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  1. #1
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Suggested Captain Improvement

    After posting all of these changes in their own separate thread over the last few months, and then seeing the massive overhaul posts, I decided to do the same. While I did start the threads, there was a lot of input from the captain community, and several of the ideas likely did not originate with me.
    =======================
    Captains are at a unique cross-road in our development time. We have recently seen RKs get group buffs and dread removal skills, Wardens get buffs and DPS comparable to main role DPSers, and Minis become the buffing kings of the game. We really are no longer a buffer/support, but a hybrid class that isn't very good at being a hybrid. To help remedy that situation, the following needs to be implemented so we can choose to either remain as a support role using a Skittles build, or follow one of the traitlines to become the equivalent of a main role.

    Here's what needs to change:
    • Healing and Stacking
      • All captain HoTs now stack with other captain HoTs
      • Rally Cry now stacks with itself indefinitely.
      • Words of Courage will stack with itself up to five times, with newer HoT applications replacing the oldest HoT application.
    • Buffs
      • Banner of War
        +20*level Physical Mastery (1500 at 75)
        +20*level Tactical Mastery (1500 at 75)
        +10*level Crit (750 at 75)
        +15*level Finesse (1125 at 75)
      • Banner of Hope
        +12*level Morale (900 at 75)
        +2*level ICMR (150 at 75)
        +level/10 Incoming Healing (7.5 at 75)
      • Banner of Victory
        +20*level Physical Mitigation (1500 at 75)
        +20*level Tactical Mitigation (1500 at 75)
        +7*level Power (525 at 75)
        +6*level ICPR (450 at 75)
      • Coldfells Banner
        +20*level Physical Mitigation (1500 at 75)
        +20*level Tactical Mitigation (1500 at 75)
        +20*level Physical Mastery (1500 at 75)
        +20*level Tactical Mastery (1500 at 75)
      • Light of Elendil
        Blade of Elendil has a 100% chance to apply this to the captain.
        Light of Elendil retains it's existing spread mechanic.
        Light of Elendil changes to a modal buff/debuff:
        • Freep: PoT
        • Creep: -Finesse
        • Mob: -B/P/E
    • Items
      • All herald appearances are now gained through a talisman-like mechanic, similar to how LMs gain pet appearances.
      • Armaments
        • All armaments now have stats on them, so a 75 Armament will have:
          +685 Maximum Morale
          +3344 Physical Mastery Rating
        • To keep Armaments and banners in sync with each other, Armaments' will need to have recipes to allow them to be made every 5 levels from their introduction to endgame.
    • Legacy Changes:
      • The following legacies are being rolled into their base skills, to allow the devs the ability to introduce other legacies to better support our primary roles.
        • Strength of Will
        • Motivating Speech
        • Tactics: Relentless Attack
        • Tactics: On Guard
        • Tactics: Focus
        • To Arms duration
    • Traitline Changes
      • Lead the Charge
        • The following additions are being made to the traitline:
          • 2 Traits:
            Blade Brother now bestows War Stance to the Captain
            • War Stance
              +10% Melee Crit Magnitude
              +5% Damage
              +7.5% Devastate Magnitude
          • 4 Traits:
            +X * 2% Melee Damage, where X is the number of currently slotted LtC traits
        • Because of the changes to War Banner, Captain's Valour is being replaced with:
          Searing Light
          Shadows Lament will do 200% more damage to a target affected by Light of Elendil, but this will consume Light of Elendil on the target and the captain.
        • Master of War
          Gains +1 Herald Level
        • Loyalty
          Gains +1 Herald Level
          Improves herald ICPR
        • Precise Ally
          Grants the Herald/Archer finesse.
          Heralds and Archers now share the damage type of the captain, by using the following table:
          Captain Herald/Archer
          Beleriand Beleriand
          Beleriand + Stuff Beleriand
          Westernesse Westernesse
          Westernesse + Stuff Westernesse
          Ancient Dwarf Ancient Dwarf
          Everything Else Common
      • Hands of Healing
        • The following additions are being made to the traitline:
          • 2 Traits:
            Song Brother bestows Hope Stance to the Captain
            • Hope Stance
              +10% Healing Crit Magnitude
              +5% Outgoing Healing
              +5% Tactical Crit
          • 4 Traits:
            +X * 2% Outgoing Healing, where X is the number of currently slotted HoH traits
        • Because of the changes to Hope Banner, Captain's Hope is being replaced with:
          Healing Light
          While you are affected by the Light of Elendil, your next Words of Courage restores 100% more morale, and expends all of it's HoT ticks at the same time. Using Words of Courage consumes your Light of Elendil buff.
      • Leader of Men
        • The following additions are being made to the traitline:
          • 2 Traits:
            Shield Brother bestows Victory Stance to the Captain
            • Victory Stance
              Captain healing generates additional threat [turns Inspire and RC into threat generators]
              +5% Increased threat
              +vitality to Morale [Effectively 4*vit instead of 3*vit for vit => morale]
              +5% Partial Block, Parry, and Evade
          • 4 Traits:
            +Level * 2 Critical Defence [150 Crit Defence @ 75]
            +.5% * X Perceived Threat, where X is the number of Leader of Men traits currently slotted.
        • Because of the changes to Victory Banner, Captain's Victory is being replaced with:
          Blinding Light
          While you are affected by the Light of Elendil, your next Threatening Shout does 100% more threat, and affects 2 additional targets. Using Threatening Shout consumes your Light of Elendil buff.
        • Tacical Prowess is being rolled into To Arms, and will be replaced with:
          Tactical Retreat
          Changes Fighting Withdrawal into Tactical Retreat.
          • Tactical Retreat
            Targeted Freep loses part of their threat with all mobs currently engaged in combat within 30m of the target.
            The captain cannot be the target of Tactical Retrerat.
            Range: 30m
            Cooldown: 15s
    • Skills
      • The captain now has an out of combat rez.
      • The captain now has dread removal.
      • To Arms duration is increased to 30 seconds.
      • Motivating Speech is increased to 10%.
      • Tactics: Relentless Attack, On Guard, and Focus have their maxed out legacy rolled into the skills.
      • Valiant Strike's Heal and HoT now have a radius of 30m.
      • Song Brother
        • Song Brother loses the healing threat reduction, but gains a tactical mastery bonus.
        • Strength of Will changes to +5% Critical to the Song-Brother target.
        • Inspire gains a HoT equivalent to the current Shield Brother Inspire, making Song Brother's inspire a high powered version of Blade Brother's Inspire.
      • Shield Brother
        • Strength of Will is increased to 20%
        • Inspire gains a PoT equivalent to Blade Brother's Inspire's PoT.
      • Defensive Strike
        While under the effects of Light of Elendil, Defensive Strike costs no power, and has a 60% chance to return power.
    • Heralds and Archers
      These need some love, because almost no one uses them in a group setting, and most use them grudgingly solo. In addition to the banner buffs the heralds are known for, all of our summons also receive buff auras.
      • General improvements:
        It's time we blend the skirmish system into the heralds, and start using some of their traits to improve our summons so they don't suck as bad as they do.
        • Heralds are now affected by:
          • Heavy Armor Training
          • Physical Potency
          • Tactical Potency
          • Practiced Critical
        • Archers are now affected by:
          • Medium Armor Training
          • Physical Potency
          • Practiced Critical
          • Boundless Morale
      • Herald of War
        • Coordinated Attack is replaced with the Banner Guard's Potent Strike (Singer Target DPS)
        • Infuriating Tactics is replaced with the Banner Guard's Bold Strike (Single Target DPS + Threat)
        • Herald of War gains a damage reflection buff aura
      • Herald of Hope
        • Coordinated Attack is replaced with the Banner Guard's Potent Strike (Singer Target DPS)
        • Infuriating Tactics is replaced with the Banner Guard's Inspiring Shout (HoT)
        • Herald of Hope gains an armor buff aura
      • Herald of Victory
        • Coordinated Attack is replaced with the Banner Guard's Summon the Foe (AE Threat)
        • Infuriating Tactics is replaced with the Banner Guard's Bold Strike (Single Target DPS + Threat)
        • Lend Will no longer has a morale cost.
        • Herald of Victory gains an armor buff aura
      • Archer
        • Barbed Arrow existing functionality is gutted, and replaced with Skirmish Archer's Distracting Shot (Single Target DPS + Detaunt), while retaining an improved slow of -20% movement speed.
        • Sue Aim is replaced with the Skirmish Archer's Ultimate: Wound Seeker (Single Target DPS + DoT)
        • Archer gains a +crit rating and +crit magnitude buff aura.
    Last edited by Almagnus1; Apr 11 2012 at 06:27 PM.

  2. #2
    Grand Member Online status: dietlbomb is offline Reputation: dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Fantastic! I'll write a more detailed response after I have collected my thoughts.


    I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. ~ Faramir

  3. #3
    Century Member Online status: Uvirith is offline Reputation: Uvirith the Wary Uvirith the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    I´m luvin it.

    +rep to you sir.

  4. #4
    Grand Member Online status: furtim is offline Reputation: furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend furtim the Bounders-friend
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Good summary of all the suggestions you've made so far, Almagnus. Not much more to add that I haven't already said in the individual threads.

  5. #5
    Grand Member Online status: SapienChavez is offline Reputation: SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    great, but you lost me on "stances"

    i just cant go there. its too counter to our jack-of-all-trades role. that being said, i do like that you tied them to the brother skills and not the capstones! id much rather that!
    "I am always serious; I am never serious." -Me
    "I make the most outrageous and exaggerated statements of any man to ever live, has ever lived, or that will ever live." -Me

  6. #6
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    /signed

    Well summarized ideas that were posted lately. Have to spread rep more beofre giving it to Almagnus1...

  7. #7
    Senior Member Online status: jchudz is offline Reputation: jchudz the Wary jchudz the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    lol 15s cd on a skill that halves current threat on an ally?

  8. #8
    Senior Member Online status: GeoTerran is offline Reputation: GeoTerran the Neutral
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    /signed

    I certainly agree with most of what's up there but there's a couple things(IMO) that could be tweaked for better functionality.

    1. First of which is Tactical Retreat. I love it's feature but since this is a Trait in LoM I think it could be better. Considering how seldom any of us actually needs to use Withdrawal/Fighting Withdrawal they could just change the basic function of Withdrawal/FW into what you proposed which is a threat shred for a fellowship member. With the trait in LoM it could change the skill so that instead of just leaching threat off an ally it takes the threat and gives it to you. Could help quite a bit with our multiple threat issue.

    2. I know stances are a very iffy subject for Captains but I wholeheartedly believe if there's anything that will give us the boost we need to get closer to main roles, whether for good or bad, stances would be a necessary evil.

    With respect, I'd like to suggest an alternative to your stances via "Brother" toggle. Remove Blade and Song Brother as skills from the game. Give us a Victory(tank) stance and Hope(healing) stance, and maybe have a dps/null being considered dps stance. With one "Brother" toggle that would change depending on our current stance. Shield for victory stance, song for hope stance, and blade for War or null stance/stanceless. Admittedly this is pretty much the same thing you suggested but in reverse. Bear with me, because this will allow for more flexibility that stances through Brother toggles lack.

    First off you can have a dps or healer role much earlier in game, since Blade and Song Brother are learned obscenely late in game and that never sat right with me. Having access to stances and a morphing Brother skill early on would help in Captain leveling but also give us better role diversity earlier on. This would also mean Blade and Song Brother skills would be replaced with new or improved skills and I can think of several new or improved skills we could use.

    Secondly this would change the functionality of Brother toggles to be more focused on the Brother skills being beneficial to your role as well as the fellowship instead of giving the same benefit to everyone. Buffs that solidify your role while still being useful to the fellowship. Shield-Brother SoW could increase your incoming healing but for the fellowship reduce their threat generation proportionally, or Song Brother SoW reduces power cost of your healing skills on self, but for fellowship gives bonus incoming healing like current SB SoW. Song Brother TA would have to change though...I think someone in a thread suggested it could change to +X% crit chance. Anyways these are not serious suggestions, just examples to showcase a point.

    Stance swapping would be no different than Brother swapping, except that with stances you can still get the benefit playing solo or if your herald is killed not suffer a loss of your role effectiveness.
    Last edited by GeoTerran; Apr 11 2012 at 12:52 PM.

  9. #9
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    I also agree that when we get certain skills needs to be looked at, and Blade and Song Brother - as well as the archer - need to be granted to the captain significantly earlier than when they are now. It doesn't make much sense for something that's so crucial to the capstone to be received almost 10 levels AFTER you get the capstone. We really need to have stuff rearranged so we get all of our skills AND THEN all of the upgrades.

    Quote Originally Posted by SapienChavez View Post
    great, but you lost me on "stances"

    i just cant go there. its too counter to our jack-of-all-trades role. that being said, i do like that you tied them to the brother skills and not the capstones! id much rather that!
    If you really stop and think about what the Brother Skills are, those work close enough to a stance to begin with that having one of them grant you a stance doesn't seem like that much of a stretch - at least to me anyways. All it would be in gameplay terms is just another bonus from you using a Brother skill you've traited for. And by keeping them low, it gives various Skittle builds viable (or at least, that's the intent), because that fourth option is something that is unique to the class, and it is something that should always remain viable.

    Quote Originally Posted by jchudz View Post
    lol 15s cd on a skill that halves current threat on an ally?
    The idea behind Tactical Retreat was to give us something that we can use as an agro swapping tool, should we ever need to do that.

    If anyone can think of an alternative, I'd like to convert this trait to that mechanic.
    Last edited by Almagnus1; Apr 11 2012 at 02:35 PM.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Online status: Darth_Carl is offline Reputation: Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    /notsigned.

    But not because i have any specific issues, (bar one). Before i'm willing to say; "this is good" i want to understand what your attempting to do beyond a generic "buff captain" with these changes. How does it all fit together, how doew change A support change B and C to produce effect X, and how does effect X fit weith effects Y, Z P, and Q to produce overall effect N. In effect where do you want captains to end up and how do you see these changes supporting that move?

    This is one of the reasons i included my littile talk in my suggestions thread aboput how i saw it affecting us in each possibble role, i wanted to be clear about how i saw the captain fit together in the light of my changes for everyone so they could see this more easilly.

    Also, i was going to mention it in the other thread when i got a bit of tiem free to post again. So i'll say it here. There's a fairly basic reason making shadows lament do big DPS is never goping to work, it's a high threat skill. With what you've done here besides no tank will ever be able to hold threat off us IMHO. Where probably nearing the limits of most tanks threat wise now, even if where not over the line yet. ANy kind of minor buff to overall DPS will probably put us on par with most other DPS classes, buffing SL specificlly wil throw us clean past the point of no return. Any kind of serious captain DPS buff IMHO has to be accompanied by throwing grave wound and SL off our DPS rotations.

  11. #11
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    But not because i have any specific issues, (bar one). Before i'm willing to say; "this is good" i want to understand what your attempting to do beyond a generic "buff captain" with these changes. How does it all fit together, how doew change A support change B and C to produce effect X, and how does effect X fit weith effects Y, Z P, and Q to produce overall effect N. In effect where do you want captains to end up and how do you see these changes supporting that move?
    Ideally, I want to make it so that a deep traiting in either DPS, Healing, or Tanking makes it so that we're equivalent to the main line roles - while there's enough tools to pull off a Skittles build - which fulfills the support role, so the class better meshes with what's on the Instance Finder.

    Given the current trend with classes, it's only a matter of time before enough other classes can buff equivalent to us that the buffing aspect of the captain class will be largely trivialized. We need to embrace our hybrid nature and become comparable healers, DPS, or Tanks with the option for a Support Skittles build before we get sidelined because we are no longer relevant. We've been effectively standing still since MoM, with changes that aren't powerful enough, as classes keep getting reinvented left and right.

    I'm also trying to resolve the "Second Captain in a Group" problem, as well as fix a bunch of stuff that should have been fixed years ago.

    If you want me to go more indepth, I'll do so.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    Also, i was going to mention it in the other thread when i got a bit of tiem free to post again. So i'll say it here. There's a fairly basic reason making shadows lament do big DPS is never goping to work, it's a high threat skill. With what you've done here besides no tank will ever be able to hold threat off us IMHO. Where probably nearing the limits of most tanks threat wise now, even if where not over the line yet. ANy kind of minor buff to overall DPS will probably put us on par with most other DPS classes, buffing SL specificlly wil throw us clean past the point of no return. Any kind of serious captain DPS buff IMHO has to be accompanied by throwing grave wound and SL off our DPS rotations.
    That's where Fighting Withdrawal comes into play - we have the tools to control our threat, we just don't produce enough threat for Fighting Withdrawal to matter most of the time. We start producing massive amounts of threat, Fighting Withdrawal suddenly becomes a significantly more valuable skill, it also lets us offtank something on pure DPS - something champs have been doing for a very, very long time.

  12. #12
    Grand Member Online status: SapienChavez is offline Reputation: SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads SapienChavez the Watcher of Roads
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post

    If you really stop and think about what the Brother Skills are, those work close enough to a stance to begin with that having one of them grant you a stance doesn't seem like that much of a stretch - at least to me anyways. All it would be in gameplay terms is just another bonus from you using a Brother skill you've traited for. And by keeping them low, it gives various Skittle builds viable (or at least, that's the intent), because that fourth option is something that is unique to the class, and it is something that should always remain viable.

    i agree with your thinking and your not wanting to kill off our hybrid nature! i just have such a bad taste in my mouth left from my days are a Druid in WoW. That was all about stance-dancing. i LOVED being able to turn to a bear and tank or go cat and dps or go cow/elf and heal, on the fly... we eventually got holed into picking what role we wanted and had to full respec to fill roles. i stemmed from a (jealous, ingnorant) player-base that could not understand/handle one class encroaching on so many others. this also made Druids sub-par for min/maxers because they only think in "best case ontarios" and a druid never held up as the best (like capns, the best when the #### went down!)

    the whole thing ended up as a mess and ruined my favorite class in that game... i just get a feeling of that with capns, if we do not guard our hybridness dearly!


    so, i would LOVE to agree... but once bitten...
    "I am always serious; I am never serious." -Me
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  13. #13
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by SapienChavez View Post
    i agree with your thinking and your not wanting to kill off our hybrid nature! i just have such a bad taste in my mouth left from my days are a Druid in WoW. That was all about stance-dancing. i LOVED being able to turn to a bear and tank or go cat and dps or go cow/elf and heal, on the fly... we eventually got holed into picking what role we wanted and had to full respec to fill roles. i stemmed from a (jealous, ingnorant) player-base that could not understand/handle one class encroaching on so many others. this also made Druids sub-par for min/maxers because they only think in "best case ontarios" and a druid never held up as the best (like capns, the best when the #### went down!)

    the whole thing ended up as a mess and ruined my favorite class in that game... i just get a feeling of that with capns, if we do not guard our hybridness dearly!


    so, i would LOVE to agree... but once bitten...
    The lot of that depends on how smart and mature the player base is, and how well the devs can ignore the QQers.

    Hopefully, we've got the playerbase beat here, and the devs have enough balls to show us the evidence that the QQers are naught more than Chicken Little's.

    Edit:
    And when I say show us the evidence, I mean SWTOR Guild Summit style.
    Last edited by Almagnus1; Apr 11 2012 at 05:39 PM.

  14. #14
    Poster of Note Online status: DuneBug is offline Reputation: DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post
    The idea behind Tactical Retreat was to give us something that we can use as an agro swapping tool, should we ever need to do that.

    If anyone can think of an alternative, I'd like to convert this trait to that mechanic.
    I mean... i'm not going to thumbsdown because your numbers since those can always be adjusted.
    50% is too much, and would make threat management too easy for tanks, probably.

    If it was a -perceived threat buff that would be different, and would work great. Could also use it to grief my tank which i would enjoy.

    In terms of actual threat -10% actual threat every time the skill is used is a very good amount. It might not be enough for main-tanking but would be huge for everything else.

    85 (Captain, Champion, Guardian)

  15. #15
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by DuneBug View Post
    I mean... i'm not going to thumbsdown because your numbers since those can always be adjusted.
    50% is too much, and would make threat management too easy for tanks, probably.

    If it was a -perceived threat buff that would be different, and would work great. Could also use it to grief my tank which i would enjoy.

    In terms of actual threat -10% actual threat every time the skill is used is a very good amount. It might not be enough for main-tanking but would be huge for everything else.
    Eh.... gonna be lazy and replace the percentage with the word "part" and let the devs figure it out XD

  16. #16
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    Also, i was going to mention it in the other thread when i got a bit of tiem free to post again. So i'll say it here. There's a fairly basic reason making shadows lament do big DPS is never goping to work, it's a high threat skill. With what you've done here besides no tank will ever be able to hold threat off us IMHO. Where probably nearing the limits of most tanks threat wise now, even if where not over the line yet.
    SL issue isn't actually big enough to make it a hassle like You present it. All it needs is extra threat component removed(can bring it back for LoM line). Also I've never ever took(or seen any cappy in my kin) unwanted aggro from competent tank. Considering we sit 600-800dps behind real dsmage dealing classes and they can keep their threat at bay even with raid environment when with buffs they go over 2k dps, I don't think there'll be problem with our aggro.

  17. #17
    Poster of Note Online status: DuneBug is offline Reputation: DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte DuneBug the Neophyte
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post
    Eh.... gonna be lazy and replace the percentage with the word "part" and let the devs figure it out XD
    sorry the main gist of my question was whether you meant it to be permanent or temporary.
    perceived threat would be temporary when the effect expired.

    I had a feeling you were going with permanent, but either would be fine for tank swapping.

    85 (Captain, Champion, Guardian)

  18. #18
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by DuneBug View Post
    sorry the main gist of my question was whether you meant it to be permanent or temporary.
    perceived threat would be temporary when the effect expired.

    I had a feeling you were going with permanent, but either would be fine for tank swapping.
    Permanent.

    That gives us the most options, because it also helps to control other Freeps who tend to be stupid about agro control - a tool we don't have at the moment.

  19. #19
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuin View Post
    SL issue isn't actually big enough to make it a hassle like You present it. All it needs is extra threat component removed(can bring it back for LoM line). Also I've never ever took(or seen any cappy in my kin) unwanted aggro from competent tank. Considering we sit 600-800dps behind real dsmage dealing classes and they can keep their threat at bay even with raid environment when with buffs they go over 2k dps, I don't think there'll be problem with our aggro.
    After thinking about this one a bit, granting SL threat seems like a very good addition to the Threatening trait in LoM.

    This way, if a captain wants to OT using a LtC spec, they slot a few yellow traits to get Victory stance.

    Bigger question: if all of our Inspires grant power, is that enough to make Now For Wrath not as critical of a trait?

    Or should it be rolled into Rally Cry and HoH gets another trait in it's place?

    Edit:
    Also thinking about it, the goal of this thread is to suggest a way to beat the three trait lines into:
    LoM = Tanking (Threat & Survival)
    LtC = DPS
    HoH = Healing

    Is Composure a trait that should remain in LoM, or should it be moved to another trait line?
    Last edited by Almagnus1; Apr 13 2012 at 03:39 AM.

  20. #20
    Senior Member Online status: Darth_Carl is offline Reputation: Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Sorry for taking a while to get back to you, i think you tottally missed what i was getting at with SL. Let e give you an example.

    For the sake of being able to use some simple maths to make the point i'm going to make the following assumptions:

    1. damage threat = 1TPS per 1DPS

    2. SL and GW do 2TPS per 1DPS

    3. With your changes SL and GW will be about 25% of our total DPS

    4. Captains would now be doing 1.8K while the proper DPS are doing 2K.


    The sums resolve at 2K TPS for other DPS

    Our's however resolves at 2.25K TPS, but becuase of GW's +threat buff it is actually about 2.475K TPS (incidently with those figures a 1.1K captain would be pulling about 1.5K TPS).

    Existing DPS classes allready need threat managment skills just too keep 2K TPS, even with threat managment skills an extra 25% TPS over them simply isn't going to be managable unless our threat managment is way OP.

    More practiclly having our high threat skill on our DPS rotation is simply breaking a key underlying game mechanic, namely that you don't use high threat skills as part of a classes DPS rotation.

    @Furin: It's not just SL though, with GW having high threat and a +percived threat modifier you'd need to tie that to traits too. At that point you might as well make threatning shout require a trait so all our tanking skills are trait base /sarcasam.



    Regarding NfW? Yeah dump it. Realisticlly i would have said dump it weather you'd added other PoT mechanics or not, it's just too much power return for what is a basic trait effect. That kind of power return should be a 3/4/5-set bonus or capstone effects really. Not a basic trait.



    As for more detalied stuff? yes i'd like more detail on how you see it all fitting together.



    Overall so far i cna't say i'm behind this. The issue is several things:

    1. With much of our healing still being tied to RC and VS and those skills still being usable alongside a normal DPS rotation and LTC still providing higher battle ready skill crit chance and more battle ready activations where going to see LTC still putting out significant amounts of healing, (even if HoH now outdoes it). Even if we los all our buffs thats not going to be balanced on top of any rise in DPS. Ad buffs on and it's just nowhere near balanced. Whilst te healing will be much less, i see much the same issue envloping our Tanking setups in LoM, we might be able to main tank now, but where going to be doing it with buffs and heals. A warden might provide some group healing, but not on that level and not alongside buffs.

    2. I'm concerned that some of your changes, (specificlly the new and altered traits), are too powerful for where they appear, they may be intended to allow a degree of cross ability, but i'm concerned they go too far for those building a capstone based build, (which you want at main role level), allowing them a degree of side roleing thats too much for a main roler.

    3. There seems to be an assumption here that every class will very soon have major group wide benefits. I don't think thats a remotly safe assumption. Wardens, Champs, RK's,and Mini's just got major overhauls, so aren't likliy to be touch majorly again for a while. Of those only the Mini is capble of approaching our level of group wide utility in a main role setup. Hunters aren't going to get anything like that, (it would screw up their internal balance to do so), which leavs just guards and Burgs. Burgs are allready being decried as OP by champs and hunters for debuffing and doing main DPS at the same time and Guards aren't going to be made better than wardens IMHO. If your assumption works out then point 1 isn't going to be an issue, but if it dosen't then i see serious issues arising balance wise, and it not exactly good design practise to assume that kind of change will happen without knowing explicitlly that it will.

    4. Some of your idea's are over-complicated as they don't make use of an existing mechanic. For example skirmish soldier traits effecting Heralds or their damage type being based on ours. The code for it probably dosen't exist. It would be much simpler to just give them a straight up buff rather than try and bring in extra complicated mechanics. We'd also have LM's all over us for it if we did that stuff with skirmish traits. basiclly remeber KISS.


    Having got that out of the way, i do like many of your idea's, (e.g. the idea of consuming LoE now i understand the changes a bit better sounds good), even if i do think some of the specific effects need more thought. I still don't see how the end result is intended to be balanced in the current enviroment, but i do get the feeling of plenty of good ideas.

  21. #21
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    @Furin: It's not just SL though, with GW having high threat and a +percived threat modifier you'd need to tie that to traits too. At that point you might as well make threatning shout require a trait so all our tanking skills are trait base /sarcasam.
    There's no need to do so. CA+GW should just be tanking combo not a dps skills, so just put them out of rotation. This shouldn't be hard, especially with moving chunk of our dps to SL and crit magnitude.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    With much of our healing still being tied to RC and VS and those skills still being usable alongside a normal DPS rotation and LTC still providing higher battle ready skill crit chance and more battle ready activations where going to see LTC still putting out significant amounts of healing, (even if HoH now outdoes it).
    I actually wonder if it's really as big issue as it seems on paper. RC does a lot of healing on meters but it's because of it's random nature most of those numbers are overheals, where minstrel group heals goes off exactly when people need it. And currently HoH doesn't really help to remedy this. But yeah this could have some balance issues and that would have to be test out. If anything increasing RC cooldown should do the trick as it's main culprit here and in LoM. HoH just could lower it again to what we have now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    Even if we los all our buffs thats not going to be balanced on top of any rise in DPS. Ad buffs on and it's just nowhere near balanced. Whilst te healing will be much less, i see much the same issue envloping our Tanking setups in LoM, we might be able to main tank now, but where going to be doing it with buffs and heals. A warden might provide some group healing, but not on that level and not alongside buffs.
    Unless we'll get some sort of huge self heal outside HoH line, I don't see ever it as issue with our tanking(for RC heal see above). Power issues and loosing morale and keeping up on threat makes it nigh impossible to put effective healing in LoM. That's the problem with hybrid. Sure you have different abilities available, but you can just use one skill at a time. With no threat copy skills you can't really allow yourself to fall behind in aggro.

    And as long as additional captain doesn't bring any serious group buffs(like burgs reveal weakness) there will be no captain stacking. So does it matter where you put cappy? Currently we're almost always in support slot. If after buffs we'll take main tank or healer slot, this will free our dps/support one. The key to balance is making captain a slightly worse dps/healer/tank than main classes. So you can take one cappy in whatever slot as it provides buffs, but instead taking 2nd captain(to same FS) a main dps/healer/tank would be just better as buffs doesn't stack.
    Last edited by Fuin; Apr 13 2012 at 06:50 AM.

  22. #22
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    The real problem with captain healing is that the legacies give us a bigger boost than our traitlines do. This is the biggest roadblock for us to get some real progress on our tanking and DPS lines, IMO.

    For us to be functionaly hybrids, a deep LtC build should be at a severe healing disadvantage when compared to a deep HoH build. Song Brother is part of that problem, and that's what I tried to fix by suggesting stances - stronger incentive needs to be given to using specific Brother skills for specific activities. Shield Brother should not be a better healing tool than Song Brother.

    @Darth Carl - Give me a bit and I'll give you a more indepth response, need some time to think - and the morning buzz isn't helping things.

  23. #23
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    oh, and i LOVE your whole "kill the buffstick" thing in there!

    if we are to be the best buffers, it only makes sense.
    "I am always serious; I am never serious." -Me
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  24. #24
    Senior Member Online status: Darth_Carl is offline Reputation: Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    @Almagnus1: I'd say it's a lot more than our LI's TBH, our LI's and trait lines have a few really spectacular effects that are much stronger than the norm for other classes LI's/Traits. The rest including our traitline bonuses are weaker by comparison. Much of our raw throughput in all area's comes from our basic capabilities. If we want to keep everything balanced we need to bring those down and then let stronger LI's and traits bring them up. It's why I’m planning to expand on my own thread, (I don't want to drag that in here btw, though I’d love to hear yours and furins thoughts in that thread, I may not always agree with you two, but your viewpoints are interesting nonetheless), whilst I did effectively nerf our base capabilities. I put a lot of things into the trait line bonuses and capstones. I need to consider our LI's and basic traits more. there's too many dud's and underwhelmers in there.


    @Furin: As one reply to my own thread shows, people want to use IGW in their DPS rotations for the bleed. And as i pointed out there, the rest of the tanks out there have all there high threat damage dealers gated behind some measure or other, they simply don't even have the option of using them.

    I guess also my main opposition to SL now I’ve had a bit more time to mull is simply that I question why where focusing on turning an acknowledged tanking skill into DPS skill when we have so many other skills available. Why the focus there specifically when the skill does what it was designed to do just fine?




    As regards RC, back around RoI release it was considered a fairly big chunk of our healing throughput. Are you suggesting that’s really changed that much? I'm not suggesting your totally wrong, but as long as theirs plenty of incidental damage going out to the rest of the raid I can't see it suddenly not adding at least something. You've also got to remember Inspire's group wide HoT and a much more time-able VS is in there. Not to mention the RC PoT due to everyone and their mother taking NfW. Right now captains are reporting 1.1K DPS and 500-600HPS, nerfing RC CD, (just hit that blasted OP legacy), might help a lot, but it's far from everything we bring. Remember even after these changes we'll still be bringing an average 1.5K extra morale per member to the group and +35% DPS, plus heralds got some new stuff that’s going to make them even stronger, (+7.5% incoming healing and a migations aura for Hope). Personally I’d be inclined to say even with 0HPS we'd be at the limits of balance with our current DPS. But let’s ignore that for now, I’m raising to air a view, but we’ll assume it’s still balanced for the next paragraph of discussion.

    If we want to push our DPS up beyond that we need to reduce our HPS in proportion, and if we want to closely approach 1.8K like other DPS'rs we don't just need to reduce our HPS, at that level of DPS we need to kill it dead. And the only way your going to do that is to completely lock out our healing skills

    Also, as a tank I’d be tempted to take advantage of our +healing threat and use healing light every once in a while to drop a massive heal on someone else whilst giving my own threat a huge boost. I'm pretty sure the threat boost from that would be far and away better than anything but IGW or SL. You also have to remember where still going to be bringing tactics buff's, banners, and motivating speech. If we assume SoW and Hope banner stack that’s 11.5% incoming healing group wide, that’s a major buff to healer HPS, before we get onto he Inspire HoT or anything else we do.



    Regarding your third point. I'm not saying here you don't have a point vis a vis us having our rotations getting in the way of some of our other skills sometimes. But if DPS captains are pulling as much as they are in both DPS and HPS they're clearly keeping their buffs up and getting to use their healing skills, and whilst tanks might have it a touch tougher due to 10s TS CD, I don't see it being as big as your making out.

    I'm also not sure what to make of the first part, so maybe I’m totally misunderstanding you. But if I’m reading you right your saying it's fine for a captain to bring near main role capabilities, and massive buffs the mains don't bring and side capabilities because those side capabilities and buffs aren't any good for a second captain. Thing is that’s not how interclass balance works. The first captain has to be balanced, not just the second and subsequent ones. Yes the lack of power for 2nd and subsequent captains is an issue, but it's a separate one that needs addressing separately. Not lumped in with everything else.

  25. #25
    Senior Member Online status: GeoTerran is offline Reputation: GeoTerran the Neutral
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    I've had some time to rethink about the Fighting Withdrawal/Tactical Retreat idea. In my opinion I don't think we need the skill at all. We probably should just get a completely new skill altogether, preferably something useful to all builds. An instant threat reduction sounds good on paper, but dps classes have threat shredding skills and rotations to use to be sure they don't pull too much threat as well as tanks having force taunts for just that situation. To warrant the necessity of such a skill that shreds threat on other player's means that both the dps pulling aggro is doing his job incorrectly as well as saying that a tank that can't keep or regain aggro with all the various aggro and taunt skills at their disposal are also failing to do their job.

    By that logic I'd rather just see Withdrawal and FW become something more useful to any captain no matter what the build, one such suggestion I have to take it's place would be a skill that when activated ensures the next skill used will automatically critical hit, giving us more control over unlocking OD skills or more control over burst dps/healing. Alternatively if you feel this is too powerful, perhaps being made into a self buff that increases our crit chance by 10% for X number of seconds. What do you guys think, and if you think it's too much, what other skill would you make to replace W/FW?

  26. #26
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    @Furin: As one reply to my own thread shows, people want to use IGW in their DPS rotations for the bleed. And as i pointed out there, the rest of the tanks out there have all there high threat damage dealers gated behind some measure or other, they simply don't even have the option of using them.

    I guess also my main opposition to SL now I’ve had a bit more time to mull is simply that I question why where focusing on turning an acknowledged tanking skill into DPS skill when we have so many other skills available. Why the focus there specifically when the skill does what it was designed to do just fine?
    People use CA+IGW(as You said tanking skills) for the dps increase, so it's a problem with skill design. Moving full bleed to CA should be good enough solution to elminate it. As for SL it's already NOT a tanking skill. Captains go for legacy and LtC and use it for dps increase(as it's hardest hitting skill) and unlocking more dps skills not a threat tool. Even in LoM it's better to use RC heal as You don't really have trouble with single target threat. Again problem with design, but since it's already a dps tool removing threat seems a better option then reworking whole LtC.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    As regards RC, back around RoI release it was considered a fairly big chunk of our healing throughput. Are you suggesting that’s really changed that much? I'm not suggesting your totally wrong, but as long as theirs plenty of incidental damage going out to the rest of the raid I can't see it suddenly not adding at least something. You've also got to remember Inspire's group wide HoT and a much more time-able VS is in there. Not to mention the RC PoT due to everyone and their mother taking NfW. Right now captains are reporting 1.1K DPS and 500-600HPS, nerfing RC CD, (just hit that blasted OP legacy), might help a lot, but it's far from everything we bring.
    Since lotro doesn't report overhealing it's hard to measure how much RC healing is effective. Due to it's random nature it's a brute force heal so it only seems good as HPS increase. If group takes constant damage it is, but you usually use it for power healing every time off cooldown(and war cry is already active) regardless of morale bars. SL in LtC is separate skill so it's out of equation here. So my point was is our RC morale healing(especially in LtC as You brought it up) is as effective as it seems on paper? BB inspire in LtC heals only half morale compared with LoM one, of course you can use SB, but then it costs you self dps. It's not that I disagree with You here, I just think that players doesn't really have tools to measure it properly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    Also, as a tank I’d be tempted to take advantage of our +healing threat and use healing light every once in a while to drop a massive heal on someone else whilst giving my own threat a huge boost. I'm pretty sure the threat boost from that would be far and away better than anything but IGW or SL. You also have to remember where still going to be bringing tactics buff's, banners, and motivating speech. If we assume SoW and Hope banner stack that’s 11.5% incoming healing group wide, that’s a major buff to healer HPS, before we get onto he Inspire HoT or anything else we do.
    WoC in LoM wasn't and won't be used commonly as it does cost not only power but also chunk of our morale. Furthermore I'll take TS with extra two target and threat as it's better AoE threat tool. I can see it as occasional emergency kill, but I doubt it'd part of tanking rotation. Group will have main healer for keeping green bars up. SB inspire is a power hog. But better question here is, will captain as a tank focus on healing a much as You assume? You have boss and bunch of mobs to keep eye on, not peeps green bars. You don't expect guardian tank to do dps, same peeps won't expect you to heal. You also don't have crit bonus, nor SL(which grants extra defeat events) as in LtC. Currently all our extra healing in LoM doesn't even offset gap between us an real tanks and doesn't help us enough in keeping AoE aggro so I doubt it'll be real issue.



    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    I'm also not sure what to make of the first part, so maybe I’m totally misunderstanding you. But if I’m reading you right your saying it's fine for a captain to bring near main role capabilities, and massive buffs the mains don't bring and side capabilities because those side capabilities and buffs aren't any good for a second captain. Thing is that’s not how interclass balance works. The first captain has to be balanced, not just the second and subsequent ones. Yes the lack of power for 2nd and subsequent captains is an issue, but it's a separate one that needs addressing separately. Not lumped in with everything else.
    My main point was that with our without having strong main role when traited, people will take captains for the buffs alone. In fellowship You have six slots - usually tank, healer, 3dps and dps/support. No matter how much our buffs will make us more tempting to have then main class it's only true for 1st captain. But what unbalance it causes? People want one captain per fellowship now, and will want after change. Difference will be that we won't a buffbots, but have a real role. And since we will be able to pick dps/tank/healer role it wont really exclude pure role as captain can always fit in dps slot. Besides pure classes will have better tools to do their role, so in difficult content captain will go into same slots as now, dps/support. I guess it can look as we're too good having both buffs and solid dps or healing or tanking if You compare us bit by bit with other classes. But again look at minis. They have strong buffs and huge variety of raid quality healing skills and it's okay. Or RK, they being both dps and healing and utility skills(buffs and debuffs), sure one role isn't raid quality but like minstrel it's main role + something. Solo wise our buff doesn't influence anything so it's not an issue.

    Currently captain have no main role, just something, which is our buffs. As long as our roles will exclude each other by say inability to trait deep enough, and our buffs won't stack, it'll be fine and balanced.
    Last edited by Fuin; Apr 14 2012 at 06:03 AM.

  27. #27
    Senior Member Online status: Thaodan is offline Reputation: Thaodan the Wary Thaodan the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    so in difficult content captain will go into same slots as now, dps/support.
    You say captains in endcontent are dps/support? What I know is we have to be heal/support in endcontent (t2 raids).
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  28. #28
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Thaodan View Post
    You say captains in endcontent are dps/support? What I know is we have to be heal/support in endcontent (t2 raids).
    I've named last fellowship slot as dps or support, as you either take 4 dps classes or want 3dps + 1 support. Captain is neither healing nor dps. It's just support. Obviously we do both healing and dps, but not good enough to be called heal or dps, especially in t2 raids.

  29. #29
    Senior Member Online status: Darth_Carl is offline Reputation: Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary Darth_Carl the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    @Furin: I'm going to use numbers for each paragraph as i hate multi-quoting like that.

    1. I agree actually that IGW have a bleed is an issue,k but it dosen't change the fact that IGW just sdhouldn;t be usable outside of us tanking. It's a basic tank design rule.

    As for ASL. No SL isn't a DPS skill , it's a tanking skill. It's a high threat high damage skill. I never liked the LtC capstone getting it's current SL efefct for the same reason i don't like this. it's shoohorning one of our few genuine tanking skills into a DPS role, (though i suspsect it was meant to provide a hard DPS cap for us in case future updates had unexpected consuquences). Back before RoI massivlly over-buffed Noble Mark it was our best single target threat generator. It's allways since it's initial inception been a tanking skill. it's addittion to our DPS setup moe recently is just a lazy mans way of providing a quick fix rather than looking at the rest of our avalibile non-healing and non-tanking skills and making them a significant part of our DPS, (where they aren't allready). It's a band aid over larger issues IMHO.

    2. I think where mostly on the same page here, and i agree we really need data TBH, the main point my last post was to point out that we have non-RC healing methods and to point out that RC potnetiollly overhealing has never been raised as a major issue in the past.

    3. I think you missed a few changes. ATM with the changes here healings gets a +threat component added on when tanking, that plus the massive heal size with healing light would make it far exceed even traited TS IMHO, because it represents so much threat, especially on a crit, any healing it actually does to anyone is incedental. Inspire and RC are also getting bonus threat making us want to use them, and Inspire is getting a small PoT making the power hungry nature much less of an issue.

    4. I'm really not sure where to start here. I guess the whole RK minnie thing.

    This is a special case because BOTH are main healing while bringing all those lovely buffs. That means that whilst both buff and heal. Their overall value is directly comparable and, (some will argue i know), equal. Choosing which to take is a genuine choice decided by player skill, gear, and possibbly content. They also can't effectivlly heal and DPS at the same time, attunment and War Speech coupled with the very strong effects of gear, LI's, and traitlines mean thatbneitheir can physichlly do much of both at once, and neitheir can easilly switch mid play.

    Tanks don't bring signifiocant group utility skills period. They just put out a lot of threat and are hard to kill. Again which one to take is decided by a combination of content, gear, and skil, (well when one of the isn't broken anyway as ardens where just after oI release).

    The same thing applies through the DPS and Support classes, (with the exception of burgs, who everyone else is screaming OP at), they eitheir do good DPS with limited group support skills or good support, (Buff, Debuff, or CC), with limited DPS.

    The LM is the miniture vershion of this, Good Debuff and CC but horribad DPS with yellow traits, Good DPS but bad support with red, moderate healing and DPS, but weak support with blue.

    This is the balance model captains need to fit into. Taking any captain, be it the 1st or the 5th should be a choice, one decided by content, gear, and player skill. There should be no overall disadvantage to the group to taking no captains at all if you choose not to.

    This isn't relase where, (as i understand it), 1 of each class was prefferable due to them each fitting into the group in a unique way. There are now several way of covering each possobbility, tanking any calass is now a choice rather than an automatic and the captain needs to fit into that. Like LM's we should have to sacrafice in DPS or Buffs or healing to get stronger in another area, (though the currenmt inter healer balance does mean we'd need to sacrafice less there than vice versa).



    EDIT: Just spoted you repl to Thaodan as i was about to post this.

    Now i think i get where your coming from a bit more. But that dosen't change the fact that if where doing main DPS we have to abide by the same interclass balance rules as the other main DPS. And if where doing support alongside anything but healing we should have to abide by the same rules the other non-helaing support options, (Yellow Hunters/LM's), abide by, (i.e. massivlly nerfed non-support capabilities). We can't call ourselves balanced if we buck those rules.

  30. #30
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Personally, I think that a lot of group HoTs should be the way captain healing goes. Since we are unique as a healer based off of might, then we should be overhealing a fair amount (provided Turbine adjusts logs so that we can see our overhealing) - if that makes sense. We don't have as much focus as an RK or Mini, but our brute force approach means stuff like Inspire, VS HoT, and RC need to be our primary healing workhorses, with WoC as our spot heal to help focus in on targets that need that extra bump to survive.

    The problem with designing our healing to overheal a fair amount is that we would need to generate more healing than Minis or RKs, so without some accurate way of calculating overhealing (and thus, how much healing we'd need to produce), we'd be outhealing them on paper, but in practice the healing would be about the same - if that makes sense. The advantage to this style of healing: when everyone's taking massive damage, we're really good at keeping our group alive.

    Following that line of thought, that means we need to at least triple our healing output in HoH from about 1k to 3k HPS (similar to a low end mini), and then adjust it from there upwards.

    If you compare 600 HPS to 3k HPS, you realize one is really nice, but not all that substantial (like our 300 DPS from HoH right now), so that means 4+ HoH traits needs to dramatically improve outgoing healing, so maybe the per trait scalar needs to be improved that much so.

    Perhaps the real incentive needed here are 5, 6, and 7 traitline bonuses?

  31. #31
    Senior Member Online status: TheBigMenace is offline Reputation: TheBigMenace the Neophyte TheBigMenace the Neophyte TheBigMenace the Neophyte TheBigMenace the Neophyte TheBigMenace the Neophyte TheBigMenace the Neophyte
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    As for ASL. No SL isn't a DPS skill , it's a tanking skill.
    Wrong. It's a dps skill, it will never be anything but. The simple reason is that it will never be usable as a threat builder because it requires a defeat response. If you are correctly itemizing for tanking you will have essentially no crit chance. And any defeat responses you do get are better used on RC for power or WC for utility. Since you can't (and generally will never) use it as a tanking skill it can't be classified as such.

    If the +threat component was removed nobody would bat an eye. Out main threat builders Noble Mark + TS, SL will pretty much never be used in a fight while tanking.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    3. I think you missed a few changes. ATM with the changes here healings gets a +threat component added on when tanking, that plus the massive heal size with healing light would make it far exceed even traited TS IMHO, because it represents so much threat, especially on a crit, any healing it actually does to anyone is incedental. Inspire and RC are also getting bonus threat making us want to use them, and Inspire is getting a small PoT making the power hungry nature much less of an issue.
    AFAIK healing threat is half that of damage threat and again properly built for tanking crit is almost non exsistant. In any case it would be up to the dev to determine the amount of threat that healing would get and the amount of bonus threat from TS when invoking LoE so this is a pointless point to argue.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    This is a special case because BOTH are main healing while bringing all those lovely buffs. That means that whilst both buff and heal. Their overall value is directly comparable and, (some will argue i know), equal. Choosing which to take is a genuine choice decided by player skill, gear, and possibbly content. They also can't effectivlly heal and DPS at the same time, attunment and War Speech coupled with the very strong effects of gear, LI's, and traitlines mean thatbneitheir can physichlly do much of both at once, and neitheir can easilly switch mid play.
    Except we can't effectivley heal and dps at the same time. If we are HoH we are pulling sub 500 dps at the best of times, spamming WoC we are doing maybe 200. It's not effective dps when it can be equated to the dps of a DoT ability of a main dps class. As for LtC one has to look no further than a 6 man to see that you can't effectivley heal when specced like that. Not if you want to maximize your dps anyway. In a raid the RC's are more useful for the power restore than the heal. If the heal was completely removed from the skill and replaced with the power restore there would be very little consequence. So already we can't effectively dps and heal at the same time (or vice versa) buffing our traitlines won't change this.

    As for the other classes not being able to swith roles, this is also false. A WS minstrel can drop and instantly become a healer. Their healing output will be lower than that of a traited healing minstrel and they won't be able to buff, but a quick swap in LI's and they can still pull a group through a 6-man boss. A dps RK is very similar, drop attunement (easily done with neutral builders) and spam MV. Since MV is nearly as good when dps traited as healing traited, all it takes is a swap in LI's and they can spam MV to victory.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Carl View Post
    This is the balance model captains need to fit into. Taking any captain, be it the 1st or the 5th should be a choice, one decided by content, gear, and player skill. There should be no overall disadvantage to the group to taking no captains at all if you choose not to.

    This isn't relase where, (as i understand it), 1 of each class was prefferable due to them each fitting into the group in a unique way. There are now several way of covering each possobbility, tanking any calass is now a choice rather than an automatic and the captain needs to fit into that. Like LM's we should have to sacrafice in DPS or Buffs or healing to get stronger in another area, (though the currenmt inter healer balance does mean we'd need to sacrafice less there than vice versa).
    Actually there are still classes that are better at their role than others. Guardians are still the best raid tanks, they always will be because avoidance tanks (wardens) are flawed from a design perspective. Sure they got a huge boost to self healing, but self healing doesn't absorb big hits. On the other hand they are way better at threat generation than guardians are especially with the bug they have but even without it this would be true. That's just from the way the classes are designed, there can be other reasons for class imbalance.

    Another is instance design, victims of this are RK's. Minstrel and RK healing is pretty much identical and they both have the same number of buffs for the fellowship (i.e. utility). However Minstrel buffs are geared towards Offense more than defense, while an RK's buffs are the other way around. So it's more beneficial to bring a minstrel because current content is all about zerging the boss down.

    As for captains, as long as we are able to restore huge amounts of power to groups we will be useful and wanted. Take that away and the many flaws that plague our class will be painfully obvious.

  32. #32
    Senior Member Online status: Fuin is offline Reputation: Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary Fuin the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    @Darth_Carl

    Since BM replied to the post of Yours and I'd more or less say similar stuff there, I'll skip that. Instead I'll focus on 2 issues.

    1. You write that other classes can't do dps and heals at same times and that's correct. But can captain really do it? That was my whole point whit discussing about overhealing with RC. How much of surprisingly big numbers of hps in LtC goes waste? People go LtC as it offers nice dps boost without influencing our heals much(apart from VS) and giving more on defeats.
    Or in more simple way, because it's "best" line now. If we had blue line that could help us more with healing, you wouldn't really go LtC for heals. And this is the way it should go. Is idea in OP perfect way for that? I dunno, but it has some nice choices you have to make while traiting and playing. The balance between damage and healing or tanking and healing You(and me too) would like to see is imo to be determined in test server with proper tools devs have. And I don't think we really disagree here - one main role at a time.

    2. "Taking any captain, be it the 1st or the 5th should be a choice, one decided by content, gear, and player skill."

    And in reality 2nd - 5th will only happen when captain can trait for proper main role. As currently our group support and as such 1st captain it's a "must have" per fellowship. And while I see Your point of having different classes available for same spot, I don't see any other solution except making captain have both buffs and one main role at same time . Otherwise you'd basically have to strip this class from buffs(some or all, not the point here) when going main role and that seems okay. But there are two huge issues with that. First - pure classes would still be better by just having more skills and versatility for their role, so why choose captain? Second - why any group would want captain traited for main role when it can trait for all lovely buffs? We've all been there with yellow line pre RoI...

    Anyways even if we had class that could rival captain buffing, groups would want both since buffs stack(unlike tanking). This is exactly how it goes with minstrels. You have them along us. And without huge class balance revamps you can't change that. And more so - it won't happen. Unless Turbine will want to launch LOTRO 2. WoW devs were smarter about his and splitted buffs between every class, so everyone brings something to the party in raid. So while discussion on this would be interesting, it's way off topic and pointless.

  33. #33
    Senior Member Online status: GeoTerran is offline Reputation: GeoTerran the Neutral
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post
    Perhaps the real incentive needed here are 5, 6, and 7 traitline bonuses?
    I've been posting that devs need to work on advancing the traitline set bonuses since Mirkwood got announced. I also feel they need to make new traits and expand our class trait slots up to at least 10 with RoR and give us 2 new legendary slots for RoR. Especially considering we're already 15 levels past the last legendary slot, and 18 levels past the last class slot we got. At least then we could get an 6 set trait bonus, and an 8 set trait bonus. Would be nice.

  34. #34
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by GeoTerran View Post
    I've been posting that devs need to work on advancing the traitline set bonuses since Mirkwood got announced. I also feel they need to make new traits and expand our class trait slots up to at least 10 with RoR and give us 2 new legendary slots for RoR. Especially considering we're already 15 levels past the last legendary slot, and 18 levels past the last class slot we got. At least then we could get an 6 set trait bonus, and an 8 set trait bonus. Would be nice.
    As much as I don't want to suggest this, it almost seems as if this would be simpler to balance if each traitline was a tree instead of "choose X of 8". It's almost like we need mini-capstones here.

  35. #35
    Senior Member Online status: Theodoriph is offline Reputation: Theodoriph the Wary Theodoriph the Wary Theodoriph the Wary Theodoriph the Wary Theodoriph the Wary
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Wow...you've definitely put a lot of thought into this. I'll have to read it in depth, but I really like the herald change ideas. Heralds need some love, especially for moors play.

  36. #36
    Grand Member Online status: dietlbomb is offline Reputation: dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads dietlbomb the Watcher of Roads
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    I have another idea for the capstone x-brother effects. What if the captain gets the traitline-related buff no matter which x-brother skill she uses on an ally? For example, if you trait the Hands of Healing capstone trait, when you cast shield brother on the tank, you get the full effect of the Song Brother buffs. Or if you trait Leader of Men and you cast Blade Brother on the champion, you get the Shield Brother buff.

    Fellowship Brother effects should stack with the x-brother buffs too. Why not? We need some buffs on our buffs.


    I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. ~ Faramir

  37. #37
    Century Member Online status: atmonello is offline Reputation: atmonello the Neutral
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    /signed

    +rep to op

    DWARROW:Creepitao r6 WL|Capitao 1 Cappy
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  38. #38
    Grand Member Online status: Almagnus1 is offline Reputation: Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable Almagnus1 the Indomitable
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by dietlbomb View Post
    I have another idea for the capstone x-brother effects. What if the captain gets the traitline-related buff no matter which x-brother skill she uses on an ally? For example, if you trait the Hands of Healing capstone trait, when you cast shield brother on the tank, you get the full effect of the Song Brother buffs. Or if you trait Leader of Men and you cast Blade Brother on the champion, you get the Shield Brother buff.

    Fellowship Brother effects should stack with the x-brother buffs too. Why not? We need some buffs on our buffs.
    Then what would be the point of using anything other than Blade Brother?

  39. #39
    Poster of Note Online status: Cadd_EU is offline Reputation: Cadd_EU the Neophyte Cadd_EU the Neophyte Cadd_EU the Neophyte Cadd_EU the Neophyte Cadd_EU the Neophyte Cadd_EU the Neophyte
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post
    Then what would be the point of using anything other than Blade Brother?
    Cappy mainhealing, get Shield-bro on the tank and Song-bro on you?
    Cappy tanking, get Shield-bro on you, and Song-bro on the main healer?

  40. #40
    Poster of Note Online status: Tangaar is offline Reputation: Tangaar the Neophyte Tangaar the Neophyte Tangaar the Neophyte Tangaar the Neophyte Tangaar the Neophyte Tangaar the Neophyte
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    Re: Suggested Captain Improvement

    Man...plz add something to war stance
    Battle-raided and battle-hardened skills become *fast* oriented


    Btw i dont really agree with the redline
    Getting the war stance ONLY when blade bro is enabled(needs one more fellow or pet something that i dont want)i dont really like
    And dont miss out the melee skils power cost from red line too
    Wait...where is the 5% crit chance over the cap ????

    Meaning i dont really like to always do something good(aka blade bro and war stance)with always a help of someone..i love to solo with war banner ;p
    Last edited by Tangaar; Apr 26 2012 at 08:41 AM.

    [Tangaar Captain R 7][Barukhazad Minstrel R 9]
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