Picking the right Marathon character for you is key to success on Tau Ceti, forming a critical part of your loadout since each one has its own combat abilities and passive benefits that will see you through a run. You'll therefore want to pick a shell with abilities that suit your playstyle in Marathon, whether that's sonar pulses for reconnaissance, healing drones for team support, or double-jumps and power slides for aggressive movement.
However, even though there are only seven character to choose from, some are much more effective than others. With that, here's everything you need to know about all the Runner Shells in Marathon, including a breakdown of all their abilities and how they rank in a tier list.
Marathon characters tier list
Based on my time playing the server slam, Triage and Recon felt like the most effective of all the Marathon characters, especially for standard trios gameplay:
- S-tier: Marathon Runner Shells that are near-essential picks and can help the whole team.
- Triage: Triage's healing drones and Shareware trait are extremely useful for ensuring your entire crew is healed up and ready to fight.
- Recon: In a game where stealth is arguably the best way to play, having several means of revealing where enemies are makes Recon a vital crew member.
- A-tier: Great characters whose abilities are very good but aren't as versatile.
- Assassin: Assassin's invisibility makes him the stealth master in Marathon and arguably the best character for solo players.
- B-tier: Solid Marathon characters who can be great in certain circumstances
- Vandal: Vandal's high-mobility playstyle is great for PvP but requires some getting used to and great heat management for maximum effectiveness.
- Destroyer: The Destroyer Shell's mix of offensive and defensive abilities mean he's a great all-rounder for combat with his barricade being a highlight, but he also doesn't excel at much.
Since this Marathon characters tier list is based on my time in the server slam event where Thief was not available to apply, I'll be sure to update it in due time to include Thief. You'll also notice that Rook has been omitted, which is due to it being a special Scavenger Frame with unique rules rather than a true Runner Shell, and you can learn about how it works below.
All Marathon Runner Shells and how they work
Each Marathon character, or Runner Shell, is a biologically printed body that has a unique suite of abilities geared towards a certain playstyle, and with the Marathon release date approaching, it's a good idea to get acquainted with the basics.
All Runner Shells have a powerful Prime Ability which has a long cooldown, a Tactical Ability that has a shorter cooldown, and two Traits, which range from passive benefits that are always active to unique features that are more like mini abilities. These can often be enhanced or supported by equipping Shell-specific Marathon Cores, which you can loot during runs or unlock from the Armory.
Every Marathon character also has bespoke base level stats that give a rough indication of the intended playstyle of a Runner Shell and which stats you should focus on increasing for an optimal loadout. Increase your stats by unlocking upgrades from the various Marathon factions which last for an entire season and by equipping Implants to your loadout. Combining Cores and Implants with the best Marathon weapons is how you create powerful builds for your Runner Shell of choice, but you risk losing it all if you fail to extract.
Finally, there are no limits on team composition when it comes to your crew choosing their Marathon characters. All three players on a team can use the same Runner Shell for a specialized approach or each use a different one for a varied team.
Destroyer
- The Destroyer Shell combines aggressive combat and defense with abilities that focus on charging into battle and avoiding damage. It's great for those that want to outmanoeuvre other Runners and brawl with the toughest of the UESC's drones.
- Prime Ability – Search and Destroy: Activate shoulder-mounted missile pods that automatically fire immobilizing homing missiles at targets that you have dealt sustained damage to.
- Tactical Ability – Riot Barricade: Activate a frontal energy shield that blocks damage. The shield's cooldown time increases based on how long you have it deployed and the amount of damage it takes.
- Trait 1 – Thruster: A quick lateral dash in the direction you're moving that can be performed while airborne.
- Trait 2 – Tactical Sprint: Double-press sprint to move faster than usual while also generating more heat.
- Highest base stats:
- 25 Hardware
- 20 Firewall
- 15 Heat Capacity
- 15 Melee Damage
- 15 Self-Repair Speed
Vandal
- A disruptive and manoeuvrable Runner Shell that can be a chaotic force in battle and difficult for the enemy to deal with, all at the cost of high heat generation.
- Prime Ability – Amplify: Activate to temporarily gain increased movement speed, improved weapon handling, and reduced heat generation from movement abilities.
- Tactical Ability – Disrupt Cannon: Fire an energy projectile that deals damage and blasts enemies away from its impact area. The longer you hold the activation button before firing the projectile, the greater the size and damage of the blast.
- Trait 1 – Microjets: An extra jump you can use in mid-air that generates heat.
- Trait 2 – Power Slide: Vandal's slide goes further and faster than usual at the cost of extra heat.
- Highest base stats:
- 30 Agility
- 25 Heat Capacity
Recon
- A shell that's geared entirely towards revealing and hunting down enemies. Recon is an invaluable member of any crew and easily one of the best characters in Marathon, especially if you're serious about eliminating other Runner crews.
- Prime Ability – Echo Pulse: Emit a series of sonar pulses that reveal the locations of nearby enemies, both players and UESC, including invisible ones.
- Tactical Ability – Tracker Drone: Toss out a little spider-like robot that scurries towards enemies and explodes. Enemies hit by the explosion are instantly overheated, massively limiting their movement and causing them to take small amounts of burn damage.
- Trait 1 – Interrogation: When an enemy player pings you, you receive a HUD alert. Additionally, performing a finisher on an enemy player pings their teammates.
- Trait 2 – Stalker Protocol: After breaking an enemy's shields, they leave a trail of footprints for a short time.
- Highest base stats:
- 25 Ping Duration
- 25 Finisher Siphon
- 20 Heat Capacity
- 15 Agility
- 15 Firewall
Assassin
- A stealthy Runner Shell that makes use of invisibility and smokescreens to avoid detection. If you want to sneak around, either to stay out of trouble or ambush enemies, this is the Marathon character for you. As our Marathon tips say, he's also one of the best characters for solo players.
- Prime Ability – Smoke Screen: Throw a smoke disc that fires out a line of smoke clouds ahead of it where it hits the ground. Smoke clouds impair visibility and disrupt the optics of those that step inside the cloud.
- Tactical Ability – Active Camo: Become temporarily invisible. The faster you move, the less visible you become. Firing your gun, punching, taking damage, using abilities, and using consumables will briefly make you entirely visible.
- Trait 1 – Shadow Dive: While airborne, you can drop to the ground and create a smoke cloud on impact. This also negates all fall damage.
- Trait 2 – Shroud: Your Shell becomes invisible every time you enter a smoke cloud, and the invisibility persists for a few seconds after leaving a cloud.
- Highest base stats:
- 20 Agility
- 20 Firewall
- 15 Loot Speed
- 15 Revive Speed
Triage
- As Marathon's combat medic character, Triage's abilities focus on healing for the entire crew and staying fighting fit. That also means that having a Triage in your crew can be a literal lifesaver in the face of such limited resources on Marathon maps, especially healing items.
- Prime Ability – Reboot+: Charge up and fire out a pair of shocking tendrils that can zap and EMP enemies and revive downed teammates from afar.
- Tactical Ability – Med-Drone: Throw out a Med-Drone that can attach itself to a teammate's shoulder, or your own, providing health and then shields if needed. An attached drone will also prevent you from bleeding out if you're downed. The drones seem to stay attached until their health regeneration pool is entirely depleted, so they can potentially stick around for ages. Triage can also hold up two Med-Drone charges, letting you rapidly deploy one after the other.
- Trait 1 – Shareware.exe: Healing from Patch Kits and Shield Chargers is shared between teammates with Med-Drones attached to them.
- Trait 2 – Battery Overcharge: Activate to temporarily boost your weapons at the cost of generating heat. Breaking a hostile's shield with a volt battery or volt cell weapon causes them to suffer EMP effects.
- Highest base stats:
- 25 Self-Repair Speed
- 20 Revive Speed
- 15 Hardware
- 15 Firewall
- 15 Ping Duration
Thief
- The Thief character is Marathon's best looter, with abilities that focus on rapidly gathering loot, including ways to case the joint and make a quick getaway.
- Prime Ability – Pickpocket Drone: Manually control a flying drone that can whip enemy players and UESC drones to knock the highest value loot from their backpack. The drone can collect and store loose lot and open doors.
- Tactical Ability – Grapple Device: Fire out a dart and immediately start reeling yourself towards it, letting you quickly climb, traverse, or swing around. If you've used Strand in Destiny 2, you'll understand exactly how this works.
- Trait 1 – X-Ray Visor: Activate to temporarily see loot containers through walls. Enemies within line-of-sight are also highlighted. Highlight colors are based on the highest rarity of loot the highlighted object or enemy holds. While X-Ray Visor is active, aiming at an enemy disrupts their vision after a few seconds, lasting until you look away.
- Trait 2 – The Finer Things: Thief gains passive benefits the closer their backpack is to being full with loot, including a faster grapple recharge rate and improved base stats.
Rook Scavenger Frame
- Rook is a special character in Marathon and has some unique limitations that set them apart from the other Runner Shells.
- Prime Ability – Recuperation: Activate to start slowly restoring health but this effect is interrupted if you take damage.
- Tactical Ability – Signal Mask: A temporary disguise that fools UESC forces and makes them completely ignore you. The disguise briefly drops if you sprint or take damage.
- Rook-specific rules:
- You must reach Season level 3 to unlock Rook.
- Choosing Rook forces you to play solo, so you will be completely on your own and can come up against full teams of three.
- Rook can only join matches that are already in progress, so you have less time in each run – between 10 and 20 minutes in my experience. Other players are not notified when Rook players join, so there's no way to know precisely how many players are in a match either.
- Rook cannot use gear from your vault to create a loadout and is given very basic items instead. However, faction upgrades can improve Rook's starting gear.
- Rook cannot progress contracts but can still earn faction reputation.
- Rook's base stats are all zero, but it benefits from stat boosts from faction upgrades.
Other than that, Rook functions like any other Runner Shell with any gear you loot and extract with being yours to keep in your vault. That means Rook is best for those who don't want to risk their best loot in every match or want to focus solely on scavenging to restock their vault with gear and supplies without having to buy everything with credits.
These six Runner Shells, plus Rook, form the starting roster of Marathon characters, and we know that Season 2 of Marathon will introduce a new Runner Shell. I'll be sure to update this guide with any information on new characters as it becomes available.
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