First draft – For better or worse. Essences are your bread and butter in 105 land.  This guide hopes to shed a light on the different type of essences that are available in the game and the armour that you can put them in . Where you step in with your character will depend on the amount of time and gold you can/want to spend.

Essences

It will start with a short description and an example. After that it will focus on the essences you will most likely use. Essences will get better in 2 directions. The quality (purple, teal, gold)  and the mininum level of the essence (tier). Below is an overview for the essence of agility. From tier 1 to 7 it’s mostly more agilty per essence. After that it becomes more complicated with several upgrades that have been added on top of the normal essences. The higher quality will have a secondary stat added to them like morale, vitality or physical mastery (PM). In the last colum you will see the most common names people refer to those essences.

Tier	Level	Minor	Major	Greater	Supreme	Common name
1	50	23	25	28		Moria
2	60	27	30	35
3	70	34	37	43
4	80	47	80	92
5	90	94	108
6	95	108	112	128	129	Helms deep
					+16 Vitality
7	100	116	119	136	139	Dol amroth
					+17 Vitality
8	105		134	140	149	Pelenor
				130 morale	374 PM or 278 morale
8,2				157		Flower or Ithilien
				197 PM
8,4				165		Teal Wild
				206 PM
8,5					165	FA/gold wild
					413 PM

Dol amroth essences (Tier 7)

Major essences can be bartered at the skirmish camp for 500 marks or from Minas tirith
Greater and above drop from the Epic battles.
Crafts are available from Dol amroth and pelagrir coins. Majors will turn into greater. If the recipe crits you will get a supreme.

Pelenor essences (Tier 8)

Major essences can be bartered from Far anorien reputation vendor in the Rohirim camp. Or drops from the Featured instance boxes or mobs
Greater and supreme can be gotten by upgrading major essences. For a more indepth guide check out http://dadislotroguides.com/u18-105-essence-guide/

Flower or Ithilien essences (Tier 8.2) Patch 19

Only greater essences avalailble from North ithilien essence boxes. Gotten from quest rewards, Featured instance and since update 19.2 you can turn 3 items in for 1 box.

Upgrade essences Tier 8.4/8.5 Patch 19.2

In update 19.2  a new system has been introduced to upgrade the Tier 8.2 essences. The upgrades are mostly very minor though. But it’s the best available at this time. For an indepth guide on how to upgrade them http://dadislotroguides.com/u19-2-crafted-essences-how-to/

Essence armour

The contuniues travel towards a better character used to be instananous with every armour drop you got. Now you can build your own armour with the essences descibed earlier.  Below level 100 the classic stat armour you will get from quests will be superior to essence armour. So this guide will focus on the level 100 and 105 options. It will be split up into 5 parts due to the cost of removing the essences from the armour to reuse them (essence removal scrolls needed). Budget/throw-away, starter armours (instance ready), Intermediate (Tier 1 instance), Expert (Tier 2) and Perfect (Raid). With the place where you’ll be able to get the armour and suggestions on use and essences. Once you get on the level of expert the final set you’ll want is largely dependant on your class and build. You might even want to get a lower level armour set for specific builds like hunter blueline or captain oathbreaker reset set.

Budget (100 armour)

When you freshly get to 100+ and you’re budget in gold or time is limited you will still have some very good options to get started. These options are free or quickly available.
Mathom armour or quest rewards from Central gondor and further.  Basic stat armour is still a valid option for level 100+.
Minas tirith epic questline  – 2-slot purple essence armour with free major vitality and main stat essence. Slightly better then quest rewards
Minas tirith crafted armour non-crit (purple) – 3-slot purple armour – Usually found on the auction house for less then a gold. Don’t put anything expensive in it.

Starter armour (100 crafted armour and Dol amroth

Minas tirith crafted armour crit (teal) – 3slot teal armour with stat and morale – 5-10 gold or easyily craftable – Nice for T7 greater or supremes. Will get you ready for most instances, battles and deeds.
Dol armoth (barter locked by rep) – 4-slot teal armour with stat – Locked behind 2-3 dailies in dol amroth – Great for T7 greater and supremes. Lots of cheap flexibilty available.

Intermediate

Featured instance armour – 2-slot teal armour with lots of mitigations and set bonus – Excelent 105 starter kit for to replace level 100 budget or starter gear. WIll allow you to equip T8 essences.
Faramir – 5-slot teal armour – Morgul crests, only armour with no stats and 5 essences slots. Good choice for very specific classes and builds.

Expert (best non-raid armour,  best set changes between classes)

Flower armour and jewelry teal – 4-slot teal 105  with slight stat and morale – Best no-instance run needed available – though still requires a good amount of time
Pelenor armour set – 4-slot teal 105 with set bonus – Tier 1  first boss farm 5 % drop chance – Easy to do, but has fallen out of favour for most people with Flower armour
Osgiligath armour set – 4-slot teal 105 with set bonus – Tier 1 full runs, low drop chance – Harder then pelenor, but still doable with intermediate and starter with good essences.

Expert (superior)

Tier 2 runs of pelenor, osgiligath will have a far larger drop chance for the expert sets, but will require a good mix of intermediate and expert with supreme essences to complete.

Perfect

Throne of the dread terror tier 1 or tier 2 armour. But if you’ll get those i doubt you’ll need this guide.