Red traits in PvE raids

[Retarius]

Sooo noticed a lot of captains trait Red trait line for PvE raids. I find it completely unprofitable and I can't find any benefits that's why I decided to create this thread. Can anyone tell me what are benefits of red traits in raids? I will be thankful for all parses and math. Just quick look of my point of view:

LtC:
Defects:
-high power usage
-negligible benefits for group
-must sacrifice legendary trait slot and 5 class traits (which in red line are completely useless raid-wise)
And here dear fellow captains I need Your help:
Benefits:
-???

Are there any? Do they exist? I thought about it for ages yet, I didn't find any. I hope everything is clear but if it's not,ask,I will try to explain it better. (I had benefits of my trait setup but DOH,forums somehow resetted them,if someone will be interested I will re-write them again.

[Catisa]

1. higher DPS (always good no matter what your doing)
2. if you have a high crit and might build you can heal pretty close to a HoH cappy while still DPSing (remember you get defeat responses everytime you crit with PA or DB, which you will do a whole lot more with redline)
3. A lot of cappies are running with no capstone at all but prefer Idome + OB + FB, but if you do use the red capstone you can unlock an extra PA/DB with SL crit, which gives another chance for a defeat response

I personally have less power issues in redline with OT armour then when I am HoH. I rarely if ever LoM because if I wanna tank I grab a different toon.

[Almagnus1]

Self Blade Bro from the capstone helps tremendously with power issues.

Edit:
You also need to look at the red line as a line that's really good at producing defeat responses.

Renewed Voice gives you more chances through more BS => DB/PA => BoE skill chains per minute
Expert Attacks improves the crit on DB/PA, which helps produce defeat response.

The 4 Trait bonus also helps with Defeat Response production by giving +5% melee crit chance.

Master of War helps produce defeat response by granting the SL => DB/PA => BoE skill chain.

The DPS increase from Battle-master and Adherent of Elendil are icing on the cake, especially with the healing you can get from just 2 Blue traits.

Turn of the Tide is mostly filler in a raid context, because there's not much else good in the Red line, thus the 4 red/3 blue builds

[Aztec_Soul]

I haven't ran raids recently, so I can't comment on that. However, I have run a number of 6-man instances, and find a 4r/3b build does the trick for me. At one point we ran T1 foundry, and I was able to dual heal that with a LM without issue with that build. I found the LtC legendary cap is only useful to me for the upgraded 'Shadow's Lament' skill, giving it +50% damage and opening up DB/PA attacks on a successful hit. Also, it grants full 'Blade-Brother' benefits on yourself, but I prefer to use 'Shield-Brother' anyway.

Even without that LtC perk, I am able to get a surplus of defeat responses thanks to a high crit rate for DB/PA, and the number of mobs that go down during the fight, anyway. Without the 5-red legendary cap, I instead slot SotD, which has become quite the useful bubble on our main-healers or tank if he/she gets in trouble, and I value this more. I tend to use 'Shield-Brother' rather than 'Blade-Brother', as means to fully support our tank, and I personally find this more beneficial for the fellowship as a whole.

The trait build I have been using recently:

Renewed Voice
Turn of the Tide
Expert Tactics
Battle-Master

Now For Wrath
Deeds Before Words
Relentless Optimism

Fellowship Brother
Shield of the Dunedain
In Defence of Middle-Earth

*I dropped my previous LoM build, and decided to pick-and-choose the better individual traits that could benefit a group for successful instance runs. I've grouped with LtC Captains, and they seem to do just fine, so trait setups do indeed depend on personal preference.

[Retarius]

1. higher DPS (always good no matter what your doing)
2. if you have a high crit and might build you can heal pretty close to a HoH cappy while still DPSing (remember you get defeat responses everytime you crit with PA or DB, which you will do a whole lot more with redline)
3. A lot of cappies are running with no capstone at all but prefer Idome + OB + FB, but if you do use the red capstone you can unlock an extra PA/DB with SL crit, which gives another chance for a defeat response

I personally have less power issues in redline with OT armour then when I am HoH. I rarely if ever LoM because if I wanna tank I grab a different toon.

1.Higher DPS argument always makes me lol (sorry but seriously...),you gain bit of your DPS,which probably is still insignificant. To be effective red traited captain you need ToO set which makes you loose advantage comming from Armour of Command (additional 10% damage for whole raid) so I can bet this 10% damage for your group "OUTDPS" Your red line DPS because of bonus to real DPS classes.
2.In raid i have around 20-21% crit chance so I can't really complain about my defeat responses, with battle tonics I have enough of them to use it +/- every cooldown.
3. Defeat responses are really not so important to waste cap stone imo.
As for power management, I find it easier to keep it with HoH but it might be because i have around 1,3k total power more in HoH build

@Almagnus1
I asked for red trait line benefits, solving power usage problem isn't one of them at all

[transpec]

Your list of defects has me scratching my head O_o I've never experienced power issues but then I have all extraordinary relics and run Blade Brother except on bosses which requires Shield. I have 2400+ Might buffed up and something like 34k Phys. Mastery, +5% damage from war banner, 5% damage from scroll/destiny and I can hit 5 targets with PA. That alone is pretty good at helping mow through trash. Between tonics, Shadows Lament, and PA I trigger defeat responses quite often which leads to more Rally/War Cries. I have two separate SA weapons I use regularly, one with damage specs all over it and the other with maxed melee healing etc and I swap the two religiously. I suppose you have a valid points if we're speaking of some suck Captain with only one weapon and junk legacies though. Also I wouldn't consider Red capstone a sacrifice, SL leads to more PA/DB which leads to more chances at defeat responses and more War/Rally cries.

You don't even need to do the math to figure out the ability to keep War-cry up, alongside Rally cry, which you can usually do easily from the increased defeat responses, is going to churn out more overall group damage in the 5 minutes it takes Oath breakers to cool down with its +35% damage for 10 seconds. LtC just flat out trashes HoH in DPS and defeat events and its negligibly behind HoH in healing.

[Retarius]

I haven't ran raids recently, so I can't comment on that. However, I have run a number of 6-man instances, and find a 4r/3b build does the trick for me. At one point we ran T1 foundry, and I was able to dual heal that with a LM without issue with that build. I found the LtC legendary cap is only useful to me for the upgraded 'Shadow's Lament' skill, giving it +50% damage and opening up DB/PA attacks on a successful hit. Also, it grants full 'Blade-Brother' benefits on yourself, but I prefer to use 'Shield-Brother' anyway.

Even without that LtC perk, I am able to get a surplus of defeat responses thanks to a high crit rate for DB/PA, and the number of mobs that go down during the fight, anyway. Without the 5-red legendary cap, I instead slot SotD, which has become quite the useful bubble on our main-healers or tank if he/she gets in trouble, and I value this more. I tend to use 'Shield-Brother' rather than 'Blade-Brother', as means to fully support our tank, and I personally find this more beneficial for the fellowship as a whole.

The trait build I have been using recently:

Renewed Voice
Turn of the Tide
Expert Tactics
Battle-Master

Now For Wrath
Deeds Before Words
Relentless Optimism

Fellowship Brother
Shield of the Dunedain
In Defence of Middle-Earth

*I dropped my previous LoM build, and decided to pick-and-choose the better individual traits that could benefit a group for successful instance runs. I've grouped with LtC Captains, and they seem to do just fine, so trait setups do indeed depend on personal preference.

In 6 mans I run:
Blues:
-Blood of Numenor
-Fear No Darkness
-Relentless Optimism
-Now For Wrath

Yellows:
-Tactical Prowess
-Defiance
-Composute

Legendary Traits:
- Fellowship-Brother
- In Defence Of Middle-Earth
- Oathbreaker's Shame

I tend to use everything to maximize group DPS and throw in some additional heals, using Blade-Brother so basically trash pulls die before mobs do any harm, and if they do I just throw RC and problem solved.

[Retarius]

Your list of defects has me scratching my head O_o I've never experienced power issues but then I have all extraordinary relics and run Blade Brother except on bosses which requires Shield. I have 2400+ Might buffed up and something like 34k Phys. Mastery, +5% damage from war banner, 5% damage from scroll/destiny and I can hit 5 targets with PA. That alone is pretty good at helping mow through trash. Between tonics, Shadows Lament, and PA I trigger defeat responses quite often which leads to more Rally/War Cries. I have two separate SA weapons I use regularly, one with damage specs all over it and the other with maxed melee healing etc and I swap the two religiously. I suppose you have a valid points if we're speaking of some suck Captain with only one weapon and junk legacies though. Also I wouldn't consider Red capstone a sacrifice, SL leads to more PA/DB which leads to more chances at defeat responses and more War/Rally cries.

You don't even need to do the math to figure out the ability to keep War-cry up, alongside Rally cry, which you can usually do easily from the increased defeat responses, is going to churn out more overall group damage in the 5 minutes it takes Oath breakers to cool down with its +35% damage for 10 seconds. LtC just flat out trashes HoH in DPS and defeat events and its negligibly behind HoH in healing.

To keep war-cry up all the time you don't have to trait red traits and additional RC isn't as big benefit as you say (at least for me) because it all depends on your healer. I never traited red unless it's for moors/PvE solo, and as I saw my power usage in moors, I had no problem believing people it's not much better in PvE.

[Almagnus1]

So you want to do this the hard way.... fine..

**throws gauntlets**

HoH build = downright stupid unless you're main healing. You have half the DPS of LtC, but with a a shallow investment of 2 HoH traits, Now for Wrath and Relentless Optimism (assuming at least 20% tactical crit chance), my healing will be comparable to a deeper traiting in HoH.
See http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ng-Comparisons for more info on that one.

With War Banner + LtC + Self Blade Bro, I do not doubt that a captain can break the 1.5k DPS mark, if not push higher.

LoM traits are completely pointless outside of tanking. The zero mark cooldown is one of the most overrated aspects of the class, and not worth the traits spent to get it. The three set bonus for LoM is useless in most stuff, unless you really need the threatening shout cooldown for off tanking - which most captains do not.

Defiance and Blood of Numenor are crutch traits that sacrifice the captain's contribution for the group for a (largely) unneeded safety net. Composure is meh, especially when you can produce enough of the defeat responses from a heavier red build, so you don't need to have the Composure swap emblem to achieve a similar amount of Rally Cries. Tactical Prowess is interesting, but not really worth it considering the set bonus compromises elsewhere.

Since the vast majority of captain skills are melee skills, you will want to have at least 3 red traits for the -melee skills power costs, which helps with power conservation in raiding. To help close the gap with a heavy red build for healing, you need to generate defeat responses by critting on DB and PA, so that means you will need Expert Attacks, Renewed Voice, and two more LtC traits so you can get +5% melee skills healing, putting melee critical chance at 25% (which is 1 out of every 4 hits, compared to 20% which is one out of every 5). Blade of Elendil and Battle-master will up your personal DPS, and hit they red mark.

At this point, you have a choice, either stick with the legendaries, and pick up either Fear No Darkness for better spot heals, or Deeds Before Words for better Inspire healing (which doesn't affect power btw), or sac a Legendary (IDoME is a good one, especially considering the DPS races in ToO), and Pick up MoW so you can generate even more Defeat responses, in addition to improving your DPS. That third blue trait will also give you -Vocal Skills power costs, which helps with power issues.

Throw in 3 Perserverance with a 2k+ might build and 25/20% crit, and you have a recipe for a lot of DPS, a lot of heals, and a lot of RCs.

As far as power issues, go, stack ICPR in your relics, pick up a 100 ICPR bracelet, and you should be fine, especially with a self Blade Bro.

[transpec]

additional RC isn't as big benefit as you say (at least for me) because it all depends on your healer.

What is the point of going HoH/rainbow then? I mean, if extra Morale isn't needed did you need HoH in the first place? Heck, sometimes I'll use Rally cry just for the Power Regen on the group, no ones ever complained about having more power. And no, you don't need to be Red traited to keep War-Cry up, the extra 2 chances a minute at a Defeat Response sure help though. You also don't need to be more than 2B traited to heal a awful lot either. Also which six man instances are you talking about? Roots and Foundry? It would have to be one spectacularly awful PUG to get me to trait anything but 5red/2B in there.

Also your build has:

+10% melee skill healing, +5 TA duration, a better raise and ToN, 10% kick fellowship chance, instant marks, +20% WoC healing, and +35% damage for a whole 10 seconds every 5 minutes.

Vs. a LTC captain:

+15% Melee skill crit multiplier, -5% melee skill costs, +5% melee crit chance, -5 sec battle shout cool down, +1600(?) DB or PA crit, +15% Blade of Elendial damage, +10% DB or PA damage, Full Blade brother benefits, +50% SL damage, SL causes battle-readied on hit and either +5% Routing cry damage/3 sec stun or an extra +15 Might/Agi for the whole group depending on how they trait.

They both have the +50% Crit healing, power regen, +10% Vocal healing and-10% healing skills cost so I didn't list it. I neglected to include any LI legacies as that is kind of a mute point seeing both builds have access to them all.

[Omen_Kaizer]

For me, it's just a desire to squeeze as much dps into the raid as possible. Key to my decision to trait red, should I deem it appropriate, is that if I have a decent opportunity to take some swings at the boss, the extra personal DPS I bring is greater than the fellowship DPS lost from not traiting IDOME and Tact Prowess. When traiting for a raid, I try to evaluate what's going to need max cappy heals, and what's not. #1 priority is the raid needs to stay alive, but beyond that... well you don't get medals for overheals. I value overkill above overheals.

EDIT: from a raid point of view
The healing benefits of a blue build over a red build are small (unless in add heavy situations) but noticeable.
The dps benefits of a red build over a blue or rainbow build are small but noticeable.

Lightning T2C: I'm on the fence here. When we first started downing this, I was 5b/2y no capstone. But since then, I've tried running 5r/2b and the fight went smoothly. I've got no strong preference for traits in that fight. For now, I'll continue to trait 5r/2b since it seems my healer + 5r/2b Argendauss exceed the minimum heals needed in there by a good bit.

Acid T2C: we zerg it. I have one parse saved, and in that fight I did 148.8k damage of 1.597M morale boss. So 9.3% of the damage on the boss was my personal DPS (a little less than half of the contribution of each of our heavy hitting DPS classes, for example). That damage was all needed cause we were right on the edge of failing challenge. I estimate I might've been able do ~70% of that were I not traited 5 deep red with capstone. 5r/2y, Command set.

F&F T2: Boss needs to go down fast, so I trait red. For the non challenge fight, we are generally successful, and when we are not, changing my traitset would hardly help. So I stay 5r/2b Command set.

Saruman T2: haven't run it yet. I will attempt 5r/2b but I anticipate switching to a blue heavy, non capstone build.

[Retarius]

So you want to do this the hard way.... fine..

**throws gauntlets**

HoH build = downright stupid unless you're main healing. You have half the DPS of LtC, but with a a shallow investment of 2 HoH traits, Now for Wrath and Relentless Optimism (assuming at least 20% tactical crit chance), my healing will be comparable to a deeper traiting in HoH.
See http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ng-Comparisons for more info on that one.

With War Banner + LtC + Self Blade Bro, I do not doubt that a captain can break the 1.5k DPS mark, if not push higher.

LoM traits are completely pointless outside of tanking. The zero mark cooldown is one of the most overrated aspects of the class, and not worth the traits spent to get it. The three set bonus for LoM is useless in most stuff, unless you really need the threatening shout cooldown for off tanking - which most captains do not.

Defiance and Blood of Numenor are crutch traits that sacrifice the captain's contribution for the group for a (largely) unneeded safety net. Composure is meh, especially when you can produce enough of the defeat responses from a heavier red build, so you don't need to have the Composure swap emblem to achieve a similar amount of Rally Cries. Tactical Prowess is interesting, but not really worth it considering the set bonus compromises elsewhere.

Since the vast majority of captain skills are melee skills, you will want to have at least 3 red traits for the -melee skills power costs, which helps with power conservation in raiding. To help close the gap with a heavy red build for healing, you need to generate defeat responses by critting on DB and PA, so that means you will need Expert Attacks, Renewed Voice, and two more LtC traits so you can get +5% melee skills healing, putting melee critical chance at 25% (which is 1 out of every 4 hits, compared to 20% which is one out of every 5). Blade of Elendil and Battle-master will up your personal DPS, and hit they red mark.

At this point, you have a choice, either stick with the legendaries, and pick up either Fear No Darkness for better spot heals, or Deeds Before Words for better Inspire healing (which doesn't affect power btw), or sac a Legendary (IDoME is a good one, especially considering the DPS races in ToO), and Pick up MoW so you can generate even more Defeat responses, in addition to improving your DPS. That third blue trait will also give you -Vocal Skills power costs, which helps with power issues.

Throw in 3 Perserverance with a 2k+ might build and 25/20% crit, and you have a recipe for a lot of DPS, a lot of heals, and a lot of RCs.

As far as power issues, go, stack ICPR in your relics, pick up a 100 ICPR bracelet, and you should be fine, especially with a self Blade Bro.

*picks gauntlet*
LtC= champion wannabe,downright stupid unless soloing stuff/moors, you have double HoH DPS and give nothing more than properly geared HoH captain

My usual raiding setup:
2 healers=0
2 tanks=0 (well they generate some silly numbers but meh)
2 captains= around 900 DPS each=1800 both
1 LM= lets say around 1000 DPS
1 burg= ~1900 DPS
3 champions= at least 2100 DPS each
1 hunter= not less than 2000 DPS

total=13000

13000DPS * 10% ( for armour of command)= 1300 DPS
If as You say captain with LtC gets 1500 DPS thats roughly 600 DPS more but can't improve group with AoC so loosing additional 700 DPS so yeah you might gain some healing (maybe,have no idea if it would be close) but loose DPS. Numbers are not exact but I believe it's +/- around that.

Defiance is brilliant trait,You give your healer additional 10s to heal cappy up,without trait after using IHW and your healer will be busy elsewhere you are dead.

Blood Of Numenor gets your rezzes to reliable amounts of morale/power after rez I find it very handy unless you like in kind of sense murdering your fellow with CoV and it's not so hard for AOE in ToO.

Composure's double RC with 100 morale cost can be life saver when it gets messy.

I will use Tactical Prowess instead of any red trait if you ask me,because again it gives benefit to WHOLE group not only to yourself.

But why to help yourself with power problems in LtC when you can have no problems in rainbow/HoH builds?

Why would anyone want to be RC machine every 6s? We have LMs for power, Rune-keepers and Minstrels for Morale so why not to increase group DPS by buffing group instead of trying to get this DPS yourself and in fact making yourself troubles.

*gives his gauntlet back and say " I think You dropped it,Sir "*

[Retarius]

What is the point of going HoH/rainbow then? I mean, if extra Morale isn't needed did you need HoH in the first place? Heck, sometimes I'll use Rally cry just for the Power Regen on the group, no ones ever complained about having more power. And no, you don't need to be Red traited to keep War-Cry up, the extra 2 chances a minute at a Defeat Response sure help though. You also don't need to be more than 2B traited to heal a awful lot either. Also which six man instances are you talking about? Roots and Foundry? It would have to be one spectacularly awful PUG to get me to trait anything but 5red/2B in there.

Also your build has:

+10% melee skill healing, +5 TA duration, a better raise and ToN, 10% kick fellowship chance, instant marks, +20% WoC healing, and +35% damage for a whole 10 seconds every 5 minutes.

Vs. a LTC captain:

+15% Melee skill crit multiplier, -5% melee skill costs, +5% melee crit chance, -5 sec battle shout cool down, +1600(?) DB or PA crit, +15% Blade of Elendial damage, +10% DB or PA damage, Full Blade brother benefits, +50% SL damage, SL causes battle-readied on hit and either +5% Routing cry damage/3 sec stun or an extra +15 Might/Agi for the whole group depending on how they trait.

They both have the +50% Crit healing, power regen, +10% Vocal healing and-10% healing skills cost so I didn't list it. I neglected to include any LI legacies as that is kind of a mute point seeing both builds have access to them all.

That you have more bonuses doesn't mean they are better right? And You keep ignoring that I have armour set bonus advance because I don't have to use set to keep my power up. 10% of raid damage outDPS all Your "long list of nothing" without doubt.

Your question about HoH/Rainbow build: It helps me to keep balance between healing and buffing DPS

[Retarius]

For me, it's just a desire to squeeze as much dps into the raid as possible. Key to my decision to trait red, should I deem it appropriate, is that if I have a decent opportunity to take some swings at the boss, the extra personal DPS I bring is greater than the fellowship DPS lost from not traiting IDOME and Tact Prowess. When traiting for a raid, I try to evaluate what's going to need max cappy heals, and what's not. #1 priority is the raid needs to stay alive, but beyond that... well you don't get medals for overheals. I value overkill above overheals.

EDIT: from a raid point of view
The healing benefits of a blue build over a red build are small (unless in add heavy situations) but noticeable.
The dps benefits of a red build over a blue or rainbow build are small but noticeable.

Lightning T2C: I'm on the fence here. When we first started downing this, I was 5b/2y no capstone. But since then, I've tried running 5r/2b and the fight went smoothly. I've got no strong preference for traits in that fight. For now, I'll continue to trait 5r/2b since it seems my healer + 5r/2b Argendauss exceed the minimum heals needed in there by a good bit.

Acid T2C: we zerg it. I have one parse saved, and in that fight I did 148.8k damage of 1.597M morale boss. So 9.3% of the damage on the boss was my personal DPS (a little less than half of the contribution of each of our heavy hitting DPS classes, for example). That damage was all needed cause we were right on the edge of failing challenge. I estimate I might've been able do ~70% of that were I not traited 5 deep red with capstone. 5r/2y, Command set.

F&F T2: Boss needs to go down fast, so I trait red. For the non challenge fight, we are generally successful, and when we are not, changing my traitset would hardly help. So I stay 5r/2b Command set.

Saruman T2: haven't run it yet. I will attempt 5r/2b but I anticipate switching to a blue heavy, non capstone build.

Lightning and F&F wings are position-well-and-You-should-kill-it.
If you use command set you are buffing your group,that's okay for me and I could agree using both AoC and red traits can increase DPS( tho as you said increase of damage is +/- 30%), I just can't agree with captains that trait red and use ToO set and argue it's best possible solution for lack of DPS

[Armitas]

I use the Red line with 3 perseverance 3 dagor and 29.4% chance to crit (actually much higher with unseen trait/leg). Rallying cry is on a 6 second cd with shadow's lament cooldown around 15second(I forget but it's very low). By the time my bs,db, boe goes down my sl,db,boe is back up.

I couple red line with relentless optimism and now for wrath.

2 captains= around 900 DPS each=1800 both

If they are doing that much dps then they are probably not having to heal all that much. You could probably hold most of their heal value down with relentless optimism, and increase their dps with 5 reds.

[BotLike]

I'll start by saying it is nice to see new suggestions and new builds that totally change the captain-user gameplay experience and that actually work to a CERTAIN point.

However. None cares if we dps , its not our job.Why not ??? Because no matter what we do , a dps class similarly geared than us can always provide double+ dps than we do.If captain wasnt such a slow class , without any skills to break the long animations , then this could be a totally different conversation , and we wouldnt need so many years to reach this point where dps traits can actually be suggested as a part of our raiding hours.

Alas , captain is not a dps class , its the ONLY buffing class and also a decent healer in the process.
So , lets say you join a raid. That makes you the only buff class in your group.
Your job , is to buff the survivability/group-dps/healing of your group as much as you possibly can.
If you trait 5 reds ,that alone makes you waste a tone of things in the process.

I must admit i was shocked by some things i read in this thread :

1) 2-yellow-set that makes mark reach zero cooldown is OVERRATED???? Seriously ??? Do you realise how much overall dps (or healing) on a mob/boss you waste if your mark is on cooldown ?? I can't even believe i read this .It only makes sense if you are a static guy that puts his mark on one target in each fight , and continues do things that he enjoys more.

2) Composure is meh??? WHAT is this again ?? Does anyone in this thread actually uses time of need??? I don't care if you use a switch emblem or not , for morale/cd ( which you should ) , its like the most epic skill we have when things go wrong.Harms way wont do @#$% if your fs is down to 1k morale . There are 2 skills in the game that 99% save a wipe when fs goes very-low , thiumphant spirit and 2 RC's in a row with time of need , or even one only (but on demand).

3) You can afford wasting a legendary slot for master of war ???
NO , you DONT ! IDOME , FS brother , and OB , are all a total must. If you waste 1 of them , then you lose important buffs/debuffs in the process , and that alone is enough for me.If they ever give us a 4th leg slot ( which i doubt ) , we can talk about it again , for now there is no point.

4) Does anyone here actually trait his banner of hope ??? I've seen some nice trait suggestions but i see banner nowhere???
If you guys don't trait banner then something is clearly wrong. Unless you all have ettens banner ( ofc chances are that not even half in this thread are rank 8,could be wrong though ).Considering that , i tell you this : If you are in a decent kin-raid for example , you expect most classes , like tank and minstrel(i say minstrel because its easy,40%) to have their mitigations capped already with scrolls/food.If not capped , then close to cap , which makes a big ammount of the coldfells banner bonuses useless.The only banner that actually helps survive without any caps and stuff , is hope , and if you dont trait that , then you don't support your group as much as you can.

5) To arms legacy can be skipped ??? Why ? So that instead of 5 extra sec to-arms buff for your whole group , you can do your shadow's laments ??? bah

6) There are fights where you need to boost your dps a bit , because you don't have the time to benefit fully from your buffs , and you need to nerf your healing/buffing so that something dies faster. Yeah there are those fights , but 3 reds are MORE than enough to achieve your purpose. After all , captain's dps is only a SMALL part of the raids dps , others have to worry more than you on this point ?? But use 5???? You just waste all the captain's potential in the process!

Conclusion :

I believe that the only reason people dug that deep and spent all those commendations ( you need 2 set-5 to achieve the red-traited captain raid glory ) is that they actually want to be champions,or at least cool dps..Most people like to imagine their captain as a dps more than anything else. Well , make a champ , i know captain can be boring , but he's not supposed to dps in a raid , thats the cruel truth. None takes you to dps , accept it.

I also suggest you don't take easy fights as test-examples , exactly because they are easy. In foundry for example , i can bring my OD gear and we will still do it just fine.Then i will make a thread saying : ''WOW guys , valiant strike DEATH EVENT on DEMAND , WoooooooooooooW , so OP , you need to try , its STILL the best set in the game!!!! I HEALED FOUNDRY like a boss.'' Give me a break...........

[Chupakabara]

Man, the whole Orthanc is a DPS race. Our healers dont need heal support or mitigation support or something, they are fine as they are. What is needed is the ability to maximize DPS. If your healers need cappys to save the day then your group is doing something wrong.

If red with capstone is not your playstile than fine, dont trait red, thats simple. I find red with cap and 30% crit useful and I trait it. As long as we both achive our goals then everything is fine.

[furtim]

Ok, for real, here's the thing with red line in raids.

In HoH, I put out 300 DPS and 500 HPS.
In LtC, I put out 700 DPS and 400 HPS.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm not even running an ideal setup for an LtC raid, which would be a Dagor/Pers build that can easily top 1k DPS while MATCHING the HPS of a good HoH build.

That 100 HPS is absolutely never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever the difference between winning and losing. The only reason to fail in the current endgame is because your group isn't paying attention to the instance mechanics, not because your Captain sacrificed a tiny amount of healing in order to put out over twice as much DPS.

Most raids can survive somehow with NO Captain heals whatsoever. Real main healers in this game are good enough that Captain heals aren't actually required to beat content. The bring us for our buffs and our utility skills, not our heals, so IMO build just to bring heals is hurting your group by slowing down your completion of the fights. (And thereby increasing the chance that someone makes a mistake and wipes you. Which, again, is the ONLY reason people lose in Orthanc, unless their main healer is incredibly incompetent.)

[IGolbezI]

armitas i would recommend the command set over 3 pers/3 dagor, more raid dps

if you dont need extra healing why bother traiting for it?

[Retarius]

I'll start by saying it is nice to see new suggestions and new builds that totally change the captain-user gameplay experience and that actually work to a CERTAIN point.

However. None cares if we dps , its not our job.Why not ??? Because no matter what we do , a dps class similarly geared than us can always provide double+ dps than we do.If captain wasnt such a slow class , without any skills to break the long animations , then this could be a totally different conversation , and we wouldnt need so many years to reach this point where dps traits can actually be suggested as a part of our raiding hours.

Alas , captain is not a dps class , its the ONLY buffing class and also a decent healer in the process.
So , lets say you join a raid. That makes you the only buff class in your group.
Your job , is to buff the survivability/group-dps/healing of your group as much as you possibly can.
If you trait 5 reds ,that alone makes you waste a tone of things in the process.

I must admit i was shocked by some things i read in this thread :

1) 2-yellow-set that makes mark reach zero cooldown is OVERRATED???? Seriously ??? Do you realise how much overall dps (or healing) on a mob/boss you waste if your mark is on cooldown ?? I can't even believe i read this .It only makes sense if you are a static guy that puts his mark on one target in each fight , and continues do things that he enjoys more.

2) Composure is meh??? WHAT is this again ?? Does anyone in this thread actually uses time of need??? I don't care if you use a switch emblem or not , for morale/cd ( which you should ) , its like the most epic skill we have when things go wrong.Harms way wont do @#$% if your fs is down to 1k morale . There are 2 skills in the game that 99% save a wipe when fs goes very-low , thiumphant spirit and 2 RC's in a row with time of need , or even one only (but on demand).

3) You can afford wasting a legendary slot for master of war ???
NO , you DONT ! IDOME , FS brother , and OB , are all a total must. If you waste 1 of them , then you lose important buffs/debuffs in the process , and that alone is enough for me.If they ever give us a 4th leg slot ( which i doubt ) , we can talk about it again , for now there is no point.

4) Does anyone here actually trait his banner of hope ??? I've seen some nice trait suggestions but i see banner nowhere???
If you guys don't trait banner then something is clearly wrong. Unless you all have ettens banner ( ofc chances are that not even half in this thread are rank 8,could be wrong though ).Considering that , i tell you this : If you are in a decent kin-raid for example , you expect most classes , like tank and minstrel(i say minstrel because its easy,40%) to have their mitigations capped already with scrolls/food.If not capped , then close to cap , which makes a big ammount of the coldfells banner bonuses useless.The only banner that actually helps survive without any caps and stuff , is hope , and if you dont trait that , then you don't support your group as much as you can.

5) To arms legacy can be skipped ??? Why ? So that instead of 5 extra sec to-arms buff for your whole group , you can do your shadow's laments ??? bah

6) There are fights where you need to boost your dps a bit , because you don't have the time to benefit fully from your buffs , and you need to nerf your healing/buffing so that something dies faster. Yeah there are those fights , but 3 reds are MORE than enough to achieve your purpose. After all , captain's dps is only a SMALL part of the raids dps , others have to worry more than you on this point ?? But use 5???? You just waste all the captain's potential in the process!

Conclusion :

I believe that the only reason people dug that deep and spent all those commendations ( you need 2 set-5 to achieve the red-traited captain raid glory ) is that they actually want to be champions,or at least cool dps..Most people like to imagine their captain as a dps more than anything else. Well , make a champ , i know captain can be boring , but he's not supposed to dps in a raid , thats the cruel truth. None takes you to dps , accept it.

I also suggest you don't take easy fights as test-examples , exactly because they are easy. In foundry for example , i can bring my OD gear and we will still do it just fine.Then i will make a thread saying : ''WOW guys , valiant strike DEATH EVENT on DEMAND , WoooooooooooooW , so OP , you need to try , its STILL the best set in the game!!!! I HEALED FOUNDRY like a boss.'' Give me a break...........

JUST THIS! It's exactly what I meant. Thank you!

[Armitas]

armitas i would recommend the command set over 3 pers/3 dagor, more raid dps

if you dont need extra healing why bother traiting for it?

I do both depending on what we need. I just thought that would best represent a reason to go red over blues. I have a total of 5 empty slots in my bags, I use those slots to hold my tears over how much junk I have to carry around.

[BotLike]

By going LtC you don't only sacrifice healing , you also sacrifice survivability and group dps by not using a legendary for the shake of MoW, and traits like to arms duration , and mark cooldown : )
In return you get more dps for yourself , which barely can exceed the group dps you would have with support traits and as you said you sacrifice healing and i add , survivability.

And no , the reason less than 10 kinships Worldwide have finished ToO CH after so many months is not carelesness or anything.
All kins had more than enough time to train and learn each fights mechanics . I refuse to believe that in all those months , every kinship that cares for raiding , hasnt given each boss decent tries without any mistakes : )

The reason is simple : People don't do their class job.I can also add disappointment to bugs/lame-mechanics as reasons but that is another matter.

I've also seen many attempts in other threads to compare group dps with different builds . Ofc , this is mostly for the captain class , due to our ability to affect group dps . Well , i am not convinced that current add-ons can show the whole image, because a significant part of code in lotro is locked , so add'ons cannot be illuminating on whether captain's single-damage can outdps the normal buff-group support approach : )

This you can find out only by experience , and each of us chooses the approach that fits best in his mind , but we shouldnt forget that survivability/healing is also part of us.
For those saying minstrels have to heal ToO alone ( like saruman t2 ch ), then you either have god-minstrels or your non-healing-leeching has been forgiven by luck : *

[Chupakabara]

What do I loose by going red?

1) +5 sec To Arms - if my calculations are right, thats 2% boost to your blade brother and 1% to everyone else

2) Mark cooldown - Lightning: 1 mob zerg, FF - 1 mob zerg, then 1 mob zerg, Acid - 1 mob zerg. Shadow and Saruman - OK, I can se usefulness here

3) Composure - only can be useful for RC, with PvMP set you have 6sec RC cd, so...

4) IDOME - 75 to stats, oh please. Thats just 750 to phys/tact mastery or 225 to morale and for Phys Mast you can use your War Banner (yes I do actually use War Banner in first 3 orthanc wings and sometimes in Shadow as well)

5) Some %s of my base heal. But with critcry build I can use RC like every 15 sec (yeah, cd is 6sec, but its impossible to crit every 6 sec).

The main point of critcry is that you significaly rise your dps without loosing too much in other departments. Its not about swapping some "useful trait" for "that stupid shadow lament", its about having high crits, having defeat-responce skills open more frequently. In the end you heal almost the same ammount as other captains but dealing more damage.

Once again, its not about using a bad build or good build, the beauty of the captain is that you can use what you like and what suits your gameplay and still be around 10-15% of max theoretical usefulnes There are many ways how you can play it.

[Armitas]

You guys really need to break up this modal thinking of being a healer. Blindly traiting hoh every run is not the way to go. Trait for the limitations of your group and the requirements of the raid at hand. Like furtim said why waste dps over 100 heals, when 100 heals might not be needed?

MOW (and it's red traits) is 400dps a very conservative estimate. in 5 minutes thats 120,0000 damage which is like a second OB, compare with the 6 dps in the group doing 2k dps at 35% over 10 seconds.
IDOME is a 1.2-1.4% increase to dps which is not very substantial in dps. If the group is asking you to bring IDOME because they want more dps then bring your second OB (mow).

Our dps side doesn't compare to true dps classes but we can provide a lot of dps with a minor loss in heals if that is what the group needs. We sit at the unique position to modify ourselves to fullfil the needs of the raid and group. We need to be dynamic not static because those needs are always changing.

Choose your traits based on the limitations of the people in your fellowship and the requirements of the raid. Maximise heals and dps to fit the raid, leave yourself wiggle room but leave nothing wasted.

[Retarius]

What do I loose by going red?

1) +5 sec To Arms - if my calculations are right, thats 2% boost to your blade brother and 1% to everyone else

2) Mark cooldown - Lightning: 1 mob zerg, FF - 1 mob zerg, then 1 mob zerg, Acid - 1 mob zerg, Shadow and Saruman - OK, I can se usefulness here

3) Composure - only can be useful for RC, with PvMP set you have 6sec RC cd, so...

4) IDOME - 75 to stats, oh please. Thats just 750 to phys/tact mastery or 225 to morale and for Phys Mast you can use your War Banner (yes I do actually use War Banner in first 3 orthanc wings and sometimes in Shadow as well)

5) Some %s of my base heal. But with critcry build I can use RC like every 15 sec (yeah, cd is 6sec, but its impossible to crit every 6 sec).

The main point of critcry is that you significaly rise your dps without loosing too much in other departments. Its not about swapping some "useful trait" for "that stupid shadow lament", its about having high crits, having defeat-responce skills open more frequently. In the end you heal almost the same ammount as other captains but dealing more damage.

Once again, its not about using a bad build or good build, the beauty of the captain is that you can use what you like and what suits your gameplay and still be around 10-15% of max theoretical usefulnes There are many ways how you can play it.

I am sure you have 6s CD in this "one mob zerg" but ofcourse you don't have defeat response
It's about situations like that,one additional RC can save your raid.