Clarysta Teaches the Facts of Life According to Captains

So if you're too school for cool 
And you're treated like a fool 
You could choose to let it go 
We can always, we can always party on our own... 

A post on the forums today: What does a captain actually do? What is expected of me? To which, in characteristically silly manner I responded:

Captains hit things with a big stick and yell a lot. We also get to wear big clunky metal armour and have a flag which can be carried by a dude or a chick or stuck in the ground in front of the tank's face, which by the way the tanks LOVE.

As a result of all this, things die a lot faster and the group the captain is in is a lot healthier, or if solo, we're still alive to talk about the 4-6 on level mobs or Rare Elite Master we just smashed.

And my personal fave - we wave our arms and yell, "You all are a bunch of dumb fraidy-cats!" and suddenly the group isn't feared any more. AND the captain gets healed by doing that! Win-win!

And if we wave our arms a certain way, our BO wafts over the group, raising their morale by huge amounts! must be some crazy deodarant we get to wear.

Oh we also get to do the WHOOSH thing and people are miraculously raised from the dead. And if we do that 19348 times, we get a trait that allows them to not be automatically dead again after we rez them.

Geez - I keep editing this as I think of all the fun things we do: how about the, "Stop dying, you fools!" button followed by, "Neener-neener," and "In yo' face!" (In harm's way/Last stand/Man heal combo  )

And shield brother makes champs LURV us. Plus putting SB on someone makes a Tornado of Light appear - very cool. Almost as cool as the spotlight shining from our banners into the heavens, like a light for God or a "Captain is HERE" announcement.

What captains don't do, is post in their bios about the big crit number they had, with or without IG, or the duels they won in pvp. Because captains like to play it cooler than that 

 

Then an actual smart person came in behind me and posted:

Had to LOL at Lurker's post...(note: I told you she is smart)

But that said, captains are freaking amazing and no one knows what they do but everyone is glad they are doing it...

If you decide to roll one, note that you won't feel like you are anything all THAT special until you get around at least mid 30's.... I know I did not much care for my captain until I finally got her up to around level 40... then I started grouping more and more and discovered how much I could contribute to the group's success... and now at 65 she feels a bit like a rockstar...

* I can put a mark on the mob, increasing damage to it by 10%
* I "motivate" my group, increasing their morale by 10%
* My "In Defense of Middle Earth" will increase your Might, Vitality, Will, Agility, and Fate by 50 for the next 6 mins 50secs

* My banner of hope will increase your morale by +1055 and give +2948 Melee Offence Rating
* My banner of War will add +3685 Melee Offence rating, +527 morale and +5% melee damage
* My banner of Victory will add +2948 Melee Offence rating, +376 power, +527 morale

* I can increase your in-combat power regeneration by 100.2
or
I can increase your Melee, Ranged, or Tactical critical rating by 780
or
I can add +923 to your parry rating

* My rallying cry is improved by another 15% to heal the group when we kill junk
* My rallying cry is available every 6 seconds too, so kill something quick!
* My "vocal skills" healing overall is improved another 15%

* Shield brother enjoys his/her incoming healing modifier improved by 20%
* I can add 25% more damage to my shield brother's attacks

* I can rez your sorry butt with 100% of your morale and 75% of your power
* I can remove 3 fear effects every 23 seconds and add +6500 fear resist for the next 30 seconds

* My outgoing healing is at 7338 (22.2%) , my melee damage is at 7788 (23.2%)

* My one AoE melee skill can put the hurt on 7 targets and has a +435 additional potential to crit, which means I can heal you some more!

* One of my melee attacks will raise the morale of my shield brother and put a HOT on him for 15 seconds
* One of my melee attacks will likewise heal my group for a bit over time
* I can focus a heal on a group/raid member applying a hefty heal and then a HOT

This is all from a nicely tweaked HoH spec... captains have two other trait paths to choose from as well that provide other fine benefits too.

Linwe's post gives a lot of detail, but here's some categories of skills I think most groups expect you to use:

Tactics Buffs - know which class prefers which buff or ask which they'd like. Then keep these up during the entire instance. They have 30 minute timers. Once you get legendaries, level up a buff stick and emblem so you have the very highest buffs possible.

Stat Buffs - keep IDoME and Motivating Speech up at all times. Much shorter durations on these, and can affect IDoME duration with a legendary, so just be watching the buff timers. Banners - most groups don't want you to use a herald. Keep your banner planted. 90% of the time, you'll use the Banner of Hope. You may get asked to use Victory instead. Rarely use Banner of War in groups. Some bosses can "kill" banners especially with AoE damage, so you have to make sure to replant when necessary.

Marks - Telling Mark, Revealing Mark and Noble Mark all have different uses, learn these. Two of the same marks will not stack, so if there is a second captain in the group/raid, negotiate who will throw telling, who will throw revealing. Generalization - telling mark is used when there is little potential for damage and you just want to blow through things, revealing mark provides an incoming heal so is used when more heals are needed.

Oathbreakers Shame - usually the group/raid leader will call for this when the time is right to maximize DPS. Giving a 10 second notice goes a long way for hunters/RKs to get up to their top DPS potential, then unleash the ghosts and watch the red numbers roll up the screen.

Heals - you may be main healer, or you may not. If you are, you still have to be up front in the action in order to heal properly, captains have some melee heal skills. If you're not the main healer, you may want to use War Cry or Shadow's Lament when you get a defeat response or a crit response. But you'll always be expected to keep an eye on group health - so there are more times when you'll hit Rallying Cry. Words of Courage is usually expected on anyone taking damage.

The Healing/Kiting manuever - see an awful lot more of this now. Captain's heals can generate a tremendous amount of aggro. A captain can run into a room and pull multiple mobs, hit Rallying Cry and keep throwing Words of Courage on the dps or heal classes, and kite the mobs all around while the rest of the group picks them off one by one.

Fear removal - biggie, and very noticeable if you're not doing this. Muster Courage removes fears. Use it.

Shield Brother - lots of debate about appropriate use of Shield Brother. I personally throw it on main DPS, definitely on a champ if there's one in the group. The +incoming heal boost can overcome the -incoming heal penalty of a champ in fervour, meaning they can go all out dps without giving the minstrel heart attack. You'll be expected to have a Shield Brother, and for raids, you may be expected to switch shield brother in order to maximize the buffs - put Strength of Will on the tank, then switch to a hunter/champ/RK for the +damage buff. There are legacies which make SB even more awesome.

In Harms' Way and Shield of the Dunedain - most of the time the group won't notice you've used these, except to say "Wow, can't believe we survived that!" Captains can do a lot of things while in combat.

Point is, noncaptains don't really understand the class and can't tell you what to do. You can switch up almost everything mid-fight - change banners, change buffs, rebuff, etc. If someone dies and gets rezzed, they have less than full power. Put the power regen buff on them and once they're back to full power, switch back to the crit or parry buff. If the minstrel called for a crit buff at the beginning of the fight but now is hurting for power - switch buffs and plant the power banner.

So raise your glass if you are wrong 
In all the right ways 
All my underdogs, we will never be, never be 
Anything but loud 
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks