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Smile. I run a fearless burglar as a regular weekly recording on Arkenstone server (Wherediddygo). But as you probably intend; the yellowline Beorning is the only character class I know that can solo at fearless landscape difficulty & defeat the shadow wraiths on Mordor/Angmar (even after the healing nerf from last week)... I consider the shadow wraiths a burst Heroic+0 difficulty buzz for those that really like running at normal landscape difficulty. unfortunately, the two don't mix at all. If the legendary servers had a compensating landscape difficulty debuff on the wraiths then it might be worth playing the servers on higher landscape difficulties. But at present it just doesn't hold a lot of interest to play Lotro at normal difficulties nowadays (at least after playing for over a decade now :-) with the possibility of a chance for the odd H+0 critter.

@@gwathornsgames I've been running away when they spawn at +3, I usually wait for someone else to help lol. For under 20 though, my blue line LM can do it, mostly lol.

@@fenderfan9514 Understood & well done on the blueLM, I was wondering about that. I expect a hobbit can eventually use hobbit-silence to feign death & the hide in plain sight skill will come into play eventually. But yes, I'm impressed you're running fearless for multiple characters on the new servers. Very nice.

Ah, yes, that makes sense. The Yellowline Beorning is the only character class/tree that I know can solo the shadow wraith on Fearless difficulty. And that is even after they nerfed the Bear (& captain's) healing by about 85% last week... You just need to spam the bears heals a lot more frequently than before the nerf. The captain however has completely lost the ability to solo the shadow wraith on fearless landscape difficulty :-( I've set my mind to thinking of the Shadow wraiths just as a "burst" Heroic+0 landscape difficulty (ie. not H+2) addition to the game on the legendary servers. Unfortunately, that has actually stopped anyone from playing the legendary servers on actual higher landscape difficulties on any server that has the shadow wraith 😞 So, Arkenstone for higher than normal landscape difficulties for the entire levelling experience & Mordor/Angmar servers if you want to play on normal difficulty but reserve to ability to jump into a burst of Heroic difficulty at an instant on demand. I just prefer knowing I have a consistant landscape difficulty & take every fight as H+2 or Fearless. But that's just me...

@@gwathornsgames inwas able to solo the wraiths, even the mournful ones, in legendary fearless using a blue bear. It was a long battle though. I have accepted that increasing landscape dificulty is for end game content. I stopped playing lotro with and increased landacape dificulty. Since i have been playing in normal, the gameplay becomes more peaceful. I dont get heart attacks soloing those wraiths with my new main, Blue LM.

Its based on sequence bars. I probably should go through some of the plugin configurations I use for my characters. Definitely on my to-do list now 🙂 I did describe it (and show) its configuration in one of our more recent Brawler & Burglar duo videos. But that was as we were playing rather than a video dedicated to just how to do it...

Almost no character classes can play at the hardest landscape difficulty from level 1. ie. It is *really* difficult for all but the most OP character classes to solo landscape content that way 🙂 A game like Diablo 4 has a gradual Tier system that allows you to build into the next Tier after playing the character class for a good period of time. You can start on either Tier 1 or Tier 2 but you need to be pretty good at the class before you progress to T3 & then T4. But all characters can manage each Tier eventually. The character class balance is just not like that in Lotro. Many character classes will basically never be able to play at highest landscape difficulty without playing with friends & always playing in a party/fellowship. I play duo games regularly and can push up the landscape difficulty because of the healer/dps/tank combinations a party allows. But with the right character class (about half of them) & some really neat skill combinations you can get a H+2 character to solo most landscape content. The complaint that most of us have with the levelling experience i that the developers don't really test a character classes leveling experience the way they really should. The nerf to the Captain & Beornings healing skills by 85% last week just after they found out they made a mistake over a year ago with the skills (after a stat squash) just shows how little testing they actually do to help new players with the levelling experience. Normal difficulty is definitely getting easier over the years. Landscape difficulties of about fearless level are good for new players (a bit like the Diablo 4 Tier 2 start) . Pushing straight to Tier 4 in D4 would be a real mistake. Unfortunately the gradual increase is not a thing in Lotro. You're expected to set it to fearless I suppose & gradually push higher as you feel more confident in the gameplay of a character. But, in all seriousness, they could decrease the morale/HP of all monsters at low levels to make it easier for people without making a huge change to each individual character class. A while ago they scaled Morale/HP up by 25% on a sliding scale from 0% at level one up to 25% at level 150. They could do that again to make it easier for lower level characters again 🙂 Hope that helps & thanks for the feedback.

I think I'm going to be a like a lot of people who play MMOs. We'll find a game we like & a character class that matches our internal timing patterns that allows us to set the pace we play a game. Lotro definitely has the pace I like. After leveling a character class for a while most games tend to add slight increases in complexity to give a nuance to the character class you're playing. Changing a character class from the ground up while you are levelling can completely jar your experience of a character; leading to people stopping playing it. At end game your characters may feel like they need to be changed but because you've invested so much time into a character to level it to endgame it becomes easier to prod the developers to modify the endgame experience rather than actually take the time to level a completely new character class. I remember when the high-elf came out & people were seriously starting a captain from scratch just to get the light damage racial bonus. At level 150, given the mess that's being made to so many characters actual leveling experience, it's just become so much easier for the players in the know to get developers to refresh a character class rather than re-level another one to be a slightly different healer etc... And as the process continues, the developers get further away from the whole concept of the "Lord of the Rings" epic journey from the Shire to Mordor... (You know the *reason* the game exists in the first place & the reason people want to actually play the game) I suppose progression servers like Mordor, Angmar & Treebeard allow some re-experiencing of that journey for the more jaded amongst us who still feel the journey to level cap is a chore but I've always enjoyed the journey of the one ring over the end game grind... Just my 2c (I suppose) Thanks again.

Landscape difficulty & the new legendary servers are a very difficult proposition. The shadow wraiths on landscape difficulties from Fearless onwards are really only able to be soloed by the Beorning with its spamable self heals. Even after the recent nerf the Beorning reigns supreme on that combination. The RK is very susceptible to ranged attacks on higher landscape difficulties. It kind of takes a lot of experience to recognise all the different ranged monsters & drop a runestone in front of them as the priority target. Either way enjoy the game & welcome to Lotro 🙂

Yellow burg gets a heal so maybe that would be the better spec early on?

​@@visceral_flex4213 unlikely, the redline only "knives out" skill is the real difference here. "Cannot Parry, Evade or Block +20% Melee Damage On Melee Skill damage: Reflect 30% of damage". This with the (any burglar) skill "Touch & Go": "+25% Evade Chance +15% Physical Mitigation +15% Tactical Mitigation Duration: 15s Restores 50% of maximum Morale" This combination of two skills & selecting non-stealth/positional class points give the redline burg just enough to get across the line against the shadow wraith. It's a fearless/H+2 burg vs elite critter skill combination... I'm treating the Mordor/Angmar shadow wraiths like a burst "Heroic" landscape difficulty critter. ie. It's harder than playing every signature/elite critter on fearless landscape difficulty but easier than playing every signature/elite critter on Heroic+2 🙂

Even at low level, crafted gear gives good vitality bonuses. Vitality translates to Morale/health for a character. This was a level 14 character wearing the basic apprentice (ie. level 7) crafted gear. I think I could have made level 12 gear (if the crafted recipes had dropped) but I was holding out for the Journeyman (Level 15) versions for a full set upgrade 🙂 But it was full level 7 gear. ie. Tailor, Jeweler & one of each weapon from Weaponsmith/Woodworker (same stats but different crafting tree). The level 10 cooked/fortifying/trail food makes some difference as well. I wasn't using the supreme versions of the cooked food as I was just playing around with the character a bit & trying to get the shadow wraith to drop so I could test the redline burglar on the Mordor server :-) Hope that helps explain the differences in character Morale vs shadow wraith...

The boar actually had me worried there for a moment 🙂

Battle frenzy is a must, Brutal strikes would be a nice addition but I prefer waiting for savage strike (normally at level 6) to upgrade to feral strikes so you get the corruption removal from level 20 onwards. The fervour cost really stops you from using both feral strikes & brutal strikes in any sort of tight rotation. And you need as much blue as you can get away with before growing the yellow line later in the levelling process. I have a Level ~50 video for the champion as well on H+2 but also about 100 videos of playing a H+2 Champion from about level 110 through to (currently) level 145 on this channel. But I do like the extra hit/swing with a two handed weapon that comes with Brutal strikes until the feral strikes change that happens to savage strikes at level 20 🙂 Thanks for that

Thank you. I was pretty pleased with the combat in this one but you are correct that I should have used riddle. I expect that would have pushed the Burg up another notch & definitely made those two signature critter fights much more controllable. I definitely enjoy the Burglar more than any of the other character classes when playing solo content. But I have to say that the Runekeeper is currently my favourite duo character class ATM. I think because as a duo I/we basically clear everything as a tradition character class would. The Burg pick the fights & bursts dps. But you are right that Riddle would allow burst damage twice :-)

The hype is completely gone 😞 They nerfed the Captains healing by 85% for low level (sub Level 100) characters. The consequence is the blue captain HoTs now heal about 1% of the characters morale per second when a week ago the HoTs healed about 8% per second. That is a really massive change for trying to run against a big hitting shadow wraith. Previously, if you kited the shadow wraith for a few seconds you could get the HoT to heal you back up high enough to run a few more hits/DoTs on the wraith & then kite again. But now its just a pointless exercise to even attempt heals while kiting. It's a real shame. The Beorning healing has been nerfed as well in the last week but it still has the option of spamming the heals skills to keep it in the fight against a shadow wraith on fearless difficulty (at least if you run a yellowline Beorning...) Hope that helps a bit...

Happy to help 🙂

New Red LM hits like an absolute truck so far (level 46 for me)

Yeah, unfortunately you still have to swap out of bear form quite a lot to interact with the environment. I have the switch key set to 1 on the keyboard so I can just rotate quickly. It is still annoying though... I have a higher landscape difficulty Beorning that swaps between forms mid fight to max heals & DoTs though so its pretty natural after a qhile I suppose. I think its free to play now as a beorning but if you had an account you could probably make one up anyway...

@@gwathornsgames Awww that's a shame, but yeah I figured. I mean the class/race is meant to be a shapeshifter anyway, and not one or the other so I get it, just a shame if you wanted to play pretendsies ya know? haha. Thanks for the speedy reply, appreciate it. Will defs have a looksee at it tho.

so, about 48 hours ago the developers completely nuked the captains heals. Like they decreased it by 85%. It stops the beorning (who also had their heals decreased by 85%) and the captain from being viable on the Mordor derver on fearless difficulty. So, I/we are stopping this duo after just one video 😞 But, the rotation is sure strike (melee closer skill), battle shout (battle-readied +25% damage bonus), cutting attack (with the battle readied gives better DOT), routing cry( AOE damage with extra from battle readied), sure strike (now buffed with battle readied as well 🙂 Then move to heals while everything gets their cooldown back... Grave wound slots in after routing cry at about level 30 & Gallant display slots in their as well at level 26 because it has a good cooldown (5 seconds) & used to have a decent heals 😞 Hope that helps...

@@gwathornsgames I think it makes sense though, it was overhealing for low levels by up to 850%. It is now working as intended.

@@Harry-uq9qd While I do agree with the adjustment, it was the developers deciding (as part of the downward adjustment) to add +11% healing back (to all levels sic) to re-adjust the healing output of level 150 Captain & Beorning character classes after taking it away up to 85% from all lower level Captains & Beornings. Basically just to keep the "level cap" Captain & Beorning players happy while completely screwing the entire levelling experience for both H+2 character classes. Having made a complete mess of the H+2 Loremaster over the last few months with the recent changes and the unlikely nature that they will either reverse the bear pet taunt removal &/or fix the sabretooth omni-directional AOE attacks; the Champion is now about the only really reliable H+2 character class remaining to play (& that can't really handle Rohan mounted riders all that well either...) But yes, the level 50 healing character classes needed to be re-adjusted so the healing minstrel had a place in fellowships &/or raids. Its just the loss of two more decent H+2 character classes in the process that gets really annoying in all this. ie. the loss of three decent levelling H+2 character classes just this year.

Yep, I think the burglar gameplay is changed the most (compared to other classes) when you decrease it's stealth/burst damage by changing to Heroic plus two. I have play tested the H+2 burglar build at different levels but when it comes to trying to take down mobs &/or elite critters it becomes *really* hard & usually futile even when you are significantly over leveled :-(

Happy to help. Enjoy :-)

Thank you. Very happy to help.

Thanks. I've passed the info/request onto Captcha fail. It seems he occasionally forgets to drop the volume when he's been watching a really good movie just before recording and the computer/game sound feeds itself back into the microphone...

We're just about to release (in 24 hours) a duo blueline Captain & Redline Beorning running on the Legendary Mordor server. Its also set to fearless landscape difficulty. We ran across the shadow wraiths 3 times in the first 30 minute recording! I won't tell you the outcome of each encounter but needless to say we felt the need to run two of the better H+2 character classes to play against the shadow wraiths on fearless landscape difficulty. And two of the best soloing character classes for when we run into shadow wraiths whenever we are forced to run the game in any solo instances. And yes, a solo instance from a landscape quest can spawn shadow wraiths...

Thanks for this. I don’t know what I’ve done but it’s going to annoy me until I fix it. It’s a copy of the data from a similar character class/level and I’ve done that a heap of times over the years. It’s just going to be a bit of a pain but I’m sure it’s not that hard to fix as long as I remember to try before the next recording:) About bLM out performing other dps character classes in raids. Oh dear, I suppose those pesky loremasters need to be forced to run yellow line to support the entire raid rather than having them dps at T5 and have just one of them forced to keep running yellow line support… pretty sad as it’s a 15% dps drop all the way from level 1 just to stop the bLM from having its moment in the sun… I’m waiting for them to fix the sabretooth AOE attacks but also wanting to try out retribution when the sabertooth gains the ability to hold agro at H+2 from is AOE basic attack and minor pet attack working as per tooltip (and 40.1 specs) Anyway, let’s see how things progress for this duo and what they tidy up in the next week or so on Mordor/Angmar :)

If the shadow wraiths were built to be H+2 agnostic then you could run any landscape difficulty and just have a build designed to cope with the shadow H+2 equivalent difficulty wraiths :) Or turn them off so you can actually run higher than normal landscape difficulty settings for the entire leveling experience. Similarly, removing them from instances like it’s done with the higher landscape settings would actually make sense if the characters are crafted/built without higher difficulties in mind… Ie. I’d probably enjoy the shadow wraiths a lot more if I knew they were basically heroic to H+2 equivalent for all players on the server :)

I suppose you could say I would like the shadow wraiths to be “Heroic plus two” rather than “heroic times two”…

We have started recording a new fearless duo on the Mordor server. A blueline captain (me) running with captcha’s Beorning. He’s moved over to redline given the cappies heals and we ran into 3 shadow wraiths in the first 30 mins recording. One on fearless and two inside epic instances. The instances were just normal difficulty and were taken out quickly. The fearless shadow wraith took more effort. Anyway, just though I’d mention we decided to push two decent H+2 character classes to deal with the shadow wraiths. I expect that solo will be interesting

Okay, so you’re saying you have a H+2 L150 warden that you leveled from 100 to 150 on maximum landscape difficulty. So I assume you can run “beneath the surface” landscape quests on a H+2 warden right now. I would like to see that. Actually, I’d be happy to see a video of a warden taking down the beneath the surface spider boss on fearless difficulty:)

​@@gwathornsgamesI have a can show you if you like the guy is 100% correct t warden should be at orange lol

Her is a link from about a year ago when we first published this list that convinced us that the warden’s viability was higher than we had recorded. It’s from @johnhammer th-cam.com/video/rq1gfxJQMxw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=o5GdllevbH04VO4L Based on that video we acknowledged the warden was higher than we had initially estimated but if you want to push that up to orange and be on par with the beornings that can solo the Mordor shadow wraiths on fearless difficulty then I would really like to see the video(s). I could see the warden going head to head with the H+2 blue captains but I just want to see it against orange critters at H+2 first :)

Thanks for this. I’ve been watching the lotro forums and pointed out your memory leak idea to captcha yesterday:) I’m pretty sure captcha is stopping/stopped the rLM but the flanking seems more a endgame boss self-heal for the dps but I suppose it maybe considered a two/three keystroke self heal for blue. Well keep the bLM duo going but I do hope they fix the sabretooth basic (& minor) AOE attack so it goes back to the tooltip description & the way it was in 40.1 :( It looks like about 600 subscribers are playing on the new servers and they/VIPs have all deserted the normal servers leaving about 100 players on arkenstone the last time I looked. That’s down from 150-450 depending on the time of day. It might be one of the reasons the carryalls are transferring instantly. I’ll check it out myself :) Mordor server is reportedly going to stay after level cap but Angmar is going to end at that time with free character transfers like the other legendary servers. I think this explains why Mordor is getting most of the love at the moment :) Thanks again & I can’t wait to see what captcha adds to this thread.

@@gwathornsgames I considered that the reason for the improved behavior of the carry-all transfers might be the reduced populations. But the previous, slower behavior was the norm even on Treebeard at times when there were only 20-30 non-anonymous players. On Landroval and Crickhollow the population does seem to be lower than normal but it's still up over 300 at North American prime time and certainly well over 100 even at the typically slowest hours of the day for those servers. It's just a technical thing I'm curious about: Is there some server shared by all game worlds which handles "storage" or the transfer of storage data which was upgraded at the same time the new new 64-bit game worlds went live? I suspect that might be the case. Self-heal for Red requires two button presses and isn't of enormous magnitude but better than nothing since you otherwise have that - nothing - in Red at low level: Minor Pet Command, Wizard's Frost. Or Major Pet Command, Wizard's Frost. Blue and Yellow can do it, too, but can't get a flank on demand, they have to wait for the random flanks to occur as a result of their active pet's attacks. (Flank is denoted in the game by a =BONG= sound effect.) Water Lore is granted at level 32 now but is weaker, which is a shame because it was weak enough after it was nerfed at about the same time the stat squish was executed.

A 64-bit rdms is entirely plausible and a really good possibility for the carryall speed increase and disappearance of that really annoying general error when moving things out of general storage. I don’t want to underestimate the drop off 500 subscribers from the rdms database load on the combined US virtual server pool though. Also, the drop of raids/instances on the US virtual server pool with potential disk swapping issues. Long histories will also have been greatly decreased on the US servers and they would be rmds database calls as well at every fast travel/milestone/doorway. But I seriously wonder what it is that ends up being the main component of the database improvement. Has lag/desyncing decreased as well? I’m on holidays until later in the week so I’m un-connected to the game servers at present but I did try stuff out and record in advance:)

Thank you. I found the 4k draw distance & distant monster activities resolved faster & further on the 64-bit servers as well during the beta. That was in Minas Tirith & Umbar where the graphics polygon counts were much higher than the current L50 max zones on Mordor &/or Angmar Legendary servers. I will be looking closely at just how far I can push the graphics limits if/when the 64-bit servers drop on all the others servers. I expect it will eventually happen but not until the 64-bit servers have been really well tested below L50 with short history characters & the available L50 (or lower) instances on the new servers... If you look at the recordings (when I've included the graphics monitor live details) my graphics card has more micro-shudders on the 32-bit servers than the 64-bit ones. Ditto for any observable lag issues basically disappearing during my initial live testing even with more users on Mordor the last time I looked (500+ online subscribers) compared to Arkenstone (150-450 online general users) at different times over the last month. There is a long way to go though...

It’s definitely adding some life back to the game with the lag decreasing on the 64-bit servers… And yes, Always the way, free time gone when money is there; money gone when free time is in abundance :)

I only had one slight lag, going up the hill towards the vineyard.

Thank you. I’ve seen two stand-alone quarter/half second lags/delays in about 3hours of gameplay on the new 64-bit Mordor server. Given they are still ironing out the upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit on the legendary servers I think it’s pretty good. (There has been one 15min? rollback that I’ve heard about). It’s going to be interesting when the 64-bit servers are really stable and roll out to the rest of the games servers. My main one is arkenstone. If it holds up then I should be able to push high level H+2 (max difficulty) characters faster :) Fingers crossed.

A few of us have been saying (at least through the beta testing) that the basically brand new loremaster class should have *actually* been given a completely new character class name (oh like maybe a medium armoured ranger class) to just give people a second animal pet class to play with. They could have sold it for Lotro points in the game store... Then they could have left the Loremaster alone rather than making such a hot mess for players to try and cope with. The traceries are now a real mess, redline loremaster is now basically only useful for fairly simple normal difficulty character levelling & low Tier endgame instances where the Tank & healer actually carry the dps redline loremaster through the instance & CC is for other dps classes to deal with. Historically, this really is the hunter "re-work" disaster from years ago all all over again. That rework to the hunter class back then changed a great & simple character class to a hot & useless mess & stopped me playing LOTRO for years. Unfortunately, I expect this is just another redline hunter moment for the game.

I love new lore master tbh each to there own

There are basically three relevant/useful traceries for a blueline Loremaster. If you eventually get to side some red tree then you can get a few extra useful traceries but not many more & definitely only one Legendary items worth. The other LI can be filled with crit bonus traceries from any other skill as long as it gives a crit bonus. I haven't bothered lookin/filling out the L145 Loremaster traceries as I've given up with the character class at H+2...

When the sabretooth pet actually does the AOE basic attacks as described in the Update 41 tooltip (and how it worked up until yesterday in version 40.1), I might think about playing a Loremaster past level 17. ie. when the sabretooth skill can actually be activated with class points in blueline. I/we are running a fearless blueline Loremaster duo (from level 8) with captcha Fail but I really want the sabretooth fixed before both the characters get to actually use them at level 17. It's all really sad TBH.

I have to agree that they nerfed the living daylights out of the Loremaster. I've completely given up trying to run my Level 145 H+2 Blueline Loremaster ever since update 39.1 The changes with update 41 locking yellowlines best skills so they can only be used by yellowline Loremasters has removed any real chance of running a H+2 Loremaster comparable to the pre 39.1 version. Putting blinding light so far down yellow line has removed the possibility of long duration dazes from both blueline & redline builds. Putting the cracked earth "root" component of the skill into yellow line just ensures monsters can close on all the solo redline loremasters that are levelling from 1-149. Only dps redline loremasters with tanks, healers actually running low Tier level capped instances will have the cover to actually be able to run as actual redline. And of course they are now non-pet builds (well pets are now equivalent to castable DOTs before their durations expire. It's a real mess...

It actually does provide a lot of variety. I tend to remember zones for a good period of time so I need to take a break from them for a bit so they are reasonably fresh for the next run. Then I take a different character class with a different game style through the same content. Melee, ranged, & stealth are the main categories in the game. The beorning & warden can kind of group melee & ranged though:)

Agreed. The spinning gear is a visual clue for the burglars critical gated skills. Its from sequence bars & I use it in many of my more intense character landscape runs. If I haven't activated a 'crit' response by the time I get through my short initial burglar skills combo then it stays green (on the Aim skill) but if the crit response skills are activated then it changes to the Double Edges Strike skill (ie yellow). Its a good visual clue. I do things like that for the Heroic+2 Beorning (prompting heals & stun removal), H+2 Loremaster (heals for pets), & H+2 Champions (AOE stun skills/items) as well. Its kind of needed at that level of landscape gameplay. At least when I play it anyway🙂

@@gwathornsgames good to know. I’ll keep that in mind.

Its currently at 4-5 videos a week. Thats somewhat lower than the weekly average a few months ago. I've been thinking of pushing it to one a day but lets see how it all goes as it is 🙂 The Loremaster changes (almost complete rework) has been very interesting to watch/play and we'll actually see what the "final" product looks like in about 24 hours when update 41 releases...

@@gwathornsgames I had no clue the update was so close. I need to get on it!

Thank you. I think the matching "Shield of the Hammerhand" just define the duo so well. It also gives a 25% XP bonus for monster kills (and crafting but thats another story). It is a bit expensive as its only available from the LOTRO store for about 995LotroPoints when not on sale. Nowadays I only use LP for gear XP multipliers like the shield, extra character slots (now 44), crafting carry alls, & of course Mithril when its at its cheapest on sale. IMO, the Lotro point grind at low levels ends up being one of the more relaxing tasks in this game. It replaces my need to grind gear at end game... Its worth about 10cents per 10LP (about a mithril) very roughly based on the 500LP per month granted with a monthly subscription. You can grind about 300LP per brand new character in slayer deeds & 500LP in reputation items if your playing on an auction house active server. Then you can get other players to grind the reputation items required to push a level 46 character through all the relevant skirmish camp buyable reputation items. But you need to find something other players will buy to do that 🙂 This & crafting a new character up to level 45 gives you everything you need to make a tidy LP profit from every new character slot... So, I sometimes grind up two brand new characters to level 45 just to get a character a "shield of the hammerhand" for these recordings.

@@gwathornsgames that is alot of useful information. I will note that on future characters.

​​@@gwathornsgamesis there still a way to get that Hammerhand shield? I was looking forward to buying it and just can't find it in the lotro store

I have been meaning to confirm that it’s still there but I know you can’t find it just by browsing the store. You have to do a search for something like “hammerhand” to be able to retrieve the item from the store. Sorry about the delayed response. I’ve been lore master & 64-bit busy these last few days…

@@gwathornsgames thanks for the response! I actually did find the item on the store with a different character. The item just doesn't seem available on the new legendary servers. Pretty sad!

Definitely tried & not used. The parry response trigger coupled with the lack of fevor generation marks it outside the single target damage skills for blueline on H+2. The champion gets further down the blue tree earlier without it & the yellowline tree depth is reduced by spending the extra 1+5 class points to get riposte at +100%. Every level you are looking at pushing further into yellow to get better morale regeneration abilities & better AOE skills. It just doesn't add anything significant at H+2 and there is always something to do at that level of landscape difficulty that is better than a parry response skill when incoming damage is +600%. Like stuns, bubbles, damage reduction, heals etc.🙂

Smile. The loremaster has always been one of those "I just want to play a pet build" while playing LOTRO character classes. The blue-line version doubly so. Redline has been the default leveling tree given its good damage output and blue has been progressively decimated over the years/decades. Yellowline is the endgame tree that raid leaders "require" so that loremasters can actually get a spot in the group. So each character line has had its place over the years & all players who start by just wanting a pet character class end up being forced to eventually play completely differently at endgame in way they never played from level 1 to level 149. It's pretty sad when you think about it and I maybe understand that the players that solo levelled a redline loremaster might want to "relive" their solo levelling experience and play a stronger redline dps character at endgame for a Tier or two more than ends up available to them... That said, I have been playing a loremaster for 12+ years now, have seen massive gameplay changes for the character class, & have accumulated 4 weeks of actual "in-game" playtime just on my L145 loremaster (I have several of them in my now 42 characters per server :) Until this expansion I have always stopped playing a character when it reaches level cap and just waited till the next expansion is released. Now I think it may be the last level increase for the game if they don't fix the lag problems (but thats another story...) When all thats said, I suppose I just want to play different character classes either solo or duo; at different levels; in different zones; on different landscape difficulties; rather than grinding the same content; with the same character class; for an occasionally better gear drops; for six month grinds; to gradually Tier the same character; over what eventually becomes the same instances/raid bosses; playing a character tree I don't actually want to play; but need to; if I want to play with my guild mates at the next higher Tier of the endgame content...

Thanks for this. It does help somewhat and even though I had read it before in the Lotro beta testing forums its not until you actually play the character class and bounce off it that you get the extra nuance of the flanking heal with wizards frost. Unfortunately, its all just "end game" boss self healing alternatives for the loremaster. ie. The landscape fights on normal difficulty just don't last long enough & inner flame cooldown is "far" to long to help re-distribute threat if a bLM (blueline loremaster) is for example trying to work/quest through an orc camp to complete quests there. The threat generation from a single heal or wizards frost will aggro any second/third/fourth critter that "were" attacking the pet in blueline. That coupled with the (timed in this video) 20 second duration for a blueline loremaster to actually take down a normal level 10 wolf with a level 10 loremaster pet & its all pretty sad for a new player solo levelling character experience. The new aggro issues (since update 39.1) & now all pets lack of AOE threat generation (even for the bear!) makes it (flank heals) all pretty useless for higher landscape difficulty questing as well. But its a neat endgame addition I suppose. Even if you can now self heal with wizards fire and "flank" a boss by using a minor pet skill without "actually" needing the inconvenience of having a pet out to actually "flank" the boss...

Thanks. As I mentioned I really wanted the pet/blueline Loremaster to be a great levelling character class but they keep playing around (in the different betas) with the actual pet damage. It takes far too long for the pet to take down even a single normal critter at low levels and the redline Loremaster (rLM for short) doesn't have a pet but is still significantly stronger than the bLM given the really poor pet performance at low levels. Around level 50 the bLM can fill out the blue trait tree & get back a long of the extra damage bonuses that come with the trees pet focus. So it starts playing/DPSing on-par with the rLM damage only builds. But there are SO many better non-pet builds out there in other character classes. The rLM healing is really poor as well with this new tree design. For H+2 gameplay the bLM is even slower at low levels & requires multiple pet re-summons to eventually make it through a fight. Multiple critter/opponents basically take the bLM down with very little resistance given the light armour & long cooldown decent heals drawing aggro immediately from all but one opponent/critter. About level 50 the pet has enough health to hold off multiple opponents but still requires re-summons to finish a fight after the pet gets defeated but re-summoned before the mob closes on the caster (if the opponent is not a ranged critter...) It's a real mess & I'm not even going to the yellowline LM thats really only for endgame instance support. The Wraith turning up in the video directly in front of the LM just forced me to face the very real shortcomings of the new character class changes... I would like to see the blueline champion trying to take the wraith but I do expect on normal difficulty that the yellowline beorning has the healing legs to hold it's own while doing good dps. But thats the yBeorning for you on normal landscape difficulty :-) Of course any H+2 character running into a wraith like the LM did in the video would get destroyed immediately... (ie. 6x damage increase from a wraith like that would one-shot any H+2 character) Thanks again for watching :-)

@@gwathornsgames I was level 18 killing orcs north of bree to do some testing, at fearless difficulty. When the shadow wraith (not the one of the nine of course) shows up in difficulty fearless, the only class i found that could survive and kill it was Beorning. Blue champion might have a chance higher levels, but at level 18, difficulty 3 fearless, if shadow wraith shows up only Beorning survives. Im expecting the blue champion to fare much better once you get LI and sudden defence gets lower cd, but it stood no chance at lvl 18 fearless vs wraith. Regarding LM I agree with your video, ill skipt hat class so now its between Beorning and champion. I just tire abit of staring at that bear ass so Im leaning towards champion (even lvl 50 cap, nothing can compare to the incredible powerful healing of beorning combined with heavy armor).

@@gwathornsgames New Lore-master: Made by and for an extremely small subset of the raiding community. According to them, everyone else can just SHUP THE HELL UP what do you know about LOTRO anyway they are the experts. This is especially bad for players making new characters or with existing characters at low levels. I hate this revamp, Lore-masters were in an extremely good place and just needed a few tweaks to address skill/quickslot bloat, threat mechanics, and some other minor issues most of which were about enhancing damage and support functions of Red and Blue to make them more desirable to raid leaders. I enjoyed watching the video. Red's bear isn't really a bear pet, it's a Fear skill with a DOT which has the APPEARANCE of a bear - yes, it can draw aggro (sorta) and be a target but the bear part is mostly cosmetic. As someone else wrote in a comment above, it's something to use during a battle to, for example, get something to run away from you for a moment so you can get a pause on incoming damage and perform skills without interruption. No pets for Red, you just get skills that have a cosmetic effect that looks like a pet; temporarily. Any Lore-master currently has access to a bunch of useful crowd control and debuffing skills. With this revamp, only Yellow gets them, even at max level Blue and Red won't have that full toolkit because they are locked in "Yellow jail". And forget low level, all you do is push buttons for damage (and a little healing), there's barely any crowd control or debuffing until much, much later. It doesn't feel the same, it's a totally new class with the Lore-master name recycled. I think they ruined the value of developing some skill with all those different abilities for Lore-masters that aren't Yellow, and they ruined the fun of playing Yellow on Landscape.

Ah, okay, my bad, So if I understand you correctly there are shadow wraiths that can turn up on difficulties from Fearless -> H+2 even when you get out of the Eye of Sauron zone in combat? The Southron Ring Wraith turned up in this video & changed what looked like the whole zone landscape display but how on earth do players find the ring wraith if the player that "activated" it just runs away (or dies & changes character/zone to avoid the ring wraith) & doesn't use world chat to focus the worlds attention?!?!? That Ring Wraith could have been anywhere & most players who solo the game turn OFF world chat rather than read the stuff that sometimes goes into it. I've filled my ignore list so many times & then had to just manually clear parts of the list when it becomes full (ie. choose a letter of the alphabet from the ignore list to clear) just to be able to ignore more players etc... The world is going to end up being filled with shadow wraith and its likely to be at the level of the character that "created" it. But not higher than the zones max creature level because of the game mechanics for the Eye of Sauron. Does that mean there will be (up to) level 100 shadow wraiths hanging around zones/areas like west of Esteldin because of the wandering threats that spawn at level 100 ?!?!? Anyway, thank you for the clarification.

I have to agree. "New Lore-master: Made by and for an extremely small subset of the raiding community." Many games go this way (unfortunately). The vocal beta testers are very heavily invested in the game & characters they are testing. All the discussions in the lotro beta testing for the loremaster are about endgame & possible Tier progression for the new Loremaster & their respective lines. ie. how far the different lines can reasonably expect to be able to Tier their character class role. ie. rLM wants to be able to climb a Tier or two higher as dps before being forced to run yLM for the support role abilities to gain a raid slot via forced yellowline protected skills & pet swapping. The whole system feeds on itself as new players never play beta & far fewer give feedback on official forums. But the 64-bit server was basically flawless compared to the 32-bit ones. It's really sad in a way. If they fix the lag issues by going 64-bit & EU physical servers rather than aggregating lots of virtual 32-bit servers onto the same physical server(s) in the US then its a great day for LOTRO. But what character class do you get a new user to play solo to level cap. If they fix the lag I will be shouting from the rooftops... FYI, I hear the Hunter is next on the "new user" chopping block for the "end user" Tier climb...

How are you finding the new 64-bit servers? Have you taken them out for a spin?

Thanks again. The Blueline "tank" Beorning doesn't have an AOE bees attack so single target melee attacks would become predominant & the takedown time for mobs become much higher. The boss fights would still be "kitting" the boss & keeping the single target bees attack going so that wouldn't change much. You would of course have less heals than the yellowline "healer" Beorning but have 20% better armour as a compensation for lower heals. The Blueline Champion would have to melee fight every opponent & couldn't avoid many of the large area damage attacks from the bosses. It also wouldn't have the self healing abilities of the Beornings but the sudden defense bubble would get you through the mobs well enough. I'd probably try yellowline champion for mobs & blueline champion for bosses. But that's pretty standard for the present day champion in instances. That said, my L150 blueline Burglar can solo this instance so the Blueline Champion should definitely be able to do it :-)