Many of lotro’s biggest villians are from a time where ancient evil was still just evil. Villians from the books cant be defeated. Isuldur cut off the finger from Sauron, not hobbit #34. And the balrog was banished by Gandalf at the cost of his own life, not legowlassie. And lotro came in a time where players time became more limited.
Instances became a balance of time and difficulty. Making a raid with 6 hours of thrash mobs befween bosses wasn’t going to entertain and keep your players playing. Lotro gave us our first two raids that had no thrash mobs and only one boss.
History – Lotro and iconic moments
Lotro has always take the sidetrack in the story of the War of the ring. The home runs are reserved for the epic story line. Having an iconic moment is not as iconic if you can do it repeatably. The fight against the Balrog or Sauron is not made for mere mortals. And Bard defeated Smaug, not us.Single or final boss raids, epic story or skirmishes are the way we get to meet these moments. Sometimes we get to partake as evil itself through a session play. Treasure these moments or relive them through a reflecting pool near you.
Vile maw (watcher)
Before entering Moria the fellowship found themself some tentacles in a deep pool. These same tentacles you find at the start of your journey into Moria. As you help the dwarves retake moria you will find them again near Zigilburk. While you won;t be able to kill the watcher himself due to the books. You get the chance to fight him finally in the depths of the Waterworks.
Dont disturb the water
The watcher would be the most intense and multi-stage fight since Mordrith in Carn dum of Thaurlach in the rift. Fighting your way through small arms up to the his larger tentacles and freeing your raid members their clutches.Trying to keep your head above water and not being crushed by falling support beams or the dread and aura that this creature of forgotten times was just the middle part.
Your group had the gear, tactics and legendary items to make it that far. The watcher has had enough of it. Power depleted on everyone he upped the ante and dash up the damage when he gets enraged. Many a raid were calculating their DKP or loot rules only to be stomped in the last bit of the fight. The watcher gave his business card as a engaging, short single boss fight that still proved a real challenge (as long as you wern’t overleveled or geared)
Is daddy home?
Filikul (turtle)
Bigger then a balrog and a fraction of the evil. You get to fight a giant turtle. Not the first big turtles, but still a massive turtle. The turtle was a boss introduced later in the expansion. A new thing to kill, catered to give you second age or even a first age weapon. It was a juicy carrot, but you had to really get geared. Prove yourself worthy of this kind of weaponry and power.
Filikul was purely a fight against time that you couldn’t overcome with tactics. A stacking aura that over time would just strip your healers to their underwear. More healing would just give you a minute extra, your tanks splitting the chomps he did on your armour or having your damage group stack extra poison mitigation to lower the dots he dealt was one way to deal with it. Eventually you had to find better gear and run Moria and lothlorien instances to get enough radiance and mitigation to tackle him.
Draigoch
We’re going from the big cave of Moria to a smaller cave that a dragon resides. The first time a live dragon would appear in lotro. Enedwaith gave us Draigoch. The most flavorful and different of boss fights still in lotro. The journey down into its lair is devoid of bosses or mobs, but sits on top of killing list of any raid boss. Dragons breath will remind you what a piece of toast feels like in your toaster.
Every single part of the fight is a testament to communication, dedication and your burglar player that finally gets its moment to shine. Your tank that has to pay attention to where he will head next and warn your crew. Taking stabs at his legs while running through the tunnels where he cant reach you. Up, down and back as you learn the place. You have hurt the dragon enough and he falls down on the ground.
How does he get in and out?
Getting fellowship maneuvers and actually having the whole fellowship finishing the red and yellow puzzle. Grabbing the little bonuses that each finished maneuver provides as the extra incoming damage will start to make a dent in the humongous morale the little wum has.
Continuing this into stage 3 where he fights back and swipes his tail and crushed any hope you had if you found yourself in the wrong place. Retreating like rats into the tunnels as he spews fire and the gold coins start to hurt your feet. Your fellowship better stayed together and close to your healers.
The dragon is down an out or he bugged again. As challenging and fun the fight was. With all these lotro first mechanics it bugged out so many times that turbine spent as more time fixing this boss as they wouldn’t have to do until their next lotro first that would be the epic battles.
The next single boss fight?
Single boss fights or raids are a mixed blessing. It gives you the chance to create a hyper complex, rich and engaging fight. But these fights are balanced around a point in time. A level bump or next tier in gear can make all the hard work you done easy peasy. We have only seen a few of these fights in lotro at all. Over time we’ve gotten landscape versions in Rohan, with warbands and roving threats. But they reached the complexity or longterm rading stories of these 3.
Shelob is the next iconic enemy we expect to encounter. He wasn’t in Mordor, but Minas morgul was the 2nd option. Update 22.2 was supposed to be his place. But new instances has pushed him back along with Minas Morgul. A new raid is in the plans and wont be a massive one. Perhaps even 1 or 2 short/single boss ones. Will we get a giant squirrel or will it be a new complex Cold-dragon fight in the grey mountains? Only the developers and palantirs will know.
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