LOTRO: Should you play a lore-master?

A kinnie asked for advice on whether or not to start a lore-master today. He has been raiding on his main for years and was looking for a raiding alt. Here is a slightly altered version of what I told him. Use it to your advantage if you consider rolling one.

How is the lore-master to level? Does it take a long time solo?

This first question was right away the hardest for me to answer, as I leveled mine in Shadows of Angmar, when it was one of the slowest classes to level. Much has changed since then, as we now have a viable DPS trait line. Don't expect the lore-master to be the fastest class ever to level, but it should now be fairly quick. You are also very survivable once you know how to use your tricks. If you want to know more about leveling a lore-master, the official forums are a good place to start. There are always some threads on this topic.

Are most skills induction based?

Yes.

How is the DPS? Can I just explode stuff?

Yes, blowing things up is what lore-masters do best, that is, if they are traited in the red line. Most of our skills deal fire damage, and some of them have utterly cool animations. Think of Ents go to War and Lightning Storm.

Strong points: Lore-masters traited down the Master of Nature's Fury ("red") line, have amazing AoE burst DPS. This is great for soloing, burning everything left and right. It's also great for raid skirmishes, certain instances and such. Sustained AoE damage is also pretty good.

Downside: Sustained lore-master single-target DPS is crap, even with reds traited. Arguably, even captains can deal more damage. Also note that traiting DPS will to a certain extent gimp your support and crowd-control skills.

In any serious raid, you will be playing as a support class (most times traited in the Ancient Master line) with limited DPS.

Are there good "oh shit"-skills?

Lore-masters have one reasonably big self heal with a five minute cooldown, but that's about it. We are squishy and are expected to plan ahead for what we do, using dazes, roots or slowing and kiting. A lore-master is a master with these tools, and if you use them correctly, there is little you cannot solo.

What do you like the most about the lore-master?

• You need to use your brains.
For some classes, it's fine to pretty much stick to one way of traiting and repeat the same thing you're good at all the time. Not so with the lore-master. In my opinion, each (group) situation requires different traits and pets. You'll be changing these around depending on what dangers you're facing and what classes you play with. Pro-tip 1: if you're lazy and just want to repeat the same trick over and over, this is not the class for you. 

• It's a multitasking support class.
Lore-masters are pretty much indispensible for any hard raid. They are the multitaskers in the group: debuffing, healing, leeching/sharing power, managing crowd-control, removing corruptions, providing stun immunity, curing wounds/diseases, bossing their pets around... and this all at the same time. This will be chaotic from time to time and you really have to be on your toes, but this is what makes the class fun for me, even after many years. Being support does have to suit you, though. Pro-tip 2: if you just want to blow things up, stick to soloing and the Ettenmoors. 

• Crowd-control.
Lore-masters arguably have the best crowd-control of all classes - my eyes sparkle when asked to daze something, or even better, daze two things! I once made a list of crowd-control sorted by class and published it on the Lotro-wiki. The constant reoccurring of the LM class should speak for itself: stun (6 skills, 1 pet skill), daze (2 skills), root (2 skills), slow (2 skills) and fear (1 pet skill). The current main raid the Tower of Orthanc demands a lot of crowd-control. Pro-tip 3: if you strongly dislike crowd-control, avoid the Tower of Orthanc.

Overall, the lore-master is a lovely versatile class that won't easily bore you. I do think you have to have certain characteristics, though, in order to be able to like it.

Already playing a lore-master?

Let me know what you like about it most! Also, feel free to comment if you believe I have been incorrect anywhere. Finally, I made a compilation of lore-master animations, including the ones above (yes, I admit it, I couldn't stop taking fun lore-master screenshots, they just look so cool!). Are you able to you recognize all the animations depicted in this article?

Note: the pictures above will be counted as 1-4, counting from top to bottom. Below will continue with 5.

Answers

1 Gust of Wind
2 Power return (Knowledge of the Past required)
3 Test of Will
4 Ents go to War
5 Burning Embers
6 Effect on self after using Wisdom of the Council
7 Air-lore
8 Induction of Lightning Storm
9 Lightning Storm

 Let me know what you think of the lore-master class!

SWTOR: Kneeling, exploration and more tauntauns

A mystery solved

Have you ever had your character kneeling when logging in and did you wonder why? It is almost as if my smuggler Yu'no is proposing to her baby tauntaun, or is she trying to pet it? Whatever it is, the mystery has been solved: this harmless bug is caused by logging in while still having your pet summoned from your last session. With thanks to a clever poster commenting on Xhii's blog Roll one hundred.

Turning Nar Shaddaa upside down

I've told you before that I don't like spoilers. If I'm playing a game for the first time, I don't want to look locations and guides up on the internet. Small downside: I do like finding holocrons. As I've been told that every planet contains at least one holocron, I was determined to find the one on Nar Shaddaa on my jedi knight Haradwen while she was leveling there. If I would explore each obnoxious corner I could see, I should at least be able to find one, right?

I can be so naive at times. 

I'm now level 25. I have not find a single holocron on Nar Shaddaa. What I did learn, though:

• There is no holocron situated around, op top or even in the golden Hutt statue on Nar Shaddaa. Yes, I'm 100% certain. 
• There are very, very many shafts on Nar Shaddaa. None of them contains a hidden lift.
• There are also a lot of crates on Nar Shaddaa. Climbing from crate to crate also does not result in finding a holocron.

Now I heard from someone that there are actually five holocrons hidden on Nar Shaddaa. Not one, but five! How did I miss all of them? Today I learned... that I am not very talented in finding holocrons.

Athiss on alts

To cheer myself a bit up, I took Haradwen to Athiss with a friend and my boyfriend + his tanking droid. I remember that it was pretty tough on level when we did this for the first time on our mains. Me and my boyfriend were a couple of levels too high, so that's probably why it went so smooth this time. It was still much fun, though. I like how crew skills can be used to skip parts or get small group buffs. It's a original mechanic, have never seen anything like it in an MMO before. I also had to giggle at my friend's appearance: I think she is the only one around who still suffers from the Rakghoul disease. It looks so funny! Also check out our baby tauntauns. Don't they look adorable? They can't seem to take their eyes of us. I do think it's a bit creepy how they keep staring at me, though. Perhaps I should keep an eye on them, as well.

LOTRO: On steeds and Shades of the Past

Anniversary grind completed

I'm there, I got the horses I wanted from this anniversary festival, but it was quite a grind. Less horse tokens, but double as many normal tokens, sigh. I'm really happy with what I got though: I love how the Steed of the Dusk-watch fits with my anniversary dress (picture below) - the saddle has the same blue colour, a good substitute for the anniversary azure steed that I missed out on. The Fireworks Laden Steed looks brilliant as well. I love the fireworks that comes out of its back now and then (picture at the bottom of the article)! Luckily I already got the Anniversary Steed of last year - not that I'm particular fond of its look. I do like how the picture turned out (above). If you'd still like to get some anniversary stuff: the festival is extended to May 9th.

Weekend of steeds

Steeds are hot! If you're into it, this weekend is your chance to buy any Store exclusive steeds. Apparently, all steeds that are usually only temporarily available can all be bought in the Store this weekend. In addition, most servers have steed themed community events planned - see the Lotro Reporter website for a roster. There's also a contest, for which you can submit your best horses-in-action screenshots.

Source: Official Lotro Website, Lotro Reporter

Update 7 announced

Also, news has been released of the next update, called update 7 "Shades of the Past", which will hit before June the 5th. The exact date is not clear, but this is a lot sooner than expected, at least for me! Don't worry you don't have to grind through another 10 levels just yet, the cap raise is not expected before this fall. Update 7 will embody some content upgrades:

• Fornost will be overhauled, so that it:

- can be played at a chosen level between 30 and 75
- is divided in four parts (each for a full fellowship)

Fornost isn't my favorite instance, but this does sound like a good idea. Do you remember the last time that you cleared the whole Fornost instance on-level? I've been playing for over four years now, but I think I've only done the thing in one go once, and it took me a whole afternoon and evening. And then I'm not even thinking of all the times you went in there and there was always one person who had not done the quests in the first area - resulting in not having enough time left over to do the quests the other five needed. It will be fun to play this again for good old time's sake.

• Moria areas will get a revamp

Both the looks and the quests will get attention. I didn't think there was much wrong with them as they are, but I found the previous area revamps they've done quite nice, so I guess it can't hurt. Who knows, I might level my level 48 champion a bit to try them out.

• New skirmish raid: Storm of the Methedras

Yay, new content! Less yay: why is it a skirmish? I shouldn't complain too much though, as I think people have seen most of the Tower of Orthanc by now. It is time to give us something new to keep us quiet before the big autumn update. The title sounds as if it will involve the Rohirrim, which certainly will excite my captain Ravenwyn, having Rohirrim roots.

Overall, I am looking forward to seeing this new update getting implemented. If you can't wait: Bullroarer will be opened soon.

Sources: Lotro Forums, A Casual Stroll to Mordor

Edit: check out my first thoughts in Update 7: first impression.

SWTOR: Miralukous tauntauns

A baby tauntaun

Last week I logged my jedi sentinel Haradwen, and saw I had mail. It was my baby tauntaun! It's available for everyone who had an active subscription at the time of the introduction of the legacy system. I did not get the other gift from the legacy promotion (30 days free subscription) because I don't have a level capped character, nor enough legacy levels. I don't really care though, the tauntaun looked like fun. Well, fun... they actually look adorably ugly. The best thing is that they run after you while you drive your speeder on those little legs of them. You can say a lot about tauntauns, but they can run like the best!

Miraluka

Haradwen is a Miraluka, meaning that she cannot see, but uses the force to localize herself. I chose to play a Miraluka jedi sentinel, as that would mean she would blindly leap into fights and swing her lightsaber around with deadly precision, lead by the force only. How cool is that? The only thing I was puzzled by, is what a Miraluka exactly is. I felt slightly ashamed, but I had not heard of the race before, even though I consider myself a Star Wars fan. I've seen all movies (several times), and am just old enough to have seen the release of II and III in the cinema. I've also seen some of the newest Clone Wars series and have played Knights of the Old Republic I, but can't remember a single Miraluka. So what exactly are they?

A quick internet search taught me that I luckily don't show signs of Alzheimer just yet: the Miraluka show up in Knights of the Old Republic II - which I still need to play - and several Star Wars books - which I have not read. The Miraluka had to leave their original homeworld, as it was instable. They evolved on their new homeworld Alpheridies, which only knows infrared light. Having no use for seeing anything the traditional way, their eyes disappeared and they only have eye sockets left. Decorative veils are used to cover these when meeting people from other races. The Miraluka use the force to localize themselves. Fun fact: Miraluka in SWTOR have an ability called Sense Force Alignment that they use to sense the alignment of other players.

A person without eyes doesn't look very sexy, but I think I did it right with Haradwen: she has a very pretty face. Now if only those jedi knight outfits would look a bit better...

Other fun facts about the Miraluka:

• Many Miraluka join the jedi order, being able to sense the force from childhood. The ideals of the jedi order lie closer to their cultural beliefs than those of the sith.
• They have a very strong force sight, allowing them to interpret their surroundings. They can even see the force radiating from jedi and sith.
• Miraluka often panic when encountering someone who is not connected to the force for the first time, not being able to understand how that is possible.

You can read more about the Miraluka at the Wookieepedia and SWTOR Wiki.

LOTRO: A week's raiding worth a fortune

Last week's raiding was lovely. First we defeated Lightning T2 and I won a First Age symbol! I've won some before, but passed them over to DPS classes (as they profit far more from it than a lore-master). Now almost everyone in my kin has one, and the captain I offered it to refused to take it. I'm secretly really happy with it! I made a staff and it finally got the four majors it needed - a personal record since Mirkwood-times. It was also really nice to clear up a lot of vault space by getting rid of all those iXP runes rotting there. I also found out that the First Age staff looks much better than the Second Age staff cosmetically spoken. Or is that just me being blinded by my happiness?

The next day we did Fire & Ice T2, Acid T1 and some Shadow T2 tries, all in one night. My kin has completed Shadow T2 before, but I had never seen the fight myself, as I could not raid at that time due to internet connection issues. I was really happy to be able to see it now, although it was getting late, our group setup was not ideal and I found the fight pretty chaotic for a lore-master. It still was great fun, and I'm sure our next try this week will be more productive.

I also found a sudden love for the dragon raid, since he now drops a treasure of around 60 seals. I'm not sure if this is working as intended, but I'm not complaining, as it's a good reward for a pretty long and tedious fight. And besides, it's a dragon, so it's supposed to reward with a part of his fortune, right? I think I got quite my share of fortune this week. With the seals of this week's Tower of Orthanc plus the dragon, I had gathered enough to buy my last two pieces from the rune-keeper Tower of Orthanc healing set, hurray! Minor setback was that I found out that I still need to complete the lightning boss on my rune-keeper to be able to buy the helm, but at least I was able to buy the chest piece. Doesn't Ravalinde look gorgeously gothic in her new robe? It's almost as beautiful as the lore-master robe, or perhaps it is. Both those robes are of a cosmetically great design.

Change of scenery: planting plants to shoot zombies

I had to live several days without internet connection (hence the low amount of posts), but luckily have it back now. Having no connection makes you think though: you realize how dependent we've all become on it. I'm just old enough to remember the days without internet and it totally changed all our lives. I don't think I'd be able to explain that to someone who grew up with internet all around them.

Apart from these philosophical questions, the practical question remained: what does a gamer girl do without internet? My favorite games were out of reach. I've played a lot of Mass Effect II with my boyfriend (to the extent that I've now already completed half of the game's content), but he does the shooting and at a certain point it's nice to do something by yourself. I looked around in my house for the Sims and Myst II: Riven, but they had somehow disappeared. I could only find shooter games and Grand Theft Auto - everyone who's seen me in a car knows this is a bad idea. Eventually I searched my boyfriend's pc for games and resorted to... Plants vs Zombies. It actually was fun, too!

You played what?!

Now don't tell me that you don't know Plants vs Zombies. It's been the Game of the Year and all, it was really hard to miss. Perhaps you like to pretend you don't know Plants vs Zombies, but that's another story. In short: In Plants vs Zombies you have to stop zombies from reaching your house by planting plants. That's right, plants. You can get the game here - the free online version is already nice enough to start with.

Don't pea in the pool

I had this brilliant idea of putting garlic in the water so the water zombies would go out of the pool and suffer a long and painful death (if you can speak of 'death' when already dead) walking over spikes. It was less brilliant of me that I didn't realize the water zombies didn't want to come out of the pool at all: they would just zigzag from garlic to garlic. Which did look brilliant, by the way, I was laughing my ass off. In the end I apparently had completed the achievement for not using any peashooters in a pool level ("don't pea in the pool"). Not the best way to do it, but nevertheless very much fun! 

My favorite garden

After defeating quite some zombies, I determined the Walnut is my favorite 'plant'. Those things are so OP! I'm also very much a fan of Spikes, Venus flytraps, Firewood and the 4x Peashooters. Yes, I realize those are not the correct names, but I'm still a noob, as you will find out soon. Anyway, below my favorite garden setup. I got rich from it, too! The zombies were falling all over, it didn't really matter what type they were. Huge firepower for the win! When I proudly showed my garden to my boyfriend, he told me I had done it all wrong, though. The blue slowing peas turned into normal peas when going through the firewood, so I could better have used the watermelons that shoot over the firewood. Hey, nobody had told me this game contained a sense of realism! Ah well, I guess it's not that bad to be a noob in Plants vs Zombies. I don't really want to know what people would think of me if I would say I'm pro at this!

ME 2: Claiming a substitute Krogan

It is almost as if the Mass Effect game read my former post about missing Wrex and anticipated on that. Creepy. Wrex is apparently still busy on his homeplanet sorting out who-knows-what, so my employer Cerberus sent me off to a planet to collect a substitute Krogan (picture above).

Stuff started out the old fashioned way when the planet appeared to be inhabited by crazy mindless Krogan that attacked upon sight. After fighting through these, I found the Krogan I was supposed to be recruiting: a mad scientist that was trying to breed 'the perfect Krogan'. He worked with clones and genetic modification and tried to indoctrinate his subjects with emotions and commands before waking them up. All cloned super-Krogans that were not good enough were set loose to fight mercenaries in some sort of sick minded merc-training program on the planet's surface. And I am supposed to recruit this guy? I understand there are different ethics widespread in Shepard's galaxy, but I'm still a 21st century girl from Amsterdam making the decisions here. Thanks, Cerberus, but no. Not gonna happen.

At this point the Mass Effect game was being creepy again by reading my mind and letting the crazy Krogan get killed by his employer, who was pissed off by all the Krogan that had been killed by my hand. I can see a point there. I mean, sure, I would've wanted to call, set an appointment beforehand and not having to fight all those mental Krogan as well, but the game didn't let me. I guess it's not proper 22th century etiquette to knock before entering. Sigh.
Anyway, just before he died, the mad Krogan scientist asked me to take his latest super-Krogan clone with me and take care of it. And of course my natural talent to do things that sound like a ad idea (think: Rachni-queen) popped up: I took the frozen super-Krogan with me to the Normandy.

The super-Krogan was pink with lilac of colour with light blue eyes. This should have warned me that there was something ominous about this one. A pink Krogan... it just doesn't feel right. What exactly had the crazy Krogan in mind when he thought of 'the perfect Krogan'? Of course the first thing he did when I awoke him on my ship was to try to rip my head off. I needed to remind him of in what what position he was to get him back in line. After that he gave himself the most charming name "Grunt". Great.
BioWare, if you are listening: please give me Wrex back!