LOTRO Free Trial and anyone still play?

[drunkenmaster]

lol, yes, in general the legendary traits are, pretty far from legendary

hunter ones, way of the hunter gives you an out of combat heal, which was utterly useless, bards arrow is a fear that more often than not the feared guy goes and agro's more mob's so useless. A up to 5 target root, which is almost always resisted heavily so is only sometimes useful, and the only useful trait is the hardest to get class quest one needing all the drops which are hard to get, gives you power back on every shot you make and basically drops power usage by 10-20%.

The thing that makes them suck is being called legendary they should be a bit more so.

Early on I can't stand gambit, took one to the mid 20's and just, every attack be it aggro, healing or pure damage, seem to do, about the same amount of damage and don't really give you any bonus to doing them. They don't feel different enough by level 20's, the heals are sucky, the aggro useless as its mostly solo content to then, and the pure damage attacks, are sucky damage bonus's. The 3 main attacks to use all the time got boring by lvl 10 aswell, let alone going to 60 and still using 3 buttons all the time.

I think mincer(surprisingly maybe) hunter and burglar are the most fun to play, ridiculous evade of burglars is hilarious taking massive groups who can't hit you.


DO'h, i replied firstly to say I got the lifetime subscription, I should have got it when I started as I played the beta and knew I would play it for a while but wasn't sure how long. But with the expansion preorder you could buy the lifetime sub for £120 instead of £150. Its worth it as theres a lot of content still to come and I'll easily want to subscribe for more than 12 months and probably a lot more with a good 3-4 years left to go it seemed worth it. Would have been far better value at the beginning but now I can just play whenever I want, if I fancy a day here or there after 3 months out I can.

 

[Nullvoid]

lol, yes, in general the legendary traits are, pretty far from legendary

hunter ones, way of the hunter gives you an out of combat heal, which was utterly useless, bards arrow is a fear that more often than not the feared guy goes and agro's more mob's so useless. A up to 5 target root, which is almost always resisted heavily so is only sometimes useful, and the only useful trait is the hardest to get class quest one needing all the drops which are hard to get, gives you power back on every shot you make and basically drops power usage by 10-20%.

The thing that makes them suck is being called legendary they should be a bit more so.

Early on I can't stand gambit, took one to the mid 20's and just, every attack be it aggro, healing or pure damage, seem to do, about the same amount of damage and don't really give you any bonus to doing them. They don't feel different enough by level 20's, the heals are sucky, the aggro useless as its mostly solo content to then, and the pure damage attacks, are sucky damage bonus's. The 3 main attacks to use all the time got boring by lvl 10 aswell, let alone going to 60 and still using 3 buttons all the time.

I think mincer(surprisingly maybe) hunter and burglar are the most fun to play, ridiculous evade of burglars is hilarious taking massive groups who can't hit you.

Those hunter ones sound pretty interesting actually, it's just a shame they don't perform quite as you'd hope. I guess the worry is that they would be too strong? I mean I've only played my hunter up to level 40 but being able to reliably keep multiple enemies rooted like that would be awesome.

I see what you mean with the gambits as well, I did go through a phase of feeling like it didn't really matter which ones you used since everything seemed pretty similar. It was around when the 4th gambit slot opened that I found things started to get more interesting and there is no doubt from then on that the shield, spear and fist gambits are very different. And it is the gambits you think about once you've played the character enough, not those initial three skills you use to build them up. The javelin skills also help since from an intial ambush through to the critical strike, you can unleash enough damage to take normal enemies way below half morale before you even get started on any gambits. I realise it won't be everyone's cup of tea but I've made it to level 50 so far without getting bored so I guess there's something about it that suits me.

 

[eekfek]

lol RP nuts....

Anyone bought the unlimited subscription?

Thinking about getting it.

I'm surprised at how quickly the 1st 7 or so levels go.

I'm not yet used to the skill then I get a newer one nor do I know what half the tabs are about.... suppose i'll get used to them too?

i bought the lifetime sub about 10+ mths ago when coupled with founders club and other discounts it worked out approx £80 ...

as for RP nuts, some of the organised 'events' are quite fun to attend and just watch... plus they seem to bring everyone together making new friends which cant be a bad thang !

you can usually reach level 10 within a few hrs if you group with people who know there way around.

 

[drunkenmaster]

yup, the problem is its not reliable, tbh more often than not the time you need to use it for larger groups, it won't work on half of them, and won't work long on the rest. Its massively resisted I guess is what I should have made clear

They all have their use but are situational at best and at worst just don't work. The fear was far to easy to break though supposedly better now but haven't had it slotted in forever.

The heal is useless as, well, everyone else has heals incombat and out of combat food will have you up and running in seconds tbh.

There's definately a " can't be too good" feel to legendary traits, but I guess difficulty of getting them, time spent and, well, the names make you think you'll get something class changingly brilliant but mostly they are barely used tools. The power one you can't help but use all the time, gives you power every shot, its great though they've added class items and things that make hunters very very much better on power consumption lately so its rather lost its usefulness but before Moria was brilliant. But the others, theres really very little need to ever use them. Really , being a nuke class with a single uber power nuke the lack of either a high power fairly often useable nuke, or a ridiculous one shot uber nuke you could only use once an hour or something would be something they needed.

To be fair I've not got another alt that high yet, I think on a mincer I started to collect book pages but never got a legendary, have a few alts around lvl 40 but only gotten legendaries on hunters so far.

 

[eekfek]

hunter ones, way of the hunter gives you an out of combat heal, which was utterly useless, bards arrow is a fear that more often than not the feared guy goes and agro's more mob's so useless. A up to 5 target root, which is almost always resisted heavily so is only sometimes useful, and the only useful trait is the hardest to get class quest one needing all the drops which are hard to get, gives you power back on every shot you make and basically drops power usage by 10-20%.

wrong wrong and wrong

the Way of the hunter can be traited to work IN combat with a 1hr cooldown, but even the OOC trait is extremely useful.
the Rain of Arrows root can again be traited to give less resistance to its effects and each hit can crit for over 900dmg !!!
the Bards Arrow can be traited to 19secs and can reset your Heartseeker (Original Bards Arrow was too overpowered when it didnt break on dmg)

a Hunter in strength stance +30% damage + Burn Hot +50% dmg(+100% if legendary traited) + Heartseeker = Win

Hunters also get to equip class books for example -12% power usage or -1200 evade/block debuff

Hunter is THE class to play for grinding and solo since MoM, specially with incombat traps .. its the most versitile class that can be traited to suit group play - PvP - or solo questing..

 

[CHokKA]

I'm going to be starting up the trial tonight with my fiancee. I was playing on Snowbourn before, but would Laurelin be a better option for us now that we're coming back? We're looking for a server with a nice community, friendly people and very few kids about. Which of these two would give us what we're looking for? Is the RP on Laurelin hardcore or quite casual?

 

[Leodido]

I'm personnaly playing on Laurelin and has many people pointed out, I must say the community is really helpful and friendly. For example yesterday I was struggling to find a group to do the first instance of the game (Great Barrows) and after a while a level 54 offered to help.

 

[drunkenmaster]

wrong wrong and wrong

the Way of the hunter can be traited to work IN combat with a 1hr cooldown, but even the OOC trait is extremely useful.
the Rain of Arrows root can again be traited to give less resistance to its effects and each hit can crit for over 900dmg !!!
the Bards Arrow can be traited to 19secs and can reset your Heartseeker (Original Bards Arrow was too overpowered when it didnt break on dmg)

a Hunter in strength stance +30% damage + Burn Hot +50% dmg(+100% if legendary traited) + Heartseeker = Win

Hunters also get to equip class books for example -12% power usage or -1200 evade/block debuff

Hunter is THE class to play for grinding and solo since MoM, specially with incombat traps .. its the most versitile class that can be traited to suit group play - PvP - or solo questing..

Didn't say that wasn't possible, the heartseek reset almost never works, sounds great in theory but in practice slotting that trait over lots of others reduces overall dps. Same with the in combat version of the heal, its useless as there are 7-8 traits that are FAR better to use than that and out of combat it is useless. I've yet to face a situation where it would have helped me. The power usage since Moria really only makes the power trait(i forget the name at the moment) less useful as power just isn't an issue anymore. I still run that leg trait as the others are almost useless.

Rain of thorns -resist again is a useless trait to use as there are far better. Not to mention a 900crit is crap Rain of Arrows traited crits for more, can be used for more often and uses far less focus.

Really we needed a decent trait to bring up the crit rate on heartseeker(more than it does) or one to reduce its induction or cooldown, or both. I have no clue why but every time I use hotburn i never, never get a decent sized hit with heartseeker, then almost every time i pop a merciful shot which goes ahead and crits with hotburn bonus for more than my heartseeker, 9/10 times my merciful crits for bigger than heartseeker which is a shame.

Like I said, hunters are the most fun and probably best class in the game right now, but that doesn't make their legendaries any less crap


Improved swiftbow is awesome but afaik only with crossbows at the moment, unless its been fixed(have been using a crossbow for ages now) the bow animation for the 3rd shot was stupidly slow and a delay before the next shot, crossbow bangs them out like a gattling gun and straight onto the next shot.

THe single use for the out of combat heal for me is to bump power back up quicker after burn hot has worn off, and it works well because of the same cooldown on both. other than that, worthless, thats why you basically have to go man for a hunter for the incombat racial heal which is really the only heal hunters will ever get. Also remember the legendary heal has a 5 second induction, so solo its a useless heal as you'll never get it off, in a group, with a healer you don't need it. probably the worst legendary in the game tbh.

 

[Sleepery]

Wow, really surprised to hear about other classes legendary traits, the two captain ones I have are really cool.

 

[AHarvey]

I can only comment on Snowbourn as a new player myself. During the day there seem to be plenty of people online, especially around Bree-Land, quite a few people offering help and i've experienced no kids.

If you go snowbourn let us know your names I i'll add you as a friend and help you out where I can

 

[CHokKA]

I can only comment on Snowbourn as a new player myself. During the day there seem to be plenty of people online, especially around Bree-Land, quite a few people offering help and i've experienced no kids.

If you go snowbourn let us know your names I i'll add you as a friend and help you out where I can

Any idea what it's like in the evenings?

 

[eekfek]

Didn't say that wasn't possible, the heartseek reset almost never works, sounds great in theory but in practice slotting that trait over lots of others reduces overall dps. Same with the in combat version of the heal, its useless as there are 7-8 traits that are FAR better to use than that and out of combat it is useless. I've yet to face a situation where it would have helped me. The power usage since Moria really only makes the power trait(i forget the name at the moment) less useful as power just isn't an issue anymore. I still run that leg trait as the others are almost useless.

Rain of thorns -resist again is a useless trait to use as there are far better. Not to mention a 900crit is crap Rain of Arrows traited crits for more, can be used for more often and uses far less focus.

Really we needed a decent trait to bring up the crit rate on heartseeker(more than it does) or one to reduce its induction or cooldown, or both. I have no clue why but every time I use hotburn i never, never get a decent sized hit with heartseeker, then almost every time i pop a merciful shot which goes ahead and crits with hotburn bonus for more than my heartseeker, 9/10 times my merciful crits for bigger than heartseeker which is a shame.

Like I said, hunters are the most fun and probably best class in the game right now, but that doesn't make their legendaries any less crap


Improved swiftbow is awesome but afaik only with crossbows at the moment, unless its been fixed(have been using a crossbow for ages now) the bow animation for the 3rd shot was stupidly slow and a delay before the next shot, crossbow bangs them out like a gattling gun and straight onto the next shot.

THe single use for the out of combat heal for me is to bump power back up quicker after burn hot has worn off, and it works well because of the same cooldown on both. other than that, worthless, thats why you basically have to go man for a hunter for the incombat racial heal which is really the only heal hunters will ever get. Also remember the legendary heal has a 5 second induction, so solo its a useless heal as you'll never get it off, in a group, with a healer you don't need it. probably the worst legendary in the game tbh.

again, i have to disagree with your findings but maybe its because you dont really apply them as intended or the correct situation. Roots rarely dont work and Bards Arrow is probably 1/4 to reset HS ...

OOC heal for me is superb especially in the moors, and the induction is not a problem it just seems you want everything made into 'easymode' or 'i win buttons' whereas i prefer to have some degree of skill attached to the class

as for crit rates your hunter should have a base ranged crit of at least 7-9% (currently with traits and equipment 12.9% for me) ... if heartseeker crit on every use it would again be far too easy .. like when Bards Arrow didnt break on damage it bordered on the ridiculous ..

No class should have enough DPS power to one-shot a 4k NPC / 4-6k creep or be able to perma trap an enemy ...

Legendary traits are not there to make everyone into insta hero's they are just extra skills that when used in the correct circumstances aid the player appropriately ...

for example you say the only real choice for a hunters race is man ? again totally wrong as the only benefit is a 1hour 3k morale heal .. whereas an Elf huntard gets extra agility and stealth .. lets apply that to the OOC heal say where your down on morale so you retreat out of combat hit stealth and then apply your 3k morale AND power heal which coolsdown in 10mins!!!

again its a preference and playstyle and we basically differ in our approaches , even though im right haha


**edit** rain of arrows 900dmg per hit is carp ?? multiply that by a possible 5 targets lol and tell me again that 4500 instant damage isn't useful **

 

[AHarvey]

Any idea what it's like in the evenings?

its pretty busy until 11ish, then starts to die off. some nights can be quite busy though.

i usually find myself playing until 4am so not to many around at the time though!

 

[drunkenmaster]

again its a preference and playstyle and we basically differ in our approaches , even though im right haha


**edit** rain of arrows 900dmg per hit is carp ?? multiply that by a possible 5 targets lol and tell me again that 4500 instant damage isn't useful **

As a hunter, I'm almost never out of power and I'm rarely in big trouble with morale, its incredibly rare that I need a full power/health boost, the trait to make it in combat is useless and the 3k morale heal in combat for man is undeniably brilliant. There are dozens, of not hundreds of elite mobs in the game that are very difficult to take out on your own without an in combat heal. The racial heal brings almost every last one of them into solo capable kills. The 16-17k morale elites in moria can be easily done with a 3k heal, without its still possible but certainly not always and certainly not as easily. Theres also no way in hell you'll pull off a 5second induction heal mid fight with an elite either.

I said the 900crit is pretty poor as, in my experience it rarely crits that high, and again with the right traiting you won't have it traited, meaning its a sometimes ok damage long cooldown very high focus using barely rooting crap power. Rain of arrows, +crit damage and crit chance iirc, so it crits far more often and can use as little as 2 focus instead of 6, its a FAR higher dps power for the amount you can use it and the amount of other focus powers you can use inbetween without running out.

in other words, rain of thorns 6 focus, maybe 4500, in the same time and focus cost, you can do 3 rain of arrows attacks, with each capable of what 6000k damage, so 18k damage for the same focus drain.

The thing is, with 2 leg slots, you're best off with power and rain of thorns for an emergency root and run or a hopeful root of a large group, its fairly crap as a damaging attack though. Traiting any of the legendaries is pointless(hot damage maybe).

Bards arrow "might" reset your heartseeker, but even if it does, that doesn't instantly mean you get another heartseeker, what if you use your heartseeker and its 4 minutes till you get a bards arrow crit, and then you don't attack anyone for ages anyway. Or you manage to get it to reset, but midfight a heartseek isn't always possible due to induction, and its not even a great skill to use midfight as you can do the same damage in the same time with a swiftbow and a couple penetrating shots. Like I said, it sounds useful but it turns out even when it works, its bearely useful ever. Considering you'd have to lose another trait that provides constant, non situational dps increase, its worthless.

 

[CHokKA]

Well, I'm in on the trial now on Snowbourn. Character name is Borregard, a level 4 Hobbit Minstrel. So far I'm quite liking the minstrel Anyone else on Minstrel is welcome to add me to their friends list

 

[Leodido]

Minstrel is really nice, you'll get a lot of group requests

 

[sidethink]

I've been on Laurelin for the best part of a year now and can say its got a great all round community but dont be put off by the RP tag. In my experience that simply means that most of the players take a slightly more immersive approach to the game.

There is less 'l33t' nonsense and a very mature community.

If anyone needs a hand, or is interested in joining a nice friendly kinship that will make an effort to get you settled, then email here (in trust).

 

[nin9abadga]

my main is now a hunter, lvl 24 called Shootybadga on Snowbourne. i'm really enjoying the class atm, i started with a burglar and got it to lvl 12 but just got bored, i didn't feel that i could do enough damage to any enemy. i then started a guardian but got bored of that really quickly, so i've now got a rune keeper and a warden both around lvl 6. i quite enjoyed the warden too, reasonable survivability and those cool gambit things

i really like the hunter though, i now feel as if i can take on higher lvl enemies without too much worry. providing everything hits (in strength stance) and the trap works they can be down to half health and less by the time they reach me. lower level can rarely get to me.

i have a question though, do i get a new trap as i lvl up or do i have to craft new ones?

 

[Sleepery]

You can craft traps that stop multiple enemies, do damage over time or that you can lay instantly in battle. Need to be a weaponsmith to do this. Your standard trapping skill will always just trap a single enemy, although I think there's a few trait skills that improve traps too.

 

[Sleepery]

There is less 'l33t' nonsense and a very mature community.

That's the difference basically, I actually moved from a normal server where I had a level 50 and two 35's for this reason. People are just generally more polite.