So after my fun on Thursday in the Rift, I decided to really push my luck I ended up running the RIft skirmish as a Tier 3 on my Warden, and again as a Tier 2 on my Minstrel.
I’ll start with the Minstrel and pretty much admit that this may be the last time I run that skirmish as a Tier 2 on that toon I ended up getting the 2 AOE Flame Encounters that just ate my poor soldier up almost instantly – and I’m using a ranged soldier! I was able to finally kill the Dragon, but I’m pretty sure the way I did it was an exploit and will not be doing that again. I was just really frustrated and annoyed, luckily you can’t go negative on the skirmish marks The normal pulls weren’t that bad, but holy cow those 2 encounters roasted my poor Minnie’s butt.
Before that run with my Minstrel (which probably added to my frustration) was trying the Rift on Tier 3. Now I’m not sure if it is just the Rift as this was my first attempt at Tier 3, but holy crap is there a HUGE jump in difficulty between tier 2 and tier 3. I barely got past the first wave and ended up calling it a day after way too many deaths to count. – I had almost a 1 gold repair bill if that’s any indication I’m thinking part of the problem with the Warden with Tier 3 is that now with the higher mob resists, coupled with the boost to mitigations in Tier 3 make our transfers and DoTs MUCH less effective. Perhaps it is time to re-think my traits again and go back to more of a mix of traits as opposed to full shield line. I probably should parse things using CStats, but I didn’t think about it at the time. In addition to those issues, these mobs were hitting for crazy amount – LTs critting for over 2K at a time, and critting quite frequently really make it a totally different fighting experience. So I’m curious if others have tried other Tier 3’s or have experiences doing the RIft at higher difficulties.
I’m excited to become a columnist here at LOTRO Reporter as I love listening to the podcast and it gives me a different audience to focus on. For my first post here, I thought I’d step back a bit from my blog which is more focused on the end-game and write from a broader perspective. I will certainly cover some higher level content but at first I’m going to focus on getting started with the class as it is quite a different animal from the other classes currently in LOTRO. For those of you who want to know more about me, I just updated my About page on my blog with some more information such that I can jump right into the main topic.
Now the Warden class is one of the two new classes added with the Mines of Moria expansion and I think has been one of the more mis-understood classes in the game. For many reasons (which I won’t go into now) there are many misconceptions surrounding the class and that was one of the primary drivers behind me starting my blog. My focus here will primarily be on helping folks as they level their Wardens and progress through the various stages of their development.
So I wanted to share a few things I found interesting while checking up on the forums over the weekend.
I’ll start off with a really good informational Lore post by Hakon_Stormbrow that shows a timeline of all the lands and kingdoms throughout the history of Middle-Earth. Pretty helpful as I’m also making my way through the Silmarillion and learning all the early history so seeing how that maps to the “current’ history of LOTRO is quite handy.
I’ll continue first with the warden posts, and then finish with some regarding minstrels.
Of all the traits in LOTRO, I think that Virtues are perhaps the most confusing. With the different ranks, and the deeds that must be completed to increase the ranks, it makes for a pretty complex system.
Virtues themselves are traits that increase attributes and/or resistances. They all have 3 values: Primary, secondary and tertiary values. For example, Discipline has a primary value that affects your Might (+3 at rank 1), a secondary value that increases your disease resist rating (+203 at rank 1) and a tertiary rating effect of increasing melee defense rating (+200 at rank 1).
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.
This week, we discuss the Volume III, Book 1 Tentative Patch Notes, The Vol III, Book 1 Skirmish Dev Diary, “Tell the Developers”, and the new “Deeds and Traits” column on the blog.
I’ve been playing LOTRO for about a year and a half now, but I’m not what I would call and avid player. I definitely fall into the casual player column, and I am not an experiences gamer in general. This is my third MMO, and third computer game for that matter. So lets just say, it’s been a long, steep learning curve for me! It’s taken me a while to understand the more advanced aspects of gaming. I can run around and kill stuff, and complete quests, I can manage crafting and even sell stuff on the auction house from time to time. But as far as stats went, I was at a loss. When we first started playing, I levelled a Hunter up to 31. Then we took a break, and when I came back to the game, I made another Hunter and started all over again. I even took the same crafting skill so I would know what I was doing to some degree!
Deeds and Traits are probably two of the most confusing parts of LOTRO game mechanics. The concepts are difficult to grasp, and many new players cannot see the benefits of spending the time to work on their Deeds to gain their Traits. The goal of this series of posts is to de-mystify Deeds and Traits so that you can have the best character possible.
First of all, in the simplest of terms, Traits are “skills” that you equip which give your character bonuses. These bonuses can include stats, combat bonuses, or even new skills.
Deeds are accomplishments that must be completed or conditions that must be met, which when completed grant you a trait.
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.
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.
I ended up running the RIft skirmish as a Tier 3 on my Warden, and again as a Tier 2 on my Minstrel.
I ended up getting the 2 AOE Flame Encounters that just ate my poor soldier up almost instantly – and I’m using a ranged soldier! I was able to finally kill the Dragon, but I’m pretty sure the way I did it was an exploit and will not be doing that again. I was just really frustrated and annoyed, luckily you can’t go negative on the skirmish marks 
I’m thinking part of the problem with the Warden with Tier 3 is that now with the higher mob resists, coupled with the boost to mitigations in Tier 3 make our transfers and DoTs MUCH less effective. Perhaps it is time to re-think my traits again and go back to more of a mix of traits as opposed to full shield line. I probably should parse things using CStats, but I didn’t think about it at the time. In addition to those issues, these mobs were hitting for crazy amount – LTs critting for over 2K at a time, and critting quite frequently really make it a totally different fighting experience. So I’m curious if others have tried other Tier 3’s or have experiences doing the RIft at higher difficulties.
