Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Captain

[furtim]

Our general pool of skills is much higher than that, over 20, and each line adds between 6-8 more.

Yeah. Recall from the dev diaries that the goal of skill consolidation was to have ~20 combat skills, after traits. A lot of our general utility skills don't "count" toward the 20-skill limit.

There is no level 95 armour set yet, as far as I could see, but then I don't believe there's a PvE 95 set yet either. It seems that initially we'll be focusing on jewellery set bonuses from Big Battles, with armour sets coming in a later update (presumably with additional group content).

To clarify, level 95 crafted armour is in. However, there hasn't been anything like Hytbold or Erebor armour.

How is captain power usage in beta? I'm a little concerned that the Rally Cry power heal (equivalent to Now For Wrath, which I think just about every captain perma-slots as soon as we earn it now) is becoming a t6 HoH trait. Did they rescale power costs to balance the fact that we often will not have that power heal? Or will we need to put all the -power cost legacies we can get onto our LIs, and quite possibly still be left sucking wind in long fights?

Power costs are pretty good. The cost of everything got dialed down a bit, more or less entirely to allow us to operate without Now For Wrath. Also, Inspire (Shield-Brother) restores power as well as morale now, so our power sustainability is much more even between lines than it is on live.

aggro is not x3 on healing btw. pretty damn sure about that.

I feel like there's something else going on with healing aggro. It seems to be weighted less than DPS -- or maybe just AoE healing is weighted less? Dunno, but maybe there will be a Threat Dev Diary that explains this more clearly.

also, rock hasn't said it but egg has on wardens (talking about beta forums...) about huge dps changes to make sure tanks are competitive in terms of dps to aggro. knowing how low captains dps was on beta in this line I wouldn't be surprised if captain got some huge rebalancing of dps on skills. things like maybe boosting pressing attack in LoM or making Routing much more powerful. not exactly sure but maybe something along the same lines as warden sounds to be getting.

Well, Routing Cry already is much stronger than on Live, so that's something at least.

[aardnebby]

you can only balance numbers at the end when you have more solid build. just makes sense, anything else you'd be rebalancing stuff you balanced before and just wasting time.

balance tank dps 1/3rd of that of "normal" dps classes.

Yeah but I respectfully suggest that planning expected performance at the beginning of a major change might be a little more helpful than ringing the pvp guy a month before it goes live and saying "hey Bob, yeah, we decided a main dps will be doing about 3k, everyone else a bit less, so give em mits and morale based on that ok?".

Then they call the content department and have the same discussion... and the big battles guy starts crying because at the moment the rohirrim are killing most of the enemy faster than a hunter can fire an induction, and now he needs to redo the lot...

[bohbashum]

I feel like there's something else going on with healing aggro. It seems to be weighted less than DPS -- or maybe just AoE healing is weighted less? Dunno, but maybe there will be a Threat Dev Diary that explains this more clearly.

healing aggro has always been... weird...

for a start we know that healing aggro is generated from ONLY actual heals, not over-heals. which makes it almost impossible to know what your actually healing. it gets even more funky that there are weird modifiers behind this, so weird, in tests I was doing 5/12 of heals were aggro... 6/12 was clearly too much and 4/12 was clearly too little.

just... weird...

I wouldn't hold hope in the diary saying much more than we know already and it's not been touched in beta so far. we'll see

[SapienChavez]

question: are the "set bonuses" dependent on how many point we put into a certain skill-tree? I assume, yes. that actually a pretty neat take on the system (as much as I do not like skill trees)

also, how many point are available at 85 and 95? or, how deep can we go into any two to three trees? seems were a class more likely to spread our points, considering our history and role.

edit- having trouble with my S key... ssssssss, for all those I missed above.

[furtim]

question: are the "set bonuses" dependent on how many point we put into a certain skill-tree? I assume, yes. that actually a pretty neat take on the system (as much as I do not like skill trees)

So, it's not necessarily clear on paper, but it works like this:

You only get the set bonus for the specialisation you chose. I.e., if I choose the LtC spec, I only get LtC set bonuses.

However, points spent anywhere, in any tree, count toward the set bonuses. So, if I choose the LtC spec and buy 5 trait points in LoM's tree, I still get the first set bonus from LtC.

Like everything else, there are some times when this is an advantage (especially when leveling -- speccing LtC and then putting some early points in LoM is a good solo build) and some times when I wish I could "snipe" bonuses outside my main line instead. I suspect that Turbine made the decision to only allow set bonuses from one line to enforce the specialisation-vs.-generalisation theme and then chose to let off-spec points count toward the set bonuses as a way to make hybrid builds less painful at low levels.

also, how many point are available at 85 and 95? or, how deep can we go into any two to three trees? seems were a class more likely to spread our points, considering our history and role.

55 points at level 85. At level 95, completing all the expansion quest deeds, we have 65 points.

At level 85, we can go to T7 in one line and T3 in one other. At level 95, with the bonus points, we can to to T7 in one and T4 in another.

Mind you, doing this means giving up some points from your main line. But I think it's not unlikely that you can find some traits in your main line that don't fit your play style that much. (There are several bleed traits in LtC, for instance, that I normally don't bother to take.)

[RockX]

I've removed Invigourating Speech, so that'll need to be taken off this guide.

[Crell_1]

I've removed Invigourating Speech, so that'll need to be taken off this guide.

allowing for different buffs from two different Captains in a Fellowship.

Will there be anything to allow for different buffs from two different captains in a fellowship now?

[Belnavar]

I've removed Invigourating Speech, so that'll need to be taken off this guide.

Thanks for the update. I removed the references to this new skill in the guide.

I'd also like to echo Crell's question. I didn't see myself using Invigourating Speech very often, but it did seem like a potentially useful buff when two Captains are in the same group (such as one main-tanking and one main-healing).

-Bel

[aardnebby]

10% max power is basically irrelevant. And a nearly useless buff on the off chance of two captains being in the same group is a waste of a skill slot. The hope in beta feedback was that it would be replaced with a more useful skill.

[Elrantiri]

10% max power is basically irrelevant. And a nearly useless buff on the off chance of two captains being in the same group is a waste of a skill slot. The hope in beta feedback was that it would be replaced with a more useful skill.

Indeed, I had very much hoped for a useful Invigorating Speech. The idea of having 2 Speeches was a neat idea, though I'd liked to see Tree specific versions here as well.

[Almagnus1]

Could always do a "rousing speech" that increases attack speed and reduces cooldowns.

Or "starbucks delivery" that quadruples movement and reduces attacks down to a frame and removes inductions. I think Starbucks may take issue with that one though.

[aardnebby]

Could always do a "rousing speech" that increases attack speed and reduces cooldowns.

Or "starbucks delivery" that quadruples movement and reduces attacks down to a frame and removes inductions. I think Starbucks may take issue with that one though.

Here's a few thoughts:

ICPR buff (since max power is pointless, this is an actual useful alternative for similar effect)

Out of Combat run speed buff (a la find the path) or a weaker in combat run speed buff.

A variant "brother" skill available in any spec that is useful to all classes by only raising tactical and physical mastery but to a greater effect than one that has part of it's buff wasted.

A skill that locks out your herald, but radiates the same buff from yourself and gives you a DPS buff roughly equal to that lost by not having a herald.

A stance that replaces your auras with long duration click skills (Motivation for example now lasts 30 minutes and applies to your fellowship so if they split up, you know, as you have to in all group content released with HD, they keep your buffs!)

Heres a good one: A skill that replaces our summoning horn, so we have 1 more bag space free...

[Belnavar]

Updated with minor changes from Build 5.1. A few highlights:

+2% Tactical Mitigation added to Focus buff

On Guard power cost reduction increased from -5% to -10%

Banner of Victory power cost reduction increased from -2% to -10%

Banner of Honour Mitigation buff increased from 2% to 3%

Noble Mark DoT increased to 314 Light Damage every 3s at level 91

The Strong Voice trait in LoM makes Threatening Shout affect 6 targets, helping address some of our multi-mob tanking issues.

-Bel

[Lunasa]

Updated with minor changes from Build 5.1. A few highlights:

One more:

Last Stand has a base duration of 7 seconds (17s with a legacy) and applies a heal on expiration: 866-1238 Morale

[Shukar]

I'm trying to figure what legacies I'd want under each spec, with an eye towards seeing how many LIs I'd want to maintain. Here's how I'd classify the new legacies:

Color code:

Any spec (white)
Lead the Charge (red)
Leader of Men (yellow)
Hands of Healing (blue)

Major Weapon

• To Arms Duration
• Melee Skills Critical Multiplier
• Telling Mark Damage (maybe yellow or blue if you spec for it)
• Devastating Blow and Pressing Attack Critical Rating
• Oathbreaker's Shame duration
• Melee Skill Power Cost
• Pressing Attack Max Targets (maybe red too)
• Captain Area-effect Healing (though it might be nice in any spec)

Minor Weapon

• Cry Power Cost
• Tactics Duration
• Inspire Damage
• Routing Cry Damage
• Blade of Elendil Damage
• Bleed Damage
• Defensive Strike Armour Buff
• Make Haste Duration
• Battle States and Defeat Response Duration

Major Class

• Healing Critical Magnitude
• Rallying Cry Healing
• Sure Strike Damage
• Valiant Strike Morale Return
• Noble Mark Damage
• Vocal Skills Healing
• Melee SKills Healing
• Words of Courage Power and Morale Cost

Minor Class

• Words of Courage Pulses
• Last Stand Duration
• Bleed Pulses
• Devastating Blow and Pressing Attack Damage (and probably yellow)
• Time of Need Buff Duration
• Light Skill Damage
• Shield of the Dúnedain Duration
• Shadow's Lament Damage

If my classifications are correct, as a practical thing you might be able to get by with just one or two weapons; two if you want one for "damage" and one for "support". A damage weapon would work about as well for a DPS spec as for a tanking spec and there aren't a lot of healing-only legacies on the weapon.

You might want a different emblem for each spec. If pressed, you might be able to get by using your healing emblem while DPS (since there aren't a lot of compelling minor healing legacies and more DPS is usually nice), but you'd really want those Last Stand and Shield of the Dunedain legacies while tanking.

So maybe I can get by with one weapon and 2 emblems, which would be nice.

What do you all think of this analysis?

[Shukar]

2- What happens to the moors mit banner now that regular banners become skills?

Banners didn't become skills. You still equip a standard in your ranged slot just like always. You just can't "drop" it anymore. (Using an equipped banner no longer does anything.) So a standard equipped gives the Captain its buffs just like before... but now you can *also* summon a herald.

We got 3 NEW skills (one per spec) that let you "throw" a banner onto an enemy target. It harms the foe and all the foes within the area, and helps your friendlies in some way while within the area. While you cast the skill on an enemy target, it is actually a stationary area of effect thing that just happens to sit where that enemy was when it hit the enemy.

[Belnavar]

One more:

Last Stand has a base duration of 7 seconds (17s with a legacy) and applies a heal on expiration: 866-1238 Morale

Thanks. Added.

-Bel

[furtim]

If my classifications are correct, as a practical thing you might be able to get by with just one or two weapons; two if you want one for "damage" and one for "support". A damage weapon would work about as well for a DPS spec as for a tanking spec and there aren't a lot of healing-only legacies on the weapon.

You might want a different emblem for each spec. If pressed, you might be able to get by using your healing emblem while DPS (since there aren't a lot of compelling minor healing legacies and more DPS is usually nice), but you'd really want those Last Stand and Shield of the Dunedain legacies while tanking.

So maybe I can get by with one weapon and 2 emblems, which would be nice.

What do you all think of this analysis?

I think you're about right. There are enough "general" legacies to get by with very few LIs, unless you really want to get into min-maxing. The nice thing is that we have few enough required legacies (probably just To Arms! Duration and Pressing Attack Targets, maybe Healing Crit Magnitude and Rallying Cry or Vocal Skills Healing as well) that we have more space to min-max with than we're used to.

Not to mention that the slots we used to fill with Buffsticks and Swap Emblems can now be filled with special-purpose LIs instead.

[Lohi]

Perhaps the most notable omissions are the Tactics skills, which are now active combat buffs that proc when Sure Strike is used followed a Battle-readied event

Is this fellowship wide, or raid wide, or people within a certain radius, or?

Rallying Cry and Routing Cry can now be used without a Defeat Event, but they are stronger with one.

Is there an indication in the icon that shows if this is the on-defeat version versus the weaker on? In some hectic fights with others (skraids) I can't often tell when a defeat has happened without noticing that these skills lit up. If it looks the same both ways could you suggest it to the staff in Beta?


For Leader of Men, is there anything that increases threat from damage similar to guardian's +300%? Or does the captain have to out damage hunters and champions?


I don't mind the heralds. Having a mobile banner is handy, and banners were only added initially because of flaws with heralds (no way to rez in combat, bad pathing). Having both though will be very nice.


How viable is Hands of Healing while soloing? I went through much of Moria this way.


Big picture: this looks much nicer than some other classes, with feeling overpowered (except maybe Time of Need).

Q: With the threat changes, what's happening with Halberd passives?
A: Halberds now have +2% Auto-attack Critical Hit Chance.

Bleh... :-) I use halberd because it looks nice, but would have been nice to have something similar to two-handed axe (looks too bulky) or two-handed sword (just looks silly), or something new (1% parry).

[furtim]

Fun data points, at level 88:

I repeated a Stoneheight T2 solo survival run that I did earlier, to see what's changed.

Survival Time: 4:15!
Taken per Second: 1233 (!!)
Heals per Second: 1855 (!!!)
DPS: 341

Note that I was using a survival-focused build and rotation, not a threat-building rotation. So I didn't have anything like 100% uptime on Bleeds, held Battle-Hardened for the survival boosts instead of hitting Blade of Elendil and restarting the Battle- chain, etc.

Fun fact: Far and away, most of the healing was coming from Exemplar. As in, 810 HPS. Now that's a powerful set bonus. (Maybe too powerful -- it should probably be toned down and have some of its power redistributed elsewhere in the line. Then again, the Stoneheight test has a crazy large number of mobs all on the Captain, so it was probably proccing Exemplar way more than "real" content will.)

I actually probably could have survived longer, because it wasn't until about two minutes in that I remembered Muster Courage purges Disarms now. I also didn't use Last Stand, because I'm still in Live mod of thinking it's on a crazy long cooldown.

So, Captank survivability looks frankly awesome right now. I actually feel totally safe diverting some resources away to DPS for threat purposes, whereas on Live I'm sometimes hanging on by a thread even when I dump 100% of my resources into survival.

Anyway, after that bit of fun, I went and did an LtC DPS test.

Result: 2400 DPS

We can conclude that our DPS output is significantly improved over Live (I was struggling to break 1.5k at level 85; now, 2k is not too difficult at all).

I haven't seen damage parses in other class threads, so I can't really say where we are in relative terms.

As for the break-down, my Herald of War was putting out ~200 DPS by himself. The majority of my damage was coming from auto-attacks. This was followed in an extremely close second place by Improved Grave Wound. (87k total damage vs. 83k total damage, over 5 minutes.) This tells me I've been underestimating the power of our bleed skills by a lot; the traits that buff them are probably worth a lot more than I've been giving them credit for.

EDIT: I actually meant to post all that in the Beta forums. Oops. Thankfully, the NDA being down means I can leave it here instead of hastily deleting this thread. I figure some folks would like to see the numbers anyway. I made a few references to stuff from earlier beta builds that I had to edit out to play things safe, though, which means there's a little missing context. I'll try to fill it in later. (Particularly the methodology for the Stoneheight Test I mentioned.)

Is this fellowship wide, or raid wide, or people within a certain radius, or?

Fellowship-wide, IIRC. The buffs have an 80m radius, which is nifty in the Epic Battles.

Is there an indication in the icon that shows if this is the on-defeat version versus the weaker on? In some hectic fights with others (skraids) I can't often tell when a defeat has happened without noticing that these skills lit up. If it looks the same both ways could you suggest it to the staff in Beta?

The icon gets sort of highlighted (they pulsate), but there's also a new "Auto Skill Bar" that pops up for situational skills like the Defeat Events. Even if you don't activate things by clicking them in the Auto Skill Bar, it's a good way to see when you have the DE versions of your skills available.

For Leader of Men, is there anything that increases threat from damage similar to guardian's +300%? Or does the captain have to out damage hunters and champions?

All tank specs have the same +300% threat.

I don't mind the heralds. Having a mobile banner is handy, and banners were only added initially because of flaws with heralds (no way to rez in combat, bad pathing). Having both though will be very nice.

Pretty much all of the problems I personally had with Heralds have been addressed, which is nice. The buffs are good but not overpoweringly awesome, so I think we shouldn't feel too awful if they die and we can't resummon them right away. Or if you're a Captain who simply refuses to play with Heralds, for that matter.

How viable is Hands of Healing while soloing? I went through much of Moria this way.

Haven't tried it, but it should work. There are some DPS boosts in the HoH trait line that will be nice for soloers to grab. The fact that Song-Brother Inspire restores morale now adds some extra self-healing ability on top of Rallying Cry and Muster Courage, too. I'd probably recommend mixing in a little bit of DPS from the red line if you go for an HoH solo build, though.

[Belnavar]

Is this fellowship wide, or raid wide, or people within a certain radius, or?


Is there an indication in the icon that shows if this is the on-defeat version versus the weaker on? In some hectic fights with others (skraids) I can't often tell when a defeat has happened without noticing that these skills lit up. If it looks the same both ways could you suggest it to the staff in Beta?


For Leader of Men, is there anything that increases threat from damage similar to guardian's +300%? Or does the captain have to out damage hunters and champions?

Furtim answered these very well, but since they are the kinds of questions I imagine others will ask I added them to the FAQ and gave my responses there.

I don't mind the heralds. Having a mobile banner is handy, and banners were only added initially because of flaws with heralds (no way to rez in combat, bad pathing). Having both though will be very nice.

Precisely. I liked Heralds in SoA, but I didn't use them after a while because Standards were so much better (or Heralds were so much worse). All of the major issues have been addressed now.

How viable is Hands of Healing while soloing? I went through much of Moria this way.

It depends what you mean by viable. You should be able to survive fairly well, and you will still kill mobs at a decent rate, but your DPS will be much lower than traiting Lead the Charge. As Furtim suggested, you can try mixing and matching a bit more to get a mostly HoH build with some extra DPS boosts. For example, I recommend maxing React to Battle in tier 1 of Lead the Charge, because it not only increases the damage of some of your basic skills - it increases the crit chance as well.

Big picture: this looks much nicer than some other classes, with feeling overpowered (except maybe Time of Need).

I am certainly eagerly looking forward to playing my Captain when Helm's Deep launches

Bleh... :-) I use halberd because it looks nice, but would have been nice to have something similar to two-handed axe (looks too bulky) or two-handed sword (just looks silly), or something new (1% parry).

1-handed swords give +1% parry and two-handed swords give +2% parry. I agree, however, that the halberd looks cool, and it is a weapon unique to Captain, so I definitely want to use it for at least one of my LIs.

-Bel

[aardnebby]

Precisely. I liked Heralds in SoA, but I didn't use them after a while because Standards were so much better (or Heralds were so much worse). All of the major issues have been addressed now.

Not quite.

You can teleport it to your side instantly... OUT OF COMBAT. (In combat if you slip down a cliff it will still follow you all the long way round and drag an army of mobs. Or you could unsummon it, you still get the aggro from any mobs it already pulled. Unsummoning is still an annoyingly large number of clicks, so you may want to make a macro bound to a quickslot bar.)

It has had it's DPS and survivability significantly increased. Unfortunately in my opinion this means anyone trying to do without one is nerfing themselves even more now, because you are doing without a source of DPS we are balanced on the assumption you will be using. On the plus side, it does mean if you have any slayer deeds in lower level areas you want to complete while browsing the web in another window it's even faster now, and the herald will actually survive a fight against an even level landscape mob according to some reports.

There are still issues:

1. Heralds providing a defensive buff while you are tanking still die, dropping your defensive buff. This will usually happen at the worst possible time (ie the boss is performing heavy aoe attacks) so a 1 second induction to resummon is not going to be "convenient". You could try positioning them where they wont get hit, but due to the rubbish pathing which still happens based on my own experiments, they will often still wander into the path of incoming aoe swipes. Or you could sit them out of combat, effectively nerfing your own DPS by the loss of the herald, and hoping you don't get too far away from them (the buff has a 20m range). This precludes putting them in the corner of the room or similar.

2. Heralds still get the eye from Thorog or the Lieutenant and similar effects that can wipe an entire raid. Unsummoning them can break some fights (EG the Lieutenant yellow eye).

3. Depending on your set up, they either frustratingly attack the wrong target, or lack the initiative to move onto a new target when the one you set them on dies. Even when set on aggressive stance they will often ignore the closet mob in order to run off for a random crowd some distance away.

4. On my last check (admittedly this was an earlier beta) the herald had even worse power issues than early captains. If you turn on it's special attacks to auto-use it will be out of power when you want a heal, or if you don't you are either going to micromanage it or be nerfing yourself.

Heralds are one of my two major complaints about the HD captain.

The second is the alterations to buffs, because:

1. Short range auras instead of long duration buffs when you just introduced big battles that involve groups splitting up to achieve the objectives is frankly an incomprehensible change. Did the class devs and the content devs get a completely different briefing?

2. Buffing people based on what buffs _you_ need for your own role, rather than what _they_ need is a deliberate straight jacket. Context sensitive skills where the buff is dependent on their class and role would be a vast improvement. This applies to Tactics as well as the various -brother skills, and the auras from the standard planting skills.

I have not pre-ordered based on just how badly this redesign is going with my preferred class.

[Aztaroth_SWE]

Hello

Maybe this has been answered already and I missed it or maybe I haven't understood some of the changes, but here we go:

If you decide to use a hybrid build (spend most points in HoH but some in LtC as well), what determines which buffs u will get/give through the tactic buffs and brother skills?

/Azt

EDIT: spelling

[bohbashum]

If you decide to use a hybrid build (spend most points in HoH but some in LtC as well), what determines which buffs u will get/give through the tactic buffs and brother skills?

what tactics buff you get and brother you get depends on what spec you choose.

I'll be lazy and quote all the relevant stuff you asked.

Focus (Hands of Healing)

-5% Attack Duration
+5% Incoming Healing
+2% Tactical Mitigation
Bonus: +1% morale heal every 5s for 10s

Relentless Attack (Lead the Charge)

+1030 Critical Rating
+3676 Physical Mastery Rating
+3676 Tactical Mastery Rating
+5% Outgoing Healing

On Guard (Leader of Men)

+1299 Parry Rating
+3% Defence
-10% Power Cost

Song-brother (Hands of Healing)

Blade-brother (Lead the Charge)

Shield-brother (Leader of Men)

[Aztaroth_SWE]

Sorry, I haven't been in Beta so this is all new to me...

so I can choose HoH as spec to get low cost for the healing skills in it and spend additional points in LtC but to a higher cost
But then I will also get the HoH tactics buff?

And if I chose LtC as spec and get the Ltc tactics buff, all HoH skills will cost more, right?

/Azt