For the last week I've been playing lotro again -- didn't really intend to, but I'm starting to enjoy it again. Unfortunately, my namesake Fitzrobert is not in this guild -- he's a captain in LMB (the Lonely Mountain Band) and has been there longer than I've been a member of Relics. Still, Fitzdwalindir (guardian) and Finrador (Hunter) are in Relics.
In any case, since I didn't see any obvious indication that folks here have actually tried out the Helm's deep expansion to any great extent, I thought I'd offer my thoughts. But be warned, this is not a sales pitch. In all honesty, I'm pretty disappointed in the expansion and am only playing the game because: (1) my captain is a lot more fun than he used to be, (2) I enjoy the lore, and (3) my wife has shown some interest in playing our team there.
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The class changes for the most part are a bit frustrating. Basically, they've made hybrid builds next to impossible. You have a bunch of class points that can be spent in one of three trees (blue: healing/pets/tanking red:dps yellow:support/cc). Unfortunately, you have to pick one tree as your main tree. Advancing skills in the main tree costs one point per unit, advancing skills in the other two trees costs two points per unit. Furthermore, many of the skills that you used to get by default for all builds are now moved into one of the trees -- so you end up with fewer skills. Lastly, you can't actually get all of your class trait points without extensive grinding in the epic battles (which I'll get to later -- but raiding is required to get all of your points).
Specific class observations.
Hunter: Was my favorite solo class, now seems terribly ineffective (maybe I'm wrong and TK will come back and teach me how to play my hunter again)? I used to be able to use traps and cc abilities to effectively solo 3-5 mobs at a time. Now, if I want decent dps, i have to pick the red line, but then I lose most of the survivability skills I always relied on. I've stopped playing him.
Guardian: I only played my guardian to tank for my wife's minstrel -- I've picked the blue line and my play style and effectiveness seems even better than before. My damage is worse however -- so soloing with him this way is out of the question
Minstrel: I can't speak for myself, but my wife used to have a really nice hybrid build where she could use anthems to keep us nicely buffed, while doing all the damage and still tossing me heals when needed. Now if she wants to keep her damage high, she pretty much has to give up the party buffing. And she can switch to a pure healer when needed (for instances), but has to sacrifice all of her dps -- so things are terribly slow.
Captain: Picked the red line to most closely keep my former playstyle. My dps and survivability seems better than before and my minion is significantly more powerful -- currently my favorite solo class and the reason I've been playing all week.
Loremaster: I have a lowbie LM in Relics -- Fitzbannon -- and he is ridiculously OP (overpowered). Their blue line is the LM pet line and pets are now a serious force to be reckoned with. I have had a tough time learning how to play the class because my pet just goes around 1-shotting everything before I can get off a skill. From what I've heard, the Loremaster class is indeed much much more powerful than before -- and this seems to be confirmed by the large number of new LMs I'm seeing around. Myst, if you happen to return, I'd love to hear your thoughts since you're the Loremaster-master around here. I'm curious if at high levels you feel more or less effective than you did before.
I have no recent experience with other classes.
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Epic Battles were introduced with Helm's Deep and they are imho terrible, both in concept and in execution. They are really no different in feel than poorly designed skirmishes. Admittedly I'm only a week into them, but I think this week will be my last. Imagine any of the standard defensive skirmishes, make them longer and more confusing, and instead of fighting in the way you're used to, imagine simply running around playing a support character (giving orders to the troops, firing catapults, disarming traps, etc.). On top of that, it is extremely unclear how to do better. It seems that you can win the battle without doing anything (since you are only one person, and the npc soldiers do 99% of the fighting for you). But you can only advance by getting medals (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) in the various events that occur during the battle and for the battle itself. I consistently fail all events and get a bronze medal for the battle itself.
Now all of this wouldn't be that bad if the mechanic for advancing weren't so terrible. When you advance, you get points which you can spend to make yourself better at giving orders, firing catapults, etc. As I like character development as much as anyone, I figured I'd put up with these painfully long events just to see if they became more fun as I got better. But that was before I correctly understood the advancement mechanic.
The problem is, unlike most advancement schemes, you can't get additional points to spend by doing the same thing repeatedly. Let's say I complete an event on solo mode (there are solo, 3-man, 6-man, and 12-man modes). If I get a bronze medal, I will get a single advancement point for that. But then, going forward, I will then never again get a point for getting a bronze medal for soloing that event. In order to get additional points for that event I have to either get a better medal, or I have to play in a group. Getting a platinum medal for an event is worth (I think) 4 points. If you get a bronze (1 pt) and then get a platinum later, you'll get an additional 3 points. So the only way to get all your advancement points is to get a platinum medal in all events in all battles and for all group sizes.
Now even that wouldn't be so bad if this was exclusively a side-activity, but if you want all of your class trait points (mentioned earlier) you have to get at least 200 epic battle points. And to do that, you have to get platinum medals in 12-man groups in epic battles -- hence my earlier comment that raiding was now required for personal advancement.
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Still, the captain is fun, the lore is fun, and the almost nightly concerts are fun. If anyone does still play, feel free to send me a tell on Fitzrobert.
Fitz
