DocHoliday posted this on February 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Traits, Virtues, Warden, champions, gambits, gear, group, hard-mode, legendary items, lore, lotro, radiance, threat.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gmv
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/monday-forum-update/
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.
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almazar posted this on February 20th, 2010.
Categorized as Deeds, Deeds and Traits, General, Traits, Virtues, deed, lord of the rings online, lord of the rings online reporter, lotro, lotro reporter.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gkg
Full link: http://lotroreporter.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/deed-and-traits-part-2-virtues/
Read Deeds and Traits Part 1 here.
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).
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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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almazar posted this on February 10th, 2010.
Categorized as Deeds, Deeds and Traits, General, Legendary Traits, Traits, Virtues, class traits, lord of the rings online, lord of the rings online reporter, lotro, lotro reporter, race traits, skirmish, virtue traits.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/gb1
Full link: http://lotroreporter.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/deeds-and-traits-part-1-introduction/
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.
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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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DocHoliday posted this on January 19th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Guardians, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Traits, Virtues, Warden, gambits, gear, group, lotro, threat.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/fga
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/warden-forums-and-threat-bug-confirmation/
There’s been a bunch of good discussions as usual up on the warden live boards. These include some good tactics ideas, gear discussions, and sadly a bug confirmation that hits us pretty hard.
I’ll start right off the bat with the bad news It appears that Perceived threat is currently broken as mentioned on this thread, and confirmed by Graalx2. However, the silver lining is it has been identified and targeted to be fixed – but just sadly not in today’s patch. What this really means for us is that traiting down the fist line doesn’t help us at all currently. So, I’m probably going to keep my current 5 Shield spec with the other 2 masteries until this bug has been fixed.
If you’re having problems keeping all your gambits straight, Medouneu from the forums put together a pretty good compilation of all the gambits. It is a good one-page chart that shows all of them, their respective damages, buffs, threat components, etc in a visual fashion. For those of you just starting off, I highly recommend it as it is a good visual way of explaining and comparing things.
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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 January 4th, 2010.
Categorized as Bioware, Dragon Age, End Game, Minstral, Mirkwood, Raid, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, Warden, captain, epic line, expansion, gear, group, legendary items, lore, lotro, podcast, radiance, rohan, volume 3.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/etq
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/ringing-in-the-new-year/
This will be the first of a bunch of posts coming up today and tomorrow as I get caught up on things. I wanted to start of with a recap of 2009 and looking forward into 2010. This will cover both LOTRO the game as well as my plans for LOTRO and other games.
Looking back
2009 was a pretty solid year for me in LOTRO. Early in the year I achieved level 60 on my warden although not quite as quite as quickly as others due to the poor timing of the Moria launch (poor timing for me that is). I also managed to get my three mains (warden, captain, and minstrel) not only watcher ready but watcher kills on each of them. My minstrel and captain were part of a couple DN raids, but sadly my warden has not seen the inside nor have I been through the entire thing.
I switched kinships twice this year, the first time due to the amount of drama and the second time was just moving from a 3 person kin (more of a holding kin) to a raiding one that included those same 3 people.
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DocHoliday posted this on December 9th, 2009.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, Warden, gear, lotro.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/dfn
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/wardens-in-mirkwood/
So after a few days of playing, I wanted to give some more feedback here as well as share some news that’s come out.
First off, I’m really enjoying my warden so far. I do seem to have some power issues, but I also noticed that was due mainly to a lack of down time between fights in the Fords of Bruinen skirmish – so I’m not sure it really is that big of an issue. The speed and smoothness of things is really working for me and I’m really happy with the ability to pull off gambits quickly.
Now for the bad parts – there are a few issues that you should be aware of and changes that make things a bit trickier.
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DocHoliday posted this on November 18th, 2009.
Categorized as Book 9, End Game, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, Warden, captain, epic line, expansion, gear, legendary items, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
Shorthand Link: http://combo.mmeow.net/csg
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/my-mirkwood-thoughts/
So now that the NDA has been lifted, I can share a little more openly on my thoughts for this expansion. I mainly focused on the warden and skirmishes but didn’t do any group instances or the raid. I did work through a couple of the questing areas in Mirkwood and overall really enjoy the zone. It is quite big and there’s a very good set of quests through there. So I’ll try to cover the areas that I saw and what I focused on.
Skirmishes
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