Aaand we’re back! Out of the cold, barren, desolate wasteland that is the Sabertooth’s skillset*, and into the bright, warm, soothing glow of the Eagle. The big thing we will be talking about in this edition is this; Is the Eagle worth the legendary trait slot it takes up? To begin, let’s take a look at the Eagle’s abilities.
Skills
The first skill available to the Eagle is Fan the Flames. How it works is that when used on a target that has at least one Burning Embers DOT on it, it will remove all of them and apply a fifteen second fear. Fan the Flames has a one minute and thirty second cooldown.
Now until the writing of this article I personally had not made much use of this skill. Having played around with it some though, I can conclude that it has a huge amount of potential. As dodgy as fears can be(what with the mob running off and bring a bunch of his friends back with him), having that extra bit of CC in reserve is a huge benefit, particularly since it is not affected by the period of immunity caused by stuns.
On a additional note, it may be quite useful in the Ettenmoors, as fears have their own category of diminishing returns along with the fact that a good amount of creeps will not be carrying fear pots due to the only method of buying them being with Commendations. It could be a very nasty surprise for those not familiar with the Lore-Master, getting feared would be most unexpected. Naturally this skill cannot be set on autofire, you must activate it yourself.
The second skill the Eagle gets is Beak Rend. Unfortunately this one is rather lackluster in comparison to the first. It’s on the same cooldown, but is instead an AOE damage skill that also heals the pet for each target it hits, up to three. Not very enthralling when you consider that the LM can easily heal the eagle themselves if they get low, on top of the flank heals that you should be getting continuously. Overall, not very good. Leave on autofire or don’t, either way there isn’t much benefit from it.
The third and final skill is probably the one the Eagle is most famous for, Sacrifice. This is a very nifty ability. What it does is, upon its master being defeated, the Eagle will sacrifice itself(hence the name) and allow you to be revived where you fell. This is *amazing* for when you die in a hard to reach quest objective, far from a rez circle. This even works in the Moors, meaning that you get a second chance to bring down the enemy that defeated you.
However, there are requirements to get this skill to fire off correctly. Firstly, the Eagle itself must be in combat otherwise it won’t do anything. Second, the Eagle must be within 40m of your crumpled, humiliated body. Last, getting revived this way places an effect on you that prevents you from getting Eagle-vived again for a whole ten minutes, so it cannot be used continuously. It is advisable to leave this on autofire, because why the heck wouldn’t you?
Aside from its skills, the Eagle also has an aura similar to the Raven, Nobility, that provides a small(+120 at level cap) boost to your In-combat Power Regen. With the changes to how Power works, this is less enticing than it used to be. Still, a buff is a buff, and it applies to your entire group as well.
The Stats
Enough of the fancy pants skills, how is the Eagle on a statistical level? Well, in terms of damage it’s not great. Coming in near the bottom of the pack, it’s higher than the Raven and slightly lower than the Sabertooth. When taking damage in return it’s tougher than the Raven and Sabertooth, and just below the Bog-Lurker. This is somewhat offset by the Eagle’s higher than normal Morale pool, however(fully buffed it tops out at 16k).
But where the Eagle really excels is in its flank rate. It comes out as either the highest or second highest, depending on where the Bog Lurker is at range or in melee. From a personal point of view I would say it is definitely more reliable as a source of flanks. You should expect a flank around every fifteen seconds, give or take a few.
The Verdict
And so we come to the end, and we answer the original question; is the Eagle worth the trait slot? Well, I would say it depends heavily on how you trait. With some wrangling, you can make space for it without giving up too much(I will talk about this in a future article). If it’s flanks you want, then I definitely suggest it, as it’s less painful to get than the Lurker, and is far and above the Raven. The fear ability is quite nifty and for those who tend to die a lot the rez may be a very good time saver in the long run.
Where I would recommend using it is for single boss mobs especially, where the flanks will be pivotal and a better option for survivability than the bear or raven. As mentioned earlier it could be good for the Moors, provided you can make up for the Tact Mit you lose by not having the Raven out.
In short, yes. Maybe. Sort of. Kinda. Possibly.
Isn’t that a cop out answer, I hear you ask? Well…
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Bog Lurker next!
*I read you guys’ points on the Sabertooth, by the way. You made some good arguments, but I still can’t see myself using it much, if at all. Besides, it’s so much fun verbally abusing the thing. It’s like the Baldrick of LOTRO.
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Thanks for these articles. For while, I’ve kept my LM sitting in Aughaire at 42. While I don’t consider myself personally fond of the gameplay style, you’ve just about convinced me to keep going so I can try out some of the later pets (plus, I think she has a bunch of the pet skins clogging her inventory!).
Funny, I got stuck at 42 for almost a year (in Aughaire!). I don’t know if it was the LM or Angmar that I was avoiding. Well, now I’m almost done with Moria at lvl 59 and am having much more fun with it. I like the Eagle a lot, and have been using it almost exclusively while soloing. The flanks are worth it in my opinion.
I’ve enjoyed these articles too, I wished I’d been able to read them while I was levelling up my LM 😉
I have to say, I really liked the eagle while I was levelling, the interrupt (thought it had one… could be wrong) and the flanking were really helpful (and unlike the bear, it didn’t sit on the loot either… 😉 though with auto loot that is not such a problem now)
Now I’m at cap, I hardly use it. I do miss it though 🙂
Yes you’re right, the Eagle does interrupt. I just forgot to mention it in the article, derp. >_<
It's not a pet I make frequent use of either. For solo content it's either the Raven or the Lynx for me.
Great job as always!
Flanking used to be vital to surviving tough content or for soloing stuff you weren’t meant to solo. Once you hit 77 and get water-lore though, flanking is only really good for extra damage on staff strike. You certainly won’t need the heal or power restore options. It kinda takes away from the high flank rate pets after that level.
I thought a bit when you asked “is the Eagle worth the expense of a legendary slot” in your article.
For the most part, I’m not really thrilled that some pets are legendary traits and some pets aren’t. A pet should be a pet should be a pet. I’m definitely NOT a happy camper about the bog guardian pet because that’s one spot that hogs SIX trait slots by the time you put in the five blue line traits to just allow you to slot in the Bog Guardian legendary.
My own wish would just be that pets were all treated as pets but Combat Summoning alone would be the capstone trait for the blue line.
Back to the eagle though… As a pet, I don’t like him as a legendary trait slot. BUT, given that his major strength and what makes him shine is the Sacrifice skill giving the LM an awesome self-rez skill, I can see putting a self-rez skill as a legendary trait.
I haven’t used my eagle in a while, but I remember it having a ‘hidden’ skill: Eyepeck which interrupts inductions. I did Moria with my Eagle and that ability was incredibly handy to have with those self-healing orc berserkers which after their skill heal and become immune to damage for a while.
Thank you. I have one LM who is always solo, another who is always in a group, and he’s been using the Raven for the tactical mitigation. I think I’ll keep my solo LM with his Raven. I don’t think I’m willing to give up so many traits I trust to get the bog-lurker. These articles are very helpful. What Inge says, goes for me, too. Those interruptions are very important.