Thread: The Elephant in the Room

The one thing almost no one talks about, but anyone who has played the captain class for any length of time knows, is how royally screwed up our legacy choices are.

Our legacies are really great... If you want to be a healer.

DPS emblem legacies? Choose a few, then fill with healing legacies.

Tanking emblem legacies? Might as well slot tanking relics, then roll with a healing emblem - because what you end up with looks striking similar to a healing emblem.

Weapon Legacies? Most captains use one LI for everything they do. There's very little room to differentiate a tanking weapon LI from a healing weapon LI from a DPS weapon LI because each one is close to 3/6 (if not more) the same legacies.

Our legacies are too heavily slanted towards healing, and it's forcing us to always remain healing-centric, even though the traitlines suggest that there should be 3 (and counting a hybrid style, 4) different ways to play the captain.

Personally, I think all the captain legacies need to be thrown out and everything reworked from the ground up - because it's so screwed up that a do-over would be faster than an overhaul.

Just replace the Tactics and morale from mot speech legacies with some real choices. Right now you have to sacrifice one legendary item slot for a buffstick and another for a swap emblem which ppl tend to use to different proportions. I don't generally like gearswapping in combat. Actually I hate it, but it must be done.

I see no reason to make the gaming experience less intriguing like this and removing those said legacies would release one major and two minor weapon legacies to be revisioned which should be used well to give us some real choices. We have some choices even now, but only three of them supports some role. Defensive strike armour buff supports tanking, BoE damage and CA bleed damage support dps builds. There is not a single legacy for weapons that support healing per se like there is no legacy for emblems that support tanking and only one that supports dps.

You can have 8 legendary items if you have purchased the additional two slots. Our trait lines suggest that we have three roles so why don't our legacies do the same? Theres good to be some allaround legacies but there should be 2-3 legacies for every given build. There should be six slots taken like this -> One weapon and emblem for every role, but right now theres only 4 taken like this. Two for damage build and two for shared healing/tanking and two are taken for some moronic third agers that every cappie must have for the sole purpose of swapping them on for some skills. I do not like this.

So I guess what I'm asking is _REMOVE THE IN COMBAT SWAPPING_ or the legacies that demand doing it. It's not great gameplay.

That really does get to the heart of it, Almagnus. Our outdated legacy set is both a major factor in why we can't fulfill a DPS/Tank role outside of 3-mans and why HoH provides too slim a healing boost compared with our other builds.

Personally, I agree with Nouhau that in-combat swapping is a mechanic I think should go away. To me, any legacy that provides a prized benefit but still isn't good enough to be put on a primary LI is poorly designed and probably should be a trait or armour bonus. However, we'll set that aside for the moment and just discuss what legacies aren't doing anything (or just enough) for us and what kinds of legacies we'd like to see added.

Below Expectation

• Tactic: Focus In-Combat Power Regen: The skill it buffs is almost never used. Thus, nobody cares about this legacy.
• Make Haste Duration: Ok, I think Moors Captains probably do get some use out of this. However, I don't think any PvE
• Captains do, except maybe on a swap emblem weapon. That tells me it should maybe be a PvP armour set bonus instead.
• Words of Courage Pulses: As discussed in other threads, this is an "Eh, why not?" legacy for healing emblems. But, in practice, since WoC HoTs don't stack and since we often end up spamming WoC when we do need it in order to hand out snap healing, this legacy is wasted as often as not.
• Grave Wound Cooldown: When you max this legacy out, Grave Wound still doesn't match Cutting Attack's cooldown. Kind of pathetic.
• Defensive Strike Armour Rating: Our only real tanking-related legacy at the moment. It's not bad, but isn't a well-geared Captain tank going to be close to the mitigation caps? Maybe this isn't as bad as I think, as I haven't run the numbers.
• Pressing Attack/Devastating Blow Critical Rating: These are both actually really good legacies, but they compete with each other despite the fact that every instance always has a mix of AoE/single-target fights. Also, these have crazy diminishing returns, so there's not much point to ranking them up. Wouldn't mind at all seeing them combined or something.

"Mandatory" Legacies
In general, maybe everyone doesn't agree that having a small set of legacies that absolutely every LI must have is bad design. I do kind of feel that way, though, so here are the ones that bug me.

• Pressing Attack Max Targets: My buff stick is the only weapon I have without this legacy. Even at its exorbitant point cost, I always drop two ranks in it, because doing otherwise is foolish. Yet, at the same time, we rarely see fights where enough targets are in range to make the maxed-out version useful. The legacy itself can stay, but Pressing Attack should probably hit more targets by default, IMO.
• To Arms Duration: Mandatoryness is debatable, I suppose, but it's a hell of a benefit when you max it out. Better than almost any other legacy, no matter what your role is. This legacy is on the good side of the cost-benefit curve, actually, so I wouldn't mind if it stayed unchanged. I still think it deserves mention here, though.
• Strength of Will Healing: Literally quadruples the benefit from the original skill and almost single-handedly overshadows Song-Brother's healing role. Yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh.
• All the passive buffs: Huge benefit to the group, don't need to waste slots on your primary LIs with them, you're not considered a properly-geared Captain if you don't have them on swap LIs. Unlike the two above, this one is an obligation, not a choice, and that leaves me with an especially icky feeling. I'm not completely in love with the idea of either rolling these into the base skills or scrapping the legacies with no replacement for the better numbers, though. Probably would need serious tweaks elsewhere (tying tactic buff increases to trait line set bonuses or something?) to make altering these legacies a valid option.

Needed Legacies
Just going to spell things out broadly in this section, rather than making specific suggestions. These are the things we don't have legacies for that I think we should have legacies for.

• Threat: Either in general or tied to specific skills. Noble Mark is great, but it only works for one target. Threatening Shout has a pretty long cooldown even when traited yellow, and 3 targets is not really enough. The Aggressive Stance buff is very handy, but there's room for improvement. I wouldn't mind seeing a Threatening Shout Cooldown or Targets legacy, Aggressive Stance Threat legacy, or a Threat from Shouts legacy or basically just anything that improves our threat generation.
• Survival: Plain old morale can come from Legacy of Vitality if we really wanted it, so whatever. Defensive Strike is our only real self-oriented defensive skill (the -Brother skills don't really count, since they always apply to a second target as well), and that already has a legacy. There might need to be some adjustment to our skills before there's a really good option here. But, anyway, it would be nice to have some extra survivability coming from somewhere other than relics and armour.
• DPS: The best-supported role for legacies right now, other than healing. I still feel we're missing a certain something here, though. Shadow's Lament Cooldown is a nice thing, certainly. CA Bleed as well. It just... needs to be cooler. Like, 20% cooler.

P.s.: You say to yourself, "Oh, I'll just jot off a quick reply before bed..." Sigh.

Originally Posted by furtim

That really does get to the heart of it, Almagnus. Our outdated legacy set is both a major factor in why we can't fulfill a DPS/Tank role outside of 3-mans and why HoH provides too slim a healing boost compared with our other builds.

Just gotta say this. I just got out from tanking RoF T2 without wipes. Get the gear and try it out it's hell of a lot of fun! We can get to some nice stats with good gear. 14700 morale with phys/tact mities at 11k/13,6k and b/p/e 17/16/9 is nothing to laugh at. Controlling a group can be a mess, but just focus on keeping most of them and it should be fine.

This was done with awesome players though..that might have had something to do with it

Armor swapping should go away for sure(just remove in combat ability to equip it). For LIs You'd have to do the same with weapons. This will have other minor consequences, but I'm for it too. I don't know if devs are fully aware, but most gaming keyboard/mice come with macro software. So, if someone is techy enough it's no big deal to make swap to proper emblem, use skill, swap out macro. This has even bigger effect if you are in US(EU is kinda doomed with latency issues). This divides community into those having trouble with cooldowns and those who use macros. So either enable in game use of macros or simply ban it for everyone.

• With above happening our emergency skill legacies can stay(so SotD, EfD, TN cooldowns) as they will become what they should be, so minor legacies that can influence our skills. Otherwise they should be scrapped and replaced.
• Regardless of above our out of combat buffs so tactics:x and motivating speech legacies must be rolled into proper skills. Every self respecting captain has buff LIs. Apart from wasting one LI slot, this requires no skill and no effort to attain. So please free those 4 legacies for something useful.
• PA/DB crit legacy should be merged into one and moved to minor pool.
• Grave wound is only somewhat worthwhile for tanks as lower force taunt cooldown. Replace it.
• SoW/To arms/RC cooldown should be rolled into proper skills or at least traits. Apart from swapping issues, they are wayyyy to powerful to skip them. If something is must have, it shouldn't be available as choice. That's Blizzard devs motto and I find it as very smart one.
• CA, Routing Cry, Make Haste, WoC pulses, MC cooldown are really nice(and cheap too) minor legacies to serve as fillers instead might/vit stat legacies and as such should stay. This ones were well thought out.
• Telling mark/PA max targets. Those seems to be must have, but after giving it a thought, they really aren't. For example as part of healing You'll use revealing not telling mark. PA while powerful has occasional use. I see no problem in having different(offence) oriented weapon with those.

Probably forgot about some, but most important issues are here. Other legacies like % healing from skills are okay and balanced.

As for replacements, as suggested give us tanking/healing oriented weapon legacies and tanking/dps oriented emblem legacies.

Originally Posted by Nouhau

Just gotta say this. I just got out from tanking RoF T2 without wipes. Get the gear and try it out it's hell of a lot of fun! We can get to some nice stats with good gear. 14700 morale with phys/tact mities at 11k/13,6k and b/p/e 17/16/9 is nothing to laugh at. Controlling a group can be a mess, but just focus on keeping most of them and it should be fine.

This was done with awesome players though..that might have had something to do with it

Dunno when You've tanked it but if after 6.1 update(so yesterday one) RoF was dumbed down heavily. While poison do stack now, small spiders have like 3k morale and as such aren't big issue for hunter or champ to kill on sight. Big momma spider was always a weaksauce.

But if You kept 6-8 small spiders and big one on You, I'm really impressed. As minstrel healer I've seen enough wipes cause tank let one on me. Regardless, we have to be aware that you'd have ~20k morale guard with capped mitigations, capped incoming healing, similar b/p/e, better partials and much better AoE threat with your level of gear. And he'd just be better suited here. Kudos for healer(as you have to have good one) and open minded group for letting You tank it.

Originally Posted by Fuin

[*]SoW/To arms/RC cooldown should be rolled into proper skills or at least traits. Apart from swapping issues, they are wayyyy to powerful to skip them. If something is must have, it shouldn't be available as choice. That's Blizzard devs motto and I find it as very smart one.

I completely agree with that! SoW quadruples the skills effect, RC Cooldown triples! Both of those effects should be rolled into the base skills or traits.

How about RC having 30 sec cooldown with a blue trait set bonus to shave 10 or 15 off it?

Threat Legacy! Thats what I want the most. Vocal threat legacy would cover darn near everything.

Originally Posted by Nouhau

Just gotta say this. I just got out from tanking RoF T2 without wipes. Get the gear and try it out it's hell of a lot of fun! We can get to some nice stats with good gear. 14700 morale with phys/tact mities at 11k/13,6k and b/p/e 17/16/9 is nothing to laugh at. Controlling a group can be a mess, but just focus on keeping most of them and it should be fine.

This was done with awesome players though..that might have had something to do with it

^good to hear.

I think the trick to maintaining aggro in pulls with 6+ adds (like that second pull) is not sweating trying to get the first couple shamans the dps blow up. They're just gonna melt in a few seconds anyway. Amiright? And its nice if the dps focuses on the adds that are up, instead of say burning that second big red spider to pop more adds.

I will have to try RoF some time. Tanked it all the way to the final boss before, but just couldnt pull off the kiting. Now they melt

Wishful thinking but something like this would be nice. With this system we can trait our weapons and never lose our legacies.

Oh, duh. Somehow, I forgot about RC Cooldown in my mandatory list, which is a huge one, if we're talking about elephants in the room. Captain healing relies too much on this one skill, and that's a combination of the fact that we can make the cooldown so low and the fact that we don't have a lot of other healing tools to use, compared with the pure healing classes.

And as for tanking, I don't doubt we can survive a lot of tanking situations if we get a full Tognir set. But Captain tanking should be a viable option even if you're not an end-game raider, for one thing, and for another we still need a lot of work on our multi-target threat generation.

Originally Posted by furtim

Oh, duh. Somehow, I forgot about RC Cooldown in my mandatory list, which is a huge one, if we're talking about elephants in the room. Captain healing relies too much on this one skill, and that's a combination of the fact that we can make the cooldown to low and the fact that we don't have a lot of other healing tools to use, compared with the pure healing classes.

Fo sho. RC cooldown is on my LtC, HoH, and LoM emblems. Definitely mandantory for everything. Super helpful for support, a life saver in a spar/duel, and one of our edges in survivability while tanking. I accept having to put it on everything but a swap emblem, but I sure wouldn't turn it down 15 s cooldown on RC as the default!

Originally Posted by furtim

And as for tanking, I don't doubt we can survive a lot of tanking situations if we get a full Tognir set. But Captain tanking should be a viable option even if you're not an end-game raider, for one thing, and for another we still need a lot of work on our multi-target threat generation.

Tanking survivability is very closely related to gear. Its that way for Guards, Wardens, Champs, and us.

I'm not so sure it hits us too hard either. Just gotta get appropriate gear for that tier of dungeon. I have end game gear, and it makes tanking both forge bosses in Foundry T2 a breeze as far as survivability goes; its above the required gear level. So I bet you could survive tanking an Isen T1 3man in say Theodreds crafted and rep gear. The kinda stuff you'd be able to acquire before heading into a T1 3man if you followed a strict dungeon progression; Tognir not required. I feel like it's balanced for the instances at least. Of course no one follows that strict progression of getting gear appropriate for one tier of instances, then moving up. Skraid drops and GR crafted are too easy a way to skip the progression and put you at/above T2 instance gear-level.

Now what kind of gear do you need to co-tank in a T1 Orthanc? I bet you could assemble an acceptable suit of armor from Kingsplate Gauntlets, Helm of Lost Hoardes, GR crafted shoulders, GR crafted boots, Tourney Winner's Chestplate, Leg-guards of Ceaseless War. + similar quality relics and jewelry. All stuff available before setting foot in T1 Orthanc.

i've said it before...

we need a legacy for threatening shout targets. Up to +4 or higher.
It'd also be nice if we could reduce the cooldown on that skill slightly while tanking... Maybe down to 7 or 8 seconds.. Even as low as 5 would be fine.

Champs are quite probable to still pull agro off you, but i really don't care - they're a heavy armor class and it makes sense to shield bro them anyway because you'll want the benefit.

That's the only one that comes to mind... Maybe routing cry cooldown. We don't need a 'Threat up' legacy. Champs don't have one.

Well, Champs don't need a threat legacy because they do enough damage even in Glory stance to hold multi-target aggro purely through DPS. We don't, we rely on a combination of force taunts, direct threat from Threatening Shout/Noble Mark, and self/group buffs like Aggressive Stance and Noble Mark's splash effect. That's why I think a "Cry Threat" legacy (affecting not only threatening shout but also Battle-Cry and Routing Cry) or "Aggressive Stance Perceived Threat" legacy could be appropriate, although I'll definitely admit that our ability to generate threat on single targets is not really an issue.

Anyway, I completely agree about a legacy for Threatening Shout Targets. That would be a really great addition. Routing Cry Cooldown is a great idea, as well. The legacy could shave off maybe 15 seconds, for a 30 second CD. Although I think I'd prefer to get a cooldown reduction on the capstone instead of a legacy, particularly since we already have a Routing Cry legacy as it is.

Originally Posted by Fuin

Dunno when You've tanked it but if after 6.1 update(so yesterday one) RoF was dumbed down heavily. While poison do stack now, small spiders have like 3k morale and as such aren't big issue for hunter or champ to kill on sight. Big momma spider was always a weaksauce.

But if You kept 6-8 small spiders and big one on You, I'm really impressed. As minstrel healer I've seen enough wipes cause tank let one on me. Regardless, we have to be aware that you'd have ~20k morale guard with capped mitigations, capped incoming healing, similar b/p/e, better partials and much better AoE threat with your level of gear. And he'd just be better suited here. Kudos for healer(as you have to have good one) and open minded group for letting You tank it.

It was done after the patch. I agree it seems quite a lot easier for the tank but I still had 1-3 adds on me with the boss at the last fight. Never had 2 poisons at once but I got the single poison 5-6 times. Orthanc t2 is still a no no, but I'm sure we can tank orthanc t1 without a doubt. Wardens and guards still being number unos ofc, but in a situation where you don't have enough tanks we are able to fill in. We just need a bit better gear and that doesn't mean it must be tognir. Theres very good craftable tanking gear and the rest you can get from rep vendors, instances and skirmishes. I don't have a single piece of tognir atm. The tanking gear I will get is two loyalty with 4 tognir. Jewelry is already top notch.

/agreed. I savor the thought of the death of buffsticks. Legacies are a huge burden towards more effectively playing any role aside from Healer. Even then it has been argued and correctly so that we achieve too much healing from our legacies and not enough from traitlines and traits themselves. To completely kill the buffstick we need a consolidation and merging between our legacies into our baseline skills. To Arms is one of the biggest offenders as a buffstick, it should be merged along with Tactical Prowess into the baseline effect of having TA have a 30 second duration and 1 minute cooldown. Others would need to be fully merged as well such as giving Telling Mark a full 10% damage instead of 5% with 5 more from the legacy. Other buffstick legacies such as ones that increase ratings rather than percentages can do with partial merges if need be or remove the legacy and increase the amount of level modifier applied to buff appropriately.

It's also quite clear to me that we need more multi-functional skills, such as how Champ and Mini skills change based on stance. Shadow's Lament and Valiant Strike would probably be the two best contenders. Valiant Strike should keep it's party buff theme and apply a dps buff for LtC and a defensive buff to the party for LoM. Shadows Lament could lose the threat bonus and become a large party heal(no HoT) that we've been needing for HoH, and it could become an AoE for LoM to give them more multi target threat. Of course that means SL would need to be taken off of the Defeat Event skills and put on normal cooldown to be usable in all builds but to replace it(just throwing the first thought that comes to mind) War Cry could be the new capstone effect for LtC, taken off requiring defeat events and having a new effect that for each fellow member affected the captain gains a +2% bonus to damage/or alternatively crit chance for the duration of the buff, at a maximum of 10%.

Regardless, we have a slew of changes desperately needed. So much so that we need a full on revision. I wouldn't trust any dev save for Orion with that monumental undertaking. Other devs seem content to make minor changes or improvements but no one takes the initiative to think outside the box like Orion does. God help us if we get Graal as a dev again.

Originally Posted by GeoTerran

It's also quite clear to me that we need more multi-functional skills, such as how Champ and Mini skills change based on stance.

Please no, this is what prompted me to bail on my mini and make a guard, when they turned minis into wardens. :-( Restricting skills to certain stances happened on burgs too, it's horrible, counter-intuitive, and restrictive rather than enabling.

I do like ideas for tanking legacies, it seems my "tanking guard" is supposed to generate threat via healing the way current legacies are setup.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Originally Posted by furtim

Well, Champs don't need a threat legacy because they do enough damage even in Glory stance to hold multi-target aggro purely through DPS.

Unfortunately they don't. Only reason champs can hold agro in glory is due to rising ire, but the first 30 seconds (potentially longer) of a boss fight are a disaster since the dps has barely any agro to leech.

Honestly for single target agro i'd rather have a LoM captain for the first minute of a fight.

While aoe-tanking champs tend to do fine, it's fairly common for other champs or hunters to pull agro one or two mobs off, whatever their first dps target is. It just doesn't matter because one trash mob does very little damage.

Originally Posted by RJFerret

Please no, this is what prompted me to bail on my mini and make a guard, when they turned minis into wardens. :-( Restricting skills to certain stances happened on burgs too, it's horrible, counter-intuitive, and restrictive rather than enabling.

How so? I think your fear of ending up like Mini and Champs is overriding your judgement in this. Before they became multi- functional Champs and Minis had skills that were generally still useful in different builds. A lot of Captain skills are only useful in one, maybe two builds. I only suggested Shadow's Lament and Valiant Strike as suggested skills for becoming multi-functional because they are skills only useful as they are to one spec each. Shadow's Lament would be more useful for tanking if it wasn't part of defeat condition gating, and even better if it became an AoE since our tank spec sorely lacks AoE control and it's not useful at all currently to HoH, we've also been talking about needing a spike healing skill and I would rather alter a skill we have to achieve that effect than clutter up skillbars even more than they already are with new ones. Valiant Strike is completely useless unless full traited HoH, I get more healing from SfW on Muster Courage. Valiant Strike is if anything begging to be multi-functional.

never thought to talk about it because i have no frame of reference. ive only played one char to end-game.

i cant say if other classes deal with the smae issues. i have always assumed all classes work on some kind of LI-swapping (maybe im wrong).

Difference between champs/minis/guards/burgs/wardens is they all have stances.

Captains don't have a toggle stance. Which i'm fine with...

But valiant strike does almost nothing unless you are traited HoH... it's a perfect candidate for some lovin'.

I guess the brother toggles are like pseudo-stances.

I'm fine with stances along with the brother toggles, if those stances gave bonuses, were affected by the # of traits slotted in a particular line, and changed Shadows Lament and Valiant Strike. Kinda like how Almagnus suggested in one of these threads. In fact that would be better than OK in my book.

Originally Posted by Nouhau

So I guess what I'm asking is _REMOVE THE IN COMBAT SWAPPING_ or the legacies that demand doing it. It's not great gameplay.

I agree with this. Even though It would hurt my performance somewhat, it isn't good gameplay and I would be willing to take the hit.

Gear-swapping has ruined some games for me. Final Fantasy 11 comes to mind. I eventually quit that game primarily because it's combat revolved so much around swapping gear all of the time, and it just become too annoying for me.