Developer's Diary – Captain Updates by OnnMacMahal

[Arabani]

If you're actually solo, the choice should be obvious. In small groups, the answer probably depends on what you're doing and your group composition. In a full fellowship, let alone a raid, the choice should be obvious again, the other direction.

So why do you want to lock it behind Red Line, then? Everything you've said is true for the other lines as well. The issue you are afraid of exists for a red captain too. Why not to make the stance for every spec? Or better, just increase the dps to the level we won't need to swap stances.

Let me eleborate on how it works in Everquest 2, for instance (not an ideal example, there are a lot of balance issues there, but still). While being solo a dps class does 100 dps, a support class and a tank do up to 70, a healer up to 50. But in the group they buff each other and so the result is 150 for a dps, 100 for a tank and a suport and 70 for a healer. In lotro non-dps classes do almost no dps, no matter solo or in the group.

[OnnMacMahal]

I don't know what Captain world you are living in, but rotating through your battle-states? There are captains out there who willfully drop out of Battle-Hardened? Sorry? Unless I need to pick up a new target with BoE, or use it for additional aggro, I'm never dropping out of BH - the buff from BoE is also so niche it can only be used in situations where you can 100% predict the next attack, outside of that, it's usefulness is completely lost. So again, rotating through battle-states as a Yellow Captain? I'm sorry but that doesn't exist. If you want a Yellow Captain to rotate through their battle-states you need to give us a reason to EVER go into Battle-Readied and sacrifice that -18% inc damage, because currently, there is no reason, I'm not dropping BH just so I can use DB or PA, especially not as a YCaptain where that damage almost feels like it's negative anyway.

The ability for yCaptains to rotate through battle states is stated as a goal, not the current state of affairs. Right now, a yCap can't properly cycle through states like rCap/bCap can. All three specializations encourage you to keep both battle states active all the time as much as possible. So no, no one wants to drop Battle-hardened without immediately hitting Devastating Blow or Pressing Attack. But rCap and bCap, with their additional Battle-ready application, are able to do that reliably, whereas yCaptains generally have to simply wait out Battle-hardened due to Battle-shout's cooldown (honorable mention for tonics and Time of Need, which give you an extra opener every once in a while).

• Half of Captain Skills, in all 3 lines are "filler", because nothing you do is consequential, skills end up getting used because everything else is on cooldown and you have nothing else left to use. It's wholly terribly designed. In yellow, you get into BH and spam Sure Strike until you need to pop a heal or taunt a target, that is the entirety of Yellow Captain, there's absolutely nothing else to it.
• With Red line, if it didn't feel like I'm hitting with a stick, it might actually be worth putting some effort into your DPS build, instead you just stack mits and morale, because the main benefit you bring as a R Captain is for the group, not what your personal contribution is, because again, it is as you described, inconsequential.
• Blue line is just a massive spam of AoE HoTs that tick for a nice HPS parse, but are wholly irrelevant when dealing with spike or heavy ST damage to a target.

I feel like your complaint here is mostly that overall damage is low. Captains are getting a damage increase across the board, and bCaptains in particular are going to have less passive AoE healing in favor of better targeted healing potential.

In short, none of the Captain lines are "fun" to play, they are extremely simplistic and nothing you do feels like it has any value, your heals are weak unless you are in Blue, (in Red and Yellow, over 50% of your healing if not more is from Revealing Mark), and in every line the damage is abysmal, without force taunts, a Captain is never, EVER getting aggro on their own in Yellow, it's just not happening.

Just a note, but your healing should be lower when traited red or yellow. Blue is the healing specialization, so if it didn't have considerably more healing than the other specs something would be seriously wrong.

In my complete, and honest opinion, and as a Captain main I cannot even believe I'm saying this, you should remove Motivation from the game. At a time when the game had fewer classes and Raid Compositions were much more standardised it made sense, but in the current game climate, having a single class that can buff your morale by 10% permanently is not only bizzare it's also a bad design, the skill should no longer exist. It also might make Captains easier to balance, as well as allow other tanks the opportunity to get into raids, because let me tell you, groups will sacrifice the Red Captain spot long before they will ever sacrifice a Yellow Captain spot.

Yep. I'd really like to remove it outright, but a lot of folks are quite attached to it as well (removal would also be a pretty broad morale nerf to almost all players in group content for the near term). We've got a couple ideas brewing for other ways to attack this particular issue without necessarily getting rid of Motivate.

- Damage needs a very big increase across the board.
- More skills should be locked into or behind Battle-Readied and Battle-Hardened, not necessarily forcing a state change like DB and PA do, but the skill only being useable, or only giving a certain key benefit if used in X stance, like Sure Strike with your tactics buff.

The inherent buffs you get from each state are so strong that I don't think additional skill requirements are strictly necessary, but I agree with you on this in principle.

[OnnMacMahal]

I remember reading a few statements from October on Discord about Motivating Speech which were all good points.

"I don't love that Motivating Speech in Defence of Middle Earth is only 5m with no impact from refreshing or relation to anything in your rotation, but it's not exactly the biggest issue the class has at the moment...It probably just needs the 30m duration back...I agree with the points in favor of removal, but it'd be a sore point just to take away purely because it's not an active skill... [in response to attaching the ability to a skill] The morale multiplier would go unnoticed at best, and at worst it would drop off to reapply, effectively dealing 10% morale damage to all your allies whenever you press the skill. So, not the most exciting possibilities."

Though I sort of agree to some extent that removing something that has been around for awhile is definitely going to upset people. Personally, you have no idea the number of times someone shouts out in the group, "Is there a human captain somewhere? I want to see how high my morale can go with Motivating Speech and Duty Bound."

Yep, for now, I just want to make it less onerous to keep Motivate applied. Longer-term, we want to mitigate the impact of Motivate being a captain-only effect.

[OnnMacMahal]

I only play as a captain healer, so I greately appreciate the desire to make us real healers. I've been waiting for it for years, pretty much since Rohan.

Looking forward to see the list of actual changes. But I have a few things to comment upon already:

1) I believe that solo stance should be in the general class kit, regardless of the spec. As I've said, I play in Blue, always. It would be great to "trade the group support for my personal dps" in such a situation. I know several people who play only in Yellow and they would appreciate the stance as well. It would also make sence to switch into dps stance during the instance, if the support is not realy required (on trash packs for instance), and switch back to healing mode when needed;

2) It would be great to have reactive heals as Captain, since we are melee oriented. Both group and single target. Reactive is a heal that has charges that trigger every time the target of the spell receives damage, untill there are no more charges;

3) Please, please, please make hobbits being able to Captain. That is my biggest desire and wish of all time.

1) I understand the desire for this. Unfortunately, it becomes much harder to effectively balance the skill outputs when you're weighing solo skill effects against their regular blue, red, and yellow effects simultaneously. If you really need damage for an extended period, you can always change your trait specialization!

2) Interestingly, Wardens might be getting something like this in the near future. It's certainly a possibility for others as well.

3) Not at the moment, but it's possible that we'll revisit this in the future.

[PsychoSTINO]

Love the ideas of making the classes find their place. I like how the ideas keep their roots in the class idea and mechanics.

[thymos]

Bro they literally say up top they plan to add a solo stance to red line cappy to allow it to solo more easily.

That said, I disagree with OnnMM's approach to heralds. No captain is relying on a herald to complete content, nor does it being out of range prevent you from using half your skills. The brother toggle has a 50m range and gives access to 3 skills in total, inspire, too arms, and brother's call. If someone feels useless when their herald isn't nearby then the game has failed them in a separate, more problematic way.
What heralds need is a buff, something unique for them. Right now the only useful herald is the herald of hope for mits, with war and victory being effectively useless in high tier content.

I would personally like to see them alter the heralds to where you could only use one herald per line (ex: herald of war for red, hope for yellow, victory for blue) and then just make the buffs they provide raid wide. Then they'd just need to improve war and victory to match hope, cause again, hope is just too good.

They are revamping the way Power works so maybe Victory will be useful in the future. That being said I do agree, Heralds shouldn't be a set it and forget it type of thing and should have more "weight" to them. When an LM chooses a pet to use, it matters a lot. When a Captain summons a herald? The only one who notices is the Captain.

[Hephburz-2]

The ability for yCaptains to rotate through battle states is stated as a goal, not the current state of affairs. Right now, a yCap can't properly cycle through states like rCap/bCap can. All three specializations encourage you to keep both battle states active all the time as much as possible. So no, no one wants to drop Battle-hardened without immediately hitting Devastating Blow or Pressing Attack.

Then this was not clear, but, yes, you are right this is not the current state of affairs, that being said, there is currently no purpose for a yCaptain to be in Battle-Readied, even if that +40% damage does exist, perhaps after the damage changes it will become useful, but as it is, Battle-Readied is not something I ever consider on my yCaptain beyond refreshing tactics buff and/or refreshing BH.

I feel like your complaint here is mostly that overall damage is low. Captains are getting a damage increase across the board, and bCaptains in particular are going to have less passive AoE healing in favor of better targeted healing potential.

Yes, for the most part, damage is a big complaint across all 3 lines, but it was also more about the fact that Captain playstyle is extremely simplistic in Yellow.

Just a note, but your healing should be lower when traited red or yellow. Blue is the healing specialization, so if it didn't have considerably more healing than the other specs something would be seriously wrong.

I agree with this, that wasn't what I was complaining about. I meant that your other healing skills in Red and Yellow are wholly inconsequential, especially following the LI changes which prevented you from taking both DPS and Healing legacies, and the point was your main healing, even in those two lines comes from Revealing Mark, not your actual healing skills. I support a reduction in healing especially in the case of yCaptain, whilst still however remembering "healing" is still part of the key identity of the class.

Another controversial opinion is that Revealing Mark should be removed entirely or reworked in another way. I remember myself many times on these forums exclaiming how stupidly strong Revealing Mark would become should we continue down this path of Morale stacking from Lv120, and my point has only been proven with each passing update/expansion, player morale pools explode, and revealing mark heals are unprecedented, not just for tanks anymore, but for all classes, the passive healing it generates is silly.

Yep. I'd really like to remove it outright, but a lot of folks are quite attached to it as well (removal would also be a pretty broad morale nerf to almost all players in group content for the near term). We've got a couple ideas brewing for other ways to attack this particular issue without necessarily getting rid of Motivate.

I would advise against adding a similar skill to other classes, it really should just be removed, and then content can be readjusted to compensate / newer content can be made on the basis that Motivation would no longer exist.

The inherent buffs you get from each state are so strong that I don't think additional skill requirements are strictly necessary, but I agree with you on this in principle.

It's not necessarily about the buffs the states give, it's about making you have to think about what you're doing, what skills you can use and when, it would add a new level of ingenuity to the class.

[Atonu]

1. Can you uncouple the single target self heal from muster courage and just make it its own skill? Its not a good gameplay as a healer to have to choose between healing ourself or saving to remove debuffs from the group.
2. Can you make it so captains can heal themselves with words of courage? No other healer has that issue of not being able to target themselves with heals freely, and any rational for limiting captains self healing because of heavy armour/defense went out the window with beorning.
3. Could we have a specialisation bonus in blue captain to make rallying cry always heal for full, regardless of defeat event?
4. Lastly, are there any plans to do anything about pressing attack? Would be nice if it were to become just a normal attack, not reliant on being part of the standard combo. I don't think captain really needs to get a lot of aoe, but it'd be nice to have one aoe attack that doesnt rely on some state.

Edit: I'd like to +1 hobbit captains. I know you said its not in the plans but just in case one of the LOTRO gods is keeping score..

[Denthemen]

I know this is a total vanity request but could we get a skill with an enemy kickback or a short fear response...a captain should have that feel to it in battle, especially to his enemies, very weighty and not to be messed with.

[Seschat]

1) I understand the desire for this. Unfortunately, it becomes much harder to effectively balance the skill outputs when you're weighing solo skill effects against their regular blue, red, and yellow effects simultaneously. If you really need damage for an extended period, you can always change your trait specialization!

Not mid-fight, which is the entire basis of my long term complaint about what happened to Rune-keepers with the Trait-tree rewrite. I remember being sold "Heal friends AND harm foes" as the class definition.

[Allantor]

I'm pleased that captains are getting some attention and solo play is being looked at. The captain might be the heart of the team and an off-healer / off-tank but they are certainly not off-dps at the moment!
Could you consider the following:
1. Motivating Speech and IDOME - Unlike other commenters, I like the skill but would prefer that it was returned to a toggle skill or have a duration longer than 5 mins. I find myself unexpectedly losing max morale mid-battle because I've not reapplied it and that gets annoying. In terms of a fellowship, instead of it being a cappy exclusive buff, could it give different effects to each class rather than +10% morale? Eg. as nice as more morale is to a burglar, if I want to motivate them; it'll be with increased crit magnitude!
2. Battle-readied + Battle Hardened - I know you want to look at improving DPS and the rotation of skills and so to fix that, why not keep the +5% Damage buff from Battle-readied when I go into Battle Hardened and keep the BH buffs when I use Blade of Elendil? Shadows Lament -> Devastating Blow -> BoE would make for a great combo of skills that would do lots of burst damage to hold aggro and then I can rotate my skills around keeping those buffs in effect and use Sure Strike for battle-readied buffs based on the trait tree spec.
I might have spent too long playing as a Guardian but it's like getting a block response and having to use other moves before Sheild swipe and then longer still before using Bash. It's a little counter-intuitive to unlock 2 high damage skills with short cooldowns but have to use other skills instead to capitalise on the Battle-readied buff for 15 seconds and then use Devastating Blow to unlock BH.
3. Lend Will - The red/yellow line cappy doesn't have any burst heals for solo play but the pet can sacrifice its health to send to the cappy. Like the Champion's 'Exalted Combatant' set bonus, could the pet skill be activated when the captain's morale goes below a 35% threshold rather than whenever I take a little bit of damage? It would make the pet a little more helpful than as a blade brother and mean that when I'm trying to fight my way out of a losing battle, I don't have to manually click on the skill.

[WeirdJedi]

I will admit that I kind of miss the old Revealing Mark that allowed 15% morale return on the damage you dealt. It was slightly exhilarating when you are able to perform that one critical strike that gives people just enough morale to keep going in battle. I understand the new passive Revealing Mark instituted at level 120 was mainly balanced for group activity, but a part of me wishes that it would return in some capacity... even if it only works for your character. Like, you heal a little whenever you perform a critical strike with a skill that's obtainable for a redline captain. Obtaining Gallant Display was sort of a compromise for me, but I fear that won't be an option with these changes. Maybe there is already something in the works that help heal redline captains solo mode when you don't have a herald to help transfer morale to you I don't know about yet.

[Vareshki]

These changes do sound promising, I've wanted to level through as a Captain for a while now but the class always felt a bit off for me.

In regards to the heralds as previously mentioned:

While it's not possible for us to change skill names for different character backgrounds, it is possible for us to add more herald styles in the future.

If more do get added would it ever be considered to have other types of heralds to add some flavor for solo players. Like heralds with different weapon combinations similar to the skirmish soldiers, ones with one handers and shields instead of a banner, or even ones that dual wield or two handers.

More appearance styles sound great though, it would be fun to be able to change the style as you progress to new areas, have them act as your "guide" as you travel in new lands.

[thymos]

I can't help but notice there's no mention of Halberds.

Any chance for a buff to Halberds to help promote Captain identity? Keep in mind, it should come with some kind of refund/transference mechanism because lots of people (like myself) already invested into 2H swords because they are mathematically better, but would rather use Halberds.

[Allantor]

2. Can you make it so captains can heal themselves with words of courage? No other healer has that issue of not being able to target themselves with heals freely, and any rationale for limiting captains self healing because of heavy armour/defense went out the window with beorning.

Lore-masters have Light of Hope - a good burst heal but it has a 30s cooldown and can't use it on themselves + they're light armoured too so they don't even get the captain's defence!
I think keeping Words of Courage as an ally only healing skill is ok because the cappy has skills like Inspire or Galant display that return morale and do damage + Rallying cry when the battle is over. The captain should be in the middle of the fight and using those skills to restore health rather than have heal-only skills IMO.

I agree with you about Pressing Attack and freeing up those skills to be used more often. it made me contrast about how I play as a Guardian and how that could translate to something similar for the captain skills

[Hydranova]

Eager to see the Increased damage for solo play, should make things smoother.

However, to add in on an opinion that's been mentioned previously, but Heralds are kinda boring? Like, really what you get for them is the passive buff and an emergency heal for the banner heralds- archer's damage seems really low to me, and the other two skills for the heralds are kinda "meh". Is it possible for the different trait-lines/warden types to have their skills buffed depending on their purpose? (Like, War herald can put you into BR or BH with the red skill, Victory could have a bigger heal, and Hope could do....something with the taunt).

[gildhur]

While it's not possible for us to change skill names for different character backgrounds, it is possible for us to add more herald styles in the future.

DESPERATELY needed. We haven't had new herald skins in years, and there are SO many options now, especially with the newly playable races. Just like every rep faction has a Hunter guide and a Warden muster, every rep faction should have a Captain herald skin that looks like the local population.

As currently envisioned, toggling on 'Stand Alone' will disable 'Blade Brother' and transform Inspire, To Arms, Words of Courage, and Escape from Darkness.

Instead of making it a separate skill, why not just let Blade Brother grant the Stand Alone effect when it's toggled on without a target, e.g. on self?

3) Not at the moment, but it's possible that we'll revisit this in the future.

I always hoped Hobbit LMs would be added with River-hobbits, but we got them even sooner than that! (And there was much rejoicing!) Adding Captain to the halfling arsenal would make sense if River-hobbits end up happening this year.

[auximenes]

DESPERATELY needed. We haven't had new herald skins in years, and there are SO many options now, especially with the newly playable races. Just like every rep faction has a Hunter guide and a Warden muster, every rep faction should have a Captain herald skin that looks like the local population.

/signed

[Thurinuor]

DESPERATELY needed. We haven't had new herald skins in years, and there are SO many options now, especially with the newly playable races. Just like every rep faction has a Hunter guide and a Warden muster, every rep faction should have a Captain herald skin that looks like the local population.

Yes, yes, and yes! And please make a dropdown menu for the heralds instead of creating a new skill for every herald every time, this is crazy.

[Thurinuor]

Can you please make the use of the summon horn easier? It takes ages to summon 11 people in a raid group step by step. Why not summon them all at once?

[Arabani]

One more thing, Last stand should be a baseline again, for every spec, like it was years ago. Captain is a melee class with very limited mobility, we need that save.

[Atonu]

Lore-masters have Light of Hope - a good burst heal but it has a 30s cooldown and can't use it on themselves + they're light armoured too so they don't even get the captain's defence!
I think keeping Words of Courage as an ally only healing skill is ok because the cappy has skills like Inspire or Galant display that return morale and do damage + Rallying cry when the battle is over. The captain should be in the middle of the fight and using those skills to restore health rather than have heal-only skills IMO.

I agree with you about Pressing Attack and freeing up those skills to be used more often. it made me contrast about how I play as a Guardian and how that could translate to something similar for the captain skills

I don't disagree with you in general, I think red/yellow captains have more than enough ways to heal themselves since they, like lore-master, are not healers. Making a blue into a main/sole healer spec does give the problem of a lack of viable ways for the captain to heal themselves quickly, either having to rely on muster courage (which has other problems as i wrote above) or rallying cry. No other healer cannot target themselves with any heal, so if they were really committed to keeping words of courage out of the hands of soloing captains, they could make it a trait deep in blue, a spec bonus or a "spec set bonus". I don't think there are really any viable reasons why healing captains should not be able to heal themselves fully, the same as every other healer. I mean a kind of crude example would be if RK or Minstrel could only use their fast heal or group heal to heal themselves. Its not a perfect analogy as captain does have other ways to heal but it relies on hitting the target.

I mean they could make words of courage heal the captain for less, or make it a situation where the captain only gets an instant heal or something. It also depends on what solutions and skill changes they come up with healing captains in general as it isn't only self healing that can be problematic as a main and sole healer, but single target healing in general when someone is being focused or needs directed healing.

Edit: I just want to be clear, I'm talking about blue specced captain being the sole healer in a fellowship. I think the overall survival/heal of other captains is fine, if anything they could probably use a bit of a nerf in their group healing capabilities, especially red/blue hybrid.

Edit 2: if i'm honest, I thnk blue group healing could use a nerf too, if it was offset by a huge buff to their directhealing towards single targets.

[Ethroin]

Is it possible to take a look and improve the 'fluidity' of the class? Capain gameplay often feels clunky, sluggish and just slow in general - especially compared to some other classes. But to be honest I don't really know what exactly needs to change to improve it for it to feel more fluid. Probably a mix of higher attack speed, shorter/faster animation and shorter 'downtime' between skills.

My other point concerns heralds:
Personally I never liked heralds. I wouldn't even mind if you removed them altogether. Captain is first and foremost a class for group play - there you can lead and support your allies, you don't need a pet running around with you for the class image to be fulfilled.
That said, in the event that you would really removed them - greedy as I am - I would like the 'better' skills of the herald (mitigation buff, armour debuff, heal for the captain) to be present in some other form (e.g. the armour debuff in red line moves to devastating blow, maybe when you crit with this skill).

[Aeviternus]

I've played blue line captain many times throughout the years, virtually at every level cap starting from 85. Hence, I am quite aware of its strengths and weaknesses, and I believe you have correctly identified the latter. I do hope you aim to preserve some of its current strengths, namely AoE healing for the entire fellowship. But even if not, I would welcome a change of style.

However, over the years, I have observed something which makes me worry for the longevity of the blue line specialisation. They are as follows.

Blue Captain Scaling
Every time that major content is released, the tactical healing rating on Legendary Items is increased. The primary healing source for captains (at least as it currently is), is healing over time (HoT). It appears that the scaling of HoT effects with tactical healing rating is disproportionately low. See the screenshots below, to see the effect that tactical healing rating has. In one screenshot, I have my emblem equipped. In the other, I do not. As you can see, the HoT components of each skill is much lower relative to the initial heal with the emblem equipped. (Note: I have the AoE healing as well as the Healing over Time tracery on my emblem, which skews the result for Words of Courage and Muster Courage. Besides that, no other traceries are present to skew the results.) This discrepancy was already present before the implementation of the new Legendary Item system. So, for the sake of longevity, I urge you to address this issue in the way captains scale with LIs/level cap increases. Otherwise, you will have to revisit captain balancing again, as it will just end up falling behind once more.

Blue Captain Traceries
A quick glance through the list of captain traceries will reveal a striking result: there is only a single tracery that is specific to blue line (Valiant Strike Healing). If you wish to delineate the healing abilities of the respective captain specialisations more clearly, perhaps you could also take a look at this.

Screenshots of HoT scaling with tactical healing rating:

[Eeshen]

I would personally love to see Captain be more of a Bard class like other games (specifically like EQ2). Yes, he has some health regen, etc...for group, but the buffs he provides greatly offsets its lack of healing. If you look at EQ2's bard, they had sooo many different kind of very unique buffs and made a huge difference to groups who had one.

Buffs like reducing damage, chance on damage on spell cast/melee hit, resists to certain kinds of damage, threat generation for tank, mana/health regen, etc...

The buffs could be tied to the specific spec of the captain
....blue would increase heals of other healers in group, mana regen of group, less threat for party members except tank, quick instant rezz for players...cant get very creative here
...red would add DPS buffs (kinda like it does now)....maybe burst DPS buffs on a cooldown, but mainly focused around DPS buffing
---yellow would have more buffs relating to defense of group.

No matter what the buffs were, make the buffs significant enough that each spec would be desirable.