Marauder

"You were never one of us. You were nothing but a usurper, a false idol. My eyes have been opened. Let me help you to see, Slayer."

- A Marauder addressing 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
The Marauder is a dangerous enemy with numerous attacks, and is a durable defensive powerhouse as his encounter tip states.

When the Doom Slayer is close to the Marauder, he will use his super shotgun to deal nigh-instant damage in a small area in front of him. If the Doom Slayer is farther from the Marauder, he can fire a beam projectile from his axe, or alternatively rush into melee range. If he is at mid-range, he can use one of several powerful slashing attacks with his axe. He can also summon a glowing orange wolf minion that will lunge at the player with biting attacks which momentarily obscure the screen and slow the Slayer's movement.

The Marauder can block all incoming attacks by transforming his axe into a shield. However, he cannot shield himself while using his melee attack, and his eyes will flash green to signify when he is vulnerable. If he is struck with a sufficiently powerful blow while vulnerable, he will stagger and be open to damage for a few seconds. His shield also cannot block indirect damage like explosives detonated behind him, and cannot activate if he is frozen.

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 the very least, the BFG 9000 and Unmaykr have strong damage debuffs and are best saved for other targets, and the Crucible is not a one-hit kill against this demon if he is shielded. 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.
 * During combat, if the player listens carefully, the Marauder's grunts are actually Ranger's grunts from Quake III: Arena