Trying to make sense of it all

[Loox]

Why are there 5 traceries for the yellow tree skills, 4 traceries for the red tree skills, but only 1 tracery for the blue tree skills?

Then to make that even worse the 1 tracery for blue tree is Inner-flame offering a healing boost for you and your pet if you trained the skill.

Should I assume SSG's has future plans to kill the tree? It just feels like that's where things are headed.

A blue name response would certainly be appreciated.

[Mithithil]

Although the blue line is in many respects closest to the original SoA LM I'm inclined ot agree that SSG are letting it wither on the vine. To make it good again would require them to admit that things like nerfing Tutelage of The Bown Wizard for the +3 levels signature pet was a mistake and so forth. I haven't seriously used blue line as a main specialisation since Mordor due tro that. But, given the power changes at that the Eagle seems locked into Blue now it may not all be lost. ICPR is around 1000 power per second, the Eagle adds a bit over 400 pps which may become very relevant as clearly power management is back as a mechanic, potentially in a way that's not truly mattered in end game instance play since Barad Guleran. I await developments on that one.

[Gorikon]

Why are there 5 traceries for the yellow tree skills, 4 traceries for the red tree skills, but only 1 tracery for the blue tree skills?

Because basically every Tracery (new LI system) is a converted Legacy (old LI system). And the old LI system dates back to Moria. And Moria didn't know trait trees. That's why.

[Loox]

Although the blue line is in many respects closest to the original SoA LM I'm inclined ot agree that SSG are letting it wither on the vine. To make it good again would require them to admit that things like nerfing Tutelage of The Bown Wizard for the +3 levels signature pet was a mistake and so forth. I haven't seriously used blue line as a main specialisation since Mordor due tro that. But, given the power changes at that the Eagle seems locked into Blue now it may not all be lost. ICPR is around 1000 power per second, the Eagle adds a bit over 400 pps which may become very relevant as clearly power management is back as a mechanic, potentially in a way that's not truly mattered in end game instance play since Barad Guleran. I await developments on that one.

I bought the pre-launch @ Gamestop because of the LM game play during the betas and the bonuses that came with it. And I agree from the SoA launch that B-LM is the closest to that original LM game play, although not quite the same.

The eagle's buffs/B-LM would have to sacrifice to many Y-LM skills to ever be a viable alternative to a fellowship challenge. That's not going to happen.

I'm really just looking for some assurance that B-LMs will have some sense of long term development/bug fixes and not just "wither on the vine".

[Vilan]

I recall reading that a dev (OMM?) acknowledged that blue LM will never be asked for in raids. I'm fairly confident that they don't really know what to do with blue, and whenever the next big LM update occurs, blue tree will be turned into a supportive tree like yellow brawler is. We will have red for DPS and yellow for debuffs, and blue will just boost our pets to do more of those two things.

[Loox]

I recall reading that a dev (OMM?) acknowledged that blue LM will never be asked for in raids. I'm fairly confident that they don't really know what to do with blue, and whenever the next big LM update occurs, blue tree will be turned into a supportive tree like yellow brawler is. We will have red for DPS and yellow for debuffs, and blue will just boost our pets to do more of those two things.

Although it feels that way it does beg the question why they changed the capstone skill if they plan to terminate it.

It doesn't appear to make any sense.

[wispsong]

Although it feels that way it does beg the question why they changed the capstone skill if they plan to terminate it.

It doesn't appear to make any sense.

Maybe they haven't gotten around to revamp the LM and this skill seems to have caused problems.
Since the last change to wizard fire, I have given up on blue. Red already has more dps and might as well go that way since the pet really doesn't make much difference and since Mordor blue constantly gets nerfed and flavor is taken away. I liked sic'em, the new skill is just boring.

[Loox]

Maybe they haven't gotten around to revamp the LM and this skill seems to have caused problems.
Since the last change to wizard fire, I have given up on blue. Red already has more dps and might as well go that way since the pet really doesn't make much difference and since Mordor blue constantly gets nerfed and flavor is taken away. I liked sic'em, the new skill is just boring.

lol, wizard's frost is for clearing out those pesky level 2 trash mobs :P

Sic'em was more fun then MoC, but Sic'em had it's problems too. I do like the range with MoC though.

Red tree is higher parse damage. Which is great for long enemy battles, but how often does that happen?

Pets make a huge difference for B-LM. Without pets attacking B-LMs are essentially neutered.