Dungeon Guide – Helegrod: Giant Wing

posted this on September 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as dungeon, Dungeon Guides, giant wing, Guide, Guides, Helegrod, instances, raids.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/tnHYALBSCWE/

One of the things I really wanted to do here at CSTM was to help provide end-game guidance and more specifically, guides. I’d been holding out on doing any until the changes to instances that came in the free to play patch hit. So without further ado I give you my first of hopefully many guides here at CSTM: Helegrod: Giant Wing.

Helegrod: GIant Wing is a 12-man scalable instance. See our Instance Join Reference Sheet for other information on joining this raid such as quest pack to purchase for free/premium access.

A Few Recommendations

Read the rest of this entry »

Ask Elb: Which Radiance Set is Best for Me?

posted this on August 24th, 2010.
Categorized as Annuminas, Ask Elb, Barad Guldur, Dol Guldur, gear, Helegrod, radiance.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/9BQH-h2_7nE/

Merric asks:

With the new upcoming additional radiance gear coming out which set would you recommend the hardcore player focus on?  What about the casual player?

Nice question!

First, let’s address what it is that radiance does for us and how important the radiance number itself is in determining which set is going to best fit which style of player will likely aim for which set. Then we’ll look at other aspects such as Non-radiance stats/bonuses and Attainability to figure out our final answer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Downing Thorog

posted this on June 3rd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, gambits, group, Helegrod, lotro, Raid, Raids and End-game, screenshots, video, Warden.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/downing-thorog/

Ok, so this isn’t a huge accomplishment with level 65 toons as it is a level 50 raid but it was still very fun :)   We ended up having 15 people with some crazy DPS as we had LOTS of runekeepers.  Despite the fact that we were very over-leveled, people (including me) did die so it certainly can be a tricky fight.  For me the main issue was the hope wipe (got hit at least twice) but I think there were also some eye-ball issues as well.  I’ve done this on my other toons on level so it was nice to get in there on my Warden.  So now all that’s left for her is a Balrog kill, well that and actually winning the roll on the lawn decoration.

To explain these mechanics basically from time to time Thorog will wipe hope (which isn’t boosted by Radiance) which puts you at a serious morale deficit.  There’s no defense for this, just have someone in your group pop hope and depending on how long you’re in there you may need to cycle the groups to deal with the cool-downs.  But since we were fighting Thorog for a grand total of 186 seconds (yes, 3 minutes and 6 seconds) it wasn’t a big deal.

Read the rest of this entry »

QUANTIFYING PUGS

posted this on March 14th, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, Helegrod, PUGs, raiding.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/03/quantifying-pugs.html

A PUG, or Pick-Up Group, is what you join if you are looking for company on a quest, instance or raid; in other words, a casual assemblage of players of varying degrees of skill and experience for the completion of a specific goal. A group of people who regularly quest together, even if they belong to different kinships, is therefore by definition not a PUG.

Obviously, you’re taking pot-luck in joining or starting a PUG; there are some seriously bad and/or annoying players out there, and you won’t usually know ahead of time. Prior familiarity aside, the only clues to ability will be a player’s kinship (assuming some knowledge of the relative standing of kinships) and a gear inspection (I would turn down anyone anonymous without a second’s thought). This last will at least tell you whether the player has the necessary basic equipment, and will give some idea of previous experience (they’re unlikely to be completely hopeless if they have, say, the DN +20 radiance leggings which drop from the Blind One).

Even if you end up with a competent group, it still won't be as effective as a well-honed kinship group, if only for the reason that members of a random PUG don’t share the crucial experience of having fought together and of knowing each other’s tricks and mannerisms. Inevitably, therefore, PUGs have a mixed reputation at best, and everybody has horror stories of PUGs they’ve joined in which healers thought they were tanks, hunters pulled everything in sight and leaders ran off with the loot…

Read the rest of this entry »

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

posted this on February 19th, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, Dûrchest, Helegrod, Medallions, radiance, raiding, The Gauntlet.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/02/running-gauntlet.html

Siege of Mirkwood has been out for some time now, but with the exception of a few hardcore raiding kinships in Europe and the States, the culminating 12-man Barad Guldur raid that came with it has yet to be cracked by most kins - or even seriously dented. Hard numbers are of course always impossible to come by, but I haven't just plucked this suggestion out of thin air. It's based on a number of facts: on first-hand knowledge about the how things stand with various kins on my server, on the frequency (or paucity) of mentions on GLFF, on the almost complete absence of extensive debate about the tactics of taking down anything but the first boss on any of the forums, on the fact that except for the odd member of the aforementioned handful of hardcore kins, you almost never catch sight of +30 armour, and of course on input from quite a large cross-section of active and competent players.

Of course, Barad Guldur is a tough and unforgiving raid, and that's pretty much as it should be. Nor is radiance that much of a problem these days; if you really want to raid, you can get +120 radiance from the three +15 and three +25 armour items, all of them available in exchange for medallions. All six items cost 120 Mirkwood medallions in total, which can be assembled in about a week or less - not too massive a grind. No, the main problem with BG appears to be the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet (as it's come to be known) is a running fight with Uruks, wargs and goblins all the way up the stairway which leads from the entrance of the tower to the room of Dûrchest, the first boss. It's a tricky fight, because adds are constantly arriving as you leapfrog your way up from one landing to another, and if you take too long, you get swamped by reinforcements. Personally, I think it's a brilliant test of raiders' ability to think on their feet, and I'm all for it, except that it's in the wrong place. In other words, it's a long fight, as hard to master as any boss fight and tougher than most - and it's still only a prequel.

Read the rest of this entry »

THE RAIDS IN LOTRO

posted this on April 28th, 2009.
Categorized as Barad Gularan, Bogbereth, design, Ferndur, Filikul, Gaergoth the Unbound, Helegrod, instances, Nornúan, raiding, Rift, Thaurlach, Thorog, Udúnion, Vile Maw.

Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2009/04/raids-in-lotro.html


Though raids do not play as massive a role in LOTRO as they do in some other online games, they are nevertheless very much the core element of most players' gaming experience; two years on, it seems a good idea to take a look at how LOTRO's raids have stacked up. First of all, what exactly is the definition of a raid? A raid is an example of an instance - namely, a copy of a building, a dungeon, or other location activated by passing through a portal, which allows an individual or group to take part in a private adventure, segregated from the main game and undisturbed by other players. A combat-based instance designed to be experienced by between one and four fellowships is called a raid.

So far, and ignoring the PvP raids in the Ettenmoors, LOTRO has included five proper raids; a sixth, Filikul, was to have been packaged with Vol.II/Book 7 but proved buggy when released in the States. The first to be released, Helegrod in the Misty Mountains, was a 24-man raid (four full fellowships). A vast, sprawling affair, it included nine bosses culminating in the undead dragon Thorog. Players could choose in what order to attempt some of the encounters, and even experienced groups needed at least two evenings to complete the raid. While the raid was visually impressive and offered a good variety of combat experience, it was never as popular as it deserved because of the extreme difficulty of getting together as many as 24 determined players. It also suffered from an odd system of rewards, including titles for defeating bosses which were effectively limited to just one of the 24 participants, and above all armour set drops which were class-specific; this made it virtually impossible for anybody to put together a full set of Helegrod armour, which until the advent of MoM was probably the game's second best after the Rift set.

Read the rest of this entry »