Mordor 21.2 Beta 3: Shields and other news

 

If you thought that we are getting shields for Metalsmiths, then you will be disappointed. There will be shields we can get by playing the new instances. The purple version of the shields we will be able to barter for a Silver Signet of the Armsmaster and the teal version for a Gold Signet of the Armsmaster. But I do have some remarks about the shields. They aren’t really made that different for different builds. And the same goes for light cloaks too. With the cloaks they seem to have gone in the same direction as with the teal item drops from Talath Urui and Agarnaith, having exactly the same stats.

For Warden shield it’s easy to find what is wrong with it. I would like block rating removed from the dps Warden shield and swapped for finesse. Maybe add Light of Earendil on the shields too, since off-hand weapons have it.

For Minstrel shield, it’s not only one change that I would make. For the dps shield, I’d remove block and add finesse. For the healing shield, I’d also remove block completely and swapp it for critical rating. The cloaks we would get from the Alliance barterer are exactly the same and have a stat less because they now have two essence slots instead of one. Might not need to change anything, since critical rating is good for either role and you’d probably get more mastery by slotting it, than what you would get if they made 2 different cloaks, one with critical rating and one with mastery, for example.

I haven’t made screen shots of all the off-hands, but for now the Will ones appear to be missing.

There have been some other changes in the Beta 3 build, but not too significant when it comes to gameplay. Bosses still bug, there is still too much trash between boss one and two in Dungeons of Naerband, and there is still this constant line of sight issue that prevents us from doing certain skills, either healing, removing effects from our fellowship, etc. So, it’s Beta 3 and the biggest difference we could feel in the instances was that the items that are supposed to drop are now in the boxes. But, hey, we have Baggins birthdays, Farmers fare and Summer festival fixed. Well, whoopty-do. [sarkasm]Thank you very much. It was very important to work on those, while the “cluster” is still not done.[/sarkasm] Why in Eru’s name are we testing this IN THE BETA BUILD IN OCTOBER?!! At least make it one of the silent changes, it’s not like you don’t know how to do those, SSG.

A good quality of life addition was the removing of the quest to advance your crafting. Just recently I had put one of my characters to craft and thought I’d be back in time to stop and go do the quest. Well, I forgot about it and all the mats were gone and I was only proficient. This is a long overdue change that should have happened with all the crafting facilities becoming superior ones.

I am still advocating against the relics that are used for advancing allegiance being used as new barter items. For an old barterer that has his own currency, this should not have been changed this fast and Tokens of Service, which are now a reward from some other quests too, should have stayed relevant.

Other than that, there’s not really much to talk about. There have been some changes to the icons. Now the filter icons don’t look like funnels, but like a symbol of a person, solo and a group. And the symbols for the quests, items and sounds are also changed now. A new Rune for your Legendary item has been introduced as a drop from instances. I would much rather have a crafted relic I could swap, so hopefully, they’ll do something in that department. Also, similar to wisps in North Ithilien, fragments are now introduced as an additional option of obtaining the keys, but these will be bound to you. These will be the rewards from the new daily requests.