DocHoliday posted this on March 2nd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Single player, Warden, crafting, epic line, gambits, group, legendary items, lore, lotro, screenshots, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gx4
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/my-first-day-in-volume-3/
I was pretty successful yesterday, although I ended up running out of steam towards the evening 
and didn’t get quite as much done as I had planned.
I started off on my Minstrel as I had less to do on him. I had logged out the previous night at Gath Forthnir such that I could jump right in and finish off the final quest of Volume 1. Considering this is still a level 50 quest, my 65 minstrel had a LOT of fun running through there. The “Inspire Greatness” buff is quite fun and I ended up having some real nifty big numbers floating around my screen 
The biggest was my Call to the 2nd Age critting for over 5K on all three mobs attacking me! Here’s a shot of me in the middle of that quest, and a shot of the buff (notice at this point I had forgotten to re-do my legendaries)…
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DocHoliday posted this on February 27th, 2010.
Categorized as Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Warden, crafting, epic line, festival, lotro, screenshots, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gtn
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/massively-tours-volume-3-book-1/
In case you haven’t made your patch day plans, Massively has a pretty good walkthrough of all the new things coming with the latest update. as they continue their weekly feature “On the road to Mordor.” Be warned, there are some spoilers in there as they describe some of the epic storyline and the new Rift skirmish. But there’s also information about the upcoming festival and it looks like once again they’ve come up with another fun game! I mean not only to do you get to stomp shrews, but you have a chance to win a huge shrew lawn ornament!
Certainly some nice information, including screenshots, and I’m again looking forward to this upcoming Spring festival which starts in a couple weeks.
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DocHoliday posted this on February 25th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Raids and End-game, Warden, crafting, epic line, gear, group, legendary items, lore, lotro, runes, screenshots, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/grf
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/developer-diary-volume-1-revised-edition/
The much anticipated Dev. Diary on the Volume 1 revamp has been posted by Orion. We already knew many of the details, but I really appreciate the way all of these diaries (and this one is no exception) walk us through the process in how they attempted something particular. I’m all for the changes and not just because I want my pretty horse I also appreciate that they were very concerned about not only the balance but the lore and remind us that all throughout the LOTR books there are cases where characters do things they probably shouldn’t normally be able to do. The general idea behind this is when doing quests that would normally be a full fellowship you will get a scalable buff to your morale, power, regen rates, incoming damage, and outgoing damage all of which scale based on how many others are in your fellowship. So this system allows you full flexibility in not only your initial play through but allows you to repeat these quests in any fashion as well, which was a draw-back to the system put in place for the Lone-lands revamp.
The addition of the “Elf-stones” allows them to tightly control the areas where these massive buffs will be allow during quests that are out in the open. However, maybe my memory is failing me, but I can really only think of one quest that is a fellowship quest out in the open. That quest is the find the rider quest in the Trollshaws, which other then farming trolls, there’s really no reason to go down there.
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DocHoliday posted this on February 21st, 2010.
Categorized as Minstral, Minstrel, Warden, beta, captain, gambits, lotro, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/glb
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/developer-diary-skill-upgrades/
There was another Dev. Diary posted talking about not only the details of the new skills but some of the rationale behind the changes. There’s even some discussion on why some of the skills were further tweaked after they were announced. Since I’m really only knowledgeable in 3 classes I’m going to leave the other classes to others who can talk more intelligently about them.
The three main goals with all of the upgrades were:
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DocHoliday posted this on February 18th, 2010.
Categorized as Equipment, Mirkwood, crafting, gear, lotro, reputation, screenshots, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gj3
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/developer-diary-crafting-update/
Today Turbine released another developer diary, this one talking about the crafting system updates. Certainly a good read as there are lots of changes – but the main ones for me were the jeweler and cooking/farming changes. I’ll summarize them, but certainly go check out the full notes. A lot of this was evident from the patch notes, but this breaks it down into more detail.
All jewelry items have had not only their stats adjusted but also their looks as well. In addition, they’re also implementing the multi-output option for jewelry just like they did for the armor professions. Because of this, certain recipes, like the various tactics rings, will no longer exist as they are now one of the output options. It is important to note that existing items will NOT change, just newly crafted ones. So, if there are ones you like better make them now For a full listing of the new stats, check out my previous post on this topic.
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DocHoliday posted this on February 5th, 2010.
Categorized as Equipment, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, crafting, gear, lotro, screenshots, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/g57
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/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.
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DocHoliday posted this on January 20th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Traits, gear, lotro, reputation, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/fip
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/my-minstrel-in-mirkwood/
So as a break from my warden, I decided to get my Minstrel up to the level cap next. It is quite a nice change of pace from the warden, although I’ve certainly realized the hard way that I am pretty darn squishy Every now and then I go a get a tad aggressive on my pulling and grab more then 3 and think I can handle it, which usually doesn’t end well. Right now, I’m currently running a full warrior-skald build with the capstone and 2 from the Protector of Song line which seems to be working pretty well. The ICMR buff from Battle-hymn and extended anthem duration means I can have that ICMR buff up pretty much constantly! I don’t seem to be having many resist issues like when Moria first launched and I’m still seeing LOTS of crits. It is quite fun to AoE 3 mobs and hit them all for over 2k which after playing a warden as much as I do, is a substantial difference. However, when I don’t crit and a couple friends decide to join the fray – I’m praying my feign death is still up! I’m about mid-way through Mirkwood and 62 so far, and hit Friend reputation so I can now craft those jewelry items. I’m currently working through the lovely are of Dannenglor, which I think is probably my LEAST favorite part of Mirkwood – lots of mobs, lots of roamers, and pretty quick re-spawns make it a very unfriendly area That and the quest drops don’t seem to be all that frequent so you’re stuck there for a while. Not to mention the stupid elves can’t communicate with each other or realize how much crap actually is up there that they might want so I have to make at least 4 trips.
After looking at the Mirkwood crafted jewelry a bit more I’m less impressed then I initially was. The stats are good, don’t get me wrong, but I think I’m only going to use the Sage’s Greenwood Necklace on my minstrel. Everything else seems to be too big of a hit with not enough of an upside.
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DocHoliday posted this on January 18th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, gear, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/ffo
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/finished-the-armor-set-comparisons/
DocHoliday posted this on January 12th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raid, Raids and End-game, captain, expansion, gear, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/f96
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/captain-armor-set-options/
I already had a bunch of this, and since I just did the Warden set – figured I’d post the Captain sets too. I may or may not get a chance to get out the Minstrel sets today but that’s probably the last comparison I will do as those are my 3 mains.
As with the warden set, the Other Buffs section is cut off – I can send the original spreadsheet if you want or you can look below for the details.
Screenshots are also included at the bottom.
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DocHoliday posted this on January 12th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Warden, gear, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/f90
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/warden-armor-set-comparison/
So I was checking out this thread on the warden Forums and figured I’d pull together a listing of all the sets, their stats, and their bonuses such that we could compare not only the sets but the individual pieces as well. Currently I’m wearing 4 of the Spear Hurler, Tolocthol (247 Armor, 41 Vit, 20 Might & Agi, 183 Morale) for a helm, and the Golden Wood Shoulders. I may changed that up as I digest this a bit more since I really haven’t looked at it too deeply. There’s a suggestion to use the gloves from the Light armor Mirkwood crafted set for the chance to return power on hit, here are the stats on those gloves as part of the Tawerwaith set 316 Armor, 21 Fate & Will, +6% Tactical Crit Multiplier, 15% chance to give 45.3 power on hit.
The Other Buffs tab got cut off as my page isn’t wide enough. I have the original Excel file for those who care, and am appending to the bottom of each the appropriate stats.
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