Captain tanking needs a nerf!

[BlitzKr1eg]

Now you're twisting your narrative.



And I've replied accordingly. Guardians can and do tank T3-5 rather well. Minstrels can Yellow buff in T3-5 very well. RKs heal (at no point did I mention DPS) T3-5 extremely well. If Wardens NS worked properly, they wouldn't have any issues traiting Blue/Yellow and off-tanking T3-5, as it stands, they are really good at B1 only.

Your sarcasm and narrative twisting, for whatever point, serves no purpose. Class balance here is much, much better than Remmorchant's was. And if people aren't looking for Guardians/Minstrels/RKs, maybe....it's either a PUG and just wanna go for FOTMs or it just doesn't fit into their comp. But yeah...they all have viable lines and work rather well in an actual raid.

Once again, I never said that X class can't do X role in a grp/raid, I said that certain classes aren't a viable option, some classes don't even have 1 single viable trait line, namely the RK and Guardian, take a look at their class forums and you'll see that's its not only me that is saying this. If your class doens't have any viable trait line it means that you'll be far less likely to be considered into a group/raid. Does this mean that not a single Guardian or RK will see group action? Obviously not, but it's much more difficult to get into a group, especially if you aren't in a great kin.

You'll still be able to do any role in lower tier content and in certain parts of a raid that favours that type of class, but in general Guardians aren't a viable option, just like RK dps. Thus you'll notice that players in their respective class forums aren't exactly thrilled about their current situation.

One class not having a viable trait line =/= another class shouldn't have two. It just means SSG need to sort themselves out and make viable trait lines for the class(es) without any. It also doesn't mean the class with two viable trait lines should be any less effective in its respective role than a class with one or none.

Yes, it would be lovely if all 30 trait lines were viable, unlikely to happen in the next 10 years, but them completely overhauling the system again to be like what it was before in the next 10 years is also equally unrealistic. This is the hand we've been dealt, all we can do is try to improve each line overtime to make it competent and viable. NONE of this means that Captains need be less / not as good as any other tank.

I also never said that it's captains fault that other classes got far less viable trait lines, however Captain tanking is vastly superior to other tanks in almost every scenario. However that doesn't change the fact that captains are very OP in yellow, would a nerf to Yellow cappy suddenly make other tanks excel? Ofc not, devs should sort out the other tanking classes first before looking at Yellow Cappies.

Personally I also prefer the old school captain, instead SSG will have to balance a whopping 4 tank classes (5 if you count champs) against each other.

There's no real practical difference between the old system and what we currently have in LOTRO. The old trait system was essentially just class = role and this is what we have now, generally speaking each class is only good in one role with Captains being the primary outlier.

The trait tree system has never worked because it was never finished. Blue Champions were never particularly competent in a tank role pre-HD and HD didn't get them to a competitive level either, same applies to pretty much every other off-spec at the time. Is the trait tree system itself at fault for this? No, it's the leadership at Turbine/SSG who failed by rushing such a massive feature and refusing to dedicate any real resources to it post release (also somewhat a dev issue, cappy dev was incompetent). This is pretty much why I'm against all this "We should just try to give them really small changes to make to try fix class balance" stuff, that's literally what has been going on for the past 7 years and it blatantly hasn't done a single iota of good.

The only way LOTRO will EVER see an improvement in regards to class balance is if people collectively put their foot down and tell them to actually put some effort into it. Anything else is just gonna result in perpetuating the status quo.

I wouldn't mind keeping the actual trait trees, I do however oppose the multi role system like many of the newer MMO's have for lotro.

Lotro unlike those games were never designed from the ground up with that class system in mind.

[Joedangod]

Lotro unlike those games were never designed from the ground up with that class system in mind.

Most MMO's of LOTRO's age weren't designed with such a system but they've all gravitated towards it over the years.

LOTRO was never designed from the ground up with skirmishes, big battles, mounted combat, missions, allegiances, scaling instances, inspiration, wardens, runekeepers, beornings, radiance, light of Elendil, loot locks, seasonal instances, fellowship tradeable loot, cosmetic weapons and armour, so on and so forth. Funnily enough that fact didn't stop them from eventually adding those systems.

Amusingly in the case of each class having multiple viable roles they actually do have the groundwork already set up. Trait trees do in fact work for this function, the current implementation is certainly messed up but the basic tools are there.

[BlitzKr1eg]

Most MMO's of LOTRO's age weren't designed with such a system but they've all gravitated towards it over the years.

LOTRO was never designed from the ground up with skirmishes, big battles, mounted combat, missions, allegiances, scaling instances, inspiration, wardens, runekeepers, beornings, radiance, light of Elendil, loot locks, seasonal instances, fellowship tradeable loot, cosmetic weapons and armour, so on and so forth. Funnily enough that fact didn't stop them from eventually adding those systems.

Funnily most of the above have either been complete failures or abandoned by the devs.

[Joedangod]

Funnily most of the above have either been complete failures or abandoned by the devs.

That's literally besides the point. If the LOTRO devs were limited purely to things that had been built from the ground up then 99% of the content in the game would not be there. It's just not an argument.

[HolyDuckTape]

Holy smokes, nerf captains

[furtim]

I'm coming back to the game after a couple of years off, and I just want to say how amusing it is to know that this is a legitimate discussion in the game now! I was a big advocate for Captain tanking to exist in the first place, but I never imagined we would actually overtake Guardians and Wardens in the tanking role.

[Bhoris_they_spider]

I'm coming back to the game after a couple of years off, and I just want to say how amusing it is to know that this is a legitimate discussion in the game now! I was a big advocate for Captain tanking to exist in the first place, but I never imagined we would actually overtake Guardians and Wardens in the tanking role.

Warden is no longer a tanking class.

[Strider5548]

Warden is no longer a tanking class.

Wardens carry large shields, the intro page literally describes them as a tanking class, and I exclusively play my Warden as a tank. The only reason they aren't considered a tanking class now is because SSG refuses to balance tanking in this game. Wardens are completely non competitive as tanks but it's not because they aren't a tanking class, it's because SSG isn't doing their job.

[Hyos]

Wardens carry large shields, the intro page literally describes them as a tanking class, and I exclusively play my Warden as a tank. The only reason they aren't considered a tanking class now is because SSG refuses to balance tanking in this game. Wardens are completely non competitive as tanks but it's not because they aren't a tanking class, it's because SSG isn't doing their job.

While you are right, the previous poster's answer is probably meant as "because of SSG's negligence, Warden is effectively no longer a working tanking class", and they left out the context necessary for their answer to be understood.

On a side note, I could not be bothered to play my Warden as a tank currently, unless for very easy content with my non-hardcore kinmates, so respect if you are making that work.