LotRO - Update

I came home late from work yesterday and didn't do much before the Dol Guldur raid. We had a perfect start, as all were online on time and ready to go. The gauntlet went without us even sweating. I brought my Minstrel and even thought I was the only one, I had not too much to do. I did have two Rune-Keepers on healing-duty.

After only a brief bio break before Durchest we entered and veni - vidi - vici he was dead soon afterwards. With all the debuffs working and an experienced group, this fight is no challenge anymore. I won the chest-piece which brings me up to five pieces (missing on the shoulders) on my Minstrel and my Hunter. On my Rune-Keeper, I have four pieces (missing the shoulders and the trousers) and my Lore-Master has only the chest-piece (which is also the prettiest).

Only compaint here, was that the Lore-Master did not keep me powered up... I sent him several tells during the fight, but he was very stingy.

The way up to the Twins was painless too. No wipes and only few deaths. Cargaraf and Morgaraf were no match and killed fast.

There were two gloves-barter-items dropping, but only one person who needed them. So we left one in the chest...

As the run up to now had been such a walk in the park, we decided to try the rest of the raid, the Lieutenant. As the rest of the raid, the way up went very well.

We killed the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur on the frist try on Hard-Mode but to be honest, if the developers hadn't castrated him, things would have been different.

With the debuffs working, he hits like a little girl. Same goes for the Fell-Biest. Worst of all, the purple eyes who were instant-death before are hitting for less then 2k damage and are no threat anymore.

Lots of people did a bad job on this fight, running to the wrong places at the wrong time, not reacting fast enough, not paying attention. We managed to kill him on Hard-Mode, but the fight was not handled properly.

On the plus side, I got a piece I was trying to get lots of times. And we did all three Hard-Modes on the first try. And everyone was there on time and the first two bosses were done very good. So lets be happy with that and not complain too much about the successful, but ugly Lieutenant Hard-Mode.

LotRO - Update

I finished the main quests in Enedwaith on Burglar and Captain. If I am not grouping with kinsfolk, I am mostly on my Champion and Lore-Master. I am doing Volume 3, Book 1 and finished the Rift skirmish yesterday.

Since my last post, I got one Symbol of Celebrimbor and have used it to mak a fire-stone for my Rune-Keeper. Haven't done much with it though.

After my last crappy Captain Two-Handed-Sword I had a lot of luck and made him one with four good stats. Sadly, the reforges were bad so that it is rather mediocre (still better than what I got though).

I brought my Guardian for the first time to Dar Narbugud and tanked most of the bosses for the first time. Lucky for me (and the kin), this instance is level 60 (I think) and all went well. I even won a piece of the armour with a 500 on a /roll 500. Nice.

I am never sure, if I should even roll on those instances. I doubt I will ever get a full set. But I think, that most want it more for the cosmetic quality than to actually use it. It isn't even looking that great...

Yesterday we did an other Barad Guldur run for the two bosses. The officers hat a meeting at a short notice, so a Kinnie had to lead the raid. We did have enough sign-ups and most of them even showed-up.

But one person had to go away for ten minutes (he was gone for almost half an hour). An other crashed and didn't come back in (had to switch to Lore-Master). One more had problems with his vent and an other was awol too.

So after half an hour, and lots of switching, we started the fight. I think we did quite well with the gauntlet. Durchest was an other story. We wiped on the first try. I had to retrait my Lore-Master as I hadn't planned on bringing him that night so I partly blame myself for the first wipe (not a big part, I think).

Durchest does hit hard and we only had one Minstrel and two Rune-Keepers in this fight. I'd rather have two Minstrels healing this fight and don't think, that one Minstrel is enough. We had lots of deaths and when the Minstrel went down and there was no-one able to rez him, we wiped.

The fight had lasted very long. The fourty-minutes scrolls and tokens wore off at some point during the fight and I did repop a token to get at least some hope.

How did I do on the second run? I think I did quite well. I gave out a lot of power, mainly to the Minstrel, but also to the Rune-Keepers. Sometimes, I even had enough power to give to the Captains and the Guardian. I think I had the debuffs on most of the time. The skill lasts for 75 seconds and has a 60 seconds cooldown. Whenever I saw it was reaplieable, I did.

I started with debuffing Durchest, "See all Ends", "Command", "Ancient Craft", "Wind-Lore" and "Gust of Wind", then I used "Dispel Corruption" if it was needed followed by handing out power.

Before draining power from Durchest, I moved a bit away of the action to a quit spot, drew power and restarted my debuffing.

I am not sure, if this is the way to do it or if I should have used "Warding Knowledge: Dead" or something else. Might ask in the kin next time.

Radiance could have made it more difficult, as I only have 120 on my Lore-master. I think I should have 135...

LotRO - Update

Worked long yesterday and when I logged in, I just had some time before the raid.

I ran some chars through the Haunted Barrows, just trying to get the Skeleton Horse, but no luck this time around. The festival has been extended till the end of the month, which will give me about eight chances to get it.

Afterwards we tried Barad Guldur. This is the top instance for 12 people at the moment with three bosses and some trash-mobs in between. The Gauntlet is the first staircase to the frist Boss, Durchest. I. has worked out some great tactics and we rushed through it in about fiveteen minutes.

Then we had some crashes and disconnects and we had to wait again.

First run of Durchest didn't go too well and after too many deaths, we tried again. The second attempt was not much better and some got dispaired. I was on Minstrel and run out of power fast. Loremaster didn't power me and during the attempts, I often had little or no power.

I know, I might not be the most power efficient Minstrel around, but I rather heal too much and burn some power than let someone die on my watch.

On the third try, we had a Rune-Keeper who was also specced healing. Things went better but still not good enough. I think we had a bit bad luck with the special attacks from Durchest as he can hit like a freight train.

Forth time was perfect, only one death which we recovered fast from. Did win a symbol, but failed again on the chest-piece.