This guide was created to help new captains in the moors who wish to solo but don't know how to. All of this thread is my opinion but it is also a well used build that others can confirm. Please read the entire thread, not just the first post before replying.
The build in this guide is based on our current limitations...attack speed and damage. Because of these limitations we must build for survivability. We have to be able to eat long stuns and crippling slows. When we charge we have to get through -40% slows, and then the inevitable warg pounce once we reach our target. Even if your dps geared you will not overcome the damage you will take when stunned multiple times, and slow kited. They will exploit your weakness and you will die.
*At the time of this writing pet brother bonus are currently broken in the moors and unreliable.
Adherent of Elendil - +15% damage on blade of Elendil
Battle Master - +10% damage on Devastating Blow
Expert Attacks - Raises the Critical hit chance on Devastating Blow
Renewed Voice - -5 seconds on the cool down of Battle Shout
Turn of the Tide - 3second AOE Stun
Strength From Within - Muster courage now provides a self heal
**Defiance - +10 Last stand duration and now provides a minor self heal at the end
**Optional Traits (1v1s)
**Alert Guard - Defensive strike now provides a parry
**Composure - -50% morale cost on time of need. Use with legacies, apply war cry before the fight starts, or a stun at the right moment.
Legendary Traits
Master of War
IDOME
Oathbreakers
Legendary Legacies
Weapon (also doubles as a pve DPS weapon)
Telling Mark Damage
Devastating Blow Critical Rating
Melee skill power cost
Blade of Elendil damage
Cutting attack bleed damage
Defensive Strike Armor buff
Emblem (Also doubles as PvE dps)
Healing from Rallying Cry
Rallying Cry Cooldown
Shadows Lament Cooldown
Grave Wound Cooldown
Muster Courage Cooldown (this is your self heal)
Vocal Skills Healing
Relics
Up to you, focus on staying at or above 20% crit, and 10k morale. I am around 10,400 morale, 20% crit and in the 90%'s on offense rating. On top of that there is the +10%dmg buff from sure strike.
Armor
Use the full command set, or swap out 1 part for another pvp set. But keep the 5 piece bonus and have the 5% telling mark on you main weapon. The gloves from the loyalty set mixes nice with the command set. The trade will keep your current might and give you a bit more vitality.
Jewelry- (there is better end game jewelry, but all of the below is available to the non orthancing cappy)
Banners
Start with morale banner, planted if possible, after you lose the morale bonus switch to the R8 banner, or war banner if you don't have the R8 banner.
Roaming the map
Have revealing Mark ready and Hope banner equipped.
Wargs. - Once the initial pounce wears off push through the warg, turn and apply revealing mark. Stack your two bleeds first, then sure strike then fire your rotation. When you lose the morale from the hope banner switch to the planted moors banner. Stay facing the warg at all times so that you keep your autoattack on him, do not let him get behind you! Try to use your muster courage when you are out of range of his attacks. Wargs tend to push into you so wait for the push, push through the warg and hit muster courage. Use muster courage when ever it is up. If the warg runs from you use threatening shout or noble mark to keep him in combat. If they get an out of combat stealth try to guess their location and use fighting withdraw or routing cry to pop them back out. Don't forget to use valiant strike!
Main thing on wargs is don't let them get behind you. A lot of them have a pattern of push bite turn move out. They can get behind damage on you without actually being behind you in appearance. If you recognize this pattern hold back during the pattern while strafing left or right (mix it up) this will force them to turn their back to you while they maintain that pattern. Their pattern will come up short, they will miss behind damage on you while exposing their back side to you.
Reavers. - Have your sound up for the tell tale roar that lets you know he's coming. Get off your horse immediately, Drop your hope banner and continue to move away from him. As soon as his sprint is over, or he is in range, turn and fight him with revealing mark. Use your wound pot on thrash, or blinding dust. If you get disarmed and are unable to get out of range which is likely the case counter disarm with uppercut (racial skill) for a chance to stun him. If toward the end of the fight he roars again and starts to move really fast hit Last Stand if you're near death. This skill is dying rage and it is a certain death for the reaver while providing a dps and speed boost. If he runs off chase him with make haste. Don't forget to use valiant strike!
Black Arrows. - If you see him first charge in on horse back and open with your bleed slow. If he sees you first get behind a rock/tree. Let him get close to you then run in and slow him, do not use make haste until you have too. If you can find a spot with two trees or two rocks take that for cover even if it's a bit farther than the other one. Try to line of sight behind the one tree so that the ba has to move closer to you to keep from being los'd by the other tree. This will force the BA to come close to you if he wants to hit you, not just strafe around at the current distance. Watch for multiple evades. When you see it he has popped moving target. Wait it out if possible behind cover, if not keep hitting him under revealing mark and try and keep behind him. If you find yourself out of range use sword and board until you get back in range. Have a 1hander with bpe on it and a shield just for this purpose. Black arrows tend to be horrible at movement take advantage of that. The good ones will strafe and fire. Don't forget valiant strike!
Last Stand - Never ever in a 1v1, planned or otherwise, unless moving target or dying rage are popped. Last stand is our champ bubble, it's offense not defensive. Play like a warg and flank the zerg with a surprise attack and take out their weakest members and live through the counters. This also focuses the entire mob of creeps on you for 25seconds. Giving the other solo freeps a free pass to focus targets without retaliation. Watch the arrows fly and focus down those targets. When you die don't release till the freeps are done killing stuff. Brand, make haste, last stand is amazing. If you use it offensively you will get multiple renown pips on each push. The cool down is reduced by the command set, by the time you get back from the rez it will nearly be back up. This play style is for players who don't care about dying... Also this is mostly for servers where creeps are not always raided. If they are raided they will notice when their member loses health.
Revealing Mark or Telling mark.
Use telling mark while freeps are around you, use revealing mark when you're alone. There is some debate here...however the longer you stay above half health against a reaver the better, and considering we are at the mercy of multiple stuns, slows, and massive kiting you will need all the wiggle room you can get. Revealing mark fits the defensive build. Remember your limitations, damage and attack speed. Good creeps will take advantage of of your weakness and move in and out of your range. You need time to win and revealing mark will give you that time. This is under debate so use the one that lets you win the majority of the time.
Oath breakers - It's gray on 1v1's, it's still in the 5m cooldown range but it's superfluous, unnecessary in a 1v1 and liable to cause contention. Save it for the zerg. Save it for that special kill. Save it for the War leader (the other freeps will see it and pick up on it). Use it to save someone, creeps tend to quit what they are doing and run away when they see Oathies on them.
Make Haste - Not just for black arrows. Make haste is an unrated offense and defensive skill. It increases your ablity to hold dps on the back of the target while decreasing your opponents chance to be in line of sight of you. If you use it then you lose your chance to chase after your target deceides to run so use your discretion.
Valiant Strike - Stop forgetting it!
Master of movement
We are strong under this build but only if we have mastered our movement. Some large percent of winning is due to movement. Master the right click strafe. Practice it. Slalom through the dummies without turning. Practice running circles around a dummy without turning your shoulders. If they are getting behind you practice harder. Move all regular skills around your WASD (I recommend asd-z-or-x if you have an inline keyboard) keys. You should be able to hit all your main skills confidently directly from your key board without disturbing your movement. If you have a macro keyboard you can macro ALT 2 as a one button press.
Plugins
Buffbars - Make your morale/power cure pots pop up right over you head so you can easily mouse it to use it. It will let you know you have a curable disease and show you what that disease is called.
Tonic Bars - Make as many action bars as you want and lock them individually. Lock down any clickies so you don't throw them away.
Mouse highlighter - Never lose your mouse curser again. Never hit the wrong skill again. Never miss a skill as you swing by it. Also if you pick pick the thin hollow gold ring curser if feels like you're playing a shooter.
Playing well with others
* If you see a freep in the front headed back burning and on fire heal him up, he will drag all the creeps into the freeps/nps where they will all die. You not going to save them, but you will cause him to live just long enough to cause the creeps to push too far.
* Save your rez for the rezers. Rez those who can rez others, unless none are dead.
* Watch the arrows over your head, make that your target.
* Watch for yellow crosshairs, make that your target, and open with sure strike. Yellow cross hairs = hear seeker.
* Crit buff everyone when you arrive.
* Heal people when you can through target forwarding. If you have a creep targeted and you pop words of courage it will heal the creeps target.
* expect the range classes to back up when you do. If you need to regroup yourself for a strike move perpendicular to the group and disappear from focus.
* expect the range classes to never push when you do. They will stay at max range. This is why you flank and surprise their back ranks. I kid you not, pull out of the freep mass, and rush from behind. You can kill 1-2 lowbies before they even notice you're there. They are all far to busy shooting things. A lot of the war leaders won't even bother a bubble on the low ranks. Oh yeah and expect to go to the rez when you're done. (again depends on your server)
Disclaimers
Please add your own insights, minor tweaks, and additions while keeping the build intact. Please don't argue my build in totality though, I know it works and works very well. The build focus is survivability with simultaneous dps.
Try to put your insights in guide form so that I can link directly to them from the sections in my post.
Please do add your build as a stand alone in the same manner as I posted mine, detailed and explained. Please add a comprehensive raid build as a new thread, we need one.
Please email me with factual mistakes so that this thread reads well.
Please do provide a war leader defiler section if you are confident in beating them. I will like to it from here.
I am working on a separate build identical to this one only the optional trait will contain Relentless Optimism. With no crits muster courage can heal for 800morale. With relentless optimism and 2 crits it can heal for 1300. The same is true for rallying cry. I am going to try to swap some gear out replacing a lot of might for crit while holding all other stats. I'll report back here if it comes to anything.
Also at this build I reguarly crit 1 or 2 times on MC.
I swapped my bracelets out with 2 Chul-Breichled. I'm swapping might out for crit putting my tactical crit to 20% and melee to 25%. I'm also using Exquisite Great River Necklace of Morale for the inc healing and mitigation. The added crit quite often allows me to crit 3 times for 400+ morale in one muster courage. I lost around 2% melee but gained a significant amount of crit. I really like relentless optimism with strength from within. With enough crit it is a really powerful source of healing.
Traits:
Agree with you totally, also if you have max audacity you can also trait the HoH approach (with renewed voice/turn the tide/composure/on guard/experts attacks) and just outheal your opponent, the problem here is getting bpe or miss in VS will hurt you more that missing in red. But overall will get you less renown and a lot less kbs than going red (In my experience).
Legacies:
Instead of GW cd and Rally Cry healing I prefer having the ToN legacies on my solo emblem, but thats just me.
Relics:
Here I go for morale chuncks, Physical Mastery, Critical rating.
Jewelry:
There is some nice crafted stuff out there too
The great river earrings are the same that the brute ones but instead of 32 vitality they give 300ish crit. And the Pocket item with 600ish crit and 600ish mits is nice too.
Overall I would say that a cappie solo should run at least with 10k+ morale, 20%+ crit, 80%+ physical mastery, 50%+ tactical mit.
Creeps (Here I'm talking about high ranked creeps (8-9+), a cappie shouldn't really have any problem with anything that is not at least rank 0-5)
Wargs: Here, I have learned that fighting wargs is all about their stance, in Shadow is a fun fight that can go both ways depending on crits and bpes, in flayer is just a pita and is just a matter of time until the wargs facerolls you, in the end we don't have enough dps to keep bursting their bubble.
Pot your diseases (Their debuffs are really nasty against cappies, the attack duration, the parry rating which along with creep finesse will make you have no avoidances, and the power costs), dont go in and out of the piss pool it stacks, I just don't pot the initial stun I wait for one in the middle of the fight, don't let them have positional, keep your slow up (wargs naturally move faster than you so even slowed it can kite you especially with our short range).
Reavers: I disagree here with you, I never pot disarm, is not worth it imo. What I always look to pot is blinding dust. Thats the only dot that I don't want to have on me against a reaver, I will take the damaging dots that they have but if I can't hit he doesn't take damage and I don't get heal. (And IIRC they no long require disarm to trash but im not sure about this) Good reavers are gonna stack their dots in the right way so try to be carefull when you pot. I usually just go with kick, ToN and RC heal or MC if its off cd when i get disarmed)
The fight itself is pretty straigthforward, a hitting match, try to keep yourself 50%+ morale as long as you can (pop ToN and RC before it), the debuff on DS will hurt you more that the attack itself.
Blackarrow: If the fight starts with the BA attacking from distance you are pretty much dead if he knows what to do. Good BAs will keep you perma slowed and when you pop make haste and go near them they will pop evade so you are pretty much f@#!#. In the case that you managed to catch the ba (Doesn't know how to kite, he messed up at kiting, you got a lucky BS fear if you have the relic or the old moors armour, Make haste slow dispel, whatever other reason), the most important thing is keeping your slow up!, use ToN to stun and reapply the slow if necesary (They cannot evade it while stun). The key here is catching the BA with evade down or lasting through the 30 seconds with the BA slowed and with enough morale to survive while you finally have him in melee. Remember they also can use their snares on combat to slow you even if you catch them.
Weaver: Kill him fast, pop make haste at the begginng, get though their webbing, catch him, slow it, and then oathbreakers, ton stun, and hope for crits, you don't want a long fight, their catch prey will tier up and you will not be able to hit them then.
Defiler and WL: Just ride pass them, not worth your time. Especially if the defiler can use their flies, you will go down to 0 power in 20ish seconds since most cappies power pool is really low. In that case you will end up with no power for the 10 minutes that defiler will need to kill you, in that case just for lulz reasons use whatever power you are regaining to pop Muster courage. They are both power management fights, so going HoH with herald for the inspire would be "good", the bad part is that it will take you a lot of time and a stack of power pots to finish the fight.
My advice for new cappies that want to solo out in the moors is stack tactical mitigation like there is no other stat out there, heck even use a shield if you want for 1v1s against high ranked creeps, the more time they take to kill you is time that you gained in experience on how to pvp in this class. And as you get experience start balancing your build.
Virtues:
(And IIRC they no long require disarm to trash but im not sure about this)
Your right. I'll edit. hyperlink that jewelry when you can.
Thrash- This skill has been significantly overhauled:
Changed to an area of effect skill with 4 max targets.
Skill and Savage Wound damage has been reduced.
Skill no longer requires Disarm to use.
Cooldown has been increased to 30s.
Power Cost has been significantly increased.
I recommend both time of need legacies as well, I have them on a hot swap identical to this one.
edit made:
Use your wound pot on thrash, or blinding dust. If you get disarmed and are unable to get out of range which is likely the case counter disarm with uppercut (racial man) for a chance to stun him.
Please do provide a war leader defiler section if you are confident in beating them. I will like to it from here.[/QUOTE]
I will add my build and strategies I have used over the years as the captain has evolved over time at a later time, and am interested in trying out some of the builds up above.
As far as the WL and defiler goes though I will tell you how I manage to defeat a defiler at least who is focusing on self healing. Disclaimer...you may be able to DPS him down if you are not redline, but be prepared for a long engagement and pray you have enough power. If you are traited with Turn the Tide and you have your oathbreaker out, be sure to Blade Brother him, use your - attack duration skill (Name escapes me let me know and I will update with the name) which lasts for 2 minutes, use telling mark, then when you are close enough open up with To Arms and Oathbreakers right away, if you have To Arms legacy you will have longer to beat on him with +25% damage. Getting +25% damage from To Arms, 35% Damage from Oathies, and 10% damage from telling mark is a big help to do some huge burst DPS. Hopefully you are well geared and if you have Command set you will also get an additional 10% when using sure strike. your first attack should be Sure Strike, then Shadow's lament since it has the longer CD, then Devastating Blow, Blade of Elendil, then Battle shout which will enable you to repeat DB BoE. At this point you can either use cutting attack and grave wound for the DoTs. I throw a kick in there for good measure if I see then healing with an induction. After I finish this burst of attacks, (If you get a crit on DB, use War Cry for - attack duration) then I will usually continue attacking with what skills are not on CD. When I see Shadow's Lament coming back and ready for use, I will use Time of Need to enable my Routing Cry and then stun him for three seconds making sure I can get a good hit on him with Shadow's lament again. This usually about ends the fight especially when it crits. Your crits are what is going to make this fight easier. My Phys mastery sits at ~26k So I have high 90s on damage, with readline and no telling mark, my shadows lament hits for about 1300-1500 non crit on an aud 5-7 creep. When crit its about 2700-3k on an aud 5-7 creep. You should be able to get 3-4 of these in during the fight, and having the initial burst dps helps out quickening the end of the defiler. DB when crits hits for a 2-3k as well, so you want to make sure your crits are in the mid 20s if you can.
Now this strategy is pretty good if you are 1v1 against a defiler... and an unranked WL. If you fight a warleader that is sub R4 you can try to out heal while dps until they run out of power, then they are pretty much yours, just wait to use your slow until they either run away or sit there waiting for you to kill him.
All I have time for now, I would say the hardest fights now for me are BAs when grouped with a warg. Anyone else agree?
As I said, I will update necessary info at a later date.
Just a couple of general pointers from numerous 1v1 situations:
- Played Captain and Reaver in a 1v1 setting extensively, I disagree with using uppercut during disarm. Frankly this is one of the worst things you could do, during disarm captain should be getting as much distance as possible from the Reaver. Even if slowed, unless the reaver is literally ON TOP of you, if you have some space kite the Disarm. Risk/Reward for Uppercut is not worth it. High Mits+ Revealing + MC Self Heal Every Time while doing DPS rotation = high chance of victory. Poor Movement is the only way a captain can lose under those circumstances. For an even easier victory, keep slow up and move wide, only coming into melee range for Dev Blows/Shadow Lament, Blade of Elendil and to re apply slows. Also using Last Stand on a Reaver in DR is frowned upon, you have already won. But that is a matter of server culture and up to the individual.
- Your warg strategy is fine but there's something important to add. Good wargs are going to go for their CJ/Stun when the captain is around ~40% - 35% morale in the hopes of finishing a captain before using Last Stand, this is where stun pots are going to save you. Also keep a bleed on at all times, will pop them out of stealth should they Disappear.
- Any decent BA is running in Skirmisher stance, which means they can kite you. If you can get the jump on a BA, slow slow slow and try to do enough damage to force their Moving Target. Time of Need and Stun, and Slow. Swap to sword and board and heal, saving Make Haste for once MT is down. I agree that if a BA gets you from range, it is a very tough fight to win.
- Weaver is the toughest class for a captain to fight, in my opinion. They can perma-kite with slows, have ranged DoT's, the powerful catch prey stacking buff, power drain and the ability to heal. Not to mention stuns and roots. Keep the slow on at all times, if the weaver gets enough space your cooked. I would open with an all out burst to try and force the spider to burrow. As soon as it burrows attack the pet immediately, the spider will pop up to eat the pet for a heal. Otherwise it will wait out its web the earth CD while having its pet attack you. When it pops it will web the earth if it can, the ideal time for make haste is at this point. No pet, main slow on CD, close the gap and hope you bypass enough of their B/P/E to quickly finish off the spider before they drink deep and restore their morale. Now if they use the ranged pet, try to keep the fight near the pet, it will stay stationary and pew. If its far away when the spider burrows you are in trouble. I also found success with nuking the pet as soon as the fight starts, Oathies, SL/DB's. IF you go this route you need to be quick, the spider will stun you after applying its debuffs. Another class that if it starts from range can be serious trouble.
- Defilers, trait Now For Wrath and kill the flies ASAP if they are up for defeat responses and rallying cries. The kick CD legacy is almost a must for fighting good defilers. If they fear you, they are going to try and get their big heal off, this needs to be interrupted. Using a herald here can also be effective to buy more interrupt time. Stay out of the Blight if they have it, it will stack a disease DoT. If the defiler has the improved Flies, prepare for a near impossible fight if you allow for the power drain.
The problem with that nuking strategy is that Defiler flies will power drain before you can finish the defiler, I don't recommend that route unless its a low rank.
- No good WL strategy.
General :
- My strategy assumes a 2-H weapon, but if you find yourself getting kited make sure you have a good shield and 1-H weapon to swap in. I found the critted Orthanc Shield to be very good.
- Its important to note that certain classes have advantage over Cappys in a 1v1 setting, alot of the strategy on here assumes ideal circumstances. You will have difficult fights against R8+ Creeps, depending on class. Don't be afraid to use a herald and hot swap to a banner, I've seen some very effective pet management that has been the difference between winning and losing. Don't get discouraged, try new rotations/strats and see what works for you.
- Played Captain and Reaver in a 1v1 setting extensively, I disagree with using uppercut during disarm. Frankly this is one of the worst things you could do, during disarm captain should be getting as much distance as possible from the Reaver.
here is what I said.
Originally Posted by Armitas
If you get disarmed and are unable to get out of range which is likely the case counter disarm with uppercut (racial skill) for a chance to stun him.
There is no downside to uppercut at that point. It's not likely to work, but it can. What else are you going to do when you can't get away?
As far as DR LS. Dying rage and last stand are both frowned upon. That is why you use last stand after dying rage not before. He has already disgraced himself so it's okay to pop last stand.
There is no downside to uppercut at that point. It's not likely to work, but it can. What else are you going to do when you can't get away?
As far as DR LS. Dying rage and last stand are both frowned upon. That is why you use last stand after dying rage not before. He has already disgraced himself so it's okay to pop last stand.
Captains I lose to stay away/use Make Haste during Disarm. Captains that stay near me lose about 1500-2k morale and usually lose.
Again I specified that it was up to the server and person when it comes to DR/LS. Personally if a Reaver pops Dying Rage and could kill me I won't use Last Stand. If he gets me I'm still getting points, and he didn't use the CD to run away. I like to reward good PvP behavior.
-Use muster courage when disarmed, never uppercut.
-When fighting worgs or reavers, the best option is to let them come to you. You're the one with the heals ticking out every 20 secs if they can't take out the MS heal they won't beat us. Know to pot the proper stuff. NEVER pot disarm or thrash bleed, always pot dust.
-Another thing that helps is having time of need morale cost on the pvp emblem. It may not seem much but the time lost when switching out and emblem and using out skill and then switching it back really makes a difference in 1v1.
Kriptic
gw2:witchking.4380
WeaponX-I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice.
-Use muster courage when disarmed, never uppercut.
No! Cast muster courage whenever it's up! Never ever save it like that.
Everyone..
If you !!can't get away!! (stress/emphasis/impact!! not yelling, just have to get this point across because people keep missing it) use uppercut! Your going to have to push through the reaver to get away. If your trying to leave the reaver by walking away from him your doing it wrong, you run through your opponent not away. Uppercut is quick.. tag him on the way through him. You lose nothing by doing it and you have a chance to stun him. That stun may only last 1 second but coupled with running though him it may give you the added distance to kite out the disarm if you don't have make haste up. Uppercut facilitates the very thing people are arguing against it for.
Originally Posted by witchking782
NEVER pot disarm or thrash bleed, always pot dust.
Dust should be potted along with thrash. Blinding dust is on a 1min cooldown. If you pot dust your pot will be back up before another dust can be applied. It makes no sense to withhold your wound pots for 1 min when you can pot both before dust comes back.
This is a very nice guide armi before i was using this build but i tried doing something else, pvping solo with Healing traits. 5 green 2 yellow traits with 1 hand club(for slowing attack speed) and board and a mix of 3 healing gear and 3 vit gear in moors, and i do the uppercut before too on reavers that disarms, but with green trait i use kick more often and it stuns better :P haha :P with my build sometimes i 2v1 wargs, depending on rank, as long as theres 1 low rank(rank 1-5) i can win it, i have a quick way also to get rid of ba slow, but you have to get the healing set in moors so when you pop the make haste you get slow immunity. haha
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before i was using this build but i tried doing something else, pvping solo with Healing traits. 5 green 2 yellow traits with 1 hand club(for slowing attack speed) and board and a mix of 3 healing gear and 3 vit gear in moors, and i do the uppercut before too on reavers that disarms, but with green trait i use kick more often and it stuns better :P haha :P with my build sometimes i 2v1 wargs, depending on rank, as long as theres 1 low rank(rank 1-5) i can win it, i have a quick way also to get rid of ba slow, but you have to get the healing set in moors so when you pop the make haste you get slow immunity. haha
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