DocHoliday posted this on January 25th, 2012.
Categorized as isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, mounted combat, Raids and End-game, Riders of Rohan, Rise Of Isengard, rohan, Traits, update 6, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/25/turbine-talks-2012-plans-for-lotro/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
Right on the heels of the Riders of Rohan Expansion announcement, Massively released an article with comments from Kate Paiz and Adam Mersky talking about the upcoming year.
The article starts off with a bit of a look back at 2011 and I think it is fair to say the whole EU transition took up way more time and resources then Turbine expected. Is this to blame for the “down” year for content? Who knows, but certainly it loomed large for them.
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DocHoliday posted this on January 11th, 2012.
Categorized as beta, gambits, group, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raid, threat, Traits, update 6, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/11/orion-teases-update-6-warden-changes/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Last night, Orion posted a few teasers on what he has up his sleeve for the upcoming Warden changes planned (hopefully) for Update 6.
Orion didn’t give too many details, but laid out some ideas that sound interesting but I will admit it doesn’t sound like the class is getting any simpler. Keep in mind though that these ideas are still subject to change, but here’s what he’s thinking so far.
PB posted this on December 5th, 2011.
Categorized as cc, Debuff, DPS, End Game, group, instances, Lore-Master, lore-mastery, loremaster, lotro, Raid, Rise Of Isengard, Traits.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/05/lore-mastery-two-is-the-lonliest-number/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
As you should know by now, I really like the lore-master class and I think it’s well designed and very useful in both group and solo situations. Today’s column, however, focuses on one of its weaknesses – lore-masters don’t play particularly well with other lore-masters in tougher group content, especially raids. While most other classes can quite happily stack with each other up to a point, a number of features of the lore-master class mean that it’s almost always less than ideal to take more than one lore-master along for a tough large fellowship instance or raid.
I want to be really clear here that what I’m talking about in this post is tougher large group content. In 3-person instances lore-masters play together wonderfully well, being able to simultaneously fill DPS and healing roles is really nice. Some of the best small group runs I’ve done have been with, like, 2 lore-masters and a hunter – stuff just melts and you’re still really survivable. And in easier large group content, including skirmish raids and Draigoch, there’s no harm in taking along a second or third lore-master – the content will get done, absolute efficiency in class makeup is not required.
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DocHoliday posted this on December 2nd, 2011.
Categorized as gambits, lord of the rings online, lotro, tank, threat, Traits, update 6, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/02/orion-teases-warden-changes-with-update-6/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Orion has a couple of quick posts up on the forums talking about the Warden changes coming for Update 6. Nothing huge, but some indications of where he’s headed, and of course nothing is finalized yet.
His first post lays out 3 key ideas:
PB posted this on November 7th, 2011.
Categorized as cc, Debuff, gear, healing, Lore-Master, lore-mastery, loremaster, lotro, pet, solo, Traits.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/11/07/lore-mastery-soloing-old-content-for-fun-and-profit/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
One of the things I’ve been enjoying doing with the new level cap increase is going back and soloing old group content. The lore-master has always been a strong soloing class, with its toolbox of cc, debuffs, healing (both self and pet) and pets themselves and some of the changes in the expansion have made us an even stronger soloing class. This article goes through some of the basics about preparing for soloing this type of content and I’ll share some of my early experiences. Soloing group content might not be for everyone, but personally I find the challenge pretty exciting in and of itself, and the rewards can be surprisingly good too in terms of deeds, crafting materials, gold and, for the later instances, IXP runes and relic boxes.
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DocHoliday posted this on October 25th, 2011.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, gambits, gear, instances, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, tank, threat, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/10/25/good-warden-news-in-update-5/
Orion not only popped onto the forums, but he’s also discussing what he’s been able to get in for the class coming with Update 5.
- HoTs will be significantly boosted to compensate for the incoming damage scaling
- Changes to some skills to enable them to contribute to partial mitigations
- He’s considering moving tactical contributions from Will to Might, but that’s not definite.
- All bugs listed in that thread will also be addressed.
Good stuff for sure, I wish they’d look at leaches too but I guess beggars can’t be choosers. The changes for mitigations could be huge, depending on how they play out. I’m just hoping this doesn’t get added to Shield Mastery but are spread out somehow or tied to a stance.
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DocHoliday posted this on October 20th, 2011.
Categorized as Equipment, gambits, gear, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, pvp, Rise Of Isengard, threat, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/10/20/orion-comments-on-the-post-isengard-warden/
Today was a nice surprise when I saw Orion make a number of posts to try and summarize the feedback and issues with the class. He did a great job of summarizing and clarifying the issues, and although there are things he’s not in control of, he did promise to discuss with the folks who are. Currently the following things are currently not working properly for Wardens:
- Never Surrender debuff should be 2 minutes
- Never Surrender is know to have issues with DoTs
- Never Surrender uses the Captain’s Last Stand Icon
- Aggression tooltip states a percentage of threat when in fact it is a flat rate
- Using Aggression and Potency shows the Conviction tooltip
- Shield Tactics adds to Defense and not Mitigation
- Shield Tactics applies immunity at the end of the animation
- Way of the Warden doesn’t give Critical Defense
- Deflection places a threat up and not a thread down icon
- Double gambit builders use the single gambit animation
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DocHoliday posted this on October 7th, 2011.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, expansion, gear, group, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, Minstral, Minstrel, moors, PvMP, pvp, Raid, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, Skirmishes, tank, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/10/07/compilation-of-post-isengard-launch-information/
There has been quite a bit of change lately with Isengard, and I wanted to put up a post that combined some of that for folks.
First up, for those of you out in Dunland you may have interacted with an NPC Andred out in the Gravenwood. Personally, I had a horrible time trying to find the last two quests (the set is part of a deed) so I’m sharing the snapshot below to show you where I was standing when I was able to get these last two quests:
DocHoliday posted this on October 1st, 2011.
Categorized as crafting, epic line, expansion, gear, instances, isengard, lord of the rings online, lore, lotro, Rise Of Isengard, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/10/01/isengard-post-launch-thoughts/
I’m a little torn so far on my thoughts for the new Isengard expansion. I haven’t had as much time in game as I might like, but I have been in quite a bit and have hit 70 on my Warden.
Starting with the downers, there are significant issues with the expansion as you can see from the Known Issues thread. There are some little ones, but some major ones like the Lua crashing issue. The frustrating part about the Lua issue is that this was well known and documented during Beta, but since Lua isn’t officially supported it wasn’t addressed nor have work-arounds been released to the developing community. For now the best suggestion is to not use plugins, which unfortunately hits me pretty hard as there are many that I really enjoy. There are also 2 quest completion traits that are messed up including the deed for the Trum Dreng zone which is one short of completion and the Starkmoor quest completion Starkmoor quest completion that incorrectly includes the 4 fellowship quests inside the Pit. This pack certainly does feel rushed to me as I’m just surprised things like this made it through without being addressed. I really hope we see something in the next week or so that addresses these issues.
Enough of the down sides, with all the issues Isengard has, the zones are amazing. I’m really enjoying the quest lines and all the stories involved in the expansion. I realize there are many kill quests and the like but they’ve wrapped them in such a way that I don’t notice it nearly as badly. The zone phasing effects are quite well done and are a huge new tool for them to tell better stories. The Weft’s Cleft instance is also really well done and gives me all sorts of hope for what’s to come with some of the larger battles we know are coming.
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DocHoliday posted this on September 20th, 2011.
Categorized as beta, Developer Diaries, expansion, isengard, legacy, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, Rise Of Isengard, Rune-keeper, Traits.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/09/20/isengard-rune-keeper-developer-diary/
Well Zombie Columbus has been teasing us for a while about this diary, and apparently he was determined to not let Orion show him up as he released a massive 7 page Developer Diary today walking through the Rise of Isengard changes for Rune-keepers.
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