Stat Priority
Item level is king in Fellowship as main stat has the greatest effect on your damage.
Critical Strike has the chance to double the damage of your abilities. It also has the ability to generate additional combo points with Mara's builders.
Expertise is a simple stat. It increases all our damage, healing and absorption effects.
Haste increases our attack speed and the tick rate of our DoTs. Not a very good stat for Mara generally
Spirit is generally a weak stat for Mara. It increases the rate of your ultimate of which your ultimate charges, and gives you a chance to refund combo points and energy when using finishers. The chance is calculated in a bit of a strange way, 50% equates to 37.5% chance to refund and 100% would equate to 50% chance to refund. So you get more value comparatively the lower the stat is. This stat can still be very useful if it lets you get better ult timings throughout the dungeons, but I wouldn't worry about that until you're pushing very high eternal dungeons.
Build Based Stat Priorities
Malevolence build with Treads Of Vexira's Prey:
Expertise > Crit >>> Haste > Spirit
Expertise and Crit are the only 2 secondary stats Mara wants with this build
Hemotoxin build with Treads Of Vexira's Prey:
Expertise > Crit > Haste >>> Spirit
Expertise and Crit are also the best 2 stats for the Hemotoxin build, although you will want around 10% haste on your character sheet, while still avoiding Spirit
Malevolence build with Stalker's Crimson Chain:
Spirit > Crit > Expertise >>> Haste
Since the Stalker's Crimson Chain legendary drastically increases the value of spirit, it now becomes our best stat, and because of all the free Expertise it provides, Crit overtakes Expertise as the second best stat for this build.
Hemotoxin build with Stalker's Crimson Chain:
Spirit > Crit > Expertise > Haste
Once again with the Stalker's Crimson Chain, Spirit becomes Mara's best stat, although since this is a Hemotoxin build, you will want around 10% haste in your stat sheet.
Weapon Traits
Due to the random nature of Weapon Traits, it can be a game of cat and mouse trying to get the ideal weapon tree. You have two offensive rows, two defensive rows, and a major capstone, with multiple options in each row for different pathing up the tree. With that in mind, you can start to see how gaining access to a "BiS" set-up might prove tricky. Don't be afraid to use some materials to reroll Traits if you need to.
Below I'll separate and list the ideal weapon traits for each type.
Master Traits
Visions Of Grandeur has great synergy with both Fateful Dagger and Sahril's Reckoning, granting more uses of Matriarch Macabre throughout dungeons. Amethyst Splinters and Sapphire Aurastone are the best standalone damage traits, with Amethyst Splinters being a bit better overall while having lower variance. Martial Initiative and Brave Machinations are also alright with Fateful Dagger, just less potent than the other options.
Heroic Traits
I recommend using Inspired Allegiance with Fateful Dagger only, as the cooldown reduction is very potent for it, but doesn't matter much for other weapons. Kindling has proven itself to be a very strong second option, doing good priority damage as well as boss damage. Willful Momentum is a close third, a lot of it's value comes from the flat spirit stat that it gives though. Vengeful Soul and Hidden Power are fine options as well.
Defensive Traits
You'll want to run King Of The Hill in every single dungeon. Heart Of Stone, Latent Resurgence, and Divine Mediation are universally useful as well, just less so. Treasure Hunter's Delight and First Man Standing can be very useful situationally, so they're ideal to have on an alternate weapon for niche situations later on in progression.
Gems & Gem Builds
The Gem System in Fellowship is fairly unique. You can obtain powerful gems to attach to sockets in your gear, which gives you Gem Power that enables different Gem Bonuses. There are multiple Gem sizes that provide you with more Gem Power. You can combine 3 of the same gem type and size using Gem Fusion (Master Craftsman Braggi NPC) to create a gem of the next size up.
It’s worth noting that some socketed gear can additionally drop with a 35% gem power increase (100% for a Legendary). This makes it so you’ll want to prioritize socketing higher quality gems into these items. For example, Legendaries come with a 100% increased gem power socket, making it ideal for your larger gems.
Gem Types & Bonuses
The Gem types each follow a pattern of the type of bonus they provide, a simplification of the Gems is shown in the table below.
| Gem Type | Gem Bonus |
| Ruby | Main Stat / Boss Combat Buffs |
| Amethyst | Critical Strike |
| Topaz | Haste |
| Emerald | Expertise |
| Sapphire | Stats during Ultimate Ability |
| Diamond | All Secondary Stats |
Mara Gem Progression & Priority
The early game Gem priority for Mara is the following:
Up to Early eternal, you'll want to go for tier 1 or 2 gems of different colors in your sockets, go for Amethyst > Ruby >Sapphire > Emerald > Diamond > Topaz
Late Game Gem Build
As of right now end game gemming is fairly simple. You'll want to hit node 6 in with Amethyst power then node 6 in Ruby, then getting node 10 in amethyst and at last getting node 2 in Sapphire. While keeping at least 2 items without sockets for a set.
