Captain guide into raiding

About a year ago, my kin was looking to get basic raid guides setup for each class. This was when the level cap was level 75. This is slightly dated but I think it still has some good info.

Captains can help fill in spots that the raid is missing, including tank/off-tank, DPS and heals. Since ROI release, we can really help out a lot more than we used to in these roles. I tend to trait down the HoH line for healing to help ease the pressures of our healers. (We can heal from any trait line.)

When everyone is in the instance, the raid leader(s) will want us to get everyone buffed up. So we give
one tactical buff to each person, Motivating Speech to the whole group (+% of morale) and select a person in our fellowship for our x-brother (can’t do it across fellowships.) Then enable IDOME (In defense of Middle Earth) if you have it traited. It’s a fellowship aura buff that, at level 75, it gives +75 to every stat as long as the fellowship is close to you (think it’s a 30m range.)

Buffs: If there are other captains in the raid, figure out who will do the Revealing Mark (+15% of damage return to attacker as a heal) and Telling Mark (+5% (+10% with legacy) more damage to target). There is the Noble Mark , but that is for aggroing a mob (needed if you need to pull a mob off someone like a healer.)

You’ll want to create a “buff stick.” That’s just a legendary weapon with both Tactics buffs and Motivating Speech buff. It doesn’t matter what type of weapon it is (1 hander, 2 hander, dagger, hammer, etc.), but it’s best if it’s a weapon you would never actually use for combat. That way you remember to switch back to your main weapon after buffing, and you’re not fighting with your buff stick (doing less damage.) I have a 1-hander hammer for my buff stick and a 2 handed halberd for my main weapon. The “age” of the weapon will help in the potency of the buff. A 2nd age level 75 weapon will have more powerful buffs than a 3rd age level 75 weapon. (Same goes with 1st age vs. 2nd age weapons.)

As far as what tactics buff to give everyone, I give the parry buff to the tanks and crit buff to everyone else. Then I ask everyone to let me know if they want a different buff. They’ll know what they prefer.

Banners/Herald(stats based off critted level 75 banner): Then you’ll want to choose which banner to use. If there’s another captain in your fellowship, you’ll want to use different banners. If there’s a captain in the other fellowship, you can use the same banner if you want. Use of a herald to carry around the banner is not generally recommended as the fellowship loses about 5% of the banner bonus. Plus the herald can be killed or worse yet- aggro the next mob/wave of mobs when everyone is not ready.

I use the Hope Banner w/Captain's Hope trait (843 Morale and 138 icmr) for most fights and Victory banner w/Captains Victory trait (514 power and 421.3 icpr) for the long fights. I’ve only used the War Banner (+75 might and +75 agility) in solo and 3-man instances. Just equipping the banner gives us (and not the fellowship) additional bonus. Hope Banner: 3388 Physical Mastery and 1405 Morale. Victory: 3388 Physical Mastery, 496 Power and 702 Morale.

x-Brother skills:
*Song-brother: Toggle on skill usually placed on a healer (minstrel or rune-keeper). Gives a bonus of
102 icpr and -5% threat on healing
-Inspire is an attack and gives the song-brother a power over time heal. With 1243 Might and some extra
tactical mastery (outgoing healing), I’m healing 89-128 Power every 3 seconds.
-Strength of Will is a 2 minute buff that reduces the person’s power cost on all heals by 10%
-To Arms is a 10 second buff that increases the person’s heals by 25%. Traiting Tactical Prowess and
having the “To Arms” LI can increase the time to 25 seconds.
*Shield-Brother: Toggle skill usually placed on the tank or one that’s taking most of the damage. Gives a
bonus to the person’s icmr and critical defense.
-Inspire is an attack and gives the shield-brother a heal over time. With 1243 Might and some extra tactical
mastery (outgoing healing), I’m healing 137-196 Morale every 3 seconds.
-Strength of Will is a 2 minute buff that gives +5% to incoming healing..
-To Arms is a 10 second buff that decreases all damage by 15%. Traiting Tactical Prowess and having the “To
Arms” LI can increase the time to 25 seconds.
*Blade-Brother: Toggle skill usually placed on a dps class. Gives 120 icpr and 150 crit rating.
-Inspire is an attack and gives the blade-brother a heal to power and morale over time. With 1243 Might and
some extra tactical mastery(outgoing healing), I’m healing 69-98 Morale and 45-64 Power every 3 seconds.
-Strength of Will is a 2 minute buff that reduces the players attack speed by 5% for 2 minutes.
-To Arms is a 10 second buff that provides +25% more damage. Traiting Tactical Prowess and having
the “To Arms” LI can increase the time to 25 seconds.

Class Traits
Healing traits:
• Fear No Darkness: Words of courage heals for 20% more
• Blood of Numenor: Escape from Darkness has additional -10m cooldown, -2s induction time, +50% Morale on revival and 50% Power on revival. Cry of Vengeance gives an additional +50% Morale on revival and 50% Power on revival.
• Captain’s Hope: provides additional morale and icmr to the Hope Banner. (Occasionally swap this out for Relentless Optimism: crit heals will heal for 50% more)
• Now for Wrath: Rally cry also heals power and power over time (I almost never untrait this)
• Deed Before Works: Inspire will restore 25% more morale
• Captain’s Victory: provides additional power and icpr to the Victory Banner. (I sometimes slot Defiance for the longer Last stand duration)
• Tactical Prowess: To Arms lasts 5seconds longer. (May swap this out for Defiance: Last stand lasts 10s longer and provides small heal at the end.)

Tanking traits:
• Alert Guard: Defensive Strike increases parry
• Echoing Shout: Threat shout affects up to 3 targets
• Improved Routing Cry: routing cry gains force attack for 10s
• Defiance: Last stand duration +10s plus heal
• Intimidation: Threatening Shout and Grave Wound have more aggro

DPS traits:
• Renewed Voice: -5s Battle Shout cooldown
• Turn of the Tide: +5% routing cry damage plus 3s stun on all targets
• Expert Attacks: Higher crit chance for Devastating Blow and Pressing Attack
• Battle-master: Pressing Attack and Devastating Blow does 10% more damage
• Adherent of Elendil: Blade of Elendil deals 15% more damage

Legendary traits: This will vary depending on what your role is and personal preference. (I currently use Fellow-brother, IDOME and Hands of Healing.)
• Fellowship-brother: all your brother skills are shared across the whole fellowship with lesser versions of the effects
• Oathbreaker’s Shame: (the 3 blue swirling ghosts around the mob) +35% more damage from anyone hitting the target for 10 seconds. Doesn’t matter what fellowship they’re in. It’s best to let the raid know when you’re going use this skill. That way the dps can start getting ramped up to do huge amounts of damage. (5 minute cooldown)
• Shield of the Dunedain: -75% Incoming Damage for 15s a fellowship member. 5 minute cooldown.
• In Defence of Middle-earth(IDOME): +75 to every stat
• Leader of Men: This will be for tanking. +50% threat from noble mark, can block with two handed weapons, Routing Cry doesn’t require a defeat. Adds full effect from Shield-brother skills to yourself
• Hands of Healing: +10% to all healing, Valiant Strike gains strong HoT, -30s Valiant Strike cooldown. Adds full effect from Song-brother skills to yourself.
• Master of War: +50% damage from Shadow’s Lament, Shadow’s Lament no longer requires a defeat event and hits will Battle-ready. Adds full effect from Blade-brother skills to yourself

Legacies

Main Emblem:
• Level 75 is best. A lvl 65 SA Tactical Heal rating is +18 maxed and a lvl 75 SA Tactical Heal rating is +22 at its base level.
• Rally Cry Cooldown is a must have LI. It’s -30s the cooldown when maxed out.
• Rally Cry Healing is important in HoH as it’s our big group heal
• Strength of Will is a good one. Maxed out, it gives an addition 15% incoming healing for your shield-brother.
• Valiant Strike Morale Return – Bigger heal and heal over time
• Muster Courage Cooldown – This puts Muster Courage at a -20cooldown and is really helpful when mobs are throwing out a lot of fear debuffs - especially silence debuffs. If the healers and tanks are silenced- no heals and no taunts available.
• Words of Courage Pulses – Heal over time lasts longer on the player. Can concentrate healing another player while this is still going

Buff Emblem:
• Captain’s Escape from Darkness- Maxed out, this shaves an addition 10 minutes off the cool down on our big rez. So when I need to rez, I swap out to this one, rez and swap back to my main emblem. I have the quick slot for the rez and the emblem right next to each other.
• Tactics: Focus’ icpr-

Main Weapon: choice of weapon is up to you. But keep in mind that captains get a passive trait of +2%
damage on halberds. Man Sword-damage bonus racial trait gives +2% to all swords. Halberd give a
bonus to threat and swords give bonus to hit chance.
• Telling Mark Damage – great one as it allows everyone to do 5% more damage (+10% total) to the marked target regardless of which part of the raid group they’re in.
• Pressing Attack Crit Rating – this is awesome as it increases your crit chance on the AOE attack. If you crit on either of the two swings on any of the targets you attack, you open up all of your defeat skills.
• Pressing Attack Max Targets – increases the number of mobs you attack - even greater chance to open defeat skills. This is very expensive to rank up so I usually leave at rank 1 or 2.
• Devastating Blow Crit Rating – same as Pressing Attack Crit Rating but on one target
• To Arms Duration – Bigger heals/hits/less incoming damage for longer time.

Buff Weapon: It’s a good idea to choose different type of weapon than your main weapon. That way you can see what weapon you’re using. My main weapon is a halberd and my buff weapon is a one handed hammer- kinda stands out.
• Tactics: Relentless Attack (1452 crit buff w/3rd age lvl 75)
• Tactics: On Guard (1617 Parry buff w/3rd age lvl 75)
• Motivating speech (extra 5% morale so a total of +10% of the personal morale.)

Virtues

I go for the captain’s main stat (Might) and mitigations. I sometimes swap some out depending on the raid. Some fights need more physical mitigation. Some need more tactical mitigation. It’s good to have them at rank 12+.
• Zeal: Morale/Armour/Physical Mitigation. I have this on all my high characters.
• Discipline: Might/Resistance/Physical Mitigation
• Innocence: Physical Mitigation/Resistance/Tactical Mitigation
• Charity: Resistance/Physical Mitigation/Out of combat power reign
• Fidelity: Tactical Mitigation/Vitality/Power

Gear/Stats:

For a captain, Might increases our Physical Mastery (melee attacks) and our Tactical Mastery (Routing cry, Battle-shout and Outgoing Healing).
• If you’re going to be healing or dps, go for gear and armour with might, vitality/morale and power. Add extra icpr if you know you’re going to be healing more- we can go through power fast if we don’t watch it.
• If you’re going to be tanking, go for gear with morale/vitality, mitigations, block/parry/evade.
• The Gallant Commander armour from the Galtrev npc is a good set to go for.
• The guild crafted jewelry and Faction barter jewelry have some really good stats.
I have an extra 3 pieces of jewelry that I keep with me in my bags. Normal set for dps and healing (Might and Power) and another set for hard hitting bosses/tanking (Vitality and Morale).

Relics:

These will really depend on what role you’re going to perform.
• DPS will require Physical Mastery, Might and crit.
• Healing will require Tactical Mastery, Might, Power and icpr.
• Tanking will require more Morale, mitigation and Incoming healing.

Extra notes:
• Revealing Mark gives 15% of the damage done back to the player in heals. Regardless of which part of the raid group they’re in.
• Be extremely thoughtful before using the Cry of Vengeance rez. You can’t select who you want to rez, you only have a few seconds to use it and it’ll rez the nearest defeated player to you (within 20m or so.) If you don’t have Blood of Numenor traited, the person that ends up being rezzed will have only about ¼ of their total morale. If they’re in a really bad spot where there’s big AOE damage going on, its instant death. They’ll be a bit annoyed and you just increased their repair cost. Regardless of who’s rezzed, everyone in the fellowship that’s within 10 meters gets a 20 second buff. +105 to Might/Agility/Vitality/Will/Fate, -25% attack speed and +2925 Armour Value. With any in-combat rez (whether by you or another player) throw them a few heals to get them back up and running.
• The healer’s first priority is to keep the tank alive and themselves while keeping their threat down. They will try to keep everyone else alive if they can. This is where we help out. Rally Cry and Valiant Strike heal the whole fellowship. Inspire heals our x-brother. Words of Courage is our single target heal - help for whoever is hurting the most. If a player is just hurting a bit, give them a heal so the main healers don’t have to worry about them. We may get healing aggro, but we’d rather get it with our heavy armour over the Minstrels and Runekeepers. If our fellowship is doing ok on health, take a peek at the other half of the raid. Do they need a few heals?
• If you know the fight is going to be long, don’t be afraid to use the Victory banner. As stated above, level 75 Victory banner and Captain’s Victory gives everyone 514 power and 421.3 icpr. Extra power and icpr is going to help everyone in the long run. There are a lot of classes that can help heal morale but only a few that can help heal power. If everyone’s power is getting way down, put song-brother on the healer and use inspire. If you have Fellowship-brother traited, this will give everyone a power over time. It does have the potential of restoring 2600 power per minute. Get everyone back up to full power and switch back to blade/shield brother.
• Here’s a powerful combo if the tank is hurting a lot. You’ll want to let your healer know ahead of time. When you have shield-brother on the tank, give them the Strength of Will buff. Then quickly put Song-brother on the healer and give them the To Arms buff. This gives the tank +5-20% (depending on Strength of Will LI equipped) incoming healing for 2 minutes and +25% outgoing healing from the healer for 10-25 seconds (depending on To Arms LI and Tactical Prowess traited.)
• After using Battle Shout, immediately use Improved Sure Strike. This shaves 2s off Battle shouts cooldown. Usually Improved Sure Strike will be off cooldown again so you can shave off another 2s of Battle Shout’s cooldown.
• In Harm’s Way skill lets us absorb 50% of the fellowship damage for a short time. If we have enough morale, we may not need to use Last Stand (undefeatable for 10s/15s if traited.)
• If you’re not getting any defeat responses, and you need to heal the group, don’t forget Time of Need. It’ll cost us about 1000 Morale, but the heal and HoT should restore most of that.
• Using a two-handed weapon may seem slow when you’re used to one handed weapons. But the extra time can be used to scan the battle field to see if you need to help somewhere. Did a mob aggro on the main healer, who now needs help getting rid of them? Do you need to pick up a mob and tank it while the dps group burns down a mob or two? Does the other half of the raid need a couple extra heals so their main healer can get caught up?

This is a basic approach to the many roles a captain can fulfill. Good luck on your journey!