Class advice.

[Rasix]

I recommend describing your play style in a seperate thread and letting the "vets" argue fine points.

Good idea.

I mainly solo.  I don't raid, I don't look to group while leveling up.  I don't, however, mind grouping with people if things can be done quickly.  The most I ever really have to play at a time is about 2 hours, so I really hate wasting time.  

The main classes I play in WoW are a rogue, warlock and enhance shaman.  2 out of 3 are basically "thrash" melee dps with plenty of tricks to avoid getting splatted.  The warlock is just tough and has a lot of tricks as well.  I have no special aversion to tanking or healing, but I really would rather not do either. I don't mind being the special snowflake DPS version of a tank or healer as long as it's not gimpy.  If I group I like to stick to one role and do it pretty well.  Big numbers of death is pretty easy to master for a casual (so is the grand healing strategy of HP > 0).  I don't like being a glass cannon or if I am, I like to have plenty of "ohh shit" buttons to prevent something from making me a grease spot.  But I do like stuff do die a violent death at my hands in a fairly expedited fashion.

Basically, I want an easy time through soloing. I don't want to struggle.  I do not want to feel underpowered for any long stretch at the beginning and don't mind feeling overpowered (as long as my class avoids the DK phenomenon of WoW).  

Any help would be appreciated.  I'd like to not reroll too much looking for a class that fits me.  FYI, last class I played was a champ in beta.  Class may have been unfinished at the time but it felt a bit flimsy.

[rattran]

I'd recommend Guardian. Reasonable kill rate, can soak lots of damage, tanking in low level groups just means hitting things. For soloing 2h weapons are fun, hit hard, and don't chew through your mana too fast. Second choice would be Captain, which is great for solo (kinda duo with the pet) but takes longer to wrap your head around.

Champs and Hunters are fun for duoing, but seem to me to be overly squishy at times, and I just find Guardian more fun solo.

[Zetor]

Hmm, well, I have a lot of experience with WOW classes and some experience with LOTRO classes (disclaimer: I don't have any level 65s yet and only played a guardian pre-overpower stance), so here is my 2c comparing everything to WOW classes!

Burglar: Melee CCer and debuffer; not a high damage dealing class. No real WOW equivalent (stealth and stuns etc. are kind of like a rogue, but a burglar doesn't have the sheer damage output). Can kinda-sorta offtank with evasion tricks.
Captain: Pre-BC ret paladin with a lot more utility + healing (depends on spec). Tons of buffs for your group, but solo play is kind of lackluster (even though you will probably never die). Can offtank one mob (only has a few aggro generation tools). Can have a pet that does minor damage and has a few buffs.
Champion: Fury warrior, pretty much... AOE blender of death. Can go into defensive stance and use a shield, and comfortably tank for smaller groups if needed (not as good as a warden/guardian though).
Guardian: Prot warrior. Extremely survivable, and can switch to 'overpower stance' when soloing with a 2-hander for decent-ish damage at the cost of survivability.
Hunter: Hunter without a pet. Lots of damage at range, traps etc., but needs to kite when solo.
Loremaster: Really complex class, I'd say closest is warlock (can spec for more damage at the cost of cc, more cc, and more pet damage / heals). Variety of pets with different abilities/buffs, tons of debuffs, an absolutely insane number of buttons to push, okay damage (more if you spec for it, but you lose some CC power). A lot of CC options. Very squishy.
Minstrel: Squishy healer, closest would be a pre-wotlk holy priest with some more casted heal types. Also build their 'songs' up as the battle goes on. Can go into 'shadowform' (warspeech) doing a lot more damage at the cost of healing power; still squishy though.
Runekeeper: Glass cannon extraordinaire; a mix of arcane mage and resto druid (but not at the same time, see later). They blow things up good, and they can heal too with HOTs; however, they have to choose whether they are healing or doing damage at any point due to the attunement mechanic.
Warden: Tank-spec blood DK. Very survivable tank with lots of self-heals and tricks; can't really DPS when not tanking/soloing though. Unlike guardian it doesn't have a taunt, so have to use aggro-generation abilities well. Has a combo system to fire off attack, needs very intensive play (pressing something every GCD) to be effective.

Each of the 'dps' classes also has some skills to help a group. Hunters can cure poison, captains have a lot of buffs and can cure fear, LMs can cure disease/wounds. Minstrels, LMs and runekeepers get a rez, captains get battlerezes with long cooldowns. Minstrels and RKs are the 'main healers', captains are good secondary healers, and LMs have a single big emergency heal.

Guardians can give acorns to friends who can then summon them anywhere in the world; hunters can port the entire group to a large number of locations; captains can summon party members to them; wardens can port themselves to a large number of locations. Hunters also have a runspeed buff for the group.

For a DPS class, I would probably suggest a second look at champion... imo they are very survivable, do a lot of aoe damage... they can even tank for pugs in a pinch (we have a champion tank in our alt group). Captains are very solid at soloing, just not many buttons to push (autoattack will be a large % of your damage). Runekeeper is another option; it's super-squishy, but the speed at which shit dies makes up for it, I think. I would stay away from hunter unless you really like kiting. I really like LM, but they are very complex and can be annoying at times (hi2u pet pathing). I would stay away from minstrel/burglar/warden.

[Ingmar]

Champs are pretty good solo, I've been happy with mine.

[Rasix]

Just curious but is there any class that is met with a "ohh great, another ______".

Thanks for the advice.  I think I can just about straight rule out hunter, LM, minstrel, burg, warden based on what I'm hearing so far.  Possibly RK too, but they sound somewhat intriguing.

So that leaves champ, guard, or capt (doesn't quite sound like it's my speed though) and maybe RK for a "lets try the paper tiger for kicks" moments.

[Ingmar]

I should point out that I've watched wardens solo some things I couldn't, and they have a pretty 'deep' playstyle compared to the other melee types it seems like, you combine your abilities into these chains that have different end effects depending on the order you do them in, so that might help keep things interesting as you go along.

[Zetor]

Yeah, for purely soloing, wardens are pretty nice. Mine is level 30 so far, and has soloed 3 even-level signature mobs at one point without any problems. It's just that in a group you will be expected to tank (warden damage in DPS mode is nothing special) and warden tanking is definitely harder / more intensive than guardian or even champion tanking.

[Tarami]

Here's a vote for Guardian, then. The reactives (you unlock a line of skills when you parry or block, where parry opens the offensive line and block the defensive line) are really fun and mix rotations up in a great way. It also gives the fun quirk that the more mobs you have, the more damage you deal/the better you tank. In my opinion it's the "rage mechanism" done right. You also get some fun "Take THAT"-skills, plus, of course, you get to wear LotRO's awesome-looking heavy armour (although so do champs and captains.)

[Cheddar]

Just curious but is there any class that is met with a "ohh great, another ______".

Short answer - No. 

From what you described I would suggest Champ.  RK's can be lots of fun and rain death - but are a bit more complex then you may desire.  Also - minstrels are the face melting class (as odd as that seems).  Post 40 they can specialize very easily to damage at the cost of healing ability.  By 60 the gap between mini and champ widens; main thing is if you make a mistake as a mini its dirt nap time and their damage is a bit bursty and dependent on critical hits (whereas champ is steady).  Also champs do not have power (mana) issues like a mini does.

Champs - killing machines.  Also do not underestimate the AOE aspect; the only class better is Minstrel.  You get less "oh shit" abilities then Minstrel, but then again do not really need them as you are a steel trap of destruction.  Minstrels do more damage, but tend towards squishy. 

RK - killing glass cannons.  Bit more complex then champ.  You build arcane ability fight to fight and have penalties/bonuses based on what magic you are using (ie. if you drop a heal you lock yourself out of some of your killing stuff for x amount of times).

[Yegolev]

I find RK to be less squishy than a hunter, despite the cloth armor.  Personally I find the amount of thinking and attention required to play a RK to be on the low side, as long as you don't decide to do something stupid like switch attunement during a fight.  The main reason that my RK has better survivability than my hunter is because of the healing.  I start off dropping two HOTs, wait for my attunement to normalize (very fast since not in combat), then start up on the insta-cast lightning, or lead with the long-windup fire DOT if I really want it to die before it gets to me.  If I pull more than one, chances are that the ones I am not attacking will decide to attack my "totem" aka "healing rock" instead of me.  Finally, if things go too badly I have a "stun finger" that will immobilize one mob while I get the hell out of there, and probably refresh my insta-HOT while fleeing.

So, some thinking up front but once you get into the attunement system it's not bad.  I'd like some AoE, though I would probably just die more if I had one.

I'd also vote for Guardian.  My lv26 Guard has never died and looks cool doing it.  I did go with Metalworker as a craft vocation to offset the cost of armor/shields, though.

Just curious but is there any class that is met with a "ohh great, another ______".

No, which I find to be one of the most awesome things about this game.  Some solo better than others but in a group, any class brings something to the table.

[Rasix]

Is guardian DPS dependent on reactives?  Does a guardian in a DPS role have any place in a group or are they expected to tank? (I wouldn't mind tanking if the mechanics aren't too annoying).  Guardian is one of the classes I also played in beta.  The two handed felt a bit slow and underpowered (I'm sure that's been corrected). 

Champ and guardian both sound good.  I thought the dwarves looked pretty bad ass in heavy armor.

[Yegolev]

Well, for the most part I rely on autoattack damage with reactives just adding.  I'd not say you rely on them but they do speed up the inevitable death of your enemy.  Mostly because they rely on luck, only triggering on a block or parry.  You should not find them critical, however you will want to do simple things like use the block stance when using a shield so you can get the most chances to react.

You might have read about "Overpower" which has been added since beta; basically this puts you in "DPS mode" and combined with a worthy two-hander is good fun.  You do lose some defensive ability via reduced block/parry chance and will be hit more often, though.  I think the Parry stance is the middle and I'd use it with a two-hander, but for defense purposes I'd use Block stance and a shield.  In any case the reactives are useful but not mandatory.

[rattran]

I've solo'd Champ and Guard to 65, I'd say they're about the same amount of button mashing, with Champ it's just a matter of getting a flow going, with minor modifications between singles and aoe. With Guards, you just wait for parry/blocks then start the reactive chains. And a good 1h with the shield-bash stuff does about the same damage as a 2h over the life of a mob.  I'm a big fan of human for either, the +3000 morale heal every hour really helps survival.

I did get "Oh great, another Hunter/Champ" quite a bit in Moria.

[Tarami]

Agreed. The reactives - unless you're tanking as they are then fairly important (but also numerous since you're getting the shit kicked out of you) - are mostly like bonuses. When in Overpower you also get the skill "Force Opening" which automatically opens the parry line to alleviate dry spells. I wouldn't say Guardians are exceptional DPSers, but very good soloers none the less.

Overpower adds 15% damage and disables blocking altogether I think so it's very much a two-hander stance.

[HaemishM]

Hunter is the only way to go for one reason. Not the damage, though they excel at that. They have a little bit of crowd control, if you plan out the fight beforehand. No, what really makes them the soloers dream is the ports. Travel time in this game can be brutal - not quite EQ1 levels of brutal, but around EQ2 levels. Hunters get ports to all the major places at various times in their level progression, generally right after you've started to get into the area you are getting the port to. The hardest port I ever had to earn was the one to East Angmar, which is just a bitch in terms of a zone. The ability to port other people as well is a huge group boon, or a way to earn a little coin if you want to talk to people.

[Hutch]

I'm about to reach level 26 on my hunter alt.

Now, I did bankroll this toon from my main, but I've only been buying cheap crafted weapons off the AH.

I find myself kiting almost never. The judicious use of traps, as explained above, plus the hamstring move you get, will keep you out of melee range most of the time. And that's if the mob even gets to melee range, which is rare. 99% of the solo content doesn't require you to pull more than 2 mobs at a time. Three or more mobs at once is asking for it though, as the hunter is pretty squishy (also as described above).

Things might get harder for a soloer after the mid-20s; I couldn't say. At 25, this hunter is now my 2nd-highest level toon ever in LotRO. (My main, a LoreMaster, is a toon that I play exclusively in a duo with my brother).

[Mrbloodworth]

Just waite till you get the trait that allows you to trap VIA ranged attack. Its joy.

[Nebu]

I would suggest that you try a Captain, Guardian, Warden, or RK.  

I played my warden to 35 and found it to be pretty ridiculous.  If you can memorize a few key sequences and have someone make you crafted gear, there's almost no limit to what you can do.  

My minstrel was a lot of fun as well, but I could see the writing on the wall in playstyle.  This is a class that is constantly pushing buttons for buffs, debuffs, heals, etc.

Burglar is a wonderful solo class if you enjoy finesse over brute strength.  They have tons of tools to make tough fights doable and stealth to bypass trash.  Sadly, they seem very gear dependant.  

RK was very enjoyable, but he was never geared well enough to feel like I had a grasp on the full potential.  If you don't mind kiting, the class is very capable.

[Arthur_Parker]

I played 3 Guardians up to mid level 40's in Beta, started playing again in Europe about a year ago, got a Guardian to about 25.  Quit and started playing in USA, Guardian at level 61.  I did enjoy playing a Rune Master till about level 10 recently which was a very different experience, I'd suggest trying a few classes out to see what suits you.

[Cheddar]

Is guardian DPS dependent on reactives?  Does a guardian in a DPS role have any place in a group or are they expected to tank? (I wouldn't mind tanking if the mechanics aren't too annoying).  Guardian is one of the classes I also played in beta.  The two handed felt a bit slow and underpowered (I'm sure that's been corrected). 

Champ and guardian both sound good.  I thought the dwarves looked pretty bad ass in heavy armor.

I do not recommend guard.  Champ is pretty easy (and in the right hands downright devastating) to be somewhat efficient.  Guard was ok, and with a 2 hander does decent damage (at the cost of power constantly being an issue), but at the end of the day you are basically trying to be a champ at less efficiency.  Embrace the berzerker RAGE!

Just from a quality of life perspective - champ > guard.  Its just fun; I was completely dumbfounded at how fun it is (as a matter of fact I just rolled a second one because I like it so much). 

Also - if you join our little community I will get you enough cash to last you to Moria, so thats not a problem.

[rattran]

I completely disagree with the crazy man above me. After playing a Champ to the cap, Guard seemed like easy mode.

If you go Champ, Guard or Captain I can make you sets of armor as needed. 1 week more then I'll be out of this limitless expanse of god-forsaken desert and back home and playing.

[Cheddar]

I completely disagree with the crazy man above me. After playing a Champ to the cap, Guard seemed like easy mode.

If you go Champ, Guard or Captain I can make you sets of armor as needed. 1 week more then I'll be out of this limitless expanse of god-forsaken desert and back home and playing.

Champ.

[Rasix]

About how long does it take to get a real feel for the class?  Giving champ a shot right now.  Since this cheap LOTRO deal came out, I'll likely give guard or warden a shot too.

[Mrbloodworth]

The going consensus is about level 20 you start to see whats up. But i will say thats only scratching the surface. Its also, as far as zones and directions, where options start opening up as to where you want to adventure.

[Pendan]

No, what really makes them the soloers dream is the ports.

Warden's do have self ports. Fight solo better than hunters. Hunters also the overplayed class.

[Segoris]

With the 9.99 deal atm, is it worth picking up two accounts to start out with or is this game so solo friendly that it wouldn't really be beneficial?

I'm torn between Loremaster, champ, and hunter atm, but would be making a minstrel or runekeeper if boxing is efficient enough.

[Yegolev]

You can solo to max level, if that's what you are asking.  You can't do all of the quests and instances solo, though.  Also, those places where you can't solo could very well be way too much for a duo as well.  See the "Forochel and other shitty places" thread, we might be discussing some of these.

[Segoris]

I figured soloing to max level was normal, but yeah that Forochel thread did seem to give the impression there's no point to boxing. Kind of a relief, especially since it seems tanks do just fine without healers as well. Time to give this game a solid try then

[Yegolev]

Personally... I like LotRO because it doesn't make me feel pressured to perform like other games.  I ran two accounts in EVE, and probably would have in other games if I had the money at the time.  There is some pressure, but I am pretty happy looking at scenery and doing grey quests.

[Tarami]

Concerning group quests in LotRO and related complaints: Having played WoW almost exclusively the past couple of months, I have to say it's fun to have those soul-crushingly hard quests sometimes. WoW is nowadays just too much the other way. There's NO challenge left anywhere, especially not if you duo like I am doing. LotRO's difficulty is much more varied.

Careful what you wish for, is all I'm saying.