The release of the Lore-master Roundtable recorded on July 30th, 2010 with special guest Lore-masters Kalborn, Urailas and Gala.
Similar to our past roundtable discussions, this is a lengthy episode but it is full of Lore-Master information. We discuss soloing, grouping, pets and their skills, traiting, legendary items and much more!
There’s plenty of information here on what a Lore-Master in Lord of the Rings does. There’s great tips for new and experienced players alike!
This one was really helpful for Goldenstar as this is just a class she cannot wrap her head around. She gave up on her Lore-Master at 12 but is ready to get back in and give it another try thanks to these guys!
Links Referenced in the Podcast:
August 7, 2010 at 12:52 am
Just about to listen, hope to learn some new things. Hopefully I won’t think of LM’s as just mages with pets after this. They deserve more respect than that.
August 7, 2010 at 1:48 am
My loremaster is level 65, but in the past I’ve just been using him to crank out scholarly treatises and show off his turtle/kitty/snake/etc.
This roundtable and Elb’s post about the eagle have got me dusting him off again. One thing’s for sure, skirmishes are a breeze with an eagle. I feel like I bring along my own small army.
August 7, 2010 at 8:40 am
I have to say that this is the one Roundtable I’ve been anxious to hear. My LM is currently lvl 37. From the get-go I’ve found her a struggle to play. Still, I’ve gotten her this far so press-onward we shall go. I’m hoping the Roundtable will give me better insight into playing her.
August 7, 2010 at 11:41 am
yay, a new roundtable
August 7, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I love these roundtables…except they always make me go role a new character. Argh!
August 8, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Now that the NDA has been lifted, there is a small change in that the sabertooth cold debuff has a very small benefit rather than none for the LM in that Gust of Wind will do cold damage instead of common.
August 8, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Honey & oats for the bear as well as all the noncombat pets can be bought in the store.
August 9, 2010 at 2:07 am
Finally listened to the whole podcast. This has inspired me to keep plodding along. I reached lvl 38 today running skirmish after skirmish to learn crowd control. I did fairly well. Healer pet is AWESOME – thanks for the suggestion.
Hopefully I’ll reach 40 soon – the magical number all the guys on your poll said LMing becomes easier.
August 9, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I LOVE STICKY GOURD!
It can pull alot of agro, but way too much fun, and who need CC anyways.
August 9, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I wanted to add, not sure I heard it mentioned. But I think the trait “fast loader” is very handy in the moors.
August 9, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Excellent podcast. I have a LM at cap and am constantly amazed by how poorly understood they are by others in my groups. LMs really can do much more than act as a power battery and I want to thank the members of the roundtable for taking the time to explain all that they do in a group. This podcast should be required listening for anyone who wants to be a group leader. The roundtable also did a nice job trying to explain to folks new to LMs how to make use of the class.
The only thing I would add to what your experts said is practice, practice, practice. Still don’t understand flanking? Go to the forums, read Staff Strike, or ask a LM to show you and then go practice it over and over against mobs. Having trouble figuring out CC? Go out on your own, attack a group of two or three and practice it over and over again.
August 10, 2010 at 10:19 am
Thanks Bulegar, and good advice! We were actually talking for a bit after the podcast and realized there was more that could have been said, we probably could have talked another hour really
@Isilwren, once you hit 39 you can start working on three legendaries, Of Leaf and Twig, Lore of the Blade, and the Book of Beasts. I would recommend trying to get your pages as soon as possible, especially for Lore of the Blade (ability to carry sword). You can’t actually get your Eagle until the level 45 class quest, good luck and glad to hear you are having fun!
August 10, 2010 at 6:33 pm
A couple of notes on these guides. First, it would be great to have a summary of the tips discussed in each guide.
Second, please encourage folks to explain a bit more for lay-persons or people who don’t play the class. I want to learn about, say, lore-masters, but since I’ve only played one up to level 12, I have no idea what these trait names and such mean.
August 10, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hi Bel, thanks for the advice. We’ve looked into creating transcripts and summaries before, but unfortunately they take quite a bit of additional time that we cannot (at this time) afford to do such things to our standard of quality. However, if that should change we surely will let everyone know. However, Gala’s site “Staff Strike” sounds perfect for you and there’s a link on the right-hand side. He is going through all the skills and tactics starting at level one. I currently believe he is in the teens so you would find the information quite useful. He also has some articles discussing in-depth and in “plain English” concerning such things as flanking.
As for the traits and skills I usually reference the lore book pages for classes as a start. The page for the lore-master is lodated at http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Class:Lore-master. I usually have the class pages open during the round tables because I’m in the same boat a lot of the times and it helps me out quite a bit. Hopefully you’ll find it useful as well. I hope this helps and feel free to throw out any more suggestions and tips at us!
August 11, 2010 at 6:06 am
@merric thanks for the “plain english” plug, i laughed
@Belegedan Sometimes it’s very hard to explain in-game terms in lay-terms. That’s what i’m aiming for in my blog, but sometimes i get carried away by it.
@Urailas i could go for another hour. After the show i just regret not talking a bit more on cracked earth and the wonder of the delayed root.
To casual stroll to mordor, thank you very much for the experience and for having me in your show.
August 11, 2010 at 11:08 am
Thanks for this roundtable guys, it was an absolutely awesome one, very, very informative.
I had been deciding whether to level my warden or loremaster, and I love both and got them both to 30, then took the warden to 40, but something about the loremaster struck a cord and whilst playing the warden I was itching to get back to him. I have come back to him now and love it, Listening to this little discussion at work has made me want to get back home to play!
September 10, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I’ve been playing an LM (about level 20 or something) and I went back through the new tutorials now available in the F2P update, last night, with new elf LM.
WOW.
I mean… wow. I know they didn’t change much with LMs in the end game, but they basically COMPLETELY rewrote the class for the first 20 or 30 levels or so. It’s SO MUCH MORE FUN to play.
This is just not something that anyone mentioned in the Beta Roundtable — the rearrangement of when you get skills as a leveling LM is SO MUCH DIFFERENT.
You start out with the burning embers and staff strike and your first debuff. Fine. All normal. You get your Raven at level 2, with Sign of the Wild, I think.
At level 4, you get Sign of Wizardry (which used to be level 14). The DoT + flank-self-heal skill that you used to get when flanking ‘turns on’ at level 14 is now your second ranged DoT attack at level 4 — nice. (No flank responses until level 14, but still: another ATTACK.)
At level 4 you ALSO get the channeled heal that heals you and your pet … which I think I JUST got on my ‘bigger’ guy.
At level 6, you get… I didn’t even recognize the skill, because my other guy doesn’t have it yet. In fact, my wife’s LM *just* got it at around level 30 — it’s ranged, BIG damage, high chance to crit, and a five second stun? One minute cooldown. It think it’s called Test of Will, maybe?
And also picked up Sign of Protection for my Raven.
So… yeah, by level six you have:
* Burning Embers
* That ranged debuff that you always started with
* Sign of Wizardry (long-ranged DoT)
* The Raven
* Both pet-buffs
* A channeled HoT (I hear it’s crap later, but it’s AWESOME right now)
* And a ranged, big-hitting stun with a high crit chance that will one-shot anything below an on-level boss if it crits. (Test of Will.)
This is a HUGE change for leveling up an LM. Just huge.
Now, the LM guys you got on the roundtable are very knowledgeable, but they all leveled up in pre-Moria, so I was already kind of disagreeing with them on how hard it is to play, pre-45: they sounded as if they haven’t leveled in the revised Ered Luin/Breelands + Lonelands and frankly, even if your class is shite, you will now FLY to level 35 in the game.
But LMs were still kind of painful.
With the guy I’d been leveling pre-F2P, I’d kept plowing ahead, because I heard on the roundtable “Things get better at level 14. Keeeep going.” And I did, and… eh. Maybe it got better. Whatever.
But now?
Things don’t get better at 14 anymore. They are good Right Away.
It’s awesome.
September 10, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Unfortunately this was recorded before the NDA was lifted so we were not able to talk about beta.
September 10, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Sure, but the point is that even in the Beta Roundtable, no one really ‘noticed’ these changes to LM because… well, it’s not end-game, is it?
“What difference does it make?”
September 10, 2010 at 11:45 pm
It was in fact an oversight but not out of spite to LM at all. We try our best to cover as much as we can. And we do not focus only on end game. I believe I talked about early minstrel changes as that was something I was familiar with.
I’m very sorry for the omission and I’m very pleased to hear the LM is much funner at these early levels. I’ll maybe make a new one and just start over as I have been struggling with my young loremaster.
February 10, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Even though this is a older roundtable I still found alot of useful info on LM’s. My 2nd character ever at launch was a lm and i stopped playing her around level 30 for a couple years when i switched over to maining a hunt and rk and also alting like a mad man. One of my fave this is using the lynx, im only level 45 currently and its seems every time i sneak attack with the lynx it crits and does almost a half a bar of damage to whoever im attacking. Thanks again for doing these and hopefull someday with all of the class updates that have happened and the ones that are coming you could do a new set of roundtables for each class.