Captain question about banners and marks

[Imatia_Narene]

Hi everyone.
I'm a returning player from 10 years ago. Sadly my characters are locked on a closed server. So I'm thinking about re-rolling a new captain.

I remember my captain being very versatile being able to switch his banners on the battlefield situation's circumstance depending on if you needed more health, power, or dps.

My old keybinds file was saved and one that I used on a N52 game pad, about 2 gigs of screen shots saved from 2007-2012 lol.

After inspecting my old saved data I've confirmed that I did have 3 banners (Hope, Victory, War) and 3 marks on my captain's toolbars.

I have been reading about current captain configurations, and what I have read now if I'm understanding what it says is that you need to pick 1 of 3 available specializations ( I don't remember that) in which each specialization (from what I gather) only lets you use 1 type of mark and 1 type of banner.





To the big question. If you're forced to pick a specialization, can you or can't you acquire and have all 3 banners and all 3 marks available to your captain now?


Here is one of the screenshots where you can see the marks and banners/heralds are in groups.

[Gandolf_TheOld]

As a level 21 Captain, yes you can have all three Banners, at least I do as a Red Cappy. Have not researched this yet, but it would seem to me that the strength of the Banner would be dependent on your trait line (Red, Blue, Yellow).

Just in case you have not yet found the many links you will need...

Lotro-wiki - Captain


Welcome back to LOTRO.

Some information and links that may be of help to you.

The game has changed much since you last played.

Below are links to several sites about some feature of LOTRO.

Lotro-Wiki - All things LOTRO
https://lotro-wiki.com/

LOTRO Basics - Basic information about LOTRO
https://www.lotrobasics.com/

LOTRO Interface - Change your LOTRO Interface and find lua apps
https://www.lotrointerface.com/

I Love Fried Orc - Now that you have trait points, how are you going to spend them to build your character(s)
https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/

LotroHQ - Some class builds, Guides and a bit more
https://lotrohq.com/

Lotrortools - New Legendary Traceries (U30.3) by Class
https://lotrotools.pw/traceries.html

DYN Map - LOTRO Maps, lots of usefull and needed information.
https://dynmap.ruslotro.com/

DADI'S - One of the best Guide Sites about LOTRO. DADI still plays LOTRO.
https://dadislotroguides.com/

Guide: New to LOTRO guide By Thornelas - A long and detailed forum post about LOTRO. Well worth the read.
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...hints-and-tips



Information on the new LI System.
If you are starting new characters, the below won't be of immediate need, but you will need the information once you start to enter Moria.

New LI System introduced with Update U30.3)
Completely replaced the old LI system, thus most videos and articles about the LI system are obsolete.


NEW LI SYSTEM
LOTRO Online - Legendary Items
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Legendary_Items

DADI'S LOTRO GUIDES - New Legendary System (30.3)
https://dadislotroguides.com/new-leg...ossibly-u30-3/
Just in case the site breaks the link, here it is as text to copy and paste:

https://dadislotroguides.com/new-legendary-system-possibly-u30-3/

Lotro-Wiki - Tracery
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Tracery


Again, welcome back to LOTRO.

[Alcor]

I *think* that banners behave differently now than they did 10 years ago mind you.

As for the marks, the mark you easily get depends on the trait tree. You do not have all three. Maybe you can if you dig deeper into the other trees.

[Imatia_Narene]

As a level 21 Captain, yes you can have all three Banners, at least I do as a Red Cappy. Have not researched this yet, but it would seem to me that the strength of the Banner would be dependent on your trait line (Red, Blue, Yellow).

Just in case you have not yet found the many links you will need...

Lotro-wiki - Captain


Welcome back to LOTRO.

Some information and links that may be of help to you.

The game has changed much since you last played.

Below are links to several sites about some feature of LOTRO.

Lotro-Wiki - All things LOTRO
https://lotro-wiki.com/

LOTRO Basics - Basic information about LOTRO
https://www.lotrobasics.com/

LOTRO Interface - Change your LOTRO Interface and find lua apps
https://www.lotrointerface.com/

I Love Fried Orc - Now that you have trait points, how are you going to spend them to build your character(s)
https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/

LotroHQ - Some class builds, Guides and a bit more
https://lotrohq.com/

Lotrortools - New Legendary Traceries (U30.3) by Class
https://lotrotools.pw/traceries.html

DYN Map - LOTRO Maps, lots of usefull and needed information.
https://dynmap.ruslotro.com/

DADI'S - One of the best Guide Sites about LOTRO. DADI still plays LOTRO.
https://dadislotroguides.com/

Guide: New to LOTRO guide By Thornelas - A long and detailed forum post about LOTRO. Well worth the read.
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...hints-and-tips



Information on the new LI System.
If you are starting new characters, the below won't be of immediate need, but you will need the information once you start to enter Moria.

New LI System introduced with Update U30.3)
Completely replaced the old LI system, thus most videos and articles about the LI system are obsolete.


NEW LI SYSTEM
LOTRO Online - Legendary Items
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Legendary_Items

DADI'S LOTRO GUIDES - New Legendary System (30.3)
https://dadislotroguides.com/new-leg...ossibly-u30-3/
Just in case the site breaks the link, here it is as text to copy and paste:

https://dadislotroguides.com/new-legendary-system-possibly-u30-3/

Lotro-Wiki - Tracery
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Tracery


Again, welcome back to LOTRO.

Great post! Thank you very much.

I *think* that banners behave differently now than they did 10 years ago mind you.

As for the marks, the mark you easily get depends on the trait tree. You do not have all three. Maybe you can if you dig deeper into the other trees.

Thank you. That'll really suck if you can't use the 2 others. That was one of the main abilities to be able to toggle against raid bosses.

[WeirdJedi]

Much has changed since those days. For starters, you no longer need to equip cosmetic heralds. They allow you to buy and exchange envelopes to obtain cosmetic skills - including the new elf styles - from the captain trainer. We now have trait trees that you must extend points to get the marks and banners. However, only one banner can be placed down at a time. Put more points into the trait and you are able to throw them at a distance. The standards you equip on your character are now "buff sticks" that give you a little bonus in stats. You can learn to have more than one mark, but only one mark from you on any specific enemy. If there is more than one captain, another captain can put a different mark on the same enemy.

[Imatia_Narene]

Much has changed since those days. For starters, you no longer need to equip cosmetic heralds. They allow you to buy and exchange envelopes to obtain cosmetic skills - including the new elf styles - from the captain trainer. We now have trait trees that you must extend points to get the marks and banners. However, only one banner can be placed down at a time. Put more points into the trait and you are able to throw them at a distance. The standards you equip on your character are now "buff sticks" that give you a little bonus in stats. You can learn to have more than one mark, but only one mark from you on any specific enemy. If there is more than one captain, another captain can put a different mark on the same enemy.

That's more like what I remember, 1 standard/mark at a time. What do you mean by "buff sticks", they always boosted your stats? It seems like I remember one of my armourer friends making heralds and standards for me, so now you have no need to craft them, just buy them?. Or maybe it was my weaponsmith that made the standards. It's been too long. But on the plus side I guess, being a lifetime member I accrued just shy of 70,000 gold store coins in my away time lol.

This is where I'm at right now. How does this skill tree open up? Does it open by level straight across the board from left to right allowing you to select skills in the other tree, or do you have to buy a skill and then open the lower ones in your chosen specification? I'm leaning towards Lead the Charge (the red one) for now and maybe cherry pick some skills out of the other two specializations if I can and see if I can get it to do what I want.

Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge.

[WeirdJedi]

My memory is a bit hazy from long ago, but people once told me that you needed to equip the herald into the slot to make it change cosmetic forms or add a standard into the slot so you can plant banners. In any case, I wanted to reaffirm that there is no correlation between what you equip into the slot and the skills themselves. The herald items still buff your companion, but you can now summon the different cosmetic forms. Example: Call to Arms: Herald of War (Human) or Call to Arms: Herald of War (Elf) are two separate skills you can use.

Trait Trees are relatively simple: blue is heal to which you gain Valiant Strike (melee heal), red is damage to which you gain Shadow's Lament, yellow is tank to which you get Elendir's Roar (taunt)... with a bunch of other attributes that change depending on which tree you decide as your primary. Other than that, the only difference is that the other trees you don't choose cost you 2 trait points instead of 1. You figure out from there how to spend your points.

You will gain enough to go down one tree just by leveling, but much of the trait points have to be earned one way or another. Consult the wiki for a full list: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Class_Trait_Point

[Imatia_Narene]

My memory is a bit hazy from long ago, but people once told me that you needed to equip the herald into the slot to make it change cosmetic forms or add a standard into the slot so you can plant banners. In any case, I wanted to reaffirm that there is no correlation between what you equip into the slot and the skills themselves. The herald items still buff your companion, but you can now summon the different cosmetic forms. Example: Call to Arms: Herald of War (Human) or Call to Arms: Herald of War (Elf) are two separate skills you can use.

Trait Trees are relatively simple: blue is heal to which you gain Valiant Strike (melee heal), red is damage to which you gain Shadow's Lament, yellow is tank to which you get Elendir's Roar (taunt)... with a bunch of other attributes that change depending on which tree you decide as your primary. Other than that, the only difference is that the other trees you don't choose cost you 2 trait points instead of 1. You figure out from there how to spend your points.

You will gain enough to go down one tree just by leveling, but much of the trait points have to be earned one way or another. Consult the wiki for a full list: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Class_Trait_Point

Any idea why they broke the captain class into 3 different classes? It seems very limited now from what I remember as being able to use any captain skill you wanted in your build. He was marketed as and used to be the main guy controlling the ebb and flow of fellowship combat.

That's right about the standards and heralds. There were some special scripts that I had set up in the chatbox bound to specific tool bar slots to be able to use them in certain combinations. I don't remember what it was. But I had some blank Icons on my tool bars because of it that I had in order to use keybinds for the game pad.

[WeirdJedi]

The captain as I remember it was the jack-of-all-trades, master of none. You were flexible, but you really couldn't excel in any one avenue. Not many wanted to be a captain, even after giving us 105 level boosts and the perks of being a High Elf. We never really could do much damage until our Class Revamp at level 120: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Upd...August_6,_2019, which cut our skill time in half. There was a brief time at level 130 when we were actually the best tanks available, even over guardians.

In all seriousness, allowing us to choose between the three trait trees have really benefited us to compete in the role of tank or damage, less so on healing. With a press of a button (and switching out your gear), you can go from a tank that can stand with the other ones or someone that can actually help defeat enemies. The trait tree debate is a decade old. We've learned to adapt to our new skills and abilities.

[Imatia_Narene]

My captain was like a switch blade knife and a master of some. I remember the first time I went to the Ettenmoors with him. He walked in like a champ and died like a chump. I respeced a few times and it wasn't long after that when I'd enter the moors that all the creeps that knew me would stay far far away. It's a real shame they took away 2/3's of the available skills. It looks kinda stupid to do all that grinding if you can't use them the way you want to.

[Schattenhand]

Look at the trait tree planner ---> https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/
It simulates the full amount of available trait points (at max level).
Choose your class, a traitline and play around a bit.
If you (nearly) max out your chosen traitline, you have enough points left to trait half way (more or less) into a second one. For example: Full Red DPS/Support and half Blue for additional heals.

Captain is still a diverse class and alway requested for raiding and stuff. Either as tank or DPS-support. Healing falls a bit off, but is still ok for smaller groups, afaik. But anyway, only if build for that precise job you wanna do.
When it comes to raiding, it has to be discussed who does what, if there is more than one Cappy in the raid (banners, marks, who, when, where, etc...)
If you know in advance which banner you have to use, then theoretically you don't need to skill the others and can distribute the points elsewhere. Same for the marks.

In Moors Raids I only remember red banners, even if there are several Cappies. The area in which the banner works is relatively small, but the fights are somewhat spread out, at least outside of keeps.
So banners are placed one after the other (in keeps) or alternatively next to each other (outside) to cover a larger area. When fully skilled and the banner is freely placeable.

[RicoFTW]

They didn't *break* captain into 3 classes. That's what trait trees did to every class when 95 cap came out. You can still trait all marks and all banners but it's just not recommended as it's gonna cost you a lot of trait points and banners share cooldown with each other so no point having more than 1 traited which will be the one you'd spec for. As a red cappy you will always want to have both telling and revealing mark traited as the other cappy in the group will be tank traited either yellow/red for telling mark and red banner or yellow/blue for yellow banner/revealing mark/double rez for harder content. I think cappy is in a batter shape than before trait trees in the way that you pretty much always want 2 cappies in the raid. One red and one yellow as both cannot really be replaced by other classes. Captain is still a jack of all trades with the exception that they are one of the best tanks and the best buffer ever since trait trees come out.

[Imatia_Narene]

Look at the trait tree planner ---> https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/
It simulates the full amount of available trait points (at max level).
Choose your class, a traitline and play around a bit.
If you (nearly) max out your chosen traitline, you have enough points left to trait half way (more or less) into a second one. For example: Full Red DPS/Support and half Blue for additional heals.

Captain is still a diverse class and alway requested for raiding and stuff. Either as tank or DPS-support. Healing falls a bit off, but is still ok for smaller groups, afaik. But anyway, only if build for that precise job you wanna do.
When it comes to raiding, it has to be discussed who does what, if there is more than one Cappy in the raid (banners, marks, who, when, where, etc...)
If you know in advance which banner you have to use, then theoretically you don't need to skill the others and can distribute the points elsewhere. Same for the marks.

In Moors Raids I only remember red banners, even if there are several Cappies. The area in which the banner works is relatively small, but the fights are somewhat spread out, at least outside of keeps.
So banners are placed one after the other (in keeps) or alternatively next to each other (outside) to cover a larger area. When fully skilled and the banner is freely placeable.

Thanks for the intuitive input.

They didn't *break* captain into 3 classes. That's what trait trees did to every class when 95 cap came out. You can still trait all marks and all banners but it's just not recommended as it's gonna cost you a lot of trait points and banners share cooldown with each other so no point having more than 1 traited which will be the one you'd spec for. As a red cappy you will always want to have both telling and revealing mark traited as the other cappy in the group will be tank traited either yellow/red for telling mark and red banner or yellow/blue for yellow banner/revealing mark/double rez for harder content. I think cappy is in a batter shape than before trait trees in the way that you pretty much always want 2 cappies in the raid. One red and one yellow as both cannot really be replaced by other classes. Captain is still a jack of all trades with the exception that they are one of the best tanks and the best buffer ever since trait trees come out.

LoLz
When I left the cap was level 60 and all traits and and basic skills were available to spec on your character the way you wanted it. I can see the way you want to argue a gimped version of a captain with 1/3 of it's basic skills that you never played one before the level 95 cap you speak so dearly of came out and nerfed the skill set. So now your captain is limited to either play red green or blue. at one time lol. It's ok. I can see that they dumbed it down for the average player that can't put 2 and 2 together.

[KillAllFrep]

Bit late to the party but here's my run-down for you.

Ye olde banners:
Three items (Hope, Victory, War) that you dragged onto a skill slot, using the item planted the banner and gave an aura. Could be hot-swapped any time you liked.

New banners:
Split into two things:
1. Standard (item) - Exactly the same as the old one, but provides a massive stat boost only to the captain, is equipped in a class slot like any other gear. No aura or anything.
2. Banner (skill) - Does something similar to what the old aura banner items used to do, however the effects are now greatly different. +% inc heals, +% outgoing dmg, or a steady heal every 1 second for anyone in the banner area. They last 30 seconds and have a 1minute CD.

The skills are trait line specific but as other posters have mentioned, you can reach them in other trait trees i.e. trait main yellow, reach the blue banner. There are occasionally reasons for this i.e. a tanking build focusing on group DPS support by picking red banner and some other associated red traits. Generally (as others mentioned) there is no point to traiting two different banner skills as they share a CD (unfortunately).

You are right in that trait trees (long long time ago, now) reduced the "do everything at once" nature of many classes and now you must specialise... honestly this isn't really a problem, as before you could be a DPS support that also healed (badly), and you still can.

There isn't really a spot in groups for a tanking captain that also provides premier DPS support and massive heals (although yellow Cappy does have significant healing support in groups), the game simply isn't build around that anymore, instances are more complex, have more mechanics, are generally harder than back in the day and require more streamlined class roles.

Specs can be summed up as:
Yellow = Tank that provides some nice healing to the group/raid, and a bit of a buff to outgoing damage. You can trait for less healing and survivability to further increase group DPS output if you want. Everything comes at a cost (as it very much should).

Blue = Healer that is sadly suboptimal at the moment due to a lack of single target healing. Reasonable group damage support as with Yellow. Still has absolutely amazing (main-healer competitive) AoE healing. High skill ceiling.

Red = Massive group DPS support that also deals his/her own DPS to a reasonable extent, some healing output and can trait a taunt for occasional off-tanking if needed.

Both Yellow and Red Cappies are essentially must-picks for all 12man content.

[RicoFTW]

Thanks for the intuitive input.



LoLz
When I left the cap was level 60 and all traits and and basic skills were available to spec on your character the way you wanted it. I can see the way you want to argue a gimped version of a captain with 1/3 of it's basic skills that you never played one before the level 95 cap you speak so dearly of came out and nerfed the skill set. So now your captain is limited to either play red green or blue. at one time lol. It's ok. I can see that they dumbed it down for the average player that can't put 2 and 2 together.

Ok. I just wanted to help you out but for no reason whatsoever you are just being a vile kid. You don't know how long I have been playing or what classes so leave me out of your silly mouth. You came over here asking for help and when someone gives you a hand you just start calling them things. Your life must be very miserable.

[Imatia_Narene]

Ok. I just wanted to help you out but for no reason whatsoever you are just being a vile kid. You don't know how long I have been playing or what classes so leave me out of your silly mouth. You came over here asking for help and when someone gives you a hand you just start calling them things. Your life must be very miserable.

Right back at you son. I didn't call you anything. That's in your mind. My apologies if you took it as such.

[Imatia_Narene]

Bit late to the party but here's my run-down for you.

Ye olde banners:
Three items (Hope, Victory, War) that you dragged onto a skill slot, using the item planted the banner and gave an aura. Could be hot-swapped any time you liked.

New banners:
Split into two things:
1. Standard (item) - Exactly the same as the old one, but provides a massive stat boost only to the captain, is equipped in a class slot like any other gear. No aura or anything.
2. Banner (skill) - Does something similar to what the old aura banner items used to do, however the effects are now greatly different. +% inc heals, +% outgoing dmg, or a steady heal every 1 second for anyone in the banner area. They last 30 seconds and have a 1minute CD.

The skills are trait line specific but as other posters have mentioned, you can reach them in other trait trees i.e. trait main yellow, reach the blue banner. There are occasionally reasons for this i.e. a tanking build focusing on group DPS support by picking red banner and some other associated red traits. Generally (as others mentioned) there is no point to traiting two different banner skills as they share a CD (unfortunately).

You are right in that trait trees (long long time ago, now) reduced the "do everything at once" nature of many classes and now you must specialise... honestly this isn't really a problem, as before you could be a DPS support that also healed (badly), and you still can.

There isn't really a spot in groups for a tanking captain that also provides premier DPS support and massive heals (although yellow Cappy does have significant healing support in groups), the game simply isn't build around that anymore, instances are more complex, have more mechanics, are generally harder than back in the day and require more streamlined class roles.

Specs can be summed up as:
Yellow = Tank that provides some nice healing to the group/raid, and a bit of a buff to outgoing damage. You can trait for less healing and survivability to further increase group DPS output if you want. Everything comes at a cost (as it very much should).

Blue = Healer that is sadly suboptimal at the moment due to a lack of single target healing. Reasonable group damage support as with Yellow. Still has absolutely amazing (main-healer competitive) AoE healing. High skill ceiling.

Red = Massive group DPS support that also deals his/her own DPS to a reasonable extent, some healing output and can trait a taunt for occasional off-tanking if needed.

Both Yellow and Red Cappies are essentially must-picks for all 12man content.

Thanks a lot for the constructive input to sum things up KillAllFrep. What I see from the tool tips is that none of the standards give a regen boost for power now. Is that correct? How is power regened for the group now?
Scratch that, I guess the herald reduces power cost only now instead of your standards maintaining it. I did some more digging and found this article about the changes to the captain class when helms deep was released.

https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ummary-Captain

Heralds, Archers and Standards

One thing Captains may notice immediately is that they can no longer plant a Standard to receive the banner buffs. Instead we must summon our neglected Heralds to provide these buffs. Before you panic, most of the reasons why Standards were vastly superior have been addressed, resulting in Heralds being far more viable than before. Note that the same applies to Archers.

1. Heralds and Standards are no longer mutually exclusive. You can slot your Standard and still summon a Herald, thus benefiting from the boost to your character's stats and having a pet out simultaneously.
2. Heralds can now be summoned in combat. This addresses the problem of them dying in a battle and the Captain and Fellowship losing the applicable buffs.
3. Heralds can now be summoned much more quickly. The summoning induction has been reduced from 3s to 1s, making it far easier to get the Herald back into battle.
4. Herald survivability and damage has been significantly increased, making them far more useful. I used to have a Herald called Useless, but he now deserves a name change.
5. Pet AI has improved. If you haven't used your Herald in a while, you might not be aware of improvements to the AI and the Rally! icon added with Rise of Isengard, which allows you to summon the Herald to wherever you are standing. This addresses problems where pets get stuck or cannot reach your location (if you jump down a cliff, for example), or end up going the long way around, aggroing while they go.

The buffs the Heralds give have also been changed:

Banner of War: +2% Melee, Ranged and Tactical Damage
Banner of Victory: -10% Power Cost
Banner of Honour: +3% Physical Mitigation and Tactical Mitigation

Thanks a lot for everyones help.

[Baske]

Thanks a lot for the constructive input to sum things up KillAllFrep. What I see from the tool tips is that none of the standards give a regen boost for power now. Is that correct? How is power regened for the group now?
Scratch that, I guess the herald reduces power cost only now instead of your standards maintaining it. I did some more digging and found this article about the changes to the captain class helms deep was released.

https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ummary-Captain


Thanks a lot for everyones help.

Look at the Inspire skill, it gives you and your Shield, Song or Sword Brother a power over time effect (Red line) while the blue and yellow line also give a heal over time on top of the PoT.
every skill tree has an ability further down to tree called Fellowship of the Song, Shield or Sword which allows for a max of 60% of the Inspire effect to be shared with the fellowship.

Since Inspire has a 15 Sec cooldown it's very handy to include it in the rotation so it always active, since the effect last for 15 sec.

[Imatia_Narene]

Look at the Inspire skill, it gives you and your Shield, Song or Sword Brother a power over time effect (Red line) while the blue and yellow line also give a heal over time on top of the PoT.
every skill tree has an ability further down to tree called Fellowship of the Song, Shield or Sword which allows for a max of 60% of the Inspire effect to be shared with the fellowship.

Since Inspire has a 15 Sec cooldown it's very handy to include it in the rotation so it always active, since the effect last for 15 sec.

Nice one. Thanks for the tip.

[Pavbg]

You use only 2 anyway
Mits and dmg

[KillAllFrep]

Thanks a lot for the constructive input to sum things up KillAllFrep. What I see from the tool tips is that none of the standards give a regen boost for power now. Is that correct? How is power regened for the group now?
Scratch that, I guess the herald reduces power cost only now instead of your standards maintaining it. I did some more digging and found this article about the changes to the captain class when helms deep was released.

Power is very rarely an issue now except in PvMP where your power pool is instantaneously and permanently removed by any Weavers present.

In PvE you have Inspire and can trait deep-ish into Blue for Rallying Cry (defeat response only) to also generate power, between those two your group will never be below 100% power unless there's a drain debuff somewhere, but they're fairly infrequent nowadays.

You'll rarely (if ever) use the Herald of Victory, the Hope one is just too good for mits.