LOTRO: Lore-master legendary items

Recently, H asked me for advice on how to customize his lore-master's legendary items (LI's). Since I get this question more often, and that particular thread is starting to get a bit lengthy, I thought it best to give the subject the space it deserves and write a post.

First off, I don't consider myself "the expert on LI's" or something, I'll just go with what I found to be effective myself. I should also tell you that I built my lore-master mainly for PvE (and specifically for raiding), and my LI's reflect this. My optimal choice might not be the best for you if you have a different playstyle (EM comes to mind).

Warning: nerdy content follows! I assume that you to know how the legendary item system in LotRO works. If you don't, it might be an idea to read an external guide like Legendary Items 101 first. You'll probably be bored to death by this post anyway.

My setup

I use five different LI's while playing. Five?! But I thought you can only equip two at a time? That's correct, but I like going for maximum efficiency, and there simply were more legacies than would fit on two items. I also like to get crazy and swap staves and books mid-fight. That doesn't mean you can't get away with a (slightly less efficient) build of just one staff and one book, don't worry. And while I do recommend at least a separate raiding book if you're serious about raiding, you certainly don't have to swap LI's mid-fight.

Lore-master books

I have three of these, mainly because I'm crazy and the legacies I wanted didn't fit on two. To the left my support book, to the right my DPS book.

Priorities

Support book
Tactical healing rating maxed out
Signs of power durations
Healing from Beacon of Hope
Target resistance (debuffing skills)

DPS book
+5% fire skill damage title
Fire damage over time
Pulses legacies
Target resistance (damaging/fire skills)

While the Target resistance legacies are no more than an extra bunch of skill type specific finesse, lore-masters don't get that much finesse from gear, so I do recommend to take those legacies if you can. For raids, it is important to have so much finesse that your debuffs never get resisted.

A common misunderstanding  is the the thought that the legacy Signs of Power durations only prolongs the duration of your stun immunity. However, it prolongs the duration of all Signs of Power buffs. The main reason why this legacy is absolutely vital on a raid book is because it allows you to keep up Sign of Power: See All Ends on the target 100% of the time (in combination with Force of Will, the Ancient Master capstone). A must for every serious raiding lore-master.

My third book is a pet book ("Creatures of Middle-earth"), which I use to to apply a Sign of the Wild to my pet. When I equip either my support or DPS book, the improved buff on the pet stays. I also swap it in if I need to use Bane Flare.

Tips: if you're making a separate DPS and support book, you don't have to spend any points in tactical healing rating on your DPS book (= more points to spend on legacies). If you have the luxury of a first age symbol that you don't need to spend on something else (I would spend one on a staff first), your book will get an extra amount of tactical damage (1-5%) as a passive. Otherwise the age doesn't matter apart from the available amount of points to spend. If you have a second age symbol available, I would prioritize a second age book for your support book over that of your DPS book, as second age books (and first age books) have a higher outgoing healing rating than third age books. Tactical healing rating affects your healing (including Beacon of Hope and Share the Power) more than any legacy. 

Lore-master staves

I have two staves: a support staff (left) and a DPS staff (right). As there's only one legacy important for a support staff, you can combine it all on one staff as well, if you wish to do so (but you'll have less points to spend on DPS).

Priorities

Support staff
Share the Power Increase
Nice passives

DPS staff
Damage title (e.g. Beleriand)
Tactical Skills Direct Damage
Fire Skills Critical Multiplier
Burning Embers Initial Damage

Sometimes someone comes to me and says something along the lines of: Hey, look at my new legendary item, it's great! It got Ents go to War and Lightning Storm all maxed out. Uhm, yeah. Thing is, Ents and Lightning Storm are great burst damage skills, but they got long cooldowns. If you want to increase your sustained DPS, and arguably even your burst DPS (because often, these skills will be on cooldown), you're better off with the other legacies I've posted above. Another thing to remember, is that your fire damage gets insane buffs from both the Master of Nature's Fury traits line and legacies. Since the vast majority of lore-master damaging skills consists of fire skills with short cooldowns, it rewards your DPS to focus your legacies on these. That's why I like buffing fire skills through legacies more than, say, taking Light of the Rising Dawn damage (light damage doesn't get many buffs, reasonably long cooldown, mostly useful for the stun) or Storm-lore damage (lightning damage doesn't get many buffs, long cooldown, weak damage).

It's a different story in the Ettenmoors (PvP), were the fights are short and burst damage is great. This article is aimed at a PvE reader public.

Tip: if you're making a separate support staff, it doesn't matter what age it is, because you don't have to spend many points, nor will do DPS with it. You can see that I even kept my level 65 third age staff, because it doesn't matter that much (apart from not being able to use good relics if it's really low level) and I haven't been able to find a level 75 one with equal passives so far. For your DPS staff, though, you do want the earliest age you can afford of the maximum available level, because these have a higher DPS rating, plus more points to spend. Just like with the books, the DPS rating pretty much affects your damage output more than any legacy.

Relics

There are different needs to be served depending on if you provide support or if you DPS. In hard (T2) raids, everyone will take damage, and it will often be tactical. That's why I look for tactical mitigation (tip: title on your book), in-combat power regen and morale on my support relics. In normal group content, the lore-master is usually the lowest on the threat list, so you don't need to stack loads of morale. That's why I go for crit and tactical mastery on my DPS items. If you suddenly do need morale while DPS'ing (e.g. soloing), you can always slot mitigation and morale virtues and swap in jewellery with more morale - all much easier than swapping your relics.

DPS lore-master tip: I like the Settings of Ending: it's the only thing that increases your devastate magnitude, and crit is pretty good for a DPS lore-master.  

Updates

I've looked at the upcoming lore-master changes with Riders of Rohan and don't expect many changes on how to build your lore-master legendary items - apart from that we'll have to get them up to level 85, of course. I might keep this post up to date with my new LI's when the time is there.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or did I do it all wrong, feel free to write below and I'll try to answer. Let's talk lore-master!