Discounting my brief stint in LotRO's open beta years ago, the Captain is the first class in the game that I played, and the first class with which I reached any challenging content. On the surface, the class doesn't seem to have much going for it: as a Captain, you're not going to be dealing out nearly as much damage as a Hunter or a Rune-keeper; you're not going to be able to take hits like a Guardian, despite your heavy armor; and your self-healing is very limited. On top of that, you have no crowd control, debuffs, or area-of-effect abilities worth mentioning. Basically, soloing isn't your thing (you'll do all right, especially later on, but other classes will far surpass you in this area).
So what does the Captain have going for him? The game itself defines the Captain's role as "Buffer/Pets," which, when taken as a very broad overview, is true. Most of the Captain's buffs are applied to the entire fellowship, and the ones that aren't can be applied to each member individually. The pets themselves are sentient buffs -- the Captain summons a standard-bearing herald that gives everyone nearby a healthy boost to either offensive ability, maximum morale and in-combat morale regeneration, or maximum power and in-combat power regeneration. The heralds participate in melee combat, but their attacks are pathetically weak. They can take a surprising beating, though, so they're worth having out for solo use. Later on, most Captains will -- in group play, at least -- opt to replace their heralds with a plantable standard that gives the whole fellowship the same buffs as a herald while bestowing additional melee damage and morale to the Captain.
There's a lot that can be said regarding heralds versus standards, and, naturally, there are a lot of severely mentally crippled people on either side of the argument. Since the argument is about as boring as each side's proponents are retarded, I'll share my own views only very briefly. From my own experimentation, I've found that, during solo play, a herald is great for fighting multiple mobs at once. For group play, stick with a standard. You need to focus too much on the rest of your party to be worrying about one more body. If your herald dies in combat, his buffs are lost to the group until combat's over; a standard cannot die and can be replanted in-combat an indefinite number of times.
Despite the Captain's being a melee class, when I'm playing, I find myself on the outskirts of combat just as often as I find myself on the front lines. Selflessness is what separates the good Captains from the bad. And it's easy to be selfless -- you'll score some big hits swinging away with your two-handed weapon, and a lot of Captains fall into a pattern of spamming melee skills while becoming oblivious to the status of the group. A good Captain will break away from melee to pull mobs off of the healer, remove fear debuffs, and do some off-healing. In times of need, a Captain can quickly take a group from "oh, shit!" to "oh, hey, we're fine!" with an incredible duo of skills that allows him to direct half of the group's incoming damage to himself while he renders himself immune to death for (if traited properly) a full twenty-five seconds. This takes immense pressure off of the healer and allows the rest of the group to recover.
Extended group combat (let's say against a single boss mob) as a Captain is going to go something like this:
- Buff the fellowship and select a Shield-brother (a single group member to whom the Captain can bestow extra damage output and healing)
- Plant your standard
- Engage the mob, but attack lightly, allowing the tank time to establish aggro
- Focus on melee combat for a bit -- if you get the opportunity to use your fellowship attack speed buff, do so
- Check the status of your fellowship -- remove fear debuffs, and do a bit of healing, if needed
- Be the first to engage adds (if there is no Champion or Warden)
- If the healer or tank dies, resurrect him as quickly as possible and get him buffed back up
- Return to melee if things are going swimmingly
- Listen closely to voice chat for a violent outburst containing either the word "shit" or "fuck" -- it's probably time to start absorbing damage and using your death immunity
Obviously, you'll have to improvise some on this order, but the typical rule of thumb of combat is that things rarely get better over time -- "from bad to worse" will be your experience during most rough fights.
By now, the Captain's role should be pretty clear, and deciding whether or not to play a Captain is a simple process. If you answer "no" to either of the following two questions, don't bother playing a Captain:
- Do you prefer to play in a group?
- Do you enjoy constantly checking the status of your fellowship to know when to offer support?
If you answered "no" to either of those, you'd be better off with a more selfish class that's geared toward soloing -- a Hunter, Champion, Rune-keeper, or Warden would be perfect for you.
At the bottom of it all, the Captain, while boring to play solo and failing to truly excel in any area, is immensely important to the well-being of a group and is essential to almost any group build.
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