Overview

Welcome to the Month of the Captain. Here's an overview and a few details of what's new for the #1 buff class -- our very own Swiss army knife of the battlefield.

Standards

Heralds?! Why Heralds? Well, to be perfectly honest, we like Heralds, and we know that a lot of you do as well. However, with that said, we also understand that some of you had envisioned the Captain as a non-pet class. So we've decided to give you a choice.

Beginning at level 20, Captains will now have access to Banner Standards. Basic Standards will be sold by your Trainer, and more advanced versions can be crafted by Tailors.

Equipping these Standards will give you a number of stat bonuses. Once they've been equipped, using them will allow you to place a Banner on the ground in front of you. This Banner will give the same type of buff that your Herald would normally provide to everyone in your fellowship, but there is one caveat.

If you have a Standard equipped, you won't be able to summon a Herald; equipping a Standard will dismiss your Herald if you already have one in tow. The choice is ultimately up to you and your preferred play style. You can be a Herald Captain, Standard Captain, or a mix of both.

Now that the mechanics are out of the way, here are some examples of the types of Standards you'll be able to find:

• Simple Standard of War
• +10% Damage Dealt
• +10% Maximum Morale
• Minimum Level 20
• Usage: You place a Banner of War on the field of battle.*
• Finely Woven Expert Standard of Victory (crafted)
• +10% Damage Dealt
• +10% Maximum Morale
• +5% Maximum Power
• Minimum Level 35
• Usage: You place a Banner of Victory on the field of battle.*
• Intricately Woven Grand Master Standard of Hope (crafted, crit success)
• +10% Damage Dealt
• +20% Maximum Morale
• Minimum Level 50
• Usage: You place a Banner of Hope on the field of battle.*

*Standards with higher level requirements apply higher level Banner Buffs, so it's generally a good idea to upgrade as higher level versions become available.

Herald Armaments

Book 10 also introduces some new types of Armaments. These function just as the old ones did - er, more like, just as the recently-fixed old ones do ;)

• Female Armaments
• Shield-maiden
• Swordswoman
• Maid-at-arms
• Other Armaments
• Rumor has it that there may be other Armaments to be found...

Shield-brother

The Shield-brother mechanic is intended to further reinforce your primary class role as a "Buffing God." Designating a fellowship member as your Shield-brother will allow you to both buff and heal that player without having to retarget them. You can only have one Shield-brother chosen at a time.

• Captains will get 3 skills that target their Shield-brothers for Book 10:
• Inspire - a melee attack that applies a HoT (Heal over Time) to your Shield-brother
• To Arms - a very powerful, but short duration, offensive buff to your Shield-brother
• Strength of Will - a buff that increases the amount of Morale your Shield-brother recovers from healing effects

Healing

One of our primary goals for Month of the Captain was to increase the over-all healing capabilities of the class. Here's a rundown of the healing abilities you'll have available, and how they'll function:

• Words of Courage (WoC) - This skill received some significant updates in Book 10.
• WoC is now insta-cast. This will help to keep you in the action even while you're trying to fill a healing role.
• WoC can now be cast on the run. Again, this will help to keep you mobile.
• WoC now has a 3 second cooldown.
• WoC now costs a moderate amount of Morale to cast.
• This can be offset through the use of other skills in your healing arsenal, such as Rallying Cry and Revealing Mark. Equipping a crafted Standard of Hope will also help to increase your Morale pool.
• That said, standing in the back ranks of your fellowship spamming WoC is still a viable strategy - its just going to soften you up a bit now.
• Inspire - (NEW) A melee attack applies a HoT directly to your Shield-brother.
• Rallying Cry - No change, but still useful. This will help you recover your Morale from WoC.
• Revealing Mark - No change, but still also useful. This will help you recover your Morale from WoC if you're active in melee.
• Strength of Will - (NEW) A buff that increases the amount of healing your Shield-brother receives. This will increase the effectiveness of all of healers in your group, including yourself.
  

Combat Revives

For Book 10 we've made a few changes to the Captain's combat revival abilities to both enable us to balance and expand on them in the long run, and to bring them more in line with Captain's response-driven play style.

• Cry of Vengeance - In addition to providing the buffs that it did previously, Cry of Vengeance will now revive 1 defeated fellowship member.
• Escape from Darkness - Functions just as it did previously.
• Defy Corruption (formerly "Escape from Corruption") - The "Escape from Corruption" Legendary Trait has been changed to "Defy Corruption". Defy Corruption does two things:
• Lowers the cooldown on Escape from Darkness by 10 minutes
• Allows you to revive an additional fellowship member with your Cry of Vengeance
  

Summoning Horns

We made some changes to the way Summoning Horns work to address the long-standing feedback that it was weird that they were consumed on use. Boromir's horn probably didn't break when he used it, and yours shouldn't either!

Here are the specifics:

• New "Finely Carved Rallying Horns" will be available from Captain Trainers
• These horns will not be consumed on use.
• These horns will consume 5 Traveling Rations from the person doing the traveling (not the Captain).
• For what it's worth 5 Traveling Rations (~10s) costs less than the horse ride from Bree to Trestlebridge (15s).
• All existing "Hewn Rallying Horns" will remain in game and will function as they have previously; they just won't be sold anymore.
• Both "Finely Carved Rallying Horns" and "Hewn Rallying Horns" will be usable at level 40 (it was 45 previously).
• Please note: All Racial Trait travel skills require Traveling Rations as well now, so the likelihood of a player having rations on them will go up significantly in Book 10.
  

New Skills

In addition to the skills mentioned above, Captains can also learn the following abilities in Book 10:

• Blade of Elendil - A melee attack that has an increased chance to critical and that inspires your fellows to invoke the Light of Elendil (a Light Damage Damage over Time). This skill can only be executed after you've used Devastating Blow or Pressing Attack.
• Grave Wound - A melee attack that generates additional threat. When dealt to a foe bleeding from your Cutting Attack, your overall threat is also raised.
• Kick - A weak melee attack that interrupts your opponent.
• Withdraw - Lowers your threat to the opponents around you, but reduces your damage output for a short period of time.
• Time of Need - You sacrifice some of your morale to gain the same effect as defeating an enemy and to put yourself in a Battle-readied State.

Tweaks and Changes

We also made a number of smaller changes to existing skills, traits, and more:

• The Fear Resistance buff that Muster Courage gives you has been reduced from 50% to 20%. All other functionality of the skill remains the same.
• Reduced the Power Regen buff of the Banner of Victory slightly. It's still good. In fact it's still really good - just not as good.
• We now have new art for the War, Hope, and Victory Banners, and your Heralds even know how to wield the right ones!
• All of the Herald skills have new icon art.
• The duration of Motivating Speech has been increased to 30 minutes. That brings it in line with your Tactic buffs.
• War-cry's animation is now shorter. You should now be able to loot monsters shortly after using the skill.
• In Defense of Middle-earth has not been changed. It remains awesome. :)

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