Captain's guide to the Ettenmoors

Naturally I will leave out things that apply to every class, but focus on those that are specific to the captains.

Someone said somewhere on this forum that captain is not a busy class - I disagree completely, we're extremely busy if we do our job properly.

1) Protect the minstrels, and to some extent the raid leader and raid ra(s). Priority is on your own group naturally, but I personally have settings on the raid window set such that of other fellowships in the raid I only see the minstrels and the raid leader. Shield brother the minstrel in your group and use shield of the dunedain when needed - or in harms way and last stand depending on the situation.
"Fear the darkness" improves the healing output of 'words of courage' quite a lot so it's a good trait to pick. Words of courage is the most commonly used healing skill we have to try and save those minstrels (and when possible the other members of the fellowship/raid or the enemy's rat). When you attack the rat use "inspire" to heal the shield brothered minstrel if she's not in full health. If you have no minstrel in your group select the leader of the raid or a champion/guardian as your shield brother. In this case remember to use 'to arms' often when in combat to give that nice +25% damage bonus. Also use 'strength of will' if there's much need for healing your shield brother.

2) Have IDOME, motivating speech and one of the 3 tactics: 'relentless attack', 'focus' or 'on guard' always on every member of your fellowship. For this purpose try to stay in the middle of your fellowship, close to the leader and close to the minstrel.
Also buff the every other freep member closeby (I have altgr+P and altgr+O bound to cycle the closeby players). Most of the classes usually benefit most from the relentless attack -buff, but I usually buff minstrels and shield-using guardians with 'on guard'. I try to redo buffs when they're about 50% of their duration (2.5 mins for IDOME, 15 mins for the others).

3) Banners and IDOME have the effect of being quite unstealthy - the vertical pillar of light that emerges can be seen from a large distance revealing your position. When the raid is trying to be stealthy or flank the creeps do not place banners or buff Idome until the action starts. Also it's good to remember that your cries are also audible for the monster players in range.

4) Have different weapons in quickslots. I have several options, a shield and 2 spear options, some halberds and 2-handed swords for various situations. If I get attacked or need to be defensive I switch to the shield+spear setup, if I need icpr I use a sword with that, and if I want more powerful crits I use a halberd. I also have a few jewellery pieces and the helmet that I can alter in combat, for situations where more icpr or might is needed.

5) The dps of a captain is far from a hunter's but still can be quite high. Try to get your might close to 500 (with idome), as 15 might equals to roughly 1% more melee damage. Also aim for a high melee crit%, though improving agility for this purpose in my opinion is not as important as most of the other stats. Naturally you should stay on the rat, although sometimes you can help the minstrel by hitting the creeps that are pounding him (if there are only one or a few) often routing them away. Always have target forwarding on. I usually target the raid assist instead of his/her target and do dps that way. Also when a freep is valiantly retreating from being ganked by a raid I target a such creep and heal through it (as the person might be from a different raid and it's often harder to click him than the plentiful amount of creeps around him).

6) Have critted versions of the best banners you can have. Heralds you can pretty much forget in the Ettenmoors.
- Use war banner when the fellowship is not in need of either more icpr or morale buff, the critted banner increases your melee damage by 20% and also gives some +50 might and agility to the whole fellowship. Often many of fellowship members do not have max might or agility even with Idome.
- Use hope banner when there is no great need for greater power regen in your fellowship.
- Use victory banner when there IS great need for greater power regen in your fellowship.

7) Trait setup is largely a matter of taste, so I will only list what I personally have slotted at the moment:

Code:

Virtues: Valour (10), Justice (9), Discipline (9), Loyalty (8), Determination (8). - I sometimes switch determination for wisdom for more will.

Race: Man of the fourth age, strength of morale, virtuous man, man sword-damage bonus, balance of man. (This setup does miss out on the return to bree and the measly fellowship morale bonus)

Class: Defiance, renewed voice, expert attacks, turn of the tide, captains victory/hope. - On some occasions I change renewed voice and/or turn of the tide for fear no wrath and/or now for wrath.   

Legendary: In defence of middle earth, shield of the dunedain

Though I left many things out on purpose, I still may well have forgotten something relevant, so feel free to add anything that comes to mind.

Very good guide, Pandelume.

Captains are also useful against Warg-Packs. If you use "Time of need" and then "Routing Cry" when you are near the Minstrel, Wargs around him (and around you) will appear.

For my traits in the Ettenmoors: I just go for Will. I regard myself as 100% support-class for others, espacially the Minstrels, we dont have enough healing out there anyway. I seldom charge. I just use Noble Mark on RAT sometimes and stay with the Minstrel.

My will is about 100 points higher than an avarage Captain, vitality (and therefore Morale) is extremly low (therefore I never spar with creeps). Like this I can heal my raid in long battles and very seldom have power problems but probably die more often - who cares. Changing the jewellry and the virtue-traits is cheap and does not take much time, there is a bard in Glan Vraig.

I changed my legendary traits from defy corruption to Shield of the Dunadain after having a talk about it with a Minstrel, proofed to be a most useful add to last stand and in harms way.

Is it correct that in Harms way and last stand just keeps people in your group alive, not the whole raid?

Not much to add here, hope this will become a sticky thread soon.

update:
Use" Telling mark" on all RAT- targets to increase the damage your fellows deal to it.
And use "Noble Mark" on Wargs to keep them in combat.

Not many Captains do it (seldom see a marked enemy), so leaders have to tell them not to be too lazy here.

Wargs obtain a powerful skill that allows them to silence their target. This is lethal for minstrels as it stops their heals. If you see a red icon with a black silhoute of a person shouting on a minstrels display, use your fear cure skill.

some good points although i disagree with suggesting to raise might to 500. Diminishing returns apply to might at around 450 and the benefit to damage of raising it above 450 is negligible.

IMO a captain in the moors should be built for hybrid build so that they are versatile, there arent many minstrels so a captain can be a capable off healer and to do this effectively you also need to consider ICPR and fate.

pimping might will come at the expense of these, going for dps and you'll find yourself tearing through power and therefore useless when it runs out as LM will be too musy mezzing targets.

so dont forget TCC and TCM for healing purposes (all effected by fate)

also another good suggestion is marks, if there are more than 1 captain, co-ordinate marks, DOT's might not apply much additional damage but every little helps and the same goes for HOT marks.

if you want to be really co-ordinated then also look at which captain takes which on defeat response skills.

ryandor wrote:

some good points although i disagree with suggesting to raise might to 500. Diminishing returns apply to might at around 450 and the benefit to damage of raising it above 450 is negligible.

IMO a captain in the moors should be built for hybrid build so that they are versatile, there arent many minstrels so a captain can be a capable off healer and to do this effectively you also need to consider ICPR and fate.

pimping might will come at the expense of these, going for dps and you'll find yourself tearing through power and therefore useless when it runs out as LM will be too musy mezzing targets.

Actually I agree with you completely, I didn't mean that the might is the most important stat and that one should raise it over others. I think I said things about might mostly because many think that captain's cant have good dps, when actually they can be just after hunter and champion of the 7 current classes (close with burglars).

More important than getting 450 might is getting balanced stats, like everything above around 350. When healing tactical critical eq and fate is good as the crits increase the healing amount a lot. The lowest stat I've currently I think is Agility which is often considered an important stat for Captains, I don't quite agree and even would say that it's the least important stat.. It does increase the melee crit% but you need a lot of it to make a difference, so I'd rather focus on jewellery that give +% to crit.

About ICPR I've 2 "setups" which are also in quickslots, with the first I've around 800 icpr and the other (with victory banner) gives around 1100 icpr, I rarely ever run out of power anyway - though ofcourse that's partly due to HOW the power is spent. In situations that power efficiency becomes critical I do not use power for dps skills, at those times it is far more important to buff, mark and heal, ihw+ls and do other "support" skills.

About marks - I should have added something about those, and I always put a mark on a target that isn't dead in a few seconds.

It's a good point that the captain is not a class for a lazy player, we have plenty skills that benefit the whole fellowship/raid, but ofcourse they need to be USED to be beneficial, not buffing and not using marks is moronic behaviour from a captain (things can change rapidly in the ettens, always best be prepared and buffed up).

Of the 5 chars that I've at lvl 50 (captain, guardian, hunter, burglar and champion) I find captain the busiest.