LotRO: Echoes of the Dead, a brief review

The last six weeks, I have been enjoying the update Echoes of the Dead. I gave my first impression here so I don’t want to repeat myself.

As usual, in the beginning a lot of people signed up for the new raid and instances. There was even some moaning or bitching about who could go. Now some of the runs had to be cancelled due to too few people online. Tempus fugit. I blame the nice weather and World of Tanks.

Echoes of the Dead is one of the best updates released.

The three-man instances are fun and challenging on Tier 2. Tier 2 favours a certain set-up. Healer, Tank and Damage Dealer or Healer with two DD. Classes like Burglars and Captains are less useful for Tier 2 runs. Of course it can be done, but the other members need to work extra hard. It would have been nice, if the skill-reset we have in Ost Dunhoth were implemented here too...

The two six-man instances are fun and challenging too. No complaints here, with six it is easier to bring a Burglar and Captains.

Ost Dunhoth is almost perfect. The skill reset is great. Fights are short, fun and challenging. After a wipe, no time is wasted. Everything is in a short walking distance, no more running up the tower for five minutes to kill the Lieutenant.

Trash mobs are non-existent, instead we get some small fun fights before the boss. Rewards are good. What I dislike is the amount of medallions needed for the armour. I doubt, that I will get a full set anytime soon...

We managed to do four of the bosses on Tier 2 with the challenge and one more on Tier 2 without the challenge. Getting Gortheron on Tier 2 with the challenge will take some time. We raid a lot in the kin, about six days a week, but we are not a hard-core raiding kin. This means that we have a lot of different people on every raid and some are better raiders than others.

I would also suggest to use Buffbars as it does make fights easier. A kinnie programmed a small add-on which analyzes the combat-log and helps with acoustic warnings and big flashing letters.

I have done the book-quests on all of my main characters, save my Warden.
Ten being best, I give this update 9.5/10. Well done!