Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Captain

[Almagnus1]

Maybe it was just me, but I kinda liked 6 sec Rallying Cry. Having it upped to 15 sec minimum seems worse off to me.

I wasn't happy with the changes. I PvP, and it just seemed...well, not fun anymore. I loved the challenge 1v1 on my captain, and that's pretty much going to be gone.

Also, I rather enjoyed buffing, that's what my class was, a "buffer". Of all the ideas I read in the revamp thread, I never saw one that said.."Get rid of our buffs." So I don't really understand why they asked for our opinion.

6 sec rally cry was grossly broken, so much so that it defined us.

As far as buffs go, we have on combat ones, and the GOOD captains will use them.

[Lohi]

Having it upped to 15 sec minimum seems worse off to me.

But that's what the majority of captains have today. To get below 15 second you either have to get armor that's lower than level 85 (Hytbold), or do PVP. Maybe there's some raid gear I haven't discovered that also gives it but that's not in the reach of most players either.

[Elrantiri]

Maybe it was just me, but I kinda liked 6 sec Rallying Cry. Having it upped to 15 sec minimum seems worse off to me.

I wasn't happy with the changes. I PvP, and it just seemed...well, not fun anymore. I loved the challenge 1v1 on my captain, and that's pretty much going to be gone.

Also, I rather enjoyed buffing, that's what my class was, a "buffer". Of all the ideas I read in the revamp thread, I never saw one that said.."Get rid of our buffs." So I don't really understand why they asked for our opinion.

As Almagnus says, the 6 second Rallying Cry was overpowered, and it was the main reason that 5r2b gave really good healing on top of decent DPS and massive DPS buffs. With Helms Deep in HoH you'll now also have morale healing from Inspire, Gallant Display, Standard of Hope and much higher healing critical chance+magnitude to allow HoH Captains to do really good healing despite the nerf to Rallying Cry.

Also, RockX did not get rid of our buffs. He changed the buffs, and he will be doing additional changes to our buffs.

A for PvMP (as has happened so many times before), you'll need to accept that it is of lower priority to other features in this game. This time it's the class revamp and Big Battles that has first priority, then PvMP changes will probably come in the coming months.

[TheDisasterman]

Also, RockX did not get rid of our buffs. He changed the buffs, and he will be doing additional changes to our buffs.

A for PvMP (as has happened so many times before), you'll need to accept that it is of lower priority to other features in this game. This time it's the class revamp and Big Battles that has first priority, then PvMP changes will probably come in the coming months.

I am not looking forward to a captain that has no choice on what buffs each player gets by need but instead must set a line of traits to access a buff that likely will do nicely for 1/3 of the fellow or 1/4 of the raid if I am lucky and if it is available when it is time to repeatedly deploy a flag. This sounds like spastic Diablo player BS hell. Autistic captains with buffs as mere side effects to their ridiculous forced-group roles? No thanks. I never had 6-sec heals. I never wanted them. But this is ridiculous-mode.

[Elrantiri]

I am not looking forward to a captain that has no choice on what buffs each player gets by need but instead must set a line of traits to access a buff that likely will do nicely for 1/3 of the fellow or 1/4 of the raid if I am lucky and if it is available when it is time to repeatedly deploy a flag. This sounds like spastic Diablo player BS hell. Autistic captains with buffs as mere side effects to their ridiculous forced-group roles? No thanks. I never had 6-sec heals. I never wanted them. But this is tard-mode.

Your buffs will be helping the whole fellowship, though some more than others. LtC buffs will also help your healer and tank, LoM buffs will also help your healer and DPS and HoH will also buff your DPS and tank.
If you don't want to enter a particular role you can just go for a hybrid build. At 95 you should be able to get Gallant Display, IHW and Time of Need so you'll be able to support in all three aspects.

[furtim]

Anyway.

Worlds are up, so everyone keep an eye out for changes between U12 and the last Beta build.

EDIT: Nothing, as far as I can tell. Kinda makes sense, we were pretty balanced when Beta ended.

[Nascephor]

First: i am glad to be back fellow cappys. Second i have skipped beta so I could enjoy HD without spoils. I liked the changes: faster skill rotations, better 2 handed tanking "tanking in a way that screams CAPTAIN!", improved damage output + improved criticals, MS is a toggle, heralds less useless.

[furtim]

Anybody claiming that our tank survivability is not drastically increased vs. pre-HD is... Well, the polite way to say it is that they're being blinded by irrational prejudice.

[Mai-Hon]

In Hands of Healing, first row, top right, there is a trait that gives +5% outgoing healing - if using a shield. I don't follow the thinking behind this trait, I use a halberd and I'm rather wondering ok where's my +5%; why the difference for S&B users over 2 Handers? Muchly appreciated if someone could explain.
Thanks

[furtim]

During Beta, RockX already said he was going to change it to something that doesn't require a shield, but there wasn't time to put that change through before launch. So, yeah, it's odd, but it's also temporary.

[Mai-Hon]

Ok thanks, but another one, Defensive Strike, a basic skill of all Captains, and one that quite a few may have on their LW's, this seems now to be restricted to the Leader of Men trait line (earned with 20 ranks).
I now have several weapons that buff defensive strike, but no defensive strike (if I use HoH, as I want to) is anything planned to compensate players i.e. TP's were spent to get these legacies to where they were, so free replacement of that legacy and upgrade to the same tier level as they previously had?

[Almagnus1]

Ok thanks, but another one, Defensive Strike, a basic skill of all Captains, and one that quite a few may have on their LW's, this seems now to be restricted to the Leader of Men trait line (earned with 20 ranks).
I now have several weapons that buff defensive strike, but no defensive strike (if I use HoH, as I want to) is anything planned to compensate players i.e. TP's were spent to get these legacies to where they were, so free replacement of that legacy and upgrade to the same tier level as they previously had?

Given how easy it is to farm the legacies, learn your lesson and don't do it again.

[Njb013]

I took a pretty long break from LOTRO because I really fell out of love with Captain (the only class I really enjoyed), but I think that these changes might bring me back. A lot of what I'm seeing are very large buffs - the only thing that I don't know about is the difference numerically between the effects of the Live banners and the effects of combined Beta herald + banner. Love the sound of the aggro rework, love the skill changes (some of these buffs are crazy), love the change of IDOME into a normal skill, really love the herald changes.

Overall I think this is going to make Cappies a lot less group dependent without diminishing their group functionality too much. I don't see what people are concerned about, truth be told. Buffs are buffs, and this is quite a lot of them. They are some smaller nerfs to certain skills, yes, but they don't come anywhere close to overshadowing the buffs.

Looking forward to coming back

[Mai-Hon]

I agree it's easy to farm legacies but spending TP's to upgrade their Tier level and then having that negated by a game change is a different matter and it's not only defensive strike that's affected but telling mark and shadow's lament.

[Almagnus1]

I agree it's easy to farm legacies but spending TP's to upgrade their Tier level and then having that negated by a game change is a different matter and it's not only defensive strike that's affected but telling mark and shadow's lament.

**Shrug**

You did get usage out of them at 85, and you knew that you would have to discard them at the next level cap.

Yes stuff changed and we have to adapt, but these changes have been public for several werks now.

[Hrodberht]

Cry of Vengeance needs to lose the death trigger. A skill should not become worse if more points are spent in it. The second rez is nice, but the rez only being useable for a short time after a death is bad. If someone dies while it's on cooldown, you may be hosed unless/until someone else dies. Keep it as is, but just make it always useable (when not on cooldown), just like Escape From Darkness.

[Mai-Hon]

Yes and I expected to get more use out of them whilst levelling new legendary weapons, not to have to spend more TP's re-equipping them due to game changes which should have included measures to strip affected skills from legendary weapons and provide tier scrolls so that replacing these and bringing them back to the same tier level meant no loss was incurred.

[auximenes]

Cry of Vengeance needs to lose the death trigger. A skill should not become worse if more points are spent in it. The second rez is nice, but the rez only being useable for a short time after a death is bad. If someone dies while it's on cooldown, you may be hosed unless/until someone else dies. Keep it as is, but just make it always useable (when not on cooldown), just like Escape From Darkness.

/signed
....

[furtim]

RockX already addressed that in this thread. It's going to be changed, there just wasn't time to do it (and, more importantly, test it sufficiently) for launch.

[Almagnus1]

Yes and I expected to get more use out of them whilst levelling new legendary weapons, not to have to spend more TP's re-equipping them due to game changes which should have included measures to strip affected skills from legendary weapons and provide tier scrolls so that replacing these and bringing them back to the same tier level meant no loss was incurred.

And that's something you should take up with customer service - cause all I'm gonna do is tell you how much of a bad idea that was and how screwed you are.

[Uvirith]

The new captain is soooo fun, I wanna cry out of happiness <sniff>
And I mean all 3 lines....

Thanks Turbine

[aardnebby]

Wasn't red line supposed to increase our DPS?

I'm not seeing it.

I spent hours today parsing dps on various group sizes, in quests and landscape etc.

It's all about the same EXCEPT we get occasional crazy spikes (my biggest hit was 10,152, at level 86 with a level 85 1st ager).

So if we get lucky the fight is over in two hits. If we dont, the dps is still about 1k.

Yeah, this is a fail for me.

[Almagnus1]

Wasn't red line supposed to increase our DPS?

I'm not seeing it.

I spent hours today parsing dps on various group sizes, in quests and landscape etc.

It's all about the same EXCEPT we get occasional crazy spikes (my biggest hit was 10,152, at level 86 with a level 85 1st ager).

So if we get lucky the fight is over in two hits. If we dont, the dps is still about 1k.

Yeah, this is a fail for me.

Were you keeping the bleeds up all the time?

[aardnebby]

Were you keeping the bleeds up all the time?

Not really, in a fight 15 seconds long it seems somewhat ridiculous to focus on bleeds. So I looked into it: currently cutting attack is offering me a 386 bleed every 2 seconds for 38 seconds. That would increase my DPS by approx 150ish after mitigations, assuming the initial attack hit for about as much as my other blows averaged in the same duration. The cooldown is 20 seconds, so in theory I could have two sets of bleeds running if the fight went on long enough.

So our increase in short fights is massive crits if we are lucky, and for long fights hope we have a target that will live long enough to stack repeated bleeds on? (cos when a mob dies, any remaining bleed duration is effectively lost).

Yeah, not really impressed.

EDIT:

Actually I forgot to add, my little pain in the backside "iHateHeralds" was adding about 60-80dps depending on the target. Wow, so exciting. Fully red traited btw, with 4 trait points/2 actual dots in one of the tier 1 blue line damage increasers.

And since my average personal dps was about the same _including_ the overpowered crits, this means my non-crazy crit personal dps has actually decreased. So we are reliant on long bleeds or unreliable crits? And thats to break even?

[Almagnus1]

Did you adapt your LIs for the changes?