Developer's Diary – Captain Updates by OnnMacMahal

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Originally Posted by thymos

Why not? Halberds and Swords aren't equal even if both give 5% dmg because Swords give 2% parry and Halberds give a worthless auto attack crit stat instead. There's no need to buff Halberds or upset people's LI if you can just change the cosmetic system to be less arbitrarily restrictive. And it's probably such an easy change too, likely involves changing a single 0 to a 1 somewhere.

And as for attack speeds, so much of it seems like pure superstition, can't say I've noticed a significant difference. Now changing attack speeds to align with racial animations...that would be a freaking ordeal. Unless they just changed every skill to be 'Fast' or something, but that's homogenizing and problematic in its own way.

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I use a halberd and can't say ive ever noticed the lack of 2% parry, cant say ive noticed the addition of 2% auto crit either. As a tank I agree that the sword is better, as a non-tank I dont thin k the addition of 2% parry is really as useful as it seems on paper.

A long time ago, I tried using the halberd with my captain. The one I obtained was Torchathol from Rift. I didn't care about animation speed or what weapon statistically was better. What I wanted to know was if it looked better. Honestly, it didn't. There was just something about how your character swings around that long pole that didn't sit well with me. Years later I got the Gundabad delver and for some reason suddenly wanted to use it badly. Not sure why it looked so awesome to me when there were clearly other designs just as good or better. The problem is you can't exactly switch over when you invest so much in a legendary item. When the level cap goes up, I could technically use a tracery reclamation scroll and pull the traceries over to a halberd design. I'll make my decision when the time comes.

I prefer swords and spears to other types of weapons, they just look better in my opinion. I do not care about thier bonues at all.

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Originally Posted by Atonu

1. Can you change Blade of Elendil to just apply a DoT on the skill rather than the Light of Elendil thing, I'm not sure anyone will miss the 70 damage (at least on my level 100 captain). You could buff the Light as well but I don't think its really worth it, very few people outside of captain and minstrel have access to any sort of light damage enhancement anyway and so even buffed I'm not sure it would really boost the party in any noticeable way.

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It's certainly possible. The effect is flavorful, though it does add a lot of additional effects for very little gain (even dealing appropriate damage for your level, which is necessary regardless).

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Originally Posted by Atonu

2. Can the archer be looked at? Its kinda weird that he doesn't really do much more damage than the herald of war, given that he is the dedicated dps pet. I don't think he should contribute a super amount of damage since ultimately captain is a class with a pet, and not a pet class, but at least a medium amount to make it worth using over a herald would be nice even if you're just running around doing deeds in landscape.

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No need to qualify it. The archer definitely needs to deal more damage relative to the heralds.

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Originally Posted by Arabani

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Inspiriting Presence
The current effect from this trait would be replaced by a new effect:
Critical hits with melee skills will give you one stack of ‘Inspiriting.’ Each stack will give you 2% Outgoing Healing, up to 5 stacks. At 5 stacks, you gain ‘Gift of Spirit’ a skill which consumes all stacks to significantly heal a targeted ally.

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Speaking of this ability. What is the purpose of it? What's your goal? Because in the current state it has no use, really. Let's look at the similar skill of a minstrel-Snowball: an instant semi-emergency heal that ativates on the 6th cast of ANY heal, even an instant, no cd, spamable Soliloquy or Healing ballad. So, basically while doing his main job, actively healing, Minstrel gains an access to another realtively big heal at least every 10-15 seconds, faster if healing is more intensive, which no doubt helps him to keep people alive.

What do we have? An unreliable RNG based heal. What should we do when it is finaly available (how many times per minute do you suppose it to happen?). Sit on our hands waiting for the moment of truth, when it is needed? Or use it just for the sake of using and wait for another proc? In my book the skill is pretty much worhless.

I'm not sure of what your experience with healers is, but you can not make a healer work based on total rng (which includes relying mostly on melee skills, btw. Melee heals ARE rng based to some degree, one can no guarantee them to work when he wants) . It is fine as an addition, a chance to proc something, the buff part of your spell is fine, but not the heal component itself. As someone has said already-you are trying to substitute one rng ability with another, equally unreliable and meaningless to some degree.

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I have already revised this effect, actually. Requiring 5 crits was too much. To answer your question of purpose, this is meant to give you a periodic, strong, instant, targeted heal. We want to reinforce the notion of the captain as the melee healer, but as several of you have pointed out, that doesn't mean every heal in your kit must require you to be in melee range of an enemy. This skill in particular is a compromise of sorts: it requires you to be engaged in melee combat, and requires you to use your offensive melee skills. However, the skill itself 'Gift of Spirit' is a targeted, ranged heal, which you can use on yourself or an ally. Rather than require 5 crits, it now requires 5 melee skill attacks. Each hit will tier up 'Inspiriting' and that effect will stick around until you either use 'Gift of Spirit' or leave combat.

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Originally Posted by Arabani

To clarify it, I'm not against the concept of Melee healer, I love it, and I always play this way if I could (even as a minstrel I try using Herald strike as much as possible), but the reality of healing is that it should be reliable in its core kit, in its core function. A healer needs to counter the incoming damage (through wards, hots, reactives, damage reduction, damage redirect, direct heals and so on), but he can not say " oh, guys, wait, let me catch the boss that the tank is kiting so I could hit it and actually heal you while those archers and mages in different sides of the room are trying to kill you, while waves of orc reavers are doing the same, but they die too fast so I barely have time to use any of my melee heals on them. Oh and do not forget that I actualy need to maintain hots on you, on the tank, myself and cure detriments as well." I am exaggerating of course, but once again, there should be stability in healing.

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One of the things I have not changed (but have considered) is Words of Courage. For those unaware, Words of Courage is a targeted heal which applies a moderate HoT to a single target, and has a very short cooldown. That means an active captain can apply it to several allies simultaneously, but it's very laborious to do so. I don't want to take away a healer's ability to keep extra HoTs on their allies, but by the same token, a slightly longer cooldown (which might call for a larger initial heal) would prevent you from using it so frequently, thus relieving some of that pressure.

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Originally Posted by Aeviternus

I don't know what you've been doing with the numbers, perhaps you've rebalanced it all. However, on the live servers, Muster Courage is the single largest heal that a captain has available. It heals for more than Rallying Cry, even (on a single target). So I would much prefer to have the ability to use this heal on other people. Having to swap between enemy targets and friendly targets is what makes the blue captain playstyle unique, and enjoyable. This should not be a counter argument.

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The potency of this heal has been reduced slightly. And while it's still self-only for now, I'm hoping Gift of Spirit is able to comfortably fill the niche you're describing. We may still end up making it targeted, but I'll be gathering as much feedback as possible on this and other new healing mechanics when Bullroarer opens.

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Originally Posted by Allantor

A few questions: could the Defensive Strike cooldown be reduced to 10 seconds? It would be more readily included into a skill rotation and keep being in Battle-Readied state easier.

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This is definitely a consideration. It may take the form of a trait or a tracery, but a cooldown reduction of the magnitude you suggest is certainly on the table.

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Originally Posted by Allantor

Inspiriting Presence - As other commenters have outlined; critical hits are hard to come by so to need 5 in order to gain a significant but single target heal is a tall order and it'll just become an unreliable heal that hardly ever gets used. Instead, could it be linked to Gallant Display so each time it's used, the cappy gets a 1% Outgoing Healing 'Inspiriting' buff and after 5 uses, gains the Gift of Spirit skill? It would also make the increased Power cost of Gallant Display worth it

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I just addressed this in another response, but it bears repeating: I agree, and have changed the requirement to tier up Inspiriting. The effect now tiers up when you land a successful hit with any melee skill. It still requires you to be in melee for a time to tier it up, but any melee skill (assuming the attack actually lands) is guaranteed to tier up Inspiriting.

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Originally Posted by Allantor

Stand Alone - I like the concept - it sounds similar to the Dissonance Stance for Minstrels. Could you give more details about the skills please? I hope Self-motivation gives the same heal as Inspire but only to the cappy, especially as a solo Red-line cappy would rely on it for an in-battle heal and wait to use the more potent Rallying Cry heal. I presume Masterful Strike will have a 1 Min cooldown and Cry of Fury will have a 5 min cooldown, would that be right?.

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All of the Inspire effects will be a little different after the update, but in general yes, you've got the picture. Each 'Stand Alone' skill will share a cooldown with the skill it was originally. Masterful Strike will give you a bonus just like To Arms, but at double the potency. Self-Determination will give you a Damage and Mitigation bonus with much more value than the regular Blade-brother Inspire would. Cry of Fury will lock you out of reviving an ally for several minutes, but if you were on your own in the first place, that's no great loss. Courageous Heart is the only skill with a different cooldown than its original skill, but its cooldown will prevent you from using WoC, just like the other skill variants with their original skills.

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Originally Posted by Elmagor

If game mechanic don't allow you use cosmetic halberd over 2 handed sword, what they can do about that? And if they somehow make that happen, many players want to see same thing for other weapons too

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Unfortunately, halberds have entirely different animations. The reason some of those cosmetic weapons can be swapped over weapons of a different type is because they use the same animations. Weapons like clubs and swords cause your player to move the same way (allowing you to replace one with the other in an outfit) but axes and swords, for example, use different animations.

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Originally Posted by Arabani

A question about Shiled of the Dunedain, will it be possible to use the skill on ourselves? If not-why? Someitimes the healer is the one who needs saving. The initial class kit was well thought, it worked fine in the level 50-70 content, when its usefulness began to diminish and totaly disappeared after Helm's Deep.

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No, Shield of the Dunedain is still an ally-only targeted skill. The identity of the skill is that you're able to use it to save an ally, and the reason it's shifting over to blue-line is that healing captains should be able to use it to save their tank. If you, the healer, need saving, you'll just have to rely on other defensive and healing abilities (Time of Need+RC, Gallant Display, MC, Gift of Spirit, etc).

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Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal

It's certainly possible. The effect is flavorful, though it does add a lot of additional effects for very little gain (even dealing appropriate damage for your level, which is necessary regardless).

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One thing I've always thought would be interesting for BoE is to apply stacks of a 'corruption' on the target (hear me out here). Let's call it 'evil revealed'.

BoE's signature is that it's meant to provide a large amount of teammates with the ability to do a small amount of light damage, sort of like a mini 'flash of light' from brawler. Issue being, it's quite an insubstantial amount of damage in both solo and barely much in a group and is RNG heavy if it procs or not.

On removal the debuff would apply light damage to the target and possibly even heal (or maybe a power heal? ;) ) allies/whomever removed it. Having it apply as a debuff that could be purged would:

1) Give more meaning to your own purge corruption skills (corruption mechanics are often an all-or-nothing, being present as a heavy mechanic or absent altogether. This could give them a more consistent (and completely optional) presence throughout lotro.

2) It's nice flavour, using light to reveal an enemies weakness and allowing teammates or yourself to strike.

3) It removes the RNG component, allows BoE procs to have higher base damage, and also incentivizes other classes to use their purge corruption skills when they normally wouldn't. I know corruption removal is being shifted more towards being a resource (e.g less uptime, higher CD/uses class resource) and this would fit in with that motion nicely.

Just my two cents for an option for its direction. (I understand there could be flaws concerning opponents who already have corruptions on them and you'd essentially be delaying the removal of more important corruptions, in which case maybe the removal of the debuff causes removal of another corruption? Or perhaps it just has a lower corruption 'priority', so it's always removed last? There'd need to be some workaround for this.)

Watched the Q&A yesterday, thanks for the thoughtful answers.

Not sure if anyone has clarified, but what makes the Grave Wound taunt unreliable is that it fails to taunt when the skill gets BPE'd. I don't think you'll have any complaints about losing the Blade taunt if GW is fixed to work like the other force taunts.

One thing that bothered me since 3-4 years. When I use Shadows Lament, the damage numbers are shoning instantly but the animation is 2 seconds long. This has been changed I think in 2018ish when Scenario gace the captain class some love. It was way more fun when the final hit was in line with the damage number of the skill. Now it feels a little bit off. Is it possible that you can change that?

Thanks for your good work!

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Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal

If you, the healer, need saving, you'll just have to rely on other defensive and healing abilities (Time of Need+RC, Gallant Display, MC, Gift of Spirit, etc).

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Captain is a 100% melee class, he takes significantly more damage then other healers while having no additional tools to survive. Will have even less after Withdrawal change. Please consider adding Last Stand to the spec, it is really needed.

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Originally Posted by Fantomex

Not sure if anyone has clarified, but what makes the Grave Wound taunt unreliable is that it fails to taunt when the skill gets BPE'd. I don't think you'll have any complaints about losing the Blade taunt if GW is fixed to work like the other force taunts.

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Can't stress this enough. Grave Wound taunt failing always was a big annoyance when playing yellow cappy. This was a bit remedied by the "inofficial" Blade of Elendil taunt. Since that one gets remove, please fix the yellow passive "Demand Attention" so the GW taunt always applies, not only when GW connects. The Guardian skill "Engage" is a good example for a Melee force taunt that always works.

Loving the ideas im seeing in your second post. Will make soloing so much more enjoyable, i wont feel like im "wasting" half my abilities by not playing in a group. I always feel pressured to Valar when playing.

-Id like to see Noble Mark's range be the same as all the other marks. It is really annoying for it to untoggle as im trying to pull mobs, and it can help a solo player gather landscape enemies. I think it could use a dps boost, I really like the tracery that increases it but it still does next to no damage on my level 130.

-It would be great to see different types of heralds, like skirmish soldiers. Add one with a two handed weapon, who can do an aoe attack, or one with a two handed spear that can do a small debuff of somekind. Furthermore, they all should give small passive buffs, even the archer. Then you could make the standard bearer one have more impactful buffs, which they definitely need. It would help solo play, and raids where you need the archer to hang back but you dont sacrifice all of the utility by switching. Cosmetic heralds for other factions like rohirim, gondorians, etc would be appreciated for roleplay.

-I need an incentive to use 2 handed hammers, axes, and clubs. I love them aesthetically, but 5% less damage and no parry chance makes them not options compared to the sword. I also think they have the coolest moveset animations, so its a shame I'm losing out on stats to use them.

-I LOVE 1 handed spear and shield as an aesthetic, HOWEVER, the captain animations use the same one handed animations as all the rest, making my character look ridiculous, to the point where I dont use them (swinging it around holding it midshaft, making swipe style attacks, etc) Sure strike should look like guardians ward a poke from behind your shield. Wardens have alternate animations dedicated to the spear vs all other 1handers, I think captains and guardians should get them too.

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Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal

While we're not planning to rework Revealing Mark right now, it will be getting its potency halved for Red/Yellow captains, so it doesn't have so much value relative to the other mark skills. We don't want to encourage morale stacking, but we'll have to disincentivize morale stacking in a more systemic way than changing just this skill.

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Noble mark is going to need a buff to its range and/or damage if tank captains cant effectively use revealing mark.

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Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal

Again, I do agree with you here. That said, a lot of game numbers are sort of meaningless when you evaluate the system in abstract. If everyone has 10% less health, that doesn't really solve any issues facing either players or designers, so for the time being we don't plan on upending that precedent. The fact that all 10% of that value are locked up in captains, and only captains, has the potential to be an issue, however. And while that issue would be solved by removing Motivate, it could also be solved by allowing one or more other classes to provide a (mutually exclusive) motivate-ish buff.

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I havent played since Yellow Minstrel was deleted, but they had a passive aura team buff that increased a bunch of stats. I think if any class were to get a similar movtivate-ish buff it should be minstrels lore-wise anyway. I do think havign another class with a similar 10% buff would help the "captain is a must have for any 6-12 man instance" kind of mentality. I wouldnt want it removed from captain, its nice to have those buffs for yourself and your herald when not in a group. It needs to last longer though

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Originally Posted by OnnMacMahal

No, Shield of the Dunedain is still an ally-only targeted skill. The identity of the skill is that you're able to use it to save an ally, and the reason it's shifting over to blue-line is that healing captains should be able to use it to save their tank. If you, the healer, need saving, you'll just have to rely on other defensive and healing abilities (Time of Need+RC, Gallant Display, MC, Gift of Spirit, etc).

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OMM, please think very carefully about pulling this skill from yellow to blue, especially since it is a cap stone skill. Tanking capt's use this skill constantly in group content, especially within the high end raiding community. While it was a bit for people to adjust when the ability to caste it on yourself was removed, it still used it most boss fights and hard pulls. Here are some examples:
1) Hard trash pull - If you have a hard trash pull with more than 3 mobs that do a decent amount of initial damage, it can be hard for a yellow capt to run in, grab threat, and keep it on all of the mobs because our AOE taunt is a threat copy. The solution is to put SoD on a champ, send them in to aggro the mobs, hit raging blades which generates a lot of threat, and then have the yellow capt run in and AOE taunt since there is threat to copy.
2) Boss fight - This typically happens in raids where you run two tanks. Either you have two yellow capts swapping it back and forth to help mitigate spike damage from specific boss skills or if you miss removing a corruption that greatly increases the damage of a specific skill. Or the yellow cappy puts it on the guard because they need to take a big hit from the boss or the guard has to run off to collect adds and you don't want to send a healer off with them. So you give the guard SoD, which gives them enough time to collect the adds and get back to the main group with the healers without dying. This can also work if you send a champ to collect adds.

I definitely like the direction you are taking with your changes and it will be interesting to see if a blue capt would be worth taking as the off-healer in a raid. But please think long and hard before you pull SoD out of yellow, it will really change how groups approach higher tier content and the associated increase in spike damage.

Thanks,

I know some people hate Heralds, but I will stubbornly use them until the game shuts down, just like Halberds. Please don't get rid of Heralds. Offer an option to not use them in exchange for other buffs, sure, but don't axe it completely for all trait trees.

Thank you for your work on the captain. Will have to wait to actually play the changes to see but it looks promising. I have but one thing really to add as an avid player of this class since launch and as my main character:

Please, pretty please slightly increase the duration of battle states. I find it very annoying when tanking in particular to keep battle hardened up. It feels very limiting, and takes away from really playing the class in my opinion. Give me a few extra seconds to do something else and engage more thoughtfully with the content, my group, and the full repertoire of the captains skills.

It sounds like you are making trying to keep both states active more advantageous, and that’s great, except instead of adding a level of thoughtful play to the class and giving you options maintaining battle states just locks you into a very rigid rotation more often than not.

Thank you Onn again, and looking forward to playing after this goes live.

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Originally Posted by auximenes

I know some people hate Heralds, but I will stubbornly use them until the game shuts down, just like Halberds. Please don't get rid of Heralds. Offer an option to not use them in exchange for other buffs, sure, but don't axe it completely for all trait trees.

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Why would they get rid of them? :O

Any idea when these changes will happen on the live servers?

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Originally Posted by Dinara

Any idea when these changes will happen on the live servers?

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This month, it will be tested on Bullroarer, in march update (u35) it will be released on live servers

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Originally Posted by Elmagor

This month, it will be tested on Bullroarer, in march update (u35) it will be released on live servers

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OK, Thank You!
I was hoping it would be sooner than that.

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Originally Posted by Atonu

Why would they get rid of them? :O

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I have seen many people say they don't like Heralds.

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Originally Posted by auximenes

I know some people hate Heralds, but I will stubbornly use them until the game shuts down, just like Halberds. Please don't get rid of Heralds. Offer an option to not use them in exchange for other buffs, sure, but don't axe it completely for all trait trees.

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Sure hope they wouldnt remove them, they are one of the reasons I love the class. I like "pets" but dont neccesarily enjoy being a squishy wizard. I think the old standard system would be nice to bring back but heralds in general need some love for those of us who like them. They are part of the class identity