There really isn’t much that changed for me with the Minstrel in these levels. My plan for leveling pretty much just stayed the same as always. But I really can’t say I had many complaints. I just take things easy and try not to pull more than two to three mobs at a time while making sure that I drop out of War-speech or even run away when things get out-of-hand. Even so, I also consider this class to be on the other spectrum of The Captain, and my experiences pretty much affirm when and where I am going to have difficulties on some of the classes that I consider to be more difficult to play.
However, I did find myself pleasantly surprised this time around upon finding that I had an easier time with some of the tougher Eregionmobs than some other people I noticed leveling up along with me at the same time. Don’t get me wrong though, there were still a number of Merric deaths, but as I got more attuned as to when I should drop War-speech things went much more smoothly. The ability to heal ones’ self and still do some decent DPS helps both in landscape and in Skirmishes really goes a long way to making the experience much better. Still I’m thinking that the Rise of Isengard revamps are going to make the experience all the better.
This poll was suggested on twitter by @RedKMP. Red wants to know how many alts do you have? I guess I would only count characters that you actually play. For example, I wouldn’t count my lore-master that I’m essentially using just for the extra vault space but I would count my captain even though her playtime is completely limited to crafting.
There is a limit of 17 characters per server but you could certainly play on multiple servers if you want so if you want to leave a comment and let us know how many exactly, feel free to do so!
Ah, the Hunter. It wasn’t with more than a little trepidation that I picked up this character and began leveling to 40 with this character after a long stint of going through Enedwaith and leveling reputation with my Guardian. However, after telling Goldenstar that she could go ahead and level her Rune-keeper and seeing her progress with it; I felt that it was time for me to go ahead and move forward with that character. And in the blink of an eye I was level 34.
To say that the Hunter was a breeze to level would be an understatement. The first time I ran Skirmishes with him I felt like I was cheating because it was so easy! Using a Warrior as my soldier (I wanted something out in front of me and decided to go double DPS) really allowed me to get through them with little to no problem.
I’m always blown away when I bring out the Rune-keeper, or any DPS for that matter really, with how easy it is to drop a mob. It’s astonishing to me how quickly things can die when you play a class that’s actually meant to do damage! Before I met my wife, I purely played DPS and utility classes; never a tank. When she met me though, I had discovered how much I loved tanking so she’s never really seen me in that role before, except for a brief time in WoW. And granted, I’m very much out-of-practice, but thankfully thanks to my weekly group I’m getting the hang of being more proactive than a reactive player; making DPS all the more familiar. But even if I didn’t have my group to help me along, nothing will encourage you to blow up mobs like playing a Rune-keeper.
Levels 30 – 40 give you some nice utility skills with Abrupt Words and Weapon of Storm. Using either one of them has its own drawback, but on the whole they round out a Rune-keepers abilities quite well. It’s not hard to see why the Rune-keeper class gives the Hunter class a run for its money when it comes to popularity. Nice healing abilities, great DPS capabilities, some nice utility skills and some amazing skill graphics make for a good player experience. And even though the new patch was a bit unsettling for some players, most have found that despite having to switch chisels or re-arrange their skill rotation they’re still doing really well.
It was when I was playing this character that Azz mentioned to me that he was afraid I was burning myself out by leveling alts. I personally didn’t see it, but now that I’ve spent the past several weeks on my Guardian again, I definitely can see it. Not that I don’t love the class; I do. It’s probably one of my favorites out of all of them. But as I’ve stated before I found leveling quite dreary. That aside, I did get the most done with this character because of his ability to breeze through most of the content.
Where the other characters took a lot of time working through things, this character had no problems. With this character I was able to complete all of the quests in Esteldín that were not group related. I was also able to breeze through quite a bit of the content with little issue. It was also playing this character that I learned that all the crafting professions are able to craft a reputation item for different factions located within the game. This is probably something that most players are aware of, but it was a bit of a revelation for myself. I still felt that grinding Skirmishes was more rewarding, but it was good to know that if I had spare resources around they could go towards another aspect of the game other than the Auction House.
By the time I got to the Champion I was just about fed-up with the questing process of 30-40; which was not a good thing considering that I had a few more characters to level. Previously I had gone from Garth Agarwen, to Oatbarten, to the Eastern part of The North Downs, and then to Evendim. But it felt slow; in fact it felt very slow. So to move things along I removed several steps including Garth Agarwen and Oatbarten. Instead I travelled straight to Esteldín and worked on the West side and then the East; moving onto Rivendell and then the Eastern side of the Trollshaws; augmenting them with Skirmishes when need be.
I also still found that the Champion is still quite gear dependent; more-so than any of the other classes. In fact, this character is one that I usually intentionally upgrade midway through the leveling process. Firstly, I will upgrade his weapons. This alone usually resolves 95% of the issues that he has surviving encounters. If this is not enough, I will go ahead and upgrade his armor as well. This goes a long ways into describing my playstyle with the Champion, which is to “burn them down” before I get defeated. Although I usually start distributing armor, weapons, class items and food to my alts when they reach 31, after reaching level 35 or 36 I headed over to a skirmish camp and purchased a couple of axes; and boy was I surprised. While it may not be news to some, but the art for the weapons you can purchase from skirmish vendors is pretty amazing! This resolved my issues and I went ahead and just replaced my armor as needed with quest rewards instead of going out of my way to obtain upgrades.
The levels from 31 – 40 were excruciating painful for me. There really are no other words for it. I desperately tried to find a means of steady advancement, but I have yet to find one that didn’t leave me desperately searching to find some amount of sustainable interest in these levels. In comparison to my 20 – 30 adventures, this leveling experience left me wanting more of what I had before in the Lone-lands; which were quests whose goals were in close proximity to one another, a streamlined progression of quest areas, and a faction system that was worth leveling.
In the end, I found myself trying several paths of progression that you’re more than welcome to follow or experiment with, but ultimately I think it’s a bit of trial and error and a bit of what you can tolerate. I’ve stated before that we need a revamp in this level range and I remain steadfast in that belief; especially now when it comes to Free-to-Play. The reason I state this is because I personally felt that there was no one clear choice for a single quest hub/zone to level from 30 – 40. Granted, you could start a zone early (like Evendim) and push through from 30 – 40 there; or you could go to the North Downs and form groups to finish as many of the quests as possible.
Lord of the Rings Online allows you to play nine classes. Each class has its own style, challenges, and role in a group. I will engage in my own altoholism project by playing several skirmishes with each of these classes.
There are two basic questions I will review for each class: what soldier to use and what basic strategy to use? As we will have a burglar round table this week, we will first look at the burglar.
Today, Bryandt discusses his experience of levels 20 – 30 playing as a Premium Player without spending any Turbine Points. In the video he discusses:
What social options have been open for his character.
What quests he’s been able to obtain.
Cosmetics
Gift Box Items
Fishing
He also gives out a nice thank you at the end of the video to us. Well, you’re very welcome Bryandt and thank you too for sharing these experiences with us and everyone else. I truly believe that the only way to know how something truly works is to actually do it. So thank you again for going through this experience and documenting it so that those of us thinking about playing as premium players know what we can expect! And for those of you still thinking about getting an account, there are still some good deals out there for the boxed versions:
One of the things about MMO’s that you can count on, is that after a year or two the initial boxed product that originally went on sale for $50+ dollars will eventually fall in price; LOTRO has been no exception. In fact, we’ve mentioned before that we have bought several boxed versions of Moria’s collector sets for $10.00 USD (which we later gave away in contests). It was a deal like this that caused a friend of mine, Bryandt, to eventually purchase one of these boxes in case he ever felt like opening a second account on which to create separate characters for all the classes (this was before the Adventurer’s Pack and Free-to-Play).
Well, now that Free-to-Play has released, Bryandt now finds that his account which previously lay dormant now provides him with ample opportunity in which to try an experiment involving the Premium Membership.
There really isn’t much that changed for me with the Minstrel in these levels. My plan for leveling pretty much just stayed the same as always. But I really can’t say I had many complaints. I just take things easy and try not to pull more than two to three mobs at a time while making sure that I drop out of War-speech or even run away when things get out-of-hand. Even so, I also consider this class to be on the other spectrum of The Captain, and my experiences pretty much affirm when and where I am going to have difficulties on some of the classes that I consider to be more difficult to play.
