Marius the Gallant Spotlight

Marius the Gallant is a lance-wielding Void Legendary that you can earn for free through a special set of in-game missions. He’s also one of a select few Champions in the game to have [Enfeeble], a debuff that makes the target only able to land weak hits while affected.

He also has a powerful range of skills that attack all enemies, along with an excellent Passive that makes him immune to Turn Meter manipulation. As a result, he’s a great Dungeon Boss batterer and wave clearer with good utility for a number of content areas.

To access the Marius Missions, you’ll first need to have completed all Arbiter Missions.

There are 286 Arbiter Missions, and 180 Marius Missions, which makes a total of 466 missions to get through before picking up Marius – a bit of a grind, we won’t lie.

Thankfully, the Arbiter Missions aren’t too hard. In fact, we’d recommend all players complete them anyway as there are some decent rewards available (as well as the Arbiter herself).

It’s also important to note that the Marius Missions require you to have certain rare resources and Artifacts. Make sure to read through our complete Marius Mission guide to avoid any setbacks before you start!

Marius is a powerful debuffer and hard-hitting wave clearer. While he can hit hard on single targets too, you will have to invest in him significantly to hit the enemy Max HP caps for certain bosses. This does mean he won’t always perform as well as a single target damage dealing Champion in some fights (such as Spider).

Overall, however, he can radically alter team dynamics for the better in many content areas. This is mainly thanks to his A2 (which removes enemy Buffs), and his insane A3 that gives an extra turn while increasing allies ACC and DEF.

His ability to [Enfeeble] multiple enemies, coupled with his high natural DEF also make him a solid solo Champion for multiple Raid content areas.

Below we’ll cover the content areas Marius the Gallant performs the best in, and why. You can find his full ratings in our Marius the Gallant Champion Guide.

While Marius won’t ever be your main Dragon slaying Champion, he does give any Dragon team a nice boost to overall run times and success rates. He also excels at clearing the waves prior to the Dragon itself and brings some welcome additional damage to the main fight.

The main reason to bring Marius along on Dragon hunts, however, is the fact that his Passive will trigger every time the Dragon depletes your team’s Turn Meter with his breath-form. Because Marius’ damage is based on enemy Max HP, he can quickly blast through the Dragon’s breath attack HP damage limit, causing it to reset. This effectively counters the Dragon’s breath attack entirely, and saves your team from both the attack itself and the [Stun] Debuff it places.

Marius can canter through Nightmare Campaign levels (specifically Stage 12-6) solo without breaking a sweat, as all his skills can effectively clear waves in one or two hits. Not only that, the extra turn granted by his A3 makes him exceptionally fast at trampling rounds, so he really shines when it comes to carrying weaker Champions through these stages to level them up quickly.

The reason to use Marius here is that he is incredbibly reliable for Nightmare Campaign, which can be worth farming as it is slightly more Energy efficient than Brutal Campaign farming. Additionally, while some Brutal Campaign Farmers (like those found in our Brutal Campain Farming Guide below) can clear Nightmare Stages, like Ithos, Marius is faster, harder hitting, and also 100% possible to get for free to play players.

Given Marius is a Void Champion, he can effectively stomp his way through any Potion Keep regardless of Affinity. What’s more, his high DEF and multiple AoEs mean he has no problem soloing these Dungeons – this makes him a stand-out choice for Potion Keep content, because he can also run with a team of low-level Champions that you want to upgrade while you farm for Potions.

Marius doesn’t horse around here either. He can comfortably galavant through the Minotaur and his minions alone while still dishing out serious damage. Because Marius is DEF-based, he can also take the hits. This combination of powerful attacks (that hit everyone no matter the skill), and high DEF makes him a Minotaur mangling monster.

Phantom Shogun teams will benefit from Marius’s additional damage, and he’ll work well with whatever single-target heavy hitter you have in your lineup. This will, in turn, increase run speeds quite drastically (from 40 to around 14 seconds in our tests – you can see the exact team used for this in the video at the end of the article).

Much the same as Phantom Shogun, Marius can compliment your single-target damage dealers well here too, and bring some big hits to bear on the Sand Devil. Making sure you can control Sand Devil’s SPD and hit him with [Sleep] will be crucial to helping Marius shine, however.

Additionally, thanks to the changes in how Sand Devil’s Slumber Counter now works, there’s more room for single-target multi-attack Champions, like Gnut (and others that base damage off of Enemy Max HP) in your team composition.

Pairing such a Champion or two up with Marius will allow you to smash through Sand Devil’s HP much more quickly. This will lower the amount of turns you need to beat Sand Devil, and also save you energy – especially useful during Sand Devil Turn Attack Events.

Marius makes a good backup for Champions like Gnut, should they fail at taking down Spider on their first turn. Do note that Marius will probably struggle to handle Spider as the only damager dealer however, unless you can hit his enemy Max HP damage cap – not an easy feat, as we’ll cover in more depth later.

Overall though, he’s useful member of Spider teams if you’re looking to squeeze out a touch more time and turn efficiency. His multiple AoEs don’t hurt either, of course.

Being immune to Turn Meter control and [Decrease SPD] debuffs make Marius a tough opponent to face in Arena matches. Marius’ Passive is also an excellent counter to many of the Meta champions including Mythical champions.

Whenever a Mythical Champion tries to change form, Marius will counter-attack (provided he isn’t under a crowd control Debuff like [Stun] and hit them with the [Enfeeble] Debuff, which converts all enemy hits to weak hits. In addition to dealing less damage, weak hits are unable to place Debuffs, so it’s a powerful way to cripple enemy Champions.

Having the Master Hexer Mastery on Marius, means you can place [Enfeeble] for two turns – worth keeping in mind! This Passive alone makes Marius a strong counter to current Arena meta Champions like Armanz and the many Mythical Champions dominating the higher tiers.

In addition to his passive, his A3 into A2 allows him to quickly push beyond any negative Debuffs placed on him. Marius’ A1 and A2 also deal significant damage to enemy tanks and damage dealers you face.

Be careful, however! His A2 will remove Buffs from enemies by reducing their Buff durations, which does not activate [Polymorph]. His A1 that land [Enfeeble], however, can activate [Polymorph].

You’ll need to be cautious when facing teams packing lots of high-awakened [Polymorph] Blessings, or you’ll be fighting with a simple sheep instead of a powerful prancing pony!

Marius is an excellent choice for Hyrda, especially the higher difficulty stages, because he can hit all heads three times. As his damage is based on enemy Max HP, this can be suitably devastating.

That said, such damage won’t come easily. You’ll need to reach the cap of 10% of the enemy’s Max HP, as “All Enemy” attacks are reduced by Hydra (sometimes by nearly 50%!).

The payoff is worth it though – you’ll find Marius lances his way through Hydra heads so easily it’s a sight to behold.

It’s worth mentioning that even though his A1 Debuff is blocked (as with any Boss fight), his damage output alone on decapitated heads is worth bringing him along for.

Marius is generally a great Champion for anyone able to earn him – although the fact he’s locked behind so many missions does make acquiring the powerful pony a significant investment.

As a result, he’s probably most valuable and viable for late to end-game players, who are more likely to have the resources required to complete his missions – not to mention some other strong Champions and teams able to acquire the needed resources.

End-game players might find Marius’ value slightly lessened by the fact that they will probably have already overcome the hardest content areas, especially those he excels in. That said, his general farming potential shouldn’t be underestimated.

All in all, he’s absolutely worth the investment to get him as early as you can.

Artifacts and Accessories

Generally, Marius will greatly benefit from any Artifacts and Accessories that boost DEF (as his damage is based on DEF), SPD, C. RATE, and C. DMG, and anything that provides Ignore DEF.

Ignore DEF can be especially important for Marius if you’re aiming to hit his Enemy Max HP damage cap. Do note though, that as he only has a x3 multiplier here, hitting the cap can be hard work.

One of the most effective ways to build Marius is with a full nine-piece Slayer Set. The main reasons we want the full set is for these bonus milestones:

• Four-piece Slayer Set bonus = Increased Turn Meter by 5% for every enemy hit by his AoE attacks
• Six-piece Slayer Set bonus = Ignores 30% of enemy DEF when using AoE skills
• Nine-piece Slayer Set bonus = +30% chance to repeat damage dealt by AoE skills

The additional boosts to SPD, C. RATE, and C. DMG are also great to have. Geared with this Set, Marius will be incredibly fast, and have a chance at dealing his three hit A2 twice for a total of six hits across all enemies!

If you can’t gear him in a full Slayer Set, then aiming for the four-piece bonus is the place to start. You can fill out the rest of his gear with Savage and Lethal Sets, which will do the job until you can go full Slayer.

Masteries

The best Masteries for Marius will depend on what role you want him in. If you’re planning on using him as a Debuffer in Arena matches, then the Defense and Support trees are the best option.

Offense and Support are generally the most beneficial Masteries for Marius for PvE content as he already has a hefty DEF stat. Defense Masteries are viable too of course, but the main Masteries you’ll want for PvE will be based on increasing his enemy Max HP damage as high as possible – Helmsmasher is ideal for this, for example.

Below are some example PvE and PvP Mastery ideas.

In Saphyrra’s build recommendation (check out the full video below) he went for a Offense and Support tree, with key masteries being:

1. Offense – Helmsmasher: Gaining an extra 25% ignore defence will help reach those enemy Max HP caps
2. Offense – Bring it Down, Heart of Glory, Single out: All add additional multipliers to his damage to further push his way to the cap
3. Offense – Cycle of Violence: Reaching 30% Max HP is pretty reliable with his A2 so it makes sense to try and reduce the cooldowns of Marius’ abilities
4. Support – Lore of Steel: Variable Sets offer the most stats of any Artifact Set, and Lore of Steel increases the value of these bonus by 15%. When you focus on a full nine-piece then this Mastery only gets stronger
5. Additional – Master Hexer / Sniper: These will help increase the chance of placing [Enfeeble], and the chance to place this Debuff for two turns instead of one significantly increases his A1 value.

Our very own Saphyrra has been busy working Marius into his teams and trying out builds for the hench horse. Make sure you check out his full video spotlight below!