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.

[aardnebby]

Has anyone even mentioned that the HD Captain is able to dish out about two to three times the damage that the pre-HD was able to do?

Screenshot or it didn't happen. Personally I wonder if you are actually believe this or you are simply trying to fanboy.

I am basically getting about the same as I had before, even though I am 1 level higher (though hitting higher level mobs I suppose) with the exception of a few very large crits. I am attempting to parse some damage with bleeds worked in, but it really looks like we are simply not really faster in landscape unmounted, which is always the most annoying part of leveling/deed grinding solo and the place we needed the most help pre HD. Even if we assume a marginal increase in DPS or even a significant one (like 50%, which is much more realistic than 100%+) then the fact that we have LESS range pulls than before makes grinding landscape mobs MORE painful.

[Capt.Hunor]

Screenshot or it didn't happen. Personally I wonder if you are actually believe this or you are simply trying to fanboy.

I am basically getting about the same as I had before, even though I am 1 level higher (though hitting higher level mobs I suppose) with the exception of a few very large crits. I am attempting to parse some damage with bleeds worked in, but it really looks like we are simply not really faster in landscape unmounted, which is always the most annoying part of leveling/deed grinding solo and the place we needed the most help pre HD. Even if we assume a marginal increase in DPS or even a significant one (like 50%, which is much more realistic than 100%+) then the fact that we have LESS range pulls than before makes grinding landscape mobs MORE painful.

Sorry, but I'm sure that even you don't belive what you said.
Because do you try to hide that the Captain is not OP? Every class is now IMBA OP.
Pre-HD, Red skilled I had max. 5k crit hit. Now I have over 8k crit Hit, on the same level and on the same Mobs.
Skilled as Tank, I pulled the "The School at Tham Mírdain" instance on level 86, in 2 acts and I killed all of them.
How do you want to call that?

[aardnebby]

Sorry, but I'm sure that even you don't belive what you said.
Because do you try to hide that the Captain is not OP? Every class is now IMBA OP.
Pre-HD, Red skilled I had max. 5k crit hit. Now I have over 8k crit Hit, on the same level and on the same Mobs.
Skilled as Tank, I pulled the "The School at Tham Mírdain" instance on level 86, in 2 acts and I killed all of them.
How do you want to call that?

I mentioned yes I am getting some big crits, some as high as 10k. If you strip those out however our other DPS is pretty consistent.

As for tanking changes, I hadn't even raised them in the last post so this is an ignoratio elenchi fallacy.

[dietlbomb]

My guess is that the developers are using overpowered dps to mask the reduction in players' abilities. I certainly expect lots of dps nerfs to all the classes in the near future.

[Belnavar]

Have you tried using Noble Mark for this? I assume you're talking about a ranged pull for soloing and not grouping. Noble Mark has just as much range as Battle-Shout, so you can pull with it very effectively. The self-heal is also crazy good.

I had mostly been ignoring this, since I wanted to spend points elsewhere, but I tried this while questing yesterday and found it to be incredibly useful. It solves the issue of ranged pulls and, as you said, offers some handy self-healing if needed (effectively replacing Revealing Mark while soloing). I definitely recommend others try this out if they feel they are lacking a ranged pull skill.

-Bel

[aardnebby]

Spent today comparing parses with members of my raidgroup (including other captains). Minstrels, Guardians and Loremasters out DPS us by practically an order of magnitude.

Red line has failed to live up to its aim.

EDIT:

From the dev diary:
"A Lead the Charge Captain specializes in delivering heavy burst damage to single targets, using both Physical and Tactical skills to his advantage."

Not sure what "heavy" is in relation to, but all of the above classes were pulling out big crits in similar numbers from what I have heard. So sure we can pull an 11k crit at level 87, but so can everyone else. And their sustained DPS is in the 2.5k+ range. Ours is demonstrably not.

[Elrantiri]

Spent today comparing parses with members of my raidgroup (including other captains). Minstrels, Guardians and Loremasters out DPS us by practically an order of magnitude.

Earlier in this thread, someone said this:

Screenshot or it didn't happen.

[Almagnus1]

Spent today comparing parses with members of my raidgroup (including other captains). Minstrels, Guardians and Loremasters out DPS us by practically an order of magnitude.

Red line has failed to live up to its aim.

EDIT:

From the dev diary:
"A Lead the Charge Captain specializes in delivering heavy burst damage to single targets, using both Physical and Tactical skills to his advantage."

Not sure what "heavy" is in relation to, but all of the above classes were pulling out big crits in similar numbers from what I have heard. So sure we can pull an 11k crit at level 87, but so can everyone else. And their sustained DPS is in the 2.5k+ range. Ours is demonstrably not.

Provide us with your gearing, traiting, LI legacy and relic loadout, and a copy of your parse, or I call BS.

[aardnebby]

I figured you guys wouldnt mind if I was actually a higher level than when I first reported those figures, and have since equipped a bunch of crafted jewelry with higher might than my previous level 85 teal/gold stuff since it certainly wouldnt reduce my DPS. So here you go.











So, anyone else willing to put their money where their mouth is with actual evidence?

EDIT: Fixed my fail image links.

[Elrantiri]

Well, I see way more issues with how you've set up and used your Captain than how the Captain class is set up.

Major issue IMO
You've managed to get a quite low crit chance on your Captain (I'd guess 7.5k rating ends up to be 13-16% and then +3% from trait?). For a class that benefits so much from crits you're asking for bad performance with that kind of setup. Also, even with your low crit chance in mind the parse shows even an even lower amount of crits, so we're seeing a bad parse from a bad setup.

Smaller details
1. A third age lvl 90 with t1-t4 relics and no attention paid to legacies will most likely do more damage than your FA, as the base damage on lvl 90 is 212 dps and upwards, a good jump from the ~175dps on 85FA.
2. Your emblem is not really adapted to the new legacies (though it is understandable given you'll trash the emblem at 95). Especially the +light damage is a great boost because it buffs both Shadows Lament and Standard of War for some really good burst DPS.
3. Why use Standard of War as finisher? Use it in the beginning of the fight.
4. Your parse doesn't show anything about whether you used To Arms, Oathies or Telling Mark.
5. You didn't use PA/DB after using SL, and considering how they're some of our hard hitters, that's not a good rotation IMO. You'd probably have done a good lot more damage if you had used PA after SL instead of Standard of War.
6. You didn't make use of Defeat Event from PA crit, e.g. Routing Cry.

[aardnebby]

Well, I see way more issues with how you've set up and used your Captain than how the Captain class is set up.

Major issue IMO
You've managed to get a quite low crit chance on your Captain (I'd guess 7.5k rating ends up to be 13-16% and then +3% from trait?). For a class that benefits so much from crits you're asking for bad performance with that kind of setup. Also, even with your low crit chance in mind the parse shows even an even lower amount of crits, so we're seeing a bad parse from a bad setup.

I can put up more parses if you like. As to my crit rating, a factor of that is probably the change over to the exquisite emerald jewelry, which lacks fate, from my previous teals/golds which favoured fate but had less might. *shrugs* the DPS did not change a huge amount when I changed over tbh.

Smaller details
1. A third age lvl 90 with t1-t4 relics and no attention paid to legacies will most likely do more damage than your FA, as the base damage on lvl 90 is 212 dps and upwards, a good jump from the ~175dps on 85FA.

The whole point was to compare like for like that @ approx 85 our DPS in all red line has not improved. I have leveled somewhat since then, but my point remains. If everyone elses parses show massive damage increases while using level 90-95 LIs, well that tells you nothing but that higher level weapons do more damage. Surprise!

2. Your emblem is far from adapted to the new legacies (though it is understandable given you'll trash the emblem at 95). Especially the +light damage is a great boost because it buffs both Shadows Lament and Standard of War for some really good burst DPS.

Can't argue with that. Light damage boosts two reasonably good skills by up to 25%. That still does not double my DPS.

4. Your parse doesn't show anything about whether you used To Arms, Oathies or Telling Mark.

Telling mark was on the brigand captain, the other two were green rings so I didnt bother.

3. Why use Standard of War as finisher? Use it in the beginning of the fight.

5. You didn't use PA/DB after using SL, and considering how they're some of our hard hitters, that's not a good rotation IMO. You'd probably have done a good lot more damage if you had used PA after SL instead of Standard of War.

6. You didn't make use of Defeat Event from PA crit, e.g. Routing Cry.

The above points I have not responded to individuallyrelate to rotation , something I am still working on, but regardless, are unlikely to turn under 1500dps at level 90, to 2500dps at level 85.

Wanna put some parses of your own up with level 85 gear? I am guessing that is impractical as you have probably leveled past that now. I am sure you could post some level 95 parses and we could look at how those compare to level 95 guardians, loremasters or minstrels though.

Fact remains, I assert captain DPS has not significantly increased in a like for like setting while other classes have. I have provided some evidence of such (Though it is not ideal) and no one has so far provided evidence that captain dps HAS increased other than the two factors raised earlier:
1. Max crit damage is through the roof, comparable with our mounted combat performance now.
2. Our bleeds are very nice with max pulses if we can find anything worth using them on.

[Elrantiri]

The above points I have not responded to individuallyrelate to rotation , something I am still working on, but regardless, are unlikely to turn under 1500dps at level 90, to 2500dps at level 85.

I'm fairly sure you can optimize your rotation quite a lot. I'd even take away Sure Strike from your rotation (especially the first one), the buff isn't strong enough to warrant the time it takes to pop it, especially not in short parses like yours. In longer fights and with fellow players to buff, the situation changes of course.

Agaist 2-3 targets, I would go something like (SoW if rdy) -> SL -> PA -> (Routing if PA crit) -> BS -> SS if PA isnt rdy yet -> PA -> (Routing if off cooldown) -> BoE -> CC

Wanna put some parses of your own up with level 85 gear? I am guessing that is impractical as you have probably leveled past that now. I am sure you could post some level 95 parses and we could look at how those compare to level 95 guardians, loremasters or minstrels though.

I got lvl 95 after about 3-4 hours into the expansion and killed off my 85 gear shortly after that, so 85 parses is not going to happen. I should be able to make some 95 parses tomorrow and throw some videos on it.

Your previous post wasn't´really about whether or not Captain DPS has gone up or down after HD, you wrote: "Spent today comparing parses with members of my raidgroup (including other captains). Minstrels, Guardians and Loremasters out DPS us by practically an order of magnitude.", and that's what I object against - and your current pictures don't really prove your comment to be true.
I don't know whether DPS went up for down after Helms Deep, what I noticed was that when I had to kill mobs, it went in a good tempo and the rotation felt good, and that was plenty for me in regards to leveling.

[furtim]

You've managed to get a quite low crit chance on your Captain (I'd guess 7.5k rating ends up to be 13-16% and then +3% from trait?).

Sounds about right. I have ~8k Crit Rating, which translates to just about 21% Crit Chance at level 87.

I'm fairly sure you can optimize your rotation quite a lot. I'd even take away Sure Strike from your rotation (especially the first one), the buff isn't strong enough to warrant the time it takes to pop it, especially not in short parses like yours. In longer fights and with fellow players to buff, the situation changes of course.

Ah. Honestly, I wouldn't count any parse under 2 minutes. Anything shorter than that is a little too random to rely on.

One of the reasons I haven't bothered to post any DPS parses since beta closed is that I can't find anything to beat on for 2 minutes straight. :P

[Almagnus1]

Here's what you're doing wrong:

1) You don't have all your class skill points
2) You don't have a near level LI
3) Your LIs aren't optimized for DPS
4) You are not level 95, so don't have access to the good gear.

Stop complaining about bad DPS when you don't have your stuff together.

[Lunasa]

One note about the new tactics - they do not stack between different captains even when they choose different specializations. It looks a bit wrong that a tactics from LtC captain gets replaced by the tactics from a LoM captain and vice versa.

[Elrantiri]

Ah. Honestly, I wouldn't count any parse under 2 minutes. Anything shorter than that is a little too random to rely on.

Well yes and no, since LtC is supposed to be about Burst DPS, I don't see how you'd test that aspect without using short parses. I do agree though that they're very random, so you'd probably have to do 20+ short parses and grab the average.

One of the reasons I haven't bothered to post any DPS parses since beta closed is that I can't find anything to beat on for 2 minutes straight. :P

Well, I found something :P


My Captain is still a good bit from the point where I want him, especially in regards to critical rating (only at 21% + 3% from trait atm), which is mainly because of my purple+yellow armor. You can see my gear, LIs and trait setup at the end of the video. Also, I learned that Youtube supports 1440p

[furtim]

I haven't run into that dragon yet. I'll be looking forward to it, though.

One note about the new tactics - they do not stack between different captains even when they choose different specializations. It looks a bit wrong that a tactics from LtC captain gets replaced by the tactics from a LoM captain and vice versa.

Dang, that's a serious problem for having multiple Captains in a fellowship. I hope it's a bug that will be resolved in one of the upcoming patches.

[Almagnus1]

One note about the new tactics - they do not stack between different captains even when they choose different specializations. It looks a bit wrong that a tactics from LtC captain gets replaced by the tactics from a LoM captain and vice versa.

Hmm.....

Would it be OP if they were both stacked?

If it wasn't, I wouldn't mind having the stack, but that's my only concern with allowing that to occur.

[Almagnus1]

While we're on the subject of DPS, here's an example of what your LI legacy choices should look like:

Weapon:
To Arms Duration
Telling Mark
OS Duration
Melee Skills Crit Multiplier
Tactics Duration
Bleed Damage
BoE Damage


Sure Strike Damage
Bleed Pulses
DB & PA Damage
ToN Duration
Light Skill Damage
SL Damage
Might

I'm still trying to figure out what the weapon should look like.... too many good major choices, not enough slots =/

[Elrantiri]

Hmm.....

Would it be OP if they were both stacked?

If it wasn't, I wouldn't mind having the stack, but that's my only concern with allowing that to occur.

Depends on how you look at it I guess, I think it's fair that the buffs stack so there's more incentive to bring more than 1 Captain, but considering the content all class seem to be quite OP already.
I don't know if the same buff should stack though (e.g. 2 relentless).

While we're on the subject of DPS, here's an example of what your LI legacy choices should look like:

Weapon:
To Arms Duration
Telling Mark
OS Duration
Melee Skills Crit Multiplier
Tactics Duration
Bleed Damage
BoE Damage


Sure Strike Damage
Bleed Pulses
DB & PA Damage
ToN Duration
Light Skill Damage
SL Damage
Might

I'm still trying to figure out what the weapon should look like.... too many good major choices, not enough slots =/

Given how 2nd agers have fewer points, your setup can't max all legacies. Of course you can just put them all at r8, but I went and swapped Oathies and Tactics for Might and Fate. Oathies duration can stay on swap weapon, Tactic Duration doesn't feel needed to me given we can enter BR from 2 skills and the extra stats are nice.
I also dropped Bleed Pulses for fate, while it's nice to have more pulses I think it's of limited use outside Moors.

[Lunasa]

Hmm.....

Would it be OP if they were both stacked?

If it wasn't, I wouldn't mind having the stack, but that's my only concern with allowing that to occur.

I do not see it as OP. It is a nature of a captain to be able to bring buffs to a fellowship. The new active buffing looks very similar to anthem's of minstrels, and those do stack. At the moment as long as tactics are concerned, the second captain is not only not able to keep his buff up, but also erases/rewrites the buff of another captain all the time.

We noticed this problem in a SG run where one captain (me) was tanking and another was in an LtC spec. I do have some power issues in my present tanking build and I rely on the need "On Guard" tactics which brings -10% power cost to all skills. This buff was constantly wiped by the "Relentless Attack" from another captain. The only way to keep up the same buff on the fellowship is to ask one of the captains to change their rotation and never use Sure Strike in the Battle-ready state. This does not look WAI at all.

I don't know if the same buff should stack though (e.g. 2 relentless).

In my view the same buffs should not stack, just like we do not get the second IDOME or motivating speech. I am only talking about 2-3 different Tactics when you have 2-3 captains in different specs.

[Elrantiri]

We noticed this problem in a SG run where one captain (me) was tanking and another was in an LtC spec. I do have some power issues in my present tanking build and I rely on the need "On Guard" tactics which brings -10% power cost to all skills. This buff was constantly wiped by the "Relentless Attack" from another captain. The only way to keep up the same buff on the fellowship is to ask one of the captains to change their rotation and never use Sure Strike in the Battle-ready state. This does not look WAI at all.

Indeed, it would kill most of the incentive to go with more than 1 Captain, if not even hinder bringing more than 1 Captain. Did you test To Arms, X-brothers Call?

[Lunasa]

Did you test To Arms, X-brothers Call?

Yes, different kinds of To Arms and Calls stack with each other.

[Uvirith]

I'm fairly sure you can optimize your rotation quite a lot. I'd even take away Sure Strike from your rotation (especially the first one), the buff isn't strong enough to warrant the time it takes to pop it, especially not in short parses like yours. In longer fights and with fellow players to buff, the situation changes of course.

Agaist 2-3 targets, I would go something like (SoW if rdy) -> SL -> PA -> (Routing if PA crit) -> BS -> SS if PA isnt rdy yet -> PA -> (Routing if off cooldown) -> BoE -> CC

Never do SL before BoE. BoE buffs SL by a huge margin.