Rubywing posted this on August 31st, 2010.
Categorized as General, Guide, Minstrel, healing off tank, healing tanks, lord of the rings online, lord of the rings online reporter, lotro, lotro reporter, minstrel guide.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LordOfTheRingsOnlineReporter/~3/Ya6zlZoJ1aU/
1 Tequila, 2 Tequila, 3 Tequila, Floor!
There’s a lot of tanking classes in LOTRO, or at least melee and taunting classes. They can be lumped into three categories: the main tank, the off tank, and the bad tank. We can dress them up all we like, but that’s what it comes down to in most gaming situations. Considering all the possible combinations we are always left with one question; which class is the easiest to heal while in a group? Obviously the heavy tanks are the easiest to keep track of, as long as they do their jobs properly ; ). No offense players, but I get pretty upset when someone other than the tank pulls aggro right away. It’s not your fault and we all know it, but its aggravating nonetheless.
One thing I will say is that for sustainability, Wardens can go all night. For example, one gambit you simply MUST be aware of is The Dark Before Dawn, your happy warden will need to be below 50% morale in order to regenerate their power pool. It doesn’t have a recharge, but it IS a 5-part gambit, so you might want to give them a little time below half morale until you notice their power pop up a notch or two. Just be sure to let the warden know that you’ll happily cooperate with them to make the fight go faster and less stressful for all parties involved. They’re considered to be a main tank and I don’t have much experience with them. But this was one of the gambits I was aware of, so if you have other tips for healing Wardens, please let me know!
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DocHoliday posted this on August 30th, 2010.
Categorized as BG, End Game, Equipment, Guardians, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden, captain, champion, champions, crafting, gear, group, hard-mode, lotro, moors, radiance.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/good-warden-end-game-gear/
This will probably have some spill-over for the other classes as well but I wanted to start keeping track of not only some of the better gear options but where some of these things drop. The forums are a great resource for this kind of information but sometimes it can be hard to find and even lost due to forum wipes.
The armor sets are a little easier to keep up with and follow, but I do have some spreadsheets for Wardens, Captains, and Minstrels comparing the various sets statistically and visually.
When it comes to jewelry and cloaks it gets a little bit harder for 2 main reasons. First off there’s just a lot more variety in these areas with crafted, drops, quest rewards, etc that all can be viable in certain cases. But probably the tougher part is that many of these are random boss drops that don’t always drop so it can be hard to not only track them but remember where they dropped from.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 16th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, Warden, beta, captain, champion, champions, expansion, gear, group, lotro, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/new-treasure-category-on-the-classic-skirmish-vendors/
I saw a thread on the Minstrel Board about these new items and figured I’d go check them out. The way it works is that each instance “cluster” now has a Treasure category for it that has various weapons, shields, and jewelry available for barter. I’m a bit torn by this honestly as I do like the chance of randomness in instances but this does give a reliable way to achieve what you’re looking for. For the most part, I’m ok with this split implementation they’re rolling out with F2P in that the current instances will be “random” and the level scaled instances will be more deterministic in their loot. The other nice thing about this implementation is that you do have a list of what’s available as opposed to wondering if/where something drops.
There’s a bunch of drops there, so I’m just going to post some of the higher end gear. I’m also not posting the various weapons as honestly I just don’t know if they’re viable compared to others since I haven’t looked at off-hand items at all. I’ll have to do some more checking on the comparisons to my current gear but there are some nifty items.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 16th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Traits, Virtues, Warden, alts, blog, champion, champions, legacy, legendary items, lotro, podcast, threat.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/a-couple-other-place-to-find-me/
Just a quick update this Monday morning, but I should have another post out today with some new goodies on the Skirmish vendors over on Bullroarer.
I posted a new version of my traits discussion over on the LOTRO Reporter which took a slightly different approach from the post I did here a while back. The one over on LOTRO Reporter is a bit more high-level while the post on this blog is more detail oriented.
I also joined @Theobor on his latest episode of the Gondor Awaits Podcast chatting about Minstrels, so if you’re interested in my take on that class head on over there.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 11th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Warden, beta, captain, gear, group, lotro, radiance.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/new-radiance-sets-tweaked-in-recent-bullroarer-patch/
This was a bit of a stealth update that wasn’t mentioned at all in the patch notes but all the new radiance sets were upgraded with the most recent patch. The Annuminas sets didn’t change all that much, just a point or two here or there. The Helegrod sets though were buffed quite a bit and in many cases are some of the best pieces around. I’m pretty happy about this for two reasons as it shows they’re still tweaking things as well as making sure the amount of effort matches the rewards. The appearances of them haven’t changed but if you’re interested in the stats they’re worth a look. If you need a refresher on the looks check out the Minstrel sets and the Warden and Captain sets.
I’ve updated my spreadsheets for the Warden, Captain, and Minstrel sets so check those out if you’re a number geek like me.
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Goldenstar posted this on August 10th, 2010.
Categorized as F2P, Free to Play, Free-to-Play Beta, General, Minstrel, beta.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/2mPiTcZpUvc/
Honestly this post could be summed up quite simply as “Not Much” but I thought it worth a post to describe the smaller more subtle changes currently in beta.
First I’ll take care of the simpler stuff:
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DocHoliday posted this on August 3rd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, beta, gear, group, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-minstrel-armor-set-data/
I finally got around to adding in the Minstrel sets but I fail at Google Docs so I had to create a new Excel version but I could just append to the Google Docs. I have both the Excel version and the Google Docs version depending on which you prefer. Also, I took snapshots of the Minstrel set and remember the medium Annuminas set is the same as what I showed in the previous armor screenshots.
Light Annuminas
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DocHoliday posted this on August 2nd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raid, Warden, beta, captain, expansion, gear, group, lore, lotro, radiance, volume 3.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/updated-warden-and-captain-armour-sets/
As I promised in my previous post today I did capture the new set information for the Annuminas and Helegrod armour sets. I have since updated both the spreadsheet and Google Docs version of my previous armor comparisons for those who care. I have not updated the Minstrel sets, but I will include the light and medium Annuminas sets for that one. Overall the sets aren’t bad but really they’re just providing another path and option for folks if they want to get the required radiance. When Bullroarer comes back up I will post with some screen-shots of what these look like and the barter levels but essentially they look like the original versions with different color schemes. Basically the same idea as what they did with the moors sets.
DocHoliday posted this on August 2nd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Warden, beta, captain, expansion, gear, group, lotro, radiance, volume 3.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/lotro-f2p-beta-initial-details/
As Sapience has posted, the NDA on the LOTRO Beta has been lifted. I’m pretty surprised they did it this early, but I’m not going to complain if they decide to release this sooner as opposed to later. There are tons of posts up on the boards but if you don’t want to sift through those I will share my thoughts so far. I will admit that I haven’t done everything but will break my post up in a few different topics as well as spread them out a bit. I’ve already talked a bunch about the store so I’m not going to talk about that. Once the servers come back up I will be posting some screen shots as well but I’m sure others will have them up shortly too 
Also, if you have any specific questions let me know and I’ll see what I can do to answer them.
Starting off with my main class, the Wardens have gotten some nice bumps at the cost of a potentially nasty bruise. The biggest change is that our various carvings now apply to not only the gambits but the builders themselves. For me this not only made a significant difference in my power usage, but since I didn’t have to pull back as much I also had a nice DPS boost. Also Wardens will be getting a Muster to Forochel which while not game breaking is nice to fill out the skills. The biggest “nerf” is that our Gambit recovery skills are now “fast” skills as opposed to immediate which means you can’t use them to interrupt long animations like Defiant Challenge. I’m a bit on the fence about this one as Defiant Challenge really is now back to a crappy legendary but I understand that they need to be careful as it could be overpowered. Not much else changed, but for other thoughts and ideas, check out the live boards for other reactions.
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DocHoliday posted this on July 25th, 2010.
Categorized as BG, End Game, Equipment, Lothlórien, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden, captain, epic line, gear, group, hard-mode, lotro, moria, podcast, radiance, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/preparing-to-raid-radiance-gear/
A combination of a few things got me thinking that it might be a good idea to actually post some of the specifics on how to prepare for raiding. I cover some of the general topics on Episode 47 of the LOTRO Reporter Podcast but didn’t go into too many of the specifics. The other piece that got me thinking on this subject was listening to the View from the Top Podcast (Episode 12 to be specific) where they were talking about gear progression in Everquest 2. I’ve posted on armor sets previously (Warden and Captain Post and Minstrel Sets) but that was covering their stats, this post will purely talk about the radiance aspects of the sets and how you obtain them.
There is actually a pretty good page on the Lorebook covering the Radiance Armour which has many of the same specifics I’ll be posting here. Also on the Lorebook you can find all the non-set pieces that have Radiance on them. The nice part about sticking to just the Radiance aspect as it applies to everyone who wants to run the 12-man content and works exactly the same for every class.
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