Doubtful New Class is Corsair and Some Thoughts

[Dervacus]

As many of you have pointed out, Corsairs, by lore, are evil. Mariner would make much more sense, but I have some thoughts:

• We recently had more Race/Class combos added
• The last class that came out was Brawler in 2021, and any Race can be Brawler (obviously except Beorning)

I sense a pattern, and cannot say this with certainty, but I feel like the next class will be available to all Races, except Beorning. The problem with a Mariner-type class is that it would exclude Dwarf and Stout-axe as "Dwarves generally lived far from the sea and avoided getting on boats, as they disliked the sound of the ocean and were afraid of it." - The Silmarillion

Also, I have a hard time seeing Hobbits being Mariners. While they are known for using small boats, I'm not aware of any lore with them being out on the open sea.

The fact that we're going across the sea I hope they take the opportunity to acknowledge Dwarves' dislike for the sea, but have to overcome it for the sake of the mission. Could be funny.

Ghynghyn recently released a video claiming to have evidence from Bullroarer that the new class is Corsair.

First he claims the Class Filter list under Social > Fellowing is in alphabetical order so the TBDClass has to start with C, but if you look, the list is clearly not in alphabetical order.

Next he shows a piece of code that was datamined by a friend. It does say ClassInfo/ClassName and Corsair, but if I had to take a guess it's code for a mob as we will certainly be fighting a lot of those in the next expansion and tons are already in the game as is. I don't know the code for the game, so maybe I'm wrong.

Thirdly he shows the Worn Fighting starting Brawler armor set. Says it looks like it could be the new class starting armor, but no, that's for Brawler and has been since that class came out. Also he says the new class is medium armor type (we never see where he got that from), but the Brawler set shown clearly is heavy armor.

I like Ghynghyn and enjoy his videos. I just felt like the 'evidence' was a little weak.

Also, the additional problem to Corsair as a class it that it would only be available to the Race of Man. I suppose the class background could be you're a defected pirate slave, but that just seems so niche...

So what will the new class be?

The expansion story will probably be aiding King Elessar and King Eomer in their campaign against the Corsairs to the South. I could see the players being sent ahead of the armies of Gondor and Rohan for intel gathering. I'm really hoping we get some diplomatic quests too. What will be interesting is that we could be sieging a heavily fortified pirate city! Mariner as a new class could make sense. Someone has to be able to transport all these armies and adventurers across the Bay of Belfalas, right? We're told we'll see the more of the coast, but there has been no confirmation on any type of water combat. Not sure how Dwarves would be involved, but maybe we need to give them a break after Gundabad

Sorry, but Ranger of the North, Ranger of Ithilien, and Wizard/Istar will never be a class in this game.

Anyways, thanks for reading, just some thoughts I had!

[CloudCastle]

I agree with your points and noticed the same thing about the video, and also expressed my doubt that the class would be called "Corsair." A short time later, Cordovan posted and said that the class name would NOT be Corsair, so there is that at least, but that still leaves some kind of generic "swashbuckling" class on the table as a possibility. I'm still holding out some small degree of hope that even that is wrong, because as much as I'm looking forward to a pirate theme in the new expansion, I'm not super excited about a pirate class. I'd much rather see another ranged class, or a new tactical class. I also have serious doubts about the viability of a seafaring class.

Here's what I wrote in the other thread:
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For that reason I'm still skeptical about Corsair, and especially the name, which I'm hoping is a placeholder. I just watched the video and there was only one piece of evidence that felt compelling to me and that was the piece of code someone found specifically using the phrase "classname:corsair." The first part of the video tried to make a point about where the TBD class name was located in an alphabetical list -- except the list was clearly NOT alphabetical. (Captain was listed after minstrel and hunter was listed between burglar and champion.) The gear they presented as being new appeared to be using the same icons and preview as the starter brawler gear, so was not unique, and might not have have been related to the new class at all. The "dull cutlass" is possibly evidence, especially since it was a starter weapon, but note the tooltip uses the word "swashbuckler" twice. It could be that they are not settled on a name yet, or that this weapon is acquired by killing an enemy in the origin story.

If they are going to go with a "corsair" class, I dearly hope they will actually name it something like "swashbuckler" and make sure to not tie it directly to seafaring, or else everyone playing that class will be stuck as pathetic landlubbers for 140 of their 150 levels.
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Since we now know that the code found reading, "classname:corsair" does NOT refer to the new class, that casts some doubt on the strongest piece of evidence we had. So either the new class IS based on the "corsair" but will have another name instead, or like you mentioned, it has nothing to do with a player class at all, and could be some code about a mob.

I still don't know what "clue" was in the producer's letter that we are supposed to tease out, other than the new class may have something to do with Umbar...?

[TesalionLortus]

Cordovan confirmed is not named a Corsair. (But it clearly is in their internal files.) So probably something pirate treasure seeker adventure like but narratively justified without being an actual pirate/Corsair.

The expansion story will probably be aiding King Elessar and King Eomer in their campaign against the Corsairs to the South. I could see the players being sent ahead of the armies of Gondor and Rohan for intel gathering.

Why... just why... do so many people have THIS exact misconception? Hallo hallo, this happens in Fourth Age. It's two months after Pelennor and Eomer hasn't even buried Théoden yet. Based on the assumption the devs are as faithful to the source material as ever and they stick to some decent in-universe logic and what happened in prior stories... I guess it's going to be just pitting some local factions against each other, while trying to uncover something or investigate someone who appeared there. Aragorn's involvement beyond the Corsair nuisances still within his own borders would be more like "and while you're at it... if you can sow more confusion amongst their people and eliminate dangerous leaders still left amongst them, and give me a detailed report of your journey and what you saw... that would certainly help Gondor"

[Dervacus]

Hallo hallo, this happens in Fourth Age. It's two months after Pelennor and Eomer hasn't even buried Théoden yet. Based on the assumption the devs are as faithful to the source material as ever and they stick to some decent in-universe logic and what happened in prior stories... I guess it's going to be just pitting some local factions against each other, while trying to uncover something or investigate someone who appeared there. Aragorn's involvement beyond the Corsair nuisances still within his own borders would be more like "and while you're at it... if you can sow more confusion amongst their people and eliminate dangerous leaders still left amongst them, and give me a detailed report of your journey and what you saw... that would certainly help Gondor"

You're right, those events aren't that far off, but there's still plenty to go through first. In my defense I did say we could be doing intel gathering and ahead of the armies ;]

[Dervacus]

I agree with your points and noticed the same thing about the video, and also expressed my doubt that the class would be called "Corsair." A short time later, Cordovan posted and said that the class name would NOT be Corsair, so there is that at least, but that still leaves some kind of generic "swashbuckling" class on the table as a possibility. I'm still holding out some small degree of hope that even that is wrong, because as much as I'm looking forward to a pirate theme in the new expansion, I'm not super excited about a pirate class. I'd much rather see another ranged class, or a new tactical class. I also have serious doubts about the viability of a seafaring class. [...]

I still don't know what "clue" was in the producer's letter that we are supposed to tease out, other than the new class may have something to do with Umbar...?

Lots of gray area for SSG to play around with here: "At the time of the War of the Ring Umbar was occupied by hostile people whose lords were originally rebel Númenóreans and were currently pirates. The names and the number of those lords who ruled Umbar during the War of the Rings are not known."

The reason I'm going with the new class being Mariner is because if we're fighting pirates, it kind of makes sense to have an 'anti-pirate' class. Also, Mariners exist in the lore. But don't be too focused on Mariners being on water, they would be trained in combat much like other military-type class (Warden, Captain, Guardian, and Champion). I guess think of them as the marines of Middle-earth that do expeditionary and amphibious operations (more on the expeditionary side of things I guess). Again though, the biggest problem I see with this is that it would be limited to Elf, High Elf, and Race of Man, and probably a medium armor melee class.

I would love to see another ranged class, but what could it be?

If they are going to go with a "corsair" class, I dearly hope they will actually name it something like "swashbuckler" and make sure to not tie it directly to seafaring, or else everyone playing that class will be stuck as pathetic landlubbers for 140 of their 150 levels.

True, but again, I really don't see the expansion doing much on the open water. I'm basing that off of something Severlin said recently. And maybe with this whole thing is a misdirect and we're getting some oddball crafting class to go with the updated crafting system and new crafting tier lol

[CloudCastle]

The reason I'm going with the new class being Mariner is because if we're fighting pirates, it kind of makes sense to have an 'anti-pirate' class. Also, Mariners exist in the lore. But don't be too focused on Mariners being on water, they would be trained in combat much like other military-type class (Warden, Captain, Guardian, and Champion). I guess think of them as the marines of Middle-earth that do expeditionary and amphibious operations (more on the expeditionary side of things I guess). Again though, the biggest problem I see with this is that it would be limited to Elf, High Elf, and Race of Man, and probably a medium armor melee class.

Your first point is a good one, the idea of an anti-pirate class to combat the new threat in Umbar. But what would a "mariner" class actually look like? Captains are already the military class of lotro. What would differentiate this new class from any of the other melee classes? I'm having trouble envisioning what a mariner class could be without seafaring as a mechanic in the game. What weapons and skills would make them unique? SSG has always done an impressive job of coming up with classes that are all different from each other, so I hope they don't disappoint with this one. I can't really see how yet another melee class could differentiate itself among all the choices we already have.

Maybe SSG will shock us all with boat mechanics, heh. I could see something like Epic battles but on a ship. I'm hoping we do get something like that actually.

I would love to see another ranged class, but what could it be?


True, but again, I really don't see the expansion doing much on the open water. I'm basing that off of something Severlin said recently. And maybe with this whole thing is a misdirect and we're getting some oddball crafting class to go with the updated crafting system and new crafting tier lol

I think a crafting class could be very interesting! Tying a class to a game system that frequently gets left behind and underdeveloped though could be a disaster unless the crafting revamp can last through future game changes. I could imagine a Alchemist-type class maybe, one that makes potions, powders or even firework-like items that can be used in ways that might mimic a "magical" class. For example, throw a vial on the ground and a big puff of colored smoke appears which can have various combat effects. Then crafting could be tied to it in such a way that the class wouldn't be crippled if crafting got pushed to the way side again. Let them make components that enhance their skill effects in more cosmetic ways, for example, rather than having a direct effect on damage. This could be both a ranged and a tactical class. Actually the more I think about it, the more I kind of like this idea!

The other idea that comes to mind is to pull from Gondorian/Numinorian history (since the Umbar story is a story of Men and Gondor as well) and have something like an Oathkeeper class. Men don't normally have much that is "magical" associated with them, but they DO have something very interesting and that is the ability to swear oaths that persist beyond death, and to levy (and to dismiss) curses. I'm picturing a class that can call upon the living to make them swear an oath to you and switch sides, maybe call upon the dead using mobs you've just killed who could arise as spirits (as mobs already do!) and temporarily fight with you. This class would have to be careful not to step on captain' toes with the oath spirits, so maybe add in some more curse-like abilities? Normally anything too "evil" would definitely be out, but given that we already have some pretty dark cursing going on in the lore already (and in many sub-stories of lotro), I think as long as you are cursing "bad guys" who deserve it, you might be able to make an argument for that.

The other thing that might connect with Men/Gondor/Numinor would be their ability to far-see with the palantir. So maybe a Seer class. I'm not sure what this would look like in practice though.

[istvana]

Mariner implies most of the activity is on water - quite likely not to be the case. A different "M" name has a tie to the water but does much of its fighting on land - Marine.

Historically marines travelled to combat by ship and when in official military forces were more often than not part of a navy. Granted they often fought to capture enemy ships but at least as often they fought on land and were simply transported by ship.

By analogy - cavalry were typically part of the army and fought on horseback whereas mounted infantry were typically part of the army and travelled by horse to where they fought on foot. So "mariner" would be a sailor but "marine" would be a land combatant that often travelled by ship.