Last dumb question. I promise!

[Nebu]

In the continued spirit of dumb questions: I'm getting to believe that Burglar is a very group-oriented class.  Should I consider something else if I'm going to primarily solo/duo or will I do better later?  In encounters with lots of aggro I get curbstomped when evade/stun/daze are down.

[Cheddar]

In the continued spirit of dumb questions: I'm getting to believe that Burglar is a very group-oriented class.  Should I consider something else if I'm going to primarily solo/duo or will I do better later?  In encounters with lots of aggro I get curbstomped when evade/stun/daze are down.

You will get much more survivability at 20 (medium armor) along with additional skills/traits that will help you solo and increase DPS.  I never had an issue as a burg - key is to pick your battles and use your tricks to maximize the battle.

[Nebu]

I got medium at 10 along with dual weild.  Getting stun and evade at 12 helped a ton too.  I think it's a combination of learning the mechanics coupled to craptastic armor/weapons that is doign me in.  I'll keep at it. 

I played a hunter and a warden to 10 and both seemed to be much easier to solo.  Perhaps I need to use my tools better.

[Soln]

Invest in food and really good daggers/clubs.  I found I could buy purple lvl 10 daggers for a few silver.  Crafters sell good stuff lower too.  Gear unfortunately really helps I find in grinding solo.

[Tarami]

Also, remember to keep at the class deeds. No first-hand experience with burglars, but a couple of class traits can make a huge difference and I imagine this is true for every class.

Browse through them and pick a few to focus on. Then try to adapt your playing style to using those skills as often as possible.

Edit: You will get your first class trait slot at 15, make it count!

[squirrel]

More dumb questions from  a noob!

Housing

Hit 15 last night and did a tour of the housing zones. Still way out of price range (sub-prime hasn't hit LoTRO) but have some questions.

• When I buy a house for my first characters can other characters on my account use it? Seems silly to buy more than 1.
• Other than looks is there any benefit in saving for the 'deluxe' versions of the houses - they don't seem that much more expensive.
• RoME has a Kin house I've visited. Are the portal skillls on the same timer - ie. personal and kin house travel need to be an hour apart?

Monies

I seem to be perpetually broke, although it's obviously early days. No surprise there, and since I'm a Hunter I'm not surprised to see bow's really $$$ in the AH (supply & demand). Any tips on making dosh that I might not have thought of, I'm having to skip training weapon skills as I seem to be outlevelling my wallet? I'm an explorer and have been mining/smelting and creating Rowan lumber but haven't sold any yet. This is probably covered in another thread so I'll dig.

'Alt' questing

I generally like to have 2 'main' chars in game - one ranged DPS and either a tank or melee DPS. I'm planning on creating a Elf Warden when B7 goes live. Other than the main Epic quest line is there an alternative to the Archet -> Combe -> Bree progression for 1 - 20? Not a huge deal repeating them as they were mostly fun but if there's other low level content I'd like to see it.

[Mrbloodworth]

More dumb questions from  a noob!

Housing

Hit 15 last night and did a tour of the housing zones. Still way out of price range (sub-prime hasn't hit LoTRO) but have some questions.

• When I buy a house for my first characters can other characters on my account use it? Seems silly to buy more than 1.
• Other than looks is there any benefit in saving for the 'deluxe' versions of the houses - they don't seem that much more expensive.
• RoME has a Kin house I've visited. Are the portal skillls on the same timer - ie. personal and kin house travel need to be an hour apart?

All toons on the account use the same house. Deluxe has more storage, and larger "hooks" for items. The port skills are separate.

Monies

I seem to be perpetually broke, although it's obviously early days. No surprise there, and since I'm a Hunter I'm not surprised to see bow's really $$$ in the AH (supply & demand). Any tips on making dosh that I might not have thought of, I'm having to skip training weapon skills as I seem to be outlevelling my wallet? I'm an explorer and have been mining/smelting and creating Rowan lumber but haven't sold any yet. This is probably covered in another thread so I'll dig.

Pick up everything, and i mean everything, all vender junk. Also, if you are not crafting, stacks of even light hide (50) go for around 150 silver, and it just goes up from there.

'Alt' questing

I generally like to have 2 'main' chars in game - one ranged DPS and either a tank or melee DPS. I'm planning on creating a Elf Warden when B7 goes live. Other than the main Epic quest line is there an alternative to the Archet -> Combe -> Bree progression for 1 - 20? Not a huge deal repeating them as they were mostly fun but if there's other low level content I'd like to see it.

Yes, in each starting area you can jump to any other (one silver, instant travel, see the stables), there is no reason to start at your racial starting area. it does converge in Bree land around 15-20, however you can branch again going to the north downs or forochel and evendim. This of course excludes the book quests, there is only one line for those, HOWEVER you can skip to any book chapter you want, or never even do one. IE: You can just level as you want, and then pick up book 3 just for kicks with out doing 1 and 2.


EDIT: Wrong thread for Nebu response.

[squirrel]

Pick up everything, and i mean everything, all vender junk. Also, if you are not crafting, stacks of even light hide (50) go for around 150 silver, and it just goes up from there.

Cool ty. Is that just raw skin or the hide created by tailors? I have tailoring and have been turning them into things to skill up but at that price I'll just sell em!

EDIT: Bored at work or I'd just log in and check for my damn self!

[Mrbloodworth]

Pick up everything, and i mean everything, all vender junk. Also, if you are not crafting, stacks of even light hide (50) go for around 150 silver, and it just goes up from there.

Cool ty. Is that just raw skin or the hide created by tailors? I have tailoring and have been turning them into things to skill up but at that price I'll just sell em!

Raw, people use it to skill up, for light hide, it takes 2 lights to make a boiled, so, 300 silver is not an uncommon price for a stack of 50 (Boiled hides), of course check prices in the AH, and all the other AH considerations. 150 and 300 are steady averages at best, and based on my own experiences on this server.

Like i said, if you yourself do not care about crafting, there is an ass ton of money to be made in collecting and/or refining crafting goods. Even higher level items will require lower level mats, its quite well designed.

At almost all levels (more so at low levels, as they come frequent), new skills (From the trainers) themselves will be one of your largest drains on coin.

[Soln]

you can make a stupid amount of money selling hides

at any Tier.

My wife is a tailor but sells off stacks of lower Tiers.  We're talking 250s for Tier1, 500s Tier2... at least.

And the damn things DROP no matter what.

[Nebu]

Thinking of resubbing... ($29 for 4 months is a bargain). 

Is there enough to do solo to keep busy without feeling like a complete second-class citizen? 

[Soln]

you can without doubt solo to 45 if you wanted (60 is the cap).   The leveling curve is shorter and flatter to 50.  If you had some love from food and scrolls and potions, you would sail to 45 in 3 weeks (?) of steady casual play.

If you don't care about skipping group level content then the *only* thing that will possibly frustrate you are the Epic Book quests which unfortunately do need often 6-man Fellowships to complete.  But luckily you can force march to 45 or even 50 before entering Moria without worrying about Epic Books at all (and solo them when they are grey).

[Cheddar]

Thinking of resubbing... ($29 for 4 months is a bargain). 

Is there enough to do solo to keep busy without feeling like a complete second-class citizen? 

Short answer - yes.  A LOT.

[Ard]

There's never a point where you have to do group quests while leveling up if you choose not to.  At the upper end, they've added a bunch of solo and small group content and instances also.  The game is alot easier duoing than soloing though, I've found.

[rattran]

More fun with a group, though I pretty much solo'd to 60. I'm grouping with kin as I move the rest of my toons up in level.

[Nebu]

Thanks for the help.  I'm just debating if I want to treat LotRO like I did WoW; a game to solo until I run out of solo content followed by a reroll or leaving. 

I appreciate you all taking the time to voice your opinions.

[Tarami]

I will just to repeat what others have said; yes, it's possible to solo all the way to 60.

BUT! LotRO has much more interesting group dynamics than WoW has ever had. It's just not as rigid and stiff and therefore more fun. A bit of a shame if you didn't try to group once in a while.

[Brogarn]

I'm tinkering around with this and trying to find a class I like. Are there any that have just too high a population? I'm mostly interested in the Warden, Burglar, RK and Hunter.

[Nebu]

I'd say that hunter, warden, and RK are pretty common.  Mostly because they appear to be very solo friendly (and a bit overpowered).  Burglar is a nice class for solo and grouping and I didn't see many of them about.  They do rely on constant gear upgrades though. 

[Yegolev]

I believe you just called out the four highest-population classes, but maybe not burglar.  Captain?  Guardian?  They all have rather varying playstyles so you'll still have to decide how want to play whatever class you choose.

The thing about the classes, I find, is that you will want to get up to lv30 before you can really get all of the meaty abilities for most of them and start seeing how you can use them in varying situations.  It's not like previous MMOs that I played where I pretty much knew what my role was from the get-go (although WoW is pretty good about having distinct builds for classes).

Also you have to consider traits, which trickle in slowly as you level.  My hunter, for example, is now lv37 and I have two main concentrations I could pick, I think: there's the low-threat, low-power-use direction and the high-damage, high-power, high-threat direction.  Currently she's traited for DPS, DPS and more DPS, which is great if you are solo.  In some groups, I find that I take aggro off of most anyone within two shots despite a threat-reducing class item, and that's without using any consumable buff like Fire Oil.  There's also a trait set which involves traps but honestly I have not investigated that one a lot.  I'd like to see a dual-setup mechanic for this very reason, since it requires a trip to a bard and cash to rearrange traits so I won't be doing it just so I can run a group instance.

If you are asking this because you are worried about getting into a group, don't worry.  The only class I ever see requested, and this is rarely, is Minstrel.

[rattran]

From what I've seen on Brandywine at 60, the overpop classes are RK, Champ, and Hunter. Minstrels, Burglars, and Captains seems to be in the most demand in groups.

I think I'm going to play up a minstrel just to see how it goes.

[Brogarn]

Gotcha. Thanks.

My intent is to find a fun class that isn't saturated. I have this aversion to playing overpopulated classes. I think I'll try the Burglar next.

[Brogarn]

Burglar's got potential as does Loremaster. So, I'm playing with those now.

But! A dumb question! Is there a way to manipulate the default UI? Like, more hot keys, moving windows around (other than chat) and all that? Are there mods for this game? In other words, how customizable is the UI?

[Mrbloodworth]

Burglar's got potential as does Loremaster. So, I'm playing with those now.

But! A dumb question! Is there a way to manipulate the default UI? Like, more hot keys, moving windows around (other than chat) and all that? Are there mods for this game? In other words, how customizable is the UI?

CTRL + \ (for moving things)

http://www.lotrointerface.com/

[Yegolev]

In Options you can find the UI settings and in there somewhere is a place to Always Show Hotbar X.  You'll want to turn those on to get extra bars to put things in.  Also note that with CTRL+\ toggled, you can also toggle the bars between horizontal and vertical.

[tazelbain]

I was trying to heal a pug last night.  The UI is brutal.  Decent healing mod would be great.

[Yegolev]

I found that I really need to fuck around with the hotkeys to do anything productive with targeting fellows.  Not that this helps healing very much, but targeting fellows with, say, F2 instead of CTRL-F2 is at least something.

[Brogarn]

Excellent. Thanks.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, F1-6 targets party members.

[Soln]

there's no UI solution for managing heals.  Not until they completely overall the presentation layer, which may not come this year or ever.  Since my main is a healer I've had to accept this.

Best advice is I've seen from a few minnie's setups: CTL+/ to move windows; open Options and select display always-on all quickslots; make sure all quickslots are not docked; find them all and place one vertically in the upper left corner where the fellowship window spawns.  Put it against the edge of your window and pull over the fello window.  Drop copies of your main 2 or 3 heals in there.  Makes movement between selection by mouse and heals faster.  Or else key pound F1-6 etc.

[Mrbloodworth]

Can you post an example of what it is you would want? Because i am still confused as to where its lacking in terms of healing interface. I think we have had this conversation before.

[tazelbain]

http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/squared.aspx

Soln: that sounds pretty good.

[Bandit]

Easiest method I found, without any ui mods, is to just make sure your heals are on the primary hotbar and put the main heals on about 1-5.

I would just select the by clicking on the fellowship member, then press number keys 1-5 (in order of magnitude), #1 being the primary heal, and #2 being the upgraded (aggro-pulling) larger heal and so on.

To each there own, but I found it to be a pretty efficient method - removes the need for the f1-f6.

[Yegolev]

Yeah, F1-6 targets party members.

OK, I was probably thinking of assisting fellows which is what I actually do instead of targeting fellows.  I occasionally think about seeing what sort of aliases and hotkeys I can set up, but I procrastinate due to wishing and hoping that a UI revamp will arrive before the end of the year.

[Soln]

we have had this discussion about the UI and personal preferences and challenges for healers/buffers so I won't restart it.  It's what you can manage ultimately.  But the main thing IMO is there's no nice way to detect timers on buffs -- no countdown clock.  One has to watch the individual players bars to see which icons are on/off.  It's just a challenge for that and heals.  But hell, it also adds to making it interesting to play.  One has to just accept the UI as it is.  At most you can move a few things about creatively and deskin the UI to make more room or a clearner look.  I'll post my UI this weekend and make a new thread for discussion (not venting).