Today, MMORPG.com's own Donna Desborough takes the time to talk a little bit about her favorite class in Lord of the Rings Online: The Captain.

Every MMO player has a favoured class for the games they play. In Lord of the Rings it is the Captain for me. A class that is the jack of all trades but the master of none. What the Captain is a master of though is being exactly what their name says. They are the leaders and encouragers. They are Captains.

The Captain class doesn't fit into any single category like most classes. They aren't the best at any one thing. Captains make a good addition to a party as they will round out the skills of the rest. They aren't big damage dealers, but they make for good back-up. They most definitely aren't the best healers, but they will be a good help to your minstrel and having someone else around who can resurrect in combat is a big bonus. The one skill they don't have is the Loremaster's magic. Instead, what they do have are essentially buffs.

Captains rally the team in fights or just before. The benefit of this rallying is the buff of stats. You can only cast one rally buff once on a person, so there isn't any stacking really, but you can choose to cast one on a couple of people and a different one on others. Some of these buffs will bolster stats such as critical hit percentage chance or even increase the amount of Power one regenerates in combat. Personally, I find myself casting Relentless Attack, which boosts the critical percentage chance of melee, tactical and ranged.

Read the whole thing here.

I just want to point out, that LOTRO dosent use "Health" or "HP", It uses "Morale".

So, this class is not really healing people, but rather enduring them to go on, or giving them a boost to fight defeat.

I just wanted to clairafy this, becouse its an importiant part to the "Dread" game mechanic thats unique to this game (Can be used as an extra level of diffacuilty insted of just lumping on more HP Etc.. to creatures).Chapmpions are realy, REALLY handy to have when facing pure evil (AKA: a lot of dread)

Nice quicklook at the Captain thanks.

I play a Captain as my second character and its definatly a very challenging class. I have found her flexibility more beneficial even when it means she is average across the board. Solo or group, she has an answer to just about any odd situation that may arise or for any quest trick needed.

For my own playstyle, I like to stand back from the main fight and apply my skills where it is mostly needed and the battle dictates my need. I get in trouble when I just dive in and start beating on things since its basically like throwing my flexibility card away when I immediatly perform as a tank or DPSer.

I also see my main role as the guardian of the Ministral which frees the Tank and Champs to do what they do best and manage the larger battle.

At times a group needs more healing, at times an offtank, at times more DPS, at times more CC and at times a get out of jail free card with rez and last stand. This is what the Captain exists for and is well designed to do it all.

Is that an ingame screenshot? 

I've never seen a human female look like that in the game.  It's one of my pet peeve's about the game actually.  Human females don't look so good to me, but the female in this screenshot looks great. 

Yea..thats what she looks like in game with the max graphics. It also helps that she is over a black background to augment her features and not contrast with environmental graphics.

BTW...Captains in LOTRO can only be the man race (ie. Woman or Man). So this is more a picture of the Woman Race than of a Captain specifically.

A good article but 2 bones of contention to pick.

First of all a Captain's morale and power are not average. Typically their power is below average because they don't have a strong will stat, but that is subject to how you build your character. Morale is certainly not average and Captain's are capable of getting the highest morale in the game. They receive numerous buffs like a 5% buff to the morale of the entire party early in the game.

Second I think you should have described standards a little more as they're very different from heralds. Heralds are NPC pets that follow you around and grant an AOE buff. Standards are not a static NPC as I got the impression from the article but actually a marked area on the ground where the aoe buff stays. Standards can not fight or be destroyed directly (defeating the Captain works however). You can place another standard while the first one is still down and the old standard is removed and only the new one removes in the same location.

Loremaster and Captain are the main Freep (Free Peoples as opposed to Monster Play) I play in LotRO.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

I just want to point out, that LOTRO dosent use "Health" or "HP", It uses "Morale".

So, this class is not really healing people, but rather enduring them to go on, or giving them a boost to fight defeat.

I just wanted to clairafy this, becouse its an importiant part to the "Dread" game mechanic thats unique to this game (Can be used as an extra level of diffacuilty insted of just lumping on more HP Etc.. to creatures).Chapmpions are realy, REALLY handy to have when facing pure evil (AKA: a lot of dread)

I do love this about LOTRO, although I don't play it, I'm tempted to try it one day just to see how Morale functions in the game.

Morale is just another name for Health or HP. While captains use things like standards and heralds, they're still using skills to "fill the green bar." Now, captains do a lot more than just move that green bar, but "encouraging" in this game is, in every way, just another word for the "healing" done in other games. The accommodation was made to stay more in line with the lore. Since there is no ability like resurrection commonly available in Middle Earth, a dead hobbit is a dead hobbit. By switching the language from "damage" and "death" to "discouragement" and "defeat," they managed to get around that obstacle.

For better or for worse, though, it does mean that your hardened band of battle-trained guardians and hunters won't usually be able to march off to major battles against the forces of evil unless they have someone along who can sing and play the banjo (see: Minstrel). I really enjoy the game, and I respect the decision Turbine made to go with the Morale system, but you don't know funny until you've been waiting around for a raid group to form because none of your champions know the lyrics to Purple Rain and none of your hunters can summon a cheerleader. ;)

Terranah,

You can choose a different area as your birth land and that opens up different skin tones and such.  It's a click down menu on the Char Creation page. All 5 of my girls are  from Gondor and are light green eyed and darker skinned and are just drop dead gorgeous!!

Originally posted by Jenuviel

Morale is just another name for Health or HP. While captains use things like standards and heralds, they're still using skills to "fill the green bar." Now, captains do a lot more than just move that green bar, but "encouraging" in this game is, in every way, just another word for the "healing" done in other games. The accommodation was made to stay more in line with the lore. Since there is no ability like resurrection commonly available in Middle Earth, a dead hobbit is a dead hobbit. By switching the language from "damage" and "death" to "discouragement" and "defeat," they managed to get around that obstacle.

For better or for worse, though, it does mean that your hardened band of battle-trained guardians and hunters won't usually be able to march off to major battles against the forces of evil unless they have someone along who can sing and play the banjo (see: Minstrel). I really enjoy the game, and I respect the decision Turbine made to go with the Morale system, but you don't know funny until you've been waiting around for a raid group to form because none of your champions know the lyrics to Purple Rain and none of your hunters can summon a cheerleader. ;)

The reason the distinction was pointed out earlier, as already stated, is because of the dread factor.  Dread is unique in that it allows the game to lower your max morale temporarily for being in a certain area or in the presence of a certain type of enemy (basically, fear lowers your effectiveness).  If it were literally health, there wouldn't be a sensible way to implement that mechanic.

Originally posted by silkakc

Terranah,

You can choose a different area as your birth land and that opens up different skin tones and such.  It's a click down menu on the Char Creation page. All 5 of my girls are  from Gondor and are light green eyed and darker skinned and are just drop dead gorgeous!!

 

I have a level 8 Lore-master now, shes called Valouhet, the Spider Foe! ( I died once so far, when spiders ambushed me when I was fighting an elite spider Iornath) and shes green/blue eyes and darker skinned....shes lovely :)

I might try a Captain..so far their skills, just as the Minstrel, seem a little confusing... Lore Master gives good debuffs too to enemies and can heal a little bit, but nothing amazing it seems...theres even a cooldown on the healing

Originally posted by patri0tz

 

Originally posted by Jenuviel

Morale is just another name for Health or HP. While captains use things like standards and heralds, they're still using skills to "fill the green bar." Now, captains do a lot more than just move that green bar, but "encouraging" in this game is, in every way, just another word for the "healing" done in other games. The accommodation was made to stay more in line with the lore. Since there is no ability like resurrection commonly available in Middle Earth, a dead hobbit is a dead hobbit. By switching the language from "damage" and "death" to "discouragement" and "defeat," they managed to get around that obstacle.

For better or for worse, though, it does mean that your hardened band of battle-trained guardians and hunters won't usually be able to march off to major battles against the forces of evil unless they have someone along who can sing and play the banjo (see: Minstrel). I really enjoy the game, and I respect the decision Turbine made to go with the Morale system, but you don't know funny until you've been waiting around for a raid group to form because none of your champions know the lyrics to Purple Rain and none of your hunters can summon a cheerleader. ;)

 

The reason the distinction was pointed out earlier, as already stated, is because of the dread factor.  Dread is unique in that it allows the game to lower your max morale temporarily for being in a certain area or in the presence of a certain type of enemy (basically, fear lowers your effectiveness).  If it were literally health, there wouldn't be a sensible way to implement that mechanic.

 

 

 

Yes, its not health. Dread can also make you cower, or run in fear, as well as many other things it does to you.

I dont quite agree with some of the info in the article. The only class in the game with better morale than the captain is the guardian. The captain is also the 2nd best tank in the game. And its more a lack of AE taunt rather than soaking damage that make the captain weaker.

The ability to constantly heal during combat, combined with massive buffing ability also makes the captain one of the best soloers in the game at high lvl. The captain has no problems killing even lvl elite mobs.

As to damage, the class is right in the middle of the scale. The champ and hunter do more damage. The minstrel and guard do less and the burglar and LM do about the same damage. If they captain equip a shield and 1h weapon their damage drop to guard/minstrel scale but since they can only equip small shields then the increased  defense does not equal the lost damage so its overall a bad option for the captain to do so.

The standards are AE buffs, but in addition they add a significant buff on the captain. For example my lvl 50 standard of war add +50 might and +50 agi on the whole group but it also add +20% on all damage and +10% morale on the captain. The extra damage and morale usually give a bonus that far exceed what the pet can do. The standard of victory add +366 power to the whole group and +1 in combat power regen but it also add +10% damage, +10% power and +10% morale on the captain.

There is also another buff, the captain can add +5% morale  to his group in addition  to the buffs described in the OPs article.

So for example if a hunter is grouped with a captain he can get +50 might, +50 agility, +3.5% crit chance., +5% morale plus the bonuses he can get from becomming the captains shield brother which is 25% dps boost (on a timer), and much more healing.

All in all the captain is a very powerful class, but not very flashy. My captain can survive things and defeat enemies that my hunter can only dream about, like soloing deep down into goblin town without worry or killing multiple lower lvl elite mobs.