Fellowship Buffs

[Bezmer]

So I tinkered a bit with the new captain yesterday, and have some questions.

I'm having a bit of a hard time conceptualizing which skills/buffs that work on "the fellowship" also proc on the Captain. The Tactics buffs, naturally proc on everyone, but how about various blue melee skills that "heal the fellowship"? As a general rule, I thought that stuff that is described to affect "the fellowship" doesn't proc on the Captain, but now I'm confused, so a rundown of what does what will be appreciated (also, there's so much healing taking place in the blue spec, that I can't properly tell what does what).

Sure Strike buffs only proc in Battle-Readied but not Battle-Hardened State, and state buffs are non-cumulative (i.e. when you go to readied to hardened, you lose he damage buffs). Is that how it works? Strikes me as mightily odd.

Also, Aura effects cannot be turned off in any form or shape, even though there is still technically a skill for them? Does that do anything other than occupy a slot in the quickbar?

[ertr]

So I tinkered a bit with the new captain yesterday, and have some questions.

I'm having a bit of a hard time conceptualizing which skills/buffs that work on "the fellowship" also proc on the Captain. The Tactics buffs, naturally proc on everyone, but how about various blue melee skills that "heal the fellowship"? As a general rule, I thought that stuff that is described to affect "the fellowship" doesn't proc on the Captain, but now I'm confused, so a rundown of what does what will be appreciated (also, there's so much healing taking place in the blue spec, that I can't properly tell what does what).

Sure Strike buffs only proc in Battle-Readied but not Battle-Hardened State, and state buffs are non-cumulative (i.e. when you go to readied to hardened, you lose he damage buffs). Is that how it works? Strikes me as mightily odd.

Also, Aura effects cannot be turned off in any form or shape, even though there is still technically a skill for them? Does that do anything other than occupy a slot in the quickbar?

I don't know the answers to all your questions, but I am fairly sure that stuff that affects "the fellowship" applies equally to all members of the fellowship - including the captain. I also believe this was the case both pre- and post-HD.

[furtim]

The Tactics buffs, naturally proc on everyone, but how about various blue melee skills that "heal the fellowship"?

AFAIK, the only skill with a fellowship heal that does not affect the Captain is Gallant Display. It's possible that Reform the Lines! also ignores the Captain, but I don't think that's the case. I'll check the next time I log in.

Sure Strike buffs only proc in Battle-Readied but not Battle-Hardened State, and state buffs are non-cumulative (i.e. when you go to readied to hardened, you lose he damage buffs). Is that how it works? Strikes me as mightily odd.

Think of the Battle States like temporary stances. The idea is that you manage them based on whether you need DPS or survivability, although both states offer a little of everything. The duration on the Tactics is long enough that you don't need to worry about losing it because you were holding on to one of the Battle States for its buff.

Personally, I think I may have suggested giving out different versions of the Tactics buffs based on whether you used Sure Strike during Battle-Readied or Battle-Hardened, but that was before RockX changed them up so that each Tactic offers a mix of offensive and defensive buffs.

Also, Aura effects cannot be turned off in any form or shape, even though there is still technically a skill for them? Does that do anything other than occupy a slot in the quickbar?

Up until very late in the beta, there were two mutually exclusive aura toggles: Motivating Speech (the one that went live) and Invigourating Speech. Invigourating Speech increased Max Power instead of Max Morale, and was deemed pretty much useless as a result. It was really only there so that two Captains could be in the same fellowship without "wasting" an aura, but it wasn't a particularly compelling solution to that problem in the end.

So, yeah, unless a future update adds back an alternative option, there's no point to having Motivating Speech on your hotbar.