By Kyle Horner
This guide is for Burglar players between levels 1 and 10, who are just beginning their journey in The Lord of the Rings Online™.
If you're brand new to LOTRO, before reading on, check out these Eight Essential MMO Terms if you haven't already.
What is a Burglar?
Burglars can fill multiple combat roles, but are also great at "debuffing" – a type of skill that weakens monsters in one way or another.
In order to debuff, Burglars utilize "Trick" skills; Burglars can also remove these Tricks during combat for alternate benefits. Additionally, Burglars have Stealth skills, allowing them to sneak around enemies undetected. In fellowships, Burlgars are able to deal significant damage and purposefully initiate Fellowship Manoeuvres.
Tricks-y Burglar
At level four, Burglars can learn the Trick: Disable skill from a Burglar Trainer.
Let's take a look at the skill:
What "+15% Attack Duration" and "-15% Melee Damage" translates into is: this monster attacks less often, and with less force. Useful! Although, what makes Trick: Disable incredibly useful is when it's coupled with the Mischievous Glee skilll, which removes any Trick on a target for the benefit of health restoration.
The best way to master when to remove a Trick is practice. When fighting mobs, watch the ability icon underneath your foe's portrait -- as it begins to fade in-and-out, that means it's about to expire. Unless you're incredibly low on health, this is the time to pop Mischievous Glee.
Tip! Remember, all class skills must be learned from your classes' corresponding class Trainer.
Damage, over Time
Every newly-created Burglar begins their journey through Middle-earth with Cunning Attack.
Cunning Attack is commonly referred to as a "Damage over Time" (DoT) skill. Because the skill deals the entirety of its damage after 20 seconds have passed, use Cunning Attack at the beginning of a battle.
Very Very Sneaky!
Early-on in their careers Burglars earn the ability to Sneak around enemies. One of the (many) ways to use Sneak is to surprise monsters with the aptly-named Surprise Strike:
Let's take a quick look at Surprise Strike:
Because Surprise Strike deals extra damage when using Sneak or attacking from behind, there are two basic ways to use Surprise Strike. In the method pictured above, I'm in a solo-play scenario, so I use Sneak to maximize my Burglar's damage. The other method is a fellowship situation; a Burglar can let another player distract the monster while they move behind it, granting Surprise Strike the same bonus as Sneak!
Tip! Burgars are no pushovers, but playing with a fellowship lets them focus on what they do best -- making an opponent's day awful with debuffs and sneaky attacks!
Weapon of Choice
As you come across the wide variety of weapons available in LOTRO, you'll begin to notice that each weapon type will sometimes offer a different bonus. For instance, daggers can increase your character's chance to land a critical hit.
You may be asking, "What's a critical hit?" Well:
• Critical hit -- The chance that your hit will be a "critical" one, dealing additional damage.
You always have some chance to get a critial hit, but daggers increase that chance. Other weapons, like blunt weapons, increase your character's chance to briefly stun an enemy on each attack. Keep this in mind when choosing quest rewards while leveling-up a Burglar, as you may prefer one weapon type over another.
Hotbar Organization
Everyone has a different personal preference for hotbar organization. While no two people organize their hotbar exactly the same, it always helps to have some kind of system.
Here's my low-level Burglar hotbar:
For me, having my Burglar Tricks on the "Ctrl + 1 through 0" key row makes it easy to press them. Remember, a Burglar can only have one Trick active at a time. For the primary hotbar on the bottom, my general approach is to keep my most-used skills on the first five or six keys – and I usually keep Mischievous Glee on the end of my keys.
That's it for our Burglar 101 guide! We hope you found some useful tips, and if you're looking for more keep an eye out for future guides on all things LOTRO – or read our other readily available guides.