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[Ingmar]

They're pretty much my favorite thing about the game other than just wandering around looking at shit (although I like skirmishes too.)

I am under the impression that Book II stuff is not soloable all the way through anyway, so there's another reason not to go tromping off to Moria just yet.

[Cheddar]

Moria is better post 50.  I do recommend knocking out starter quest and getting your first Legendary, though.

[Ingmar]

I did, shame the starter champ sword is so fugly. I was surprised to discover that legendary whatnot drops off 50+ stuff even in Angmar and such.

[Tannhauser]

Four friends of mine have jumped back into LOTRO and I was happy to jump with them.  Just did a 4hr straight run and got lots of goodies, xp etc.  We are focusing on doing those group and book quests we never did before so some new content there.  Plus my Burglar is lots of fun. 

I hope they last at least to Moria, grouping has made this game fun again, soooo tired of solo.  Oh and liking the crafting changes so far.

[Yegolev]

Moria in due time.  Why the rush?

[Tannhauser]

We are all a bunch of LOTR nerds and I want them to see so much more of Middle Earth than they do.  Last time after we cleared the Barrows they all bailed.  I want to go "Look!  Moria!  Look!  Lothlorien!" 

I am taking it somewhat easy though; I spent 1.5 hrs this morning learning how to craft beer.  I can make beer, pipeweed and pies, life is good!

[Ingmar]

Found a spot in Book X that is giving me a little trouble, perhaps it is time to go on a skirmish binge and get my gear back up to level.

[Yegolev]

For some reason I thought I could trot into Eregion and pick up a legendary weapon but now I realize that I have to actually follow the epic quests.  Well, I think I can get Vol 2 intro in Rivendell and that will lead me to it.  Wondering if I want to break sequence on the epics.  Hmmm.

[Ingmar]

I did it, and I think it was worth it, even though I am otherwise being a stickler for doing it in order. Just for that one chapter. Having a legendary weapon helps a lot in some parts of Book 1 and it will level up a fair amount in the process.

[Hutch]

The first chapter of that book is "Legendary Items and You: A Tutorial". But they called it something else, and wrapped it up in some lore.

You have to finish it to get into Moria.

As Ingmar mentioned, you will level up your weapon some. In fact, one of the epic quest steps is to level it up to 10 and then go get it reforged.
Leveling it up outside of Moria/Lorien means killing monsters. I don't think ordinary quest xp counts.

[Nebu]

Four friends of mine have jumped back into LOTRO and I was happy to jump with them.  Just did a 4hr straight run and got lots of goodies, xp etc.  We are focusing on doing those group and book quests we never did before so some new content there.  Plus my Burglar is lots of fun. 

I hope they last at least to Moria, grouping has made this game fun again, soooo tired of solo.  Oh and liking the crafting changes so far.

I'm jealous.  I'd love to play this game with people that didn't drive me nuts.  Sadly, my gaming friends all gave up on MMOs after WAR tanked.

[Tannhauser]

You're welcome to make an alt an join us on Arkenstone.  My burg's name is Berrydoc (26th) and my cappie's name is Theodram (42).  I have others but those are my actives. 

We're not super organized, just some guys who like to kill shit and take its stuff.

[rk47]

Four friends of mine have jumped back into LOTRO and I was happy to jump with them.  Just did a 4hr straight run and got lots of goodies, xp etc.  We are focusing on doing those group and book quests we never did before so some new content there.  Plus my Burglar is lots of fun. 

I hope they last at least to Moria, grouping has made this game fun again, soooo tired of solo.  Oh and liking the crafting changes so far.

I'm jealous.  I'd love to play this game with people that didn't drive me nuts.  Sadly, my gaming friends all gave up on MMOs after WAR tanked.

I'm in the same boat really. WAR got them good.

'Is this like WAR?'

'Yeah, most MMO are similar, so it can't be that differe-...'

'No.'

 

[Azazel]

Moria and some overenthusiastic friends have sucked all of my enthusiasm out. The slow grindiness of the game and excessive travel has also been getting to me, along with the overwhelming amount of inventory management and trash drops.

Played some WoW today for the first time in a very long time, and it was almost entirely fun and dungeons and a real feeling of progression. Felt much more fun than LotRO, which I've been casually playing for about 8 months..  Some would obviously be the new shiny and everything old is new again, but I was surprised at how much more fun it was over LotRO. 

[Hawkbit]

WoW is great until you hit the point when you've done it all.  Then, not so much.

That wasn't a problem I had with LotRO because I never felt like I had done it all. 

[Nebu]

Made level 28 last night on my Burglar.  Each level I find myself getting more and more disillusioned with the game.  The landscape is beautiful, the epic ques line is engaging (minus the stupid kill X quests), and the character models are easy on the eyes.  All of this is ruined by pointless running, odd mob distribution, and poorly paced content.  I'm going to try and make it past 35 but I can see already that it will be tough.

[Yegolev]

I convinced the wife and we skipped ahead to Vol2 and I now have my starter legendary weapon for Dwuli.  I am excited about this while my wife is irritated that she has more shit to manage.  I suggested she might like WoW.

[Reg]

The Legendary weapon system added some new fun for a while. I particularly liked doing the daily quests to level them up. Unfortunately, like everything else in Lotro it eventually turned into a boring, awful, painful grind. Maybe if I pay 99 cents at the store I can skip it.

[Yegolev]

I did find two IXP items containing 1000 each.  I'd assume you could buy these in a few days.

[Tannhauser]

I'm a big fan of LOTRO but not the LI system. 
-LI's take up precious backpack space, including the four you are leveling but not wielding.
-Third Age LI's are 99% junk with legacies you don't want to spend points on.
-Second Age LI's are almost as bad.  I haven't yet found one that boosts more than one or two of my core skills.
-First Age LI's are ultra-rare and are too expensive on the AH for an honest minstrel like me.
-It takes way too many relics to combine to get up in Tier.  And those high tier relics aren't worth the trouble, their bonuses aren't that amazing for the effort.

Here's a Tier 5 relic example, my current highest Tier:

Sapphire Gem of the Sage    5    +216 Tactical Critical Rating, +72 in-Combat Power Regen, +15 Fate

+216 is not even +2% crit chance and +15 Fate? Kind of lame for all the relics I combined to get to it.

I do admit the system is kind of fun.  Fun to identify items, deconstruct etc.  But overall it's not worth my effort. 

[Mrbloodworth]

I did read somewhere they are bringing back the IXP daily, forget where, but the ones that grant the huge chunk of IXP for the quest completion, where you can snag 6 or so and hop around with a hunter to do them relatively quickly.

Also, the new head whatever, said her main focuses for the year would be the legendary item revamp, and a MPvP revamp. Two welcome changes for sure, I admit myself, legendary item system is brilliant, but it comes with he downside of being kind of grindy if you let it. The last set of changes made it better (less randomness more restraints on legacy stats and bonus ETC) but the whole things turns into sort of a "long haul" even if some things allow for some really interesting enhancements to things (like one of my swords grants a self heal % ability to one of my melee attacks).

They really should give you a "legendary bag" or something to put all that crap in. Id buy that for a dollar.

[Reg]

The idea of spending extra money to make up the badly designed and unpleasant parts of the game that were ultimately responsible for the low subscriber count that's making them desperate to get extra revenues in other ways fills me with rage.

[Nebu]

Dumb question: What is with the mobs that have a fancy border on their icon?  I assume that they are some kind of elite mob but wonder why the devs felt the need to add them to the game.  Also, why is it that when I mez a caster and kill his pet first that he immediately insta casts a new pet when I break the mez?  It's annoying as hell.

[Mrbloodworth]

Dumb question: What is with the mobs that have a fancy border on their icon?  I assume that they are some kind of elite mob but wonder why the devs felt the need to add them to the game.  Also, why is it that when I mez a caster and kill his pet first that he immediately insta casts a new pet when I break the mez?  It's annoying as hell.

• Swarm: Green ring. Alone, these are easy foes.
• Normal: Blue ring. One or two of these common mobs is suitable challenge for a lone hero of the right level.
• Signature: Red ring. These are uncommonly sturdy creatures—as tough as aurochs—often known by name or reputation.
• Elite: Glowing red ring bearing the Eye of Sauron. These are formidable foes—as tough as Trolls—best faced by a small or full fellowship.
• Elite Master: Spiked red ring bearing the Eye of Sauron. These are the lords of the Elites, and they can challenge even full fellowships.
• Nemesis: Spiked, molten ring bearing the flaming Eye. These legendary creatures may outmatch a lone fellowship.
• Arch-nemesis: Molten ring bearing the Eye aflame. These most grievous foes are doom to all but the worthiest Raids.

As for the caster/pet, depends on the mob I think.

[Nebu]

Thanks MrB.

I'm just wondering why I keep getting "solo" quests that ask me to kill signature and elite mobs that have adds.  Sure, they were easy on my warden but my burglar is having a tough time on some of the high hp mobs.  Seems like they would be better handled by a duo or a twinked solo... which I am not.

You coming back to play any time soon?  The Kin seems to be active again.  I logged on last night and there were like 6 people on.  Granted, none of them were saying anything in Kin chat but at least they were there.

[Zetor]

Out of curiosity, are you fighting the gauntmen in the lonelands? (signatures required for one of the epic quests; some of them also summon adds) Those are a pain, especially since a lot of the pulls have two of them. There are maybe two spots in the entire keep where you can pull just one... make sure you drag it away from where it stands however, as a patrol path for other mobs also goes through that spot. After killing one, I just went to do other quests, and returned every 15 minutes or so to kill it again when it respawned.

As for the actual killing -- I had the most luck doing an all-out assault on the signature mob itself while stunning / mezzing / ignoring the adds and interrupting their big heal (!! very important). Killing the adds was no good since they could heal them and resummon at least one other add. After the signature dies, loot and scoot.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah we should be online tomorrow night. I can't recall if I have a toon your level range though. But id be more than happy to snag my hunter and unclog anything you are stuck at for whatever reason.

If you are a hobbit burglar, I recommended getting "stoop for a stone", works great for pulling mobs.

Fake EDIT: I agree with Zetor, burglar in this game has much more CC stuff than you may accustomed to/realizing this includes consumables. My girl plays one as a main, she may have some tips/tricks.

EDIT: its also good to know some things about the mob race/type too, as the base races also have some quirks about them, such as damage types ETC...

[Nebu]

If you are a hobbit burglar, I recommended getting "stoop for a stone", works great for pulling mobs.

Have it.  I find it to be pretty limited in use as you are normally in aggro range by the time you're in range to toss a stone. 

As for cc, I think that I use it pretty well.  There's a mez and 3 different stuns that I use regularly.  I also use the evade ability and cycle that crit ability when it's up.  I just find that, with my crap gear, that when my gambles fail on tough pulls that I get in trouble fast.  This is especially true when adds come.

[Yegolev]

Also, why is it that when I mez a caster and kill his pet first that he immediately insta casts a new pet when I break the mez?  It's annoying as hell.

Well, if you did that to me, that's what I would do.

I did give you a "Yep" in kin chat when you commented on the full house.  Next time if I'm not in the middle of something maybe I will tell you about my day or whatnot.

EDIT: Actually my wife has a ton of questions for you regarding SSRIs and leg pain, so if you see us on and want to chat that would be the perfect icebreaker.  We usually devote Sunday to LotRO, approx 10am-7pm.

[Ingmar]

BTW if you are like me and cannot keep track of which ring around the mob portrait means which thing, just hover your mouse over the mob, the tooltip will say "signature" or "elite dickwolf" or whatever in plain text.

[Yegolev]

really OH

[Nebu]

Out of curiosity, are you fighting the gauntmen in the lonelands? (signatures required for one of the epic quests; some of them also summon adds) Those are a pain, especially since a lot of the pulls have two of them. There are maybe two spots in the entire keep where you can pull just one... make sure you drag it away from where it stands however, as a patrol path for other mobs also goes through that spot. After killing one, I just went to do other quests, and returned every 15 minutes or so to kill it again when it respawned.

Yes.  They are annoying. 

I did find a single spawn, but he doesn't seem to drop the thing that I need.  I'll kill him a few more times tonight.  That undead castle gives me fits with adds.  I think I need better gear.  I've been saving for a faster horse instead of buying crafted. 

[Zetor]

Yeah, honestly that entire area was just a huge pain. Much more manageable on my warden and captain than my LM, but still, ugh. Also, getting an extra level or two makes a lot of difference in my experience.

There are actually two epic quests that go there, do you have the "collect 5 emblems from gauntmen" quest or the other one? Also, you will only get credit if you kill ones within the keep subzone (learned this the hard way -- one or two of the guys were past the subzone-line and wouldn't give credit, wewt). My 'mob of choice' was the one standing at the bottom of some stairs (you do need to clear a few double-normal-mob spawns around him though).

fake edit: Hmm actually, stealth might work. I -seem- to remember some easier spawns deeper in, but also a lot of the tougher level 31-32 ones as well.

[Nebu]

There are actually two epic quests that go there, do you have the "collect 5 emblems from gauntmen" quest or the other one?

That's the one.  I'm going to play around in another zone for a level or two and head back.  I think it will help a lot.  I just want to hit 30 for a faster mount and some skirmish action.  I really want to see if I can keep playing one toon past 35.  This may just be it.

[Tannhauser]

I think finding the right class is key.  I never tried a burglar, never play that type in MMO's but hoo boy do I love mine now.  Conversely, I thought the LM was right up my alley but I'm frustrated and stalled with him at 37.