In this episode, Chris and I discuss the updates to the proposed Captain changes, some dragon lore posts by Berephon, this week’s skirmish sale and more!
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LOTRO Reporter Episode 93 – Presented by Chris and a large frog
Bill posted this on July 19th, 2011.
Categorized as captains, dragons, General, lotro reporter, lotteries, Rise Of Isengard, Show Notes, skirmish sale.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LordOfTheRingsOnlineReporter/~3/AHNwSA3Ynmk/
Captain Awesome! Or is that Awesome Captains?
arbitrary posted this on February 9th, 2010.
Categorized as book 1, captain skills, captains, lord of the rings online, lotro, oath of the rangers, shield-brother, volume 3.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/captain-awesome-or-is-that-awesome-captains/
Volume 3, Book 1 brings us captains some joy for a change. I was pleased, then dejected, and am now pleased again – pleased enough to blog about the changes as a lifelong lover of Captains (especially my own!).
So, what changes are we getting?
Captain skills requiring an OnDefeat event will now generate an OnDefeat event themselves if they kill a monster.
This is something Turbine have been working to give us for a while, I believe it’s how the mechanic was always meant to work. It seems all our waiting may have finally paid off and we can now chain an on-defeat event by killing something with another one. Won’t happen all that often, but I’m not looking this one in the mouth. A hearty hurrah!
Captain heralds will no longer gain 100% absorption from Shield of the Dúnedain.
Read the rest of this entry »Captains can heal?
arbitrary posted this on January 5th, 2010.
Categorized as captains, class forums, confidence, Dol Guldur, dungeons, faith in class, forums, healing, instances, lotro, main healing, Mirkwood, sammath gul, sword halls, turbine, warg pens.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/captains-can-heal/
I say this, tongue firmly in cheek, as an unapologetic healing Captain. Without bragging, I’d say we’re up there as primary healer if specced the right way and playing with a sympathetic group that understands how to make things easier for me (ie. assisting with the on-defeat heals, understanding I can barely heal myself and that healing them costs my morale).
I assume most Captains know they have this capability and those that don’t need to spec as main healers have a more hybrid approach to tackling back-up healing. Which is why it surprised me to read this thread over on the Turbine Captain forums. It starts with a simple enough question about the Dol Guldur cluster of instances – how does Captain healing fare in them?
It’s even a good question. Siege of Mirkwood brought some changes, new legacies, combat and power things to get used to. We know how we managed in the Mines of Moria and Shadows of Angmar content, with a new expansion, we want to know what’s changed with regard to healing.
Read the rest of this entry »Mirkwood, briefly
arbitrary posted this on November 18th, 2009.
Categorized as captains, expansions, lotro, Mirkwood.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/mirkwood-briefly/
I’m having to rely on the time I have to read people’s thoughts now the NDA is down, and I’m sure there’s a lot more useful info out there. But, early in the morning, here’s my initial thoughts:
- Yay, forgot my hunter alt is a whisker from 30. Can try some low-level skirmishes to see what it’s like.
- Will. Hrrm. Can’t remember what my Will is like. I may need to do some serious re-equipping. This kind of sucks.
- Dol Guldur armour is f-ugly (for capts, all I care about), but I like its name. The stats are apparently dps-oriented, and the 5-set bonus sounds rubbish. (all taken from captain threads on the Turbine forums, which aren’t behaving for me right now)
- But yay, my 2h sword can stay as a legitimate weapon equal to halberds now. It looks good. But will have to butter up unwize to make me a higher level one (maybe a swap for some burglar tools, eh?), also my friendly armourcrafter for a better emblem (at last).
- I actually joked about an improved Withdraw with a fellow captain, since it’s a skill I really never use. It was such a joke I didn’t blog it, and that’s what we have. Ho hum!
- Looking forward to the content though!
Cynical amusements
arbitrary posted this on November 13th, 2009.
Categorized as captains, expansions, level 62, lotro, Mirkwood, siege of mirkwood, skill upgrade, skills.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/cynical-amusements/
Ok, we’re getting a skill upgraded at 62 for the Mirkwood expansion. Be still my beating heart!
Instead of worrying about it, I’m going to assume it’ll be a pretty rubbish skill getting some kind of enhancement so discussed with a fellow cynical Captain last night. We decided to put our money on Inspire (and we’re hoping it isn’t Inspire! While I can see it one day becoming a very useful tool for the shield-brother toolset, there’s other things I’d like them to look at first).
Thought I’d commit it to the blog so we can all laugh about how wrong I was.
Read the rest of this entry »Don’t Fence Me In!
arbitrary posted this on September 6th, 2009.
Categorized as captains, Classes, games, learning other classes, lotro, MMOs, skills.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/dont-fence-me-in/
We’ve been having a lot of interesting discussions in-kin recently about various classes and their roles, which tends to be quite an eye-opener, especially if, like me, you’re a die-hard hybrid fan. So it’s made me think why I feel so uneasy when people tell me the Captain’s primary role is buffing – it’s the thing we do better than any other class.
And what have I come up with? Not all that much. Undoubtably the Captain in LotRO is the best group buffer in the game. We can raise individuals’ crit chance, their parry or their power regen. We have a group banner/herald buff that increase morale, power or agility/might depending on which we pick. And we can raise morale by 5% across the board, as well as give everyone in the group +50 to all stats. Don’t get me wrong, none of this is to be sniffed at, it makes a massive difference in group survivability. But buffing is such a passive role, compared to how I feel when playing my Captain.
Read the rest of this entry »Campaigns work
arbitrary posted this on June 29th, 2009.
Categorized as bio break, captains, dark delvings, gurvand, hard-mode, Instance, links, lotro, random, syp, sypster, twitter.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/campaigns-work/
First, go welcome @Sypster to the Twitter world. Mwahaha. I hoped he wouldn’t be able to resist. (That’s Syp from Bio Break, as if you didn’t know!)
Then hope we have the same success with our anti-Elf campaign (which isn’t so much a campaign as a hatred for elves!).
Um, second.. I will be blogging this week. But in the meantime go read unwize’s write-up of our success in Dark Delvings (if you play LotRO, don’t mind spoilers and are interested in Moria instances that got harder in Book 7). It was odd to spec a very hybrid Captain with actual proper DPS and to return to having a herald… but it worked remarkably well. More on respeccing sometime!
Why ask?
arbitrary posted this on June 18th, 2009.
Categorized as browing forums, captains, class forums, Classes, forums, lotro, skills, suggestions, turbine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/why-ask/
Ah, game forums… they can be fun to read, diverting, interesting, full of dev comments (if you happen to play the US game, or if they stop by to see the Euro players from time to time – depending on game). But they’re also a big timesink and can often leave you feeling a lot more depressed about the game or your class that you were when you stopped by.
I often pop in the Captain forums on the Turbine site (Euro ones aren’t quite so amusing, they’re full of quite useful info). The American forums have everything you might want, hints on gear, discussion of legendary item traits that are good or bad, traiting advice, and general discussion of the Captain class. They very very rarely get devs stopping in, like some of the other class forums. And from always being a bit buggy at launch, Captains are generally a quite amusing bunch, ready to laugh at the problems the class is having as another in the long list of bugs and issues we’ve had on our long journey to balance (which is where we are now, in my opinion).
Yesterday I was browsing a dangerous thread. The suggestions thread. All the things you’d like to see added to the captain class. Here’s a few of my favourite snippets:
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