3181

It’s a new horse, not just war mount cosmetics. You’ll find it in your inventory. Click on it to add to your mounts collection.

3182

I discovered that last night. They must not have had it ready on the 6th, because the new mount showed up in my inventory only last night. Which is why I assumed it was a war mount cosmetic.

Looks ok. Definitely far from my favorite. I’m surprised how much I still use the old mounts, especially in smaller areas, inside towns, etc.

3183

Wow. It’s been so long, I can’t even remember the name of my kinship. (Can you even name them?)

3184

Make sure you login all your chars to get the mount. Hell, make new characters and grab it there as well so in case if you decide to make a alt, it is already ready…

You can name your Kins and I believe also rename them.

3185

Anyone with characters in the 45-55 range still playing (on Arkenstone, where the QT3 kinship is)?

I’ve come back to this the past week or so after a few weeks hiatus and my quest log is filling up with small fellowship quests in regions like Garth Agarwen, Goblin Town, Misty Mountains, Trollshaws and Forochel. I’d love to be able to coordinate a small team of two or three people to run through stuff like this for everyone. Of course I’d always welcome the assistance of a much higher level character as well. I like a challenge as much as the next Champion, but I also like crossing things off my list and moving on! ;-)

On an unrelated note : I still have two full sets of keys for the Skirmish Packs. Lifetime/VIP subscribers already own then as part of their subscriptions, but anyone playing F2P would be able to use the keys to unlock all the available skirmishes that normally cost real money.

3186

My highest character is level 31. Haven’t played in a couple of weeks though.

3187

Been playing frequently over the past three weeks. Knocked out nearly all of Forochel, my least favorite pre-Moria zone. Still have several slayer deeds to finish there as well as a trio of small fellowship quests.

Circled back around to Evendim and knocked out the remaining quests I had in Annuminas. Currently working on a couple of slayer deeds there, and have at least one small fellowship quest too. Evendim is yet another zone where in order to finish all the deeds you are forced to group. One of the slayer deeds is for leaders of the Angmarim in Annuminas, and while they are all gray to me, some of the leaders either have large entourages or 20K+ morale, both of which are situations that I cannot solo at this point.

I had kind of hoped to “close the book” figuratively on each zone as I moved on, completing all the deeds and solo quests and any open quest lines. But zones like Lone Lands (Garth Agarwen)Trollshaws (Giants), Forochel, Misty Mountains (Goblintown), Evendim (Annuminas) and probably Angmar look like they will require me to find a group if I want to finish all deeds and open quest lines. Looks like I will be spending some time spamming LFF while knocking out slayer deeds!

3188

Nice! Hopefully I’ll see you on. I took a little break to avoid burnout, but with U20 here, I’m ready to dive back in.

3189

Ditto!

3190

I have been playing a lot recently as well, but have not really seen you online at the same time (I am Europe time-zoned unfortunately).

All the previous discussion about the change in ownership made me really want to see Gondor for once… but first Rohan.

3191

Oh, cool, didn’t know about U20. First patch since the Standing Stone takeover, I think. I’ll definitely be updating and checking it out tonight.

3192

On 50, looking back ahead… ;-)

So Slainte the Champion is now 52 thanks to all my Forochel running about. I’ve got some business to finish up in the “old world”, namely knocking out Angmar, before moving on to Eregion and Moria. By the time I enter Moria it’s likely I will be 54, possibly 55.

This is only my second character to reach 50+. My first was Slainte the Guardian…in 2009. Needless to say, quite a bit has changed since those days. Siege of Mirkwood (Skirmishes) had just been released and Moria’s Legendary Items were still being frequently tweaked and refined back then. What I’m getting at is that I pretty much have zero idea of what I should be doing now post-50 in terms of equipment, character development and all the little nuances that people who have been playing the game for forever take for granted. I mean, I know WHERE to go in terms of zones and such, but I also know the focus on WHAT I should be doing changes at 50 from pure XP-based level advancement to more complicated character/equipment/skills development.

So, any advice, links, guides or whatever on developing your 50+ character would be very much appreciated. Should I zip on over to Moria ASAP to start creating a legendary weapon (or can I start that somewhere outside of Moria)? Should I focus on my class quest (which I have, but the rewards seem weaker than what I already have equipped)? Should I do some skirmishes for marks and medallions to upgrade some of my equipment? Currently about 1/3 of my armor is Mathom Hunter gear which is level 50 and nicely loaded for my level and stats. Another 1/3 is gear I smithed myself, also around 50 and also fairly well suited stat-wise. The other 1/3 is quest rewards, and those tend to be a little lower and weaker than the others.

My two weapons (dual wield Champ) are probably going to need upgrading very soon. Currently I’m using Avorhigil and Avorlang from the Goblin Town quests. They’re pretty nice, and I love the +192 critical they give me as a set, but I know I will need something more powerful (Legendary) for Moria and beyond.

Oh, and one last question…If I have a piece of armor that has +575 to Resistance, and I find a different piece of armor for the same slot that has +30 Vitality and is over 100 more Armor rating, is the extra armor and boost to stats worth giving up the huge Resistance boost for? The way I understand it, Mitigation is far better to have than Resistance, as Mitigation reduces damage from all sources, and Resistance comes into play helping you dodge each type of damage attack as they occur, so better to suffer less damage from all effects than dodge one effect but suffer full damage from two more. Correct?

3193

The ironclad, 100%, always obey it rule is “Do Moria as early as you can.” I think that means at…48? Maybe?

In addition to being mechanically satisfying (because you start working on your legendary items), it’s also hands down the best content in the game.

But then, I hate Angmar and will look for any excuse to skip as much of it as possible.

3194

Really?! The best content? Maybe they changed it quite a bit, but I recall loathing Moria back when I ran my Guardian through it a few months after it was released. Looooong runs everywhere, falling damage all over the place, twisting and convoluted paths to get everywhere, and everything felt like more of the same with slightly different critters after the first few areas. Plus everything was so dark and dreary. Part of what I love about LOTRO is the atmosphere, places like Rivendell, Evendim, The Shire, Ered Luin and even Angmar have moments when you look out over the landscape/vista and you just feel Middle Earth in your bones. I never got that once in Moria. Hopefully it’s different this time.

3195

My recollection is that you could try and get through Moria (straight through) and then do the quests on the other end (before Lorien) outside (all those orcs etc), and get your levels. Might be low for 50 – 55, however. Eregion/legendary outside area is usually where I spend a lot of time in leveling before moria. So maybe what I am saying if you don’t want to do moria is Eregion —Legendary—THROUGH moria–quests up to lorien—then Mirkwood.

Just a thought. I have a few 60 ish characters in Mirkwood now and I sorta like the dreary leaf-filled forest.

ps – I think pursuing the storyline quest that finished in the Eregion and gets you the cool mount makes me level a bit here. Book 1.

3196

Moria is great; Think I spent 15 levels in there, doing it all. :)
Make sure you enable any “loudness equalization” on your soundcard while in there.

Although, not being able to find a group for stuff you wanted to do in there sucked (like it does everywhere… )

3197

It was substantially updated a few years after it came out. Much more easy to navigate with new travel points, more quest hubs, etc. (I didn’t like its simplification, but I was apparently in the minority). And you should go there ASAP and get your legendary item leveling going. IIRC you can’t start that anywhere else…although I think it’s just outside of Moria…I forget, it’s been a long time.

If you like skirmishes, do them. But you don’t need them to upgrade your equipment if you’re only doing PvE. You CAN use marks to buy some of the doo-dads needed for class quests.

3198

Ohhh…thanks for the tip! I wonder if I can use Marks to buy the couple of class quest items dropped from the named mobs in instances? It’s going to be next to impossible for me to find a group doing level 50ish instances, or at least that’s been my experience thus far with all the other instance and fellowship-based quests.

3199

The “global LFF” Channels usually have a bunch of people either organizing, or ready for, whatever. At least on my server.

I managed to get all my “old” instances done once I discovered Global LFF.

3200

The first time through Moria was definitely a chore for a few reasons:

(1) Not enough travel points.
(2) Mandatory fellowship quests in the epic quest line.

Both of these have since been fixed so I think it’s the way to go. The last time i breezed through Moria and kinda blew everything off and just leveled through it in record time. That should bring you to the content you haven’t seen yet, so I think it’s worth doing.

(If you hate the navigation / map / chasms, that is all still pretty much the same, so YMMV.)