Mickster's 2 cents concerning the Captain

I'll get mi coat.

Soloing the SoK feels pretty good, but some harder fellowing is where it's measured. It does ramp my ICPR to a whopping 1106 (with captain's victory traited and with the victory banner). That's kinda tempting.

Other thing I wondered is the mysterious melee efficiency rating. Changing from MAS Headman's Axe to SoK increases the rating from 246 to 248 (again with the victory thingies). Wonder if the rating takes into account the wield-ability of SoK? Traiting the 2% sword bonus didn't move the rating a bit. What the hell I'm supposed to conclude about all this?

I did a couple of fellowship quests with longer battles with the Sword of Keria. Every time I ended up with no power in the end. Maybe a part of is that I'm not used to a faster weapon. Anyways, I'm inclined to use the MAS Headman's Axe. Also did a small test with the armour rend. Targeted on level 48 Forochel Angmarims, doing auto attacks the result was:

207 attacks (parried, blocked, missed attacks included)
10 procked rends

The test is obviously not that conclusive, it's just to give a ball park idea of it's usefulness. Still have to figure out the actual effect. Additional bonus of going without the sword is getting one more race trait slot, going to virtuous man (+1 justice). Not much, but still.

Jerelien's melee efficiency is pretty similar. I'd always thought of this as a simplistic stat, derived from the DPS of the weapon plus might as these were the only things that seemed to affect it.

A while back when I got my MAS Greatsword though I noticed something odd. The only difference between that and the MAS Halberd is that the sword gives you +30 Might vs +30 Vit for the hally. In theory then ME should have gone up. Instead it went down from 247 to 246! Go figure. This also included +2% man sword bonus, although I'm pretty sure this isn't included.

The only thing I could think of then was that ME represents per blow damage in some way ie it strips out the swing speed. This then would mean that the lower damage of the sword was being taken into account. However SoK has an even faster speed/lower damage so I'd expect ME to be lower, not higher - are you sure you got these the right way round?

Thanks for the update on Axe vs SoK. You often see power regen on faster weapons and my suspicion was always that you needed the regen just to make the weapon usable. I quite fancy Hill Defender (2.8 speed, 3 icpr), if it comes up on Azgoth. The best 1H weapon I've seen for power-efficiency is either Precise AS axe (2.4 speed, 1.1 icpr) or Stone-Biter (2.3 speed, 1.5 icpr - rare drop from Helchie). Everything else with 1.5 icpr has a speed of 2 or less ie unusable.

The rend thing looks handy enough, even @ ~5% you'd probably get it to proc at least once in a long fight. If it wasn't for the cost/hassle I'd try one myself. I'll prob stick with sword though as I have a soft spot for them and like the 2% extra damage. For long fights and off tanking I've always got my trusty halberd! I went with 2H hammer for a while early in J's career and quite like them (both from a style perspective and the stun) but you don't seem to get many/any teal ones.

Jerelien wrote:

However SoK has an even faster speed/lower damage so I'd expect ME to be lower, not higher - are you sure you got these the right way round?

They're right alright. Seems pretty odd all together.

Jerelien wrote:

Thanks for the update on Axe vs SoK. You often see power regen on faster weapons and my suspicion was always that you needed the regen just to make the weapon usable. I quite fancy Hill Defender (2.8 speed, 3 icpr), if it comes up on Azgoth.

Hilly is quite nice. As I understand the drop rates have gone up with some patches, but still a drop during the couple of times downing Azgoth for the class quests is unlikely.

Jerelien wrote:

The rend thing looks handy enough, even @ ~5% you'd probably get it to proc at least once in a long fight. If it wasn't for the cost/hassle I'd try one myself. I'll prob stick with sword though as I have a soft spot for them and like the 2% extra damage. For long fights and off tanking I've always got my trusty halberd! I went with 2H hammer for a while early in J's career and quite like them (both from a style perspective and the stun) but you don't seem to get many/any teal ones.

5% doesn't sound that much, but if every other strike is auto attack, it's every 10th melee skill. Experimental study shows that soloing normal mobs the rend procs on every other mob. So fairly useful. Still don't know how much the armour is actually lowered and what the effect is.

I whipped out the MAS Halberd for the last runs in Forochel, and I gotta say I had forgot how the crits bump up the overall damage. It is probably the best overall weapon for a captain, plus the added morale is good for one's ego walking around in Bree. That's most important after all, right? Coming to a town remember also to equip Hope banner and stuff a sock ball in your pants and you're good to go.

Couple of other choises too.

One of my earrings is going to be Etched Beryl Earring, but what about the other? Another one or Earring of Command or something else? So it's melee crit and fate versus morale.


Also a choise (with fewer options) is cloaks. Which one? Morale and some power versus might.


Both of these choises come to what is the captain's role going to be. Natural instinct is to go for Earring of Command and Elrond's Radiant Cloak, but...



(STILL debating these things, even though MoM is coming when all of this is probably meaningless.)

I'm not an expert about captains but I'd choose 2 X Etched Beryl Earring and Elrond's Radiant Cloak.

I've started using MAS halberd more in small fs but this is more about power conservation than anything else as with Hope banner running I run out of power quicker with the great sword - also the extra morale fits nicely with my 'stay on your feet' mantra.

On the other choices I have a preference for 'active' stats that boost output ie Mi, Fa, Ag. Mi is good for any melee class but Ag and Fa are particularly important for captains imho (melee crit %age, tac crit %age, regen). Vi and Wi are primarily about boosting power and morale and as long as these are 'good enough' there are other options like food and potions to top these up in tough combats.

I do have some solo gear options I can equip which tend to boost Mi, Ag, Vi, m at the expense of Fa, Wi, p. I have found though that most solo content is pretty straight forward so speccing for solo is largely irrelevant unless you're trying to solo small fs content or elites.

Looking at Etched Beryl Earring vs Earring of Command the choice is between 135m (90m + 15Vi) vs 21Fa and 1% Melee Crit bonus. On the basis of 'better output' I'd go for Earring of Command. Captains tend to be quite morale heavy anyway and rarely have aggro. I've seen threads where people have posted screenshots of captains with morale of over 7k but this was more about bragging rights than anything else.

I still have a Brilliant AS earring (+29Fa, +15Ag, +15Vi, +15Wi) as well as the Earring of Command. I've considered upgrading to Etched Beryl Earring and the +90m/+90p boost would be nice but I wasn't wild about losing 21Fa & 15 Ag as I've worked hard to build Ag & Fa up. So far the benefits just seemed too marginal to justify the cost although having all teal kit would be nice!

On the cloaks the decision is 45m, 15Wi, 15Vi (Elrond's Radiant) vs 30 Mi (Fine Radiant). I'd go Fine Radiant for the Mi on this one on the 'active stat' basis. I'll prob go for Elrond's Exquisite Cloak (+2% evade, +30Mi, +15Ag, +15Vi, +22m) when I get to the end of Bk12 though. The Exquisite Radiant Cloak is very similar to Elrond's Radiant cloak whereas Elrond's Exquisite seems like an interesting one-off.

I very much agree. I have in the past considered these so called 'active' stats myself (without naming them). And I certainly wanna build a good base for every stat, but the more I play the more I'm certain that power and ICPR are the most important stats to go for, for all the chars I've played (capt, LM, mins).

Solo builds are somewhat useless. I mean if your fs gear radically different to what you would consider your best solo gear, and you happen to solo alot, then by all means store some solo stuff in the vault. But as you mentioned you can get around pretty much any solo content with fs gear. I have alternative weapons for Farde and Melvin, but that's it.

My morale is 'good enough', but I like to go for pretty much maximum power. This leaves me with lesser agility than I would like to, but that's the choise I have to make. At this point I feel like I have very few options here. Bracelets are locked because I 'need' to go for ICPR on those. Armours are all crafted and I'm happy with those. That just leaves me tinkering with the jewelry.

I have used the Fine Radiant Cloak more than Elrond's, but that's not a bad option either. It does bump my morale a bit, and my goal with the gear is to free me as much leeway as possible when it comes to skill use. So not only power (which I do consider to be the most important), but morale too. I feel that captains need to be able to spam those Words of Courage. And 'active' stats decrease in usefulness if you have to limit your play style conserving power.

So in my opinion there is a sensitive balance. I do regret not having the Agent Smith's Exquisite cloak just as an option. Well, live and learn.

Power is one of those stats that you don't notice until you don't have enough of it.

Per previous conversations Sword of Keria and Hill-Defender are good ICPR choices on 2H weapons. I have noticed though that situations where I want more power tend to mean longer or broken combats where I will also want to be more defensive and conserve morale. As a result I have picked 1H weapons and shields for their combination of ICPR and defensive properties. I find I'm using this combo more and more in the 50th level content for off-tanking duties etc.

- Precise AS Axe - +1.1 ICPR, 2.4 speed, +15 Mi, +1% parry
- Exquisite Elven Solider's Light Shield, +14 Will, +1% block, +1.4 ICPR, 180 AV

On bracelets I currently equip:

- Etched Beryl Bracelet - +1% block, +30 Ag, +15 Mi, +15Vi, +45m
- Brilliant AS Bracelet - +29Ag, +15Mi, +15Vi +15Wi

with the option to replace the latter with:

- Etched Adamant bracelet - +1% Block, +1.4 ICPR, +14 Fa when I have that shield up - 3.9 icpr, +1% parry and +3% block across the 4 items.

I haven't specced ICPR on my main bracelets so far as I haven't seen one that was worth the compromises yet. The Bk14 Ch4 bracelet looks great though - will probably go with Elechor (1.5 ICPR, +15Ag, +15Fa, +15Wi, +45p), rather than Belegechor (+1.5 ICPR, +15Ag, +15Mi, +15 Vi, +45p) for the extra Will & Fate.

Similarly Calenglad's shield (199AV, 1.5 ICPR, +15Fa, +15Wi, +15Vi, +8Ag) from Bk12 Ch3 looks like a very nice upgrade and Stone-Biter (27.5DPS, 1.5 ICPR, +15 Mi, +8Wi, +45p, 2.3 speed) is my dream 1H weapon but is a rare drop from Helchie.

Seems quiet on the forums, so thought I'd whip up some text here. For my own amusement if nothing else.

So here are my comments on the new captain skills post-50.

52 - Improved Blade of Elendil: Same as BoE expect it removes a corruption effect on target. The corruption removing can be pretty useful, as some mobs in Moria get insane Corruption bonuses. On the downside it takes the usual route of Battle Shout - Devastating Blow - Blade of Elendil to whip it up, but that's what we do anyways, eh.

54 - Improved Defensive Strike: Same as DS except it has a chance of restoring some power on a mob under the effect of Light of Elendil. It seems it can restore around 200 power. Not very useful for soloing, as all the battles are relatively short. On theory this should be massive for fellowing. I have actually yet to register how good this actually is (as kin fsq action has been quite thin + played alts)

56 - Call to Arms: Archer: Archer pet, has three skills. Sure Aim (damaging Attack), Barbed Arrows (snares movement by 10%), Evasion (increases evasion, Armor, and shadow defense). This is absolutely the best addition to captain skills, helps soloing immensely. Not only does the archer do much better damage than the regular heralds, but he actually does enough to keep the aggro of one mob even when the captain heals him. Which makes all the difference. With the proper use of the Evasion-skill and traiting he can for example tank a signature mob for you as you dispose of any adds. The legendary reward from the Guards of Moria is the Oathbound herald, which is sturdier than the normal version.

58 - Valiant Strike: A melee attack that instant heals nearby fellowship members and yourself. The healing right now seems like under 200 morale and the cooldown is 2 min. I can understand this not being overly strong healing skill, after all it's a group heal. Still I wished either bigger heal or shorter cooldown. Well, I'll take it anyways. Another melee skill is always welcome.

60 - Shadow's Lament: On-defeat high damage single target skill, and increases threat. This is clearly for the tanking captain. On groups I rarely get to use it as it's usually War Cry or Rallying Cry that's taking priority. Nice addition, as captains need all the aggro management tools they can get.


As far as commenting the captain's solo ability.. I feel at full 60 gear is really good. I can take 3 normal mobs of my own level without any problems. More than that is usually a tough situation, sometimes manageable, sometimes not. Haven't really taken on much elites, as they don't wander around Moria that much. The elite trolls at Foundations of Stone are madly tough, the corruption and disease effects are pretty evil. Even tag teaming those can cause major problems.