DocHoliday posted this on March 10th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden, epic line, gear, legacy, legendary items, lore, lotro, radiance, sto, threat, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/h6f
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/back-from-a-short-absence/
So real-life has been a bit of a drain lately for me and I’ve been very quiet of late both here on my blog as well as in-game. It is a combination of a bunch of different things, but much of it will pass here soon.
So to re-cap on a few things, I did want to comment on some LOTRO items and also some non-LOTRO ones that were of interest too.
My in-game activities have been rather enjoyable, just limited after my fun in Volume 3. I’ve been playing much more on my Minstrel lately and have quite enjoyed not only soloing through content in war-speech but also running the various Mirkwood instances as a healer. I did notice more of my skills being resisted but really didn’t seem to be too big of a problem, but it was good to see that it has in fact been changed as commented on by CStM and confirmed by the devs on the forums as well. On a more positive note, I think I’m getting pretty close to having enough tokens for the radiance sets on him but will probably take a few more runs through SG. My legendary items still need quite a bit of work although I have a couple that are somewhat promising. I do have some of the legacies that help out on the resists, so I may actually play around with leveling them up instead of just leaving them at rank 1. Sadly, outside of the Volume 3 activity I really haven’t been on my Warden too much outside of an SG run or two. She still is 2 pieces from being eligible for BG, so a few more SG runs are in my future. And for those of you that actually do have your BG armor sets, there will be a change made to the set bonus as commented on the forums. Essentially the current bonus is broken (not that a 5% chance shield mastery will debuf your target was all that exciting) and will be changed to a 10% chance to provide a 10% melee damage bonus for the Warden. I’m glad they’re looking at those bonuses and that is a better bonus, but I would’ve loved a 10% threat bonus!
Up on the Warden boards there a pretty detailed discussion on threat. from precise blow and comparing it to damage done. Essentially numerically comparing how much threat was done to counter a certain amount of damage. The numbers worked out to about 1750 damage (or ~100DPS, which is pretty darn low) to counter the threat from a single precise blow, which does seem to indicate that you do need to work and continually apply our ToTs to keep ahead of DPS classes.
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DocHoliday posted this on February 15th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Traits, Virtues, Warden, gambits, gear, legacy, legendary items, lotro, runes, threat.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/ggb
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/wardens-marching-through-the-forums/
I’m a little behind in working on my warden as I have lots of things I need to take a more in-depth look at. However, there are quite a few of these that are debated on the forums. I’m gong to paraphrase them with my own thoughts, but also provide the threads for you to read and digest yourselves.
I’ll start off with a neat chart from a fellow blogger, who I didn’t realize even had a warden 
But once again, Harparelle has come up with another great post graphically breaking down the various gambits. I’ve seen a few of these around, and each one helps reinforce the gambit progression for me as they’re all from a slightly different point of view.
For those of you like me who were a bit concerned by the double spear at the end of our new gambit, graalx2 has posted that it is indeed fixed and should end with a shield. There’s some debate in the rest of the thread as to whether it should be fist or shield and while fist would be nicer from a mastery perspective I don’t think it matters all that much as there are a number of ways to build it with masteries no matter what the last builder is.
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DocHoliday posted this on February 8th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, gear, legacy, legendary items, lotro, moors.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/g8c
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/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.
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Adarel posted this on January 29th, 2010.
Categorized as General, LI, LM, Lore-Master, Mirkwood, SOM, critical rating, legacy, loremaster, lotro, spell, storm lore.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/fuc
Full link: http://lotroreporter.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/lore-master-we-like-lightning-too/
I have lately been getting my hopes up SUPER high that our next ability is going to be some new lightning damage spell. “Intriguing,” you say. “Please, tell me more.”
Well, first off, let me warn you by saying this is pure bloody speculation. If you quote me and yell at me when it doesn’t come true, you are dumb and fail at reading.
So then – our Lightning Storm is amazing. I adore that spell. I know it has a 5-minute cooldown (legacy to reduce that please!), but it is still amazing. I use it in skirmishes pretty much everytime its available and my kin is getting used to my laughs of glee as I flatten groups of mobs with my lightning of awesome. Just call me Storm, ok?
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Adarel posted this on January 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as General, LI, LM, LRM, Legendary, Lore-Master, beacon of hope, legacy, lord of the rings online, loremaster, lotro, physical resist, pool A, tactical healing rating, tactical resist.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/fm9
Full link: http://lotroreporter.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/epic-quest-at-65-finding-a-legendary-book/
Well I’ve been 65 for a good while now, but have still not managed to find a decent legendary book. Why is it so hard? Am I asking too much?
I used to want the super-uber LM book of awesomeness which would have these legacies.
- Target Tactical Damage Skills Resist Rating
- Target Physical Resist Rating
- Target Fire Damage Skills Resist Rating
- Non-damaging Sign of Power Durations
- Beacon of Hope Healing
- Fire Skills Critical Rating
This turned out to be nearly impossible. It’s not actually impossible, but going for five Pool A legacies is probably not going to net the best results. (See here for the LM legacy pool breakdown.)
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DocHoliday posted this on January 18th, 2010.
Categorized as legacy, legendary items, lotro.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/ffk
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/important-legendary-item-update/
I just saw the following note from Graalx2 on the live boards saying the following:
“We have found the issue with all of the legacies costs not decreasing as the legacy tiers up. It will be fixed in the next major patch (not tomorrow’s). There was a problem with rounding off that caused the numbers not to change as they should. This will correct all legacy costs for all classes.”
So, tomorrow’s patch won’t fix all the legacy issues 
I’m going to hold onto my legacy upgrade scrolls till they get this all fixed, but I’d imagine things would be applied retroactively if you tiered an item up via the normal upgrade process. I am pretty happy though that they did finally find and fix the problem!
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DocHoliday posted this on January 18th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden, books, captain, legacy, legendary items, lotro, podcast, radiance, reputation.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/ff3
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/patch-thoughts-and-other-ramblings/
I’ll have a few updates today, but the main LOTRO news is the first Siege of Mirkwood patch which rolls live tomorrow. In addition I wanted to mention a new release of a handy in-game tool and an update on my progress so far.
First off, the patch. Check out the release notes, as there really aren’t that many but some very significant ones:
- Incoming healing has been fixed to not be defended by tactical crit rating!
- The skirmish exploit has been fixed
- The Survival – Barrow Downs skirmish is back up
- Skirmish kill XP now has a buff icon. I didn’t even realize this XP was buffed
- Non Siege of Mirkwood players are no longer limited to 3 skirmishes
- Summoning a pet (or banner) will no longer wipe soldier vitals!
- Item wear on defeat has been decreased inside skirmishes
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DocHoliday posted this on January 6th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Traits, Virtues, Warden, expansion, gambits, gear, group, hard-mode, legacy, legendary items, lotro, moors, threat.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/exr
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/warden-starting-off-the-new-year/
There have been some really good posts and discussion on the forums lately regarding our beloved class. I’ve replied to some, but not all as there’s some really good wardens there who are much faster to reply So, in no particular order here’s my re-cap:
There’s a good discussion on some of the math regarding warden threat generation up on the boards as well. I’m going to try to summarize, but it might be a good one to read through yourself. I suggest taking a look back as these 2 posts of mine as a refresher if you get lost Threat Definitions and Gambits Part 3 – tanking. The following math equations :
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DocHoliday posted this on December 17th, 2009.
Categorized as Equipment, Minstral, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Warden, group, legacy, legendary items, lotro, screenshots, threat, video.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/drb
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/my-new-legendary-items-and-latest-adventures/
First off I wanted to share my first 2 decent level 65 3rd age legendary items – sadly the axe looks absolutely horrible. I’m really going to struggle equipping it! However, you’ll notice that my spear does gain a Pool A legacy on the level 20 reforge – so it does happen!
Both are actually shaping up pretty well, I’m still using my 60 First age spear and 60 2nd Age Javelin but I’ll probably switch my main hand weapon pretty soon as the DPS and additional runes make a big difference.
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DocHoliday posted this on December 1st, 2009.
Categorized as Equipment, Minstral, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Warden, captain, epic line, expansion, gambits, gear, group, hard-mode, legacy, legendary items, lotro, radiance, reputation.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/d41
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/digesting-the-patch-notes/
Holy cow, there are a lot of them however they are broken up into quite a few bite-sized chunks. And most of them are things already covered in depth in their Developer Diaries. Things like:
all have been covered quite well and commented on here. So I’m skipping past that and am going to highlight some other notes I thought were interesting. However there are a ton of notes, so please check them out for yourself while you’re waiting for the servers.
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