Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Captain

[furtim]

Crit Rating's formula got changed, so that might cause a little bit of odd fluctuation right around the break points. A character at level 84 would be capped at 20% crit. A character at level 85 would have a cap at 25% but need relatively more Crit Rating to achieve the same Crit Chance % they had before.

So you could conceivably level up, cross a break point, and lose Crit Chance % without changing gear. Counter-intuitive and kind of frustrating, but the itemisation changes required a formula adjustment. Basically the whole relationship between character level and item level got up-ended between levels 85 and 95, so people would have an incentive to upgrade rather than just sitting on their 85 Teals and Golds for ~9 months and not having any material reason to play the game as intended.

I mean, we're talking about fractions of a percent, though. Due to the way that crit chance increases damage multiplicatively rather than linearly (plus the various sources of increased Crit Magnitude we have), the difference might add up to a couple of whole percentage points. I mean something on the order of ~100-200 DPS, worst case. Any greater loss you see is likely due to not having optimised LIs and skill rotations yet. (By which I mean: We don't actually know what the optimal LIs and skill rotations for DPS look like yet, though we can make some informed guesses based on the experiences from Beta.)

[Almagnus1]

So... going by what we know in Beta, we want to maximize bleeds, autoattack damage, then the primary skill chain, right?

[Lohi]

Wasn't red line supposed to increase our DPS?

At level 85 sure. But why do you want increased DPS at 85 from what you had last week? Is content too difficult?
Damage numbers by themselves don't mean much, compare them to damage you take in return, length of time in a fight, the challenge of the fight, etc.

[Elrantiri]

Not really, in a fight 15 seconds long it seems somewhat ridiculous to focus on bleeds. So I looked into it: currently cutting attack is offering me a 386 bleed every 2 seconds for 38 seconds. That would increase my DPS by approx 150ish after mitigations, assuming the initial attack hit for about as much as my other blows averaged in the same duration. The cooldown is 20 seconds, so in theory I could have two sets of bleeds running if the fight went on long enough.

Grave Wound applies a bleed as well (and LtC gives Grave Wound an AoE effect), which will help your DPS even further. Furthermore, our critical chance and critical multiplier also affects the bleeds, and especially Grave Wound bleed should be considered here given the +50% critical multiplier you can get from LtC trait.
I agree that bleeds are not that interesting versus a normal mob of like 12-18k morale.

So our increase in short fights is massive crits if we are lucky, and for long fights hope we have a target that will live long enough to stack repeated bleeds on? (cos when a mob dies, any remaining bleed duration is effectively lost).

That depends on what you would consider to be lucky. Captains can achieve 25% crit chance through crit rating, 5% to PA/DB from trait, 3% melee crit from trait and (once fixed) Master of War setbonus will give us extra crits for every Inspire and SL crit. For Devastating Blow that's 33% crit chance, which is quite decent IMO. On top of that we also have our devastate chance of ~10%.
One of our other potential hard-hitters is Blade of Elendil, which has bonus Crit chance by itself (I dont know how much though), again increasing the chance of a crit.
Thus a chain of PA/DB and BoE has a fairly high chance of having at least one of them crit, and else you got Shadows Lament after that for another shot at PA/DB+BoE.

[dietlbomb]

If we get most of our big dps from bleeds, I think they got it backwards. For our group role, I don't care if the captain does lots of dps. Buffs should be our main method of improving group dps in longer fights.

Where we needed the dps bump was for solo play: leveling, PvMP, deeding, etc, and most of these fights are of short duration. What we need here is higher damage from our direct damage attacks, some AoE attacks, a ranged pull to keep us in combat, etc.

I do think we got some of that. Our attack chain is quicker than it was before, especially with the shorter cooldown on Shadow's Lament. And we get Shadow's Lament at a lower level.

The lack of a ranged pull (independent from Battle Shout), and the lack of an AoE rotation is still a problem. Maybe I'm not used to the 15s cooldown on Routing Cry yet.

[Dylbro]

After playing the game post release I am more convinced than ever that those supporting the changes have a very limited concept of how the game is played. I give props for being able to analyze the numbers but this is just being a forum paper champ rather than having a solid understanding of game mechanics.

Here are some issues so far...


Bleeds are meaningless on anything but boss fights, everything else dies so fast a DOT is worthless. However, almost 1/3 your redline applies to your bleeds and some of your yellow line. We have powerful bleeds but 90% of the time they are completely worthless. Numbers don't tell you that...

Routing Cry "buffs" only apply after a defeat response. So the always up Routing Cry is a actually a negative aspect, here's why; If you use it you won't have it ready for when you need to stun mobs, you won't keep your buffs up on your allies. You will more often miss your chance where it is better to just wait for a defeat response. Also, aside from the really annoying skill popup you won't even know when this happens. They don't flash, they don't change colors, they do nothing to give the appearance they are in "enhanced" mode. Some might say pay attention to your buffs... see below.

IDOME and Motivating speech are now combined but still give two different buff icons. Was this even thought through? I have 3-4 lines of buffs on me when I'm solo... my own buffs, my heralds buffs, my brothers buffs, my equipment buffs, all the little "advancement" buffs you get... Watching when buffs went down was challenging before now it is a near impossibility.

Want to help out that new player you just ran by? Well give him some buffs! Nope, you don't get to... just walk on by and forget that built in socialization buffing others provides.

Don't like using heralds? Maybe its because no game in existence has conquered pathing issues or maybe it is because you just don't like pets. Well that's too bad, they are a near necessity since they replaced your tactics buffs.

Lets talk about the yellow line... Want to use the best skills you have had for 6 years? Shield of the dunedain, in harms way or last stand? Well you will need to trait yellow what capstone skill comes with that? Threatening Shout... So how many of you captains are going to give up Valiant Strike or Shadows Lament for Threatening Shout? This is a tanking line but it holds nearly all of our support skills hostage. Traiting Red or Blue and putting in yellow is possible but that is not a way to be a real asset to your group. If I wanted to play a tank I would log onto a Guardian, which is a superior tank in every way. So essentially those skills are dead.

I haven't even mentioned the bugs, such as warsteed skills all becoming instant cast with no delay and 100+ meter AE range destroying everything on and off your radar... and countless others. I would normally submit all these bugs but I am so disappointed in the captain I really don't care.

All these problems, aside from bugs, can be fixed by giving us back our support skills such as shield of the dunedain, in harms way and last stand and instead boost them in the trees. Give us back the ability to buff outside group and replace the yellow trait capstone skill with something meaningful, threatening shout is not.


When things are taken away something is usually given in return but we get gimmicks instead. The standard of "..." skills are one of the most gimmicky skills I've seen. The radius on the buff is a joke and makes it worthless in PVP. Cleanse corruption and Blade Brothers Call and most the new healing skills also have a very gimmicky feel to them. In about a month a preferred trait path will be used by nearly all Captains, likely red line with some divergence. Blue line healing is very gimmicky and old reliable Rallying Cry is a weak skill even when traited. Meaning most captain will always have the exact same marks traited... that's fun.I have spoken to many captains in game and ZERO of them have had a positive thing to say. Most people don't post or read forums... Nearly half seem to be contemplating quitting the game due to either the changes of the captain or the complete easy mode the game is becoming while the other half seems to be shelving their captain.

In trying to justify these changes I have asked 3 or 4 times so far what benefit has been provided by skill gating our support skills and limiting buffing to group only but have yet to year 1 thing positive while I and others have named countless negatives. The dumbing down of the game and the focus on pure DPS monster mashing appears, at least to me, meant for a future release to console. Games need revenue but go innovate rather than dumb it down. MMOs and consoles don't mix unless they are pseudo Diablo style hack and slash.


I want to have meaningful discourse but these changes were not thought out, the numbers looked good on paper but that is about it.

Thanks!

Kaltar of Silverlode

[furtim]

So... going by what we know in Beta, we want to maximize bleeds, autoattack damage, then the primary skill chain, right?

So, this is going to vary a lot based on the encounter. I'll talk through two skill rotations and explain my thoughts on them.

Actually, here's a bonus rotation, Starter Buffs: Blade-Brother's Call > To Arms! > Time of Need. The goal is to maximise overlap among the three. However, BBC needs to tier up. So, using it first lets your Blade-Brother tier up your buff before you start using your damage skills. Needless to say, this is somewhat selfish. But we're talking about how to maximise Captain DPS, so I feel it's justified. In a group, you'll probably prefer to use BBC last, so you stack up the buff on your Blade-Brother quickly.

Single-target: Battle-Shout (or ToN) > Standard of War > Sure Strike > Grave Wound (!) > Cutting Attack > Devastating Blow > Inspire > Blade of Elendil > Shadow's Lament > restart.

Since Cutting Attack increases the Critical Magnitude of the next skill, follow it with Devastating Blow, which already has an innately higher Critical Magnitude. The rest of the rotation is designed to maximise the overlap of various damage buffs. In particular, you want to hit as many damage skills as possible while Battle-Readied is up. If you can hit a second Sure Strike during Battle-Ready, that's nice, but it's not essential. The cooldown on Shadow's Lament is low enough that you should be able to keep your Tactics up at full uptime without spamming Sure Strike too much. Fitting some extra Sure Strike uses in during Battle-Readied could increase DPS if your target as particularly high BPE stats, though.

Also, for single-target uses, there's no particular advantage to using Grave Wound after Cutting Attack.

AoE: Battle-Shout (or ToN) > Sure Strike > Standard of War > Cutting Attack > Grave Wound > Inspire > Pressing Attack > Blade of Elendil > Shadow's Lament > restart.

In this case, Grave Wound must follow Cutting Attack for the AoE bleed. I suggest immediately following CA with GW because Pressing Attack has relatively lower base damage than Grave Wound. So, the extra Critical Magnitude goes farther when applied to GW than PA. You also want to do the combo quickly to ensure your CA target doesn't die before you can hit Grave Wound on it.

That being said, it's technically possible for Passing Attack to crit multiple times, and it's also more likely for PA to crit in the first place. So it may actually be better to follow Cutting Attack with PA, if your primary target is likely to survive PA long enough for you to complete the Grave Wound combo.

So those are my thoughts on skill rotations. I'm still undecided about LI legacies. I haven't had enough time to mess with them yet.

[Almagnus1]

If we get most of our big dps from bleeds, I think they got it backwards. For our group role, I don't care if the captain does lots of dps. Buffs should be our main method of improving group dps in longer fights.

Where we needed the dps bump was for solo play: leveling, PvMP, deeding, etc, and most of these fights are of short duration. What we need here is higher damage from our direct damage attacks, some AoE attacks, a ranged pull to keep us in combat, etc.

I do think we got some of that. Our attack chain is quicker than it was before, especially with the shorter cooldown on Shadow's Lament. And we get Shadow's Lament at a lower level.

The lack of a ranged pull (independent from Battle Shout), and the lack of an AoE rotation is still a problem. Maybe I'm not used to the 15s cooldown on Routing Cry yet.

Eh, I'm just going with bleeds first because of what I recall seeing from a parse in Beta.

There's very little data to backup the build order I suggested, as it was meant as a starting point for us to figure out what really works.

@Dylbro:
RockX does not have to justify himself to you, or anyone else here. Deal with it.

[furtim]

Eh, I'm just going with bleeds first because of what I recall seeing from a parse in Beta.

I frequently got Grave Wound on the top of my DPS charts when I parsed them out by skill. There are a couple of factors in that.

First of all, I tended to use the CA->GW combo out of habit, rather than weaving Devastating Blow between the two or using Grave Wound before CA. As a result, almost every Grave Wound I used had the increased Critical Magnitude from Cutting Attack.

Second of all, Grave Wound's bleed is an AoE now. When used in multi-target scenarios, that significantly inflates the damage it does. IIRC, my single-target parses usually had Grave Wound lagging behind Devastating Blow.

Anyway, we still get more damage out of building crit and our multitude of outgoing damage buffs than anything else. That's true whether we focus on bleeds or our more traditional damage sources.

[Almagnus1]

I frequently got Grave Wound on the top of my DPS charts when I parsed them out by skill. There are a couple of factors in that.

First of all, I tended to use the CA->GW combo out of habit, rather than weaving Devastating Blow between the two or using Grave Wound before CA. As a result, almost every Grave Wound I used had the increased Critical Magnitude from Cutting Attack.

Second of all, Grave Wound's bleed is an AoE now. When used in multi-target scenarios, that significantly inflates the damage it does. IIRC, my single-target parses usually had Grave Wound lagging behind Devastating Blow.

Anyway, we still get more damage out of building crit and our multitude of outgoing damage buffs than anything else. That's true whether we focus on bleeds or our more traditional damage sources.

Hmm.... seems like a lot of parsing at 95 is going to be needed before we have anything other than a rough idea.

[aardnebby]

Hmm.... seems like a lot of parsing at 95 is going to be needed before we have anything other than a rough idea.

Agreed.

Parsing will tell us a lot, but another factor is do we actually do any better in real terms?

As a captain since release, apart from the glorious days of moria and the aoe fest of mounted combat solo leveling was a slow and painful process compared to a decent combat class. My burgler reliably cripples landscape mobs in his opening hit, my minstrel in warspeech with ranged attacks and a number of AoEs sails through.

But the captain has little in the way of aoe for multiple targets, less reliable big hits, a single range pull now instead of 3...

Is it faster to do deeds in lower level areas (I mean other than turn your herald on aggressive alt-tab to the forums for 30 minutes)?

Is it quicker to do a solo skirmish?

Looks like no to me. And the whole point of this skill tree system was to improve the class's ability to do each role, while restricting it to one at a time. This does not seem to have met it's objectives, and the costs are pretty high.

[Nimnaur]

I do not like the new captain.

[Findulas]

Pre-HD:

Group Leader: "Okay captain, we have three very large angry Uruks to get through before the boss fight.

I want you to put telling mark on the first Uruk, we'll burn him down about half-way then throw Oathbreakers on him to finish him off. Second Uruk I want revealing mark to help out the healer a bit to top us off. Loremaster is going to be busy debuffing and getting ready for adds, so throw songbrother on the healer to help with power. When the group is stabilized switch over to blade brother on the champ to help finish him off. If anyone goes down during this time pop a rez on them and make sure to get them buffed back up. If another goes down get another rez and buffs up, I want to save the minstrel rez for the third Uruk in case it gets the tank.

Third Uruk is going to be tricky, he gets to 1/4 health he's going to hit the tank like a freight train, I want shield brother on him to help heal him up and protect him. Also there will be adds coming, if any get by and head for the healer help the champ pull them off and dump them near the tank. Keep those off heals, to arms, Oathbreakers as soon as they are up, Last Stand/In Harms Way in the last twenty seconds as well as insurance and anything else you got and we should pull through this just fine."

Me: "Got it boss, not a problem."


Currently on HD:

Group Leader: "Okay captain, we have three very large angry Uruks to get through before the boss fight.

I want you to put telling mark on the first Uruk, we'll burn him down about half-way then throw Oathbreakers on him to finish him off. Second Uruk I want revealing mark to help out the healer a bit to top us off. Loremaster is going to be busy debuffing and getting ready for adds, so throw songbrother on the healer to help with power. When the group is stabilized switch over to blade brother on the champ to help finish him off. If anyone goes down during this time pop a rez on them and make sure to get them buffed back up. If another goes down get another rez and buffs up, I want to save the minstrel rez for the third Uruk in case it gets the tank.

Third Uruk is going to be tricky, he gets to 1/4 health he's going to hit the tank like a freight train, I want shield brother on him to help heal him up and protect him. Also there will be adds coming, if any get by and head for the healer help the champ pull them off and dump them near the tank. Keep those off heals, to arms, Oathbreakers as soon as they are up, Last Stand/In Harms Way in the last twenty seconds as well as insurance and anything else you got and we should pull through this just fine."

Me: "Sorry can't do but about a third of that."

Group leader: "Seriously? *sigh*"

Yes I know that this is a hypothetical battle, but I'm just trying to illustrate how restrictive the trees actually are. The support classes that thrive on hybrid builds and having ALL of their skills at their disposal to be able to pull the group back from the brink of a wipe are gone with the wind. I'll miss my captain (my main) the most and my loremaster second most as those are the classes that will be the hardest hit with these changes (burglar too but I don't really play that class in a group much if at all) with the skills being gated and the out of spec point penalty. Hybrid builds ARE a possibility true, but they are MERE shadow of what we WERE capable of on live. ALL skills not available all the time and so on. We are a support class, we need all of our tools at our disposal at ALL times.

Standards are gone as well, so now I have to deal with a herald running around and aggroing things that they shouldn't, pet pathing obstacles and so on. The very reasons why I and many of my fellow captains PREFERRED the standards over the heralds in the first place. And that's just a start to a long list of things that should not have been done to the class.

There are just way too many things to list as to what I don't like about the new captain, I bid my old captain a fond farewell the night before release and more than likely will switch to another class as my main to finish the journey to Mordor as I just cannot bear the state of the new and so called "improved" captain. I am totally heartbroken.

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
O captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

[Elrantiri]

Currently on HD:

Group Leader: "Okay captain, we have three very large angry Uruks to get through before the boss fight.

I want you to put telling mark on the first Uruk, we'll burn him down about half-way then throw Oathbreakers on him to finish him off. Second Uruk I want revealing mark to help out the healer a bit to top us off. Loremaster is going to be busy debuffing and getting ready for adds, so throw songbrother on the healer to help with power. When the group is stabilized switch over to blade brother on the champ to help finish him off. If anyone goes down during this time pop a rez on them and make sure to get them buffed back up. If another goes down get another rez and buffs up, I want to save the minstrel rez for the third Uruk in case it gets the tank.

Third Uruk is going to be tricky, he gets to 1/4 health he's going to hit the tank like a freight train, I want shield brother on him to help heal him up and protect him. Also there will be adds coming, if any get by and head for the healer help the champ pull them off and dump them near the tank. Keep those off heals, to arms, Oathbreakers as soon as they are up, Last Stand/In Harms Way in the last twenty seconds as well as insurance and anything else you got and we should pull through this just fine."

Me: "Sorry can't do but about a third of that."

A Captain can easily do more than a third of what you're saying here.
A lvl 95 Captain has 65 points.
If he picks LtC, the Captain needs 31 points to get Oathies (and can get Telling from one of those 31 points), another 12 points to get Revealing Mark, 21 points to get IHW, that's about 64 points of the available 65.

In your hypothetical example, the HD captain (specced as described above) can do the following better than the pre-HD Captain:
Oathies (higher duration with legacy, lower cooldown)

In your hypothetical example, the HD captain (specced as described above) can do the following to full extent:
Telling Mark
Revealing Mark
Pull mobs off the healer (PA+Standard of War+Routing Cry)
IHW

In your hypothetical example, the HD captain (specced as described above) can do the following to some extent:
Powerheal. Blade-brother heals power, and can be traited so it heals everyone in the fellowship, including the minstrel
Rez if needed (only one rezz where pre-HD Captains had 2)
Defend tank with Brother skill (To Arms will be changed in coming update so it gives all three buffs, but in varying amounts depending on Song/Blade/Shield)

In your hypothetical example, the HD captain (specced as described above) can't do the following:
Last Stand

[Dylbro]

Eh, I'm just going with bleeds first because of what I recall seeing from a parse in Beta.

There's very little data to backup the build order I suggested, as it was meant as a starting point for us to figure out what really works.

@Dylbro:
RockX does not have to justify himself to you, or anyone else here. Deal with it.

The changes are overwhelming hated and have made the captain into a very boring class. It was one of the strongest pre HD and is now one of the most mundane and weakest with our core skills of SIX years replaced by gimmicks. It is comments like yours above which show you are truly ignorant of the captain class and how it was meant to be played for six years. You deflect any real criticism with ### kissing. In the notes RockX posted the core of the captain was not changed however it most certainly changed dramatically and for the worse so some explanation is actually warranted. Now, not only do you have nothing positive to bring to the table you dismiss anyone and everyone who wants to make it FUN again and justify your reasoning with paper stats and NO real world examples. You frankly are contributing to the ruin of this game by having a mindset such as "deal with it" and "no need to listen to you".

The captain appears to be built now around Helms Deep, standing in one spot while blocking narrow passageways. The skills appear to be completely geared and made for this type of setup which is BORING. The captain is now a very bad class in terms of mobility and versatility, which was its core. So frankly if you want paying customers you need happy customers and no one but the paper champs are happy with these changes.

[furtim]

The changes are overwhelming hated

Speak for yourself. Claiming that there's any one "overwhelming" opinion is a dubious position to take. I've been seeing a pretty wide diversity of opinions, both here on the forums and in-game. Asserting that you have overwhelming support without evidence is pretty shaky rhetorical ground to stand on.

[Belnavar]

For the record, I have been having immense fun with the revamped Captain since launch. I definitely prefer this to the old style.

I do have a minor issue, however, which several of us raised in beta also: ranged pulling. While Battle-shout has a longer range, it doesn't have a reduced cooldown, and we need to generally reserve it for when mobs are reasonably close by to avoid losing out on our attack chain. I found I had to do a lot more running up to mobs than on live due to the lack of an additional ranged pull skill. I think some sort of skill of this nature, even one that does no damage whatsoever and only generates a tiny amount of threat, would help a lot.

-Bel

[furtim]

I do have a minor issue, however, which several of us raised in beta also: ranged pulling. While Battle-shout has a longer range, it doesn't have a reduced cooldown, and we need to generally reserve it for when mobs are reasonably close by to avoid losing out on our attack chain. I found I had to do a lot more running up to mobs than on live due to the lack of an additional ranged pull skill. I think some sort of skill of this nature, even one that does no damage whatsoever and only generates a tiny amount of threat, would help a lot.

Have you tried using Noble Mark for this? I assume you're talking about a ranged pull for soloing and not grouping. Noble Mark has just as much range as Battle-Shout, so you can pull with it very effectively. The self-heal is also crazy good.

So those are my thoughts on skill rotations.

Just wanted to follow up on this. I had forgotten about the Master of War set bonus. Basically, if you crit with Inspire or Shadow's Lament, your next skill is guaranteed to crit. Battle-Hardened, despite being defensively-oriented, also has a bonus to Critical Magnitude.

Here's a skill combo for crazy burst damage: Buffs -> ToN -> Sure Strike -> Standard of War -> Grave Wound -> Cutting Attack -> Devastating Blow -> Inspire -> Shadow's Lament -> Devastating Blow -> Blade of Elendil.

If Inspire crits, you get a guaranteed crit on Shadow's Lament. That will re-proc Master of War (AFAIK, there's no cooldown on the effect) and let you get a guaranteed crit on Devastating Blow as well. Or, if Inspire doesn't crit, Shadow's Lament gets a second chance to crit and proc Master of War for Devastating Blow's inherently higher crit magnitude.

[Elrantiri]

Why would you do GW before CA in that rotation? :S

[furtim]

Because I want to hit Grave Wound while Battle-Readied for the damage buff, but I also want to use Cutting Attack's bonus Crit Magnitude on Devastating Blow instead of GW. I should point out that it's meant to be a single-target rotation.

(BTW, Grave Wound now applies a bleed regardless of whether your target has Cutting Attack on it. The only incentive to put GW after CA now is to get the AoE bleed.)

[Elrantiri]

Because I want to hit Grave Wound while Battle-Readied for the damage buff, but I also want to use Cutting Attack's bonus Crit Magnitude on Devastating Blow instead of GW. I should point out that it's meant to be a single-target rotation.

(BTW, Grave Wound now applies a bleed regardless of whether your target has Cutting Attack on it. The only incentive to put GW after CA now is to get the AoE bleed.)

Ah ok, well for single target AoE GW obviously won't be of any importance.
For AoE, I'd guess Cutting Attack crit magnitude lasts for more than 1 skill so you'd get extra crit magnitude on both GW and DB. If not, I'd probably go CA -> DB -> GW to get crit magnitude on DB and still have AoE possibility from GW.

[Khaaan]

Has anyone even mentioned that the HD Captain is able to dish out about two to three times the damage that the pre-HD was able to do? I do agree that some mechanics feel clunky (I feel like I have even more buttons to push for a good rotation even in solo skirmishes) and that some versatility was lost. BUT and thats a big but: where the Pre-HD Captain could do MANY different things, those great many diverse things had a very minor effect. I mean if you werent traited completely green, your healing assistance in a group was really tiny apart from our on death AOE heal. The brother skills were doing only a tiny effect.

I don't say it was bad. If you used all the tools at your disposal however minute they were they did add up to a great boost for the group. With HD you can't rescue the group from a wipe, buff tanks, dps and healers all with their flavor of buff while putting up the banner fitting the situation all at once. But if you join a group as red line DPS assist now, you will deal damage like a true DPS class and push the other DPS players damage more than you were able to before.

The only thing that feels a bit off, is that for blue and yellow line your support skills do support a role that normally is only found once in your group (probably being filled by yourself already ^^). So that should probably be changed.

In the end I for one prefer loosing some (not all) versatility in exchange for doubling my damage


PS: I wonder how much the damage of hunters and champions has increased... I mean... whats the progression after a "one-shot"? Do they one-shot two mobs now at once? ^^

[furtim]

For AoE, I'd guess Cutting Attack crit magnitude lasts for more than 1 skill so you'd get extra crit magnitude on both GW and DB. If not, I'd probably go CA -> DB -> GW to get crit magnitude on DB and still have AoE possibility from GW.

The tooltip implies that the Crit Magnitude will last for 7s, but in practice it *appears* to be consumed by the next skill used. I'm not sure which way it's supposed to be working, actually.

[furtim]

PS: I wonder how much the damage of hunters and champions has increased... I mean... whats the progression after a "one-shot"? Do they one-shot two mobs now at once? ^^

During beta, I directly asked for DPS parses in both the Hunter and Champ threads, but nobody ever posted any.

We get a ton of DPS out of buffs that take a few seconds to set up, so it's really difficult to test our personal DPS out on the landscape. Mobs simply die too fast to get an accurate measurement. Target Dummies have a similar problem with their 20s reset timers. So, figuring out actual DPS numbers without the benefit of the uber-dummy in Bullroarer's Eyes & Guard Tavern is annoyingly difficult.

[Almagnus1]

No, we get the additional role of handing them tissues as we can now out DPS the bad ones.