LotRO - Isengard

It has been some time, over four months actually, since I last posted. Even thought I have been away from here, I haven’t been away from LotRO. I did spend some more time in World of Tanks, but haven't touched that game for some weeks.

There have been a lot of posts regarding Isengard, so much I will write here, you might have heard somewhere else.

What have I done in the expansion? First I have leveled my Hunter, Minstrel and Captain to level 75. Triple-boxing has been a less positive experience with Rise of Isengard, as the amount of client-crashes has exploded. These crashes mostly happen in high-traffic areas, say Galtrev, or when moving from one part of the world to an other (say, entering the vault in Galtrev or an instance on three characters at the same time.

Even thought I had taken some days off, I didn’t hit level-cap as fast as I had planned. I did like most regions of the expansion and the Epic Book, the parts I didn’t like were Dunbog and the Pit of Iron, the latter mostly because of the buggy tracks and the missing map.

My favorite parts were in the Epic Story as well as the Gap of Rohan quests.

After getting three characters to level-cap, I started gearing my Hunter and my Minstrel. I did some twelve-man skirmishes and some of the upgraded three- and six-mans. I really like them and they seem to be a bit easier than they have been before. I am looking forward to triple-boxing the school and library again.
I started leveling my next two characters, Burglar and Rune-Keeper. They are at level 69ish and Champion and Lore-Master will be next.

Hunter seems to play more or less the same as before the update. Minstrel and Captain have changed a lot. I didn’t spend a lot of time on my Captain but like the changes for my Minstrel a lot.
We also visited Draigoch, the big, bad (?) dragon. The raid well done. I sadly was always too late for the first few 'failed' attempts but was lucky enough to bring my Hunter to the first Tier 2 and Challenge run. I even won the coin for the head-piece.

Draigoch fights in his pit which has three levels. A small part of the raid does the tanking on the upper level, whilst the rest fights the paws on the lower and central levels. After ‚killing’ the paws, Draigoch falls to the ground whilst the raid hits his body. Fellowship movements are important, as a specific series of twelve FMs weakens the paws. After a bit, the dragon wakes up again and this repeats over and over again. Withe the FMs weakening the paws, less time is needed to ‚kill’ these and the phase to attack the body will start sooner.

There are three phases, as I have only been on the dps team, and the first and second phase seem to be different mainly for the tanking team. I also think that a Rune-Keeper is a better healer for the tanking team as a Minstrel should be in line-of-sight with the boss to play ballads, which is not recommended with Draigoch.

The third team is quite easy if you have lots of ranged dps. Even though melee dps get a better buff than the ranged dps, the Hunters and Lore-Masters don’t suffer from the distributed attacks of the paws.

After a long time, the fight takes about 90 minutes, he was finally dead. I was very happy to be on an other server-first. Four chests spawn. Most sought after were the scales, three of which are needed to craft an epic cloak. Three scales dropped on the first run, four on the second. Then we had two coins fort he set on the first run and three on the second run and on the first run, we got an Worn Symbol of Celebrimbor. Some teal items (jewelery and amour) and some runes and settings completed the loot.

With three accounts, I spent around US$ 150.00 for the Rise of Isengard expansion. Money well spent? Yes, I think so. Even with the buggy Pit of Iron and the failure to have enough quests to get to level-cap without having to do repeatables and tasks, I like the expansion.

LotRO: Frothmar (Ost Dunhoth, Poison) on Tier 2 and Challenge done!

Frothmar is an other fight I like. And finally, after loads of tries, we managed to get him down.

The twelve people are split up in four groups of three. One of each group stays on the platform most of the time. We used healers for the far two platforms (from the entry) and Hunters for the close two. Setup is two tanks (again, probably Guardians), two Captains, two healers (probably Minstrels). These stay close to the door on the other side of the room.

The rear needs one healer (we used a Rune-Keeper) and a Lore-Master. The rest are dps, Hunters probably are best (high range). They can either stand in the center or to the left and right of the room, between the platforms.

To not fail the challenge, someone has to stay on the platform at any time of the fight. This means, you can't loose a platform, which happens when more than two people stand on a platform, or two people stand on the platform for too long.

Knock-backs seem to be the highest risk to fail the challenge, so those not standing on the platform should stay far away from them as possible (in the center) and the switching should happen after knock-backs.

It is not an extremely difficult fight, but it is very easy to fail it, as it only takes one mistake. So if you have laggy Internet-connection, this might not be the fight for you...

Even though the sentiment in the kin was not to do it again, I would really like to keep doing or at least keep trying it. Again, I don't think this is difficult to do. If you fail, you can reset the fight easily. The fight itself does not take very long. It just takes some practice and a lot of concentration.

Doing this challenge was very rewarding. Not only because I got my second Symbol of the Elder King which I used for a First Age Burglar Dagger.

I had thought long, what I should do with the symbol. I have a First Age Bow for my Hunter which is maxed out. On my Minstrel, Rune-Keeper and Captain, I have lots of ixp-runes. My Minstrel is one of my mains, but we have a lot of Minstrels at the moment. As I usually have been asked to either bring my Hunter, Burglar or Lore-Master, the choice was between the Burglar or the Lore-Master.

If I win a next Symbol, I might go Lore-Master or Minstrel or Captain. As I already have won two symbols and lots of people haven't won one, I am not sure, if I should roll on the next few symbols. An idea would be to roll on them, but if I win one, to pass on it, so that if I won a forth roll, I could get a third symbol.

LotRO - Mammoths (Ost Dunhoth, Wounds) on Tier 2

Sadly we did not manage to get the Challenge. We did manage to kill one Mammoth in time. Does not seem impossible to do, but will take some more practice.

We learned a lot. For one, when you finish the fight, you can walk back through the corridors and see, that the gates and levers are actually colour-coded. So:

The middle (green) lever opens the right gate,
the right (purple) lever opens the left gate,
the left (orange) lever opens the middle gate,
the middle (blue) lever opens the left gate,
the left (purple) lever opens the right gate and last but not least,
the right (white) lever opens the middle gate.

Even the first gate has the same colour as the gates, which houses the mammoths.

Balancing the dps is a bit of a challenge as you don't want people to have to wait for other groups pulling their levers.

And this is my 200th post, yay!

LotRO - Small Update

It started with a letter. Bungo Grubb from Oatbarton wrote to Mayor Whitfoot, that a "tall stone block bearing unpleasant symbols" had appeared in his field. My first thought was 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Logging my Minstrel, I rode to Oatbarton and soon found the stone and talked to the people around it. The rock was oozing a green mist and around it, a large part of the field it stood in, was dead.

A new deed popped up too, called Mysterious Relics. This deed showed, that there were more of these relics hidden in Middle Earth. Sadly, there was no information given where to search. So after a short google, I found the other places (no, I am not spoiling it myself here, google it yourself).

I would have liked it better, if some hints had been given, so I would have been able to find them myself (not just by riding through the whole of Middle Earth).

The last quest sends you to the Prancing Pony with the innkeeper promising to help.

There had been a lot of rumours, that the next raid would concern the Gaunt-Lords.

We have alread met Ivar the Blood-hand in the swamps of Garth Agarwen in the Lone-lands, Drugoth the Death-monger who you can meet in Helegrod where he is part of the Dragon-instance, most have killed Thadúr the Ravager who hides in the Great Barrow and porbalby gets a lot of beating these days (thanks to Superior Third Marks), Ferndúr the Virulent who is the one I have seen the least of yet, as he resides in Imlad Bachorth, Angmar, where I hardly have gone to and, last but not least: Gortheron the Doom-caller. We have seen him in one of the quests in Lhe Colvarn in the Lich Bluffs and is probably our next target.

So we got five Gaunt-Lords and five Relics. Each of the relics has his colour. For pictures, please go here.

I would arrange the Gaunt-Lords differently than the OP does, so here is my suggestion:

Oatbarton - green - poison - Thadúr the Ravager
North Downs - red - blood - Ivar the Blood-hand
Forochel - purple - fear - Drugoth the Death-monger
Trollshaws - yellow - disease - Ferndúr the Virulent
Thror's Coomb - no colour (yet?) - Gortheron the Doom-caller

This is of course pure speculation. Some make more sence than others.

Some of the relics have new locations nearby.

In Oatbarton, there is a village to the north-west.
In the North Downs, there is a new settlement called Stoneheight.
Thror's Coomb bunny castle in the south-west could be the hot location for Gortheron, bring ye holy hand grenade.
Trollshows has no new location, but Elrond talks about the place behind the locked door.
In Forochel, I didn't see a new location either, but there easily could be an expanded castle further to the north-east.

I guess, the Enedwaidth stone will start to 'bleed' (or ooze) too and that this will happen, when the new raid-cluster goes life. As in Helegrod, I think that you need to defeat the 'old' Gaunt-Lords (all four of them), before you can fight Gortheron.

Even though I only got a new title, I like the way they are introducing the new raid.

LotRO - Are you ready to rumble?

Now that most of the instances can be reached by the skirmish-menu, probably much to the relief of Captains, our raids seem to start with much less delay.

What is deplorable is that many people lack the consumables needed.

Highest on the list are tokens. I usually have three stacks of plus five tokens on each of my raiding characters (usually one stack 40 minutes, 30 minutes and 15 minutes). It is always the same group of people who pop tokens before the fight and the same slackers that cry for one after a rez even though you know, they didn't pop one to start with. This gets on my fucking nerves...

Sadly, you can't inspect bags before the raid. Even more sad, that you should be able to do that in a kin.

I understand, that not everyone has a jeweller. But four of the seven vocations have prospector as one of the three professions. I am more than happy to craft tokens for those kinnies, who don't have a jeweller, just bring me the mats. If you are a historian and need tokens, trade some scrolls for tokens.

If you have only a yeoman, you can provide food for the raid. As a woodsman, you can at least do some farming.

Crafting does not take that much time. I usually use a warden to farm scholar- and prospector-nodes (yes, I got more than one warden). The out-of-combat-run-speed-skill does make farming nodes easier. I sometimes even triple-box, running from node to node on two accounts, crafting on my third account (this gets me killed in some places though...)

About one hour work gives enough consumables for one month heavy raiding. Some of my produce I put in the raid-chest or send to officers and friends.

So when it is this easy, why do I complain? Because when someone dies, get rezed and has to beg for a token, this wastes time and risks that he dies again (as due to dread, his health is reduced a lot). As many of the new fights punishes deaths, a further death increases the risk of a wipe.