Leader of Men and Lead the Charge Trait Sets

Ok, now for some changes that we think will be much more exciting. The first thing that has changed is the membership of the Trait Sets. The two Herald traits, “Loyalty” and “Precise Ally,” are being switched from “Leader of Men” to “Lead the Charge.” “Adherent of Elendil” and “Intimidation” are moved into “Leader of Men” from “Lead the Charge.” This change will make “Leader of Men” traits all deal with skills and bonuses to the role the Captain plays in a fellowship, while the “Lead the Charge” traits will now all deal with the Captain’s role doing damage and fighting solo. To further emphasize these changes the Trait Set bonuses, as well as the Legendary Trait capstone for both of these Trait Sets, have been updated.

Leader of Men

• Two Trait Bonus – Retains the removal of the cooldown for all Mark skills. The same as before.
• Three Trait Bonus – This becomes the 10% chance for “Kick” to initiate a Fellowship Maneuver. This is the same as the previous 4 trait set bonus.
• Four Trait Bonus – Makes “Grave Wound” a Force Taunt. This is the same as the previous Four Trait set bonus from “Lead the Charge.”

Legendary Capstone Trait – now called “Leader of Men.” This trait gives a +50% threat rating to “Noble Mark.” However, the main thing that this trait does is to give every member of the Captain’s fellowship a lesser version of their Shield Brother buffs. So “Inspire” will give every fellowship member a small heal over time and “To Arms” will give everyone a +10% damage increase for a short while. The other “Shield Brother” skills give a similar level of buffs to the fellowship.

Lead the Charge

• Two Trait Bonus - +15% Critical Magnitude. Same as before.
• Three Trait Bonus - +5% reduction in Melee skill power costs. Same as before.
• Four Trait Bonus - +5% increased chance to critical with a Melee skill. Note that is +5%, not an increase to the critical ratings so it will go over the cap.+

Legendary Capstone Trait – “Master of War” –A +50% damage bonus to “Shadow’s Lament” plus it no longer gives the increased threat that it had before. “Master of War” will also remove the need for a Defeat Event to use “Shadow’s Lament” at the cost of a somewhat increased cooldown. In addition, “Master of War” includes the Herald and Archer buffs previously bestowed by the “Master of Oaths” Legendary trait from the old “Leader of Men” trait set, including the ability to use the Oathbreaker Armament.

One piece of very strong beta feedback we received was that “Master of Oaths” was acquired through a very long, mostly solo, effort to build up Reputation with the Iron Garrison in Moria. The “Master of War” trait was acquired through completing the Volume 2 books in Moria, generally requiring a Fellowship. Players pointed out that doing solo content to get a fellowship oriented trait and fellowship content to get a solo oriented trait didn’t make much sense.

As a result the method of acquisition for the two legendary capstones has been switched. What this means is that a Captain with the old “Master of Oaths” trait will log in and see “Master of War” slotted and in his trait panel. A Captain with the old “Master of War” trait will log in and see the “Leader of Men” trait slotted and in his trait panel. You’ll have to re-trait to make sure you have the prerequisite traits slotted to enable the Legendary capstone, but other than that you’ll be good to go.

New Herald Skills

Our goal here was to give the Heralds an upgrade and to further differentiate the types of Heralds.

Herald of War

This Herald will now tend to use large auto attacks more. In addition their “Coordinated Attack” skill has been upgraded to “Coordinated Strike.” This skill does more damage than “Coordinated Attack” and even more damage when the Herald attacks from behind.

Herald of Hope

This Herald will now have an upgrade to the “Lend Will” skill. “Lend Courage” will restore much more Morale than “Lend Will”.

Herald of Victory

This Herald will now have an upgrade to the “Lend Will” skill. “Lend Resolve” will now restore the Captain’s Power in addition to their Morale.

Armaments

The last major update to Captain equipment is the conversion of Armament to give a +Armour Rating buff to all Heralds and Archers summoned while the Armament is equipped. This Armour Rating is used instead of the Defence bonus that Armaments were providing. The Armour Rating was chosen to give the Heralds the same overall defense they previously had, just in a more visible manner. The Armour Ratings given for each Armament is now displayed in the Armament description and is in addition to the inherent Armour Rating the Herald has naturally.

This will also allow us to add additional Tiers of Armaments to crafting. Given that Armour rating is relative to Monsters of the same level as the Armament, it would be a good idea to acquire a level -appropriate Armament at the first opportunity. You wouldn’t be caught dead in old level 25 armour, so don’t let your Herald suffer that fate!

Combined these make for some significant changes to the Captain class. We feel Captains are now in a better place and can’t wait to hear your feedback on these changes.