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Lord of the Rings Online: Class Overview - Captain
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.
Also there are the target marks that can be cast on individual enemy creatures. The target skills are used on the creature you're fighting. The most useful of these gives back health to the person dealing damage. So for every hit landed, a bit of health is restored. This is the one I use most often. There are others, such as Telling Mark which marks your target so that those hitting it do more damage. Different battles will call for different target marks, but most are generally useful in some way.
One field that has had a lot of talk since release is the Captain's healing abilities. In the beginning, they were terrible at it, but since release the developers have made a few changes. The healing of a Captain isn't anywhere near as good as a Minstrel (the game’s healing class), not by a long shot. That isn't to say it isn't lifesaving and a damn sight useful. Plus they can heal while in combat, which is essential at times. Mostly the Captain can heal a small amount on any person they target during combat. Once a creature is killed though, they can let out an encouraging cry that heals a moderate amount of damage initially plus a small amount over time for a short period.
Captains aren't strong. They have an average amount of morale and power. Since they aren't big on health they can be kind of hard to play solo. The thing that does make it possible to solo with a Captain is their trusty companion. Captains enjoy the ever loyal company of a herald. The herald is a lifesaver. For the obvious reasons, like additional damage, the herald is immeasurably useful. There is another more important use of the herald, a distraction. The loyalty of your herald is never-ending. I can't count the number of times I've run like a coward while my wonderful herald has stayed back to distract the big meanie while I ran to hide under a rock. All hail the herald.
;)
For players who would prefer not to have their own personal meat-shields, back in August, the developers held the “Month of the Captain”. During that month, they made a number of changes to the way that the Captain could be played. The biggest change involved giving the players an alternative to the herald in the form of a standard. A standard is a flag that is driven into the ground that will provide your Captain with bonuses. It’s a question of personal preference.
In battle a Captain can hold their own, but it's best if they aren't the primary focus of the enemy as their health pool isn't significant enough to be able to hold out for long. There are tricks a Captain has up their sleeve though. With one of the target skills, they could gain morale back from the target based on how much damage they do, which goes for the rest of the team as well, or they could buff their own armour stat so they can take more hits. A Captain isn't useless in a fight and they can be very helpful at times, such as their in combat resurrection skill, but if you're looking for class focused on fighting you may want to look elsewhere.
Like the fighter type classes, a Captain can learn to wear heavy armour. You aren't able to wear it immediately, you have to get to level 20 before this passive skill is allowed to you. Once you are able to wear heavy armour though, you become a bit more efficient in taking damage as a backup for your tank fighter or in solo fighting.
I would never presume to tell someone else how to play a class. Everyone will have a different style of play and will enjoy a class for different reasons. The Captain can be a challenge to play, both solo and teamed. As a roleplaying device the Captain class is good as a leader of a Fellowship or Kinship. If you enjoy playing a class that doesn't fit into a single category and is a bit of a challenge, then I'd certainly suggest giving the Captain a try. It certainly is my favoured class.
For detailed information on the specific statistics and abilities of the Captain, please visit the Captian entry in the official Lorebook, 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.
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!!
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.
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
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.