Overview

The Margrave is Gigantic’s only true “tank”. He’s capable of withstanding a huge amount of punishment as well as using a personal shield to protect himself and his team mates. Combined with his ability to charge forwards or leap at the enemy he’s incredibly strong when engaging the enemy or making an early push for your team to follow. If The Margrave has his Focus ability and you find he’s charging towards you, you and your team are in a lot of trouble.

Guide Updated: 1 February 2016

Pros

Cons

Very tanky and capable withstanding lots of damage

If caught without cooldowns, he can die quickly

His Hellburst provides an invaluable shield

Ranged Hero’s are a nuisance to fight against as you’ll be forced to waste cooldowns to reach them

He has high mobility thanks to Charge Forth and Staggering Leap

Reliant on team coordination to follow up with him

Capable of dealing high damage when you combine his skills

Has to put himself in harms way to poke

Exceptional at engaging the enemy

 

Skills

This section of our guide contains a list of The Margrave's skills, what they do, which upgrades you should choose (and when) as well as what those upgrades are for. 

Base Skills

Demon Fist is The Margrave’s basic attack that by default only hits one person but can hit multiple when upgraded. The attack chain is relatively lengthy but deals a fair amount of damage if you manage to hit someone with the entire set of punches.

Hellburst provides The Margrave with a shield of burning flame. Holding Hellburst slows your momvement, but it will mitigate all frontal ranged damage. This is great for creeping forwards against Charnok or protecting allies behind you. Upgraded it can reflect projectiles back at foes.

Charge Forth allows The Margrave to sprint forwards, interrupting any enemies he hits. Although it’s a highly offensive skill it’s also invaluable at escaping when under pressure or if your team has died.

Staggering Leap allows The Margrave to leap into a targeted area, dealing high damage and interrupting those who are caught in the blast wave. The travel distance is significant and similarly to Charge Forth, you can also use Leap to escape.

Skill Upgrade Paths and Order

Below is the upgrade path I would recommend for each skill. It offers The Margrave incredible utility against foes, a role that's essential if he's to be truly effective. The numbers below on each image correspond to when you should upgrade that individual skill, and for ease it's listed below in order. This build order is important as it provides The Margrave with an early game stun as well as a valuable slow. Towards mid and late game, following this build path allows The Margrave to significantly ramp up his utility. 

Level 2: Blunt Trauma (E)

Level 3: Burst of Damage (RMB)

Level 4: Nowhere to Run (RMB)

Level 5: Relentless (Q)

Level 6: Doom Strike (LMB)

Level 7: Irresistable Charge (Q)

Level 8: Shake, Rattle, Roll (E)

Level 9: Demon's Reach (LMB)

Level 10: Pound of Armor (Focus)

View the full build here.


Doom Strike allows The Margrave to gain a fourth attack on his LMB. The final strike deals very high damage and can snag you several kills over the course of a match. Demon's Reach extends the distance on this final attack and allows you to hit multiple enemies with it. Considering you should be constantly using your Demon Fist when you dive in, it's a huge damage boost to pressure the enemy with.

Burst of Damage turns your Hellburst into an offensive skill. It channels damage as you hit players (your shield becomes tentacles) and deals a surprisingly high amount of damage. Nowhere to Run builds on this and allows you to slow all those you hit in the back. Considering any enemy with a brain will attempt to run away from you once you're attacking them, it triggers constantly. 

Relentless allows The Margrave to travel much further with Charge Forth. For disengaging, it's absolutely a must as it practically doubles the travel distance. Irresistible Charge makes you immune to all crowd control during Charge Forth which pretty much gaurentees your escape. 

Blunt Trauma is invaluable early game as it allows The Margrave to interrupt, and stun enemies he hits with Staggering Leap. Combined with Shake, Rattle and Roll, enemies stunned are also slowed for 5 seconds. This really allows your team to focus down targets easily, especially considering they're unable to move away quickly afterwards. 

Finally, Pound of Armor allows The Margrave to gain +20 armor based on the amount of enemies he hits. It’s a good boost to your survivability if you land in a crowd.

Talents

Level 1: Stonewall

Heroes such as Mozu or Tripp can constantly critically hit you so it's important you reduce this damage as much as possible. Stonewall makes you totally immune to them, providing a good boost to your survivability. 

Level 5: Warrior's Toughness

Gaining +10 armor on hit isn't a huge amount but Warrior's Toughness does allow you to mitigate damage when you're being attacked. Any reduction to the damage you take is invaluable. 

Level 7: Fringe Benefits

Further strengthing The Margrave's armor, Fringe Benefits provides +10 armor when struck from medium or long range. Considering people are going to fire at you on your way into a fight, it further improves your survivability. 

Level 9: Hero’s Vitality

Gaining 15% extra health is an awesome boost for The Margrave and lets you survive for that much longer in a team fight. You don't need the damage, so pickup Hero's Vitality.

Threat

This section of our guide contains a list of tactics for fighting against other Hero's with The Margrave. Please note that only the Heroes that are the highest risk and threat to The Margrave are included in this list. 


Griselma is a threat to The Margrave on the basis that although you can usually survive her hands long enough to kill them, you'll have took a huge amount of damage in the process (especially if she takes the Armor Break upgrade line). Combined with the fact she'll have been beating on you the whole time means you've very little left in the tank to actually kill the granny. Even if you do attack her first, she's almost certainly going to portal away. If you can, try to attack Griselma in a group as opposed to by yourself. Alternatively, force her to portal away and then kill the hands. 

Threat: 7/10

Knossos is a difficult Hero to kill because his damage is so high. Combined with his ability to immobilize you or knock you down and you can be in for some trouble if you try to face tank him. The best thing I've found is to interrupt him early with Counter, duke him whilst using Demon Fist and when possible, use Charge and then Leap. If nothing else, he'll take high damage and run away or fight until one of you dies. Usually it's him thanks to your higher armor.  

Threat: 7/10

Mozo is frustrating to deal with because of the sheer speed of her attacks. With no shield against her attacks, you'll take a fair amount of damage just getting to her and when you do she'll dimension door away. If you can, try to bait her into using Dimension Door early at which point you can just leap onto her and it's game over. 

Threat: 6/10

Sven is difficult for The Margrave because his armor break combined with repeat burning means you take huge damage (regardless of the DOT reduction). If you do try to chase Sven, he'll usually bounce away or snare you with his Ooze so that you can't get close. The best thing to do is save Hellburst for his attacks and try to reach him to interrupt his Ooze. If you manage this, you're in a much better position. Unfortunately his cooldown on Acid Flask is low so there's every chance you'll take one to the face pretty soon after. Once on him, just keep interrupting him with Charge/Leap or your Focus. 

Threat: 7/10

Xenobia is one of the toughest counters to The Margrave. Her immobilize, armor break, burning and life steal make her formidable. Admitedly she's very squishy 1 on 1 and relies heavily on stamina to stay alive. You can also kill her super quickly if you land a Leap and Counter. However, most Xenobia's will not only position themselves so they're on the cusp of a team fight, but will often arrive late to a team fight in order to capitilize on players being distracted. If you can, Leap to Xenobia early to force her to retreat. Try to duke her skills with Hellburst and Charge back to her. 

Threat: 8/10

Tips

This section of our guide contains a list of tips and tricks we think will help your Margave play. We'll continue to add to the list as required and if you have any tips you'd like to share, let us know in the comments below and we'll place them here. 


1. Although you're a "tanky" you'll still take a lot of damage quickly if you aren't careful. Use of Charge, Leap and Hellburst is the reason why you can survive and avoid damage for so long.

2. Hellburst deals a fair amount of damage if you manage to get near enough to someone with it. 

3. You can also use Hellburst in AOE fields and it'll deflect the damage back to enemies - not just projectiles. 

4. Charge Forth when upgraded throws enemies back behind you - make use of this in a team fight or to remove someone who is body blocking the enemy you want.

5. Staggering Leap is best used from a height or ledge as it provides a greater travel distance. 

6. If you can, try not to use Leap and Charge on the same target - you might need one of them to escape. 

7. Always use Hellburst to protect weaker allies such as Charnok or Mozo. They can fire through the field but can't be hurt by others. 

8. As The Margrave, use your size to body block opponents so they can't escape. This works best in tight corridors.

9. There are a variety of locations where The Margrave can leap to: learning these (notably the ledges on Mistforge leading to secret) significantly helps your map maneuverability around a map.

10. Remember that as a tank, you should be pushing first so that your team can follow up. That doesn't mean go in alone - you'll likely die. 

11. Be sure to jump just before Charge Forth finishes - it'll make you zip through the air and travel much further (preferrably also sprinting).


Ten Ton Hammer would like to thank GGUnleashed for their awesome Gigantic Skill Calculator!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Gigantic Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 21, 2016

About The Author

Lewis is a long standing journalist, who freelances to a variety of outlets.

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