Although I’m still in the midst of leveling all of my characters, I feel I’ve got a good grasp on these levels and where it’s possible for someone to level. However, I’d like to start with a different tact on these levels. For in my opinion, within the level span of this leveling goal there are certain things which a player needs to be focused upon that were not really issues in the previous play. Now, these goals are fairly optional in all rights; you don’t need to do them. But, I strongly feel that these levels are ideal for accomplishing these goals or at least coming very close to doing so.
Legendary Traits
As you may recall, at level 39 you gained access to three Deeds (initiated by purchasing books from your class trainer) that require you to collect book pages for your character’s legendary skills. My suggestion would be to either actively or passively work on these as you level; meaning that you focus on completing quest content within the Misty Mountains and Angmar. And while these pages will drop off of humanoids residing in Angmar, The Misty Mountains, Eregion, Forochel and upwards; Eregion is best held off until 45 and Forochel is mainly full of animals. This leaves Angmar and The Misty Mountains as the best places for page collection. So, my advice is to first head into the Misty Mountains as your first step after beginning these deeds. Why the Misty Mountains? For two reasons:
- There are 8 pages that need to be collected for the deeds, the top four drop in Angmar and Eregion, while the bottom four drop in The Misty Mountains and in Forochel.
- There is just enough on-level content, including Volume 1, Book 5, that when you move onto Angmar at 42-43, you can go straight to Aughaire.
For those who are thinking about just grinding out the pages, be warned; grinding them out can be a real pain in the rear. Not only is a page drop random, but it is quite possible that a page will drop that you already have. However you won’t actually see the page in the mob’s inventory so it just looks like you didn’t get anything at all. It’s kind of a bummer, but just remember to keep it up and you’ll eventually get them all! If you’d like to know more about Legendary Traits, I personally consider MMOrsel to have the most up-to-date and extensive guide out there. I highly recommend using it.
Level 45 Class Quest
Secondly, look at your level 45 class quest before making a decision on where you’re going to level (again, take a look at MMOrsel’s Legendary Trait Guide for more information). Find out where your minor class items come from and consider leveling in an area that drops those items. Again, this usually these zones include Forochel, Angmar, Eregion, and the Misty Mountains and most zones that have higher level content. However it is possible to level within those areas at the same time by completing quests and gathering the required (minor) class quest items; even before you have begun the actual quest. As an alternative you can start grinding skirmishes and use both Skirmish Marks and the money that you make and purchase your Major and Minor class items through a combination of the Skirmish Barter Vendors and the Auction House.
For those who would prefer to go through the dungeons to gather the items, I recommend start trying to plan ahead and getting a group of volunteers to go through Carn Dûm and/or Urugarth. Be warned though, that two or more classes are eligible for each boss drop and most of the time when I’ve seen someone put together a group there is usually someone else who wants to come along for the same item. For the minor class items, I find that I usually go ahead and just grind those out with my level 40-ish character, although there are a few exceptions where I will take a group or use a higher level character. For those who have a higher level character, I would suggest using those characters to collect Skirmish Marks as they have a higher return rate for your time. Ultimately though, no matter what path you choose it really should be something that you focus on as some of the Legendary Traits that can be earned from these quests are some of the best ones in the game.
Legendary Items
As if this wasn’t enough to focus on, Volume 2, Book 1 also opens up at level 45. I strongly encourage everyone at level 45 to take the time to head to Echad Dúnann to start working on Volume 2, Book 1 in order to open up the Legendary Item (LI) system. This will allow for a better weapon and class item than anything else available. The only downside is that at level 45, whether or not you can complete all the side-quests will depend greatly upon your level of skill and your class. I usually find it’s much easier to do most of these at level 46+, but I usually go ahead and skip the side-quests completely. Which means that I won’t benefit from any of the (very nice) rewards some of the quests hold, but I will have my two first LI’s. And while you won’t be able to start leveling any other LI’s until several more levels, upon finishing this storyline you will have Moria ready to be entered and plenty of time to get your current LI’s into a good state before you actually head in at Level 50.
Conclusion
There’s a lot to do at 45, but there is good reason as well. Level 50 was the level-cap for quite a while before Moria came out, so there are plenty of raids, dungeons, questing area, and Epic Storyline to get you through any kind of “rut” you may be experiencing. However, these three goals are my primary focus upon hitting level 45 with any character. So far it’ hasn’t steered me wrong, but I’m also interested in hearing about what other people have done to manage out this massive amount of content that seems to hit player all-at-once.
April 13, 2011 at 8:24 am
Thanks for the guide Merric. My Champion just hit 40 and I was trying to plan the next step of my journey. This helps a lot.
I used to hate the 30-40 level grind the most but the revamped Evendim is awesome. I did 30-40 in record time without ever leaving Evendim. Now I’m dreading the 40-50 grind so I want to plan it out as efficiently as I can.
April 13, 2011 at 9:29 am
40-50 actually was a lot better than 30-40 in my opinion. You start hitting some of the better-designed zones as long as you can stomach the Misty Mountains for a little and an occasional drag here and there. However, Eregion will leave a very pleasant taste in your mouth once you’re there.
April 13, 2011 at 9:53 am
Well Buckyball got the revamped evendim. You did not
April 13, 2011 at 10:58 am
OOoh, fair enough.
April 13, 2011 at 11:09 am
Yes, doing 30-40 in NorthDowns is miserable. But the new Evendim was actually fun for me and I got Kindred with The Wardens without any grinding. Although it didn’t get much attention at first I have to say the new Evendim is the best part of update 2 and a solo players dream.
40-50 is only a problem for me because there’s SO MUCH content around that level that I hit the quest limit and have to either backtrack and finish off old quests or just drop them completely to progress.
April 13, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Thanks for this outline, Merric. I’ve got an alt just about into this level range, so it’ll be nice to have this guide as I do things the second time. You’re right about getting the MM pages — I ran 1.5.5 about 15-20 times on my main to get my MM pages, and it was a lot easier than trying to clear goblins and Dourhands out in the open.
I totally agree with Buckyball about the 40-50 content flood. After grinding my main from 30-40, found it really hard to take the next 10 levels slowly and enjoy the story. Level 52 now and still working through Book 12 of Volume I (the Narchuil storyline). It’s kind of annoying trying NOT to level up so I don’t outlevel the intro stuff in Moria. (Book 2 and beyond, that is.)
Moving a little more off-topic, I kinda envy the old timers for whom Carn Dum and Urugarth and The Rift were end-game content. Using skirmish marks to get the class items is a good and valuable option, though I’d really like to be able to experience the content the way it was intended. Good luck putting together a raid of relatively on-level people to go take on the Balrog today…. Alas, I’ll just have to fight him after he’s already a grey mob to me.
April 13, 2011 at 9:35 pm
“Alas, I’ll just have to fight him after he’s already a grey mob to me.” Don’t worry, he’ll still pwn you lol
. A good part of the difficulty of that fight is related to group coordination and a much lesser amount to do with how hard he hits or how fast you have to DPS him. Sure, it’s a quite a bit easier at 65 than at 50 but it’s still very, very easy to fail especially if you go in with people who don’t know the fight.
April 15, 2011 at 2:44 pm
I would agree, i took one of my alts to Evendim prior to the update and could not get out of there fast enough, between that area and the North Downs all of my 30ish toons stalled out after leaving the Lone Lands. Since the revamp i have or am running everyone eligable through there to get them to 40.
Side question – hving never gone through it yet, what is so bad about the Misty Mtns?
April 15, 2011 at 3:01 pm
The MM suffers from a lot of the issues that old zones do; they send you all over the map just to kill something, there are random elites, a lot of blank space, not as many quests per area, etc. It has a lot of potential, but most of it is just empty space without a lot of quest content.
April 17, 2011 at 3:10 pm
“Stomach” the Misty Mountain? Why does everyone hate the Misties? Helegrod sucks if you’re not a raider, but everything else is nice. I think Goblin Town is the best public instance in the game.
April 13, 2011 at 9:14 am
I just leveled my Warden in that zone recently, and for the Pages, the “Misty Mountains” section is pretty easy to do. Just do the Epic quests book (5?) with Gloin/Elrond. This contains 1 goblin camp (just kill all of them while you do it), 1 instance full of Dwarves, and 1 instance full of undead.
After 3 alts, I find that doing those instances solo (with Inspiration) seem to have a better drop rate than doing them outside. On my 3 characters, only doing the book 5 was enough to get all the pages in the “Misty Mountains” regions.
April 13, 2011 at 9:27 am
Thanks Nethila! I had wondered if the mobs in the instances dropped pages, but I couldn’t remember. I actually passed on doing that book with my latest character and couldn’t remember.
April 13, 2011 at 11:02 am
The best part is that the instances are repeatable and easy, and the mobs drop fast. If you still need a couple pages after completing Book 5, Gimli will be happy to farm them for you. The grind in Angmar, alas, is more of a grind.
April 13, 2011 at 9:51 am
All of the pages also drop in Moria now. From the Nov. 2010 release notes – Loot section:
“In addition to the normal places Legendary pages can be found, all Legendary pages can now be found in Moria from Orcs, Goblins and Trolls.”
source “http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_November_2010_Update_Official”
April 13, 2011 at 10:59 am
True enough, but I mostly consider Moria 50+ so that’s why I didn’t include it just yet. It will be a good reminder for 50-60 though.
April 13, 2011 at 9:55 am
I have to disagree that Forochel is a bad place to grind for pages: Actually I got 10 pages while doing the Angmarim slayer deeds (took me about 300+ of them, but the stand pretty close together so I finished them off quite fast)
Very good article, looking forward to the next one
April 13, 2011 at 11:00 am
Fair enough and thanks! I forgot about the Angmarim!
April 13, 2011 at 10:14 am
I recently passed this level range.
1. Getting the pages can be a problem for players who don’t know that humanoid mobs in said areas drop them. For a new player that’s a real problem.
2. Levelling speed is very high, so people will be 50 in no time and lots of Vol. I content is likely to be left behind. Or you will have to sit for a long time at 45-50 and go through all the slow, endgame paced quest content of Angmar/Eregion/Forochel. There are more dungeon groups at earlier levels, here is a gaping hole as people won’t run any instances before 50+ Moria levels and even then there is a strong focus on level 65/cap runs.
3. Your description how the level 45 class quest is done nowadays through skirmishes and auction house is spot on.
April 13, 2011 at 11:35 am
Thank you for the super-informative article, Merric!
A few months ago, I experienced something of a moment and decided to delete all 4 of my alts; however, by that time I had leveled my Minstrel to 36 by only doing the 3 starter zones and Lonelands (this was just after the revamp of LL and before the introduction of the Task system). I didn’t even run any Skirmishes! In fact, I kept my Main (65 RK) out of Moria, which was the endgame at the time, until I was approximately 50k short of Level 60, simply because there was so much else to do.
As an avowed completionist, I just wanted to share the concept of leveling from that different POV. I recently created 3 new alts, and I can’t wait to try the new Evendim! Thanks again for the great article!
April 13, 2011 at 11:37 am
P.S. I love my shiny new PAX horsie! =)
April 13, 2011 at 1:07 pm
You’re welcome, and yeah it’s a great horse! Congrats again!
April 13, 2011 at 11:49 am
Great article Merric. I just hit 41 recently and had been wondering about what I should be doing and where. This helps a lot.
I was looking at various world dungeons on the wiki and it appeared as though they might have level caps, is this correct? Do I need to do them before I reach a certain level or can I do them anytime?
April 13, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Those listings are showing “recommended levels” and means that it doesn’t scale up to 65 like some of the dungeons now do. You can still go back and do any of the old dungeons later. I’ve done the level 50 Rift instance several times as a level 65. There’s nothing barring you from entering.
This needs to be updated but our Instance Join List may also help.
April 13, 2011 at 1:09 pm
GS hit it right on the nose. I think the plan is to “eventually” make all dungeons so that they scale, but I’ve heard it’s quite a huge task. I’m also not sure where it is on their list of priorities either at this time.
April 13, 2011 at 12:20 pm
For anyone that has a level 65 alt and a buddy (like Merric and Goldenstar), I would highly recommend getting the major class quest drops in Carn Dum and Urugarth with your alts. Getting one person to help out at 65 is much easier than trying to get a complete group on level.
Grinding for skirmish marks is slower, and boring. On the other hand, I can solo much of the Angmar instances, so I’m sure that with two 65s, it would be pretty easy, and a lot more interesting. Especially if you never had the chance to do these instances before.
Plus, if you collect any class quest items there that you don’t need, you can help out other players while making some nice gold.
April 13, 2011 at 12:21 pm
P.S. Grinding skirmishes on-level also means that you are more likely to out-level the epic story and other content. I don’t like that either.
April 13, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I did as much of Angmar as possible from 40-43, then did Forochel from 44-49 before hitting 50 in Eregion. I got all of my pages in Forochel except for a few in Angmar.
April 13, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Slightly off-topic…how do you get skirmish marks from one character to another, now that they’re stored in the wallet?
April 13, 2011 at 3:01 pm
The class items are not bound. You can run skirmishes on another character and buy the item and then send it to the character that needs it.
April 13, 2011 at 7:20 pm
I believe that the 4 North/4 South requirement is no longer valid: Not only do the pages drop in Moria, but they can randomly drop anywhere. In fact, with my main, I farmed almost all of my pages in Angmar, Misty Mountains, and Forochel. I might have picked up a couple in Eregion while I was getting my first LI, but I didn’t do much of that zone on-level (I went back just in time to see the quests turn grey – I almost didn’t get the quest deeds done in time).
April 13, 2011 at 11:11 pm
That isn’t what the tool tips say when you hover over the deed. I have never noticed a page dropping where is wasn’t supposed to.
April 14, 2011 at 1:06 am
That might be what it says, but I promise you that I spent very little time in Eregion. Most of my time between 40-50 was in Angmar, Misty Mountains, & Forochel. I only went to Eregion to do the prologue to Volume II and to obtain my legendary item. I ran many of the quests, but got sick of it (especially that cave with the half-orcs). After I finished up the prologue, I ran around killing a few wargs, half-orcs, and evil people ) before heading to Gwingris, where I did a few quests. At most I got 3-4 pages in total while running those quests (but I remember not getting any at all). I did make a foray into Moria, but left after getting lost on my way to Dolvin View and experiencing a lot of lag.
I spent a heck of a lot of time running up and down the mountain to Helegrod in Misty Mountains, killing Rhuiden soldiers. That’s where I got most of my pages. I also got several by killing Orcs in Angmar and the evil people in Forochel. In fact, I finished all of the books in Forochel.
May 24, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Well turns out you were farming the pages in all but one of the zones that they can drop in so nothing notable here. To reiterate 4 pages drop off humanoid mobs in Angmar/Eregion and the other 4 are from humanoid mobs in Forochel/Misty Mountains. There is nothing odd about you getting them in those areas.