Dev Diary Feedback: Rise of Isengard: Captain Developer Diary

[DelgonTheWise]

Delgon,
As for tanking cpt's, well the only way i can see them tanking, if there is no guard/warden or champ in group. Cpt is losing to much in that line. 3-mans maybe. Tbh, would prefer yellow line to be focused on support role than tanking, but well, to much to ask

I didn't say it would work, just that they are pushing it. Clearly Capt's tanking capabilities are getting a big boost. Enough that stuff that takes some effort/group coordination, like tanking even easier stuff like GS in an orderly way, will become more reasonable -- yes, you can do it now, but if tanking means "all mobs on the tank" it requires a more clueful group than a real tank needs as is. But not enough of a boost that Capts will be a tank of choice for harder material IMHO.

[Tarathelion]

And btw, all the other skill changes are looking nice, esp brothers and slow on cutting attack (finally i will be able to chase creeps)

[Bradegor]

Why will Will be particularly useful for a healing Captain? It provides only power of real use. Caster's (and Captain) historically used will because it provided tac offense/outgoing healing. That apparently no longer applies to Captain. IMHO Will becomes our least needed stat regardless of the role we pick. But we may have to prioritize raw power and even more ICPR than now...

Will gives raw power. And that´s always needed, specially if you have gear with low power pool. "only" is not a word i´d choose for a low power pool class as captain is. You will need a fair power pool and this means either Will, or +power gear. I noticed healing captains, but actually every kind of captain will need a fair amount of power ... like most of classes, even non caster ones.

And ICPR has been always a must on every character i did, except maybe on a guardian. It has advantages always over raw power stat. Any class can make good use of ICPR

[DelgonTheWise]

Will gives raw power. And that´s always needed, specially if you have gear with low power pool. "only" is not a word i´d choose for a low power pool class as captain is. You will need a fair power pool and this means either Will, or +power gear. I noticed healing captains, but actually every kind of captain will need a fair amount of power ... like most of classes, even non caster ones.

And ICPR has been always a must on every character i did, except maybe on a guardian. It has advantages always over raw power stat. Any class can make good use of ICPR

But historically, a Captain choose say 20 will over 80 power, as the will had major side benefits (healing output, tac) that compensate for the fact that you'd only get 60 power from the will. Hence the word "only", after the change you will only take Will for the power. I'm guessing +power and +ICPR will be prioritized over +Will, and Will is in general going to be the lowest captain stat by a fair bit. Are you not agreeing with that assessment?

[Bradegor]

But historically, a Captain choose say 20 will over 80 power, as the will had major side benefits (healing output, tac) that compensate for the fact that you'd only get 60 power from the will. Hence the word "only", after the change you will only take Will for the power. I'm guessing +power and +ICPR will be prioritized over +Will, and Will is in general going to be the lowest captain stat by a fair bit. Are you not agreeing with that assessment?

I agree about Will not as important as all the physical stats, and maybe for long fights Fate could be important, but honestly it doesn´t give that much ICPR, and by soloing i´d prefer to refresh my out-of-combat power regeneration coming off Will. Same about Fear saves, although considering captains can cure them, is not such an issue. Still, it´s easier to find +Will items than ICPR or +power ones.

So i guess we will see captains still trying to get Will -although not as much as before.

Plus, considering itemization coming, it´s possible now to "choose" which stats you want in your gear. We should be getting heavy armor/jewelry with different stats and also with ICPR/power/morale, so it will be a matter of taste for each of us to decide which item is better for our playstyle.

With recent changes, captains will be much better, and even more beloved in fellowships.

[Omen_Kaizer]

I agree with you, Delgon. The only thing Will will mean to us in September is +3power/1will. Power pool is important, and I believe that picking gear with raw Power on it will alleviate the power we won't be getting from neglecting will in favor of might.

Hopefully this will mean we have a little bit less to worry about because currently, every stat is important for a captain (some arguably a little more than others).

The viability of this change is going to come down to what sort of gear we get at 75.



On another note, what relation will Agility and Fate have to our melee and tact crit ratings come RoI? Same as before, with the only difference being that crit rating on items affects both tactical and melee? Or will we have a "main crit" stat as well? I didnt quite pick that up.

[Lestache]

I think the ship has sailed here. Yes, they could go back and switch. But fact is, for a melee class Might makes more sense. The other heavies want Might, which makes stats desired on heavy armor common to all and makes itemization quite a bit simpler. They otherwise need non-set Heavy armor pieces for Captains with distinct stats emphasis from heavy armor pieces for Guards/Champs. The side benefits of might (mitigations) are what tanking capts would want, a line they are pushing in this release.

A number of folks keep coming back to the "they're doing this partly to make itemization easier for non-set Heavy Armor", which is a nice thought, but I think that Turbine just chose a stat and stuck with it. If it were really about making itemization for non-set Heavy Armor easier, why did Turbine also choose to make Might the Warden's primary stat, when the other two Medium Armor wearers use Agility as their primary stat?

[Rammie]

Lovely changes, but I'm also one of the people not fond of having might as our primary stat. To me it makes much more sense to have both might and will as primary stats.

Just make it (Might*4 + Will*4) = Melee Offence and Outgoing Healing rating. The multiplier should be between 3 and 4 I think. Above 4 would be too overpowered, under 3 would be too weak compared to other classes. We need the high will because our skills just cost too much power. Also, if the rating is calculated this way, it's an acknowledgement of the captain being a true hybrid class.

The only way to justify the might focus is a huge decrease in power costs for our skills. That, or make might and will equal, as they're equally important for a captain (except that might isn't all that important for a captain).

[Fin.]

Critical Hit Rating – will replace the separate melee, ranged and tactical critical hit ratings previously appearing on items. Critical hit rating will enable all attacks to have an increased chance to critical hit.

[Klinkhamer]

I believe this is a good change. To only have to focus on might for tact and outgoing healing will definately help us(me). After all, will/fate has been pretty low sometimes in my captains life, raw power and icpr has always been preffered.

[jaerekviserys]

Has there been any mention of what will happen to the legacy for increased healing from Str of Will when applied to the new -brother skills? I don't really see a problem with -25% reduced power costs, but for Blade-bro are we looking at -20% attack for 30s (traited + legacies) out of every min? That we then apply to the group with the new Legendary? And war-cry being changed to the previous traited 15%, 1/2 the time you're running with a Capt you can expect to attack 35% faster (and the rest of the group swinging 25% faster?)? Does this stack with, say, a champ's flurry?

It just seems really OP to me, considering I never bothered with traiting war-cry cause I found 10% to be enough of a dps boost.

[Crimson_Aurochs]

I like the changes to the trait lines, and the different brother skills will be interesting, but I'm reserving judgment on those till we see how they play out.

The only thing I don't like are the stat changes. When the first dev diary came out about them, I was really happy that Captains remained unchanged, because my main is a captain and I very much enjoy having a balanced build with all my stats in the 400-500 range (pre-buffs). Captains can do a bit of everything, so we need to have a bit of all the stats. It might be different than other classes, but, hey, we're not other classes!

In my opinion, stats should all do the same thing for every class. It doesn't make sense to me that one class should get more or less or a different effect from the same stat. So, different classes need to stack different stats because the effects of those stats are more useful for their skills or role, but there is nothing wrong or unfair about that.

[Almagnus1]

Just make it (Might*4 + Will*4) = Melee Offence and Outgoing Healing rating. The multiplier should be between 3 and 4 I think. Above 4 would be too overpowered, under 3 would be too weak compared to other classes. We need the high will because our skills just cost too much power. Also, if the rating is calculated this way, it's an acknowledgement of the captain being a true hybrid class.

Considering that might will give 10 to Melee offence, Outgoing Healing, and Tactical Offence, that would be a nerf.

I like the changes to the trait lines, and the different brother skills will be interesting, but I'm reserving judgment on those till we see how they play out.

The only thing I don't like are the stat changes. When the first dev diary came out about them, I was really happy that Captains remained unchanged, because my main is a captain and I very much enjoy having a balanced build with all my stats in the 400-500 range (pre-buffs). Captains can do a bit of everything, so we need to have a bit of all the stats. It might be different than other classes, but, hey, we're not other classes!

In my opinion, stats should all do the same thing for every class. It doesn't make sense to me that one class should get more or less or a different effect from the same stat. So, different classes need to stack different stats because the effects of those stats are more useful for their skills or role, but there is nothing wrong or unfair about that.

Since they adjusted how all the classes draw for each stat, it would only make sense that they would do the same for the captains.

[Omen_Kaizer]

Jaerek, I dont think SoW legacies have been discussed much, and thats a good thing to bring up. I'm curious about it myself. I would like to correct a few of your misconceptions, though, and add a few thoughts of my own.

Has there been any mention of what will happen to the legacy for increased healing from Str of Will when applied to the new -brother skills? I don't really see a problem with -25% reduced power costs, but for Blade-bro are we looking at -20% attack for 30s (traited + legacies) out of every min? That we then apply to the group with the new Legendary? ... ...

It just seems really OP to me, considering I never bothered with traiting war-cry cause I found 10% to be enough of a dps boost.

I don't believe there has been mention, so for now we can only assume it works the same way as Shield-brother SoW does now. Also, SoW is essentially a constant buff; 30s is for To Arms.

This is how SoW works now. The increase from the Strength of Will legacy currently does not apply to the whole group even with Leader of Men traited.

Say, at base without a SoW legacy on your LI, you give:
+5% incoming healing to your shield-brother

Then, when you trait Leader of Men:
+5% incoming healing to your shield-brother, +4% (I think thats the number) everyone else

Then, when you add a maxed out SoW legacy to the mix:
+20% incoming healing to your shield-brother, +4% everyone else

Here's another reference besides what I've observed: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Elbor..._Captain_Class
This differs from the To Arms legacy which is currently transferred to the whole fellowship with LoM. At 30s of every minute, traited and max legacied.

So assuming BB SoW will work similar to SB SoW, the SoW legacy will max out to -15% (not counting the base -5%) attack duration for blade brother, and I doubt it will apply to the rest of the group. The devs probably implemented the SoW legacy the way they did with the Shield-brother incoming healing because, yeah, it might be a little OP to spread out +20% or so to everyone. And you are correct, spreading that big attack duration decrease to the whole fellowship would be OP as well.

Hmm, with the new capstone changes--specifically, some Brother effects applying to you the captain in full--we might be able to get it so that the Blade-brother and the Captain have -20% attack duration and the rest of the guys have -4%. Thats purely conjecture, though.

...And war-cry being changed to the previous traited 15%, 1/2 the time you're running with a Capt you can expect to attack 35% faster (and the rest of the group swinging 25% faster?)? Does this stack with, say, a champ's flurry?...

Decreased attack durations stack multiplicatively, according to this gentleman on his 4th post. This is a great topic; I learned a lot.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...PS#post5466238

[ydoc]

Love the change from will > might as our main priority, and I agree with delgon on pretty much all the issues surrounding the debate.

However I will add one more reason, I loved building for might on my captain I hate building for will and fate. Many captains feel as I do.

[Jenara]

Lovely changes, but I'm also one of the people not fond of having might as our primary stat. To me it makes much more sense to have both might and will as primary stats.

Just make it (Might*4 + Will*4) = Melee Offence and Outgoing Healing rating. The multiplier should be between 3 and 4 I think. Above 4 would be too overpowered, under 3 would be too weak compared to other classes. We need the high will because our skills just cost too much power. Also, if the rating is calculated this way, it's an acknowledgement of the captain being a true hybrid class.

The only way to justify the might focus is a huge decrease in power costs for our skills. That, or make might and will equal, as they're equally important for a captain (except that might isn't all that important for a captain).

I agree, but if they're releasing a dev diary this close to release, seems unlikely they're going to change their minds. There is precedent, since they've made radical changes in the past even after a change was released, but seems unlikely. imho.

Interesting that no one else in the thread was taken by this change:

The skill “Noble Mark” has been changed to better support its role as a tanking skill:

• The damage-over-time effect has been removed.
• Any player (except the Captain) who attacks the target of Noble Mark receives -10% Perceived Threat for 10s."

Though the damage over time effect of Noble Mark was pretty useless in most scenarios, the skill had value situationally as a pulling tool. It was cheap, effective, and easily switched out to something more useful as the mob approached. I used it frequently this way, and will miss having that as an option. In fact, if it still had a bleed it's likely I wouldn't switch it out at all, as the new -threat to the rest of the party has value.

[DelgonTheWise]

Though the damage over time effect of Noble Mark was pretty useless in most scenarios, the skill had value situationally as a pulling tool. It was cheap, effective, and easily switched out to something more useful as the mob approached. I used it frequently this way, and will miss having that as an option. In fact, if it still had a bleed it's likely I wouldn't switch it out at all, as the new -threat to the rest of the party has value.

I generally range pull with either threatening shout or battle shout anyway. I think being able to use any of the three marks without pulling is a bit of a feature, though in the case of noble where you are tanking most likely you'll be doing the pull anyway. I like to open with battle shout to start the cooldown at the earliest point...

[Elsydeon]

I agree, but if they're releasing a dev diary this close to release, seems unlikely they're going to change their minds. There is precedent, since they've made radical changes in the past even after a change was released, but seems unlikely. imho.

Interesting that no one else in the thread was taken by this change:

The skill “Noble Mark” has been changed to better support its role as a tanking skill:

• The damage-over-time effect has been removed.
• Any player (except the Captain) who attacks the target of Noble Mark receives -10% Perceived Threat for 10s."

Though the damage over time effect of Noble Mark was pretty useless in most scenarios, the skill had value situationally as a pulling tool. It was cheap, effective, and easily switched out to something more useful as the mob approached. I used it frequently this way, and will miss having that as an option. In fact, if it still had a bleed it's likely I wouldn't switch it out at all, as the new -threat to the rest of the party has value.

The one issue I have with the new Noble Mark is that it does not decrease the perceived threat from healers unless they are also attacking the mob, which can be a problem. It would be nice if the debuff was just a blanket -10% perceived threat for everyone BUT the captain who placed the mark, instead of the person having to keep hitting the mob every 10 seconds to get that effect. That way it will help with Captains dealing with healers drawing threat as much as the DPSers drawing threat. Right now the healers would have to keep throwing attacks every 10 seconds which generates additional threat, uses power (unless it is melee auto attacks), and is time spent not healing. And there are situations you don't want the healers close enough to auto-attack due to point blank aoes and the fewer people hit the fewer people that need to be healed.

I generally range pull with either threatening shout or battle shout anyway. I think being able to use any of the three marks without pulling is a bit of a feature, though in the case of noble where you are tanking most likely you'll be doing the pull anyway. I like to open with battle shout to start the cooldown at the earliest point...

I'm the same way, when I range pull it is either with Threatening Shout or Battle Shout, although I can see some people pulling with Noble Mark, pulling with Battle Shout is better for the cooldown issue as you mentioned, but we do have means of a 40m pull since that is the range on Noble Mark, although I prefer using Threatening Shout for range pulls since it also has a good range. Although I do like how Telling and Revealing mark don't cause agro since then you can preemptively use them just like some of the preemptive debuffing loremasters and burglars can do.

[Almagnus1]

I generally range pull with either threatening shout or battle shout anyway. I think being able to use any of the three marks without pulling is a bit of a feature, though in the case of noble where you are tanking most likely you'll be doing the pull anyway. I like to open with battle shout to start the cooldown at the earliest point...

Isn't Noble Mark still a ToT?

That's what was doing most of the pulling, if memory serves....

[DelgonTheWise]

Isn't Noble Mark still a ToT?

That's what was doing most of the pulling, if memory serves....

I assumed it was the damage tick, but could easily be wrong there. Guess we'll have to see.

[dietlbomb]

I assumed it was the damage tick, but could easily be wrong there. Guess we'll have to see.

I believe the threat is immediate but the DoT is not. That's why it takes a while for the level 1 critters to die from it.

[Elsydeon]

I assumed it was the damage tick, but could easily be wrong there. Guess we'll have to see.

The damage tick used to be instant but that was removed shortly after the trait set features were introduced and Captains realized with 2 LoM traits they could rapidly toggle Noble Mark and manage to do some ranged damage in the moors by continually doing the initial tick of damage over and over again. I never tried it so I don't know what DPS it would crank out but I doubt it was more than 200dps since the initial tic would be around 70 damage or so and I can't remember how fast people could toggle it, but even only 3 toggles a second would result in 210dps, but with macros that or maybe even more could have been possible.

I believe the threat is immediate but the DoT is not. That's why it takes a while for the level 1 critters to die from it.

Yep.
Mark them and then they run around for 10 seconds and then they fall over when first tick of damage goes off. When I'm bored and a critter has been getting annoying with the 'tab to a new enemy target' I'll sometimes mark it to get it out of the way.

[Lohi]

I like might over will by far. I know some raiders are big on Will for captain but Will has never been a primary stat for Captain and it is not slotted often except for very focused end game players. A class design has to be for all players and not just a small subset who do raids; it has to work for level 1 up through max level, it has to work for soloers and casual groupers and hardcore groupers. Will has only benefited outgoing healing for a relatively short period of time, before then Captains slotted Will only because they found themselves short of power.

The benefit of using Might means that it's just going to work naturally for Captains even without much thinking. Most of the heavy armor has Might on it, very little has large amount of Will or a Might/Will mix. So you pick the heavy armor quest rewards, or go with crafted, and you'll get the stats you need. Plus the design of captain has always been a front row melee character, not a back-row healer. It makes sense to gear up like a front row class who can take hits and mitigate damage.

Most captains I think won't be reading this dev diary or knowing explicitly what stats are really important. The high end players however will be focusing on all these details, maybe even building spreadsheets to optimize things. These are two very different groups of players, and both groups are very important to Turbine. If they set the main stat of Captain to Will they make the high end players who already have Will slotted happy, but they'll confuse the average captain who is wondering why they aren't as effective as they used to be. But if they make Might the main stat then most captains benefit by default and the high end players will adapt like they always do after every change, and over ten levels they'll be hunting down new gear for every single slot anyway.

Now we'll just need Will to overcome power problems, if we still have those problems. This makes us no different from any other melee class in that regard. Hopefully the expansion also tweaks power costs of skills (hint hint to any devs seeing this :-).

[Almagnus1]

Another question for Rask:
Does the 4 Trait Lead the Charge bonus only affect Melee Critical Chance, or will it affect melee, ranged, and tactical critical chance? This change would also mirror what we're seeing in the gear, which is the consolidation of the specific critical chances.

I like might over will by far. I know some raiders are big on Will for captain but Will has never been a primary stat for Captain and it is not slotted often except for very focused end game players. A class design has to be for all players and not just a small subset who do raids; it has to work for level 1 up through max level, it has to work for soloers and casual groupers and hardcore groupers. Will has only benefited outgoing healing for a relatively short period of time, before then Captains slotted Will only because they found themselves short of power.

The benefit of using Might means that it's just going to work naturally for Captains even without much thinking. Most of the heavy armor has Might on it, very little has large amount of Will or a Might/Will mix. So you pick the heavy armor quest rewards, or go with crafted, and you'll get the stats you need. Plus the design of captain has always been a front row melee character, not a back-row healer. It makes sense to gear up like a front row class who can take hits and mitigate damage.

Most captains I think won't be reading this dev diary or knowing explicitly what stats are really important. The high end players however will be focusing on all these details, maybe even building spreadsheets to optimize things. These are two very different groups of players, and both groups are very important to Turbine. If they set the main stat of Captain to Will they make the high end players who already have Will slotted happy, but they'll confuse the average captain who is wondering why they aren't as effective as they used to be. But if they make Might the main stat then most captains benefit by default and the high end players will adapt like they always do after every change, and over ten levels they'll be hunting down new gear for every single slot anyway.

Now we'll just need Will to overcome power problems, if we still have those problems. This makes us no different from any other melee class in that regard. Hopefully the expansion also tweaks power costs of skills (hint hint to any devs seeing this :-).

Not to mention that leveling a captain using anything with will is going to make it suck pretty bad.

[IGolbezI]

It just seems really OP to me, considering I never bothered with traiting war-cry cause I found 10% to be enough of a dps boost.

traited war cry is a great dps boost compared to our other traits. war cry and now for wrath are pretty much the only traits i always have on no matter what