A Leader of Men

Buffs, banners, heralds, off-tanking, DPS, and healing: the Captain class has many strong playstyle options and a broad range of abilities which allow him to be flexible when soloing and make him invaluable to fellowships.

For the Captain’s 50+ advancement, we’ve focused on 3 different aspects of the class: DPS & Off-tanking, Healing, and Utility & Pets. Because buffing is such a core component of the Captain class, it wasn’t limited to a single path but appears in different aspects of all 3 of the Captain’s Trait Sets.

Trait Sets

Lead the Charge

The Lead the Charge Trait Set focuses around dealing damage and strengthening the Captain’s abilities to generate threat while off-tanking. If you like to rock evil’s world with an enormous, Legendary, 2-handed halberd, this is the Trait Set for you!

Traits in the Set:

This Trait Set includes Captain’s Valour, Renewed Voice, and Expert Attacks. New entries such as Adherent of Elendil increase Blade of Elendil’s damage by 15%, giving you even more hurt to lead the charge with.

Trait Set Bonuses:

The bonuses from the Lead the Charge Trait Set reduce the amount of power your melee attacks cost and increase the amount of damage you deal in melee, enabling you to hit harder and better draw attention away from your softer allies (aka Rune-keepers).

Capstone Skill: Shadow’s Lament

This high-damage melee attack requires the Captain or his fellowship to have recently defeated an enemy. It draws a great deal of attention to the Captain in battle, giving you another tool to leverage for off-tanking.

Legendary Capstone Trait: Master of War

Equipping the Master of War Legendary Trait will greatly increase the amount of damage and threat dealt by Shadow’s Lament. In addition it will increase the amount of threat generated by Noble Mark over time*.

*In Moria, Noble Mark will also generate threat over time, in addition to the damage it currently does.

Hands of Healing

It has been said that the hands of a healer are the hands of a king.

(This is the point in the Dev Diary when Danger Dan goads Tens to make an Elvis reference. But Tens’ will is too strong for that sort of nonsense. . . . :P)

While the Captain is currently one of the strongest secondary healing classes in the games, the Hands of Healing Trait Set is intended to push a healing Captain towards a more primary role.

Traits in the Set:

This Trait Set includes Captain’s Hope and Fear No Darkness. New for Moria, the Strength from Within Trait will add a self heal to Muster Courage and, as a trade-off, will prevent you from summoning Heralds and Archers when it is equipped – but Standards are still available to you. You are the number one buffer, after all.

Strength from Within makes the Standard-wielding Captain sturdier, compensating for the additional healing you would otherwise have access to from your Herald with a new ability to heal yourself.

Trait Set Bonuses:

The bonuses for the Hands of Healing focus on reducing the power costs associated with your healing skills while increasing both your Vocal and Melee healing abilities.

Capstone Skill: Valiant Strike

Valiant Strike is a strong melee attack that instantly heals all of your fellowship members around you. I know . . . you’ve all been asking for this for a while. ;)

Legendary Capstone Trait: Hands of a Healer

The Hands of Healing Legendary Trait reduces the cooldown of Valiant Strike, grants it a potent heal over time effect, and increases the effectiveness of all of your healing abilities across the board.

The Leader of Men

The Leader of Men Trait Set focuses on the Captain’s ability to support both players and summoned allies. The Captain that is looking to increase the strength of his pets or emphasize the flexibility of his utility skills will find this Trait Set appealing.

Traits in the Set:

This Trait Set includes Captain’s Victory, Blood of Numenor, and Composure, a new trait that will enable Time of Need to reset the cooldowns of all of your Cry skills when used.

Trait Set Bonuses:

The Trait Set bonuses for The Leader of Men grant a variety of benefits. The lower and middle bonuses reduce the cooldowns of your Mark skills and lower the power costs of all of your Shield-brother related skills, respectively, while the tier four bonus gives your Kick skill a chance to initiate a Fellowship Maneuver when it lands.

Capstone Skill: Call to Arms: Archer

The skill Call to Arms: Archer gives Captains the ability to enlist the services of a ranged damage dealing ally instead of a traditional Herald. Archer allies deal significantly more damage than Heralds and from the safety of range. The trade-off you make is that Archer allies do not carry Banners, but still gain the benefits of equipped Armaments.

Legendary Capstone Trait: Master of Oaths

This Trait significantly increases the damage and survivability of all of your summoned allies and enables you to equip the Armaments of the Oath-bound. These Armaments, available from all Captain Trainers, enable you to summon a legendary ally with a distinctive appearance sworn by his oath to serve you in battle.

Improved Skills

All classes in Moria will receive upgrades to two of their existing skills. For the Captain these are Defensive Strike and Blade of Elendil.

Improved Defensive Strike will help to alleviate your power strain by giving you a chance to instantly restore some of your power whenever you attack an opponent under the effect of Light of Elendil. Improved Blade of Elendil will dispel monster Corruption buffs, which are buffs that monsters in Moria can apply to themselves that you will want to remove.

Legendary Items

In Moria, Captains will have access to main-hand Legendary Weapons and a new, exclusive item type called Emblems. Emblems are equipped in a new Class Item equipment slot. The bonuses on these Legendary Items will include, but are not limited to, skill power cost reductions, buff durations, and skill critical hit chance improvements.

Standards and Armaments will remain in the Ranged Slot allowing you to use them in addition to these new Emblems.

Conclusion

We often refer to Captains internally as the ‘x-factor’ because they are already incredibly versatile. Sometimes that makes it hard for us to respond to all of the feedback we receive from you, the players.

Trait Sets were an opportunity for us to improve many aspects of the class and, ultimately, give you the choice as to what build suits your personal play style.

Make the Captain that you’ve always wanted to play and lead your fellowship to victory!

Hail to the king, baby! ;)

Read the article at its original source here.