The Struggle

The struggle I have with altoholism is that I am setting aside my main, Meredoc in favor of doing something else other than tweaking him.  Granted, he is 65 and is probably well enough equipped to go through 3-man’s, and he has finished all of Volume 2, Book 9 minus the epilogues.  However, there is still much for him to do.  I am finding that he is not done in Moria, much to my chagrin; of course there are still the many Chapters of both currently released Volumes that I have not completed; and there are definitely some Traits that need to be leveled.

And while I can easily determine that I should wait for the Volume 1 revamp to take place, there really is no excuse for me to put off Volume 2 other than excuses such as “It’s too hard…” and “I don’t wanna…” with much whining in my voice.  However, there is still a part of me that says “Tough luck, this character is not finished!”.  And as we have mentioned many times in our podcast, I have not been one in the past to play alts other than for defined purposes such as crafting mules, auction mules, bank mules, etc.  The only time I have ever leveled a second character to max level is when I have decided that my main character is no longer any good and it’s time to switch mains.

The Choice

So I came to the point where I had to make a choice and determine what makes the most sense for me .  Does it make sense for me to stick with Meredoc and maximize his reputations, gear, crafting, etc?  Or does it make more sense for me to pick up my alts again?  What is my primary goal in playing LOTRO?  And most of all, what will make me the happiest and still allow me to to not make me neglect my family?

First of all, what are my goals in LOTRO?

1. To spend time with my wife doing something that we enjoy.
2. To have a good time with a hobby that I enjoy, but not at the expense of my family’s happiness or my own health and responsibilities.
3. To explore and experience as much of LOTRO as possible.

Secondly, how will I best accomplish these goals?

The Decision

I have come to the decision that I am not going to be focused solely on Meredoc.  The only reason to so narrowly focus on one character serves one purpose for me, and that’s to make him an end-game character capable of raiding.  Not that everyone who focuses on one character makes that choice, but that would be mine.  I’m not the kind of person to grind out deeds and reputation for the sake of doing so; I need a purpose.  And the only purpose I would be interested in having with a “maximized” character would be dungeons and raiding.  I’ve tried that with WoW when my child required even less care than she does now, and that’s just not something I can do (nor do I want to) at this point in my life.  Sure, I will go to a dungeon if/when I have the time on Meredoc or any other character, but to actively pursue a grind that something like radiance gear requires at this point would be a detriment to my family and myself.

So, it has been with much joy that I have once again picked up my alts and decided to move forward!  However, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?  What I mean, is that although I am now comfortable focusing some of my attention on my alts, it does not mean that I will be focused on my “alts”.  In fact, my goal is to treat all my characters equally with my focus.  I’m not going to table Meredoc, but instead I am going to include him and my Lore-master in a non-structured rotation.  If I want to Skirmish, I’ll pick up Meredoc most likely because he’s a ton of fun to go through Skirmishes and has the most options.  If I want to level, I’ll pick up the Captain or someone else and go through an area leveling and questing.  And if I want to craft, well I’ve got plenty of crafters to do that with as well.

I really feel that this will allow me the most enjoyment in my game.  I can play with my wife with our alts (I’m going to be pairing up my hunter or someone else with her Rune-keeper), or on our mains.  I can play a plethora of other characters when we cannot play at the same time, and I think with 9 total characters I should be able to do a good job exploring the majority of LOTRO’s content.  I also hope to start writing more about the different classes, the experiences I have playing them and what it’s like for me to be going through all the content once again.

My goal is to hit as many of the quests and hopefully dungeons in all the different areas as possible, and get as much feedback as possible from all of you!  Because honestly, I’m pretty sure that I’m “doing it wrong” in some cases and will always take helpful advice from those of you with more experience with the different classes, trade skills and with the game itself.  Luckily, we’ve got a ton of great readers who are more than willing to help us out, and for that I salute you all!  So thanks for bearing with me and thanks in advance for all the help!

Finally after an hour or so, I had both characters created, named, and sitting on my desktop.  However, I spent no time logging them in and playing as I had other obligations.  At this time though I am leveling them to 20 which is my new priority for my alt leveling project.  Currently, they are both out of the starting areas and into the wild, but my focus will first be on the Rune-keeper and then on the Warden.  Why?  Well, the Rune-keeper is a nice change of pace from my Guardian and is just a lot of fun.  The Warden is great too and I look forward to learning all the gambits that I can.

My first thoughts on both of these classes are that they are an improvement over the design of previous classes.  Not that the other classes are bad, but the Warden and Rune-keeper definitely benefit from the experience the designers have had since the initial design and release of LOTRO.  I don’t see myself abandoning my current “main” or favoring them over any other characters, but there is a definite continuity to the way that these classes work that isn’t as prominent in the others.

I’m interested in hearing what others have done with their additional slots (if anything) or if they’ve made a new alt since launch.  Expansions are a normal time for people to “start over” and level up a new main or to try out alts and Siege of Mirkwood is no exception.  Have you created or returned to an alt?  What inspired you to do so?  How do you like it?  Will you be playing your new character for the foreseeable future?

The Lore-master

Still sitting on the sidelines for now, so he hasn’t been played much.  He’s basically there to do any woodworking that’s needed.  I would love to be working on his reputation for the woodworking guild, but I’m not quite into the areas to gather the correct materials just yet.  Hopefully soon though, because I do love crafting and would like to progress on his at least in some way.  However, Goldenstar’s alt is now 40 so maybe he’ll do some stuff with her in the future.

The Captain

The first to 20, and so far he’s looking like he’ll be the first to 30.  This is kind of odd, because I don’t really find the Captain class all that particularly interesting.  I can’t deny that I am somewhat oddly drawn to utilitarian classes, so that may be why he’s the first one that will stick.  That aside, he probably has the highest survivability of all the classes (at least the way I play he does) so he’s a good test model to run through all the areas and see where I want to quest from the 20-30 range.  His buffs are amazing and I’ve found myself slack-jawed once or twice after a fight where I’ve been good about my buff rotation and seeing all the blinking icons going on under his character bar.

The Burglar

The most ironic thing that happened to me leveling to 20 on my Burglar was seeing someone in the OOC channel saying that the had just returned to the game and wanted to know what was the lowest played class.  To which they responded “Burglars”, which he was ironically playing.  I can understand why there might be some misconceptions about this class, but I didn’t think it was all that difficult to level.  They definitely are not the DPS kings starting out, although I have seen some threads in the official forums about how some very well geared Burglars do quite well in raids DPS-wise.  So I ended up playing initially like any other melee class, but as I progressed I found that by playing “sneaky” I started to do quite better in fights.  Personally, I’ve found that using Sneak, Aim, Surprise Strike usually ensures a one to two-hit kill on a normal mob, and by timing a trick with Mischievous Glee I’m usually fine on health.  I have to say that this is the class that I am most interested in playing in fellowships at higher levels just to see what they can do.

The Minstrel

I play this class wrong, and I love it.  As per my previous post, this class to me is all about doing as much damage as quickly as possible with intermittent heals and  Cry of the Valar to survive in bad situations.  I am greatly looking forward to using War-speech and seeing how that goes, however I will have to remember to toggle it off whenever I find myself in need of healing, as the healing reduction really does hurt quite a bit.  Ultimately though I am going to have to get into the swing of healing for groups because that’s what people really want Minstrels to do.  Oh well, at least I shouldn’t have a problem finding a group.

The Hunter

The king of all solo’ing?  I don’t know.  I found the Minstrel to be quite self-sufficient.  So far I don’t have any self-heals on this character and I don’t know if any are coming.  He is a cook as well, but since he’s perpetually broke and still horribly behind on his skills that doesn’t do me any good either.  I did take him out for a spin recently before settling on the Captain and seriously… He’s ridiculously powerful.  Granted, when mobs get close enough to hit him his DPS drops due to push-back, but once I learn (and remember) how to use traps, things should go much better.  I’m also looking forward to the ports!

The Champion

This was probably the only class that I’ve actually felt disappointment with.  I just feel like the melee moves are way too slow for this class.  They should be a blur of blades, but instead I feel like I’m constantly waiting on auto-attack to finish in order to do my thing.  I’m hoping that the upcoming changes with combat really pull this class up or at least make them feel more fluid, because they need a little bit of love.  Yes, I know they do massive amounts of damage when they’re higher level, and he did seem to improve as he leveled; but still… I want to be a tornado of flying blades with this character!  Instead I got a little bored in the beginning.  Also, the dwarven starting quests stink.  I mean they are awful.  I found it to be a ton of running and just sporadic.  I highly suggest that if you start a dwarf that you run down to the elf area and start from there.  I found that area to be my favorite.

As a Whole

So as a whole I had fun leveling these characters and I look forward to moving into the 20-30 range.  So far I am torn on where to level.  I have the Captain going through the Lone Lands, but they’re a bit too easy.  The quests range from light green to dark blue, so I’m thinking about moving on to Ost Guruth or The North Downs.  From what I’ve seen though, it will probably be The North Downs, but we’ll see how quickly I go through The Forsaken Inn quests on the Captain first.

Now, I do have a major complaint about leveling to 20… And that’s the money you earn versus the money you need for skills.  Even with characters that were not crafting, I barely had enough money to cover purchasing skills upon leveling the higher I went.  I’m not sure if any adjustments were made to the costs of skills when the experience required per level changes were made, but if they were then they were not dropped far enough.  I walked into the training area with my Champion at level 20 with around 300 silver and left with around 15.  That’s just silly, and not in a good way.  I shouldn’t have to rely on later levels going more slowly in the 30’s and 40’s so I can purchase skills from my 20’s.  Yes, I am over-exaggerating some, but the skills are absurdly high costing for as quickly as you can go through the levels and I hope that this gets taken into account in the future.

Currently, my Minstrel is level 15 and well on his way to my current “Alt Level Cap” of 20, until the rest of my characters are ready to advance as well.  But I’d like to take this opportunity not only to share my views and opinions on the character at this time, including the skills that he is using and how I am putting them into a rotation.  I am by no means an expert, nor do I play one on TV.  However, I am an avid gamer and I think I’m fairly good at figuring things out.

First, for those who have not played a Minstrel and think they’re wimpy; well I think you’re wrong.  At least at this level they are definitely a powerhouse capable of solo’ing most content.  Healing?  Healing is for survival, but not the main goal of the class.  It’s all about shouts and out-damaging any mob that dares to show its face around you.  Sure, maybe the Minstrel is meant to be a main healer at end-game, but right now it’s a damage machine.

First of all, here is how I currently have my bar set up:

The intent of the setup is for the player to progress through the skills in an easily sequential number, with an “Oh No!” button as the very last option.  This setup may not be suitable for you personally, but this is how I like it.  I strongly suggest that no matter what you use for a rotation (meaning a progression of skills you use on a normal basis), that you group them on the bar in a logical fashion.

The Skills

Key Binding	Skill Icon	Skill Name	Purpose
1		Ballad of Resonance	Direct Damage + % Bonus to Tactical Damage*
2		Ballad of Vigour	Direct Damage + Buff to Vitality*
3		Ballad of Steel	Direct Damage + Buff to Armor*
4		Ballad of Swiftness	Direct Damage + % Attack Duration Decrease*
5		Ballad of War	Fellowship % Bonus to Melee Damage*
6		Herald’s Strike	Main-Hand Weapon + Damage
7		Raise the Spirit	Single-Target Heal
8		Inspire Fellows	Fellowship Heal + % reduction to incoming Ranged, Tactical, and Melee Damage
C+1		Piercing Cry	Direct Damage
C+2		Echoes of Battle	Single-Target Debuff to Song and Cry Resist Rating + Direct Damage + Damage over Time
C+4		Ballad of Balance	Direct Damage + Bonus to Evade Rating*
C+5		Ballad of Unshakeable Will	Fellowship Bonus to Fear Resist Rating*
=		Cry of the Valar	Single-Target Fear

* = Also gives a % Bonus to Healing and Motivation Skills Morale Healing

Pulling:

For pulling, use Echoes of Battle in order to reduce the mob’s resist rating.  You can also use Cry of the Valar if you believe you are going to get multiple mobs, and then switch to your primary target and begin with the use of Echoes of Battle.  While you can use a direct damage to pull, doing so runs the risk of missing or being resisted.  *updated 11/6/2009 per dwolfe

My Normal Rotation:

First, I use Echoes of Battle to debuff the mob.  This is very important as it will significantly reduce the target’s resistance rating to songs and cry’s that you perform on a mob and should shorten your fight significantly.  If this buff should happen to fall off or you switch to another target, make sure to use it again so that whatever mob you are focusing on keeps this buff on.  This is a toggled skill, so it will not readily be available after its current target is killed or you toggle it off to put it on another target.  Just remember to put it back on as soon as its cooldown is over.  *updated 11/6/2009 per dwolfe

Depending on which skill I used to pull (Piercing Cry or Ballad of Resonance), I will usually use the other one as my next skill.  Then I will move down the line in sequential fashion, continuing with Ballad of Vigour, Ballad of Steel, Ballad of Swiftness and then Ballad of Balance.  If the mob is still functional with substantial health, I will then use Ballad of War and follow up with Herald’s Strike (mostly for the Deed Herald’s Hammer, your cries and ballads will overall be more effective) and then start with the rotation again.

Healing:

With the reduction of XP necessary to level, you should probably go up against less powerful mobs than yourself and therefore shouldn’t have as much healing priority in your rotation, but it’s still very important to watch your Morale.  Make sure that you give yourself ample time to heal as well.  I usually start trying to heal at around 50% just to make sure that I have enough time to get through any interruptions that might come from physical combat.  Don’t be afraid to use Cry of the Valar either in order to buy some time to heal.

Multiple Mobs:

Don’t be afraid of multiple mobs; just be sure to use Cry of the Valar as soon as you can and then switch to the next mob and start your rotation with Echoes of Battle.  Realize though that Cry of the Valar’s cooldown exceeds its duration so you won’t be able to keep something feared all the time.  Just remain calm and make sure that you get in Ballad of Vigour, Steel, and Balance as these will keep your Vitality, Armor, and Evade up as well as doing direct damage.  Then simply finish off your first target and fear your extra mob(s) when Valar’s cooldown is finished.

It also doesn’t hurt to have all your potions in your quickslots to replenish morale, power, and to remove debuffs from yourself.

Traits and Deeds:

I’m going to cover these in a later post because this is the time in a character’s development where I really concentrate on leveling.  Quests are usually centralized during these levels and experience comes fast.  However, my suggestion is to take note what Deeds are available for completion and try to work on them if you can.  Zone deeds can be done later in the game when you’re more powerful and can knock them out much more quickly.  On the other hand you can kill some extra mobs and get some experience at the same time; however it’s much faster just to do quests to gain experience than it is to kill mobs.  Class deeds are important because they are usually limited by your level and by a certain amount that can be done per day.  I heavily suggest working on them and trying to incorporate as many of their corresponding skills into your activity.  As an example, try to make sure to heal yourself after every fight to work on Life-singer.

Conclusion:

Really I haven’t made any life-startling announcements concerning how to play Minstrels and there may well be more efficient and more clever ways to play them; but this is how I play mine.  I’m open to any comments and suggestions that more experienced Minstrels might have.

So here’s an update on my alts so far:

The current goals are:

• Level the character to 20
• If they are working on a profession, try to keep that going.
• If the character is an explorer, the highest level character gets priority on materials.

The Lore-master

Ah, my second character to really level is sitting now at level 42.  He’s out-of-the-game right now and probably for a while.  I like him quite a bit, but since he’s between leveling areas (he just picked up all the Angmar quests) I might use him to farm some wood or to take a break from the rest of the menagerie.

This character is a Woodsman and a part of the Woodworking guild.  I really need to work on his faction more.  I’m pretty solid about completing Meredoc’s daily guild token creation, but I always seem to forget about this one’s.  Probably because he’s out of materials and I’d have to go farm some!  He’s come in pretty handy for making some items for all the characters from weapons to instruments; which is pretty funny since I really took up the profession to only make staves and because our friend who had been working on the profession quit the game.

The Captain:

Currently sitting at Level 20.  I’ve switched his profession from Tinker to Explorer due to Goldenstar having an alt that is higher Jeweler than myself.  It didn’t make sense to me to have two people making jewelry and therefore cutting those supplies in half.  So since I was behind, and honestly not really enjoying it all that much, I switched him.  Now I need to take him around and get some hides and wood in order to get his skill up to par with his mining.  I will not be using tailoring on this character.

Other than that, I got him into an outfit that looks great (to me).  Nothing special, just one of the outfits that you can purchase.  But now he looks so good to me that I started getting outfits for all of my alts.  Not only do they look good now, but they will remain consistent in that look.

The Burglar:

The burglar is sitting at 17.  I enjoy him, but the class is kind of slow leveling wise.  At least it feels slow.  I might move this character to a different area and see if getting him out of The Shire (my usual leveling ground) will break that rut.  I plan to finish up the Hobbit quests in Scary (they’re green) and then move him along in both the epic story and in the Buckland quests.  However, his crafting is coming along fairly well in my opinion.  His weapons-craft is up to Expert and he’s been able to join the Weaponsmithing guild.  So now I hope to get him some faction in that as well and bump him up the last 3 levels.  It shouldn’t be too difficult, but he isn’t as much fun as I had hoped; at least not now.  I think he will get a lot more fun to play as time goes on.

The Minstrel:

Wow, now this guy is fun!  Definitely more fun than I thought he would be!  He’s 14 right now and going through the Elven starting quest progression.  He’s got a lot of “oomph” playing as a “battle bard” (skald) and I really enjoy it quite a bit.  However, I can’t help but feeling that over time the other shoe is going to drop and he suddenly won’t be as much a “battle bard” as a “omg run away” bard.  I’ve been told that it really depends on how you use your traits, and I hope that’s right.  I know in the end game people want Minstrels to be healers, and that’s all right by me.  Especially since I’ll mostly be solo’ing.  Maybe I’ll group some and try the healing thing, but it’s never been a huge part of my play-style.  Usually I’m a tank and sometimes a DPS, but never a healer on a regular basis; just when absolutely necessary.

He’s an Explorer too, and will not be doing Tailoring either.  That honor will be going to another of Goldenstar’s alts which is farther ahead in the craft and more capable in completing the corresponding crafting quests than this character is currently.  Surprise Goldenstar! (She didn’t know about this decision.)

The Hunter:

I miss this little guy.  He’s level 20 now, still poor, and still missing quite a few skills.  I’ve fed him some money to purchase some of the missing skills, but he’s an expensive little bugger.  He probably needs about 400-600 silver before he’s done catching up; so thank goodness he’s at my temporary level cap.

The same goes with his farming and cooking which are both on the Supreme level.  Right now he’s not generating any money, which means he’s not generating any food either.  Although he’s going to be soon because I desperately need food for my alts and my main.  They’re just too crucial to let this guy’s talents go to waste.  The downside is, that it will be a money-sink.

The Warden?:

I put a question mark by this character because I’m not 100% sure I will in fact be keeping this character a Warden.  Reading Docholiday’s blog really gets me excited about the class, but I’ll need to make sure I’m not just getting enmeshed in his own passion for the class.  It’s really important when making an alt that you play one that you enjoy, whether it’s for mechanical or roleplaying reasons, and not because you got caught up in the excitement.

I’ll probably try out a Champion and Rune-keeper once again in order to make that final decision.  I will need to play the Warden a bit more to make this decision as well so that I can be sure.  Currently the character is level 6 and doesn’t have any crafted items so remaking him is not a big deal.  I’ve also toyed around with having our listeners and readers decide by putting up a poll, but in the end I think it’s important to make sure I do enjoy the class since this will be my last character slot.

As far as crafting goes, my plans are to make this character an explorer too.

Conclusion:

Well, that’s the status of this week.  I hope to keep this updated on Fridays.  Any user input is welcome, so feel free to comment, send us an email, or link to this in a blog of your own!