Marauder



"'You were nothing but a usurper - a false idol.' - The Marauder addresses the Doom Slayer."

The Marauders are a group of resurrected renegade Night Sentinels who sided with the Khan Maykr and the Hell Priests against the realm of Argent D'Nur.

They are enemies of the Doom Slayer in Doom Eternal.

History
During the Civil War in Sentinel Prime, the several disillusioned Night Sentinels defected to the side of Khan Maykr against the Loyalist Sentinels. After some of them fell in battle, they were resurrected and augmented with the fusion of Hell and Urdak technology to be served as shock troopers for Hell Legion.

They are now on the hunt to destroy the Doom Slayer.

Combat Characteristics
He is a defensive powerhouse, as the stats say. When the Doom Slayer is close to the Marauder, he will use his super shotgun. If the Doom Slayer is farther from the Marauder, he can throw his axe at the player or rush in at melee range. Attack when his eyes turn green, otherwise his axe will turn into a shield and block attacks. The Marauder's shield can block and deflect all attacks, the player must get behind or freeze him to counter the shield. The Marauder is able to summon a "Hellhound" that he can send to surround and lunge at the player with biting attacks.

Equipment

 * Argent Axe
 * Super Shotgun

Battle Mode
The Marauder is also a playable monster in Doom Eternal's BATTLEMODE game type. It was designed to be similar to the Slayer, albeit weaker. Only a few abilties and attacks were seen in the "What is Doom" Trailer.

Strategies
Marauders are extremely tough mini-bosses built around a spacing gimmick: at long range they will fire off blades of argent energy that are difficult to dodge or summon a spectral wolf companion to attack alongside them (this is effectively a second enemy with only melee attacks), and at very close range they will point-blank fire their shotgun. To stand any chance of winning, the player must remain at medium range and watch for the green flash of the Marauder's eyes: this is a "tell" that the creature is about to attack with its Argent axe. While performing these attacks the Marauder cannot use its shield to defend itself.

A high-powered hit performed with the proper timing will briefly stagger a Marauder, allowing for a quick follow-up attack.

Marauders take minimal damage from "superweapons," though how the game classifies this is not clear. At very least the BFG 9000 and Unmakyr have strong damage debuffs and are best saved for other targets, and the Crucible is not a one-hit kill against this demon. The Super Shotgun is a strong choice since most of a Marauder's mid-range attacks involve lunging to close range. Firing a Balista to stagger also leaves enough time to sneak another shot, assuming the player is mashing the shoot button, before he re-shields himself, allowing/requiring the flash-stagger-sneak-guard cycle to repeat 2 more times. A few volleys from the Rocket Launcher with the Lock-On Burst mod will also make even quicker work of it as it will falter to the first rocket and remain open for the other two. Backpedaling is advisable while doing this to avoid being caught in the rockets' blast.

While a Marauder can and will immediately block any direct hit, even for hitscan weapons, it will never block indirect hits. For this reason any weapon with splash damage, such as the Rocket Launcher or the Shotgun's grenade launcher, can deal effective damage by aiming at the ground near a Marauder rather than the creature itself. It will, however, turn to block the traces from a BFG projectile if the energy ball is fired to pass behind the demon.

It is possible to kill a Marauder with a single BFG hit, but this needs to be timed perfectly, which is very difficult with the small window of opportunity and the charge-up time for the BFG. A direct hit will one-hit kill a Marauder, even on Ultra Violence.

Trivia

 * The Marauder bears some resemblance to Death Knight from the Quake games.
 * If one were to peer at his chest in the second Doom Eternal trailer, a series of dark purplish veins seem to eminate from where the red light on his chestpiece rests. It may imply that some parts of the armor - or at least, that particular piece - is fused to his very body.