Monday, May 11, 2020

Learning LOTRO: Lesson Twelve - Lore-master Class


In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

It's time for the third class-focused entry in the series! Today we get to talk about the Lore-master class! Some things won't need to be rehashed for a third time, but the race of this character means a different Introduction and starting area to look at and discuss!

The Lore-master class is restricted to Elf, High Elf, and Man. Having gone with Elf before, and wanting to cover the basic races before the additional ones, I went with the race of Man for this character. Incidentally, my other two Lore-masters are ALSO the race of Man (but are women).

Once again using my Welsh and input from my husband and BFF, I was tasked with using "blue" and "mountains" as a theme. (Ironic since this time we won't be starting in the Blue Mountains.) In any case, I took into consideration that the first animal companion of a Lore-master is a bear, and that resulted in a name that loosely means "blue bear mountain" -- Brigarthlas. I forgot to put as much thought into the bear's name, and was going to go with the Welsh for "Sir Furry" until the game chastised me for trying to do two words. So I went with "Furry Sir" and the Welsh rough equivalent, Blewogsyr. Yeah, I know that's not the greatest. Feel free to comment with better suggestions!

Names aside, the following is a basic summary of the creation process and some of the things you'll encounter when you start out in LOTRO with a Lore-master.




Character Creation

As explained above, we went with the race of Man this time. In an attempt to stick with the regional name trends, Brigarthlas is a man from Gondor -- and heaven knows why he's locked up in a jail cell in the Bree area. 

Men sort of get the short end of the stick when it comes to racial features -- in my opinion. They are more versatile in some ways, but in that jack of all trades and master of none way.











Man Intro

Did I mention a jail cell? I certainly did. Once you finish creating your character, if you are a Man you are dropped here -- facing a broken-open jail cell and a handsome ranger who is none other than Strider. He's telling you to hurry up because (a) he's freeing you from your captors, and (b) he needs you to help. Don't act so surprised -- all good leaders are great at delegating tasks. He'll fend off a couple brigands and give you the opportunity to pull a staff out of a too-small satchel (Mary Poppins, have you been here?), ask you to spar to test your skill, and then drag you right out the door to save some other nice people: a pyro hobbit named Celandine, and a whiny hobbit named Mungo.





And then you get to see a ringwraith! Yep, you're a level 1 and a quivering puddle of fear, but that is a ringwraith. Fortunately, you won't have to fight it. Unfortunately, someone important to the story is injured by the Morgul blade and sets the Introduction in motion.





Class Skills


Alright, so what makes a Lore-master unique? Lore-masters have animal companions that fight alongside them! The different animal types have different bonuses and skills, but we'll cover that in a different entry. For now, it's enough for you to know that your first companion is a bear. Love that bear. Be good to it. Bears are really good at tanking and taking all of the attention away from you -- and that's important, because you're squishy. If you'll notice on the bear's skill bar, there are two greyed-out icons and that's because those skills unlock at a higher level.



Some of the faster, easier skills you start with are fire-based, and for that reason those skills tend to linger in a player's skill rotation longer than they ought to. It's okay if you like to use them, but don't be afraid to learn the new skills that come along as you level up -- the strength of a lore-master is in using the right skills at the right time. It's a class that is masterful at crowd control and therefore has a wide arsenal of abilities.

For now, we'll focus on the skills you start out with: 





Wizard's Fire: This is a quick little skill that can help if you need to damage but also get a little Morale back -- just have your pet flank the enemy! 
Burning Embers: This is a slow burn, but also helps slow down your enemy. 
Staff-Strike: If the enemy gets too close, you get this melee skill to make them regret it! An improved version at a higher level even comes with the chance to strike with lightning! 
Lightning Strike: Slow to cast, but is a good coup de grace after Burning Embers to maximize on damage. 
Gust of Wind: Use it after Burning Embers for a chance to make the effect spread to multiple enemies! 
Friend of Bears: This summons your bear companion.


By the end of the Intro, and after passing levels 5 and 6, you'll also have:




Light of Hope: Lets you give some Morale to your pet or a friend (but not yourself). 
Sign of Power: Command: Use this on an enemy before causing damage and they'll never know you used it -- it will slow them and help prevent them from parrying attacks.


Trait Trees


You'll definitely want to dabble in all three of the trait lines, but the best one for a solo player is going to be Blue because it makes your pets stronger -- basically making up for not having a friend to play with, and giving your enemies a target other than your squishy self. That's the trait line I chose for Brigarthlas. If you group up a lot, you'll want to use the Yellow line for the crowd controls, buffs, and debuffs. I've saved my group a few times! Red line is for when they need you to do lots of damage and someone else has the crowd control well in hand. Click the links below the image for more information on each Trait Line if you want to plan ahead!





Archet Dale

So once you've finished the Man tutorial, you will find yourself in a small town near Bree called Archet. You see the two hobbits, the two rangers, and a bunch of peaceful people going about their business in the town. 




I very quickly noticed the Mannequins were different and set my sights on one of the clothing sets for Brigarthlas once he was out of the Intro area. They'll look smashing dyed in Navy blue, just you wait!



As with the dwarf/elf intro area, I'm not going to spoil the story in Archet for you. I will say, though, that I hate the Archet intro. So much so that when I have a man or hobbit character these days I do only the required quests and get out as soon as I can. I then hop on a stable ride to Celondim and start there after the Intro (because you can do that!). The Bree area questing feels like a boring slog to me, and the Shire isn't much better.

Like Thorin's Gate, there is an interior location available in Archet that you can't access after the intro, so if you're curious you can head into the Mad Badger. It's pretty bland, but it's the only time you can go in and say you did so!








Quests

The quest line here is fairly easy to predict if you've played a fantasy MMORPG before. Stubborn figure of authority won't listen to reason, peaceful townspeople oblivious to danger, plotting ne'er-do-wells wanting power, and your character put in the middle and responsible for trying to make things turn out reasonably okay. Lucky you! Because I'm not going to spoil the story, I'll just leave a bunch of pictures of people who are going to give you quests and help the story progress. Be sure you grab that Light Armour option in the quest rewards, too -- because if I haven't stressed it enough, you're squishy!






Be sure to visit the familiar bedroll before you take the quest from Jon Brackenbrook that asks you to travel. That is, if you want to. You've had that dream before, but it's always fun to see it with a new character, isn't it? Your fate is tied to that of Middle-earth! Once you do travel with Jon, it's going to be up to you to save those who need saving in Archet!





Beyond the Intro

This may be the only spoilery picture I share. But this is where you come out of the Intro into the rest of the game world. This is also when I turn tail and head for the nearest stable to get myself elsewhere, because I well and truly can't stand the whole Blackwold story arc. 

As I've emphasized before with the previous classes, be sure to familiarize yourself with the items available from your class trainer! In the case of the Lore-master trainer, there's quite a lot! For Mithril Coins you can get special appearances for your animal companions (or a jeweller can craft the item), Cooks and Scholars can buy recipes that are for feeding buff-powered food to companions or equipping your Lore-master with tomes that improve Lore-master stats respectively. 

And that pretty much sums up the start of the adventure for a Lore-master who is the race of Man. If you're smart and learn your skills well and try to make the most of your trait tree, it shouldn't be too hard to level up on your own -- but you'll be an absolute boon companion to any fellowship or raid that needs crowd control, buffs, and debuffs! 

And yeah, that navy dye was perfect. Brigarthlas is going to spend some time in Combe before deciding where to adventure next.


I leave you with some pictures of my Lore-master characters!






"Alas for peaceful folk everywhere! It is an enormous task to convince them that evil people with evil intentions will commit evil deeds."  -Strider

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