Riders of Rohan Developer Diary: Captain
By Erika “DEViled_Egg” Ng
Hello! I’m DEViled_Egg, one of the newer systems designers on LotRO, and I’ll be discussing updates to the Captain for Riders of Rohan. One of the primary goals we had for this update was to make skills and legacies less build-specific and more useful to all types of Captains. In addition, the Captain is getting some nice quality of life improvements, including a spiffy new Out-of-Combat Revive.
Improved Skills
Level 77 – Improved Valiant Strike:
- 90s Cooldown, down from 120s.
- Low Magnitude Heal over Time (HoT).
- Hands of Healing Trait increases the HoT.
- Fellowship-wide effect range extended to 30m from 10m.
By giving the untraited skill its own HoT and a wider range, it should give Captains who didn’t spec healing some ability to help heal their fellows. Traiting Hands of Healing significantly improves the HoT, giving those who do spec healing more potency.
Level 80 – Improved War-cry:
- A +5% damage bonus (melee, ranged, and tactical) is being added to the existing attack speed buff.
According to our crack research team, more damage is better.
Level 83 – Inspiring Blade of Elendil:
- Damage over Time (DoT) increased.
- Chance of Power heal when Defensive Strike is used increased to 50% base, and 75% with Set Bonus.
- Caster will receive a “self-buff” which enhances the next use of one of the following three skills:
- +20% Words of Courage Morale heal.+20% Shadow’s Lament damage.
- Threatening Shout becomes an AoE with 3 max targets; if “Echoing Shout” Trait is also active, 6 max targets.
- The first use of these three skills will expend the self-buff.
This skill is getting a handy “self-buff”, which will make Blade of Elendil more useful for Captains regardless of how they’re specced. Want to do more damage? Enjoy a more powerful Shadow’s Lament! Are you a healing Captain? Words of Courage will offer more benefit for your fellows. If you’re a tanking Captain and love shouting loudly at things, Threatening Shout will pull more targets. Note: This buff will only enhance your next Words of Courage, Shadow’s Lament, or Threatening Shout. When you use one of these skills with the self-buff active, the buff will be spent. Choose wisely!
Quality of Life Improvements and Skill Modifications
New Skill: “Inspiriting Call”
- Out-of-Combat Revive, available at level 40.
The Captain was always good for an in-combat revive, but not an out-of-combat one. Well no longer!
- Motivating Speech will be usable whilst mounted.
- All pets will now match player level.
- Shield of the Dúnedain will now work on players outside of your Fellowship and made an Immediate skill.
Legacy Changes
New Minor Weapon Legacy: "Battle States and Defeat Response Duration." This legacy increases the duration of Battle States and Defeat Responses from 1s to a maximum of 5s, ranking up in .5s steps.
Strength of Will Legacy Modifications:
The Strength of Will Legacy is being modified to also affect Song-brothers and Blade-brothers.
- Song-brother: Reduce Power cost of Song-brother’s healing skills by 1-10%.
- Blade-brother: Reduce Blade-brother’s attack duration by 1-10%.
- Note: Maximum bonus is being reduced from 15% to 10%.
This is the part where I throw up the disclaimer that things may be subject to change as we get more feedback from internal and external testing. Thanks for reading!
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