Traits - feedback needed

[JohnDoe1000]

General question is how do/would you class and virtue trait for the Erebor skraids?

Then, depending on your setup - what is the best weapons and what legacies can't you do without?

Reason I'm asking is that I have got on cap pretty fast and haven't finished off my yellow/blue traits so I don't think I should offer cappie healing services without finishing them

Love to see - traits, weapons and fittings - jewellery as well if you want the whole hog

Thx

[Almagnus1]

General question is how do/would you class and virtue trait for the Erebor skraids?

Then, depending on your setup - what is the best weapons and what legacies can't you do without?

Reason I'm asking is that I have got on cap pretty fast and haven't finished off my yellow/blue traits so I don't think I should offer cappie healing services without finishing them

Love to see - traits, weapons and fittings - jewellery as well if you want the whole hog

Thx

Actually, I don't slot the yellows unless I'm doing tanking, or the zero cooldown mark is a must have for the fight. That said Defiance (a class quest one), and Tactical Prowess are the two most commonly picked yellows. Others like Composure, I don't use it, but it's another trait to consider.

As far as blues go, as long as you have Relentless Optimism, Fear No Darkness, Now For Wrath, and Deeds Before Words - that's enough for most of what you'll need with raiding. Strength from Within is a strong HoH trait, but not necessary. One more is great if you want to do a HoH capstone build, but it's not absolutely necessary. Blood of Numenor is best ground out with a group of players that needs to work on their rez traits, and having a suicide party. You could also group in the 'Moors and rezzing people (it goes FAST with that).

As far as reds go, getting Expert Attacks, Adherent of Elendil, Battle-master, and Renewed Voice is all you really need. Turn of the Tide is nice for the stun, but the rest of the red traits suck pretty badly.

Hopefully that helps with the traits and what to focus on grinding.

Virtues:
As far as virtues go, I like a lot of Tactical Mitigation from them, but this is where you fill holes in your build. You can find out more info at http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Virtues. Clicking on a specific virtue will give you a list of deeds needed to rank it up. Or you can just dump money and buy the ranks you're missing (not recommended).

Armor:
If you can stand PvMPing, get two pieces of perserverance. If you can stand PvMPing after that, grab 4 pieces of Command to suppliment the Perservance. Also grab 4 pieces of Hytbold Healer armor, to suppliment the Perserverance gear. That's about the best you can do for raiding.

Jewelry:
Bells of Dale for the cloak and earrings, Get enough rep to get the might-crit proc ring, get the might/crit pocket from Sambrog. I think there's a might/vit/tactical mitigation necklace from Thadur as well, which is a solid slot for the necklace. The ToO DIY Might necklace is a useful one too. otherwise, get enough fate that you don't go OOP, but focus on might and crit without sacrificing your morale or mitigations too much. Don't worry about physical mitigation, it will (largely) take care of itself from armor and might.

Hopefully that gets you started.

[TinDragon]

Maley covered most of it, though I disagree with one part: the pocket from Sambrog is nice, but the one from Dungeons is a lot better. You're better off getting your 'Might proc' (which the Sambrog pocket has) from one of the bracelets that drops in Annuminas, either the teal or the captain gold. The Sambrog pocket is a good one though, definitely use that if you don't have the Dungeons pocket or if you don't have the Annuminas bracelets.

Bells of Dale cloak is great. Fornost gold cloak is better, if you can get your hands on it, which isn't likely.

Legacies: your emblem is going to be heal based no matter what role you create it for. The biggest changes are relics based on role.
For emblem, order of importance on majors is Rallying Cry Cooldown, Vocal Skills Healing, Melee Skills Healing (so have all three of those no matter what), Rallying Cry Healing (four majors), and Valiant Strike Healing (five majors). Shadow's Lament is a good minor to put on if you only end up with three or maybe four majors, since a lower cooldown will help you heal when red-line. Some people like Words of Courage pulses, I personally don't, since I use WoC mainly for an up-front heal. I also have the gold shield which adds pulses so the legacy isn't as important. Fill in minor legacy gaps with stat legacies: most minors aren't useful for healing. Might and Fate are both good choices. Strength of Will and the rez cooldown (can't believe I'm blanking on this) are both pretty much required as well, but SoW can go on a swap emblem and the rez CD should definitely be on a swap emblem.

For your weapon, Pressing Attack targets is a good one. Telling Mark damage is required, unless for some reason you're guaranteed to have another cappy who will always be going Telling Mark or something. (Don't count on that. Just use the legacy.) To Arms is required, but this can go on a swap LI instead of your main LI. Relentless Crit and On Guard parry are also required but must go on a swap. Pressing Attack crit and Devestating Blow crit are both great ones to use if your crit isn't capped. If you can only have one, pick Pressing Attack since you can use PA on a single target but DB doesn't exactly work well on multiple targets. (If you're confused on this I can go into greater detail.)

[Nascephor]

At level cap RAIDs you will be healing most of the time, so focus on blue traits. My last trait to complete was blood of numenor and it really helps in RAIDs that went south.

For items, please read http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...Jewellery-Gear, you will find complete stats and drop locations of any role a captain can perform. Hytbold healer set and 2 pieces of moors perseverance is what you will be using most of the time. Moors is a great place for achieving Blood of Numenor deed as well.

Some gear can be obtained cheap from the AH from Great barrow farms, a few are easily farmed from fast 3-man library runs. be prepared to spent some time in haudh valandil in annuminas for your bracelets. do some reasearch and include in your daily rohan duty some quests and warbands farms- there more than 80 rohan barter tokens dayly to farm, and you will want at least one golden rohan ring, the one with +critical.

[JohnDoe1000]

I want to thank those people for the great feedback and advice.

I hoped more would offer advice, but time is TP I suppose

[TinDragon]

Well, in the defense of those who haven't answered, this question does come up rather frequently and doesn't change too much from thread to thread. You can probably get a lot of other great responses by jumping back a page or two in this forum section and glancing through those threads. Nasc's thread, for example, has some good discussion a lot of jewelry, what may work better in some situations over others.

You'll notice that captains get very in-depth with our discussions, so chances are when people don't reply it's because they've already beat the topic into the ground in another post, as opposed to not having any opinions to offer.

[Jeremi]

I hoped more would offer advice, but time is TP I suppose

I'm a healing captain John, so take all my advice in that context. When doing instances and raids I find Valiant Strike to be our most powerful ability, so I would focus on gear/legacies/traits that aid you in making that ability as powerful as possible. It's really what makes HoH Captains shine in my opinion.

Other than that, I would just simply say get your Critical Rating high, be able to get your morale over 10k, and enough ICPR that you don't run out of power. Use your marks strategically, and don't be shy about using In Time of Need if you need a defeat response. Make sure you keep your HoTs up on the tank.

Far as gear goes, I would wear what ever you need most at the time. It's a constant balancing act - though the crafted gear is a great place to start in my opinion. Legacies: I would get Pressing Attack Max targets on your weapon for-most. For your emblem, melee skills healing, strength of will, rally cry cool down and vocal skills healing are ones I like. Valiant Strike and Rally Cry Healing are nice also, though they don't affect as broad a range of abilities as the other healing ones do.