Level 100 Legendary Item Legacy Numbers

The current state of LI legacies numerically and how the proposed changes on Bullroarer Update 28.3 Preview #1 might affect you when Update 28.3 is released.

Important Caveat

The main sources for acquiring scrolls of empowerment discussed here are all ones available to solo players. There are additional ways to earn scrolls of empowerment if you have a group to run with, or if you don’t mind running with random groups, which can help reduce the grind. It is not for everyone though, and is not as reliable, so was not included in the math. More details on group content and why it was excluded from these calculations is included at the end of the post.

Current Level 100 Legendary Item Legacy Numbers

Regular LIs

It takes 12-28 scrolls of empowerment to max a regular LI regardless of level.

For level 100 LIs, before Minas Tirith, these scrolls can be obtained most readily from Dol Amroth Training Exercises and Osgiliath Culvert Daily Quests. Doing both daily would reward you with 3 scrolls of empowerment per day.

In 4-10 days, you would have a maxed regular LI.

After reaching Minas Tirith, you could have a maxed regular LI in 2-5 days, as the Minas Tirith dailies reward 6.5 scrolls per day.

Imbued LIs

When imbuement was first introduced, a new LI would require the regular 12-28 scrolls of empowerment. This would give them a soft cap of 31 with four unlockable tiers, which would cost an additional 28 scrolls of empowerment per LI to unlock. The total cost per LI would be 40-56 scrolls of empowerment, depending on how many scrolls were needed to max out all tiers before imbuement. Some quest rewards for the epic quests included scrolls of empowerment.

Within a few months, Minas Tirith was released, the legacy tiers were upgraded again, and each LI needed an additional 28 scrolls of empowerment. A new LI would require 68-84 scrolls of empowerment. Minas Tirith dailies guaranteed 6.5 scrolls per day for around an hour of play time. In 11-13 days you could max a new LI. In 22-26 days you could max both of your LIs and start participating in the instances and acquiring gear to participate in higher tiered instances.

On servers with a level cap of 130, the current cap for LI legacy tiers is 83. 37 of these are unlockable, and the lowest possible imbued legacy soft cap is 46. Each new LI costs 229-252 scrolls of empowerment. A character that used the Valar Level Boost – 120 to reach level 120 will have two brand new imbued LIs. Each will require 217 scrolls of empowerment to be maxed. Minas Tirith dailies are still the only way to acquire 6.5 scrolls per day for around an hour of play time. There are group options to supplement the grind, but they are not consistent and require a group. This means that the fastest way to max an LI currently is to spend 36-42 days in Minas Tirith doing the dailies. In 72-84 days you can have two maxed LIs and start participating in endgame instances to start getting better gear, if you have been improving your gear via questing as well as spending an hour a day in Minas Tirith for the past 72-84 days doing the Minas Tirith dailies.

Minas Tirith dailies more than doubled the previous possibilities for scrolls of empowerment obtainable in an hour of play. It is definitely time for another option that doubles the amount of scrolls available for an hour of play again, as the number of scrolls required has continued to increase exponentially. It would also be helpful because it is no longer possible to work on leveling up an LI while also getting armor and other gear upgrades from the same content.

LI Costs Always Multiply

At first glance, the change in tiers between 35 when LIs could first be imbued and 83 at level 130 doesn’t look too bad. It is only 48 tiers higher, and 11 of those are given to us for free. So there are only 37 unlockable tiers. Each tier unlock only works on one legacy, however, and there are 7 legacies on each LI. So the cost immediately jumps from 37 to 259. Using a scroll of delving will reduce that to 252, but a scroll of delving can only be used on an LI once.

Maybe 252 doesn’t sound bad either, but then you realize it is only for one LI. However, each character needs at least two LIs, and they cannot be maxed simultaneously as they both need the same resources. 42 days in Minas Tirith might not be too bad of a price to pay to be able to play endgame content, though it would be an increase of 162% in terms of time required to be able to play endgame content now vs. when the level cap was 100.

Unfortunately, 42 days in Minas Tirith is only half of the story for a class that only needs two LIs. It takes 84 days to have both LIs maxed and actually be ready for endgame content. For classes like Runekeepers and Captains, 42 days might only be 1/6th of the requirements for playing at endgame. A class needing 6 imbued LIs to be fully functional at endgame in any of their class roles will require 252 days in Minas Tirith before being truly ready for all endgame content where their LIs are concerned.

This means that the time it takes to get two weapons fit for endgame content has actually increased 323%. It will currently take a new player or alt nearly 3 months to have two weapons fit for endgame content. Those first three months of new content’s release are the ones in which everyone is questing and running endgame content at tier one, which is important for getting better gear, having chances to find groups that are doing what you want to do, and having chances of being saved if you accidentally get yourself into trouble. It is also important if you want to try higher tier content, or just be well geared before the next update so you can survive better on landscape or be able to run the endgame dailies for cool cosmetics and housing items.

What Bullroarer Update 28.3 Preview #1 Numbers Mean

While not finalized, Bullroarer Update 28.3 Preview #1 proposes making scrolls of empowerment even more difficult to obtain. The modified current proposal reads:

This would leave two reliable paths to maxing an LI. Remember, each new LI needs 229-252 scrolls of empowerment to reach its full potential, and each character needs at least two LIs.

Route 1: Run with the new legacy caps so you might have a chance of surviving the Elderslade battlefield when you get there or can buy it, as it is not yet available for LOTRO Points.

Stop 1: Minas Tirith Dailies

• Available at a rate of 6.5 scrolls per hour once a day, they would cap at tier 59
• 49-91 scrolls would be needed to bring all of an LI’s legacies to tier 59.
• 8-14 days would be required

Stop 2: Mordor Allegiance Dailies

• Available at a rate of 2 scrolls per day, they would cap at tier 74
• This is the only solo daily to grant a significant amount of motes of enchantment for roughly an hour of play time
• As all legacies would already be at 59, any LI would require 105 more scrolls at this tier
• 53 days of Mordor Allegiance Dailies would bring all legacies to tier 74

Stop 3: Tier 69 Scrolls

• These are reportedly going to be introduced as rewards for completing the Restoring the Three Kingdoms quest.
• This is not a daily quest, it is a biweekly quest. Hopefully the rewards will take that into consideration and have their quantity increased appropriately.
• If it doesn’t result in more than 2 scrolls per day, it is not worth it.
• These scrolls are also a lower tier than the ones acquirable from Mordor dailies, so may need to be skipped even if they reward more scrolls per day.
• These scrolls do not exist yet, however, so definitely skip this tier for now.

Stop 4: Tier 79 Scrolls

• There are no good ways for solo players to earn 1,000 embers of enchantment per day.
• These will reportedly be introduced as rewards from the Protecting the Beornings, Elves, & Woodmen quests in Vales of Anduin.
• These are biweekly quests as well. Hopefully that will be taken into consideration and the scroll drops will be increased appropriately.
• These scrolls do not exist in an earnable form yet, however, so skip this tier for now.

Stop 5: Tier 83 Scrolls

• This is for you if you have survived the Elderslade War of Three Peaks quest area and completed the quest: “A Call to War”
• Complete the “March on Gundabad: Additional Steps (Daily)” quest for 2 scrolls of empowerment
• All your legacies will be at tier 74 already, so all LIs at this step will need 63 scrolls of empowerment
• Spend 32 days completing this daily to fully max your LI

Total days required at roughly 1 hour of play time per day: 93-99 (Don’t forget to at least double these days for actual time required, as everyone needs at least two LIs. The real cost based on the information provided on this bullroarer build would be 186-198 days to have two LIs maxed and ready for endgame content.)

This is an increase of roughly 236% over the current rate in MT which is completable in 36-42 days of roughly 1 hour of play time per day to max one LI.

Compared to the time required to max two LIs when Minas Tirith was released, this is a roughly 707% increase in time needed to be able to even think about participating in endgame content.

Route 2: Start with the Elderslade Battlefield so you don’t have to worry about legacy tier caps or doing dailies in different places. This may work for you if you have survived the Elderslade War of Three Peaks quest area and completed the quest: “A Call to War”, though completing that without a maxed LI may prove extra difficult, especially if questing solo. This is probably best completed with an already imbued LI.

• Complete the “March on Gundabad: Additional Steps (Daily)” quest for 2 scrolls of empowerment
• You will need 217-252 scrolls of empowerment, so keep repeating this as often as possible

Total days required: 109-126 days (Don’t forget to at least double these days for actual time required, as everyone needs at least two LIs. This means the real time cost of this option is 218- 252 days to get two LIs maxed.)

This is an increase of roughly 300% in terms of days needed to max a single LI over the current rate in MT which is completable in 36-42 days.

Compared to the time required to max two LIs when Minas Tirith was released, this is a roughly 900% increase in time needed to be able to even think about participating in endgame content.

Trends in these Proposed Changes

These changes propose taking the drop rate of scrolls of empowerment back to pre-imbuement rates of roughly 1 to 2 reliable scrolls per day for dailies. This worked fine when only 12-28 scrolls were needed per LI, as each LI could be maxed in less than a month.

However, each LI now needs 229-252 scrolls of empowerment. To keep the same ratio, a daily would need to provide 18-19 scrolls of empowerment per day.

Would Earning 18-19 Scrolls of Empowerment per Day be too Easy?

That would depend on many factors. It might be easier than spending 42 days in Minas Tirith per LI, but would still require time and dedication, especially in applying all of those scrolls each day. The scrolls of empowerment also do not immediately grant the reward–they just unlock its potential. Earning XP is still vital for actually maxing an LI and LIs can take quite a bit of XP to max. The daily quest for scrolls could have no XP reward to highlight the need to continue powering up your LI.

There are already 5 dailies in Limlok that could grant 2-4 scrolls apiece, or the currency to buy 2-4 scrolls apiece, with the wrapper quest still giving the better reward. It would be level 130 content, so not overpowering anyone still leveling up, and could be useful only to tier 83. It is at a good point in the content, before the big difficulty leap of the War of Three Peaks area, and is a pretty pleasant place to hang out, and cutting the XP from those quests wouldn’t hurt much if keeping some extra grind in LI leveling is needed. They could also add new and more challenging quests, though it would be good for them to be completable by solo players as well as by small groups or fellowships. Public instances might be a good way to implement them.

It could also be a different type of daily quest. Maybe there is a scholar who studies Legendary Items who needs you to go get rare books or scrolls to aid in the study of your LI. There could be different quests for different tiers, with enough scrolls being awarded per day to max one of the four proposed tiers in a week. Say you needed tier 59 scrolls, you get sent to collect some book or item from each of the MT dailies every day. At the end of the week your LI legacies are all max tier 59 (either by scrolls given as quest rewards or even as an auto unlock on quest completion). You then spend the next week working on unlocking tier 74 if you are at least level 115. The option to pick which tier you need should be there, and even if the scrolls/unlocks granted are bound to character it would be better than 42 days in Minas Tirith. It could also be level locked, so that you could only see quests appropriate to your character’s current level, which would help with preventing over-powered LIs in lower level zones if that is a continuing concern.

Another way to change things up would be to offer different types of scrolls. It could be a single scroll that raises a legacy tier by 10 that is the daily reward for a quest that grants empowerment scrolls. Then it would still look and feel like receiving only one scroll, but would also reduce the days needed to finish maxing an LI to a more reasonable amount. Perhaps it could even be a different amount matching its cap, so a tier 59 scroll would increase the max tier cap of one legacy by 15 up to 59. It would require 7 to get all legacies on a single LI to tier 59, then the next scroll could increase the max legacy tier cap by 15 up to 74, etc. until the current legacy tier cap is reached. It would be interesting and would fit the trend of offering only one or two scrolls per day without drastically increasing the length of time needed for new players and alts to max their LIs so they can enjoy endgame content.

At any rate, no, it would probably not be too easy. Considering that endgame landscapes seem to be tuned to mostly maxed LIs or fully maxed LIs, it just gives new players and Aria’d alts a chance to be able to play endgame content while it is still endgame content. They would not get there while it was still the newest thing around as it would take at least two months to max their LIs, but they might have some fun doing it and would be likely to make it eventually and encourage others to do the same.

Why Max an LI?

Looking at all of these numbers, you may be wondering why it might be worth it to max an LI. Here are some benefits to maxing your LI:

• Your legacies enhance your class skills. If you want your skills to be more powerful, you want to max your legacies. For example, the Hunter imbued legacy “Hunter Damage Over Time” adds 47.5% damage to bleeds at legacy tier 46, which is good, but it adds 66% damage to bleeds at legacy tier 83, which is even better.
• If you are feeling extra squishy in newer content, putting more scrolls into your LIs is likely to help. So will adding crystals and updating the relics slotted.
• If a quest reward weapon has considerably more DPS, you need more starlit crystals on your LI, and possibly a new rune of striking or rune of enchantment. You should also probably check the current max tier of your legacies. A maxed LI is a better weapon than a quest reward on the surface, and is a much better weapon than a quest reward underneath the surface as each legacy enhances your skills, often significantly.
• If you want to do endgame content, you’ll want and maybe need a maxed LI. Whether you want to run new instances, raids, or just enjoy the story while doing landscape quests, having an LI on-level with the content you are doing makes a huge difference and is often mandatory for being allowed to join a group running instances or raids.
• If you want to try Tier 2 or higher of anything at endgame, you definitely need a maxed LI.
• If you want to play freepside on the Moors, you’ll be extra tasty if you do not have a maxed LI.

Conclusion

All of this is to say that the numbers shocked me when I started doing the math. I knew it felt like I was making increasingly less progress on maxing my alts’ LIs as the tiers increased, but didn’t realize why until I did the math and realized just how many scrolls were now required per LI and just how few ways to reliably get scrolls of empowerment there were. In fact, there is currently only one reliable way to get scrolls of empowerment in any remotely decent quantity, and that is in the Minas Tirith dailies which only award 6.5 per day. I have three alts who have or have had maxed LIs. Each of them have only had two maxed LIs. Not because they don’t need more, but because running MT dailies for diminishing rewards is not fun and has not been fun since I realized it would take my Rune-keeper 252 days to max her 6 LIs.

Now SSG is proposing making it take 186-252 days to max only 2 LIs, so I thought I would try making the math public because I can’t imagine Standing Stone Games actually wants people to quit the game in despair, though I admit that was my first temptation. Fortunately, this was just a preview #1 of a Bullroarer release and is definitely not final. SSG has been listening to players and has already made some adjustments, and hopefully more adjustments will be made before it goes live.

While the math should be solid, please let me know if it isn’t, the rest is just my opinion as a casual player who loves The Lord of the Rings lore and has greatly enjoyed traversing Middle-earth in LOTRO. Currently, I am not planning to give up the game even if Update 28.3 goes live in this state, but it did seem only fair to show some of the math that is going into complaints about the grind. The sheer number of scrolls needed per LI is still pretty stunning to me, even though I have known it for awhile, and I know it surprised some other people to hear it and then to hear it translated into days, so I thought it might be worth sharing. I’d love to hear your thoughts on maxing LIs and where you’ve sourced your scrolls. In the meantime, happy adventuring!

Some Questions

How many alts do you have at endgame?

How many LIs do they have?

Are their LIs maxed? Why/why not?

If they are, where did you get your scrolls?

Was the grind to max your LIs worth it to you?

How long did it take you?

Side Note:

Applying 217-252 scrolls requires continuous repetitive clicking. Saving up all your scrolls to use at once is not advised, as trying to use them all at once is likely to prove more painful than anticipated. They also only stack to 10 and would be taking up valuable space.

Why was Group Content Not Considered?

1. There are no guarantees anyone will be around and able to play when you are.
2. Random groups are not always fun, so I usually avoid them, even if there might be a way to join or form a random group almost all the time.
3. Group content usually resets weekly, rather than daily. This is good because it is easier to plan to get a group together once a week and it helps with things like raid progression. It is not good as a primary way to obtain scrolls of empowerment though because the rewards tend to be either equal to or less than the rewards for a single round of solo daily content and are only available once every seven days.
4. Group content does not rival solo content for scrolls of empowerment drops per hour of game play per day.
   1. The closest contender is the Featured Instance, which has a guaranteed 1 scroll drop for a level cap run and 1 scroll drop for a less than level cap run, giving a minimum of 14 scrolls per week for a level capped character that runs both. Three days of Minas Tirith dailies provides at least 18 scrolls.
   2. It is possible to be super lucky and get 3 scrolls from a level cap run and 3 scrolls below level cap, but that is very rare and only equals a single run of Minas Tirith dailies.
   3. Different Featured Instances have different difficulty levels and time requirements to get those 2-6 scrolls, so are inconsistent in terms of time requirement.
   4. Different Featured Instances require different numbers of people, making some groups much easier to find than others.
   5. To max an LI using the Featured Instance would take 39 days if you were super lucky and always got 3 scrolls of empowerment from each run and had super great luck with tiers when identifying and leveling your item before imbuing it. If you were super unlucky and only ever got 1 scroll of empowerment per run and had poor luck with tiers on your LI pre-imbuement, it would take a maximum of 126 days to max out the scrolls of empowerment on that one LI. More likely, it would take somewhere in the middle, around 77 days, to max a single LI using the Featured Instance alone, which might be preferable to the proposed changes in the most recent Bullroarer build. At least if you can regularly find a good group of people to run it with, and are already level 130.
5. Most group content at end game requires already having at least two maxed LIs. It may help level the LI of an alt on the same account or additional LIs needed for your class, but is not a good way to max your first two imbued LIs.
6. Group content is not for everyone.
7. Group content is not easily fit into the corners of a day. It is possible to run one Minas Tirith daily instance early, one on a lunch break, and one after work on busy days.
8. Group content is not easy to start, stop, pause, or resume as needed. Solo content allows me to stop everything to take care of real life things that come up as they come up, then go back to the game to finish what I was doing.

As always, your mileage may vary. It is definitely possible to max an LI from just running group content, particularly the Featured Instance, if that is something you want to do. Group content can also be a nice supplemental source of empowerment scrolls for anyone, which can cut several days off of the LI grind, so it is worth considering even though it does not feature into the math above.

Other Excluded Sources of Scrolls of Empowerment

Skirmishes:

Pineleaf reports you get you get 365 Marks and 19 Medallions in a Thievery & Mischief run (T1 Solo). Each scroll of empowerment costs 2523 Marks + 289 Medallions. That results in roughly one scroll for every 15 skirmishes, which is a very small return for time invested.

Epic Battles:

Each Epic Battle run can reportedly earn 40 Stars of Merit. Each scroll costs 90 Stars of Merit. Running three Epic Battles per day would be a way to earn one scroll per day, which is also a very small return for time invested.

Shards:

Each scroll costs 42,660 Shards. If you have tons of relics and tons of gold, you can refine them into Shards and see how many scrolls you can get. This is likely to be a one-time endeavor in the life of your LIs, as most relics yield very few shards and acquiring significant quantities of relics takes time.

PVMP:

1,000 Commendations will buy one scroll. If you have tons of Commendations, or can acquire them, this may be a way to max your LIs. It is probably best to not venture out solo, especially not with LIs that are not maxed, but it is possible.

Roving Threats:

Often a group event, at higher levels many can be killed solo. They can be time consuming to track down, but each quest for RTs grants 1-3 Gift-giver’s Brands, depending on the difficulty of the RT. There is a chance for more Gift-giver’s Brands to drop while killing a RT, but it is only a small chance. 10 Gift-giver’s Brands will buy one scroll of empowerment.

Why Excluded:

These sources of scrolls of empowerment are time consuming and/or extraordinarily expensive. This makes them even less efficient ways to max out an LI. They may prove to be good supplements to reduce the grind somewhat, especially if you enjoy running them, but are not probably the best ways to max out an LI.