Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Captain

[Elrantiri]

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.

Right. "People disagree with me, surely it's because they don't understand this game".

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...

What's your point? If everything else dies so fast we don't need additional traits to boost that area and boosts against bosses is welcome IMO. Also, given how RockX aimed to make LtC a single target burst DPS with bleeds between each burst phase, I'd say he succeeded.

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.

Indeed, and this was addressed by several people in the Beta thread, even some the "paper champs". For now, I'll be using the Buff Monitor plugin to show when I have Battle-Ready, Battle-hardened, Defeat-event and so on.

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.

As much as this is true, if you really care so much about helping others and the socialization in that, then help them with their current quests, play with them. That'll give a whole lot more in terms of being helpful and socializing with other players.

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.

Near necessity? The herald gives +2% mitigation, +2% damage or -10% power cost. Feel free to point out where any of these will be "near necessity".

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.

Well we'll just have to disagree here. I've tanked on Guardian (albeit not at max level), Warden and Captain, and while AoE threat was rather bad in RoR IMO, in RoI the Captank was IMO a lot more fun to play than Guardian and Warden, and I'm looking forward to trying out Captank in HD.

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.

Well, given how you're convinced that the supporters here have a very limited concept of how this game is played, surely you can go beyond just calling "gimmick" on everything you don't like and explain why. With that said, some the few points you actually elaborate on are points I could agree with, especially the higher radius on Standard of X buffs.
I could not care less for your "I have spoken to many Captains" comment. With comments like "I am more convinced than ever that those supporting the changes have a very limited concept of how the game is played" it is clear you don't care one bit about players who disagree with you. You're way too biased to be any reliable source of "many people think this", just as I would be, though my bias is in the other direction.

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.

That is because the benefits are not really present as of this moment. Turbine explained their reasoning behind trait trees that it will make it easier for the Devs to balance the classes. With classes being easier to balance, I'd expect it will also be easier to balance the content in regards to the classes, and thus give us content that is more challenging without 'requiring' a very specific set of classes.
The balancing between classes is surely not completed yet (and possibly never will be fully completed, there'll always be room for a tweak or two) and I doubt very much that pre-HD content (and moors) has yet been balanced for the class changes, and until that happens, the benefits from Trait Trees will not be very visible.

To me, the major issue with LotrO is the content. If the class revamp is what LotrO needs to get better game mechanic balancing and push out decent content again that is IMO the way to go despite the few losses the changes will bring along. I don't care at all whether my HoH Captain has SotD or not if the endgame content isn't worth playing anyway.