On Lore-masters and Tamed Creatures

[Halphast]

8) Lightning Storm on a bunch of mobs is the coolest thing in LOTRO by far.

I agree completely on this; it's amazing. I also think Storm-lore doesn't get nearly enough love. Even if traited red, I spend my first couple of points to unlock storm-lore. Such a satisfying sound and animation, I love that it's practically instant-effect, damage plus stun, a really fun way to swat enemies who dare to approach in melee. The lightning damage boost is cool too.

[Loox]

I agree completely on this; it's amazing. I also think Storm-lore doesn't get nearly enough love. Even if traited red, I spend my first couple of points to unlock storm-lore. Such a satisfying sound and animation, I love that it's practically instant-effect, damage plus stun, a really fun way to swat enemies who dare to approach in melee. The lightning damage boost is cool too.

Add Fierce Lightning to it for a flaming pile of orc

[Drarin]

Admittedly I don't main a LM (its probably my 3rd or 4th role), so take my input with a grain of salt.

Before I start though, I want to highlight what I think is probably the LMs primary issue: its corruption removal. LM has objectively the worse corruption removal across all classes. Its a single target, 30s cooldown corruption removal. This makes it difficult in not only group play, but solo play, especially with how frequently reflection corruptions are showing up these days. The skill should either have its cooldown drastically reduced, or become an AoE skill.

I'd also like to make a general suggestion for corruptions, not necessarily related only to LMs: Please try for more variation in corruption skills. A lot of skills generically "remove 1 tier of up to 3 corruptions", but no skills remove multiple tiers of the same corruption (the closest we have is the Champion removal). This type of mechanic is one we're starting to see more often in content, so it would make sense to have at least some skills designed for this type of scenario.

Pets (more than just the Keeper of Animals trait line)
Do you engage with the ‘pet rotation’? If yes, how do you feel about it? Do you like that it adds activity or raises the skill ceiling, or do you find it overwhelming or even tedious?

Do you find yourself using different pets in different circumstances? Do you feel like your pets actively contribute to your gameplay and your Lore-master fantasy? Do you have opportunities to use the pets you like, stylistically? Or do mostly find yourself locked into a few types, either statically or in a constant ‘pet rotation’ (ie: Catmint raven, boglurker, bear).

Some of you may have guessed at this, but we’re eyeing some changes to pets similar to the changes made to captain pets in U35. Primarily, that would mean a pet summoning cooldown, which would limit your ability to use any given pet skill repeatedly (ie: bypassing the pet skill cooldowns by dismissing and resummoning the pet itself). Like captain heralds, this would still allow you to immediately resummon a pet that you have had out for a while (long enough for its cooldown time to fully elapse) but it would prevent you from using pet skills more than twice in a row without waiting for either the individual skill’s cooldown or the pet summoning cooldown.

Yes, I engage with the pet rotation. I do believe it adds activity and raises the skill ceiling. However, it is also incredibly tedious. Your rotation is basically catmint raven -> bear -> bog -> bear -> bog -> catmint raven (at least mine is). The only changes you ever make is to remove the raven and/or bog lurker, and in both cases its mainly because of having a hunter (sometimes for LM, but this is a very minor consideration). Spirit might pop in on occasion depending on the difficulty of the fight.

Apart from the above situational adjustment, I don't find myself using any other pets. Sabertooth, eagle, and lynx are all pretty much useless. Sabertooth damage isn't high enough and its frost debuff isn't relevant enough to bother with. The eagle rez is awkward, unreliable, and situational. The lynx has nothing to contribute.

My suggestions would be:

• Give each pet at least one generic support function, especially the seldom used pets. Maybe instead of the frost debuff, give the sabertooth a skill that increases party tactical damage for a bit. Doesn't have to be major, 2% maybe. Or one of the pets could give the party reduced damage for a time. This would hopefully support expanding the pet rotation and more variation depending on content and group composition.
• Standardize the debuff durations. Just to make it simpler to track all the various effects.

DPS
A DPS-oriented Lore-master has some interesting skills and mechanics, but your overall repertoire of damaging skills can sometimes feel quite thin. Are there things you like about the current damage potential at your disposal? What frustrates you when trying to prioritize DPS? Reliance on induction skills? A dependency on tar + catmint raven to maintain high output? Waiting for cooldowns when Burning Embers is already tiered up and Lighting Strike/Storm are on cooldown? What do you like about your core damage rotation? What do you wish you did better?

DPS LM seem to generally be in a good place in terms of skill damage. However, as hinted at, the skill cooldowns don't synergize very well. I often find myself in situations where I either have to wait for Burning Embers to go off cooldown, or spam Wizard's Fire, because all my other DPS skills are on cooldown. I also feel like the design of LM's DPS is at odds with other components of its class. As a light armour class with access to several CC skills, it makes it awkward trying to use DPS skills given that most of them are AoE and will break its attempts to CC. Granted this is more of a solo'ing issue. Plus with the bear being a single-target tank pet, this discourages pulling groups of enemies, which kind of defeats the purpose of DPS skills being AoE. Also, staff skills in general are pretty awkward. Its pretty counter-intuitive for a light armoured "magic" class to be encouraged to be in melee range for a handful of skills.

My suggestions would be:

• Reduce Burning Embers cooldown to 1.5s, make another single-target skill with a relatively short cooldown (3s-5s), or both
• Reduce the cooldown of Ents go to War (maybe somewhere between 1.5-2m?) and Lightning Storm (1m)
• Reduce likelihood of DoTs prematurely breaking CC.

The Ancient Master – Support-first Lore-master
The Ancient Master line is often the de-facto primary trait setup for Lore-masters, but that doesn’t mean it is above reproach. While LMs are primarily sought after in raid groups, instances, and PvP for their support capacity, that doesn’t mean the ‘support-first’ LM has no room for improvement. For those of you who live and breathe yellow-LM, what do you like about the class and the role? What do you wish were different? Are you frustrated by the fact that your long-mez is also your interrupt skill? Does Water-lore-stacking provide you with something to steadily cycle into your skills, or does it feel like too much necessary upkeep? Do you feel like you contribute meaningfully to the group in moments where there are few/no adds to CC or manage? Do you just wish you had a Wizards Lightning skill to reapply your preferred 'Out in the Cold' or 'Playng with Fire' debuffs?

Unlike the previous feedback, I'll itemize mine for this one:

• "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire" are not particularly well designed. If you want to maintain any of the debuffs, you need to actively avoid using skills that will change it. As this isn't feasible, this makes both traits more of an afterthought in active play.
• "Blinding Flash" being our interrupt skill is really annoying, but what I think is more annoying, is that the mez affect is applied only when the animation is over. And its not a particularly fast animation.
• Water lore I think is fine as is.
• Yellow LM has a lot of skills. Could probably do with consolidating some of them.
• Herb-lore has no business being a 2m cooldown skill, as root is just a worse mez. Storm-lore is probably a worse offender, being a 3-5s stun on a 2m cooldown.
• The debuffs provided by "Out in the Cold" need an overhaul. The tactical debuff does not scale well, as at level 140, it only reduces tact mastery by around 1.4k. Power cost is a pretty useless debuff in PvE, as enemies generally never consume enough power to even reduce their bar by a percent.

My suggestions would be:

• Either scrap "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire", or change it to where the debuffs aren't removed when it switches between the three elements. If keeping it, change the tact debuff and power cost debuffs from "Out in the Cold"
• Have the mez affect for "Blinding Flash" apply when the animation starts, rather than when it ends. Separate the interrupt component from the skill.
• Consolidate some of the "Sign of Power" skills. Vigilence doesn't have a lot of use to justify it being its own skill, and Power/"See All Ends" might as well be one skill. If you scrap "Out in the Cold" and "Playing with Fire", maybe consider consolidating Fire and Frost lores.
• Reduce herb-lore cooldown (maybe between 45s-1m) and Storm-lore to 1m

[Naphor]

PLEASE don't screw with the LM! You took away eagles from non-blue trait lines(failed to make blue desirable/special and just ruined a carrot for getting to high level solo LM) and gave us another "Wizard's X" skill, adding to the huge skill bloat the class already suffers. Now you're going to add cooldowns to pet skills? Why are you continuing to remove aspects that make the class fun? Pet-swapping is part of what makes LM so fun and challenging in end-game content.

Unless you can COMPLETELY maintain the way the class plays in yellow and red while reworking the blue line, DON'T SCREW WITH THE LORE-MASTER!!! PLEEEEAAAASE! This class is one of the primary reasons I keep coming back to your game, and if you rework it, I'm afraid you're going to ruin something I've loved for OVER A DECADE!...

PLEASE DON'T SCREW WITH THE LORE-MASTER!!!

EDIT: I apologize if anything I've said comes across poorly. I'm just very passionate about the class and would like to not lose that "special something" that I love so dearly about it. I've been talking to other players, and the general consensus is that you've done a good job on other class reworks, so I'm hopeful. Just please treat my beloved Lore-master with care. You've got a FANTASTIC class already. If you want to tweak it, please, just make sure it feels the same.

[AYiawvUoyD]

I think the LM blue line should be given the minstrel and warden's yellow line treatment (i.e, don't make it a trait line you can spec into). That way, we can further boost our pets both in DPS and Support roles without losing much. I think having pet support as a main line adds very little to the gameplay, since pets cannot do as much damage/support as ourselves.
Regarding pet rotations, I think they should stay to add some challenge to the gameplay but maybe in a different way, pet skills aren't very interesting right now (just debuffs that get applied and refreshed every once in a while).
If DPS-oriented pets like Linx and Sabretooth don't get their stats properly scaled, they should have some utility skills to be useful and get included in rotations.
Please update some dated skills like the three Sings of Power (Command, See All Ends and Vigilance). Righteousness is the only useful one at the moment.

[PointyEaredBowTwanger]

There have been so many changes to LM recently, and pretty much all of them have been detrimental to both the fun and functionality of the class.

A cooldown on being able to summon the Light pet?

Removal of the Eagle as a buyable trait, to make it exclusive to blue line?

Splitting 'Wizard's Fire' into two skills and putting the self-heal on the new one instead of making it something actually different?

Increasing the already unnecessary cooldowns on the 'share the power' skills? The limiting factor on sharing power should be 'do I have enough power to share?' and NOT 'have I shared this within the last X seconds?'.

It's easy to see why so many people think that the devs hate LMs

[padawanbeck]

My main is a L84 blue-line LM and I really enjoy having a pet to help me out. I mostly use an eagle, sometimes a bog lurker and sometimes a bear. I haven't really experimented with all of the pets, or even all of the combat/healing skills. The issue for me is that I tend to rely on a relatively small set of skills that I know what they do, whereas some of the others are less clearly explained so I don't use them - and am probably missing out as a result.

I don't think blue-line should be scrapped - there are those of us who enjoy it and we should have that extra choice, rather than being narrowed down to two possible lines - or effectively being forced to re-spec at the end of the game as yellow is seen as the "only" option. I haven't got any characters to end-game yet, so can't really comment on specifics, but it should not be the case that only one line out of the three "works" at end-game. All three should have a way to work at end-game, otherwise it will feel like I have wasted my time, when I really enjoy running around with my pets (and naming them. I love that we can personalise them with names). I also enjoy that my Cook alt can help my LM by making the pet food - it gives those alts a nice reason to interact with each other.

The main thing for me is that there are so many LM skills that I barely use, and need to get confident with what all of them do, rather than keep relying on the same few. But that's more down to me than a class issue.

[Estra1]

Loremaster Pet rotation is the very reason I no longer raid in LOTRO. personally I hate it.

While emergent mechanics work in some cases i.e. bard EQ1 twisting, here its just tiresome and ultimately ruins class fantasy imo. Character and class fantasy are everything in a MMO like LOTRO which has such rich characters.

LM pets across the board need a buff, until this happens blueline LM is pointless. I believe also that LM being the only true pet class in LOTRO, it would do the class a disservice to remove the need to have a pet or opt out of using them similar to what has been done with Captain.

I have said before a simple solution would be to add a new ability, say bring back "Sick'em" make it a yellow/blue LM captstone ability and have it use the debuffs of ALL pets regardless of which pet you have summoned. Not only would this solve the issue of pet rotating, but keep the LM's ability to debuff in raids and groups. This would also help with Lagmaster problems as it would cut down on summons.

Pets just need to be stronger at higher levels, simple solution hard to implement. Others here have better solutions for that.

As much as I hate to say it perhaps blue line should be a passive line, as we have see with other classes recently. However if this is done, I think it needs to keep in mind the fantasy of LM and its pets.

[flamestrom]

bring back "Sick'em" make it a yellow/blue LM captstone ability and have it use the debuffs of ALL pets

If such thing would be available for the Yellow-Line, three things will happen...
1 - there will be no place for the second LM in a Raid (same as now) and that means - you will have no chance to help another LM with Gear (like other classes do now)
2 - not many people will want to invest time and efforts in studying other playstyles which don't provide hypothetical access to the raid Gear
3 - other Lines will swiftly die in a short period of time because of all-in-one-Yellow-LM (with better Heal, with all Pets, with more comfortable +15 seconds for debuffs, with more "enjoyable" numbers for AC, etc...) will squeeze out all other Lines from Raid content for eternity

[Callandur]

I have played LOTRO for 16 years now and it took 12 of those years to fully appreciate what the Loremaster is really all about. I raid extensively on Laurelin and I would first like to extend much appreciation to OnnMac for fielding this forum. As it seems our input will indeed affect the upcoming changes, I feel beholden to offer the following:

1) As a debuffing/buffing class, one of the greatest challenges I face as a LM is carefully managing my effects so that durations overlap. I.e., making sure that the various debuffs are ALWAYS up. Always Benediction, always Shatter Arms, always the increase range crit chance lurker thing. This can be tracked and managed and doing this successfully is a real source of pride for myself as an LM. Whatever changes are implemented to pets, I personally would not like to lose this aspect of the class. Whatever you do, make sure that the possibility of skillful debuff maintenance - 100% of the time - remains a skill goal for LMs. Please. Perhaps you would like to make the debuff aspect of pets only available in yellow spec. Fine and good. But forcing LMs to use one debuff or another - when they are raiding yellow - I believe really hurts the class. Part of the joy of LM is the many skills, and that their skillful application results in a devastating sum total. I like to think that I am invoking my 'fell sorceries'. Note the plural. It is like a potent weave of many magics, requiring much composure to maintain amidst the stress of battle. To be honest, this multiplicitous nature of the LM is the most 'magical' thing I have ever encountered in any game ever, and as someone who spends a great deal of time researching actual ancient world magical practices I can assure you that this complex approach would have delighted Tolkien to no end. So, long story short is, I love yellow LMs with lots of skills (including all pet skills) and long timers that must be maintained during the fight. LMs are actually a lot like druids (classical druids not WoW) standing on the sidelines and the current pet method is really dead on. Please do not make us be 'bear Lms' or 'raven Lms' or whatever. Some of us can keep up all those skills, and some of us love doing so. Don't punish us and the skills we have developed.

2) It has been suggested that yellow line should be even more powerful as a debuffer but with damage restricted, and red line could become a viable DPS spec but with no debuff capability. I think this is an excellent possibility for the following reasons: a) a yellow LM almost never does damage in a raid, and if they are, they are probably not getting in all the debuffs. Keeping up debuffs currently adds significantly more damage output for the group than throwing the odd ember-gust, lightning. or cracked earth (which as all yellow LMs know is not about the damage but the root). So go ahead and remove the damage element, it's not what yellow should be doing anyway. b) all of the previous comments about red LMs having 'dead' trait points are correct and I don't see any problem with an LM having a DPS spec. If RKs can heal or DPS, why shouldn't LMs support or DPS? It should also be remembered that many LM debuffs do not stack and this would open up raids to more than one LM at a time which I think is also a great idea.

3) Yes another interrupt would be nice, blinding flash is too valuable to use in that way. Which leads me to mezzes ... I have noticed that in some circumstances, requiring Valar to successfully execute the double chain mezz is restrictive for meta-play reasons, i.e., the cooldown is still active after a previous fight has concluded. I would suggest that giving the LM 2 standard chain mezzes/emergency 3 rather than 1 standard chain/emergency 2 would be helpful and not excessive in certain situations.

4) I have seen the possibility that blue line be reworked to function much like a red captain and I think this is an interesting possibility also.

5) In closing, I would like to offer some thoughts on design and the phenomenon of the "exploit". Now, it has been mentioned that summoning a bear in combat for the purpose of taunting a boss is a type of "exploit". This is part of a general trend in which creative solutions are condemned as "exploits". If there has ever been a class in any game that rewarded out-of-the-box thinking, it is the LM (silver trophy to the burglar). If a tactic could reasonably be used by a group of adventurers, should Middle-Earth be a real place, and does not damage immersion, there is no reason why that tactic does not belong within the game milieu. Bears may be summoned in combat. They may taunt things. They cannot tank long term. If the main tank drops, rez is on CD, but you are able to save the day by bear tanking briefly, it is enormously rewarding, an example of creative play, and by no means an 'exploit'. I have seen many other examples of creative tactical solutions condemned as 'exploits' (e.g., kiting rather than remaining stationary) and in that case, as we all know when bosses are taunted they run to the taunter. This is a basic part of MMO play. If a taunting/kiting strategy prevents a boss from using certain skills, it is an example of psychological manipulation (on the part of the tank) infuriating the enemy and overriding their better judgment. Not an 'exploit'. You may ask, is this really relevant for the LM? Absolutely, for the following reason. Much of what the LM does has the quality of subverting the standard heal/tank/DPS fabric and assisting in unorthodox ways. True, there is a sort of "rotation" but there are also occasional "miracles". A good example was the former use of the spirit on many mobs for a massive heal increase. This could not be used all the time, but in certain very specific situations it was the exact tactic required. Once the fundamentals of the game are set in code, I fail to see how ANY use of those fundamentals could be deemed inappropriate. Please do not damage this "out-of-the-box" quality of the LM and please keep rewarding us for finding creative game solutions.

[Jargonaut]

About the blue line. Maybe a talent tree for pets? Everyone plays only on yellow. The Red and Blue lines also deserve attention

A talent tree for a temporary creature? It would have to be stored on the character, and we're already waiting minutes to log in or log out because of the huge amount of data our characters have to carry.

An alternative means to modify pets would be better.

1) Something I have wanted for years is a means to change the damage type of our pets. Why should we be stuck with a single damage type across our pets? (Except the big cat that does frost.) A special type of brooch that does more than just add some stats would be the best way to do this. Being able to choose from the three 'crafted' damage types, Beleriand, Westernesse, and Ancient Dwarf, would be the minimum. But LIGHT damage would be a really great thing for LM pets. More crafting goodies for jewelers!

Now that this issue of 'rotating' pets is up for discussion, it occurs to me that we might completely change the way they work. How about the brooch sets the type of pet you can summon? Since we cannot change equipment in combat, that means the LM chooses what pet to use for a particular battle. No more 'rotating' to get all the debuffs at once, but no need to set a cool-down that might leave the LM unable to get a pet back after a mistake.

2) New pet foods that grant special powers would also be great. More crafting goodies for cooks! Look at all the special perks that have been added to player consumed foods over the years. Why couldn't LM pets also get these? Increase general resistance, increased speed, increased stats beyond the standard with current foods.

But all other things aside, the biggest thing I miss is the pet being able to hold aggro! Could we please have the level bonus back at least for blue line? That's why I chose to specialize as blue line. The pet was strong enough to protect the character.

[eldaeriel]

Currently, I mostly play solo or small group on deadly difficulty, mostly in Red line and mostly on Treebeard now. Just some brief points

I do like the idea of blue line - the survivability is great but its so slow, though I found it useful for t10 delvings. However, I wouldn't be too upset if it became a non specialised tree - especially with the group benefits found there, I've often wished I could have those whilst playing red.

One random request is that I'd love the Mounted Combat pet (the wolf) to be a normal pet as well!

I really like the idea of different pets for different circumstances - this already happens to an extent but it could be developed further. Personally, I do feel that the pets are an integral part of the class identity and gameplay. I do tend to use mostly the Bog Guardian (would love a smaller version), Raven occasionally and Bear occasionally solo. I use the sabre tooth for lower level deeds.

In terms of pet rotation - it sounds very unfun and I'd hate to do it I don't mind the inductions, the rooting that happens while inducting (I think the animation?) is pretty annoying. More choices / shorter cooldown for corruption removal / interrupt would be great.

Water-lore should definitely be available earlier - I would like to see the LM being able to fulfil either dps or heal role in 3 person instances - we sort of sit between both at the moment.

Edit: I do see the LM's main role as being support (cc/debuff etc).

thank you!

[Loox]

"One random request is that I'd love the Mounted Combat pet (the wolf) to be a normal pet as well!"

I love that idea!

Perhaps having wolf trigger buff fellow's finesse or resistance 25%? or?.
Pet debuff: could be a DOT debuff 10% and 20% with catmint.
pet attacks: could be bite ankle that stacks with other slows, nasty bite (bleed), Howl (taunt).
Pet food (placeholder): would enhance pet attacks and add damage.

[Melkorben]

Hi OnnMacMahal,
I've stopped playing approx. 2 years ago (after ~5 years of playing) mainly because the LM boring/dated game-play and not using pets at all (beside the "mandatory" raid rotation).
Im very happy and optimistic to see what will be done here so thumbs up!

What I didn’t like:
-Pet rotation.
-Not using pets at all (beside the "mandatory" raid rotation).
-Blue line irrelevancy- I used to love it so much till Mordor nerf.
-Induction vs puddles -> they just don’t go together. if someone dont like to remove/reduce it there should be an option not to invest trait points in that direction.
-LM undefined role at 3 man *T5* -> and *before* gearing up from raids and events.
-So many dated and non-relevant LM & pet skills, traits and LI options: Wizard's Frost, Sign of Power: Command, Knowledge of the Lore-master, Sign of Power: Vigilance, Sign of Power: See All Ends, Pleasant Breeze, Fire Shield, etc.

Regarding LM DPS at T2+:
Too slow, too low, depended mostly on stationary mobs and long "preparations" (Tar, Catmint, raven, staff sweep, inner flame, spreading BE for cash-out etc.) at the time it's done the mobs might be already dead from other players, went to other places during fight or you find yourself standing in puddles and need to start all over again.
LM at dailies is so frustrating slow and annoying what makes it non relevant and not worth the time effort (at least for me…).

What I would like to change:
-Second LM role for T5 raid:

1. DD rLM: as an AOE tactical DD, unlike the tactical glass canon type. Sure, it will have advantages and disadvantages during boss fights what will add another layer and flexibility options to any raid leaders. For example, taking down *fast* boss adds (not trash) with relatively slow boss moral reduction vs the opposite. With that- suppress all debuffs, buffs and healing skills while keep only DPS attributes.
2. Buff bLM: ***my preference***, it will still need another yLM in the raid but instead of one DD it will compensate the raid with buffs for damage only (damage, crit, mastery, skill speed, cd reduction etc.). OnnMacMahal, think on all your customers that paid for DD role- think about all the excitement there will be when we will see and share on discord the dps parses that can be achieve *only* with bLM.

- LM influence: I would like very much to influence my pet stat/skills/abilities with the LM Gear build he chooses and wear (using mainly stats build and not by gear "sets").
- Pet development: like the war steed or any "LI" it can be develop and oriented for different goals like Tanking, DPS or Support (buff, debuff or heal). It will add into the LM definition another layer of complexity and game play diversity.
- Bear: must have the ability to aggro more than one target.
- Spirit: make it a better healing pet by changing Nature light into direct healing skill for fellow/raid.
- Catmint should be passive skill.
- LM Rez in combat skill (not related to any pet).

looking forward positively to see what will be done here.
Thanks
Mel

[GokuSS400]

Hi everyone, I’d like to kick off a conversation about Lore-masters. Lore-masters (along with yellow-line Burglars) have long filled a unique 'support' function in role and group composition, as evidenced by the dominance of the yellow ‘Ancient Master’ line. However, ‘support’ can mean different things to different players or in difference contexts, and the Ancient Master is only one of three possible trait lines available to Lore-masters. So let’s start talking about Lore-masters: what the class does well, what things bug you, and what you might feel needs a bit of improvement. I’m also going to post some preliminary thoughts and questions below about specific aspects of the class, including pets, DPS skills and ability, and support-primary skills and mechanics, to help guide the discussion.



Pets (more than just the Keeper of Animals trait line)
Do you engage with the ‘pet rotation’? If yes, how do you feel about it? Do you like that it adds activity or raises the skill ceiling, or do you find it overwhelming or even tedious?

Do you find yourself using different pets in different circumstances? Do you feel like your pets actively contribute to your gameplay and your Lore-master fantasy? Do you have opportunities to use the pets you like, stylistically? Or do mostly find yourself locked into a few types, either statically or in a constant ‘pet rotation’ (ie: Catmint raven, boglurker, bear).

Some of you may have guessed at this, but we’re eyeing some changes to pets similar to the changes made to captain pets in U35. Primarily, that would mean a pet summoning cooldown, which would limit your ability to use any given pet skill repeatedly (ie: bypassing the pet skill cooldowns by dismissing and resummoning the pet itself). Like captain heralds, this would still allow you to immediately resummon a pet that you have had out for a while (long enough for its cooldown time to fully elapse) but it would prevent you from using pet skills more than twice in a row without waiting for either the individual skill’s cooldown or the pet summoning cooldown.



DPS
A DPS-oriented Lore-master has some interesting skills and mechanics, but your overall repertoire of damaging skills can sometimes feel quite thin. Are there things you like about the current damage potential at your disposal? What frustrates you when trying to prioritize DPS? Reliance on induction skills? A dependency on tar + catmint raven to maintain high output? Waiting for cooldowns when Burning Embers is already tiered up and Lighting Strike/Storm are on cooldown? What do you like about your core damage rotation? What do you wish you did better?



The Ancient Master – Support-first Lore-master
The Ancient Master line is often the de-facto primary trait setup for Lore-masters, but that doesn’t mean it is above reproach. While LMs are primarily sought after in raid groups, instances, and PvP for their support capacity, that doesn’t mean the ‘support-first’ LM has no room for improvement. For those of you who live and breathe yellow-LM, what do you like about the class and the role? What do you wish were different? Are you frustrated by the fact that your long-mez is also your interrupt skill? Does Water-lore-stacking provide you with something to steadily cycle into your skills, or does it feel like too much necessary upkeep? Do you feel like you contribute meaningfully to the group in moments where there are few/no adds to CC or manage? Do you just wish you had a Wizards Lightning skill to reapply your preferred 'Out in the Cold' or 'Playng with Fire' debuffs?





Edit: Just wanted to update this top post to note that we are not planning to remove the Support role or identity from the Lore-master. Many of you have expressed that you enjoy playing a support class, and that this is part of a group dynamic that makes LotRO unique.

So I'm a longtime Lore-master player, LM was the first class I really got into and took to 50, then 60, and so on...my LM is currently in the 130 range; and I've lived and breathed that life dating all the way back to the good ol days of Angmar and Moria.

So let's get into your questions here shall we? and I apologize ahead of time if I seem to jump around a lot in terms of topics instead of keeping it more organized, I'm typing as things come to me.

So to give context for how I play my LM, I currently have the Fury of Nature setup as the chosen traitline and then have dipped into Keeper of Animals and Ancient master a bit with my remaining skill points. Now as far as DPS goes, I feel that unfortunately we are rather underpowered. Now when I say that, I'm strictly talking in terms of my experiences. The fact that we're a squishy class comes with the territory of being light armor of course. However, I do think overall damage could use a buff. I oftentimes forget about the Tar+fire combo to be perfectly honest, because tar's range and area affected only really helps with melee mobs. I think as it stands a LM's rotation has TOO MANY options and abilities. For the record, I have 3 milestone skills, my return to Rivendell skill, and my skirmish soldier summon/direct skills slotted, along with my warhorse, and regular horse...on my hotbars. Those combined with all the LM skills, I have 3 completely full hotbars.

For what it's worth, I don't really cycle through pets. I generally stick with one or two. I use bog lurker for solo/dps and Boar spirit for grouping (especially if using yellow line traits). One thing i'm just a little upset about is moving Eagle to being exclusive to the blue line. I really liked using the eagle.

What I do like about the DPS line is how it looks or feels like it's meant to revolve around Burning Embers, which is intended to be your opening skill. However, the overall cooldowns of skills besides burning embers do not quite reflect that same feel or intent.

In regards to Yellow and slightly in-general too...Cure all Wounds needs to either have its cooldown shortened by like half, be applicable group-wide again, or both. Handling disease and wounds in group settings has is one role for the Lore-Master that dates back all the way back to Angmar and Moria. Now conversely, if you don't want to adjust Knowledge of Cures, then we need a motivating reason to NOT cure things. I don't personally remember the mechanics of it, but in Lost Temple for example there was a mechanic that motivated you not to cure diseases (someone mentioned this in another thread here on the forums). As far as other things in this trait line...Water-Lore is a GOD SEND. My only request for it is that it be unlocked earlier for Lore-masters, to help improve survivability, because this is ultimately our only self-heal. If that's not possible to change to being an earlier unlock, then Beacon of Hope needs to become a useable on yourself. While healing is not one of our primary roles in groups, having beacon and water-lore enable us to provide one-off heals that assist the healer. Buffing these would broaden Loremasters' options in game in terms of survivability and group content.

In group settings for yellow, if there's not a huge need for debuffs/CC then yeah we have very little to do except refreshing debuffs and such.

Overall, I think LM's need more damage output. I don't necessarily think that putting them on par with Hunters whose role in the group IS dps, but putting them on par with Runekeepers and Minstrels in terms of damage output would suffice imo.

edit: More of our skills could use interrupt effects. So far, Light of the Rising Dawn, Storm Lore, Blinding Flash, and Ents Go To War do interrupts.

Granted, these days I've mostly left my LM to the side in favor of my hunter, because I find that Hunter has significantly more survivability, less clutter on the hotbars, and is a lot faster at taking down dailies.

[GokuSS400]

I agree. Water-lore should probably drop down to at least level 50, given how impactful it is for the class.

That's a huge step in the right direction. However I would argue though that also making Beacon of Hope useable on yourself could also be an option as well (mind you I don't know what the inner workings of the skills are, especially those that come from the Angmar days). But if Beacon were useable on yourself that adds in a lower level version of Water-Lore that we can use in periods where Survivability is more difficult.

So overall mind you, my feedback on early days (levels) for Lore-masters is pretty much exclusively based on what I experienced in the First Age of LOTRO (I like to think of expansions as ushering in new ages ) when Angmar was endgame, so I don't know how much that has changed.

The early levels of 1 - 20 or even extending to 30, are the hardest for survival on LM's I found. You pretty much had to take mobs on one at a time, have your pet attack first and hold aggro because you were too squishy to be able to attack first. Once you got the bear pet, things were a little bit easier than with the Raven, as bears were/are tank pets.

I know a lot of focus is on midgame and endgame, but we shouldn't completely forsake or forget to try and smooth out some of the edges in early game too. In my opinion, early game is pretty much all of Shadows of Angmar these days. In the days before Moria though, 1 - 20 was early, and 30 - 40 was mid. 40 - 50 you spent mastering your class.

Ofc now there's a lot more time left open for one to master their class and what their role is, but I think that we should give some consideration to survivability of light armor classes in the 1 - 30 areas and range. Just my thought.

[Tatharil]

I'll focus on my most important points.

1. Return flanking to its former glory. Lowlvl selfheal is low, because flankheals are rubbish now. They used to heal as much as an on level morale potion, nowadays it's a bad joke. Flanked staffs trike bonus damage is rather weak, more importantly staffstrike lacks master of the staff's crit bonus, damage Bonus and crit damage Bonus.

2. Old windlore and deep lore.

[Loox]

Possible fellowship buffs for B-LM

Inner Flame

Don't You Touch Him

Hearty Diet

Loyalty

Feral

Peerless Wisdom

Critical Coordination

Fellowship Friend buffs could be increased

By making a group stronger there would be no need to change the solo balance or re-write skill trees.

[Vilan]

2. Old windlore and deep lore.

They already nerfed the raven's Distraction. AOE -50% ranged debuffs are never returning. Was nice while it lasted though.

Is OnnMM still out there listening? Starting to wonder if the outcome of everyone's input will just be a few random tweaks and pet beards.

[-Tanyc-]

They already nerfed the raven's Distraction. AOE -50% ranged debuffs are never returning. Was nice while it lasted though.

Is OnnMM still out there listening? Starting to wonder if the outcome of everyone's input will just be a few random tweaks and pet beards.

Distraction nerf is just another reason to bring back Wind-lore!
I wouldn't even mind if both ranged debuffs get removed, distraction debuff and the fire-lore / lightning -50% combo.
I'd prefer 50% Wind-lore over the other 2 ranged debuffs every time (even if they give a total of 70% debuff)..

[Jula]

Distraction nerf is just another reason to bring back Wind-lore!
I wouldn't even mind if both ranged debuffs get removed, distraction debuff and the fire-lore / lightning -50% combo.
I'd prefer 50% Wind-lore over the other 2 ranged debuffs every time (even if they give a total of 70% debuff)..

Something equivalent to Fire Lore would be more than adequate. In fact, making Fire Lore work against all Physical damage (melee and ranged) and Frost for Tactical would be smashing if no plans to alter Wind Lore. Happy to give up other sources of ranged debuff under the circumstances.