Author: Elborigorn Please check with the author before making any major changes to the content.

Disclaimer: What follows here is mostly OPINION based on over 3.5 years of in game time playing my captains dating all the way back to beta 1 for Shadows of Angmar.

Concerning Heralds and Archers and Standards(oh my!)

First off, you’re going to want to use either one or the other at all times. As for which banner to fly, read further down for situational advice. Now, the question of Herald vs. Standard.

Herald Pros:

-Herald can off-tank
-Herald can stun
- All Heralds can offer you a small heal (with Hope Heralds able to offer a larger one)
-Herald moves with you, easily keeping the buff on your fellowship

Herald Cons:

-Herald can aggro unwanted mobs
-Herald can die (when he does die you can switch immediately to a standard to maintain group buff)
-Herald does not offer much in the way of DPS unless the class traits: Loyalty and Precise Ally are traited.

Archer Pros:

-Archer can tank a bit (this is especially facilitated by their evasion skill which gives them 100% evade for 15 secs, 50% for the first 15 secs after that and is on only a 1 min cooldown)
-Archer DPS does well to make up the difference in your own damage Vs. a standard.. if slotted down the Leader of Men line, I find that the archer MORE than compensates for the personal damage loss.
-It's ranged damage! (something captains really don't have naturally)

Archer Cons:

-Archers (especially when not slotted down the leader of men line) don't have very much morale and without some care will die pretty fast once evasion drops off
-Archers carry no group buff and prevent the use of standards and heralds. This fact makes archers a pet that is only ideal in solo or in very very special cases (perhaps more than 3 captains in a group or a situation where more range is needed)
-Like heralds and all pets, Archer may pull unwanted aggro. And given his range I do notreccomend using aggressive stance except with extreme caution.

Standard Pros:

-Larger group buff than herald (always true if your level equals the banner's level, which at end-game/level-capped play, it should)
-Static buffs to Captain’s morale (and power in the case of standard of victory) and melee offense rating. Morale and Power increases far superior to what a herald can offer.
-Standards can’t die*

• I have seen very rare cases where a standard can die. This is generally a bug, standards don't have morale and unlike RK stones don't do anything that warrants pulling aggro. If your standard dies, please /bug it

Standard Cons:

-Standards can’t off-tank
-Standards do despawn after some given amount of time. (I estimate 5 mins)
-Standards don’t move with you, so if your fellowship isn’t stationary it’s hard to keep the group buff on while moving.

My take on Standards vs. Heralds and a word on Archers at lvl 65 (having all three crit level 65 banners):

Standards are by and far the way to go in 95% of group situations. Large additional buffs to the captain for simply having the banner equipped and a solid buff to the fellowship make all the difference. However, when soloing a captain will find that the ability of a herald or archer to off tank a mob or two as well as the DPS they add when traited correctly is going to be more effective than the increased buffs to the captain. Especially if you shield brother your herald or archer and use inspire every now and then to help keep him alive longer to get the job done.

Standards vs. Heralds while leveling:

*** This secton is redone for the reason that I previously did not have the experience of leveling while standards were in the game. Since the last update I've levelled a second captain who is 61 at current***

In Solo: Herald or, later on, Archer is absolutely the way to go. The offtanking provided by the herald and the survivability of the pet added down the road by the inspire shield brother heal make for an invaluable leveling tool. The herald does take some time to get used to, learning how to control it and to use it with enough caution that you're not often pulling more than you want to. I cross checked them with standards while levelling up and the net gains from standards were so low that in the leveling process at least until on into the 50's the herald pets proved far superior. Use what you feel works best for you.. but definitely give the herald a good chance before you dismiss the idea, you shouldn't be disappointed in comparison.

In fellowship, use whatever is going to give the biggest group buffs at your level. As a captain you have to put aside your own stats for the overall good of the fellowship. Captains excel as a support class, so when in group it’s always best to think of the others before yourself… trust me, the lower stats on yourself is worth the extra everyone else gains.

Archer pet:

A lower morale pet that carries no buff for group. Does more damage than other pets and at range, has a nice evasion skill for survivability but will still die quite easy. Not a bad solo tool but is no good for groups in my opinion unless there's already 3 other captains providing every buff in the book, then it's decent in a group.

***New info/feedback based on a book 8 change***

In Volume book 8, the captain class trait "Loyalty" (acquired from level 15 class quest and not to be confused with the virtue of the same name) was updated to do more than simply increase your pets' survivability it now also increases your pet's damage [by how much for certain I haven't tried calculating]. This change grants a notable increase in pet damage.

The Captain’s Role in a Fellowship: Battle Manager

As a Captain it is very important that you “Manage” the battle, this does not necessarily mean you should be telling other people what to do. You may manage passively instead. As a captain you want to keep a close eye on all fellowship stats as well as mob stats… Always making sure that the main target is debuffed accordingly and that all fellowship members have a buff on them appropriate to their role or style of play. You also want to be watching the morale numbers in particular, if one member is in danger and it doesn’t look like the Minstrel is going to get to heal them in time, or if it is the minstrel, be sure to use Words of Courage on them to give them a little more time. If you’re a higher level captain and have “In Harm’s Way” be sure to use that when things get really ugly. As a captain, you have to be very focused on watching numbers and using the appropriate skills and abilities at just the right moment, as a Captain, your timing can make or break a fight for your fellowship. I cannot stress enough that in fellowship or Raid a Captain is at their best when supporting the other members, although, with the new trait lines and bonues Captains are a viable DPS and Tanking option in which case support can take a somewhat secondary role, but don't forget that you can still buff and heal while you DPS or tank. Just remember though that, in general, Captains are at their best when they SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPORT. Buffs are a constant no matter what other role you're playing at the time. A group that has a captain but does not have buffs is a group that's wasting space. Don't be a waste of space, buff your companions.

****Book 7 change to In harm's way made it only absorb half of the damage rather than all of it. Many captain's have lamented the change or at least did initially. I personally found this a most advantageous change... IHW can now be used without Last stand pretty reliably unless the captain using it was already low or damage incoming to group is ridiculously huge. Using IHW now makes the overall healing of the group very managable in almost any situation. IHW is now very good insurance against tanks being oneshotted if you know something big is coming. Love the change, experiment and try it out, I think you find the skill even more useful than it once was and now it's cooldown being shorter than that of last stand has some real use and meaning.****

Different ways to build your Captain

Since the coming of the Mines of Moria expansion all the classes have seen the addition of trait sets which further help optimize a character to fill certain roles.

For the Captain these trait sets are named: Leader of Men (group support and tanking), Hands of Healing (healing, obviously), and Lead the Charge (pets and DPS)

Thoughts on Leader of Men:

This trait set is excellent for grouping. The capstone legendary trait grants the bonuses from the shield brother skills : "Strength of will", "To Arms" and "Inspire" to the entire fellowship, at a lesser extent, while the shield brother still enjoys the full extent.

Here's what the "Lesser extent" Shield brother benefits are:

-Strength of Will: 4% incoming healing (unaffected by the legacy, save for on the shield brother)
-To Arms: 10% increased damage (IS affected by the duration legacy and trait, make sure you have these)
-Inspire: Roughly 1/3 of the heal that the shield brother receives is recieved by the rest of the group.

This traitline is my new "go to" for grouping and raiding. The group-wide shield brother effects provide a significant boos to overall group DPS while also providing great healing [i]support[/i]. Hands of healing is still also a great group option although Leader of Men is my new favorite.

It's also worth mentioning that this traitline carries the bonuses that allow kick to have a 10% chance to start a fellowship manuever (more commonly known as a "conjunction" or "CJ") as well as the grave wound force taunt that forces the target to attack you for 10 secs.

Thoughts on Hands of Healing:

This trait line gives substantial increases to a captains healing output and efficiency. The capstone legendary for this trait set grants even further increased healing across the board and turns one of our new skills, Valiant strike into a very powerful group-wide HoT which actually stacks with similar HoTs from other captains! The valiant strike heal over time is, depending on bonuses from legacies and set bonuses, between 115ish to 140ish morale every 3 secs for 27 secs.

This has always been a very solid trait line . The increases to healing are substantial and the HoT from valiant strike is wonderful especially if you've got several captains in healing hands putting that HoT up at the same time :). Another nice thing about this is that captains are still able to do respectable damage when traited in this way, also, valiant strike is a melee skill heal which means you're not stopping combat to heal with it, also it deals nice damage.

Thoughts on Lead the Charge:

This trait line includes substantial increases to damage both from self and from pets. The capstone legendary for this set adds 50% more damage to shadow's lament (a high damage, single target melee attack that also deals added threat, has the highest non crit damage of any captain attack) as well as boosts to pet offense and defence and the ability to use "armaments of the oathbound" (available at a captain trainer near you).

This trait line is another winner. Added damage to most of the hard hitting melee skills captains have, melee skill cost reduction, better pet damage and survivability... it's the ultimate grinding/ speed soloing build. Not to mentions the 5% critical chance bonus that lets captains cap out at 20% critical chance rather than 15%.

With the reduction to melee skill power cost captains needn't be as cautious about what melee skills they use in what order... however what follows is an efficient chain of skills when trying to burn the target down:

Defensive strike, Battle shout, DS, Pressing attack or Devestating blow (depending on single or multi target), DS, Blade of Elendil, DS, Sure Strike, DS, Cutting attack, DS, SS, BS, DS, DB/PA so on and so forth. If you have a shield brother marked who needs heals you may choose to throw inspire in place of DS here and there. Also if you open up a defeat response get a shadow's lament in if it's available.

Situational Buffing

Well, changes to the combat system and the existance of legacies that improve our tactics buffs have completely changed my view on how to buff who... the new view is as follows:

Guardians:

I can't believe I'm saying this (or is it that I can't believe I wasn't saying it sooner...): Crit unless requested otherwise 100% of the time. The guardian's threat line with capstone gives them the ability to place stacking threat over time buffs on mobs when certain skills CRIT. This makes crits very intrumental in guardians building some solid threat/aggro.

Parry ("on guard") is still a great option depending how the guardian is built or what they're comfortable with.

Minstrels/Loremasters/Runekeepers:

Focus. With the changes to how crits are figured it's no longer more efficient to pray on a very small chance that these caster classes will crit something. Also, the legacy that improves focus adds a significant amount of buff w/o even ranking it up, this increase to Focus makes it the clear winner in my book.

DPS RKs will take crit.

Hunters/Champions/Burglars:

Relentless attack 99% of the time. Hunters and Champs specialize in DPS and have little use for parry and power is hardly an issue for them. Burglars have skills that are gated by crits, the higher chance of them critting the better, also burglar power consumption is extremely low, they should be able to self sustain on pots alone. They won't need parry because they shouldn’t be taking a lot of hits and have plenty of avoidance skills of their own to use if needed.

Couple exceptions: you may find Champs tanking here and there, well not just may, you WILL find them doing this, if so, give them parry (just make sure they aren't fervour tanking first).

Occasionally, a hunter may find it more beneficial to have focus as their crit may already be maxed (dev crit can still increase but very slowly) and they may have power consumption issues (lots of DPS costs lots of power)

Wardens:

Ask the Warden what they want. Given the different stances and setups for the warden they may want/need a diff buff depending how they've built themselves and what stance they've chosen to run. Generally parry or focus will be favored.

Personally, on my warden, I'm always found screaming, " MORE POWER" so I'll always favor a focus buff.

On self:

It’s really your choice here. If tanking, I go with parry personally and in all other situations I use the crit buff both for heals and landing DB crits to open up kill response skills which can make a huge difference in a fight.

One more word about individualized buffing:

If someone insists on a certain buff, give it to them.

What banner to use and when:

Now that moria has been out awhile, characters have advanced pretty far and I've seen new patterns which have changed my views on banners...:

I now use the Victory banner about 95% of the time, Power has become a big thing across the board and morale is now hardly an issue. Power to heal, power to DPS, power to CC, everything in any fight depends on some amount of power, as the fight gets longer and longer or mroe grueling, the power gets low. having power to use the skills needed to get through is VITAL!.

Hope banner is great for situations when you know something might nearly one shot a tank. Hope banner gives a nice buffer to prevent that. Aside from times like that... hope banner is just unneccsary fluff that makes everyone feel good. 800+ extra morale makes people feel better about their toon but does little to actually aid the fight [the 120 or so icmr isnt a bad thing... but doesn't beat 399 icpr.]***A quick word in regards to SoM instances*** There are now situations, especially in the Barad Guldur raid where mobs are hitting for 3 and 4 thousand on some non-crit skills... Hope banner is nearly a must in these places, keep a weather eye out for it***

War banner is pretty much only for use when everything else is already in use.

Thoughts on Legendary Traits

I feel that if you have In Defense of Middle Earth, it should be considered for all builds... Unless, you're going to be doing a major instance with another captain (if raid, other capt must be same fellowship) who has it slotted, in which case it's silly for both of you to have it slotted and it would be more effective for one of you to use that for one of the other options.

Now... What Legendary do I use for my second and third slots?

The second slot is what I think of as the Trait line slot...

If you're in a trait line with 5 traits slotted it's generally best/most logical to also slot the corresponding legendary trait if you've earned it. if you're not traited out to use or don't have a capstone legendary then use the parameters for deciding you second slot the same way I've suggested for third slot below.

The third slot is what I think of as the situational slot...

If you're in a group that's solid and you know everyone is going to be staying alive pretty damn well, slot Oathbreaker's Shame as you shouldn't need the rez cooldown reduction of Proof Against Corruption and the buff on it is the same as and does not stack with IDOME. Nor should you need shield of the Dunedain to protect people with.

If you're in a group you're not really confident about or if you're the only rezzer, slot Proof Against Corruption to maximize the availability of your rez.

If you're in a group that needs to kill something as fast as possible... Oathbreaker's shame.

The only time I'd typically slot Shield of the Dunedain is when there is that 2 Captain's in the same fellow situation, in which case my two legendaries tend to be Oathbreaker's shame and Shield.

For mixed setups where you're not using a capstone legendary... Idome, Shield, Oathbreakers. Buff 'em, Save 'em, Kill 'em fast. It's a nice combo and very often nowadays in raids I find myself running a 3/2/2 trait setup and those three legendaries. The afforementioned setup follows below:

Balanced Group Build

9/26/2010: I considered removing this build since Leader of Men is now the quintessential group build. But after some thought I decided that this build is still great, just in different context.

This build is great if you either are already grouped with a captain using the leader of men capstone (bearing in mind that shield brother skills do not stack) or if you just don't have th "Leader of Men" trait yet.

3 Lead the charge:

Renewed Voice Expert Attacks Turn of the Tide

Renewed voice+ expert attacks give you the most chances at getting a defeat response up as is possible, as you all know defeat responses are what really make captains shine, having them available more is a hug boon the entire group. Turn of the Tide makes routing cry immensely useful, stuns are forever usefull everwhere mobs are not immune.

2 Hands of Healing:

Now for Wrath Fear no darkness

Get the most from your biggest two heals with these traits... power returned from rallying cry (coupled with a rallying cry Cooldown reducing legacy on you captain's emblem makes this trait dynamite.) Fear no darkness boosts your Single target 'spot' healing.

2 Leader of Men:

Tactical prowess Captain's victory

Increase your groups power regen with improved banner of victory and add damage but using your shield brother and to arms on a DPS class, Tactical prowess gives the buff another 5 secs, paired with a to arms legacy you can keep to arms up for a max of 26 secs of every minute... use liberally.

Trait line bonuses: 15% melee critical multplier (Damage for the win) -5% melee skill power cost (power saving for the win) +10% vocal skills healing (healing for the win) No cooldown on marks (no down time on marks means either more damage all the time or more healing all the time.... very much for the win.)

This build is a best of all words raid support build and if you use it all to the fullest extent you make a huge impact in the raid and are not being a burden (ie sucking power and using it for something that isn't worthwhile).

Solo Skirmish Build

Class Traits:

Loyalty

Precise Ally

Renewed Voice

Expert Attacks

Captain's Hope 

Now for Wrath

Turn of the Tide

Capstone: Master of War

Master of was is the obvious way to go on solo skirmishes... More DPS and an extra pet to help you offtank some of the masses of enemies you'll encounter in a skirmish is simply pure awesome.

Having use of two pets via the class skill to summon an archer or herald (particularly the hope variety because they have a ton of morale and make a great offtank) and the skirmish soldier makes dealing with multiple mobs very easy (challenge yourself and go a tier high than you normally do, this build made tier 3 assault type skirmishes a breeze for me once my soldier was ranked up a bit).

The DPS in this build is great. You get power back from rallying cry with now for wrath and you've got an oathbreaker to deal with tanking things you're not ready to deal with yet. Easy.

Some Useful Legacies and Why:

Melee Power Cost and Cry Power Cost: Using less power is ALWAYS Useful.

Telling Mark Damage: More Damage for the entire group, always useful.

All buff legacies including To arms and the newly added Motivation speech morale: Should be kept on an 'off weapon' or 'buffstick' with the possible exception of To arms which is far easier to use on your main weapon.

Max Pressing Attack targets: When is hitting more mobs at once a bad thing.... especially when the second swing critting on ANYTHING opens up a defeat response... Despite it's expensive cost this legacy is worth levelling to at least +3 targets, bringing PA's targets to 5 (max it'll go to 7). This increases the odds and ease of opening defeat responses.. amazingly useful, my favorite legacy at current.

Blade of Elendil Damage: Maxes at +25% plus the adherent of elendil trait can bring BoE to an astounding +40% of it's natural base damage, factor in it's elevated natural crit chance and that skill become dynamite with this legacy.

Kick cooldown: Not as great as some of the others listed here but more useful than some or most will give it credit for. A 30 sec interrupt is twice as good as 1 min interrupt. I've used this legacy to good effect, esepcially when traited in the leader of men line, with kick's 10% chance of causing a stun/fellowship manuever you can, on average, expect to start roughly 1 Conjunction every 5 minutes.

Anything that is +healing: More healing is good on all fronts and in any style of play. Vocal healing and healing from Rallying Cry are especially good. Strength of will healing is also very useful in groups to increase a single targets incoming healing by a max of 20%!

Rallying Cry Cooldown: This legacy is a must have on emblems. dropping your rallying cry cooldown to 15 secs from 45 is absolutely amazing and will enhance you both as a solo toon and especially as a group asset. Don't leave home without it.