Steeds, Deeds, and Aegthil

All the Steeds!

One of the coolest things I have been working on lately is my Stable of Horses.

LOOK. For your convenience, It has its own tab right at the top of this blog. 

http://www.danania.net/p/all-steeds.html

There are links to pictures of all of the steeds in lotro (or currently, at least 74 of the 89 steeds I have in my stable… and counting, I'm working on it).

You will hear more about it next week also because I am trying to make it an uber Horse site that people actually want to visit! :D Friend Ravanel taught me how to make “Pages” on my blog so that opened up lots of possibilities. And friend Tomeoric taught me some basic html so that I could really sharpen its sleek look.

Give me your feedback and thoughts on it!

Deeds!

With less than 20 days to go and Summer festival about to begin, I made a final press to get through as many deeds as possible. “With a little help from my friends”, a la Beatles, I have been chipping away at it.

Some of the things that got knocked off lately…

Annuminas: Glinghant and Haudh Valandil, 75 Challenge mode. Only Ost Elendil Challenge remains.

Thank you Daweirdo, Morthin, Caramelkr, Rileigh, and Mudflapthefirst!

Fornost: All four wings of it, 75 Challenge mode! I went to Fornost as a young elf, but this was my first adventure back since the revamp. Some of it was surprisingly difficult! I guess that is why it is called “Challenge”.

Thank you Belegnost, Caylia, Nydhogg, Baroon, and Amoniel!

This shot looks way too much like the Moors… watching the horde preparing to roll in on top of us while we just hope for the best.

With the final Fornost boss dead, I can look out over the compound of the enemy knowing it was a job well done.

Dar Narbugud: Getting closer. There are 10 trolls in DN; and the slayer deed requires a killing of 60 trolls. Using a double-slayer-accelerator scroll, that is three full runs through DN (yay math). That isn’t terrible, but with one run down, several deeds were completed already. So basically, 40 trolls (or 20 trolls on double time) stand between me and my Wild Mountain Goat and the title “Saviour of Lothlorien”.

Thank you Riders of Rohan and my friends! This was one of the first times in a long time that I scheduled a raid (so it was meaningful that people showed up, hehe). Yay Nimitar, Macmerkin, Nidw, Macswife, Leirandir, Dandur, Vysion, Aradost, Ubermorgan, Morthin, and Minya!

Gate Crasher: After Nimitar and Dandur lead us through a steam-roll of DN, I arm twisted a few to come kill the two troll guardians of Isengard (finally!). I am now Supergirl, the Gatekeeper! Just as a note… don’t take these trolls lightly; I disregarded their ability lay the smack down and got flattened once (my own fault for bad agro management and running from healer and tank, lol).

Yay for the addition of Jastirria, Minlor, Shorimar, and Taisholae!

Lost Temple: Goodness, for a level 65 instance, the last fight against Ferndur is a doozy. Do not underestimate it. We won, but lost the Challenge mode. See the next picture? The Challenge mode = when you are struck with a nasty disease (yellow eye), you stand near the dead bodies on the ground, the disease explodes in a nasty disease cloud, and the bodies revive and assist the boss. You cannot stay in the cloud or you die. The Challenge is won when every single body is revived and killed. Unfortunately, we didn’t dial back the DPS enough to not kill the boss before we could get all the bodies up and moving. Next time.

Thank you Nimitar, Dirtdiver, Sailanarmo, Nitefox, and Eldjarn!

Hidden Deeds: The only hidden deeds (other than the stupid Golden egg) that I had not done were the Carnivore deed and the Emote deeds. Thank you Lalatheriel for all the meats and Daweirdo for the final stew and emotings. I have finished 13 of 16 emotings.

Carnivore hidden deed: This deed was modified within the past year with the removal of one of the meats from the game, and the Stew of Kings has been substituted.

The 16 emote hidden deeds are: bored, beg, rude, bow, cheer, salute, kiss, scold, laugh, cower, angry, flirt, thank, mock, surrender, confused. Rules: They do not count in instances, they cannot be incremented more than 5 times per day (some are less), they must be done TO you.

Solo! There is not much left that I can actually solo at this point. I soloed Nala-Dum and Lumul-nar to finish the deeds, I made progress on the Eldgang reputation (via Nurz skirmish and a Rift run), and am plodding away at Riddles Beneath the Inn (up to 43 of 83 Riddles).

Saruman: It was not in my scope to beat the Tower of Orthanc T2 before Rohan. That would have definitely cut into my festival time. Lol.

Yay to my Riders of Rohan team that lead us to victory against the Tower of Orthanc T1! Yay team: Vysion, Meledie, Clide, Memendil, Hybridd, Macswife, Dandur, Hahmburglar, Norinrad, Taradanag, and Hendred!

My friend Lothirieth posted something amazing…  A win over Saruman T2; one of the very few in the world. Check her out!

http://wanderingthroughmiddleearth.blogspot.com/2012/08/well-colour-me-surprised.html

I think that is what it looks like when a Giant Eagle smiles…

From Danania to Aegthil:

I got an interesting comment in the previous column from someone named Aegthil. http://www.danania.net/2012/08/steed-of-lore-master-farmers-faire-end.html#comment-form

Taken back a bit, I had not replied to it yet, and the next day, I discovered this post…

http://lotrominstrel.blogspot.com/2012/08/i-am-in-love-with-supergirl.html

The title alone says so much. Go read what Aegthil says.

In the words of Sally Carrera, “I create feelings in others that they themselves don’t understand, and blah, blah, blah, blah…”

Welcome to my home, Aegthil. You do know you have Competition, yes?

Here is the podcast in which Mysterixox expresses her adoration that I am Awesome…

http://lotroacademy.com/?p=962

And here is Goldenstar showing her love…

http://cstm.mymiddleearth.com/2012/05/recommended-reading-danania-net/

Are you ready to Bringiton??

Old Halls of Crafting, New Galtrev horses, New IF

Old Halls of Crafting quest item from Lorien 


Three weeks from now will mark my second anniversary adventuring in Middle Earth. It has been a great ride, and even in that relatively short time, there have been numerous changes. When I arrived in Ered Luin and began my training, Mirkwood was calling for assistance. I was not in on that call. It would be a long time before I saw my Lorien home and on into Mirkwood.

One thing for certain, I am very thorough. I don’t leave an area until I finish all of the quests and deeds. Well, correct that, I have left some group quests in my log and held onto them until finding a group (often pug) to join and go finish some fellowships and raids. Needless to say, my “journey to end-game” took longer than some. By the time I got there though, there was never a question of my knowing my class or if my virtues were high enough.

Taking a while on the journey meant that some of those group quests just linger around. I have been holding a quest item, Rune-stone of Lorien, in my bag for nearly a year. It is an item to be used within the Halls of Crafting, a level 60 fellowship instance, which is still a place no RK should go alone.

A callout on a leisurely Saturday afternoon got one taker who would join me in the Halls of Crafting. Fortunately, it was a Guardian, Dodussrond. After 30 minutes or so, it was clear that a Guardian can go where no RK should go alone and soon enough the Halls of Crafting was saved by two level 75s. He was the heroic immovable force; I was the token dps.

Haldir was pleased and mentioned Galadriel by name as having spoken well of me. Glee! I was also certainly pleased as I finally got the item out of my bag and got the quest done.

Now Haldir wanted me to go see Celeborn. Of course, I will go see him; I expect Galadriel will be with him. Along with Luthien, Galadriel is one of my RK idols. It was once written that after Celeborn’s forces took Dol Guldur, Galadriel threw down its walls and laid bare its pits, and the forest was cleansed. I gather from the legendary stories that Galadriel soloed much of that. She is a very inspiring Runekeeper. Of course, Luthien is very exciting in the descriptions of how “she fought with her voice and her words, and yet caused real wounds in her enemies and healed her allies.” Their legends are things to which I aspire. Someday mebbe.

Oh Celeborn… another item for my bag??? As a “good job” for doing the previous work, he wants me to bring “the phial of light” into Dar Narbugud. I don’t think Dodussrond is going to take me dueting to Dar Narbugud. Looks like I will probably have to assemble a team. For now, I took the phial and convenient “lost” it. Celeborn had a whole basket of them behind him, so I kept notes that Celeborn will probably give me another one if I ask nicely some day in the future when said team is assembled.

I will just visit my friend the Moose of Lorien. He looks happy to see me.

New Horses in Galtrev

With that excursion over, it is time to go see what is new in Galtrev. Oh look, a call to go to the Great River. And to send me on my way, the Dunlending and Theodred’s Riders offer me some horses. Here is a picture of both of them respectively. These horses can now be obtained from the barter vendor in Galtrev, just south of the milestone, when you reach kindred. The Dunlending is a dusty grey, and the Theodred is a white-cream with ginger hair. I am happy to have them both.

New IF


In followup to Tuesday's look at the Instance Finder (fastest-skirmishes-marks-per-minute), the Update 6 IF is even easier to use. The "Simple" tab is exactly the same as the previous version of IF. The "Advanced" tab allows you to choose which of the instances you will allow it to randomly select for you. The "Specific" tab replaces what used to be the "Instance Join" button. It allows you to  choose exactly where you want to go in any instance of any size and level you access. 


The "Advanced" tab has many possibilities and will be great if you are flexible about where to go. Allowing it more options for destination will allow you the bonuses of "+50% all currency earnings" and "+5% morale and power". In the picture below, you can see that by selecting 13 of 17 skirmishes allowed, I have access to those max bonuses. For any less than 13/17, some lesser bonuses were applied (+40%, +30%, etc ... the bonus is based on percentage of skirmishes allowed).


You will also notice in the picture that I deselected my least favorite 4 defensive skirmishes that take the longest with poorest marks/minute. Your choices may vary. Watch the bottom part of the finder about what the bonus is for the set  you have chosen and go enjoy!