Fellowship Mara Hero Guide

Mara is an Agility-based melee DPS that excels at utilizing her Stealth and poisons to enhance her deadly knife skills. She accumulates Combo Points and Energy, converting them into devastating blows to assassinate her enemies.

This guide will go over the basics of what you need to know to play Mara, how to use her abilities, her best talent builds, and gear/stat priority. 

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Tanks

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Healers

Mara’s Abilities

Ability/Icon	Name	Cast / Recast	Range / Radius	Effect
	Backstab	GCD	↔ 5yd	20 Energy Deals 83% Agility damage to target enemy. Deals 40% more damage when attacking from behind. Generates 2 Combo Points. Critical Strikes generate 3 Combo Points.
	Widow’s Bite	GCD 9.0s	↔ 5yd	Plunges both daggers into single target, dealing 121% Agility with the right hand and 90% Agility with the left hand. Generates 2 Combo Points with each strike. Critical Strikes generate 3 Combo Points. Generates 30 Energy.
	Skittering Blades	GCD	↻ 8yd	35 Energy Spins and throws daggers in all direction, dealing 60% Agility to all nearby enemies. Generates 1 Combo Point for each enemy hit. Critical Strikes generate 2 Combo Points.
	Queen’s Fang	GCD	↔ 5yd	40 Energy Deals 160% Agility damage to target enemy. Damage increased for each combo point spent. 1 Combo Point: +20% damage 2 Combo Points: +40% damage 3 Combo Points: +60% damage 4 Combo Points: +80% damage 5 Combo Points: +100% damage 6 Combo Points: +120% damage
	Brooding Shadows	Instant 15.0s	Self	Instantly enter Stealth, becoming more difficult for enemies to detect you. When used in combat, Brooding Shadows triggers a 15 seconds cooldown. Your Backstab, Widow’s Bite and Skittering Blades abilities each apply poison when used from stealth. See Poisons Below. Backstab – Caustic Poison: Instantly deal 3,357 – 4,103 poison damage and generate 6 Combo Points. Widow’s Bite – Seething Poison: Applies Seething Poison to the target, dealing 837 – 1,023 poison damage every 2 seconds for 60 seconds. While Seething Poison is active on any enemy, you gain Predator’s Rush, granting you 40% increased Energy Regeneration. Seething Poison can only be active on 1 target at a time. Skittering Blades – Volatile Poison: Applies Volatile Poison to all enemies hit by your Skittering Blades, dealing 1,521 poison damage over 6 seconds. Upon expiration, Volatile Poison erupts dealing 360 – 440 poison damage to the target and nearby enemies within a 500 radius.
	Stalker Step	Instant 30.0s	↔ 30yd	Instantly teleport behind target enemy or player and increase your movement speed by 50% for 4 seconds. Stalker Step does not break Stealth.
	Kick	Instant 16.0s	↔ 5yd	Interrupt the target’s spellcasting and prevent it from casting for 4 sec.
	Arachnid Assault	GCD	↻ 8yd	45 Energy Deal 65% Agility damage to all targets in a radius around Mara. The damage is increased per combo point spent. 1 Combo Point: +20% damage 2 Combo Points: +40% damage 3 Combo Points: +60% damage 4 Combo Points: +80% damage 5 Combo Points: +100% damage 6 Combo Points: +120% damage
	Hemorrhaging Strike	GCD 6.0s	↔ 30yd	20 Energy Strike the target dealing 175% Agility damage and apply a bleed dealing 77% Agility damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. The bleed’s duration is increased per combo point spent. 1 Combo Point: 15 seconds 2 Combo Points: 18 seconds 3 Combo Points: 21 seconds 4 Combo Points: 24 seconds 5 Combo Points: 27 seconds 6 Combo Points: 30 seconds Each tick of Hemorrhaging Strike’s bleed replenishes 3 energy.
	Maiden of Death	Instant 60.0s	Self	For the next 10 seconds, you deal 20% more damage and all combo point generating abilities generate 6 Combo Points. Additionally, your Energy Generation is increased by 20% while Maiden of Death is active.
	Shadow Protection	Instant 30.0s	Self	You take 40% reduced damage for 4 seconds.
	Enveloping Web	GCD 30.0s	↔ 5yd	Instantly Stun target enemy for 4 seconds.
	Final Stratagem	GCD 180.0s	Self	Your Energy and Combo Points are instantly refilled and all your Hero Ability cooldowns are reset.
	Matriarch Macabre	SPIRIT ABILITY	Self	For the next 20 seconds your Queen’s Fang and Arachnid Assault abilities summon two shadowy clones that imitate the attack for 100% of the damage each. Spirit Ability When you activate your Spirit ability you gain Spirit of Heroism, granting +30% haste for 20 seconds.

Energy + Combo Mechanic

Mara has two resource to pay attention to. This consists of her Energy meter and her Combo Point counter. Mara’s Energy is capped at 200 and her Combo Points are capped at 6. Her Energy is used to activate her damage dealing abilities, including Combo Points spenders. Mara’s accumulated Combo Points are then used to activate her main damage dealing abilities, Queen’s Fang, Hemorrhaging Strike, and Arachnid Assault.

A flat amount of Energy is generated through the use of her Widow’s Bite. She can also increase her Energy regeneration by using the Brooding Shadows (Stealth) empowered version of Widow’s Bite, Maiden of Death, and Final Stratagem abilities.

Mara generates her Combo Points through the use of her Backstab, Widow’s Bite, and Skittering Blades.

Mara Talents and Build Progression

While Mara has many builds that she can utilize, in this guide we will focus on a simple and well-rounded build, the Bleed/Hemotoxin build. This guide will refer to the talents by their name and the row/column that they are located in.

Across all builds, Mara tends to take the same talents early on (between 2 – 4 talent points):

• 2 talent points: Corrosive Spill (1B)
• 3 talent points: Corrosive Spill + Venomous Delights (2B)
• 4 talent points: Corrosive Spill + Venomous Delights + Bloodrush (2A)

Corrosive Spill (1B) provides extra AoE damage while synergising with Venomous Delights (2B) to help mitigate any Energy problems that Mara has. Bloodrush (2A) increases the damage of your Hemorrhaging Strike by 20% since it increases the tick-rate of your Hemorrhaging Strike without changing the duration.

Quick Reference Talent Table

Talent Point Total	Talent Tree (Row + Column)
2 Points	1B
3 Points	1B, 2B
4 Points	1B, 2B, 2A
5 Points	1B, 2B, 3C
6 Points	1B, 2A, 2B, 3C
7 Points (Contender)	5B, 1B, 2A, 6C/6A
8 Points	5B, 3A, 2A, 3C
9 Points (Adept)	5B, 5A, 3A, 2A
10 Points	5B, 5A, 3A, 2A, 6A/6C/2B
11 Points (Champion)	5B, 5A, 3A, 2A, 1A
12 Points	5B, 5A 3A, 2A, 1A, 6A/6C/2B
13 Points (Paragon)	5B, 5A, 3A, 2A, 1A, 3C/1C

When choosing the remaining talent to take at 7pts, 10pts, 12pts, and 13pts, generally this is what we would suggest.

• Puncture (6C) is good for increasing your single-target damage potential. 
• Arachnid Onslaught (6A) is good for increasing your multi-target damage potential.
• Venomous Delight (2B) is good to take if you tend to have Energy management issues.
• Assassin’s Guile (1C) increases your damage dealt with Queen’s Fang and Arachnid Assault by 40% for 5 seconds after attacking from Stealth. This talent is slightly stronger than Deadly Scheme.
• Deadly Scheme (3C) causes your next Queen’s Fang or Arachnid Assault to have 100% Critical Strike chance. If you have legendary boots, Treads of Vexira’s Prey, this talent beats out Assassin’s Guile.

In the later difficulty levels (Champion+) and when survivability becomes more important, you may want to drop Red Ledger (1A) for the defensive talents, Magic Ward (4C) & Spirited Fortitude (6B). 

Mara Ability Rotations

Much like other heroes, letting your resources overcap is wasteful and leads to a loss in DPS. Here are a few things to keep in mind to avoid DPS loss regardless of how many enemies you’re engaging.

• Use Brooding Shadows (Stealth) before entering combat to avoid putting a charge of it on cooldown unnecessarily.
• Avoid letting Brooding Shadows charges sit at max. 
• Avoid letting Widow’s Bite sit at max charges. Always make sure that you’re taking advantage of this ability as it’s a good way to keep up with your energy usage and generate Combo Points. 
• Avoid letting your Energy sit at max.
• Avoid overcapping Combo Points.

Avoiding damage is always ideal, but there are times when the damage will be unavoidable. Use your defensive ability, Shadow Protection, when anticipating a large amount of damage. Preventing damage helps you survive, which is important because dying is the biggest loss of DPS anyone can have.

Mara’s ideal skill rotation will depend on how many targets you have. This guide will cover rotations for a single target and for groups of 3 or more enemies.

Single-Target Rotation

1. Stealth
2. Widow’s Bite
3. Hemorrhaging Strike
4. Maiden of Death
5. If less than 6 Combo Points: Backstab. 6 Combo Points: Queen’s Fang.
6. Backstab -> Queen’s Fang x 5 (approx. when Maiden of Death expires)
7. Use Widow’s Bite as needed for Energy. 

Open out of Stealth with Widow’s Bite to apply a poison DoT and increase your Energy regeneration by 40% for 60 seconds. Use Hemorrhaging Strike to apply a bleed DoT that generates 3 Energy per tick of damage. Maiden of Death will also increase your Energy regeneration by 20% for its duration of 10 seconds.

If the Widow’s Bite poison DoT is close to falling off, use the Stealth empowered Widow’s Bite, otherwise use the Stealth empowered Backstab to gain an easy 6 Combo Points to use for Queen’s Fang. Use regular Backstab as a Combo Point generator and filler. Weave in Widow’s Bite when you need Energy.

Make sure to use Hemorrhaging Strike on targets that have the Hemotoxin debuff/DoT to burst that target with the detonation damage. Hemotoxin lasts for 9 seconds, so you should have about a 5 global cooldown (GCD) window to detonate Hemotoxin on the affected target.

Use Maiden of Death off cooldown to increase your overall DPS unless you’re close to your ultimate (~20 seconds or less from having ultimate available). In that case, delay using Maiden of Death to have it line up with your ultimate usage. To maximize damage dealt while you’re in your ultimate, make sure your Maiden of Death and Final Stratagem abilities are available so that you can use Maiden of Death back-to-back.

Make sure to keep your Widow’s Bite poison DoT and Hemorrhaging Strike bleed DoT up on your target to help your Energy regeneration and passive damage throughout the encounter.

Multi-Target (3+ Enemies)

1. Stealth
2. Open with Widow’s Bite on target with most max health
3. Maiden of Death
4. Hemorrhaging Strike
5. Stealth
6. Skittering Blades
7. Arachnid Assault

While running Corrosive Spill (1B) and Venomous Delight (2B), you should only need to upkeep 1 – 2 bleeds on a group in order keep up on Energy management.

Make sure to use Maiden of Death BEFORE Hemorrhaging Strike in order to apply the bleed in an AoE.

Using the Stealth empowered version of Skittering Blades applies an AoE DoT that detonates on expiration. Make sure to NOT refresh this DoT. Not letting this DoT fall off will result in DPS loss.

As seen in the Single-Target rotation, you will have ~5 GCD window to detonate one stack of the Hemotoxin DoT with your Hemorrhaging Strike.

Gearing and Stat Priority

• Critical Strike – Chance for damage and healing effects to Crit, doubling their effect. Hitting a Crit with the Backstab, Widow’s Bite, & Skittering Blades abilities will also generate an additional Combo Point.
• Expertise – Increases all damage, healing and absorption effects done by Mara.
• Haste – Increases attack speed, casting speed, and the tick rate of damage and healing effects. It also reduces your global cooldown (GCD), allowing you to cast more frequently.
• Spirit – Increases the rate you charge your spirit ability. Every 1% of Spirit gives 0.5% chance to refund any Energy and Combo Points spent when using abilities that cost Combo Points.

Champion league is when you will want to be prioritizing obtaining gear that have the secondary stats you’re looking for. Legendaries and purple tier weapons that can be augmented at the Weapon Master will also begin to drop from Champion onward. Obtaining these will be another huge power boost for Mara. Prior to that, item level is the main priority.

Higher item level is king, having greater effect on your damage and survivability than any secondary stat will on its own.

Crit affects Mara’s damage as well as Combo Point generation. Going above 100% Crit gives additive damage.

Expertise increases all damage by a flat percent. Crit is calculated after the extra damage from Expertise is added, meaning that more Expertise will mean higher Crit damage.

Haste increases your DoT tick-rate, increases your attack speed, and decreases your GCD, but this effect for Mara seems to plateau at around 15% Haste.

Spirit can refund Energy and Combo Points. This feels a bit underwhelming in comparison to stacking more damage through Crit and Expertise. Spirit ends up being more of a filler stat, unless you have the legendary cloak, Stalker’s Crimson Veil. If you have this legendary and wish to utilize it, aim to have ~18% Spirit to maximize the uptime of the buff.

To summarize, get your Haste to 15% and stack as much Crit and Expertise as you can, as Crit and Expertise are equally weighted in importance to run. Spirit is a dump-stat for us in this build.

Weapons and Relics

Once you pass Cithrel’s Ascent and get into the Adept league, you’ll have access to Weapons and Relics with active abilities.

Fateful Dagger and Earthbreaker are the best options for our weapon slot. Fateful Dagger is a good option to deal damage and to use as another mobility skill. Earthbreaker is great for AoE damage and crowd control (CC). Earthbreaker can enable your group to make larger pulls with less risk. 

Relic choice at this stage will be mostly based on preference, but two reliable options would be the Grimoire of Resurrection and the Saltwater Elixir. The Grimoire of Resurrection is a combat resurrection that has a 5 minute cooldown. This will resurrect a target party member in your line-of-sight at the location that you activate the relic at. Saltwater Elixir is a heal that recovers 40% of your max health. This relic has a 2 minute cooldown.

Gearing Priority

1. Purple+ Weapon Tree
2. Legendary Item
3. Item Level
4. Completed Set Bonus
5. Substat Priorities

Substat Priorities

1. Crit
2. Expertise
3. Haste
4. Spirit

Mara Legendaries

Out of the two legendary items for Mara, the boots are better. The cloak is inconsistent and requires a certain amount of Spirit in order to mitigate that inconsistency.

• Stalker’s Crimson Veil (Cloak)
  • Drenched in Blood: Each time you trigger a Spirit Refund, you gain Drenched in Blood for 8 seconds, increasing your Expertise by +25%.
• Treads of Vexira’s Prey (Feet)
  • Vexira’s Venom: Your Queen’s Fang and Arachnid Assault critical strikes apply Vexira’s Venom to enemies, adding 45% of the initial damage accumulatively as poison damage dealt over 6 seconds.

Wishlist Fellowship

If you enjoyed your time with Fellowship during the open beta, or if you’re at all interested in playing, be sure to wishlist the game on Steam. The game launches into Early Access on October 16th.