First impressions

Well, I'm about to tell you MY first impression of Lotro: Mines of Moria. As I said in a previous post I was kinda apprehensive about my LM to start with and got upset when I saw the new trait sets. All you had to do was logged in and you were already nerfed. But anyway, Cleve knew how I was feeling and talked me into giving it a try while he ran on Joric(champion). I didn't bother even changing my traits from what I had pre-mom, cuz you don't HAVE to change them and make it a set if you don't want to. So I had a mix of traits which ended up giving me 2 set from MoNF and 2 from the ancient master. We hooked up with Algonar and pointy and they basically ran me through the first part of V2: Book 1 for my legendary weapon. I didn't get any real chance to test anything cuz the Dps classes killed it all before I could think lol.

The next day I read on the forums, someone said the Keeper of animals trait line actually does give the pets more dps and can even out with the MoNF(dps) trait line by using the pets. I drove home from work excited about this wanting to try. I retraited my class deeds towards my pets and got the whole zookeeper trait line activated and even changed out my legendary for it. And I went out to fight.
First I used my lynx, he ended up with about 600 morale more than usual and when I casted sign of the wild it lasted about 16 minutes. But I did NOT notice any difference in its dps nor its defense. Although after the fight was over he did seem to regen morale pretty fast. And to get all the traits in the 5 slots to make my pet "uber" I had to give up the Healer trait. So I wouldn't be able to heal my pet fast enough if he pulled more then 1. Although I would be able to mez it with this trait setup. Either way, I still pulled agro after using 1 spell, which were slow as hell and the reuse was twice as long with this trait setup. I summoned the bear thinking he could hold the agro more and suprisingly he seemed to hit harder than the lynx with a couple hundred more morale tacked on him(and I did not have Hardy Bear traited). But he hit so much slower than the lynx it didn't make up for anything, plus again once I casted one slow spell I got agro and the Bears skill that pulls agro off of you has a crappy reuse timer also.

So all this time I've been trying to level up my legendary weapon to level 10 and finish the book 1 quest. It seems like its been taking me twice as long to do this than what Cleve said it took him to do on his champion. No surprise, the pets are slow and with this trait setup I cast slow as hell and weak too.

I make my way back to the bard to try the MoNF(dps) trait setup. The extra fire damage and the reuse time on light of the rising dawn(thats what the light beam is called right? lol its 7am give me a break) was looking pretty sexy. BTW I did have room to keep my Proof of all ills (the one that lets you cure wounds in combat)traited. So I go back to the same area to kill, kill, kill! Of course my casting time on certain skills were faster thanks to one trait. My burning embers fire skill was doing a noticable amount more of damage. Did not notice any extra damage done on any other skills though. And dun dun dun, its time to test out my new nerfed Blinding flash! Cast it, after 10 seconds he wakes right up I cast my light beam he's mezzed for a couple more, cast test of will he's mezzed for a couple more then he's right in front of me and my BF counter is still not up and ready. What a waste of a perfectly good LM skill.

At this point I was pretty frustrated - I had still not gotten my weapon to level 10 and I needed a break. Now let me say I've seen a few loremasters complaining because they are dying easily. But I had no problem tanking these mobs that my pets couldnt hold or that I could mez. Possibly has to do with my very good gear AND I made sure the also go through my Virtues and equip the ones that give me high armour value. I had to give up a little fate(not much really) for armour value. Armour value now has TONS more impact than fate or will seeing that your armour value adds to not only common but also other mitigations. And fate, will, ect. are now calculated in such small numbers that the 10 fate that used to help your tact. crit so much barely even touches it. So I had no problems on the defensive side, only offensive and CC.

I suppose we could just pick whichever is our favorite playstyle and trudge through to 60. Then at end game we'll be making trips to the bard every hour to be useful in raiding or pvmp. I couldn't even enjoy the new areas, stories, sights because I was too focused on the mechanics of what I was doing. In short it just doesn't look fun playing my LM and this is a game right? Wheres the fun in this? :(

After I pouted abit to Cleve I got on my hunter, checked out the trait sets and was pleased with these. Ok I should say extremely happy with these after staring at the LM ones the first half of the day lol. So Joric took my hunter out and I finished my legendary weapon quest with no problems, and HAD FUN. We went into the mines for the first time. Beautiful! I'll post screenies later ;)