How to tell which gear is best?

[Edhelrita]

So I just turned level 105 and I am a noob when it comes to this game.

I have several new pieces of armor that I can wear at level 105: Cloak of settled Mind, Sage’s Earring of Calenardhon, Shoulder Pads of the Reclaimed City). I would have essences for them.

Currently I’m wearing: Clever Cloak of the citadel guard captain (with a supreme essence of tactical mitigation), Master Engineer’s perservering earring, Halerarmas.

How do you pick armor? Color? Value? Will? (I’m a LM). Added tactical mastery or critical rating or morale? Item level? Minimum level? Armor number?

Yeah I’m a LM. I know morale, will, vitality, tactical mastery, etc. are best for me. So I pick armor with those attributes. But how else do I pick? What’s best?

[Joedangod]

Generally it just boils down to making a list of priorities for your character and just selecting the gear that helps you reach those goals, preferably making use of high ilvl/rarity pieces.

For example you might decide that you want...

• A minimum of 30k morale.
• Capped crit chance.
• Capped mastery.
• Capped mits.

In that order, as such you'd just start equipping pieces that get you closer to each goal, taking one goal at a time. Optimising things generally gets a bit trickier as you start trying to minimise overcapping stats and the like but honestly I wouldn't try optimising much outside of the current level cap.

[Gorikon]

I know morale, will, vitality, tactical mastery, etc. are best for me.

You are on the right track, since I assume you're still playing landscape. I'd add Critical Rating and Finesse to that list. (If your Finesse is too low, your skills are often resisted, which means damage is negated.)

Most ratings (crit, mastery, finesse) are used to calculate some kind of percentage bonus. You can see these by hovering the stat in your character window (C key). The bonus is capped at a certain point (that's what Joedangod is talking about.) Some caps:
Critical Chance --> 25%
Tactical Mastery --> 200%
Mitigations --> 40%
Finesse --> 50% (but you only need around 20% on landscape, this will negate resists)

On landscape, I'd concentrate on the offensive stats (crit, mastery, finesse). When you kill stuff fast, it can't hurt you, and it's more fun. And since you are a LM, if something gets too close, you can stun / mezz / root their backsides.

General hints:
- If the percentage bonus of important stat X is far below cap, get something that boosts it.
- If the percentage bonus of important stat X is relatively close to cap, don't bother.
- Essences that give ratings (e.g. crit, mastery) are superior to stat essences (e.g. Will, Fate), when it comes to offensive stats.
- On the other hand, a Vitality essence gives more Morale than a Morale essence (!).

[l6rp24e57]

What’s best?

I will post the best-in-slot (further - BiS) 105 gear as of current meta, along with some reasonable alternatives (further - Alt)you can get which are way easier to achieve.

Jewellery.
For earrings, necklace, pocket - you need Kindred status with 3 Host of the West subfactions: Armour, Weapons, Provisions. This reputation is gained by using the matching-named reputation items (Armour, Metal Scrap, Weapons, Broken Blade, Provisions, Salt) which drop from Elite Master and above difficulty mobs in Wastes (occasionally in other 100-105 locations as well). Also, by employing the Anorien crafting tier, you can make barter tokens which can be turned in for the abovementioned rep items in the Camp of the Host. The recipes are: default (with cooldown), reputation gated with cooldown (require main Host of the West rep), single-use no cooldown (drop from elite masters and above just like rep items themselves).
Once kindred with all the 3 factions, you can get the jewellery:

Earrings:
BiS: Empowered Earring of the Willful Defender.
Alt: Master-provisioner's Earring of the Willful Defender.
Necklace:
BiS: Empowered Elegant Necklace of the West.
Alt: Master-weaponist's Elegant Necklace of the West.
Pocket:
BiS: Empowered Crest of Gondor's Wisdom.
Alt: Master-armourer's Crest of Gondor's Wisdom.
In this section, acquisition of BiS requires having the Alt plus Ornate Inlay - a barter token which drops in Throne of the Dread Terror raid - can drop from any boss tier 2 challenge chest.

Bracelets:
BiS: Glimmering Cuff of the Pelennor. Requires Officer's Bracelet of the Pelennor Fields barter token. Same source as Ornate Inlay.
Alt: Delicate Amber Wristlet of Ithilien's Bounty. Requires gathering extracts from flowers in North Ithilien.

Rings:
BiS: Ring of Dryad Loveliness. Requires gathering extracts from flowers in Ithilien.
Alt: None.

Thats it of jewellery but an important note. Theoretically, there are Osgiliath cluster t2 bracelets and necklaces to exist, which have pure vitality instead of will/morale, and they are better due to that. But i have no clue if they drop anymore still as i was unable to get any. Maybe bad RNG. No idea.

Armour.
I dont have any LM experience to suggest which set is best, so will state in general.
BiS: Throne of the Dread Terror tier 2 set upgraded twice. Initial set barter items drop in the raid itself, first upgrade requires non-upgraded set items plus extracts from North Ithilien flowers, second upgrade requires set items from first upgrade plus Host of the West - Provisions reputation items.
Alt: Ithilien Seeker set. Requires gathering extracts from flowers in North Ithilien.

Cloak:
BiS: Carchol Rewoven - Grimbark's Legacy. Drops in the Boss from the Vaults: Naruhel the Red-Maid instance (tier influences the stats a bit). Currently not obtainable as the Spring Festival is not underway.
Alt: Cloak of the Resolute March. Reward for the final chapter in North Ithilien epic.

Offhand:
BiS: Master-Wrought Blade of the Tactician. Requires Kindred with either of Host of the West subfactions, respective subfaction rep items plus 3 Tarnished Crests of Gondor - Slag-hills 6-man instances final bosses drop (more on these later)
Alt: Greater Resolute Sword of Penetration. Random drop from scaled instances.

Ranged slot:
BiS: Ornate stickpin of the veteran lore-master. Requires barter token which drops from challenge chests of 3rd, 4th and 5th bosses in Throne of the Dread Terror raid.
Alt: Engraved Zircon Stickpin of Rage/Regrowth. Crafted by t10 Anorien Jeweller.

Relics in Legendary Items.

Setting:
BiS: Abyssal Setting of Finesse. Barter from vendor in Ruins of Dingarth, Mordor for 700 motes of enchantment.
Alt: None.

Gem:
BiS: Abyssal Gem of Vitality. Same source.
Alt: None.

Rune:
BiS. Winterstith Rune of Enchantment/Winterstith Rune of Binding. Acquired from Winterstith Runes box, which drops from last boss in the Anvil of the Winterstith t1-t2 raid (requires lvl 115+ char if healing class, any other will be able to enter but will be next to useless due to deflect from mobs. Raid is lvl 120.
There are also Greater versions of Winterstith runes which drop only from tier 3 and are better, but i never got them myself to test if one can equip them at 105.
Alt: Rare/Incomparable Vanguard Rune of Enchantment/Binding. Acquired from Court of Seregost and Dungeons of Naerband instances at lvl 115 any tier. Just ask someone to help you though them.

Crafted:
BiS: Vales Carrock Device of Tactics (if you need more Will)/Insight (if you need more Fate). Made by t12 Ironfold professions, requires Artifacts of the Vale which are bartered for Rime of the Anvil (Anvil of the Winterstith raid drop item) in Vales of Anduin (reputation gated). Both ingridients and relic package arent bound so you can buy/ask/hire someone to make them for you.
Alt: None.

Essences.
What you are looking for are Ithilien, Ithilien-Infused and Ithilien-Tempered essence boxes. First one can be acquired from deeds or bartered for Ithilien Essence Fragments from Herbalists of Host of the West. Fragments are acquired from North Ithilien daily wrapper quest (do 4 herbalism quests), from Wastes Slag-Hills solo resource instances (unlock requires finishing all quests in the loc but Lang Rhuven chain), Slag-Hills 6 man instances (unlock requires finishing Lang Rhuven chain and public dungeon Skoironk/Towers of the Teeth quests).
Ithilien-Infused are acquired by crafting the barter token, Wild Essence of Ithilien, from regular Ithilien ones plus solvent plus prof-specific item, they are common drop from Featured Instance boxes and Throne of the Dread Terror raid.
Ithilien-Tempered are acquired by turning in 3 Infused.

Dont slot any essences but vitality (maybe class essences from central gondor though), because you will get enough mastery and crit rating to cap them from relics in legendary items plus virtues. With gear full of vitality essences you will be around 75-80k morale as loremaster.

Final remarks. As i stated, i have no loremaster experience, but this is the setup equal to might/agility setups i use on my 105 chars which were able to solo majority of 6-man and some 12-man encounters available at 105. Secondly, getting Throne of the Dread Terror related items can be an issue if your max toon is 105. Generally group leaders decline players below 120 (some have even higher standards) unless you have proven yourself beforehands.

[cbfan14]

Armour.
I dont have any LM experience to suggest which set is best, so will state in general.
BiS: Throne of the Dread Terror tier 2 set upgraded twice. Initial set barter items drop in the raid itself, first upgrade requires non-upgraded set items plus extracts from North Ithilien flowers, second upgrade requires set items from first upgrade plus Host of the West - Provisions reputation items.
Alt: Ithilien Seeker set. Requires gathering extracts from flowers in North Ithilien.

As a LM, for the Dread Terror sets I would recommend either the Knowledge-seeker set (for solo, gives +3 water-lore pulses) or the Nature-Friend (for groups, reduces catmint cooldown by 30s).

[Gandolf_TheOld]

There is a butt load of solid information in the above posts. I'll answer your question(s) from a different path.

My LM focuses more on the stats (in order) Will, Vitality, Tactical Mastery, Finesse, (Solo, Group and Raid)

Remember, most LM skills are Tactical you do not need any Physical Mastery or Physical Mitigation, you'll get enough from stats and traits.

Your LI(s) are a core part of your build

Then focus on your Trait builds. See I Love Fried Orc for trait planner(s) and community builds for the various classes (https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/). Consider Hybrid builds such as a Blue, Red and Yellow LM

Next consider your Virtues, use these to smooth out some of the rough spots in your build. I use Empathy, Fortitude, Honor, Justice and Honesty for my Blue, Red and Yellow builds. Do not forget to grow other virtues for those times when your build changes, and you need to fill in a new gap or two, such as Wit, Wisdom, Confidence, Loyalty and so on.

A LM is a Fire and Lightening ranged AoE Pet class build to those strengths, and you should do fine. Also in game if you see high level LMs running around ask to inspect them most will say yes, this will give you some good pointers and occasionally turn up a weak build. Food can boost your stats significantly, so do not forget the yummies and your pets' food...

Welcome to being a LM.

OOPS, forgot Fate you need this, but not to much, at 130 my fate is 8722 and have never had an issue with running out of power. My regen is strong enough that in 15 seconds, I regen more power than the size of my power pool. My Fate is probably more than is needed, but I do like my regen rates (ICPR and NCPR)