Captain Eriador

**Seremela** Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:52 pm

Taken from Turbine's developer diaries concerning The Rise of Isengard update:

Captains are pretty much the hybrid class in LotRO. They can deal some damage, they can heal some morale, and they can tank a bit. However, it’s their buffing “role” which draws most players to the Captain. It’s this role that brings us to the Leader of Men trait line -- a line which used to focus on half-buffing and half-tanking.

To me, the buffing “role” of the Captain is inherently part of the class and shouldn’t be restricted to any one trait line. Therefore, a major part of these changes is making the Leader of Men trait line focus more on tanking. And it’s always good to have more classes able to fill required roles, especially when it comes to tanking. While some players might choose not to make use of the updates to Leader of Men, I’m glad the Captain now has the option to focus on any particular role they wishes.

Changes across most of the classes:

Skill Consolidation: We realize there are lots and lots of skills in the game, some of which are redundant with one another. Our goal with these changes is to reduce the number of skills in the game while improving weaker skills.
Improved Skills rather than New Skills: Along similar lines, we don’t want to flood the player with more new skills until they run out of room or don’t bother using certain skills.

Stat Changes:

The Captain now receives all of their Tactical Offence Rating and Outgoing Healing Rating from Might (instead of Will). Further information can be found in the New Stat Updates Dev Diary.

We’ve also made quite a few quality of life improvements:

“Time of Need” has had its cooldown reduced from 20m to 5m.
“Shield of the Dunedain” has had its cooldown reduced from 10m to 5m.
“In Defence of Middle-earth”:
Is now a toggle (with no cost).
Continues advancing in magnitude after level 50.
“War-cry” has had its magnitude changed from -10% Attack Duration to -15% Attack Duration.
Note: This is because the trait “Captain of War” has been repurposed, see below.
The buff from “Herald of War” continues advancing in magnitude after level 50.
Heals, Heal-over-Time effects, and Damage-over-Time effects have had their Critical Multiplier changed from 1 to 1.5

A large change has been made to the Legendary Trait “Defy Corruption”:

This Legendary Trait is now “Fellowship-brother”: Your Brother skills (“Inspire”, “Strength of Will”, and “To Arms”) now affect your entire fellowship with lesser versions of those effects.

The skill “Noble Mark” has been changed to better support its role as a tanking skill:

The damage-over-time effect has been removed.
Any player (except the Captain) who attacks the target of Noble Mark receives -10% Perceived Threat for 10s.

Quite a few changes have gone into the Captain’s Trait Lines:

Leader of Men:
“Improved Kick” has been moved from the 3-set bonus to the 2-set bonus.
There is an additional 3-set bonus which reduces the Cooldown of “Threatening Shout” by 10s.
The trait “Adherent of Elendil” has been moved to the “Lead the Charge” trait line, replacing “Focused Strikes”.
NEW trait “Echoing Shout” allows the skill “Threatening Shout” to affect up to 3 targets.
The trait “Captain of War” has been changed to “Alert Guard” which gives “Defensive Strike” an increase to Parry Chance.
The trait “Composure” has been changed in two ways:
Reduces the Morale Cost of Time of Need by 50%.
No longer reset the cooldown for “Cry of Vengeance”.
The trait “Blood of Numenor” has been moved to the Hands of Healing trait line (replacing the trait “Subtle Command”).
NEW trait “Improved Routing Cry” adds a Force Taunt to the skill.
The Legendary Capstone Trait “Leader of Men” now has the following abilities:
When using “Shield-brother”, the Captain also receives the full benefits of the Shield-brother skills (“Inspire”, “Strength of Will”, “To Arms”).
Routing Cry no longer requires a Defeat Event.
The Captain is able to Block when wielding a 2-handed weapon.
Hands of Healing:
The trait “Relentless Optimism” has had its magnitude increased from +10% Critical Heal Magnitude to +50% Critical Heal Magnitude.
The trait “Subtle Command” has been replaced by “Blood of Numenor”.
The trait “Blood of Numenor” has received several improvements:
Decreases the induction time of “Escape from Darkness” by 2 seconds.
“Escape from Darkness” has its cooldown reduces by 10 minutes.
The target of “Cry of Vengeance” revives with +50% Morale and Power.
The trait “Strength from Within” no longer prevents the summoning of Heralds and Archers.
The Legendary Capstone Trait “Hands of Healing” has an additional ability:
When using Song-brother, the Captain also receives the full benefits of the Song-brother skills (“Inspire”, “Strength of Will”, “To Arms”).
Lead the Charge:
“Focused Strikes” has been replaced by the trait “Adherent of Elendil”.
The Legendary Capstone Trait “Master of War” has been improved in several ways:
There is no longer a +15 second Cooldown penalty on Shadow’s Lament.
Shadow’s Lament now provides the Battle-readied effect on a successful hit.
When using “Blade-brother”, the Captain also receives the full benefits of the Blade-brother skills (“Inspire”, “Strength of Will”, “To Arms”).

Legacy Changes:

Shield of the Dunedain Cooldown: Has been adjusted to reflect the reduced cooldown of the skill. It will now reduce the cooldown by -90s at max rank.
Time of Need Cooldown: Has been adjusted to reflect the reduced cooldown of the skill. It will now reduce the cooldown by -150s at max rank.
In Defence of Middle-earth Duration: Has been changed to “Additional Words of Courage Pulses”.

**Spoiler Alert** Improved Skills from Level 66 to Level 74:

Level 66: Improved Sure Strike – On a successful hit, reduces the active cooldown of “Battle-shout” by 2 seconds.
Level 68: Improved Grave Wound – When hitting a target affected by “Cutting Attack,” adds a second damage-over-time effect to the target.
Level 70: Song-brother
Inspire (Song-brother) – A melee attack which provides a power-over-time effect to your Song-brother.
Strength of Will (Song-brother) – A buff which reduces the Power Cost of your Song-brother’s Healing skills by 10%.
To Arms (Song-brother) – A buff which increases the Outgoing Healing of your Song-brother by 25% for 10 seconds.
Level 72: Improved Cutting Attack – Reduces the Movement Speed of your target by 25% for 20 seconds.
Level 74: Blade-brother
Inspire (Blade-brother) – A melee attack which provides a small heal-over-time effect and a small power-over-time effect to your Blade-brother.
Strength of Will (Blade-brother) – A buff which reduces the Attack Duration of your Blade-brother by 5%.
To Arms (Blade-brother) – A buff which increase the Outgoing Damage of your Blade-brother by 25% for 10 seconds.
Note: The Shield-brother version of “To Arms” now provides -15% Incoming Damage for 10 seconds.

Please remember that testing (both internal and external) continues and that any of the above bullet points are subject to change.[b]