Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Captain

[Elrantiri]

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

Well, I don't consider 20% to be a huge margin, but swapping Battle-shout and SL in the rotation I described would help a good deal.

[furtim]

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.

The way I see it, the fellowship-wide Tactics buff is part of the Captain's "power budget". Relentless Attacks is a core part of the LtC Captain's group DPS contribution, as much as Blade-Brother is. On Guard is as much part of the LoM Captain's group survivability buffing as Shield-Brother is.

Before, when it was possible for one Captain to give out all three types of Tactics, making them mutually exclusive made sense. But, the Helm's Deep update has already removed that flexibility and made the Tactics buffs a core part of their respective specialisations. As a result, I think it's fair that each Captain in a group should "own" the Tactic they've specced for and ensure that they and everyone else in the group has access to it.

IMO, the intuitive behaviour is this:

The same Tactic must not be allowed to stack. This is simply a necessity of game balance, because you have to consider the extreme abuse case of six Captains. Imagine six Relentless Attacks buffs stacking up and the kind of insanely high crit rating that would result from that (even if it can't exceed the chance cap, it'd still put crit magnitude through the roof). Crazier still, imagine six HoH Captains stacking Focus six times and healing 6% of each others' Max Morale every five seconds!

On the other hand, different Tactics must be allowed to stack. As I mentioned above, this is a simple matter of power budgets. The case for bringing a Captain over a Champ into a group assumes the Captain will be giving everyone Relentless Attacks. The case for bringing a Captain over a Minstrel assumes the Captain will be giving everyone Focus (and it still feels weird for this to be anything other than an insult). The case for bringing a Captain over a Guardian assumes the Captain will be giving everyone On Guard. As long as it does not create problematic abuse cases, Captains must be allowed to bring whatever Tactics buff belongs to their spec, because applying that buff is part of the contract they make with their group.

[borges_maze]

Has anyone else found they can't remove the Light Damage legacy from fully leveled emblems? I've bugged it but am wondering if I'm missing something.

[IGolbezI]

The Motivating Speech aura applies within a radius of 20m, and this cannot be increased due to technical limitations.

forgive me i just don't have the time to read this thread

any word on whether this has been fixed? 10% is a big amount of morale to lose. i always found it impossible to keep idome on people in raids/moors due to range limitations, and now idome is fixed but m. speech is broken. lol

[RockX]

Has anyone else found they can't remove the Light Damage legacy from fully leveled emblems? I've bugged it but am wondering if I'm missing something.

It's currently a Known Issue.

[aardnebby]

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.

And a level 85 minstrel who logged in 5 minutes ago was laughing about doing 2.5k DPS vs on level mobs. Entertainingly, unless minstrel LIs transfer much better than captains then all 4 of these points apply to them too. Otherwise 3 points do.

So my point is, are captains in a better relative position DPS wise after HD? I have given evidence that says "um no". And rubbish about how it "feels good" is not empirical evidence. Posting a youtube of a level 95 captain and saying "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel" is not exactly comparing apples with apples either.

The point is the captain has lost flexibility in exchange for (in theory) improved specialization. I am contesting our DPS specialization does not look to be improved relatively to the other classes who never claimed to be DPS classes either.

Are we still last place DPS (like for like comparison)? Seems so to me, any counter evidence yet?

[Almagnus1]

And a level 85 minstrel who logged in 5 minutes ago was laughing about doing 2.5k DPS vs on level mobs. Entertainingly, unless minstrel LIs transfer much better than captains then all 4 of these points apply to them too. Otherwise 3 points do.

It all varies on how much the mini legacies changed.

Our entire legacy pool was basically rewritten with the update, and there's pretty clear DPS weapon and LI builds, which you did not use with your parse, so you are lacking DPS there.

So my point is, are captains in a better relative position DPS wise after HD? I have given evidence that says "um no". And rubbish about how it "feels good" is not empirical evidence. Posting a youtube of a level 95 captain and saying "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel" is not exactly comparing apples with apples either.

No, all you have shown was that sub-optimal gear and legacy load out will give you sub-optimal DPS.

As several have stated above, there are very significant flaws with how you parsed, and how you are built.

Are we still last place DPS (like for like comparison)? Seems so to me, any counter evidence yet?

You have not provided any information on how any of the other classes are performing at 95, yet you have drawn the conclusion that we suck at DPS.

Where's your evidence?

[RockX]

And a level 85 minstrel who logged in 5 minutes ago was laughing about doing 2.5k DPS vs on level mobs. Entertainingly, unless minstrel LIs transfer much better than captains then all 4 of these points apply to them too. Otherwise 3 points do.

So my point is, are captains in a better relative position DPS wise after HD? I have given evidence that says "um no". And rubbish about how it "feels good" is not empirical evidence. Posting a youtube of a level 95 captain and saying "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel" is not exactly comparing apples with apples either.

The damage tests (and DPS balance passes) which we've done internally have been focusing around level 95.
At the same time, I'd expect a red-specced Captain to deal more damage, since many of their skills were given a damage boost when compared to pre-HD.

[Almagnus1]

The damage tests (and DPS balance passes) which we've done internally have been focusing around level 95.
At the same time, I'd expect a red-specced Captain to deal more damage, since many of their skills were given a damage boost when compared to pre-HD.

Based on your tests, where do LtC captains sit when compared to everything else?

[Elrantiri]

So my point is, are captains in a better relative position DPS wise after HD? I have given evidence that says "um no".

You've given evidence that shows clearly that you haven't adapted your rotation (or whatever that was) to the skill changes, you've given evidence based on 1 parse despite how DPS parses vary a LOT. Your evidence shows nothing except from a truly biased aspect, where I guess the evidence shows exactly what it is supposed to.

And rubbish about how it "feels good" is not empirical evidence.

Who said it was empirical evidence? Furthermore, it's no more rubbish than you looking at numbers. It's a game, what matters is whether it feels good, if it is fun to play, not whether Combat Analysis shows one number or another.

Posting a youtube of a level 95 captain and saying "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel" is not exactly comparing apples with apples either.

Oh please remind me, who in this thread did say "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel"? You said "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.", and therefore I provided a parse, and I'll provide more when my gear is better. I didn't ask you to compare it to a lvl 85.

Are we still last place DPS (like for like comparison)? Seems so to me, any counter evidence yet?

In your mind, who should be doing less DPS than Captains and why?

[dietlbomb]

The damage tests and DPS balance passes) which we've done internally have been focusing around level 95.
At the same time, I'd expect a red-specced Captain to deal more damage, since many of their skills were given a damage boost when compared to pre-HD.

Are we to conclude that the current damage output from all the classes is working as intended?

[Belnavar]

I don't know how LtC Captains do in comparison to other classes, but what I do know is that we do a lot more damage than before HD. It does depend a lot on crits and buffs, but that was always the case with Captain.

-Bel

[Elrantiri]

I don't know how LtC Captains do in comparison to other classes, but what I do know is that we do a lot more damage than before HD. It does depend a lot on crits and buffs, but that was always the case with Captain.

-Bel

There's no doubt Captains are dealing more damage per hit (especially on crits!), but LtC Captains have lost the -15% Attack Duration from Blade-brother SoW. The question is whether the higher hits make up for the lower attack speed. I don't think Captain DPS has changed that much with the revamp, but I still think it's positive changes. Also, as others have said we don't need that much DPS for soloing and in groups our buffs make up for the lower DPS.

[Elrantiri]

I think the point of contention isn't how we are to what we used to do with DPS, but more with measuring epeens with the other DPS classes.

Aarden's basic comment is that there's not a small enough measuring device for us.

For some people yeah, but I was thinking of RockXs comment (the one dietlbomb quoted a few posts above):"I'd expect a red-specced Captain to deal more damage, since many of their skills were given a damage boost when compared to pre-HD.".
At least to me, there's two sides to it, as dealing more damage could be "more damage per hit" and/or "more DPS".

[furtim]

SoW is gone, but we had our base Attack Duration reduced to compensate. (This is pretty noticeable when you think about how slow old LoM was vs. new LoM.) So I don't think that's a factor.

Either way, damage-per-hit is pretty undeniably increased. I'm not even able to get through a full Battle- rotation for some on-level mobs, whereas I used to always need at least Blade of Elendil to finish them off.

I need to either find that bloody level 95 dragon or discover a good single-mob warband somewhere. Then we can start to make damage parses and comparisons that are actually useful.

[Almagnus1]

For some people yeah, but I was thinking of RockXs comment (the one dietlbomb quoted a few posts above):"I'd expect a red-specced Captain to deal more damage, since many of their skills were given a damage boost when compared to pre-HD.".
At least to me, there's two sides to it, as dealing more damage could be "more damage per hit" and/or "more DPS".

Yeah, that's how I read it too.

I would still be an interesting excercise to see how we stack up against everything else though.

[Elrantiri]

SoW is gone, but we had our base Attack Duration reduced to compensate. (This is pretty noticeable when you think about how slow old LoM was vs. new LoM.) So I don't think that's a factor.

Ah ok, I thought it was only some minor animation tweaks.

Either way, damage-per-hit is pretty undeniably increased. I'm not even able to get through a full Battle- rotation for some on-level mobs, whereas I used to always need at least Blade of Elendil to finish them off.

Yeah exactly

I need to either find that bloody level 95 dragon or discover a good single-mob warband somewhere. Then we can start to make damage parses and comparisons that are actually useful.

The dragon is only lvl 89 though, but it was the best mob I could find. None of the Warband seems to be any good for a non-MC parse :/

[Almagnus1]

Thinking outside the box, but how well would friend on a WL or defilier in the moors work as a parsing target, assuming we don't out DPS their HPS.

[furtim]

The harder trick would be pulling that off without accidentally getting banned for rank farming.

[Cadd_EU]

The harder trick would be pulling that off without accidentally getting banned for rank farming.

Yeah, that's a bit of a risk... However, I would think that if none of the participants actually is defeated they couldn't really class it as rank farming, could they? Might be worth checking in with a GM before doing it...

[Lohi]

So my point is, are captains in a better relative position DPS wise after HD?

Does it even matter? All classes at this point are very over powered. One class being less over powered is not a cause for concern. I instead treat it as captain not being as messed up as the other classes.

[enginekid88]

Captain: Two-handed Weapon DPS Build







Lead the Charge (Red Line): 45 Points


Spend 45 points into this tree. *Do not spend points on Restraint or Heightened Allies. You'll get every skill in the tree except those two, which are useless for Character DPS. This will give you the highest melee dps out of all three trait trees.


Hands of Healing (Blue Line): 20 Points


Spend your remaining 20 points into the following skills of this tree: Reversal, Skilled Hands, Revealing Mark and Dignified Spectacle. This adds to your overall DPS by giving +10% Melee Damage (a constant +4% with an additional +6% briefly after each critical), a constant +7% Tactical Damage, constant +7% Outgoing Healing, and grants the skill Revealing Mark, which is great to have in situations where Lifetap is desired.


Dps Legacies

Major Weapon Legacies:

• Telling Mark Damage (Very Strong)
• Pressing Attack and Devastating Blow Crit Rating (Very Strong)
• Melee Skills Critical Magnitude (Very Strong)
• Pressing Attack Max Targets (Strong)
• To Arms Duration (can be put on a swap weapon)
• Oathbreaker's Shame Duration (can be put on a swap weapon)

Minor Weapon Legacies:

• Blade of Elendil Damage (Very Strong)
• Inspire Damage (Very Strong)
• Tactics Duration (Strong)
• Bleed damage (Weak for this build; better for Leader of Men)
• Routing Cry Damage (Weak)

Major Class Legacies:

• Sure Strike Damage (Very Strong)
• Noble mark Damage (Useless; need to be Leader of Men traited)

Minor Class Legacies:

• Shadow's Lament Damage (Very Strong)
• Devastating Blow and Pressing Attack Damage (Very Strong)
• **Time of Need Buff Duration (Strong)
• ***Light-type Damage (Strong)
• Bleed Pulses Bleed damage (Weak for this build; better for Leader of Men)

* Restraint and Heightened Allies are bad for this build: Restraint only reduces power costs and Heightened Allies only increases your pet dps by 20%. By not using them you free up points needed to access Dignified Spectacle in the Blue Line.

** Time of Need Buff Duration (+10 seconds) - I think Time of Need is great now and should be used whenever available; it no longer costs morale, has a 2 min cooldown, and with the legacy grants: an enemy defeat response (8-13s); battle-readied state with +5% melee/tactical dmg ( 15s); -20% attack duration, +20% melee/tactical dmg, +20% crit multiplier (30s)

*** Light-type Damage - I think this legacy is strong because it buffs the dmg of at least four skills: Shadow's Lament, Routing Cry, Battle Shout, and Standard of War. (It also might buff the Improved Blade of Elendil effect but I do not know)

[furtim]

Have you found anything to run CombatAnalysis parses against, enginekid? I've been taking my time with leveling, so I haven't really seen the areas outside of Kingstead and Eastfold yet.

[enginekid88]

Have you found anything to run CombatAnalysis parses against, enginekid? I've been taking my time with leveling, so I haven't really seen the areas outside of Kingstead and Eastfold yet.

No i haven't done that. I am too busy trying to complete the quests. I stated this will give the highest DPS because it's my belief it should beat Yellow line which uses bleeds. But ya, it still should tested to be sure. But if u simply mouse over the yelow line skills they are weak compared to red, so I cannot see how any build could beat this.

[aardnebby]

Oh please remind me, who in this thread did say "hey, this guy does more DPS than a level 85 minstrel"? You said "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.", and therefore I provided a parse, and I'll provide more when my gear is better. I didn't ask you to compare it to a lvl 85.

In your mind, who should be doing less DPS than Captains and why?

Lets see, how about a Minstrel can do 3691 DPS vs on level mobs in Bells of Dale AND maintain 2880 hps at the same time?

Admittedly all the melee DPS in this fight were unable to maintain real rotations due to target changing, but I think my point is pretty clear.

I wont even suggest my DPS is "top end", I'm curious as to what other captains are pulling vs on level instance boss mobs. But I would say minstrels beat us hands down at both DPS AND healing right now.

It has been shown captains have lost significant parts of their flexibility, but if the minstrels can outperform us for both healing AND dps AT THE SAME TIME it's clear that there is at least some kind of balance issue between classes.

The burg also maintained a better DPS than either captain, sadly the guardian chose not to post his combat analysis, but as he was tanking I have no idea if it was comparable.

EDIT:

The pet dps probably would have been higher, but surprise surprise, it died at least twice, and I may have not resummoned it straight away.