Update 10: T9 and Eastemnet Relics

Looking at some of the Update 10 changes... yeah, there were a lot of changes for Update 10 so I’m taking it apart one piece at a time. Scroll back over the articles from the past few weeks to see 1st Age LI bartering, Rohan Rings, New loot and Gear and instances, Mithril Coins and Hytbold, RK armor set comparisons, Virtues, and summarized U10 release notes.

Today, I will turn my focus on LI Relics. I wrote about them at Update 6 (update-6-relics-and-virtues) and then again when discussing shards (rohan-shard-queen-master-of-relics) and building a LI in Rohan (rohan-85-rk-building-li-weapon). Rohan was released since that Update 6 review and with Rohan came Tier 9 Relics and special Eastemnet (True) Relics. In the link, I showed that the relics were built on a pattern where each tier had similar relics and it wasn’t really a random collection of stuff.

Relic naming got smarter and now for Update 10, every standard relic was renamed to make it more obvious what the relics were and how the relic progression was laid out by naming similar relics of different tiers similarly with more obvious names. Granted, the designers are still more flowery than I am. For example, they still use a name like “Red Agate Gem of Fortune” (the T9 gem for Fate and Critical) and I probably would have called it something clever like “T9 Gem – Fate and Critical”. However, it is less wordy than its previous name, “Red Agate Gem of Untold Wonders”.

The naming convention now looks like this:

Setting of Will	Will + Mastery
Setting of Might	Might + Mastery
Setting of Morale	Morale + Mastery
Setting of Power	Power + Mastery
Gem of Endurance	Vitality + Critical
Gem of Dexterity	Agility + Critical
Gem of Fortune	Fate + Critical
Rune of Defence	Incoming Heal Rating + Block
Rune of Deflection	ICMR + Parry
Rune of Avoidance	ICPR + Evade

Tier 9 relics are reasonably easy to acquire. Three T8s combine to make a T9. Just keep plugging along acquiring relics and combining them and soon you will be rolling in relics. Until then, you will see that the T1 through T8 relics are all named similarly so you can get used to having certain relics with you.

If you don’t get the T9 relic you really wanted and you have a different T9, you can meld the one you want for 512 shards + 1 T9 relic. As in every tier, there are 4 Setting choices, 3 Gem choices, and 3 Rune choices. Note: I would never recommend any of these three rune choices for a RK (rune is the relic I vote most likely to upgrade to a special relic). Here are the T9 relics.

The fun continues when looking at the Eastemnet/True Relics. These are special relics available for level 80+ and usable only on LIs that are level 80+. The Eastemnet Relics are obtained by melding 3 specific T9 relics + 4992 shards. The True Relics are obtained by melding 4 non-specific T9 relics + 9984 shards. It might seem like a lot, but shards are really easy to get (refer to link, rohan-shard-queen-master-of-relics).

Similar to regular relics, these special relics have a sense of progression also in that you will find special relics at level 75, 70, and 65 (Westfold, Great River, Extraordinary). However, do realize that once you make a special relic, there really is no going back. They are not used in any other melding. Eventually, when it becomes obsolete, your only option is to Refine your special relic to shards. These are the Eastemnet and True Relics.

Relics are a high impact way to shift your abilities. Let’s look at a few examples.

Max Morale: The first example is the Relic set I chose at Update 9, which is a maximum Morale focus. One of the best ways for a RK to increase morale is to choose morale relics. Otherwise, with the gear that is available, a choice of taking a certain armor piece for its morale could have a huge impact on not getting other important aspects like Mastery or Critical. So, I chose True Setting of the North, Eastemnet Gem of Hope, and True Rune of the Dark Wood. So, what was its benefit of these three?

990 morale, 0 extra DPS Mastery, +1.7% Critical, 0 tact mit (+1.6% phys mit).

Max Mastery: Here is another example. What if I wanted to maximize Mastery? I might chose True setting of the Three Hunters, True Gem of the Rising Moon, and Eastemnet Rune of Power. The benefit?

0 Morale, +6% DPS Mastery, +0.5% Critical, +0.7% tact mit (+1.5% phys mit). And, +7.5% devastate magnitude.

A Mix: Since you have two LIs, you can push the limits even further. From above, on one hand, +2000 morale, or on the other, +12% DPS Mastery, or you could split the difference… and take max morale on one LI and max dps on the other LI.

A good blend of one set of three might be the True setting of the north, True Gem of the Rising Moon, and Eastemnet Rune of Power.

435 Morale, +4% DPS Mastery, +2.1% Critical, +0.7% tactical mitigation (+1.7% phys mit).

Cheaper alternative: Or, if you wanted to go cheaper, you could mostly avoid the Eastemnet True relics and stick with the T9 relics. Here is a set of three relics, two T9s and an Eastemnet (as mentioned, the standard rune choices are absolutely horrid for RKs and I cannot recommend getting any of those ever). With T9 Setting of Morale, T9 Gem of Endurance, and Eastemnet Rune of Power…

371 Morale, +3.8% DPS Mastery, +1.8% Critical, +0.6% tactical mitigation (+1.6% phys mit).

As you can see, there are multiple ways to bend the relic sets to do great things. What you don’t want to do is just randomly throw relics at your LIs. My best advice is to set a goal and work toward it! Happy Riding!

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.

U10: Virtues and Property Guards

With Update 10 release, some of the stats (power) changed wildly, some of the calculations (tactical mitigation) changed also, and it appears that some of the character baselines might be different than they were before. To fully diagnose changes that are not included in the Release notes and are not gear related, I will take the character to no gear or traits and rebuild it. Assuming I don’t get derailed by a festival or boredom, I will recreate and present all of the traits, calculations, and gear changes post-U10. 

(Update May-2013: Here are a few followup articles on U10 changes... u10-runekeeper-armor-sets, u10-rohan-rings, u10-new-loot-gear-and-jewelry, u10-t9-and-eastemnet-relics.)

as usual, click picture for bigger view, chart is color-coded to see high (blue), medium (purple), and low (green) modifiers

First part is done… and… there are no changes to Virtues. They are the same virtue numbers post-U10 as they were pre-U10.

However, with the new calculation for Tactical Mitigation involving Will, you might need to retrait virtues.

Tactical Mitigation = (Vitality *4) + (Will * 2) + (Armor / 5)

With the addition of Will as a modifier, it moved my Tactical mitigation past the cap. Fortunately, most of my pre-U10 traits were chosen to maximize tactical mitigation. Now, I can unwind that and pull back below the cap.

Virtues are one of a RKs best ways to build defense. My new trait set I have at this moment is Zeal, Innocence, Confidence, Idealism, Loyalty. The build gives a good helping of Physical Mitigation and Resistance while reducing the gain in Tactical Mitigation. 

Ok, so there is no relation between the two subjects *Virtues and Property Guards*, but just posting a table of Virtue stats is not very visually interesting. I drafted my Property Guards to stand-in for some pictures!

The “Elf female Property Guard” has been around a long while; I’ve had her on staff since at least Yule festival 2011. Until recently, she guarded the little house in Thorin’s cave. 

The “Shieldmaiden Property Guard” is new as of U10. There are other property guards sold from the lotro store, including a dog, a Rohirrim, and a Dwarf to name a few. All are animated and cost mebbe 595 TP (don't quote me on that). 

I would buy more Guards except the housing still only allows a certain numbers of spaces to put things. At some point, Turbine will realize that not only do their paying customers desire it (yes, I am VIP), it is to their financial advantage to put some effort into improving housing. Soon, right?

Notes on Update 10 Release Notes

  

I took the Update 10 Release Notes, ripped out all the parts that didn’t seem interesting, and reorganized it into a more coherent set of information. I interspersed a few comments of my own as I went (in blue). I will dig deeper into some of the stat number changes in a follow-up article. BTW... sorry that the text looks wonky, Blogger is refusing to accept the fonts the way I am setting them and I am having to recode it.

My reorganized categories include:

(1) Barter Wallet Info, (2) Stat Changes, (3) Armor Sets, (4) Runekeeper Changes, (5) New places, (6) The Ettenmoors, (7) Mounted Combat, (8) Crafting, (9) Other details. If you want to read the entire 16 page release notes (where you can get specific details on non-RKs for instance), Merric gives the official link and a very handy PDF at CSTM: update-10-release-notes.

(1) Barter Wallet Info:

• For every Skirmish Seal in your inventory, there will be a one time conversion, 20 Medallions = 1 Seal.

•  Medallions of the North-men no longer exist. Any existing ones will be automatically converted, 10 Medallions = 1 North-men.

• Unhatched Spider Eggs and Orthanc Sigil Fragments may now exchange for Medallions, in place of Seals.

• Existing items which cost seals will either have the Seal cost converted to Medallions, or have an additional option added to exchange for Medallions

• Mithril Coins now available, in barter wallet.

~ Previous Festival tickets and Revival Tomes were converted to mithril coins; 15 coins per revival tome and 5 coins per festival ticket. Those are the only ones I had but the traveler’s writs and a few other widgets were consolidated here as well. Overall, it went from lots of little barters to one consolidated one, which improves your buying power, and that is a good thing.

• Level 85 1st Age Symbols are available on the Skirmish Barter vendors for Seals. They require completion of the new Erebor raids, with different costs based on the Tier of difficulty completed.

• New gems have been added which may drop from the Erebor raids. These are fully tradeable, and used to upgrade the Rohan rings, new raid sets, and used in special crafting recipes.

Bofur and that other dwarf (Dori mebbe? All dwarves look the same to me…) give some final advice or parting words before we near the engine known as The Fires of Smaug.

(2) Stat Changes:

• Fate/Power Revamp: Fate has more noticeable effects on ICPR and OCPR. Will no longer contributes to players' power pools or OCPR.

Players will receive an increased amount of Power at each level, and all skill costs will now be based on a percentage of this power. Each class has also undergone adjustments to their overall power consumption/restoration rates in an attempt to normalize combat longevity.

• Power Pools have been adjusted.

Non-Will users will gain 50 points of power per level,

Will users will receive 65 power per level.

All skills have had their power costs adjusted to account for changes to Fate/ICPR. Several power restore skills/traits have also had their magnitudes adjusted for the time being as we continue to normalize Fate’s new contributions.

~ I tried to push dps output with reckless abandon just to see if I could consume power by forcing out enough skills. I never saw power pool drop below about 80%, and I definitely have not stacked Fate at all.

• Agility/Fate Critical: Agility will now provide 1 point of crit rating whereas Fate will provide 2.5

~ Previously, Critical was 1.75 points for both Agility and Fate. This new change gives a stronger incentive to push Fate. Critical cap is 25% = 13401; and there is mentioned that there is incentive (though diminished) to push past the cap.

• Critical Rating now increases both chance to critically hit and the magnitudes of both your critical and devastating critical hits.

• Will/Tactical Mitigation: Will now provides 2 points of Tactical Mitigation to compensate for the loss of power contribution.

~ Previously Tactical mitigation = Vit * 4 + Armor/5 + direct modifiers. Now, Will-based characters have a lot of tactical mitigation. The Mitigation cap is 40% = 10602. As a relatively high-end RK, the change zipped me right past that mark and I will need to rethink my virtue set to bring Tact mitigation down toward the cap.

• Critical Defense: Players will see a reduction in their current Critical Defence values as we intend for itemization to play a stronger role in this system.

~ The actual number for Critical Defense did not change; however its protectiveness went down (for example, reduction was 36%, now 22%)

• Legendary Item DPS: The damage per second of level 85 weapons has increased, especially for 2nd Age LIs.

~ No, no it didn’t. My LI was 158.0 DPS before, and 158.0 after. If there is a change, it is not observable by the digits shown.

Daweirdo, Blinkinn, Kronuz, Meriband, Ulderen, and Supergirl say hello to the first boss in Bells of Dale.

(3) Armor Sets:

Armor sets which give players skill modifying set bonuses have been altered. They will no longer give players stat boosts in addition to skill modifying bonuses. In addition, skill modifying bonuses have been standardized to be on the 2-set and 4-set bonuses. This allows for greater freedom in variety for what the player can wear, and allows for equipment to be upgraded without worrying about losing additional stats from set bonuses, which were becoming increasingly more powerful with each set.

~ Yep, the stats dropped off the armor sets. I am going to investigate exactly where the numbers changed, but what I see is that this change dropped my Will by 107, and subsequently dropped my Tactical Mastery by 1070 (3% less mastery).

The Hytbold and level 85 Ettenmoors sets have seen their stats change to reflect the Fate alterations.

~ No, no it didn’t. Neither the Hytbold set nor the Ettenmoors set changed before versus after U10. To verify, I also looked at the barter NPCs and they have what I have.

New level 85 armor sets have been added to the Skirmish Vendors

~ Yes, there are new armor sets. They require completion of the new Raids in T1, and the advanced armors require completion on T2. Additionally, they cost marks, medallions, seals, and new special Erebor gems. I will go into the armors in another post.

The Bells of Dale looks lovely when all is empty and things aren’t attacking.

(4) Rune-keeper:

Sustaining Bolt will now reduce power costs by 5% rather than 10%

Reduced the power heal on Rune of Restoration

~ These are two power changes to RK. It is mostly irrelevant since power was little concern before U10 and is of no concern after U10.

Improved Rune-sign of Flame: Miss Chance buff has been replaced with a buff that allows skills to Bypass 5% of their target's Resistances.

~ The Improved Rune-sign of xxxx is a healing skill that is modified by whichever Element you are in. Each Element has a different buff. The Flame’s Buff changed slightly… whoopy.

Scribe A New Ending: This skill now dispels 1 Poison, Disease, Wound, or Fear every two seconds, for six seconds from a target.

~ Scribe a New Ending was the RK skill to remove dread. Since there is no more death dread, this skill changed. It is single target but has some potential to be useful. As it attunes toward Healing, it will take some getting used to but is a now potent skill when you are bombarded with effects.

Group visits the Battle of Erebor.

(5) New Places:

New instances:

The Bells of Dale (6 Player)

Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12 player)

The Fires of Smaug (12 Player)

The Battle for Erebor (12 Player)

In Their absence:

All of the instances in the “In their Absence” instance cluster can now be scaled from level 65 to 85.

Two trolls are well separated, divide and conquer, during Battle for Erebor.

(6) The Ettenmoors:

Freep Battlefield Promotions: Freeps now gain a Battlefield Promotion effect for each PvMP Rank they earn. Battlefield Promotions grant bonus Health, Power and Damage for each Glory Rank the player has. Battlefield Promotions are only active while in the Ettenmoors.

Creeps have also undergone significant changes … clip…  are able to actively participate in combat for longer periods of time. Although many restoration effects and buffs have been reduced, innate power expenditure should be at a much more manageable point.

Creep armor base critical defense reduced, but critical protection corruptions increased.

Lainedhal's Insignia and Ak’lhun's Brand (ranks 1 through 14) are now usable in combat, provide a break out of negative combat states and no longer grant any immunity. Their cooldowns have also been reduced.

~ I rarely went to the Moors after Rohan released. Many believe that the changes made to Creeps to match scaleup to Freep 85 made high end creeps nearly invincible; however, some people saw the system as balanced before this change, so as usual, people were mixed. From my perspective, the week before U10, I went out in full Raid where I was possibly the weakest link (most of the other Freeps were R10 and above, and I am only R8) and the Creep Raid wiped us out at will repeatedly with rarely a defeat on the other side. These changes, I believe, are any attempt to rebalance classes. With all the new Free people goodies, will the tide turn back and unbalance the other direction?

Group prepares for the incoming attack in Flight to the Lonely Mountain.

(7) Mounted Combat:

Increased Base Power Levels for War-Steeds (formerly 2175 for all 3 steeds, now 2500 for Light, 2350 for Medium, and 2250 for Heavy)

Altered the Medium Steed Traits ""Patience"" and ""Understanding"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Altered the Heavy Trait ""Conservative Combatant"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Lowered the Mount Power Cost for Mounted Runekeeper Skills ""Fixation of Flame"" and the ""Oration"" skills

Mounted Combat: The War-steed's Power Trait will now reduce the cost of using Spur On. If Power is fully ranked up, there will be no additional power cost of using your skills. The Power trait will also decrease the power usage per second cost of using Spur On.

~ These changes reflect the power changes for classes.

The following Mounted Combat traits/legacies/relics have had their critical rating contribution reduced:

Wrath trait (Light Steed): 25% to 15%

Light Bridle 'Wrath Crit Chance' Legacy: 10% to 5%

Here is a shot of two news weapons Danadalyn built over the weekend.

(8) Crafting:

• The Tarnished Crests of Rohan can now be found on the Crafting Skirmish Barter Vendors.

• Crafting XP values are being adjusted down.

• Cooks will now be able to use ovens, as well as campfires, to make trail foods.

• Recipes for First Age weapons and class items can now be found on the Legendary Craft Guild NPCs.

~ It says, “Crafting XP values are being adjusted down”… No, no it didn’t change at all thankfully. Yay to the use of ovens for trail food. 1st Age recipes cost 900s each; Danadalyn, Weaponsmith to the Stars, was in sticker shock. Team lildanas will still be crafting their way to Mordor.

UPDATE: After further review of all data I have, I stand by my statement. Character XP for crafting did not change post-U10 versus pre-U10. If anything changed, it wasn't that. So "Crafting your way to Mordor" wasn't affected. (crafting-toward-mordor).

Ok, this week, I went to exploring in many different places with friends. Here is nice shot of Lanwyn tanking the 3 mini-boss sisters in Ost Elendil.

(9) Other Details:

• Several buffs (Run speed, slayer boosts, etc) now have stackable durations

• Dread on Defeat effects removed.

• Any quest can now be advanced in a raid.

• War-steed: The simple tail should now accept dyes correctly.

• XP from mobs that are more than 8 levels above has been zeroed out

• Conjunctions have had their power restore magnitudes increased slightly.

• The ""Find Items"" feature now darkens the non-matching items and bag icons instead of using the ""New Item"" swirlies.

• There are two new chat text filters: Loot ( Self ) and Loot ( Fellow ). Loot notification messages for you and your fellows will go to these filters and you can change their font/size in the Options/Chat panel.

• “Forced” Emotes: "Enable Involuntary Emotes" has been added to your social options panel. Henceforth, you may uncheck "Enable Involuntary Emotes" to opt out of involuntary emotes (emotes which another player is attempting to force you to execute).

• Standardized the names of Tier 1 through Tier 9 relics.

• Slightly lowered the amount of xp on the heritage runes received when refining relics. The amount of xp will increase as the level/tier of the relic being refined increases.

 Jasparhawk, Norinrad, Elmlorn, Lanwyn, Dandur, and Supergirl make sure Annuminas is still in control after U10.