Update

Three months have past since my last update (not post, updates are a more general post). I use these posts to reflect what has happened since.

Then I had tried my first attempts at multi-boxing the school and library for Superior Third Marks. The weeks following that update-post, I have successfully run school and library loads of times while using thee accounts (triple-boxing with Captain (main) Hunter and Minstrel).

I stopped doing those runs, when I ran out of Legendary Fragments which are needed for crafting Legendary Items. I did spend about 200 gold, almost everything I had, on the Auction Hall to buy them (at about 3 gold a piece). So before the Echoes of the Dead update, I was broke.

The plan was to get at least two level 65 2nd Age Items for every of my main character. To make things a bit more challenging, I wanted them to have four Pool A legacies.

Sadly, I run out of cash, before I could achieve this. I did manage to get about 14 of them which is not too bad.

Since then, I was able to sell quite a few Legendary Items, some even have four Pool A legacies which are not producible anymore since the update and fetch quite some money on the Auction Hall.
At least at the moment, I have enough cash again, I even donated some gold to the poor tanks in our kin.
I've been in a lot of Ost Dunhoth raids. I missed the first few, but have been in almost every one since. We go to OD about six time per week.

Right now, we are working on our tactics on Gortheron, something I will write more about in a future post.
I have won two Symbols of the Elder King for a level 65 First Age Legendary Item. One I used for my Hunter to get him a bow, the second one I used for my Burglar. The bow is maxed out. The dagger for my Burglar is still missing the "Trick Range"-Legacy. I have been trying to get it for some time, but have run out of Item Experience Runes.

So I am running the Enedwaith repeatable quests on my Burglar to get ixp. The barter items and reputation are a welcome addition. I miss some skirmish marks to get the complete Epic Helegrod set for my Burglar. Taking him to the moors will be a priority.

I didn't have time to work on my Warden, I have started do some runs on my Guardian. I wish, my Captain had more to do during fights...

About my blog, my first post was on November 3rd 2010. My main blog is http://funfactfiction.blogspot.com/ and contains all of the LotRO post as well as some others.

Out of the 200 post there, 70 are LotRO related. I also have some games-, book- and movie-reviews as well as some other fun topics. Political comments can also be found there.

Most hits got a post about some 3D pictures of sexual positions.  This is after all the Internet. And are we really surprised, that I got most hits for that site from Pakistan and India?

I also run two other blogs, one about sex on the Internet and one about politics.

Back to this site. Thanks to http://combo.mmeow.net/ I have 2'500 page views, 1'300 of them in April 2011. Thanks a lot! There is a lot of interest about Ost Dunhoth and I will share some thoughts and tactics.
More than half of my visitors are from the USA followed by UK, Germany and Canada. 40 percent use FireFox, 30 percent Internet Explorer, 15 percent Chrome. 85 percent use Windows, 5 percent Mac, 3 percent iPhone and 2 percent Linux.

I would like to get more comments or feedback. Any idea how?

Frothmar (Ost Dunhoth, Poison) on Tier 2 and Challenge done!

Frothmar is an other fight I like. And finally, after loads of tries, we managed to get him down.

The twelve people are split up in four groups of three. One of each group stays on the platform most of the time. We used healers for the far two platforms (from the entry) and Hunters for the close two. Setup is two tanks (again, probably Guardians), two Captains, two healers (probably Minstrels). These stay close to the door on the other side of the room.

The rear needs one healer (we used a Rune-Keeper) and a Lore-Master. The rest are dps, Hunters probably are best (high range). They can either stand in the center or to the left and right of the room, between the platforms.

To not fail the challenge, someone has to stay on the platform at any time of the fight. This means, you can't loose a platform, which happens when more than two people stand on a platform, or two people stand on the platform for too long.

Knock-backs seem to be the highest risk to fail the challenge, so those not standing on the platform should stay far away from them as possible (in the center) and the switching should happen after knock-backs.

It is not an extremely difficult fight, but it is very easy to fail it, as it only takes one mistake. So if you have laggy Internet-connection, this might not be the fight for you...

Even though the sentiment in the kin was not to do it again, I would really like to keep doing or at least keep trying it. Again, I don't think this is difficult to do. If you fail, you can reset the fight easily. The fight itself does not take very long. It just takes some practice and a lot of concentration.

Doing this challenge was very rewarding. Not only because I got my second Symbol of the Elder King which I used for a First Age Burglar Dagger.

I had thought long, what I should do with the symbol. I have a First Age Bow for my Hunter which is maxed out. On my Minstrel, Rune-Keeper and Captain, I have lots of ixp-runes. My Minstrel is one of my mains, but we have a lot of Minstrels at the moment. As I usually have been asked to either bring my Hunter, Burglar or Lore-Master, the choice was between the Burglar or the Lore-Master.

If I win a next Symbol, I might go Lore-Master or Minstrel or Captain. As I already have won two symbols and lots of people haven't won one, I am not sure, if I should roll on the next few symbols. An idea would be to roll on them, but if I win one, to pass on it, so that if I won a forth roll, I could get a third symbol.

What is coming next?

After the Echoes of the Dead Update, which I like very much, the first news of the next updates emerge.

Update 3, sadly we don't have a name yet, will offer two 3-man instances and two skirmishes which are scaled up to level 65.

One of the new instances is called "Inn of the Forsaken" and has a pirate theme offering new armor, weapons and pocket items as rewards.

The other one is "The Halls of Night" and is an other haunted Barrow with a focus on traps. Rewards here are new armor, jewelry and cosmetic items.

The skirmishes, will be in Dol Dinen in North Downs and called "Attack at Dawn". The other one is "Icy Crevasse" in, who would have guessed, in Forochel. Both are offense skirmishes.

Source

Isengard will bring the level-cap to 75. Which will make everything we have now be useless. I would have rather gone for a five level step or two five level steps with some months in-between.

There might be a new level of crafting. I had expected this, not sure, what the name of the tier is going to be.

There will be a lot of chapters in the Isengard Epic update, more than thirty. Even though the Epic books usually are just a small part of the actual released content, I like to do them on all my characters.

The 24-man Raid will be about a giant dragon. Not to sure how much I like this. I recognize the restrictions on the lore but still would like to have a more diverse bestiary. Saruman would have been my target for a Raid in Isengard...

PvP will probably get no new zone and opening Monster Play to F2Pers will continue to reduce the value of VIPs and Lifetimers...

We will hear more about Isengard at E3, which will take place on June 7 - 9, 2011.

For the next few months, there seems to be a nice stream of content. Besides the new instances and skirmishes and the new regions, there will be smaller events keeping the players happy.

I have been running a lot of the Ost Dunhoth instances and still want to do some of the three- and six-mans from the latest update. I got two First-Agers (Hunters-Bow and Burglar-Dagger) and am not sure, if I should/am allowed to roll on more coins (would be happy with three more ;).

4th Anniversary Review

Again, we on the old side of the pond got the worse deal. Turbine listened to the complains of the players about the huge grind for the tokens and added them in the lotteries which Codemasters is not able/willing to offer.

I wanted to have the maps, so I knew I had to grind 160 tokens (8*20). As I didn't wan to waste too much time, I triple-boxed the bar-fight. Of course, this works only during the night, as there is less competition.

So this Easter weekend, I had little sleep, at least at night. Which was a pity, as the weather was fine. But at least I got the maps and as they are tradable, this will get me closer to the deed Cartographile.

CStM has discovered, that the other maps seem to be available during the next four festivals. There even seem to be maps of the other regions of Middle-Earth and one of the whole of Middle-Earth. So finishing this deed, will take more than a year. Back to the festival.

In Europe, the only way to get tokens was the races and the beer-fight. The races are fun, even though I have done them so many times, that I can almost do them blindfolded. Sadly, they can only be done once a day, so maximal two tokens from them.

So even if you do the races every day, you will not get enough tokens to get the horse and you have to join the bar-fight. The dreaded bar-fight.

The first few times, it can be fun. But after an hour or so, I just wanted to get my tokens. So getting the beer but being hit out of the arena and dropping it wasn't fun the first time, and it became more and more annoying the next few times.

So instead of wasting my time, I started doing the fight at around midnight and kept fighting till the sun went up. With the three accounts, I at least got three tokens per run, which made the grind a bit more bearable. I even got the horse, even though I don't like the design very much. The toy windmill is very nice, the large one still is missing its blades, but they should be added with the next update.

What I didn't get yet, are the cosmetics. The cloak is OK, especially when it is dyed, the dresses, I could do without. I am still not sure, if I am going to try to get them.

There was some discussion going on in kin, if deliberate kicking people out of the arena is griefing. I was in the minority saying yes. It might be fun, to do it once or twice, but after a bit, you just want to get your tokens and go to bed. During the night, there was an understanding to be friendly to each other as everyone could get a token each round. During the day, things were a bit more chaotic and heated.

Last but not least, the verdict. Even though some of the rewards are nice, the toy windmill and the windmill being the best, the grind is enough to make you sick. The race and the bar-fight are not new to the game, the maps are nice, but not much work to do, the cosmetics are ok, if you are an elf but the huge grind overshadows the rewards. Ten being best, I would give this festival a 3/10.

Durin's Bane (Ost Dunhoth, Fear) on Tier 2 and Challenge done!

Gentlemen, we got him!

After a lot (and I mean a lot) of wipes during several evening, we finally managed to slay Durin's Bane on Tier 2 and complete the Challenge.

To be honest, I had my doubts, that we were able to do it. Luck did play a very minor role, tactics worked and noone made a big mistake. On the first try, I ran off the platform after the first pool. That was embarassing.

In the next runs we managed to work on tactics and after some wipes, the first people announced that they would leave soon. We dropped one Burglar for an additional Minstrel and started the fight.

Soon the first kinnies (including myself) disconnected from ventrilo and we switched to ingame-voice. Things got a bit heated as most of the platform was covered with fire-pools.

The last few ten thousand morale were nerve-wrecking. One of our tanks died seconds before Durin's Bane and one of the two chests spawned on top of him...

I won a high-dps mace for my Burglar (off-hand) and two settings and a rune. We got two coins for the Ost Dunhoth armour, a rather crappy piece of jewelery and a purple armour which I didn't even want as a cosmetic.

Some of these new instances favour certain set-ups.

Two tanks are a must. Either two Wardens or two Guardians. Guardians seem to work better.
Two Minstrels for main healing, two Captains, two Rune-Keepers (do not Fall to Flame).
Two Burglars and one Lore-Master, for debuffs and power.

This leaves one spot open. We used a Champion, Hunter would have been better. Or a third Rune-Keeper.

It will be fun to try other set-ups. When more people get first-agers, this could leave room for changes.

Where are we? We did three wings on Tier 2 with the Challenge and an other wing on Tier 2. The fifth wing seems to be doable, but Gortheron will not be easy. We might even go back to Barad Guldur (yay, more stairs) and to Dar Narbugud. I don't mind running those two instances, especially as the DN set is still quite nice and BG can also be desireable.

I have brought Minstrel, Rune-Keeper, Lore-master, Hunter and Burglar to Durin's Bane. I want to get my Guardian raid-ready. I have not used him a lot but he is fun to play. And tanking is the one thing, I haven't tried much yet.

Mammoths (Ost Dunhoth, Wounds) on Tier 2

Sadly we did not manage to get the Challenge. We did manage to kill one Mammoth in time. Does not seem impossible to do, but will take some more practice.

We learned a lot. For one, when you finish the fight, you can walk back through the corridors and see, that the gates and levers are actually colour-coded. So:

The middle (green) lever opens the right gate,
the right (purple) lever opens the left gate,
the left (orange) lever opens the middle gate,
the middle (blue) lever opens the left gate,
the left (purple) lever opens the right gate and last but not least,
the right (white) lever opens the middle gate.

Even the first gate has the same colour as the gates, which houses the mammoths.

Balancing the dps is a bit of a challenge as you don't want people to have to wait for other groups pulling their levers.

Baleleaf and Dourbark (Ost Dunhoth, Disease) on Tier 2 with Challenge done!

We have been fighting and failing with the Balrog. I have my ideas why, but am not going to share them.

Even though I would have liked to go back to kick Durin's Bane in his softer parts (if he has any), it was decided to do the disease wing next.

I like, how there is no more real trash and that the groups up to the boss are challenging and fun.

Baleleaf and Dourbark are the two bosses and as their name suggests, they are trees. The first phase of the fight is quite short and consists of damaging the trees. This will make your target cover you with sap, which 'marks' you.

Soon three bog-lurker beasts activate. The tank needs to grab them from the tree he was not attacking and bring them over to the tree he was attacking. Two of them can be killed fast, the last one of each group should be killed at the same time.

As soon as all six of them are dead, everyone hits the original target till the trees once again get protected by the bog-lurkers. Tanks need to grab them again at the other tree, but this time, they need to be killed at the same time (all six of them).

So dps them down but not kill them at once (watch your aoe attacks). When the team is ready, kill all of them quickly and attack the tree again.

If you want to get the challenge, you are only allowed to kill twelve of the bog-lurkers, so you need to pump out a lot of damage during the three dps-phases.

We needed some tries, but finally managed to do it. I won the First-Age-Symbol and this is the bow I made. Luckily, I did have enough ixp-runes to get it to level 70 and enough scrolls to max it out.

It is a bit sad, than in about half a year, the bow will be replaced again by a level 70 third age weapon, but that is the way these games work.