I’m promoting you to… Captain!

For no particular reason, other than I was just thinking about it while going about a series of Mirkwood tasks with my Captain, here are ten reasons I am a huge fan of this class:

1. If you know my tastes in MMO classes at all, you’ll be on board with the fact that I always pick hybrid classes 9 times out of 9, at least as a main.  I’d rather be doing a lot of everything rather than a few things spectacularly well, and the Captain exemplifies a hybrid’s nature — he’s a tank, a healer, a pet-handler, a plate-wearer, a buffer and even a DPSer depending on the situation.
2. And speaking of pets, although the heralds won’t have the Enemy quaking in his boots, it is cool to have them — and be able to swap between them.  With a herald, I never feel alone in my journey.
3. Did I mention my herald is a sword-and-bow-wielding ghost?  Forget little kitty-cats and teddy bears — I have freakin’ Casper on my side.  Wait, Casper doesn’t sound that terrifying.  Bruce Willis?  Yeah, that’s better.
4. I have high survivability.  Heavy armor plus (if needed) a shield is already a huge boon, but I can top that off with limited self-healing and 25 seconds of true invincibility if needed.  I like not feeling squishy, for once.
5. Captains are always welcome in groups, and nobody frets if there are more than one of them.  In fact, if we do have multiple Captains, then we can provide a much wider range of buffs and heals.
6. Through buffs, weapons and heralds/standards, I can shift my character from defensive to offensive, heal-happy to power-regen-happy.  In other words, I can adapt for different situations depending on what’s needed.
7. I love “on defeat” skills, because they’re always useful, and we get four of them (a heal, weapon speed buff, quick stun blast and a party rez).
8. Captains get the opportunity to be saviors of the group with the combination of invincibility + “I’ll take a chunk of your incoming damage onto myself” skill pairing.  It makes one feel like a hero.
9. I get a huge range of weapon choices — pretty much everything except for double-wielding and bows.  I have a nice sword-and-shield combo for tougher fights, and a big nasty two-hander sword for every day use.  However, spears and halbreds are great fun, and I kind of dig Captains who I see using axes.
10. I seriously feel tough.  I kick any mobs that start inducting spells, I can switch to healing without worrying about the enemy beating on me, and I’ve emerged from insane fights against multiple opponents without dying more times than I can recall.