Captain Essences Advice Please

[maradakia]

Hi. So I like to switch around often and use my captain as main tank, main healer, or as DPS. I set up each trait tree, and I swap between them regularly depending on what the group needs.

I looked around a bit but had difficulty finding knowledgeable guidance on which essences are most effective for captains in each of those roles.

I can't imagine trying to put together 3 distinct sets of essence armour for each role, even if that would be ideal. It just seems like too much to me. So I was hoping maybe I could have one set of armour that works well for both DPS line, and for heals, and maybe swap out a piece or two for when tanking.

I was wondering if in general I want Might in every slot on all pieces? Is Might going to be better than Physical Mastery? Is there a point at which I have so much Might that it stops being as helpful and beyond that point I'd do better to get Physical Mastery for DPS, or Tactical Mastery for when Healing? Like maybe one piece of armour with 4 Phys Mastery, and one piece to swap it out for with 4 Tact Mastery?

For Tanking what is best? Morale or Vitality, or Blocking, or Crit Defence, or Incoming Healing, or Physical Mastery, or Physical Mitigation, or Tactical Mitigation, or some mixture of the above? And if a mix, then what would you suggest as how much of which ones?

As I said, I don't really want to make too many different pieces I need to swap out - it just feels like too much grind, and too expensive for me, so I'd be willing to trade off some amount of ideal and perfect build for a simpler build with fewer pieces of gear that need swapping out depending on build.

Guidance of those who have in-depth knowledge on the math with this question would be much appreciated.

Short version: What essences would be ideal for a set of gear that works well for either DPS or main Healing, and which for main Tanking, with the least number of pieces of gear that need exchanging depending on build?

Thanks

[Lanelthan]

Using Might Essences will benefit you more if you'd like to heal as well as DPS. Might will give you Physical Master and Tactical Mastery. You should be fine building 1 set of armor for healing/DPSing. You would prolly want a new set for Tanking though. You may be able to get away with making a couple of swap pieces focusing on Block/Parry/Evade, Crit D, and Morale.

[PatMcG]

Just to give you something to work from, this is the setup I use....

Head 4 x Might
Shoulders 4 x Morale
Chest 2 x Crit Rating 2 x Finesse
Gloves(dps) 2 x Might 1 x Crit rating 1 x Morale
Gloves(tank) 2 x Parry 2 x Tac Mit (* these are also useful to swap in for a more defensive dps build)
Legs(dps) 2 x Might 2 x Crit Rating
Legs(tank) 2 x Evade 2 x Morale
Feet(dps) 3 x Might 1 x Crit Rating
Feet(tank) 2 x Block 2 x Incoming Healing


I do think that the armor is only half the equation, I feel that LI's tailored to each role are at least as important, your mileage may vary tho'.

[burningflame]

I was wondering if in general I want Might in every slot on all pieces? Is Might going to be better than Physical Mastery? Is there a point at which I have so much Might that it stops being as helpful and beyond that point I'd do better to get Physical Mastery for DPS, or Tactical Mastery for when Healing? Like maybe one piece of armour with 4 Phys Mastery, and one piece to swap it out for with 4 Tact Mastery?

Might gives you both physical (your DPS is based off of) and tactical mastery (your healing is based off of) so staying with might is the smart choice. For Relics I use True Setting of the Three hunters (level 80) because it gives both, True Gem of the Rising Moon (level 80) again gives both and True Rune of the White Mountains (level 80) because once again it gives both and it has attack duration. The Westemnet Rune of Power also gives both if you don't want attack duration.

For Tanking what is best? Morale or Vitality, or Blocking, or Crit Defence, or Incoming Healing, or Physical Mastery, or Physical Mitigation, or Tactical Mitigation, or some mixture of the above? And if a mix, then what would you suggest as how much of which ones?

If you are looking for T2 runs then you want to cap both mits, have 50% or more Crit Def and have a good amount of Inc Healing no matter what line you run in. You can make a piece to switch for tanking that has parry, block and more Crit Defense or Inc Healing and has Might for running DPS/Healing line. Should really only take one piece I would think. I just run in my T2 gear all the time. I could have more dps but...everything dies well enough.

Clara

[mjmallon]

For Relics I use True Setting of the Three hunters (level 80) because it gives both, True Gem of the Rising Moon (level 80) again gives both and True Rune of the White Mountains (level 80) because once again it gives both and it has attack duration. The Westemnet Rune of Power also gives both if you don't want attack duration.

Your post was almost all good points, but I disagree on setting and gem choice personally.

In general you get much more stat value from relics with crit rating, when you compare them to that of level 100 essences, and getting your crit rating from your relics means you can pick up more overall mastery by freeing up essence slots for either Might or raw mastery.


For discussion sake, assume all other essence slots, and relics are the same, but compare the following two options:

4 x greater essence of might
2 x true rune of the long winter
2 x true gem of the wizards vale

4352 Physical Mastery (1088 from each might essence)
4352 Tactical Mastery (1088 from each might essence)
15% Devastate Magnitude (7.5% from each setting)
120 Fate (30 from each setting and each gem)
5148 Critical Rating (1212 from each setting and gem, plus 300 from fate; 120*2.5)
205 ICPR (from the 120 fate * 1.71)


4 x greater essence of critical rating
2 x true rune of the three hunters
2 x true gem of the rising moon

2584 Physical Mastery (646 from each setting and gem)
2584 Tactical Mastery (646 from each setting and gem)
15% Devastate Magnitude (7.5% from each setting)
70 Vitality (35 from each gem)
70 Fate (35 from each gem)
5091 Critical Rating (1229 from each essence plus 175 from fate; 70*2.5)
413 ICPR (147 from each setting plus 120 from fate; 70*1.71)
210 morale (from vit, 70*3)

Both setups use 4 essence slots, and 4 relic slots, but you can see that using the top setup, you gain almost 2000 of each mastery, while keeping your crit rating/chance basically the same, and lose only 200 morale and 200 ICPR.

So it should be pretty easy to see that even for a class like Captain that uses/needs both physical and tactical mastery at the same time, it's almost always better to take crit rating on your relics and get your mastery from essences.

[maradakia]

Thanks much for all the feedback so far. I hope this will help others with my same questions as well.

I figured that mostly Might was the way to go. I still have some of my initial questions remaining though:

1. For my DPS/Healer build, is there a point at which diminishing returns makes it so that any more Might essences would be wasteful and I'd be better off switching to direct mastery essences or something else? If there is, at what specific amount of Might should I stop adding more Might essences?

a) Do I go with 6 armour pieces with 4 Might essences in each piece?
b) If it would be better to only have 5 pieces with all Might, what exactly would you put on the 1 piece in the last 4 slots?
c) If it would be better to only have 4 pieces with all Might, what exactly would you put on the 2 pieces in the last 8 slots?

2. I like swapping to main tank, but for now my aim would be to only have 1, or max 2 pieces of gear that I would swap out from my normal build, when swapping into tank build. For those 4 or 8 essence slots, what would you say are the ideal essences to have for tanking purposes?

Thanks again for the guidance.

P.S. My LIs are already 100 First Age, and fully set up with relics and such, so I wasn't really asking about that.

[burningflame]

Your post was almost all good points, but I disagree on setting and gem choice personally.

In general you get much more stat value from relics with crit rating, when you compare them to that of level 100 essences, and getting your crit rating from your relics means you can pick up more overall mastery by freeing up essence slots for either Might or raw mastery.

I don't disagree with your numbers, I am just not into crit. I wouldn't use 4 crit essences. I have the 95 Fangorn Cloak which has over 1k crit and BB jewellery with crit....right now I am standing at 20%. I prefer to focus on mastery rather than crit.

The RNG hates me anyway. I once had a crit scroll (the guaranteed crit) I set up to make 7 essences. I knew I would get the 1st with the scroll and even knowing it increases crit for a a short time I knew my luck so I made 6 journals. In the end even with journals, scholar crafting crit scrolls and the increased crit from the guaranteed crit (on a max level alts with the best tools) I only crit the first one and the last one, 2 out of 7. Typical for me. Thus I prefer to have a high base mastery rather than count on criting anything.

That said I also get a lot of openings from the BB jewellery set bonus so I don't feel the need to sacrifice mastery for crit.

Claira

[SapienChavez]

Just to give you something to work from, this is the setup I use....

Head 4 x Might
Shoulders 4 x Morale
Chest 2 x Crit Rating 2 x Finesse
Gloves(dps) 2 x Might 1 x Crit rating 1 x Morale
Gloves(tank) 2 x Parry 2 x Tac Mit (* these are also useful to swap in for a more defensive dps build)
Legs(dps) 2 x Might 2 x Crit Rating
Legs(tank) 2 x Evade 2 x Morale
Feet(dps) 3 x Might 1 x Crit Rating
Feet(tank) 2 x Block 2 x Incoming Healing


I do think that the armor is only half the equation, I feel that LI's tailored to each role are at least as important, your mileage may vary tho'.

i agree with this, basically. some may change depending on your LI and trait setup, like maybe one less crit or block essence needed.

that said, i would go more evade than block, as evade (for me) is the hardest rating to hit the soft cap. i had little trouble getting block and parry to ~25% but i struggle to get my evade to ~15%, without getting too specific on my setup.

[Almagnus1]

I've been away for months, and just getting back, so how much morale is considered "adequate" these days?

I ask as the morale essence (to me at least) doesn't seem as critical as running a critD, mitigation, or evade essence. I also know that there have been many captains over the years that love having a lot of morale when it really isn't needed.

i agree with this, basically. some may change depending on your LI and trait setup, like maybe one less crit or block essence needed.

that said, i would go more evade than block, as evade (for me) is the hardest rating to hit the soft cap. i had little trouble getting block and parry to ~25% but i struggle to get my evade to ~15%, without getting too specific on my setup.

Isn't evade also the only avoidance that works for tactical damage?

[skoelrond]

might also increases the damage for shadows lament. if you stack pm for your dps set, your SL crits will be low.

[maradakia]

/cries. Just clicked submit reply on my post and lost the whole thing. and this after getting dumped tonight.

It seems like Might is the overall best in most slots for DPS and Healing.

- Is any Morale necessary in a DPS/Heal build? I have always been a bit of a Morale junkie on my Captain, but it's probably a waste, right?
- The math mjmallon showed for using runes/gems for Crit, and sticking with Might essences seems to make sense.
- As for Finesse... would you actually put Finesse in a slot instead of Might and that would be better? If so how much Finesse are we aiming for, and why is that better than using those slots for Might?

Do we want all Might on Head, Shoulders, Chest, Gloves, and Legs.
On Feet: 2 x Crit, 2 x Finesse ?

or something else?

For Tanking, do I need to swap out 1 or 2 pieces (4 or 8 slots) ?

All Might except on Feet: 1 x Crit Def, 1 x Phys Mit, 1 x Tact Mit, 1 Incoming Heals

or do I want all Might except
Legs: 2 x Crit Def, 1 x Inc Heals, 1 x Evade
Feet: 2 x Phys Mit, 2 x Tact Mit

... or what?

The more specific, with examples of what you'd put in each slot, the more helpful I think I'll find it, and explanations of why would also help : )

Thanks.

[came11]

For dps/healing:



In this setup my unbuffed stats looks like that:



59% tactical mit, 60% physical, 49% crit defence. I feel like i could use one more finesse essence.

For tanking:




Im thinking about droping one morale for block rating but for that i need to do some more virtues grinding, now im using same setup for dps/tank build, which is valour, innocence, fidelity, discipline, honour, but for tanking i could swap innocence for zael and compensate the loss of one morale essence that way.

Physical mits essences are redundant if you are not moors player, you going to cap physical mits from armour/virtues alone. Also you dont need any crit defence essences for tanking purposes if you are planning to invest in shrug blows trait, the one that gives extra 7% crit defence, im sitting at 64% with one essence (im using same chest for both builds) and i did not put single point in that trait - tanking jewellery, relics and LI titles are imo the way to go. I would not bother with incoming healing essences either, im doing just fine with 13% from relics only.

[furtim]

Isn't evade also the only avoidance that works for tactical damage?

Nah, none of them do. Tactical attacks can only be avoided through Resistance.

The special thing with Evade is that you don't have to be facing your attacker like you do with Block and Parry.

[Maelon]

I traded the essence grind for the PVP grind to certain extent.

In PVE for DPS and healing setups, I use 4 pieces of the Moors Command set for a +10% raid wide DPS boost on the TA's target. I then made one universal essence leggings (tact mit x2, crit defence, morale) for all trait builds, and three swappable essence boots for DPS/healing (all supreme might), PVP (phys mit x 3 and crit def), and tanking (morale x 3 and inc heal). That's 4 essence armor so far. I then made 4 tanking essence armor pieces to replace the Moors Command set while PVE tanking.

I realize I'm nerfing my healing (and a slight nerf to personal DPS) by using the Command set, but I'm primarily concerned with optimizing my fellowship/raid, not my personal stats.