Reeevaaaaaamp!

[Isilmacil]

Lamb chop eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuNM_...e=results_main

There ya go

[Jeremi]

I agree Heralds could use some lifting up
.

I'm really happy to see this. Making the herald stronger and more meaningful to the Captain's overall game-play would do wonders at making this class more interesting.

This is slightly off-subject, but which ever developer designed the Hytbold set for Hands of Healing Captains and made changes to how Valiant Strike worked did a really great job in my opinion. It's really transformed this class into something more, and I'm enjoying playing my captain more than I ever did.

So points to which ever dev was behind that. They know their stuff, and I hope who ever it was is still involved in the class mechanics. I think they have a really good understanding on how to make Captain work.

[4u2nv]

1. Heralds: I like that having a herald out for DPS enables us to use our brother skills on them but as others have said our DPS goes way down. I too would like to see an even trade off and an actual incentive to use a Herald or at least make it optional. They would be great to have around for tanking support or DPS but the way our Banners are now we lose to much and gain to little by equipping a Herald.

2. Herald Banners: I would like to see a bit more customization to the appearance of our Heralds also. The choices we have right now are just boring and plain. To have options to change them and spruce them up a bit would be amazing. Much like a Skirmish Solider. LM's get a lot of options and skins and I think it would be really cool to have more customizing options when it comes to Heralds. Right now, Heralds are not very attractive to use. There is just no incentive.

These are my big issues with Captains. Although, they are not very big issues, nothing game breaking.

[furtim]

That's a really good point, 4u2nv. A big part of the problem with Heralds is not just their overall power level (which is weak, don't get me wrong) but their power level relative to Standards.

There's just no way that 100 DPS can compare with +5% Melee Damage and +4788 Phys mastery from a critted Standard of War. Nor can the Herald, given its poor tanking ability, compare with the Standard of War's ~1k morale.

It just seems like the Heralds are running in place while our personal stats are increasing significantly with each new level cap.

Of course, there has to be some kind of trade-off, or else running with a Herald would be mandatory. Why give up the extra warm body if you're not losing anything for it? So it's a sticky situation, at least in so far as the Captain isn't a "pet class" in the same way as the Lore-Master.

[Bezmer]

That's a really good point, 4u2nv. A big part of the problem with Heralds is not just their overall power level (which is weak, don't get me wrong) but their power level relative to Standards.

There's just no way that 100 DPS can compare with +5% Melee Damage and +4788 Phys mastery from a critted Standard of War. Nor can the Herald, given its poor tanking ability, compare with the Standard of War's ~1k morale.

It just seems like the Heralds are running in place while our personal stats are increasing significantly with each new level cap.

Of course, there has to be some kind of trade-off, or else running with a Herald would be mandatory. Why give up the extra warm body if you're not losing anything for it? So it's a sticky situation, at least in so far as the Captain isn't a "pet class" in the same way as the Lore-Master.

The one thing that heralds do allow you to do is to make full use of Fellowship-brother when solo. I do think this is a nontrivial gain, even taken relative to standards.

I don't think there is a good reason for a captain to run with a herald in a fellowship, and I like it this way -- less clutter and lag

[Elrantiri]

The one thing that heralds do allow you to do is to make full use of Fellowship-brother when solo. I do think this is a nontrivial gain, even taken relative to standards.

I don't think there is a good reason for a captain to run with a herald in a fellowship, and I like it this way -- less clutter and lag

Some armor sets give bonuses that applies to all targets in the fellowship, e.g. 4-set bonus of Hytbold Healer. The herald counts as a target in that matter, which can have quite a nice effect.

How about either removing heralds from the traitlines (red line) or add herald functionalities to the other lines as well?
This could e.g. be a healish herald when going HoH and a tankish herald when going LoM, or to have a customizable herald regardless of traitline.

[JaegerX]

First of all id like to state that i am a 5-year veteran Captain, i play this class as my main and my first thought upon playing LOTRO is only of this class. Ive been through the ups and downs of the various "improvements" and "tweaks" to the class. I generally play traited for Hands of Healing, even when soloing, because you can kill anything if it cant kill you.

My concept of the Captain as a class is to improve preformance of the group and do anything asked of me to succeed in any situation, a true jack of all trades player, i take on the jobs and situations that prove the value of the Utility Class. I relish the opportunity to join groups to show what i can do with this class and that has been the driving force of my career as a Captain.

I would also like to state that while i understand developers are pushed to create new content and "refresh" classes and mechanics from time to time, i appeal to your sense of reason and ask you not to change anything with this class besides the following:

1. Skill: In Harm's Way.
Synapsis: Originally this skill was intended for the Captain to give a group a chance to recover from a potentially devastating event in a group by taking all damage to itself. While this skill by is useful in that circumstance, the combination of its use with the Skill: Last Stand was a dynamic expression of the ability of the player to quote, "save everyones bacon" at the exact time it was needed, and also demonstrate the idea of a last gasp ability that might carry the day and make the player feel like a true hero.

Problem: During the course of events around the time between releases of Moria and Mirkwood there grew up a school of thought among developers that this combination of a skill that transfers all damage to yourself and a skill that prevents you from being defeated trivialised the content available at the time. Unfortunatley also there arose chorus of complaints from the PvMP community that the aformentioned skill combination was being used to "unfairly attack PvMP players".
The result was that the developers of the time reduced the amount of damage transfered by In Harm's Way to 50%.
And all this in response to a ingenious usage of skills completely invented by the players themselves.

Solution: Change the damage transfer percentage back to 100%.
If this skill combination is so devastating, overpowered, content trivialising and PvMP unbalancing, then make more challenging content, PvMP players need to develop tactics for dealing with it or nerf it just in the Ettenmoors/PvP areas (ala Desperate Flight) and leave it alone in the PvE areas. As i could care less about PvP, i only care that the number changes back for PvE content, but i feel that i have more than made my point.

2. Herald usefulness.
Id like to think that ive had a useful relationship with my heralds over the years and despite bad pathing and some time spent swimming along the celing in the Tinnudir Keep i am happy with my heralds, except in one area.
Buffs from heralds are atrocious and should be on par with the banners, thier dps is nil so there is no reason this shouldn't be addressed. Besides Captain Dps even traited in Red Line is rather unimpressive even when we have a herald deployed.

3. Captain Tanking.
I have always revelled in one of the uses of a Captain i have found in pulling a mob off a minstrel or other light armour wearer using my threat skills and being able to solidly transfer it to a tank without much effort of said tank to pull it off of me. The ways i accomplish this is to use threatening shout in conjunction with noble mark to pull its attention and drag it to the tank, once there i wait until the tank has either taunted or hit vexing blow or other suitable AoE, using the WITHDRAW skill this process becomes much easier as i am ,able after one AoE or hit from the tank is sufficient to garner the mob's aggro since i will just drop it. This sequence is much easier if you are using a halberd due to the inherent threat it generates on hit.
But i digress, there is a distinct lack of threat and protective skills with our trait line, hampering our ability to generate sufficient threat even against your garden-variety medium-dps output such as loremasters and burglars and survive the results of that threat production.
Some direction and refinement of this trait line is desperately needed.

Well thats it for now, but if all my hopes and dreams are dashed all i really want is my In Harm's Way back.

[Big_A]

I love the concept of the captain. I love the idea of a battle manager class that sits back and can fill in for any hole in the fellowship. However, I have very mixed emotions about certain aspects of the class mechanics, specifically buffing and defeat responses.

Buffing:
I like the fact that buffing is one of our chief responsibilities. It fits with the concept of the class, and it's a role that no other classes provide. However, buffing is boring. You pull out a buff-stick, fire off a specific buff for each role in the fellowship, then swap back to combat gear and forget the whole thing for 20 minutes when you have to do it again. YIPPEEE!!!!

For a major class feature, it's really not that fun. Important, yes. Fun, no. There are many replies in this thread about the need to revamp buffsticks that back up this point.

Defeat Responses:
Once again, I like the idea behind defeat responses. I like the idea of the captain using an enemy kill as a way to motivate the rest of the fellowship to be faster, stronger, or hang in there just a little longer. Unfortunately, there are some downsides to the execution that make it a bit frustrating.
- Too few responses with too long of a cooldown (especially during the leveling process)
- In single-target boss battles, they rely too heavily on the RNG to be active
- In aoe situations, they become active when they are not needed so they can be wasted

I think there is a way to address both issues with minor tweaks to the skills and mechanics. I see the defeat responses as an opportunity to add a lot more situational buffing to the captain gameplay, but the mechanics need a bit of an overhaul for it to work. As of right now, our defeat responses fall into three categories:
+ Heal: Rallying Cry
+ Buff: War Cry
+ Offense: Routing Cry

I'd like to see these categories expanded a bit to include more skills. Let's say for example each type of cry has 3 skills each:
(theoretical examples, not hard and fast suggestions)
Healing Cries:
+ Brother moderate heal
+ Fellowship small heal
+ Fellowship small hot

Buff:
+ Fellowship attack duration boost
+ Fellowship crit rate boost
+ Fellowship crit defense boost

Offense
+ AOE damage
+ AOE force attack
+ ST damage + threat

Now, lets get into the mechanics. Each of these cries would have a default 30s cooldown. However, once you used a cry, you also get a debuff that prevents you from using any cry skill for 90s. This debuff can be removed with a defeat event, or a critical hit with Devastating Blow or Pressing Attack. Additionally, Time of Need will remove this debuff AND reset all cry cooldowns.

Ninety seconds feels like a long enough period of time to wait where haphazard use of these skills can prevent them from being up when you really need them, but short enough that they can be used proactively throughout a major battle. Additionally, the defeat responses no longer feel like a gate preventing you from using these skills, but rather an enabler to make them available faster. The debuff time period could potentially be lowered by traiting or legacies, but I don't think it should ever be able to be lowered below 45s to 1m. It needs to be a long enough period of time where defeat events still matter.

The other advantage of this is some of the 20m fire and forget buffs can be converted to situational use, making the main role of the captain far more active and engaging, and dependent on the player's skill.

[Elfedlied]

There is one thing I'd like as a cappy. I'd like another high damage single target skill. Now, this suggestion looks like a silly MOAR DPS! suggestion, but I'd like this skill for a very specific purpose. I want to be able to do something special during Oathbreakers. All of the attack skills do about the same amount of damage, so when I pop oathies, there's nothing special for me to do during that time. I just keep buffs up, refresh heals, and hit whatever damage skills are off cooldown.

Shadow's Lament is possible to save for during oathies, but I have a tendency to use it on every cooldown to run through Devastating Blow -> (if a crit, then) Rallying Cry -> Blade of Elendil.

As for what cooldown would be appropriate, anything between 1 minute and 10 minutes would be fine with me. Higher than that, and you could get through a whole instance with it still on cooldown. Lower than that and it'd be just another button to press. Sure, I would appreciate something that could get my personal dps up, but setting that whole premise on a single skill would be a mistake.


This would even be useful and desirable even without oathies slotted. An example of where I'd like using such a skill is Fornost: Wrath of Fire t2c. After the entire floor is aflame, there's nothing I can do to put out 'burst' dps. I just run through my normal rotation through the whole fight.

You could even put a debuff, like -25% to -50% outgoing healing for 10s on it, to make it a delicate choice of killing faster or keeping the group healed.

[Jeremi]

There is one thing I'd like as a cappy. I'd like another high damage single target skill. Now, this suggestion looks like a silly MOAR DPS! suggestion, but I'd like this skill for a very specific purpose. I want to be able to do something special during Oathbreakers. All of the attack skills do about the same amount of damage, so when I pop oathies, there's nothing special for me to do during that time. I just keep buffs up, refresh heals, and hit whatever damage skills are off cooldown.

.

I like to use it before Fellowship maneuvers, so if you play with a burglar or guardian you may want to try coordinating it with them. Otherwise, I agree and it's a rather boring skill to use.

[Thoronthor]

It's definitely nice to see a common trend of what appears to be areas which could use some loving.
I agree Heralds could use some lifting up, and the Leader of Men line needs some attention. The buffstick issue is another one of interest.

Note these are in no way the ONLY things I would take a look at. I'm just saying I'm in agreement these are some issues of contention currently for the class.

Glad to see you share our views RockX, and of course those aren't the only issues, but fixing those 3 would get you halfway there I think. Also glad to see you post again, was afraid we lost you to cutbacks or something

[TinDragon]

Glad to see you share our views RockX, and of course those aren't the only issues, but fixing those 3 would get you halfway there I think. Also glad to see you post again, was afraid we lost you to cutbacks or something

I think fixing those would actually get him like 75% of the way there. It's a good thing he won that Nerf battle, I think he ended up with a class that people are for the most part happy with already.

[furtim]

I'm completely certain that's what the Nerf battle was about.

"Hey, those Captains seem pretty nice. I should be their class dev."
"No, they're mine!"
"Not if my Maverick has anything to say about it!"
*pew, pew, pew*

[RockX]

I'm really happy to see this. Making the herald stronger and more meaningful to the Captain's overall game-play would do wonders at making this class more interesting.

This is slightly off-subject, but which ever developer designed the Hytbold set for Hands of Healing Captains and made changes to how Valiant Strike worked did a really great job in my opinion. It's really transformed this class into something more, and I'm enjoying playing my captain more than I ever did.

So points to which ever dev was behind that. They know their stuff, and I hope who ever it was is still involved in the class mechanics. I think they have a really good understanding on how to make Captain work.

You're welcome! Pretty sure I'm still working on the class

[RockX]

I'm completely certain that's what the Nerf battle was about.

"Hey, those Captains seem pretty nice. I should be their class dev."
"No, they're mine!"
"Not if my Maverick has anything to say about it!"
*pew, pew, pew*

Close. It was more like:
(me)"Hey, the design of the Captain class is far more in line with my play-style and train of thought compared to the other class I've got. I can haz?"
(other dev)"But I like my Captain class!"
(me)/pulls out Vera [my Nerf gun is named Vera. She has a very itchy trigger finger.]
(other dev)"OK, let's trade!"
(me)"Win!"

[AaylaKheledlire]

A "Holy aura" would be great for the captains. A yellow circle, (just like at lm and minstrel) which is dmging the enemies (AOE) if they are standing inside the circle + bonus debuff effects to wights.

[Keidnard]

Hey RockX, Hey everybody else,

first of all: Captain is an awesome class, please dont break it!

Most of the important and obvious things were already mentioned by all that dedicated captain players that are posting here (heralds, tanking, useless skills like fighting withdrawal or tactic:focus, getting bladebrother and archer-herald way earlier, buffsticks/gearswapping, etc), so i will just add some very specific things, that could help the captain's role:

1) 'Muster Courage' shouldn't need voice
Its really annoying, that you cant use 'Muster Courage' to remove fear effects from your group, when your silenced, though silence is mostly a fear-effect. (well ok, you could drink a fear pot first and then un-fear your mates, but thats just some chicanery).
compared to other classes, they can still remove poison/illness/wounds, when they are object of this effects theirself and dont have to drink a potion first. so captains have an obvious handicap here, other classes dont have.
so the solution would be: make muster courage a non-voice-skill you can still use, when you are silenced!

2) a single target ranged forced aggro skill (or trait)
The Captain is a specialist for emergency situations (in-combat revive, in harms way, last stand, etc), though very often, especially when its about aggr, it is hard for him to help out in group situations, when the main tank fails or dies.. or the combat is just very complex. then you mostly just stand beneath and cant do very much, cause you just cant get the aggro away from the very vulnarable group members.
look at these two situations: a) main tank dies in boss battle, incombat-revive is casted, but takes some time, until tank get aggro back, while big boss mob goes for healer/dds and knocks out some of them with few hits and then the whole battle is nearly over, b) a group of mobs is pulled, but tank could not manage to hold all of the aggro and one single mob goes off for the healer/dds and tank is not able to get back the aggro instantly
imho in that cases, the captain should be able to jump in better as an offtank or more better: as someone who protects the weaker classes and pulls the mob back to the tank, to prevent a wipe.
atm we just got 'Routing Cry' as a forced taunt, but its area of effect, so you cant use it very well in most situations, cause you dont want to steal all the tank aggros. you need something more precise like a scalpel: it would be great, if captains could get a single target ranged forced aggro or aggro-managment/swapping skill. this also could be solveable by a trait for 'threatening shout', 'noble mark' (could also force the mob into melee) or rework of fighting withdrawal somehow. in any case, ranged would be great, cause captain's usual combat position is in melee range. there are different possible approaches to that problem, a forced ranged single target skill is just the easiest way.
going back to my examples from abov a cappy should be able to solve them like this: a) tank dies, you do instant revive (cry of vengeance), while you spot the boss mob with the new forced aggro and if necessary go kiting it (with 'make haste'), until tank is back up and gets the aggro back. wipe prevented! b) you get the missed mob out of the healer/dds and lead it back to the tank, and dont have to to just watch and still cant do anything to help except for some healings.
to sum it up: a single target forced aggro skill would be great for captains to support the tank and save the other group members in emergency situations. if the cappy is aware of the situation and reacts fast enough a wipe could be averted.

3) a new stun on death skill
i list this one separately, cause i really like this idea, though it could also work to solve parts of the problem mentioned in 2) above.
what about a buff a captain can put on one fellowship member that does this: when it dies, alle mobs around (or maybe just all mobs that had aggro on it) are stunned for x seconds. This gives the group some time to react, when the tank or another important player dies, so that unlucky chain reactions leading to a wipe within seconds without the possibility to act are prevented.

Thanks so far and keep going!


edit:
forgot to mention that 'devastating blow' should do more damage or more critchance or sth else, cause atm its nearly always better to do a 'pressing attack', even if you just got one target.

[Frisco]

Close. It was more like:
(me)"Hey, the design of the Captain class is far more in line with my play-style and train of thought compared to the other class I've got. I can haz?"
(other dev)"But I like my Captain class!"
(me)/pulls out Vera [my Nerf gun is named Vera. She has a very itchy trigger finger.]
(other dev)"OK, let's trade!"
(me)"Win!"

A. I'm very glad you gave up Vera. Last thing we need is an itchy nerf gun trigger finger.

B. I name all my very favorite weapons Vera as well!

C. I hope you at least *tried* to trade it for Christina Hendricks before you settle on trading it for the honor of being Captain class dev.

D. My days of not taking you seriously as a dev are certainly comin' to a middle.

[RockX]

A. I'm very glad you gave up Vera. Last thing we need is an itchy nerf gun trigger finger.

B. I name all my very favorite weapons Vera as well!

C. I hope you at least *tried* to trade it for Christina Hendricks before you settle on trading it for the honor of being Captain class dev.

D. My days of not taking you seriously as a dev are certainly comin' to a middle.

Oh, Vera didn't get traded off by any means. I meant Vera got pointed at specific Dev.

[DuneBug]

Based on your comments I can only assume you're giving captains some type of firearm as a weapon.
Even if it only fires "nerf" darts it will probably still increase our dps.

I think this is a reasonable change.
In honor of this change I will rename my herald to Jayne.

[RockX]

Based on your comments I can only assume you're giving captains some type of firearm as a weapon.
Even if it only fires "nerf" darts it will probably still increase our dps.

I think this is a reasonable change.
In honor of this change I will rename my herald to Jayne.

It'll only increase your DPS when pointed at a Hunter.
/zing

[Arabani]

Not sure if somebody asked for it, but imo a reactive heal(a heal which triggers on reciving damage) would be nice to see in a captain's arsenal Especially if you can put it on yourself. For example, in eq2 it's 5 triggers spell with 30 sec duration and 3 sec recast, wich you can put on as many members as you like; in swtor-it's 9 triggers no cd, 3 min duration spell, but can have only one up in time.

[Almagnus1]

It'll only increase your DPS when pointed at a Hunter.
/zing

Can we give it to our herald so they can keep it pointed at the hunter at all times?

[Sabrian]

Hello, first i need to say that im a dps captain. I trait ltc in raids,3,6 mans.

A lot of the captains say our dps is not worth saying which is not entirely truth. Ofc we wont be main dps in raids but this is not our goal. Will give some numbers and screenshot to prove my point.



LTC - Laugshat > Laugshat (46.5s); Alexbeast - Dmg: 106.5K; DPS: 2,289.4;
LTC - Vdok (2m 18.3s); Alexbeast - Dmg: 273.4K; DPS: 2,120.3
LTC - Alexbeast scored a devastating hit with Shadow's Lament on the Tormented Horror for 7,314 Beleriand damage to Morale

I reach 5k heals with RC in HoH and 1,500 with VS but HoH is not an issue.

What i said so far is that we are in good spot and only a few tweaks are needed so we dont be the next OP class.

Here are my desires for change:

LTC

1. Shorter animation of the skills. Different animation for them also they are too boring
2. Shorter CD on few of the skills. Increased based dmg on SL and DB
3. Heralds similar to LM pets on "flanking" applying buffs/debuffs depending on trait line
4. Heralds skills for heal and dps replaced with buffing/debuffing ones

HOH

1. WoC in capstone becomes aoe heal

LoM

1. BS in capstone becomes force aoe aggro skill

Idome - gets +28 to all stats - 113 to all and 54 fate

There are alot of good ideas in this thread but this is what i want to see for my captain.

[DickerHund]

Hello, first i need to say that im a dps captain. I trait ltc in raids,3,6 mans.

A lot of the captains say our dps is not worth saying which is not entirely truth. Ofc we wont be main dps in raids but this is not our goal. Will give some numbers and screenshot to prove my point.

I don't think that giving a lvl 30 Captain a 1st age is a viable solution.