LotRO: Durin's Bane (Ost Dunhoth, Fear) on Tier 2 and Challenge done!

Gentlemen, we got him!

After a lot (and I mean a lot) of wipes during several evening, we finally managed to slay Durin's Bane on Tier 2 and complete the Challenge.

To be honest, I had my doubts, that we were able to do it. Luck did play a very minor role, tactics worked and noone f*cked up. On the first try, I ran off the platform after the first pool. That was embarassing.

In the next runs we managed to work on tactics and after some wipes, the first people announced that they would leave soon. We dropped one Burglar for an additional Minstrel and started the fight.

Soon the first kinnies (including myself) disconnected from ventrilo and we switched to ingame-voice. Things got a bit heated as most of the platform was covered with fire-pools.

The last few ten thousand morale were nerve-wrecking. One of our tanks died seconds before Durin's Bane and one of the two chests spawned on top of him...

I won a high-dps mace for my Burglar (off-hand) and two settings and a rune. We got two coins for the Ost Dunhoth armour, a rather crappy piece of jewelery and a purple armour which I didn't even want as a cosmetic.

Some of these new instances favour certain set-ups.

Two tanks are a must. Either two Wardens or two Guardians. Guardians seem to work better.
Two Minstrels for main healing, two Captains, two Rune-Keepers (do not Fall to Flame).
Two Burglars and one Lore-Master, for debuffs and power.

This leaves one spot open. We used a Champion, Hunter would have been better. Or a third Rune-Keeper.

It will be fun to try other set-ups. When more people get first-agers, this could leave room for changes.

Where are we? We did three wings on Tier 2 with the Challenge and an other wing on Tier 2. The fifth wing seems to be doable, but Gortheron will not be easy. We might even go back to Barad Guldur (yay, more stairs) and to Dar Narbugud. I don't mind running those two instances, especially as the DN set is still quite nice and BG can also be desireable.

I have brought Minstrel, Rune-Keeper, Lore-master, Hunter and Burglar to Durin's Bane. I want to get my Guardian raid-ready. I have not used him a lot but he is fun to play. And tanking is the one thing, I haven't tried much yet.