Marathon Triage Shell Guide: Keep Your Squad Alive in S2

Every squad has a run where they should have wiped. The engagement went sideways, someone went down at the worst moment, the third-party showed up thirty seconds early. Triage - Support squads survive those runs. Others don't. That is not an accident — it is what this shell is designed to do, and understanding why it works is more useful than just copying a loadout.

Triage is the only shell in Marathon whose value compounds over a run. A Destroyer - Combat wins one fight. A Triage Runner wins the fourth fight of the same run, because the squad that reached it is still healthy and still has resources. That is the mindset shift. You are not trying to frag out. You are trying to make sure the squad that extracts is the squad that infilled.

The Triage kit has four pieces and each one serves a distinct role — understand them before layering in Cores.

The Prime ability, Reboot+, is a ranged revival tool that also EMPs hostiles. When a squadmate goes down in a bad position, Reboot+ lets you answer without crossing open ground. The EMP application on hostiles is equally important: volt weapons then trigger immediate shield disruption on any target Reboot+ hits, which turns the ability into an offensive opener when your squad needs to push a position.

The Tactical, Med-Drone, is your bread-and-butter sustain. It attaches to a crew member, restores health and shields, and — critically — prevents bleed-out while active. In a three-player squad, Med-Drone on the Runner taking the most pressure is often the difference between a fight you win and a wipe. It also interacts with the Cores below in ways that stack meaningfully.

The Shareware.Exe Trait shares consumable benefits to crew members with Med-Drone attached. Once you understand this, you stop double-carrying heals and start carrying one set of quality consumables. The NuCaloric Armory stocks a daily free Patch Kit — pick it up every session. It costs nothing and Shareware.Exe makes it count for the whole squad.

Battery Overcharge is the second Trait. It generates heat in exchange for boosted weapon performance, and while active, breaking a target's shield with a volt weapon EMPs them. Triage is not a fragile pacifist — Battery Overcharge is permission to be dangerous when the situation calls for it.

Three Cores define how Triage plays at the level where it starts pulling real weight.

Extended Field (Superior) extends both the range and duration of your Restoration Field. This is the foundation — a wider field means squadmates do not have to cluster to benefit, which matters enormously in firefights where spreading out is survival.

No Good Deed (Superior) returns a burst of healing to you personally when your Med-Drone attaches to a crew member. Triage players who ignore their own health die quietly mid-fight. No Good Deed closes that self-neglect loop.

Samaritan (Prestige) is the high-investment piece: sharing a consumable with Shareware.Exe reduces the cooldown of your next Med-Drone. Once you have this slotted, your drone uptime becomes noticeably more consistent, which directly raises your squad's survivability floor in sustained engagements.

Because the Cradle is fully free to respec, there is no risk in experimenting — but here is where to start. The Support track is the natural home for a Triage Runner. The perk Factory Reset (reported at 10 Energy in the Support track) returns health over time to you when you revive a crew member. Given how often you will be reviving, this is passive sustain on a loop. Pair it with early investment in Resistance for the Field Medic perk (reported at 14 Energy), which reduces consumable use time — every second shaved off a Patch Kit application is a second you are not standing still in a bad spot.

The exact Energy values for these perks are unconfirmed, so treat the breakpoints as directional targets and verify against the Cradle planner at /cradle before committing.

Triage is rated Solo=D, Squad=S. That rating is not a slight — it is a description of where the shell lives. In solo ranked, you are without the squad hooks that make your kit functional. In a coordinated trio, Triage is the reason that squad's ranked rating climbs faster than squads of equal individual skill.

The practical lesson: if you are queuing solo ranked and reaching for Triage, reach for Vandal - Combat or Thief - Stealth instead. If you are running a premade, Triage is the first slot to fill before arguing about anything else.

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- Med-Drone prevents bleed-out while active — in a bad engagement, drone the downed Runner first, deal with the threat second. Buying bleed-out time is often the margin between a wipe and a win. - Pick up NuCaloric's daily free Patch Kit every session. Shareware.Exe makes one consumable do the work of three. - In the Cradle, prioritize the Support track toward Factory Reset and the Resistance track toward Field Medic. Free respec means you can test both paths without penalty — use /cradle to map your Energy before you commit.