Feedback: New Player Tips for Lore-masters

[Frelorn]

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Lore-master class, what would it be?

[cedwin]

1. Debuff, Debuff, Debuff. Loremasters have a plethora of debuffs at their disposal. Debuffing the enemy reduces the amount of damage that everyone in the party takes by slowing the enemy down, slowing their attack speed, increasing their miss chance, reducing their evade/parry chances, or reducing the amount of damage that they can cause.

[Galahadur]

Learn the flank mechanic! It can save your life with that extra heal or damage.

Look here for flanking mechanics:
- Lorebook
- Staff Strike! Lore-master blog

[PoetnSage]

Learn to use all the LM pets. They are situational. Don't get attached to just one.

[findorin-gilrain]

Learn to use all the LM pets. They are situational. Don't get attached to just one.

Agreed about debuff and pets completely but in particular, when you get the Lynx learn to use it. At the those levels the DPS add can be amazing. I have handed this advice out to newish LMs more than a few times and it is not something that seems immediately obvious...

Use Crowd Control. Blinding Flash at lower levels is the most important skill you have, get good with it, but...
Don't be afraid to get up close and dirty with the staff against one or maybe two mobs, with a decent staff it makes a big difference.

[Deusdictum]

Eventually, you have tools at your disposal for almost all mob types:

• If [skill]Fire-lore[/skill] doesn't work on drakes, don't be afraid to use [skill]Wind-lore[/skill], even if they're meleeing, because they still get an attack duration debuff (not shown in forum tooltip, but present in game)!
• If you can't use [skill]Blinding Flash[/skill], remember [skill]Bane Flare[/skill]!
• Don't forget that [skill]Herb-lore[/skill] and even [skill]Cracked Earth[/skill] work just as well on melee mobs as [skill]Blinding Flash[/skill] and [skill]Bane Flare[/skill]!
• Always remember: [skill]Warding Knowledge: Dead[/skill], [skill]Warding Knowledge: Creatures of Nature[/skill], and [skill]Warding Knowledge: Drakes[/skill]

[muleskinner2]

Before every pull, use SOP Command -20% DPS
use burning embers 30% slow
Gust of Wind -7% DPS
Staff strike every chance you get and get the trait Master of the Staff asap

When your pet has agro, get behind the mob to fight and avoid any frontal AOE attacks
Be sure that you are auto attacking for more DPS, Staff Strike is the only skill that automatically starts your auto attack.

lvl 22 you get cracked earth a 5 target delayed root. Use immediately after a bad pull, avoid attacks until the root then you have some time to take down one or two mobs at a time instead of the entire pull. When you have mobs rooted pull out of the root with single target skills, not AOE.

The LM is all about control control control. You must think your way through the fight, use your tools and you can survive almost anything.

When you start out you might get frustrated, wait it out until lvl 32, the LM really becomes strong at lvl 30.

[Sarmon]

1.Don't make your healers call out for power watch their blue bar and fill it ahead of time.To a lesser degree watch the tanks power also when you are able.
2.Drain enemy power before you run out to keep the skill on cooldown and your own power full.
3.Sign of power righteousness it is a tank and healers best friend.
4.Debuff debuff debuff.
5.Sticky gourd area fire hides the mobs induction glowie. Be careful in groups with this one.

[KainXI]

Sign of Power: Command can be applied to mobs without starting combat. Use this to debuff all the mobs in a difficult pull before starting. This works well for difficult solo pulls, but is also great in Raids (something few LMs realize).

[Tymaron]

When grouping, make sure you have Show Dispellable Effects Only selected. This allows you to quickly see those wounds and diseases that can be removed.

When you have four traits equipped in the Ancient Master line, this expands your Warding Knowledge to include Men, Orcs and Beasts, helpful in certain instances.

[Harperelle]

Cracked earth, particularly AM traited cracked earth is a great way to put out DPS _and_ CC at the same time. Its my default choice for crowd control if I have the time to get the induction off. Remember, its fire damage as well, so all your fire damage buffs are applied to its damage. So a fun thing to do is Cracked Earth, Ents, Lightning storm, run away. You just did a boatload of damage and have left everyone rooted in place rather than chasing you down.

--Harperella

[0987654321]

learning how to use the pet skills properly is a big deal imo. a well timed force taunt from the bear can save a group from a wipe by giving the healer time to catch up.

as others have said, keep an eye on the healers power so that they dont have to ask for it. also this is a personal thing, but dont give power to hunters in Strength stance, as they will burn through it in seconds and possibly pull aggro from the tank.(there are of course exceptions to this where high levels of dps is needed and the tanks will want the hunters instreght, although this doesn't happen until much later.

also learn to kite, this is really bug. learning how to effectively kite while still putting out fairly good dps is very important imo, especially when taking on those big mobs solo.

i know it was supposed to be 1 tip, but just look at it as one big tip

[Hafnium]

Understand the stances of your pet and when they should be in a certain stance. No one is particularly happy if your pet is in aggresive mode and runs off and pulls a group of mobs onto your fellowship unexpectedly and wipes the group!

At the same time, don't let people convince you that you should not have your pet out or be using them in group situations. They are excellent allies that you should always take advantage of!

[TheFang_82]

Sign of Power: Command can be applied to mobs without starting combat. Use this to debuff all the mobs in a difficult pull before starting. This works well for difficult solo pulls, but is also great in Raids (something few LMs realize).

To add to this, corruption removal, if it doesn't resist, will also not pull aggro. So those interesting bosses with 3 tiers of corruptions.... remove away, before you pull...

[Nanwin]

also learn to kite, this is really bug. learning how to effectively kite while still putting out fairly good dps is very important imo, especially when taking on those big mobs solo.
/quote

What is kite? or kiting? I have a 62 LM and do not understand this. Have heard this term, but have found no explanation of ti.

[lf2536]

What is kite? or kiting? I have a 62 LM and do not understand this. Have heard this term, but have found no explanation of ti.

to kite (or kiting) is fighting style that involves you being in motion, basicly, you attack, move and attack again till the mob is dead, it's a bit harder to preform on a LM because of inductions, but if you can place a slow on the mob than you should be able to kill that mob while taking considerably less damage.

RKs are actually the ideal class for this type of fighting style, their lighting damage attacks are instant and can be fired at range, so they can basicly run rings around the mob while damaging it while taking very little damage themselves.

[Harry2]

Plan your retreat path

Thats a tip for any new player, not just LM's. Sometimes those extra mobs can surprise you.

[LagunaD]

While leveling: stack morale, don't worry about other stats, learn the flank+heal mechanic, use your pet to absorb as much damage as possible, and don't waste time with unnecessary debuffs or mezzes when you are in no danger.

[Mael5trom]

Don't be afraid to get into Melee range. You have a staff (and a sword) for good reason, they can add up to quite a bit of damage (check your auto-attacks, make sure they are enabled on any skill use in your combat options.) You are squisher early on, so be careful with this one, but don't be afraid to get in there and whack away in between tactical spells.

Bonus tip - learn to use your stuns to reduce your incoming damage (stunned mob does no damage, interrupting special skills reduces damage) and to allow you to get longer induction skills off, especially against multiple mobs.

[MysterX]

Work on your Proof against all Ills trait... even if you don't use it for soloing, you will need it for group stuff later.

[whosjgalt]

As an LM with almost 5000 hours playing just my LM, here's a few tips I use constantly:

1. Your pet IS ranged and can easily cause flanks. This is done by using the pet "attack button" (looks like Jaws on your pet bar). After attacking, repeatedly press follow on your pet. This will recall your pet back to you (who has the aggro) and hopefully, back to your appropriate Sign's of Warding (circles on the ground) and/or Tar (Sticky tar). This way, when your mob is back to your circle, the pet goes on "Sign of Wild: Rage (looks like a peson yelling) and you move BEHIND the mob. Now, your pet is tanking, you are in flanked position for positional bonuses, and can use Sign of Battle Wizardry (a picture of two hands reaching to the sun) on the mob. If you have the flanked buff, you get healing and damage on the mob.

This will also allow you to now use all your tactical skills, and your staff strike, and still, your pet should have aggro as you are attacking from behind the mob taking no damage whatsoever. You are now doing three separate types of damage simultaneously: tac damage, melee damage AND pet damage to the mob. This will also put you in an excellent position to debuff the mob with ancient craft (strips armor) while all of the dps goes to nuke him.

2. Use mezzes always (unless stun resistance is up)...even if it is broken, its still at least 2 seconds of non-attacks from the mobs, and possibly breaking their inductions for big hits against you.

3. Choose pets for their skills:
If you trait red (dps...fire) use an Eagle for "fan the flames". If you trait Crowd control, use your lynx for dps to off-set your lack of dps (for single mobs). If you are going against multiple groups, use your sabretooth for aoe attacks. If you are solo, use your bear for tanking. Almost always, if you are in a group, you will have someone in heavy armor...let them tank. Use your lynx instead for the extra dps.

4. Spam Tend the Sick and Ancient Knowledge of Cures (Trait Proof Against All Ills in ALL groups) You can heal the whole group of Diseases and Wounds which can be a lifesaver in certain circumstances.

5. Don't wait to be asked: If a Minnie is down to half-power, send it to them (Share the Power). If YOU are half-power, pull it with Power of Knowledge. An LM without power is simply useless.

6. A last "tip" which most LMs don't know: PULL POWER FROM MOBS: A mob without power is useless and in most circumstances only autoattacks! Trolls are puppies without power, Ranged damage switches to autoattacks without power, LM MOBS in SG are useless without power. Pull power from mobs, constantly... its a deadly attack!

The LM is the best and most versatile class in the game: Enjoy it!

Pherenn
65 LM,10 on all traits, all metadeeds completed, Leader of Knights of Valour on Vilya...if I can help you, ask.

[lazjen]

Some others:

* You can still be quite viable as a LM without using one of the legendary capstone traits (i.e. being "5 deep" in a line). For example, 3 in MoNF gives you good DPS increase with a slight penalty of a 20sec BF. Since the cooldown is 15sec, you can still lockdown a target. The other 4 traits can be used in AM or KoA. For a long time I ran with 4 KoA/3 MoNF using the lynx, legendary traits Noble Savage, Ents and the Staff. Sometimes I'd swap either the Ents or Noble Savage for the Eagle.

Recently I've been going 3 MoNF/2 KoA/2 AM. The KoA has Proof against all ills and Healer (? I think - the one that makes your spot heal more available/less CD and quicker to cast), while the AM traits are for the fast load BF and resistance reduction - I was getting resisted a lot in SG.

* BF gets resisted? Back it up with one of your stun skills (Test of Will is good, for example), and maybe a debuff to reduce the impact of the mob until your BF is ready again.

[0987654321]

[B][COLOR=red]


2. Use mezzes always (unless stun resistance is up)...even if it is broken, its still at least 2 seconds of non-attacks from the mobs, and possibly breaking their inductions for big hits against you.

3. Choose pets for their skills:
If you trait red (dps...fire) use an Eagle for "fan the flames". If you trait Crowd control, use your lynx for dps to off-set your lack of dps (for single mobs). If you are going against multiple groups, use your sabretooth for aoe attacks. If you are solo, use your bear for tanking. Almost always, if you are in a group, you will have someone in heavy armor...let them tank. Use your lynx instead for the extra dps.

2 things; first, the raven has the fire debuff, not the eagle. other wise good advice on pets.

second, even if a mob has stun immuity from you using one of your stuns, a mob can still be mezzed. the 10 second stun immunity has no effect on mezzes. there is however a second or so "recovery" state (yellow icon) that will prevent the mob from being mezzed. this occurs when the stun ends, and the mob is given a 10 second stun immunity

overall fairly good advice. just thiught those 2 things needed correcting to newer players dont get confused.

[whosjgalt]

2 things; first, the raven has the fire debuff, not the eagle. other wise good advice on pets.

second, even if a mob has stun immuity from you using one of your stuns, a mob can still be mezzed. the 10 second stun immunity has no effect on mezzes. there is however a second or so "recovery" state (yellow icon) that will prevent the mob from being mezzed. this occurs when the stun ends, and the mob is given a 10 second stun immunity

overall fairly good advice. just thiught those 2 things needed correcting to newer players dont get confused.

Thank you for your attempt to clarify: However, respectfully, you are mistaken. the Raven has a "Benediction" skill, not "fan the flames" skill.

You will also notice one is debuff against their fire mitigation (Benediction) versus "fan the flames" which is additional damage. Again, the use of the proper pet is the issue. I stated: 3. Choose pets for their skills: If you trait red (dps...fire) use the Eagle for "fan the flames." This will give you additional dps... not a mitigation against damage, as would the raven (however, the Raven a Beginning pet, and thus, available at much lower level than an Eagle).

Moreover, I was attempting to convey the message "use the right pet for the job." Further, as to the Mezzes; again, the concept is use them frequently, constantly, and always I'd rather get one off and have it broken, and still have at least 2 seconds of non-damage time from the mob.

Thanks for your attempt to "clarify" my message. I just hope our newcomers are not more confused.

With thousands of hours playing my LM (my main), I just hope some of the tips above help our aspiring LMs. We NEED MORE LM's folks!

Pherenn

[eanamdar]

Remember that fancy walking stick is a weapon, and use it. Melee damage does add up, and can yield flank healing.