f13.net

What are these? I see them every so often, most recently at Trestlebridge (redundancy :) ) and Ost Guruth.

They let you jump into an instance that you have completed.  So if you join a fellowship running great barrows and you are in north downs (or anywhere with a pool) you can use the pool to jump directly there.

Oh ok, so something to help guildies/friends catch up? Das cool.

Beware the one drawback though. If you die and have to release you'll be at the nearest gy to the pool, not the instance. If the pool is relativly close it's not much of a problem but the one in Bree is a huge pita for doing Barrows.

Other than helping friends out, there's really no point to doing an instance more than it takes you to finish all the quests in it anyway, due to the crappy, crappy experience from elite mobs. I remember enjoying doing instances in WoW even when I didn't have quests, but until the mid 40's the loot drops are pretty well crap in LoTR's so there's really no point. Most of the bosses are there to be killed for quests and dont seem to drop anything special I've seen.

The first instance I saw a decent drop from a boss was Fornost.

I got a decent drop from Grimbark in Garth Argawen. A sword called Stoutheart that does 16ish dps and is Westernese damage. I even sold my sword from Ivar and now I use that sword and my other sword from Book 2 Chapter 8 that does Beleriand-make damage.

My melee eff is lower but I actually do more damage so it's all good.

Help out someone who hasn't played the game...  what does this mean?

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Alkiera

It's magic damage, like "fire damage" or "lightning damage" in other games. Some monsters are extra-vulnerable to it, few are particularly resistant.