1st Age LIs, Rohan healing rings, fans!

1st Age Legendary Items for level 85: Update 10 brought symbols for crafting 1st Age LIs for level 85. The symbols drop in Erebor Raids at level 85. When U10 released (03/06), the symbols would drop in T1 Erebor Raids. Turbine, deciding that was no good, pulled the plug on 1st agers in T1 for update U10.02 (03/20) and now they only drop in T2 Raids. While I gave it a shot, I was 0 for 44 T1 raid wins on receiving 1st Age symbols during the 2-week period. Sigh, rotten luck.

There are 3 ways to get 1st Age LIs:

• Random rare drop in T2 Erebor raids (and T2 challenge),
• Barter for it with Seals at the Skirmish vendor named “Legendary Items”,
• Buy it from the AH since it is not bound. Right now, they are occasionally listed on Arkenstone at ≈ 1000g, yowsa.

So, your options are T2 Raid persistence & luck, earning the seals to barter via many of the 3-person, 6-person, or raid instances and skirmishes, or having a fat barter wallet and fluid AH market. Instances earn 2 – 10 seals per run. As mentioned in the previous article, having a few people around to group with, you can pick your favorite instances and make a fun time of it earning lots of various loot and seals in a short time.

Occasionally, I am able to have time to Raid and my kinship gathers for a Raid once or twice a week, so Random rare drop is not out of the question… I’m just not holding my breath hoping for a lucky roll in a T2 raid win. I’m actually very thankful that we are allowed to barter such an item. In olden days, random luck was often the only option to get nice things. I consider the barter option a huge step forward for the game.

There are 3 different Barter prices at the skirmish vendor for a 1st Age symbol:

• Win on all three T1 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T1 deed), then barter for 488 Seals.
• Win on all three T2 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T2 deed), then barter for 427 Seals.
• With on all three T2 Challenges (Defense of Erebor Challenge), then barter for 366 Seals.

At this time, I do not know anyone who has won all three T2 Raids at level 85 or the Challenges though I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone show up with a post on youtube one day in the not too distant future. There are a couple of videos out there showing The Fires of Smaug T2 Challenge now. The T2 Lonely Mountain feels impossible, lol.

Here is what my “The Road to Erebor” deed looks like right now. It is worth a horse to complete the Meta-deed… so, it is on my list. Granted, it is on my “long-term” list, kinda like Tower of Orthanc and Dol Guldur level 85 T2 Challenge, both of which have horses that I need to acquire. Someday… someday…

Eswe’s new healing rings.

In the previous post for Update 10.1, I mentioned that Eswe had a couple of new Healer Rings (u10-rohan-rings-complete-hytbold-in-15)  so I wanted to show what they look like for comparison. Clearly, one is for Minstrels and RKs and the other one is for Captains. The RK ring takes the same Sage upgrade path explained in the post on Rohan Rings. 

Supergirl SuperFans!

I really am excited when people tell me that they are fans of the site! I hope I come across politely. Sometimes I am carrying on up to a dozen conversations at once so hopefully I say thank you and am cordial if we meet. :D

Here are two people I met this week:

Parnassica is leader of her kin and had kind words to say about the site. Thank you! Forgive me that I am not the best at taking pictures of hobbits… I often just get the tops of hobbit heads.

Arkandon was playing the part of “bird in a tree” when I flew out to Ost Guruth. I am amazed that people figure out how to climb up trees and on buildings. I am sure he will do great at “Ridge Racer” in Eregion when he gets there. ;)

Goldenstar and Merric talked about danania.net on a recent podcast (CSTM: episode190) and Tomrica transcribed it for me. It is quite the great situation when the lead in is that I am fans of my fans. Really though, I am of all my fans, just not all of them run a Mecca-site like CSTM, lol! Tsk, tsk… I’m going to have to remind Goldenstar what my name is… mebbe I will put it in my blog title and website name… oh wait… :D

Here is the transcription from that section of the podcast:

(in reference to the new store horse, steed-of-dagorlad and CSTM: steed-of-dagorlad-available-through-april)

G = Goldenstar & M = Merric

G: If she didn't tell me it was the sea blue color, I would have been like, oh ok... where's the color?  Oh and I should say that the color screenshots I got from Danica.  She is a blogger who sent me it.. and you can find it at... oh wait, it's not Danica...

M: It's Dan-an-eee-ah... it's the Super-Girl of Lorien.

G: It's the Super-Girl!  I always just call her Super-Girl!  D-a-n-a-n-i-a.net is her blog.  So she was nice enough to send me screenshots of what it looks like dyed.

M: Yea... she's a biiiiiiig horse fan.  She's awesome.

G: Yea... yup.

M: She's a great blogger, if you are not following her, you need to follow her.

G: She's super nice, she was like, "Do you need a picture? Here you go..."

M: Yea.. if you are not following her, you need to - it's at D-a-n-a-n-i-a.net

My Note: I don’t know how to write in phonetics, but it is… Daaah-naaah-nEE-aaaah :)

Update 10: New loot, gear, and jewelry and Update 10.1

Battle for Erebor - Laugshat

In continuing from the last few articles on Update 10 new information…

Update 10 new items!

Update 10 brought in 1 new 6-person instance called “Bells of Dale” and 3 new Raids: Battle for Erebor, Flight to the lonely Mountain, and Fires of Smaug. While these are fun, what I liked most about Update 10 was that great loot is spread across nearly every instance in the game!  For a group that knows the instances, many of the instances (even challenges) are able to be finished in very short time (I was in a group that was finishing Sambrog entrance-to-looting in under 6 minutes). That really picks up where some of the skirmishing left off with quick runs (fastest-skirmishes-marks-per-minute).

Concerning new items, Eggolass of lotro-wiki assembled a great checklist of new items available as of Update 10. See the link here (lotro-wiki: Update_10_Item_Checklist).

Great Barrows - Sambrog

The Epic (gold) items are fairly rare. I had the good fortune to acquire Cardolan Rune-keeper’s Leggings from Sambrog in the Great Barrows. I spied on other Runekeepers to show you two other pieces: the Ring of the Honourable Rune-keeper (was dropped in School at Tham Mirdain) and this Hat of the Lonely Mountain (not Epic quality but really great for a healing RK, from Fires of Smaug).

Leggings from GB, Ring from School, Hat from Smaug

I was surprised how many of these teal items in Eggolass's list I have seen just in running typical 3-person and 6-person instances, though I have not seen all 6 Epic gold RK pieces. I am sure there might be an uber RK out there somewhere that has all six Epic RK pieces: hat, gloves, legs, robe, earring, and ring.

Sword Halls

Similar to what was shown in the previous article on RK armor sets (update-10-runekeeper-armor-sets), there are many possibilities for building a good set of gear as lots of the teal pieces are relatively balanced with one another but emphasize different stats. So, it is possible to not run the same instance very often but find a great selection of items.

Fornost - Wraith of Fire

As of April 3rd, Update 10.1 is now in effect.

CSTM is on the case with PDFs and links to the Release Notes. (CSTM: update-10-1-release-notes)

Some details to note…

• Flight to the Lonely Mountain instance works now. It had been disabled since the day after Update 10 released (March 6).

• The previously fiddled with Fate/Power balance has been retinkered, undoubtedly to make power consumption a factor again. I can't tell the difference; power is a non-factor still, and I'm totally ok with that.

• RK: “Scribe New Ending” skill that was changed for Update 10 has been rechanged for 10.1. It has been “strengthened” to bring it on par with other dispel effects.

• Eswe (u10-rohan-rings-complete-hytbold-in-15) has NEW ”healing-focused” rings.

• There were multiple various bug fixes and “improvements”.

Annuminas - Ost Elendil, because I think the purple is pretty

U10: Rohan Rings & Complete Hytbold in 15 days?

In continuing with U10 changes…

Recently, I was looking for better RK ring options and found the lovely new gold upgrade rings from the barter guy in Snowbourn. Look for the guy over in the west part of town whose name is “Eastemnet Shields, Weapons, Jewelry Quartermaster”; I guess we can call him “EsWe JeQ” for short.

Rohan Rings

Battered: To build a barter ring, start with a “Battered Ring of Rohan”. By itself, the ring is very plain with no stats at all. It is a common enough drop from Warbands that there are battered rings all over so check your friends or the AH if you need one. Each of the upgrades for the ring will require Sutcroft reputation, so check that box en route to building your rings.

Tarnished: EsWe will let you trade that Battered Ring for a “Tarnished Ring of Rohan” which is purple quality version. He has a lovely assortment which are good for each class. I have shown in this article the “Sage” rings which are for Runekeepers and other tactical classes. There is something for your class so choose appropriately. The cost is one Battered Ring plus 150 Silver tokens of the Riddermark.

Glimmering: Once you get the Tarnished Ring, EsWe’s next offer is the “Glimmering Ring of Rohan”, a teal version which is slightly better. Cost is the Tarnished Ring plus 250 Silver tokens of the Riddermark.

Gemmed Rings: Finally, the gold versions are the various gemmed “Ring of Rohan”, gold quality. Each of these rings cost the Glimmering Ring plus 3 gems: Mooncandles, Starblossoms, Sunbrands, or Wyrmfires. The gems are rare drops from the new Erebor Raids at level 85.

(Update April-2013: New Rohan Rings were added for Healers. They are shown in a subsequent article, 1st-age-lis-rohan-healing-rings-fans.)

My loot luck is not the best, but I had 8 gems drop in 44 Erebor T1 raid wins so far. Yeah, 44 raids might sound like a lot, but T1 Battle for Erebor is reasonably easy and takes less than 10 minutes win-or-lose for a group to run. Battle for Erebor is a lot like the Moria turtle except there are 2 trolls instead of 1 turtle; easy enough, right? If you loath raiding, these gems are not bound and are tradable and you can find them on AH (though they tend to be expensive still, mebbe 50-100g at this time).

Important Note! All these Rings are Unique and Bound on Acquire. You cannot equip two identical rings. If you are just starting out and don't have the gems yet, keep in mind that you cannot equip 2 identical purple (or teal) rings, though it is likely that both purple (or teal) rings will be necessary to barter for the gold rings of your choosing.

You can definitely have 2 gold rings, but they have to be different types. For interest, I chose the Wyrmfire and the Sunbrand.

Final tally shopping list = 1 Battered Ring + 400 Silver tokens of the Riddermark + 3 gems of your choice

What do Rohan Rings have to do with Hytbold!?

When questing in Rohan, all the quests give Silver tokens of the Riddermark so you have the opportunity to have plenty of tokens by the time you are ready for ring upgrades or other fun things. However, before Update 10, I spent all my tokens and had nothing with which to barter for lovely rings. The only way to get more Silver tokens of the Riddermark was to do repeatable quests. The only repeatable quests in Rohan are the Warbands, a very few landscape repeatables, and Hytbold. There is a good link on to the forums which spells out exactly which quests are repeatable (forums.lotro.com: Non-Hytbold-Warband-Repeatable-Quests-in-Rohan).

Hytbold tokens trade for Silver tokens of the Riddermark 1:1. …and, you can do 5 Hytbold quests per day to earn 25 tokens, right?

In comes U10 and Mithril Coin quest resets!

Rinwald, keeper of the Hytbold daily quest start, “Aiding the Eastemnet”, will allow you to reset the daily for 5 Mithril Coins. Given that there are 16 total Hytbold dailes, you could reset Hytbold twice in one day and do 15 daily Hytbold quests, earning 75 tokens.

For the cost conscious, each Mithril Coin costs 10 TP (or less if you buy in bulk). Each TP costs about a penny (or less if you buy in bulk, or got them for free from deeds). So, a Hytbold reset costs 50 cents at most, or two daily resets for a dollar or less.

Mithril coins are a convenience item but if your time is larger blocks on fewer days and your time is worth more than your money, now you could literally complete Hytbold in 15 days, versus the 44+ days it took before Update 10. I feel certain that some would have taken advantage of it when Hytbold was newer, and some who read this article will still do it now. I previously enjoyed the Hytbold adventure in articles to-be-a-thane and supergirl-thane-of-eastemnet.

BTW, yes, I did earn 75 Hytbold tokens in one day last Sunday to prove that it could be done, because I wanted to, and because it didn’t cost me anything (since I had Mithril Coins from the U10 conversion from items I had earned during previous festivals).

Aside: I got to meet Saelithraen in Galtrev recently; it is always great to meet fans and new friends. :)

Two final thoughts to remember about Hytbold dailies:

1. “Aiding the Eastemnet” is to go do the five daily quests. (delete: If you don’t manage to get five done in a day, remember to cancel the quest from your log before you logout. If you cancel it and pick it up next time, you have access to do all five.) Otherwise, the next time you log in you will be in the middle of the “daily” set and can only do the remainder of the five you didn’t do. EDITED from Anonymous's comment below and further research by sleuth Tomrica: "If you cannot do all five daily quests in a day, you possibly do not want to accept "Aiding the Eastemnet". The quest cannot be cancelled from your log. Tomrica sends the discussion link (forums.lotro.com: Aiding-the-Eastemnet-not-cancelable-carries-across-days)" 

2. While “Aiding the Eastemnet” can be reset with 5 mithril coins, I do not believe that any of the 16 possible related dailies can be reset. So, it would be little benefit to reset more than twice in a day.

Update 10: Runekeeper Armor Sets

In continuing to look at changes for Update 10, I will dissect what the new RK armor sets are and how existing armor sets changed. For this article, I will consider the Runemakers’ set, the three level 85 Moors armor sets, the three Hytbold sets, the three Erebor sets, and the three Greater Erebor sets.

Some general observations:

(1) The armor sets have been standardized to not offer stat increases for set bonuses. The armor sets have also been standardized to offer bonuses on 2-piece and 4-piece only.

(2) With the removal of stats as armor bonuses, some non-Erebor armor pieces changed. I originally examined many of the Update 9 armor sets and level 75 armors in the post, rohan-85-rk-hytbold-and-moors-armor. For example, Hytbold Peace-caller set decreased 214 morale and 1148 mastery, and gained some crit (due to the change in Critical calculation) since the previous version. I have re-reviewed all armors’ stats to reflect the changes for U10 (as of March 20).

(3) There are non-set armor pieces that are even better than any of these pieces. As they are rare and random versus being bartered and earned, I will not review those, but acknowledge that they exist and are awesome (and “gold” quality).

(4) The Erebor armors can only be bartered once you have completed all seven of the Rohan instances on T1. The Greater Erebor armors can only be bartered with wins in Rohan instances T2.

(5) There isn’t a big gap at all between the level 75 armor sets from TOO or Moors level 75, so don’t feel badly if you already have those. The U10 changes made the previous post at  rohan-85-rk-hytbold-and-moors-armor incorrect, but it gives indication that many of the level 75 armors are (or at least were) reasonable options.

(6) In the Moors, the Moors armors are a must due to their “Audacity” bonuses (I’ll explain Audacity another post, but for perspective, here is how Audacity looked prior to U10, ettenmoors-75-rk-armor-audacity.

Set Bonuses:

So, let’s look at armor set comparisons. I will start by looking at the “set bonuses” for each armor set at 2-piece and 4-piece. As you see in Table 1, there are a lot of repeat bonuses. Most are situational and tied to certain skills. Since now for U10 there are no more stats included as bonuses, you will have to decide whether you really use these skills and utilize the bonuses.

Table 1: Set bonuses for RK Armor sets (click on image to enlarge)

I have a lot of data… so I decided to present the full sets and then present snapshots by piece. I am going to benchmark everything to the Rune-makers’ armor since those pieces can be found at the skirmish vendor and otherwise require no effort at all, except the cost of marks and medallions.

For simplicity, I am going to continue presenting only my “4 pillars of the Runekeeper”: Morale, Tactical Mastery, Critical, and Tactical Mitigation.

Full Sets:

You just turned level 85 and have the option of going to the skirmish vendor to get a set of armor, going to the Moors and hunting Creeps for Commendations, going to rebuild Hytbold and earning tokens, or going through Rohan and Erebor raids.

Ok, Table 2 is a wall of data related to full RK sets. I will translate some observations. Do keep in mind, aside from the numerical data, there is Table 1 to consider, so be mindful of the potential set bonuses, if they are important.

Observation 1: The Moors sets have much less Mastery than the basic Runemakers. However, Moors Audacity of the pieces is essential for the Moors. With 5-7% less Mastery than basic Runemakers, the Moors armor is not worthy anywhere else except the Moors.

Observation 2: The Hytbold armor sets are slightly better than the Runemakers. The set bonuses in Table 1 are better also. Did you do enough quests in Rohan to earn reputation and barter for Hytbold armor? Which makes more sense to earn, 9k marks and 3k medallions, or Rohan rep and Hytbold tokens?

Observation 3: Erebor armors cost a more Marks, Medallions, and Seals but there is almost no benefit versus the basic Runemakers armor. Even if the price was the same, is it worth it?

Observation 4: Greater Erebor armors are the most expensive and hardest to obtain. One would think they are the best, right?

Example: Runemaker vs Greater Erebor Healer (Peace-caller): GE Peace has less morale (-263), better Mastery (+2%), better Critical (+2%), and better tact mit (+2%). GE Peace has slightly better set bonuses (not a fan, but they are better). GE Peace cost “a lot” more. Is it worth it?

Table 2: Cost and stat data for level 85 RK Armor sets, (stats vs Runemakers)

When looking at a single category, it becomes clear that many of the pieces are built similarly. If all things cost the same, which would you choose? Is there an obvious difference between these pieces? I will show a snapshot of the stat differences between the set pieces for each category.

Head:

Shoulders:

Chest Armor:

Gloves:

Leggings:

Boots:

What Would Dana Do?

Because I have as a goal to do all quests and deeds, I have some options available to me as by-product of Completionism, i.e. Hytbold, marks, unlocks.

I’m also told that the number of Marks and Medallions for Runemakers set is a lot. I lose perspective sometimes on what “a lot” means. Is 9k marks and 3k medallions a lot for a 6-piece set of armor? If so, then Hytbold is probably where you want to go, and Runemakers and Erebor are not for you.

I got the Hytbold Thunder-caller set just by doing the quests and following the path. I love to use “Epic Conclusion to reset Shocking Words” and habitually hit Shocking Words, Epic Conclusion, Shocking Words in quick succession with enjoyable effect… I’ve seen the set of three skills critically hit an opponent for over 22k damage during that explosive second.

Hytbold armor is very easy to obtain. For example, to get this Thunder-caller armor you would need Kindred rep with the 4 factions of Rohan (actually, only Ally with Norcroft), and some Hytbold tokens. By the time you got the Reputation, because it would have involved doing Hytbold daily quests, you would have enough tokens to build the correct pieces of town and barter for the armor. Reference here (to-be-a-thane).

Hytbold is one of the cheapest and best options, and as is evident from this article, all the non-Moors armors are fairly close to one another statistically.

If you are going to the Moors, get some Moors armors. I got 2 of each set of Moors armors because there wasn’t apparent value to me to go after the 4-piece bonuses. It isn't as useful for everyday use since it has noticeably less Mastery but is a must in the moors.

Though I have access to it, I won’t barter for the Erebor armor as it has little benefit. 

For comparison from Table 1, for Hytbold Thunder vs Erebor Thunder: Hytbold has +614 morale and +3% Mastery and my preferred set bonuses VS Erebor has +1.5% Critical. The Greater Erebor Thunder is slightly better than the Erebor though not enough that I would choose it even if the price was equal to the Hytbold (and certainly not at the increased cost).