Support captain build advice for T2 raid?

[Wilzui]

Returned to LotrO after the new raid came back and really liked the new raid at T1. However now it is time for the next step to move onwards to T2 version and would like to ask some advice as I don´t have so much time nowadays to experiment with gear and my last time to play captain more seriously dates back to Orthanc and Erebor.

My aim is to play support cappy so would like to ask advice on:

1) Stat targets for T2 raid?
-For example Morale, Finesse, CritD, Mitigations (both or swapping?), outgoing healing/physical mastery etc?

2) Armour & jewellery sets?
-Using at the moment 2-orthanc for OB reset and 4 pelennor for revealing mark cappy. Also have 3-piece BB mitigation buff jewellery. Better armour set suggestions? Are the BB-sets for captain worth slotting or just go with FI jewellery or raid drops?

3) LI´s?
-At the moment have healing emblem and a bit of a hybrid 2h. Starting to build on pure dps sword and emblem but are the little extra dps worth for the raid (losing heals) or better to stay with support/mixed Li´s? I know it would be probably best to have separate LIs for each role but it is quite long grind as I just imbued my first LIs some time ago. So is there a reason to rush the grind or are hybrid/support okies? Any LI screenshots appreciated.

Sorry for the long post and grammar errors but thanks for the advices in advance.

[Beastnas]

By support I suppose you mean red-line, as a Captain could have many viable roles in the new raid, yellow, or even blue.

Generally I hover between 35k-40k morale, close to overcap on both mits (23-24k), and 8-12k finesse (to help my Sure Strikes land, get crits for defeat events, or corruption removal). Crit D is not hugely important, you should get a fair amount from supreme mit essences anyway.

Mastery/Outgoing Healing I have no set targets for, as I focus primarily on staying alive and applying every possible buff. However if the survivability targets are reached, I'd throw on extra Might essences. I like a small amount of extra incoming healing as well.

The 2 Dagor reset always has a permanent spot on my cappy, and 4 Pelennor is great especially if you are the revealing mark cappy. The PvMP Command 4 piece bonus is also great for the single target DPS races with 10% incoming damage (until you have access to the T2 Captain set). The personal stats are bad, but you can make up for the mits and morale on jewelry. I don't think any of the BB sets are worth using any more, maybe the 10% mit one is mildly useful, but has an internal cooldown and costs many essence slots.


Here are my Red-line legendaries:



As you can see there are a fair amount of healing legacies. I chose these over extra things like Time of Need Duration or Bleed crit damage because of the group support potential vs a "pure" red-line emblem containing those.

[Gandalphor]

Your gear sounds OK. I can't be bothered with BB jewelry because there is only a chance of getting some bonus for a few seconds. Not worth it in my opinion. Especially since that is good only for a tanking cappy, as you need to be hit to trigger it. I'm using full FI jewelry+hilt for now. IF you were to get the t2 jewelry from the raid you'd only get an improvement of one aditional essence, which is just not worth the hassle, especially for cappy.

As far as mitigations go, I like to have it overcapped from the start and not be dependant on mits scrolls as you may expect to eventually die and won't be able to read them in combat when rezed.

I have 30.5k morale unbuffed as a red cappy, you want at least 10k crit def., 12k finesse, capped crit rating or just enough so you can cap it with skill. I wouldn't worry about cappy outgoing healing. You can try to help a little bit, but if a healer can't handle it there's no cappy heals that can change that. Since some of the t2c battles are time based you may want to make a red emblem too. You won't be doing much more dmg and your dps most likely won't be the decisive one, but every second can be precious sometimes.

I got separate LIs for red and blue/yellow. Basically, I use healing LIs for tanking, but with some tanking relics. The tanking one is maxed, the red one is around 49-50, with some maxed to 59. When tanking I don't want to rely on any hybrid with red build.

[EmmeraldFireFox]

By support I suppose you mean red-line, as a Captain could have many viable roles in the new raid, yellow, or even blue.

Beastnas, sent up a PM.

[Lunasa]

The PvMP Command 4 piece bonus is also great for the single target DPS races with 10% incoming damage (until you have access to the T2 Captain set).

Unlike the Command set, the new raid set gives only 5% incoming damage. The buff from the sure strike does not stack with itself (neither on the tooltip nor if you look at the actual skill damage increase). I don't know which of the two sets - PvMP Command or PvE Charge - is bugged. May happen that stacking of that bonus was never intended.

[dwarfThar]

Unlike the Command set, the new raid set gives only 5% incoming damage. The buff from the sure strike does not stack with itself (neither on the tooltip nor if you look at the actual skill damage increase). I don't know which of the two sets - PvMP Command or PvE Charge - is bugged. May happen that stacking of that bonus was never intended.

I don't think it stacks with itself, it benefits from the +5% damage for Telling Mark (now trait/legacy back in the day). No idea if that's the case for the raid set also though.

[Beastnas]

Correct, the new Greater charge set maxes out at 5% incoming damage (and is truthful to the wording of the bonus, making me think it's the old Command set that's bugged). I prefer the Greater charge at this point, because I did have to make a few sacrifices wearing Command, like low crit, low finesse, or under 35k morale, while the raid bonus is still solid.

[EmmeraldFireFox]

Correct, the new Greater charge set maxes out at 5% incoming damage (and is truthful to the wording of the bonus, making me think it's the old Command set that's bugged). I prefer the Greater charge at this point, because I did have to make a few sacrifices wearing Command, like low crit, low finesse, or under 35k morale, and the bonus is still solid.

Beastnas, ty for the response. Sent you another PM.

[Ifareth]

Just a couple of advice. If you are supporting you have to save your group (and not only your fellowship) in different ways. Stats are ok but some action are required. I have 2 not imbuied LI, a weapon with make haste duration and a symbol with SoD duration. Playng yellow line with some point in blue for reveling and galliant dis. is an holy hand for your group. When i see desperate situation i ofter use 2 actions. I put IHW and 20 second SoD on me, after 7-8 seconds Last Stand and stranght in number. With long duration of SoD i often save fellowhip in raid. If you see a very difficult situation Use the same strategy, but put on you make haste. Ask a RK to put on you pre rez, use 6 target thr.shout and RUN AWAY from group ( i suppose in yellow line you got aggro of some mobs, use TS on mobs you are not tanking to have on you 8/12 mobs while running away). Make haste let you run far from the group letting group safe for/rez and healing. You have to know, you are going to die, but with RK pre rez you will come back to group before mobs, so use a token, put you shield brother and start again to tank/off tank. I use this on Mumaks adds and it works really fine.

If you can put on the horrible 2 essence set with 10% run speed in combat bonus and you have 20 seconds +20% run speed scrolls, some times you can take mobs attention on you for 40/50 seconds with no problem, helping a lot the whole raid, becouse the mobs snare (like in mumaks fight by archers) is 25% max and you overrun it.

Remember make haste duration is an incredible help for the final 20 minutes challange (in forges fight if you or you or your mates are throwed far away, for trash pulls, to escape from blue fire etc).

[Lanelthan]

This is my setup for support most of the time. The reason I go a different route than Beastnas is because the Grave Wound damage, and Cutting attack damage only affect the initial hit of the skill.

[Wilzui]

Thanks everyone for lot of helpful advice on different builds and more! Of course Captain is very versatile class and gives many different ways to approach. Discussion has certainly given some interesting thoughts to consider about.

Cheers!

[Uminel]

1. For red at least 30k. Finesse 8k will be enough but can be 12 if you want to be sure. Crit Def 40-50% and Mits capped.
Might means more of everything.

2. Take all the essences of Might as you can. Crit 16-17k at least.

3. Cappy is versatile yes, but if you still trying to do a little bit of everything.. you will miss a lot of potential. If you focus on one job then cappy can be really good on it! Of course no too good as the other classes but good enough.
And you only have 2 skills for healing, rallying cry and words of courage. Inspire BladeBro heal is the lowest of the 3 lines. Waste legacies for 2 Heals just not worth it.

For example, look that guy with Melee Skills Healing on his emblem. That only worth for Inspire and like i said, is too low. 37.% for something that heal 200 is just useless. No mention that emblem can't be used for Blue line. And if you try use it with Yellow line, still need a lot of grind for morale essences, so there is no point if you are locking avoid grind. (Maybe he has the resources for 2 builds and thats ok, but in my opinion, Yellow cappy works better with Blue line, cuz if you are stacking morale, your damage will be LOW, but your healing will be almost the same.)
Awful build btw, it make me cry.

[Draconfier]

This is my setup for support most of the time. The reason I go a different route than Beastnas is because the Grave Wound damage, and Cutting attack damage only affect the initial hit of the skill.

So I've seen this debated several times. Including this thread http://https://www.lotro.com/forums/...dened-legacies where one poster says cutting attack spreads a higher bleed on the initial hit plus the ticks, and another says it doesn't. You're also stating that it doesn't. Does anyone have undeniable proof of whether or not this legacy: cutting attack can be dropped for something better. I'm basically looking at replacing with Might as I have all the others that you have.

Battle Hardened Outgoing Heal
Battle Hardened Incoming
Battle Readied Damage
Bleed Damage
Melee Skills Critical
Captain Area of Effect Healing
Cutting Attack Damage

On my badge I still have both sure strike and shadow's lament, but am considering replacing one with healing critical magnitude. Legacies as follows:

Vocal Skills Healing
Rallying Cry Healing
Light Damage
Shadows Lament Damage
Sure Strike Damage
Pressing Attack Devastating Blow Damage
Time of Need Buff Duration +damage modifier.

+damage that now comes with the higher levels of imbuement, and while this isn't up that much, its nice when the group needs to maximize dps. I realize I could put this on a swap, but that seems like a lot of hassle for one legacy.

I don't see the need for melee skills healing legacy as it only affects Inspire or Galant Display if you trait down far enough into blue.

What are most cappies using now.

[Uminel]

So I've seen this debated several times. Including this thread http://https://www.lotro.com/forums/...dened-legacies where one poster says cutting attack spreads a higher bleed on the initial hit plus the ticks, and another says it doesn't. You're also stating that it doesn't. Does anyone have undeniable proof of whether or not this legacy: cutting attack can be dropped for something better. I'm basically looking at replacing with Might as I have all the others that you have.

Battle Hardened Outgoing Heal
Battle Hardened Incoming
Battle Readied Damage
Bleed Damage
Melee Skills Critical
Captain Area of Effect Healing
Cutting Attack Damage

On my badge I still have both sure strike and shadow's lament, but am considering replacing one with healing critical magnitude. Legacies as follows:

Vocal Skills Healing
Rallying Cry Healing
Light Damage
Shadows Lament Damage
Sure Strike Damage
Pressing Attack Devastating Blow Damage
Time of Need Buff Duration +damage modifier.

Minstrel heal are TOO DAMN GOOD, they just dont need any help from red captains. In fact, if you really wanna go hybrid support, then pick red and yellow, go sword and shield and take Banner of Hope. 30% incoming healing is better than 6-9k rallying cry.

So if you can, get 2 emblems and 2 weapons. With this you will be able to do everything:
I can heal t2 3man instances and SS first boss t2 without any problem. (My healing legacies are not complete so just do what i know i could)
Red with very decent dps. T1 Rakothas take 900k from me. Pretty decent for a support i guess.
Soon as i finish my weapons, i will farm morale essences for tanking. Right now i can reach 50k morale with 5k Might, but i think i need at least 70k+ morale.

[Beastnas]

Minstrel heal are TOO DAMN GOOD, they just dont need any help from red captains.

Even then, a Captain's extra damage output is still a lower priority than the extra healing output for me. Rallying Cry AOE heals and Words of Courage spot heals still aid quite a bit in fellowships/raids with people in roles like Yellow Minstrel or Blue RK.

[Draconfier]

Minstrel heal are TOO DAMN GOOD, they just dont need any help from red captains. In fact, if you really wanna go hybrid support, then pick red and yellow, go sword and shield and take Banner of Hope. 30% incoming healing is better than 6-9k rallying cry.

So if you can, get 2 emblems and 2 weapons. With this you will be able to do everything:
I can heal t2 3man instances and SS first boss t2 without any problem. (My healing legacies are not complete so just do what i know i could)
Red with very decent dps. T1 Rakothas take 900k from me. Pretty decent for a support i guess.
Soon as i finish my weapons, i will farm morale essences for tanking. Right now i can reach 50k morale with 5k Might, but i think i need at least 70k+ morale.

I get what your saying to a certain extent. However, why do you still have the wasted legacy of pressing attack/devastating blow critical rating on all your items shown. Earlier you said cap your crit at 16-17k, if that's the case that is a wasted legacy on both of your LI's. Only if it was % based would it stack on top of the cap that you reach at 25% with the 16-17k.

No one is saying that a cappy will ever have the burst healing capability of a mini, we're talking support or utilization to help take some pressure off the mini while also buffing the groups dps, providing rezzes, and doing some moderate damage as well.

No one has still been able to give me a definitive answer however on cutting attack: Does it or Does it not affect the tick bleed after the initial hit?

[Uminel]

I get what your saying to a certain extent. However, why do you still have the wasted legacy of pressing attack/devastating blow critical rating on all your items shown. Earlier you said cap your crit at 16-17k, if that's the case that is a wasted legacy on both of your LI's. Only if it was % based would it stack on top of the cap that you reach at 25% with the 16-17k.

Critical rating still contributing to your critical magnitude, for red more damage is what i want.
In blue line i take nothing from red line so my melee crit rating is 24.6% (17K crti rating), more crit rating on DevBlow/PressAttack help with defeat events. Also used on Yellow where my Crit is around 10k.

Cutting Attack and Grave Wound legacies have no effects over your bleed, only the initial hit will do more damage.

[Jula]

I believe there was some testing on Crit Rating legacies on the warden forums at some point which showed they have no effect on crit magnitude and just crit chance. Is the same thing true here?

[Lanelthan]

I believe there was some testing on Crit Rating legacies on the warden forums at some point which showed they have no effect on crit magnitude and just crit chance. Is the same thing true here?

Yes I believe the same is true for us, making it a wasted legacy.

[mirkovic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vpuPVYtVs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6f9Khwyo8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQuAaB5Z9k hope it helps to any cappy that needs it

[Lanelthan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vpuPVYtVs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6f9Khwyo8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQuAaB5Z9k hope it helps to any cappy that needs it

Please stop sharing this on every thread. Your red line build is not optimal at all.

[Eruadarion]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vpuPVYtVs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6f9Khwyo8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQuAaB5Z9k hope it helps to any cappy that needs it

While I respect you for putting effort into creating those videos, I would like to disagree with a few points.

(I only watched the red line video so far)

1.) "Spam Shadow's Lament whenever it's off cooldown to reset your Oathbreaker"
No. After you resetted your OB once, you have an internal unvisible cooldown of resetting it a second time. You should not use SL if there are a only a few seconds left of your internal cooldown, as well as if there are only a few seconds left of OBs actual cooldown. It's simply not maximum efficiency if you blindly press SL whenever it's off cooldown.

2.) "You don't do any damage"
That's only partially true. I actually do damage. It's not much and it's not priority but saying "don't bother with doing damage at all" is not right either.

3.) "I am using Spear and Shield in red line for better survivability"
You have enough survivabilty with 2-handed weapons. Heavy armour, ~40k morale, capped mits and personal cooldowns are more than enough to ensure you don't die. I know some Captains prefer to play with Sword & Board in red line but why on earth would you want to use a Spear? Small chance for a bleed proc, seriously?

4.) Your LI Legacies and Relics
No Critical Rating, no minus Attack Duration and no crafted relics is a bad decision in my opinion. I also don't agree with you choice of legacies, especially Defensive Strike Armour Buff, PA and DB crit rating and Vitality is certainly not what I want on my red line LIs.

5.) Your stats
Only 3.1k Crit Rating, only 8.5k Finesse, only 7.8k Crit Defence, only 19.2k physical mitigation but 63.3k morale? Critical rating should be capped as a Captain (minus your own 2.5k Crit Buff), Finesse should be at least 12k or even higher, Crit Defence should be 10k to reach 50% and mitigations should of course be capped (against level 108 T2 mobs). More than 40-45k morale is not needed in almost every situation. Having higher morale numbers makes it only unnecessarily harder for your healers in case of incoming percentage based damage.

5.) Your armour
There are two great support set bonuses at the moment. First one is 4 piece bonus from Pelennor set with 20% revealing mark and the second one is the Ettenmoors Command set with +10% inc damage when using Sure Strike (or Greater Raid Armour with only 5%). You use neither of them. Why?

7.) Your Trait Tree
Actually your trait trees seem okay-ish, however I'd rather have Grave Wound inc healing debuff and -5s Grave Wound cooldown instead of AOE healing from the blue tree. Maybe also the herald's armour debuff, depending on the situation.

8.) "...Blade of Elendil. You spam that."
No you don't. Unless you have to remove a corruption just don't use that skill. It's simply not worth losing your battle-hardened state benefits for BoE's tiny bit of damage.

[floccari]

While I respect you for putting effort into creating those videos, I would like to disagree with a few points.

(I only watched the red line video so far)

1.) "Spam Shadow's Lament whenever it's off cooldown to reset your Oathbreaker"
No. After you resetted your OB once, you have an internal unvisible cooldown of resetting it a second time. You should not use SL if there are a only a few seconds left of your internal cooldown, as well as if there are only a few seconds left of OBs actual cooldown. It's simply not maximum efficiency if you blindly press SL whenever it's off cooldown.

2.) "You don't do any damage"
That's only partially true. I actually do damage. It's not much and it's not priority but saying "don't bother with doing damage at all" is not right either.

3.) "I am using Spear and Shield in red line for better survivability"
You have enough survivabilty with 2-handed weapons. Heavy armour, ~40k morale, capped mits and personal cooldowns are more than enough to ensure you don't die. I know some Captains prefer to play with Sword & Board in red line but why on earth would you want to use a Spear? Small chance for a bleed proc, seriously?

4.) Your LI Legacies and Relics
No Critical Rating, no minus Attack Duration and no crafted relics is a bad decision in my opinion. I also don't agree with you choice of legacies, especially Defensive Strike Armour Buff, PA and DB crit rating and Vitality is certainly not what I want on my red line LIs.

5.) Your stats
Only 3.1k Crit Rating, only 8.5k Finesse, only 7.8k Crit Defence, only 19.2k physical mitigation but 63.3k morale? Critical rating should be capped as a Captain (minus your own 2.5k Crit Buff), Finesse should be at least 12k or even higher, Crit Defence should be 10k to reach 50% and mitigations should of course be capped (against level 108 T2 mobs). More than 40-45k morale is not needed in almost every situation. Having higher morale numbers makes it only unnecessarily harder for your healers in case of incoming percentage based damage.

5.) Your armour
There are two great support set bonuses at the moment. First one is 4 piece bonus from Pelennor set with 20% revealing mark and the second one is the Ettenmoors Command set with +10% inc damage when using Sure Strike (or Greater Raid Armour with only 5%). You use neither of them. Why?

7.) Your Trait Tree
Actually your trait trees seem okay-ish, however I'd rather have Grave Wound inc healing debuff and -5s Grave Wound cooldown instead of AOE healing from the blue tree. Maybe also the herald's armour debuff, depending on the situation.

8.) "...Blade of Elendil. You spam that."
No you don't. Unless you have to remove a corruption just don't use that skill. It's simply not worth losing your battle-hardened state benefits for BoE's tiny bit of damage.

^

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[dselden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vpuPVYtVs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6f9Khwyo8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQuAaB5Z9k hope it helps to any cappy that needs it

You really should get your crit to cap with relentless attack buff since your Blade Brother will almost certainly be missing autocrits from inspire and Shadow's Lament when you have a critical rating of 3k. A red cappy can honestly be anywhere from 35-45k morale for any boss in Throne T2c and not die (although you'd clearly want to err on the side of safety for mumaks).
And you definitely need to think about your rotation more to keep up your own dps buffs, etc. Although red captain is by no means a runekeeper, it's fairly easy to add 8-10k dps to Rakothas or Vadokhar while wearing command set and ToO oathies reset with average jewelry as well.