LotRO Combo Blog

Survivable Minstrels in LOTRO

As I’ve been dusting off the cob-webs on my minstrel lately I’ve also been hearing (and reading) folks talk about how hard it is to solo as a minstrel, especially in skirmishes.  So I figured I’d write a bit about how I’ve built and set up my minstrel as well as how I play him.  My minstrel is probably my most rounded end-game character I have as I’ve done Helegrod, the Rift (including a few 1st time kills for groups), all the Moria 6-mans, the Watcher, DN (not the whole thing sadly), and it is also my highest ranked character in the Moors having reached rank 5.  I leveled up mostly in the days pre-warspeach and as such am pretty used to chaining ballads and working to maximize their utility.

One of the things about my minstrel is that I do PUG quite a bit and as such I have to be ready for and be able to take a few hits.  So I tend to built more towards a vit/morale heavy build and not the will/power build that pure healing minstrels tend to prefer.  I’m currently running with 4641 morale and 3679 power with an ICPR of 1000, but my un-buffed common mitigation is 28.4%.  Even when I’m raiding, having the extra morale is ALWAYS helpful as there are LOTS of high damage AOEs in the game that can potentially one-shot you if your morale is too low.  Even if you are not 1-shotted, you might be low enough that another hit would finish you off – or if nothing else distract you from healing someone more crucial, like the tank.  Now I certainly will re-trait depending on what I’m doing, but aside from instruments and legendary items, I rarely will swap out equipment.

Where Does Our Path Lead?

This afternoon I was sitting down watching The Two Towers Extended DVD, drinking a soda and munching on an Oreo and something hit me. It hit me with such force and interest that I stopped the movie and started to draw. I pulled up a map of Middle Earth and started to trace out the path where the fellowship moved. And there, in front of me was the blinding truth of our situation that until now was only a murmur in my mind.

Starting in low level areas we find ourselves following The Ringbearer complete his task of getting to Rivendell. Once we do this, we continue by following the fight through Moria and down into Lothlorien. But here things start to change…

At this point we see that the land opens up. We have more choices at this point in the game than we have ever had! The fellowship will soon come to a crossroads where we know a pivotal moment in the story of The Lord of the Rings tears the fellowship apart. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas will find themselves fighting on Amon Hen only to find Boromir dead in an attempt to save the Hobbit’s lives. This is where everything will change…

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Skirmish Rewards – Part 7: Bullroarer Rift Cosmetic Clothing

In this section, we take a look at the new Cosmetic Items for sale through the Cosmetic vendors that are located in the Bullroarer Skirmish camps.  In order to find them, set the “Filter by Profile” drop-down menu to read “Rift Cosmetic Clothing”.  These new items include a cloak, a top hat, a fisherman’s backpack and the Rift helms! All of these items are wearable by all classes (even the Rift Helms) but are not purchasable with the existing Campaign Marks.  It looks like with the new skirmish “Rift Rescue” we will also be obtaining a new Campaign, and along with it a new Campaign Mark, the Lefnuilan Campaign Mark.  This campaign currently only contains “Rift Rescue”, but I would assume that there will be future Skirmishes that will fall into this campaign released as Volume 3’s books are released.

Poll: Fellowship Support

Last week’s poll had some serious discussion in that it didn’t really include classes like loremasters who don’t fit in such clear roles. This week’s poll was suggested by Dreadhed to try to make up for this oversight.

This week’s poll is: Which fellowship support role is most difficult?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Various Volume 3 Bullroarer updates

So there’s been quite a lot of posting up on the forums regarding the new stuff coming in Volume 3 including stats and screen-shots.

I’ll start with crafting first, there’s a whole bunch of very interesting looking jewelry that’s out that transforms a lot of it to multi-output recipes.  This includes many of the Tier 6 recipes and you can find a composite snap with all the crit values here on the live boards. Also, these multi-output recipes do apply for reputation recipes, so I will be off crafting some large guild symbols to stock up

There’s also snap-shots of the new cooking recipes in the following post which also has in it the cookbook in Excel.  Of note, the fishing recipes are pretty cool as some are +vitality and +will.  Also, the Mirkwood reputation recipes start at +36 for the stats and critical results are +55, which will be very nice for will and fate!  I’m sure there will be updates to that spreadsheet once he adds the additional new stuff.

Tell the Community Team 2/5/10

“Tell the Community Team” is where Turbine asks for the players to give them direct and specific feedback about a specific topic. This is really a fantastic opportunity for you to give your thoughts and opinions about the game to the developers to think about.

These “Tell the Community Team” questions focus on the LOTRO Interface. They have three questions they are looking for you to give them feedback on:

1. What is your favorite way to receive loot?
2. If you could redesign the user interface, what would you change and why?
3. If you could have the developers focus on one feature (new or existing) what would it be?

Timeline for Episode 23

We had several people asking for transcript of our super long mega interview episode posted last Wednesday. Unfortunately a good (meaning usable) transcript wasn’t really an option although we did try!

Instead it was suggested to have a list of times in the podcast which I thought was something we could definitely accommodate. The times posted next to each topic is where you should go in the podcast to hear the information in that section.

I’ve tried to list all the questions we went through and where you can find that discussion. Look for the icon for information specific for Volume III, Book 1.

Volume 3: Allies of the King news

Ok, so I’m mainly gong to be posting the links here and adding my comments as I’m sure most of you have already seen some of this before.

The first post came from MadeOfLions and is a Dev. Diary talking about the behind the scenes mechanics of the Drama sequence system.  Pretty interesting as he walks through that they have to account for not only the options the characters can chose but also how they might have chosen up to this point.  He also talks in vague terms about Volume as a whole that  “will bring us to new lands, new threats, and new adventures “ and shows some of the epic book rewards.  I think the rewards are pretty nice as it gives characters without swift-travel options (i.e. non hunter/wardens) better ways to move around as they do tend to have many of these “travel the land” quests.  Further discussion on the Volume 3 quest rewards can be found on the live boards.

In addition, the preliminary patch notes on for Book 1 have been posted by Sapience as well as the announcement that Bullroarer is now live. For me there are some really nice additions:

Skirmish Rewards – Part 8: Hobbit-lad

This week we take a look at the Hobbit-lad Soldier cosmetic items.  I would like to thank both Arbitrary (Idris of the The Silent Minority kinship; Laurelin server in the EU) and  Westernesse (Lorebreaker of the Elite Squad kinship; Meneldor server in the US) for helping with the gathering of these photos.  It is very much appreciated!

Remember, that each cosmetic costs 1 specific Campaign Mark and 77 Skirmish Marks and can be purchased from a Cosmetics vendor at any of the Skirmish Camps.