LotRO - Gortheron (Ost Dunhoth) some tactics, contains spoilers!

After having done the first five bosses, Gortheron is left. We have seen him many times during the instance and even in the quests leading to the instance. Now is the time for payback.

I like, that there is no time wasted with adds. After killing Ivar, the gate opens to the arena which has the shape of a pentagon. As most evildoers, Gortheron likes to talk. A lot.

Which classes are or rather which setup is the best for this fight?

Two Captains, two Minstrels, two Lore-Masters and a Guardian seem to be a necessity. An additional healer, probably a Rune-Keeper does help too. So we got eight. I would bring three Hunters and a Warden (as the warden has the best corruption removal skill of all classes).

The fight starts, when Gortheron moves into the body of a troll and opens one of the walls of the arena. Some monsters from the Shire join the fight. The adds of the first phase consist of two huge boars (Thadur's Boar, about 24 k morale) and three big goblins (Thadur's Thug 11k). When one of these five is killed, it is replaced almost instantly.

The boars have anger, which needs to be removed before they can be CC'ed (so you need to CC them twice in a row). Lore-Masters seem to work best here. We usually damage them till they have about 5 k morale left and leave them CC'ed till the next phase.

The goblins have corruptions which should to be removed as fast as possible. So if your corruption removal skill is off cool-down, use it to make every one's life easier.

Using buffbars is also very helpful. It is easy to install and there is little room for error in this fight. In every phase, players get different buffs which they need to remove with the right pot as soon as possible. In the first phase, this is a green pool which does a huge amount of damage. Actually there are three pools (similar to those in Oatbarton Farms). If you use a pot right away, you won't drop a pool at all which can make all the difference.

When the boars are damaged and controlled, the goblins can be killed. This has two advantages. First, it gives Captains a defeat response which they can use for a group-heal. Secondly Gortheron is building corruptions about every eight seconds which are reduced by killing every add.

Hunters damage Gortheron, others kill goblins and Lore-Masters CC boars. At a certain point, Gortheron switches phases and moves to the second wall and opens it. Now the Hunters switch to the adds, but don't kill them before the new gate is opened and the old gate is closed. Yes respawns do even apear, when the wall is closed again...

New adds come form the North-Downs, two Defilers and three Wargs. Defilers need to be CC'ed and I like to range-dps the Wargs. But don't forget to kill all the adds from the Shire.

Defilers only have about 10 k health so just keep em CC'ed, kill wargs to keep everyone powered and healed up and again, remove corruptions.

In this phase, you get wounds which you need to remove by a pot or it will spread to the players close to you. When this happens, they too get a wound which even can be transferred back to you, when not removed at the right time. This can lead to a wipe, as pots can be off cool-down when needed. But you can move away from the other people to not spread the wound.

In the next phase monsters from the Trollshaws join. They consist of two Virulent Stone-Trolls (24k) and three Virulent Worms. We haven't lasted long enough here to work out our tactics. Last phase, the adds will come from Forochel and consist of Starved Kilpa-Kita sabretooths (which get bloodlust when kited for too long) and some caeryg.

After an other phase-switch one monster of each kind will spawn as well as some skeletons. On Tier 1, the skeletons can be killed and won't respawn, so I'd guess, those are the first targets for dps. But as I haven't done this on Tier 2, I am not sure about this. The rest of the monsters will vanish, as soon as Gorthereon is at his next phase-switch, so killing the adds is not the priority.

Gandalf appears and kicks Gortheron out of his troll-body and (again in Tier 1) the last 35 k are easy (in Tier 1). We were thinking about only doing the other bosses in Tier 1 to get the locks and to have almost a full week for trying to kill Gortheron in Tier 2.

The challenge is connected to the buff Gorthoron has, which increases his damage output. Every eight seconds, his buff tiers up one point to a (shown) max of fifty. Killing a monster reduces the tier by one. When the tier reaches fifty, you get a message. So killing an add in the next eight seconds fails the challenge. Sadly there is no in-game-way to see how many adds you can kill without loosing the challenge...

Again, Ost Dunhoth is a very interesting raid with some nice rewards. I like how the raid and the last fight mirrors to some degree the three- and six-man-instances of the Echoes of the Dead-Update. Gortheron on Tier 2 with the Challenge is a great fight with only minor complaints from my side (the buff-counter being one, the 'need' for buffbars an other).

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!

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.