a replacement for Rykkis Guide (or Karr’s updated version). Instead, it is more of a complementary piece that explains how to actually use the numbers found in that sheet. If you’re in a rush then skim through for the key bold text and reference tables.

This guide will mostly focus on C5 and, to an extent, C6 sites. It’s also pretty much all been tested out on SISI with Marauders 5 and theorycrafted with Marauders 4 in mind. That’s a long skill train so if I can keep it accessible to lower skills then I will. Another key focus of these fits (in addition to efficiency) is ship cost. There is no point in me telling you to use a max roll abyssal module or some particular 3b ISK item. With that said, please make sure you read the Strategy section ahead. Additionally, all of my fits are theorcrafted in this process: Drifter Kill -> Refit to create Garrison killer -> Add refits for other C5 sites. Do note that the last step can always be replaced by Crystal or Asklepian implants.

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C5 Marauder Strategy

Alright, let’s do this! Marauders right now do a hell of a lot more damage than they used to to the point of being able to run sites in 15-20 minutes and kill a Drifter in about 16 minutes if you use a Golem. This can be sped up with all sorts of Implants and Boosters but my testing was done on a nearly max Character with some basic 3% Implants and minimal Boosters. In fact, the only safe Boosters I recommend are Hardshell (+other Agency) and Synth Mindflood. Here are some of the kill times across the many tests I ran:

Drifter Kills
– Golem: 16 min
– Vargur: 17-18 min
– Paladin: 17-18 min
– Kronos: 22 min

C5 Core Garrison Completion
All approx 17 minutes, some sites will be faster or slower for different fits depending on range and number of sentries or other small targets to burn through.

So the question is, which Marauder is best? My answer is that the Golem is clearly best at killing him (due to damage selection and Rage Torps) and the Kronos is the worst (terrible damage selection). The rest of the sites are going to be a mix depending on the range and number of sentries to kill. I say this because killing sentries can be surprisingly difficult for a Torp Golem instead of a gun-based Marauder which just eats them up fast. The Paladin will then excel at sites that have long-range Sleeper Battleships due to Scorch. The Vargur does slightly worse with Barrage, and the Kronos requires double Tracking Computer to make Null even hit them. Sleeper Cruisers are definitely a mix too since the horrible tracking of the Paladin means it can barely hit them. The Vargur and Kronos, however, have little trouble.

As for the general site killing strategy, it’s going to be as simple as following the triggers like usual. Kill off lightly tanked neuting NPCs first and then remove the highest DPS. Frigates are a little more unique in that you need to use your double Smartbombs to blast them (this is the reason for the Imperial Navy EMP Smartbombs). Just be wary of them being the trigger. This is particularly apparent on Core Garrison wave 2 where the frigates remote rep. You need to Smartbomb as many as you can without killing all and pushing the wave. Warp in points are the same/similar to those provided for Dreads in How 2 Krab Part 5. A general rule, however, is to bookmark near to a Sleeper/Talocan main structure and warp to that at 10km but you will learn this in time.

Killing the Drifter is your next big task. This has always been possible by Marauders, but the difficulty was that it would take literally 40 minutes to do, leading to very little ISK and you likely being caught. He delivers about 1,600 DPS and the equivalent of EIGHT T2 Heavy Neuts. Ouch. The way you get around this is by refitting to an anti Drifter setup to tank the neuts while still doing as much damage as possible. A fit will be provided for each of my Marauders below (in cargo and as another fit). Simply refit, spawn by shooting the structure, and kill him (with staggered Nos applied, too). The trick to holding him on-grid will be to bring a Mobile Medium Warp Disruptor II in the cargo. If you can’t use that then T1 or Syndicate works, but you want a quick onlining time to get the bubble up and down fast. The way I see it, you’re permatackled anyway, a bubble doesn’t hurt. One important point is to make sure you move 5km away from wrecks and large collidables to anchor the bubble before spawning the Drifter.

As with all of my fits, please plug these into Pyfa with your own skills to be sure of cap stability. I’ve designed them with Marauders 4 in mind, but your other skills need to be pretty good. Carry Blue Pill, Exile, and Mindflood just in case because once you’re in site, you’re in site. I’ll try to explain everything you need to know in the text above each fit so be sure to read it. And some advice: Hardshell 2/3 and a slot 6 Repair implant can make you good enough to make a Marauders 5 fit work at Marauders 4. You might also want to refer to my Frigate Escape Bay guide to protect your pod. Update: Ensure that you stagger your Nosferatu on the Drifter so that you don’t get neuted down past 25%

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Vargur

The Vargur is probably my favourite Marauder for running C5 wormhole sites and that isn’t just because I’m a Minmatar fangirl. It’s just a really nice mix of damage, tracking, and range with a relatively low price. The problem it runs into is that while Barrage is decent, it is a bit slower than the Paladin at killing long-range Sleeper Battleships. I’ve included an image below which describes the best ammo to use at each range (1x optimal TC + 3x Gyro, no implants).

And now for the fits. You’re going to notice a standard theme among all of these being that there are two main variants. In the case of shield Marauders, that means Gist X-Type Booster and Pith X-Type Booster. The Gist is better on cap, but costs 3x as much as the time of writing. You should check out both and decide which works best for you with current prices and your skills.

My Pith X-Type features a Micro Jump Drive for safety, though I would recommend dropping this off for a Tracking Computer instead. To fit this MJDd it needs a Gistum C-Type Multispectrum instead of Pithum, you can get more tank from a Pithum if you drop it. It has been designed to tank 1,920 EHP/s // 2,033 EHP/s depending on Marauders skill for completing Core Garrisons and Oruze Obonyks. Fitting a second Multispectrum Hardener (ideally Pithum C-Type) in the “EWAR” slot will allow you to complete sites with more difficulty. Dropping Gyro -> Damage Control is also an option for a minor tank bump.

For killing the Drifter with this fit you will be swapping to an extra battery and 2x more Nosferatu. You might also consider swapping Flux Coils -> Dark Blood Cap Power Relays if you capacitor skills are bad. Just be sure to move away from any wrecks/structures and anchor the bubble then trigger the Drifter. Be sure to shoot thermal into his shield and EM into his armour using faction ammo, not Hail. The drugs in the fit are not needed at all times, but keep them on hand just in case.

2023 Note! I have updated the fits below to be usable and am working on a better, more efficient Marauder article too.

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The other kind of fit that you can put together on a Vargur utilises the Gist X-Type instead. This is typically a better shield booster and allows for much better cap stability. This reflects in an improved Drifter kill speed and a second EWAR slot for 2x Tracking Computer in the sites if you wish. The problem, however, is that at the time of writing that booster alone costs over 900m ISK.

Regardless of the price, the strategy is the same as Pith for this Gist version. If you have Marauders 4 then you may need Hardshell II to complete sites more safely and the standard upgrade of dropping an EWAR mid for a Multispectrum will let you do the harder sites. The only other thing to be aware of is that the capacitor is a little less stable mid-site so be sure to remove the neut pressure ASAP. You won’t be neuted out, but it will come close and excessive Smartbomb use will kill you.

HISTORIC PURPOSES ONLY – PITH WORKS BETTER NOW DUE TO DPS/EHP BREAKPOINTS. SEE ABOVE

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Paladin

And now we move onto what most people have considered as the best PvE ship to Pulses being great and really never having to replace laser crystals. I can’t deny that the crystal aspect of this ship is appealing. It is, however, pretty hilarious to burn through half your Conflag on one target. No fancy info needed for the Paladin really other than “load tracking ammo and shoot targets”. That said, it does struggle to hit cruisers so you’d do well to invest in a decent motion prediction implant. Remember, your pod is going to probably get out anyway using my escape bay frigs.

The first set of fits here are single rep and utilise either the Centus or Corpus X-Type Large Armour Reps. This is another case of picking the fit you prefer based on skills. Marauders 4 can just about handle it and may need Hardshell to compensate. Do remember that if you are just below a site/drifter DPS amount then you can either pick up a stack of 10 Hardshell or spend on 1-2 Low-Grade Asklepian implants for cheap. You do not need the full set. Same deal with before about the drugs in the fit, you don’t need them at all times.

That said, there is a specific way to run this fit if you want to complete sites harder than a Garrison. The first is by using the aforementioned mid-grade Asklepians. A full mid-grade set is enough to do several more sites, not including the Stronghold. You can, however, drop a Heat Sink for a T1 Large Enduring rep and use that to top up your armour during the hard waves. It works and I’ve tried it! An alternative is to drop the Tracking Computer for a Cap Recharger, then swap the Power Relay to the extra Enduring rep.

2023 Update: Paladin is still good, it only lost some range.

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As you might have expected, there is an alternative option to the single rep. Dual rep! Instead of going down the route of using two super bling reps, I used 2x Core X-Types instead. These are much cheaper and rep a little bit less. The result is very similar to the single rep performance, but this one manages to squeeze on an extra Heat Sink in the site fit. You can take this off for an extra Multispectrum Energized Membrane for the completion of harder sites. Overall, though, I think upgrading with Asklepians is better suited here.

Due to the capacitor situation with this particular fit, my recommendation is to use the recommended implants plus a Synth Mindflood during at least your first few sites. It should be possible without, but is technically unstable otherwise. If the instability is something you dislike on your Marauder in general then a second Cap Power Relay will sort it out easily, as will rolling a very nice abyssal cap battery.

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Golem

Moving back to the shield Marauders, we have the Golem! This beauty is the best Drifter killer in the entire lineup for two reasons: Rage Torpedoes and damage selection. Being able to perfectly apply to the Drifter is great and you can select your ammos accordingly: Thermal for shield and EM for armour. With all 5 skills this will take approximately 16 minutes which works out to about 1.15b ISK per hour of just Drifters.

You might be thinking that it’s impossible to just kill Drifters, but it really is. All you need to do is multibox/fleet up to complete sites with 2x Marauders using the following method. Golem + other Marauder (ideally turret based) enter a site and complete it together. Turret Marauder goes to the next site, Golem stays and kills Drifter. You then continue this pattern for as long as desired and the Golem doesn’t need to do much more than tank and press F1. Depending on the sites chosen and how good the site running Marauder is, you could achieve 2b ISK/hr from this method from a 5-7b ISK investment.

Talking about the Golem specifically anyway, it has a Pith-X and Gist-X setup just like the Vargur. The first one here is the cheaper and less efficient Pith X-Type boosted version. It uses 2x Ballistic Control and 1x EWAR module by way of a heavily bonused Target Painter. I will say, however, that this is just on the edge of being able to fit a second EWAR module or a Ballistic Control depending on how stable you want to be. I recommend running the first few sites in the baseline setup, but then maybe try swapping out ONE of the Cap Rechargers or ONE Cap Flux Coil.

If you want to upgrade this fit for use in harder sites than a Garrison then it’s the same process as before. Either use some mid-grade Crystal implants or replace the Painter/Cap recharger with a second Multispectrum Shield Hardener and it will do just fine. Swapping a Cap Flux Coil to a Damage Control would also be a viable change depending on how much more you need to tank and if neuts are an issue in the specific site. Everything you need for this will be in the cargo. Just remember to plug the fit into Pyfa with your own skills first to verify and make your own decisions before you get yourself killed. Implants/Boosters also not necessary and are only for safety/speed.

The Gist version of the Golem is very similar to the Pith one with some key differences: it gains a mid slot for a Missile Guidance Computer and an extra Ballistic Control. This, however, is really only applicable with Marauders 5. A Marauders 4 pilot running this Drifter refit may wish to either use a Hardshell II or drop a damage module for a Damage Control.

There is one other quirk to know about this setup. It uses just one Imperial Navy EMP Smartbomb instead of two like the rest of the fits. This is partially for fitting and partially for capacitor via the Nos. Fitting in this way allows for the Gist X-Type Golem to kill frigates through a combination of smartbombing and Caldari Navy Torpedoes. You can change it if you like, but my objective with all of the fits is to achieve cap stability with enough tank to complete the waves you need while achieving the best safe time possible.

Once again this is a standard upgrade path for harder sites. Replace one of your modules with a Shield Boost Amp, EM Hardener, or a Damage Control. Crystals, of course, are also really nice to have. I should also note that the site fit here specifically hits -1.19GJ/s under 72GJ/s of neuting, meaning that you will die if you don’t kill anything in 25 minutes while in wave 3 of a Garrison. Or, you know, you could just pulse the Shield Booster briefly instead of running it flat out.

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Kronos

Finally we arrive at the black sheep of the Marauder family, the Kronos. It took me a while to come up with a viable fit for C5 sites purely because of the lack of range from Blasters. There was even a short period where I considered giving you guys a mixed Railgun+Blaster setup but that’s just not good. In the end, I decided on dual rep, dual Tracking Computer, and dual Mag Stab. It needs all three of these to be any good at all.

So why is that? Well for one, the range is horrible. At 20km which is a standard range for many Sleeper Battleships you do 1,250 DPS with Void. Two optimal range Tracking Computers will bump this up to 2,294 DPS which is much nicer. And before you ask, I did all the calculations on Void vs Null vs Antimatter. The sheer DPS increase of Void means that up to about 20km it remains the most effective if you can track well enough. Feel free to try Antimatter out, but I managed to use Void for almost an entire site without problems. Just make sure you load Null for anything past 25km.

So regardless of the range issues, it’s pretty standard and behaves similarly to every other fit here. Smartbomb the frigates carefully, make good use of your Tracking Computers and just keep pumping out Void. This even works perfectly with Marauders 4 and is nice and stable so that’s fun. The improvement to complete harder sites is pretty much just swapping Mag Stabs for resist modules or using implants. In this case, a set of mid-grade Asklepian’s is enough to do almost everything including a Stronghold if you use Hardshell II.

There is a ton of Synth Sooth Sayer in the cargo since it’s a good DPS increase and is less than 1m ISK per hour of use.

2023 Update!!
The site fit below now has slightly too low tank and requires the mindflood to work but both versions gain a magstab. Again, give it a go until I get a new article span up

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I’m afraid that’s about it for now. I hope you guys have fun and make a lot of ISK from these fits. I also sincerely hope that I catch and kill you because that’s fun too. If you find any problems in these fits then let me know in the comments below and I’ll get that fixed up asap. I already managed to put medium crystals in the Paladin while fitting at 3am so I’m sure that there is a problem somewhere.

If the fits don’t perform like you expect them to then, once again, use Pyfa and check out your skills. It might be a tracking issue, it might be poor support skills, or you might accidentally have left Marauders at 3 and now you’re overheating your way to an explosion. The key things to remember will be to learn from your mistakes, scan the chain properly, and recognise that once you undock you are already dead. Just try and break even on the ship first.

o/
Ashy

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