1721

One of the things the original poster complained about was finding combat to be boring so I might suggest against re-rolling as a Guardian. I go back and forth on my Guardian. Being nearly indestructible allows me to challenge myself in really fun ways (I solo’d the level 27 fellowship quest “Blunting the Spear” at 24) but it takes him forever to kill things so combat is sometimes pretty dull.

I have the same mixed feelings about my Warden. He’s only level 14 so I’m just getting started with him but, while discovering what he’s capable of is a complete blast the gambit system really reduces combat to a Progress Quest-like level of repetition at times. (2-1-4, 2-1-4, 1-2-4, etc.)

I love all of my characters except for my Rune-Keeper but I think the two most fun to play from a combat perspective are the Hunter and the Champion. They are beginner classes which means the mechanics are straight-forward but because they’re DPSers, combat never becomes a grind. Sometimes when my Hunter passes through an on-level encampment I feel like the wrath of god.

In general, I agree about skipping quests that seem like a grind. And maybe the answer is not to re-roll but to become an alt-aholic like me ;) When I start burning out on one character I go play another for a while. If there is a lot to do for one character in this game, there is really a lot to do with 5 characters.

1722

Slowly working my way through the Moria content, which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit. It’s been a ton of fun to play in the Mine, with a lot of great layouts and quests and great areas that were designed well. Really opened up the grandeur of the mines that I find to be a ton of fun to play through.

I’ve been interspersing it with going back and playing through the Vol I quests when I need a break. Just started 1.12 last night before jumping back into Moria. The Epic quest is really quite good, especially once you get out of Angmar and are dealing with the after effects of what happens up there! It kinda sucks that the rewards at this point (level 58) are not as worth it for the level of the quests (around 50 for where I’m at), but I’m enjoying the story ride as I go!

Oh, and like some of the above posters, LORTO is my first MMO, and so getting used to some of the conventions of the genre and grouping has been a lot of fun. Especially the different roles in fellowships and how to do them. I did my first major run last night as the main healer for a Great Stairs run. It was interesting. In a lot of the non major fights, I didn’t have much to do other then keeping the main tank topped up (a Warden who was doing a great job holding aggro) and even in the main fights it wasn’t too bad, until the last guy, who had me scrambling a bit to keep up with his area attacks that hit the entire party, but glad I finally got to experience the other side to my RK in a meaningful way.

I dunno, I know it’s old hat to a lot of people, but adjusting your play to fit into a role for group play is a great dynamic. When I’m playing my RK normally, I wail away at mobs to take them down as fast as I can, because I do a lot of solo adventuring. But in a group play session, firing off my highest damage skills is a great way to attract the attention of the big giant baddie who could two shot me to death, so I had to learn to use some of my other skills that are the more damage over time, or just good consistent damage, and save the crazy high damage skills till towards the end or when the baddie is stunned. Just a fun dynamic that you get with these types of games that I’m glad I’ve gotten to experience.

1723

Warden’s are the best solo class in the game (better than Guardians by a good margin) and it’s worth mentioning that the complexity of the Gambit system continues to grow as you level and you’ll find it continues to be fairly complex and interesting. Furthermore, the things you have to do to solo well take a lot of skill and are are far more interesting than repeating the same gambits or spamming the same abilities.

Eventually gambits will go up to 5 attack chains and you’ll have a lot more of them. In order to get the most out of your Warden you have to start optimizing which ones you do when because your big constraint becomes the amount of time it takes to build a gambit. The nice thing about the gambit system is that you never have a cooldown. The problem with that is that you always have several different abilities you want to use and you can only do one at a time.

Just as you’re starting to learn to deal with that you’re going to start picking up masteries. Masteries give you a bunch of instants (with cooldowns) that instantly fill your gambit bar with icons. In order to really make the most of your warden you have to optimize these like crazy. Instead of going 1-2-3-1-2, for example, you might go 12-31-2 or 1-23-12 and you’d actually only do one manual attack in order to fire off the combo. This is much faster and well worth doing. However it blows up the complexity quite a bit. Now instead of using 4 keys for all attacks you’ll use up to 10. I have all of my attacks mapped to the num pad. 1, 2 and 3 all map to the regular attacks. 4 maps to 12, 7 maps to 13, 5 maps to 21, 8 maps to 23, 6 maps to 31 and 9 maps to 32. 0 maps to gambit completion (and then I put my javelin attacks on +/-, etc.). It makes for an interesting game style. I don’t actually use the mouse for combat unless I need to move really quickly. I have my left hand on WASD (and you can use other keys to slide, etc.) and my right hand on the numpad (and switch that to the mouse as needed).

The things you need to do to solo well get very complex as well. Wardens solo better than Guardians because they get defense that is almost is good (by using abilities to buff block/parry/evade) and then they have abilities that allow them to heal and regain power. However using all of those abilities to stay alive is quite challenging. You’ll want to mix in at least some defensive abilities but you also need to spend a lot of time healing. Once your power starts to get low you have to start “morale surfing”. Our ability for regaining power is only usable when below half health. This means that you let your health dip below half, spam a few “Dark Before Dawn” attacks to get back power and then try to heal up before you get killed. Managing all of that stuff at once can get really hectic but is a lot of fun. I can solo all but one boss in The Library (a 3 man end game instance that awards Superior 3rd Marks) and I can almost do all of them (the one giving me problems stuns a lot and my luck with him varies by how often he stuns me and when – one of the few things Warden’s lack is an ability to recover gracefully from stuns).

I’ve done a fair amount of tanking for endgame content as a Warden and it’s doable but challenging. Guardian, in comparison, seems very straight-forward. It seems like Wardens might be slightly worse overall for anything above 3 players (we’re great at the small group instances, better than Guardians IMO) but a well-played Warden can easily make up for that difference. Wardens are also very flexible and so we can do some pretty impressive things when things get hairy (like living through a healer going down, pulling off some impressive kiting, etc.).

1724

It also takes Wardens a bit to come into their own. They aren’t very good at tanking early on and their solo abilities, while always pretty decent, don’t really take off from the other classes until at least the mid-30’s.

1725

Thanks for all that. I had a suspicion that my Warden was going to get more interesting as I reached higher levels. Of course, the complexity and need to memorize gambits is one of the reasons that I’m not leveling him at the moment. When I get around to playing my warden in earnest, I want to focus on him to give him the attention he needs rather than jumping around from one alt to the next as I do currently.

I don’t know – My first “holy shit” moment with my warden came at level 12 when I found myself fighting the Greenfields Queen Spider and seven on-level adds in the Quarry at Scary and somehow survived. (The observant among you will note that it takes an incredible amount of stupidity to find yourself in that situation to begin with ;)

The Runekeeper is the character that I’m having difficulty solo’ing with. I know it’s supposed to be a great solo-class but my skills aren’t there yet.

1726

Pampraush demised. Its all in the approach angle. Ignore the inviting rode and scale the cliffs. Should have known. Thanks to my pal today who helped me out with some nice jewelry. I am continuing on thru Ered Luin! 11 now

1727

First chance I’ve had to check back and was hoping for at least one reply. Instead I find a whole page. Damn, this forum is awesome! :>

Good to know that I can skip a goodly number of quests and still find enough opportunities for XP to continue leveling upwards.

My understanding is that you get full XP for Yellow, White and Dark Blue (basically +3 to -2 vs current level), but don’t get full XP for Light Blue and Green, is that right? I’ve also heard that you don’t get full XP for Orange and Red (+4 and beyond) so there’s no XP benefit to really taking risks on high-level challenges?

Also, how do you deal with the time investment when using an alt? It’s taken me a month of weeknight gaming to get my Burg to level 27. I’m leery of spending another month to get a Warden, Guardian or Hunter back up to the same level - would seem kind of dull revisiting all the previous quests and storylines. Do you find it’s much faster the 2nd time because you know how to hit the key quests?

Thanks,

Chris

1728

You’ll need to qualify that statement cause I honestly think it’s BS. More Fun, more dynamic, more challenging, more interesting, sure. I’m with you all the way on that.
But “better than Guardians by a good margin at solo play” is just plain untrue.

I’ve yet to see anything in the solo part of the game (I’m at lvl 54 with my Hunter and probably halfway through Moria, and have a lvl 38 Warden) that wouldn’t have been more easily handled by a Guardian, esp with access to at least some parts of critted armor.

Wardens need access to Power to survive long fights, Guardians don’t. Wardens need timing in those tough fights so that gambit doesn’t turn from a 2-1-3-2 to a 1-3-2 because the game somehow missed one key press. Guardians don’t. Guardians have massive (really massive) morale and access to the best armor and more-or-less the best shields and can also turn out half-decent FPS with Overpower mode if that’s your thing. Going to lvl 24 with a Guardian (yes, a severe case of alt-itis has been confirmed) has been the easiest and most painless experience I’ve yet to experience in LOTRO. I can just wade into whatever on-level camp I see without taking a break. I don’t need to wait for javelin skills to return, or Power or Morale to get back because they never drop below 70%, even in fights against 3-4 enemies.

Now I can certainly see that in certain groups or in PvP the Warden outshines Guardians (and is more “fun”) but I just can’t see it in normal solo play. There was a guy in our Qt3 kin who got really tired of playing his Burglar around lvl 30. He switched to a Guardian and just loved it, especially the survivability. Hence my recommendation to the poster to roll a Guardian (plus I still don’t know if he has access to Wardens).

And to repeat, I do think the Warden is the most exciting class I’ve yet to play in an RPG. But I’d really hesitate to call it The Best At Solo Play.

1729

Bah! I’m a completionist. I must complete all the quests in the area before moving on. In this game it kinda blows because some quests I just can’t solo and when I can’t find a PUG for the life of me…I become paralyzed and stop playing only to come back and try again (and usually fail)

Right now I’m stuck trying to kill this Spider Queen in the Trollshaws. I can sneak up to her but there are two adds…so 2 elites and a boss elite = no way I’m doing this solo. That place is hell in a hand-basket. Anyone want to help me? (I’m needy)

1730

I’ll come help you out again man. I should be on this evening and ready to go. I don’t think I did that quest ages ago anyways.

1731

Also Burgs are awesome in that you are able to solo certain fellowship quests non-combat via stealth. Poison a giants pot of stew? No problem. Super convenient. Shit, I ghosted almost the entire Tomb of Elendil just to see what was in there because I was bored waiting for a group. I couldn’t imagine lotro without it.

1732

It’s well accepted as true although usually people are talking about the endgame, not leveling. Wardens get pretty ridiculous while leveling as well and I had many fights, early in my career, where took on 5-10 enemies at once. The 2nd best soloer, FWIW, is arguably the Lorekeeper class.

Wardens get close to Guardian levels of defense and have almost as much Morale (I’m over 7k depending on my gear, and have gotten close to 8k with buffs – I usually see level 65 Guards have maybe 500 more hps than me). What makes Wardens so much better at solo’ing is the self heals, being able to stack up to 4 self heals at the same time along with the power regen to be able to fight for however they long they want without running out of power. On top of that, they have amazing morale drains that increase in power as you get more enemies around you making it possible to stay alive in fights against 10+ enemies at once.

It doesn’t matter what your max morale is for a lot of solo fights. It matters how much you can heal. If I heal 50k worth of hit points in a fight, it’s like I have 57k morale. It definitely takes more work to do it, but Wardens can do lots of things that Guardians could never do.

Here’s an example. There’s a boss in the Library that is pretty tough to do in Hard Mode because he has 16 adds that join him. Whereas Guardians typically kite all of the adds and the boss because they can’t soak that much damage I can actually solo him. I can do this because of my great AoE morale drains. My gambits are healing 1.5k-3k a pop. Sometimes it gets a little hairy and I have to kite a bit, but usually I can stand up and tank him along with all 16 adds in a straight up fight with no problems whatsoever. It’s a blast to do because most people don’t really believe that I can pull it off and it makes the fight a lot easier (otherwise it can be challenging keeping aggro off the healer and it takes forever to kill the adds one at a time while the tank kites around).

1733

The difference while leveling, FWIW, will be that the Warden has less downtime and kills faster. Wardens can do great DPS without sacrificing much of their defense and the ability to self-heal and (later on) heal power means very little downtime. However I would agree that a Guardian is easier. A well-played Warden is absolutely going to be better, faster and capable of more solo but a Guardian is going to be easier to just get through content without thinking much.

1734

Lore-Masters are complete shite at soloing. Until they hit 30 and get the lynx and some other stuff that turns them into complete monsters. But telling anyone new to MMO’s and to LOTRO to play a Lore-Master cause they’re the second-best at soloing is doing them a huuuge disservice imo. To be honest I don’t think anyone hesitant about whether to play LOTRO or not is going to find all the dying until level 25-30 very enjoyable.
Due to my severe alt-itis I’ve played all classes except Minstrels and Burglars up to early twenties and I absolutely positively had the hardest time with the LM. He died all the time when I missed a target switch or pressed the wrong power. If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing all the time, you die a lot in the first 20 levels.

Since you’re obviously talking about end-game playing I won’t argue anymore but I’ll stand by my claim that for those who are interested in exploring Turbine’s take on Tolkien’s world but lack MMO experience, Guardian is an excellent class to start with, since it’s so very basic in solo play. I’ve been playing pretty constantly since early November on Withywindle and my Hunter is only halfway through Moria. Sure, I spent a ton of time crafting and gathering for all my alts plus running around looking into every nook and cranny on almost every map. That’s why I play in Middle-Earth. Had I wished to race to 65 and just play end-game content I could have, but there’s so much to see and I wouldn’t want to play it any other way. It’s likely that the toon I’ll play the most in the future will be my Warden.

1735

Agreed. My favorite class (though I’ve only played a minstril to 55 and a loremaster to 45). It opens up parts of the game solo that you could not do otherwise. And DPS, DOT, riddle and ability to evade made it easy to solo.

1736

Yup, we’re just talking about very different things. To me the “best solo class” is the class able to do the most stuff, well, solo. That’s the warden – very clearly. Warden’s problems are actually with grouped content where they struggle to offer anything to a group of 6+ players that a Guardian can’t do better. It’s no coincidence that there’s a Warden-only guild called “Is a Small Fellowship” on a couple servers now. Wardens are also going to level a lot more quickly and efficiently due to the reasons that I mentioned along with having ports to the major cities.

Now if you’re just talking about the easiest class, or the fastest to level, or something like that then I’d argue that a hunter might be better. Sure you’ll die a little more but you’ll more than make up for that with how fast you tear through content and you’ll get ports on top of that to cut down on all the repetitious travel (riding through Middle Earth is fun … but tenth time through the same zone gets a bit tiresome). Also, Champs are quite easy to play, have a lot of easy to use abilities, and will cut through content more quickly than Guards so I’d say they’re worth a go as well. Also, as either of those classes you’ll get to DPS if you want to try the end game which is quite a bit easier than trying to tank. If a more, let’s say “accessible”, class is what you’re after I’d recommend either of those.

1737

I don’t tend to think of it as an investment because I enjoy playing the alts so much. It’s a different approach to the game and one that suits me well as a casual player who only plays about 20-40 minutes a night. To whit: I’m been playing since October and I have the following characters:

Level 25 Elven Hunter
Level 25 Human Champion
Level 25 Dwarf Guardian
Level 14 Hobbit Warden
Level 14 Elven Runekeeper

Thanks to f2p, I don’t really have any desire to tear through the content and reach the end game. The longer this game last for me, the more I have left to discover, the better as far as I’m concerned.

There are lots of great things about playing alts.

It allows you to experience all of the different races (which means different starting areas so, yes, there is some variety to the low-level content, though there is also some overlap.)

It also allows you to experience different classes. I love, love, love the Hunter, Champion Guardian and Warden classes! Every single one of them has something attractive that makes playing it a ton of fun. The variety also keeps things from getting dull.

Which, as I mentioned earlier, is another benefit. If I find myself getting bored with a given set of tasks or a particular grind, I’ll take a break from that character and play the others for a while.

If you’re not into crafting this next one is maybe not a selling point but with the five character slots you get from Moria (i.e., two additional slots for a total of five) you can cover all of the crafting professions which allows you characters to support each other brilliantly. My hunter makes bows, spears and javelins for everyone; My champion makes sure that everyone has the best critted armour for their level; My dwarf handles edged weapons and traps (and all sorts of burglar goodies if you were to go this route); My hobbit makes everyone’s jewelry; My Runekeeper takes care of dyes and journals of all sorts. (I haven’t gotten into cooking yet.)

Working on so many different crafting professions at once just gives me that much more to do to keep from getting bored. The Barrow Downs turning into a bit of a grind? Maybe I’ll work on unlocking the artisan tier for my jeweler so he can start critting gold jewelry for everyone. Not only does it mean that all of my characters generally have the best possible gear for their level, there is something really satisfying about knowing that they’ve outfitted themselves rather than buying gear from the auction house. My warden’s got a vault full of amazing armour and weapon upgrades just waiting for him when he hits level 16.

I do spend a lot of time at the mailbox but there’s even something satisfying about that. My guardian will be fighting some orcs in the North Downs and he’ll get a recipe drop for a steel forester’s ax and I’ll get really excited. Off it goes in the mail to my champion who makes the ax and drops it in the mail for my hunter.

That was a long and rambling reply but my basic answer is that I don’t see alts as a burdonsome investment of time because it gives me so much more to do, it expands the content of the game 5 fold. I guess this is a negative if you have other games you eventually want to get around to but, for me, lotro is the only game I play so the longer I’m able to draw out the content, the happier I will be. At a bare minimum, playing alts gives you an opportunity to experience the other classes, all of which have something fun to recommend them.

1738

I completely soloed Giant Valley in the Trollshaws last night at near even level. It took a while and there were some extremely close fights.

Elite Giants in pairs or on patrol and their rock worm pets were everywhere. It took some careful pulling and nearly all of my abilities to down a single giant. All I got to say is the two skills that give the burg 50% evasion chance combined with veriest ways to stun + stealth made it all possible.

The Giant leader was the most difficult because he had two rock worms right next to him. I was able to pull both of them without pulling the giant on the third try. I used all my abilities to kill both of them…then popped Ready and Able which instantly resets all my cooldowns. Then I killed the giant leader solo before the rock worms could respawn and before the patrolling giant returned. It took very careful timing but huge success. I doubt any other class would be able to pull off this little stunt at level.

1739

In a bit more of expounding on my experience over the last month - Legacy Items. I’ve been up until late last night, using my starter LI. It took me a number of levels to realize why I was keeping it, and it was from the legacies that worked for what I wanted, but more importantly the tier’s of the legacies. Having a tier 5 legacy for my lightning damage skills (which I tend to use the most) meant it was easy to get that trait maxed out.

I kept wondering why these other stones just weren’t advancing as fast for a while until I realized the “tier” differences, and how random it all is. Which made the over abundance of those “Moria Tools” and other trade items for LI’s finally click. I’d need to go and get a bunch of LI’s and identify them over and over until I got the legacies and the tiers I liked. Finally happened after I dinged in at level 59!

Though, just as I’m figuring this whole LI system out, it seems some good changes are on the way to take out some of the random with LI’s in the next update. Should be good!

1740

For you high level folks, the Enedwaith Quest Pack is 75% off today only:

http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale/856-24-hour-sale

At that price, I’m almost tempted even though I may never get there.

I’m dying for another 50% off all Quest Packs sale so I can pick up Evendim and Troll Shaws.