Tag: Critters casual

We’re on a mission, to find the quickest one

With the upcoming Delving system introducing new missions and mostly more challenging missions. There was the question, what would be the easiest way to delve into these challenges. Further adventures chapter 1 and 7 don’t have any combat so would probably the best option, but would the delving system be enabled on these? If so, that would only be 2 missions per day.

https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?685547-Mission-cheat-sheet

And with that i’ve decided to expand on the Mission cheat sheet for Anna Kurfu made by Vroomie back in 2021.

Ever since AK. The numbers of repeatable missions has nearly doubled to 153 (Pre-Before the shadows. And running them all on average takes about 7,5 hours to complete (excluding wait times).

All runs done by me were done on 1 character. A 140 hunter, above par gear/raid T1 capable. With mostly single target and a few aoe skills if groups got really large to simulate an average class.

  • Run alone (full 150 mission duo speed test cancelled after Delving info released
  • Timer started 10 seconds after loading
  • Timer stopped when mission completed
    • Run back to entrance if needed
    • Left instance when box was too far away
  • 30% out of combat runspeed boost
  • Enemies killed if needed, roughly counted +/- 1 to 5 on large quantities
  • Object clicked such as destroy, capture flags, chest opened etc

Delving challenges on older missions

The expected challenge and difficulty increases were expected in harder hitting mobs, more morale, more mobs, limited time available or debuffs such as poisions, powerdrain etc. Hence the extra info gathered on how many mobs there were and how many objectives you needed to click on.

For example a quick mission such as Svalfang might be impossible to do at challenge 10. While a puzzle mission with a timer might be lot easier if you know all the riddles and tests.

However on the Q&A with Severlin and Orion it was made clear that the challenges wern’t going to be active on older missions at the release of Before the Shadow. The rest of the article will focus on expanding the Mission cheat sheet and comparing gathered info.

Overview of mission info and timers

For a full view of all gathered information view the following excel sheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J7JaU3W4AknmscqVjEBHjCkdQjEgzNkmQtxX1p50Rds/edit?usp=sharing

All 153 missions, Anna kurfu and Gundubad in blue, Thestlebridge Yellow, Erebor Orange, Elrond Purple, Bilbo in Green.

General results

  • Nearly all Anna Kurfu belong to the quickest 50 missions
    • Average 122 seconds
    • Range from 25 to 325 seconds
    • 50 out of 80 mission below average
  • Gundabad missions belong to the longest mission
    • Average 275 seconds (more then double of AK)
    • Range from 90 to 615 seconds
    • 23 out of 37 missions below average (only 3 below 122 average of AK)
  • Further adventures Bilbo 8 out 10 missions shorter then 210 seconds
    • Average 190 seconds
    • Range 75 to 460
    • Only 1 bad mission, fairly average on 9 quests
  • Erebor missions are all shorter then 4 minutes with above average killing and clicking
    • Average 152 second
    • Range 80 to 255
    • No real bad mission in here. But more mobs to kill then Bilbo.
  • Thestlebridge has a large spread with Svalfang being 50 seconds. But 7/10 missions longer then 4 minutes
    • Average 264
    • Range 50 to 500
    • Nearly all missions require a lot of killing and clicking and take longer then Bilbo and Erebor.
  • Further adventure Elrond or Elladan and Elrohir teleport you all over Middle-Earth. The first 2 are decent, but the last 2 kill any good will.
    • Average 278
    • Range 180 to 435
    • Always available with a better story, but can’t pick the shortest 2 due to teleports

How you rate the missions depends on how you run them. AK and gundabad rotate on an 8 day schedule and some days are better or worse then others. While all other missions are available all the time.

Nearly all Anna-kurfu are preferred above Gundabad. And nearly all Anna-kurfu above the others, but there are only 6 easy missions available per day. Incase you need more you’ll have to move around. And Anna-kurfu is infamous for it’s long hand-in time. Making you prefer some other sets.

Erebor is the preferred non-rotation set of missions, with Bilbo on a close second place (skip chapter 9 and 10). After that you can pick up some AK and some thestlebridge. If you really want to continue finish off Thestlebridge and pick up some Gundabad ones.

Detailed results

You might not have a certain set of missions, or you’re curious to what missions are better in 1 set of them. Left picture will show them rated compared to all mission available, right picture will show them rated among each other.

For Anna-kurfu i’ll refer you to the above mission cheat sheet. My results are comparable to his. And for Gundabad i’ll discuss them in sets of daily combinations only. Since only 10 out 40 are decent in completion time compared to the rest.

The largest downside to Anna-Kurfu is the wait time to be allowed to hand-in the missions once done. On a larger server like Evernight it can often take longer to wait then to run them. Making way for the other missions to be preferable.

Shorter is quicker. And once you run 45 a week (on multiple characters) it really starts to add up quickly. However from a reddit poll i’ve run it seems that 3 minutes is still accepted by a lot of players to be quick enough. 4 minutes start wear thin and 5 minutes is too long (atleast thats where i capped the poll). Personally at the 3 minute mark i prefer to leave them and do more shorter ones on a different char if needed.

  • Dark green quests are 0-120 seconds to complete. Equal to the better AK missions.
  • Light green quests are 120-180. Good enough
  • White quests are the average cap i set.
  • Pinkish quests are 180-210. Depending on the amount of mobs and objectives these can be fun and or fine.
  • Mid-red is 210-240. Usually don’t run these.
  • Red is any run beyond 4 minutes.

While there wasn’t a connection on “mobs to kill” and “objectives to click” beside more takes longer that i found. Depending on your class or if you’re with 2 some missions might fall in a lower category for you. Especially Thestlebridge has a few where if you have massive aoe or can split up across 2 areas. You can turn up the speed to 11 on them.

  • Quick – Quickest or easiest to complete missions
  • Medium – Medium length or with some tactic these can give you a few extra quick ones.
  • Bad – Beyond 1st times. Mostly just skip these for any farming.

Bilbo

Once you run them once. You can pick and choose which ones you do then.
Q – Chapter 1, 7, 8 and 5 are quick. With chapter 1 and 7 not requiriring any combat.
M – Chapter 6 and 4 have quite a few mobs. So with 2 these get a vote aswell.
B – Chapter 10 has a ton of waiting, with chapter has a lot of killing and running

Elrond

As mentioned earlier. These missions teleport you around Middle-Earth. On top these and nearly all quite long and are more difficult then others. Fun, but not my vote for farming

Erebor

All quests are a mix of killing and clicking. As such these are well-suited for duo runs.
Q – Nearly all quests are quick
M – Claws and Defilers have long inductions and signature mobs. Securing has you running from point to point and killing extra spawns making this one a tad longer.

Thestlebridge

Some of the most mobs in all missions and a ton of objectives make these pretty bad solo. With duo these become bearable.
Q – Run up and kill the wolfs + Svalfang
M – Assault and Locked down
B – The rest

Gundabad

Original, varied, long and arduous are what comes to mind on these. Usually mission 30-35 on my farmlist, but there are several deeps and ton of virtue xp tied to them. The Gundabad meta deed requires these aswell to be run and they give allegiance rep.

Gundabad set #1

Q – Unwelcome guests and Beyond the reach are the two better ones.
M – The rest are 4-5 minutes
B – A lost Expedition will make you pull your hair out to find that 1 objective you missed.

Gundabad set #2

Q – Reforge and Breeder are great for targeted dps.
M – The rest are 4-5 minutes
B – Frosty reception has a lot of drakes, a long way up the hill and a long way down.

Gundabad set #3

Q – Sorc and Storm
M – The rest are 4-5 minutes
Q – A reasonable day for Gundabad

Gundabad set #4

Q – Servant, Siege if you got a runspeed class (easily bugged on ranged though)
M – Siege (see Q)
Q – Captive wings is unbearable on anything but aoe classes. Frost is junk in general. And Trap requires the use of Wiki. I never run this beyond the 1st. First time is good though.

Gundabad set #5

Q – Stomping is very fast. Hall of ice same, but a few more clicks.
M – Lost vault is a nice puzzle missions. The rest are 4-5 minutes
Q – Dreadspire has signatures, enemies, clicks and a lot of running up and down.

Gundabad set #6

Q – Culling is quick
M – Longer then medium warrants
Q – Long, a ton of mobs or clicks. On average the worst day.

CCommunity highlight 3 – Grey company

A large group of rangers that answered the call of Aragorn to go south. First encountering some if it’s members in The shire and other beginner areas you will see these hardy rangers in pretty much every spot in Eriador. Rohan and Gondor along your travels.

Further along the questline they will go with Aragorn onto Minas Tirith and other places. As with any battle some might find their death and some will go on to live (un)happily in other places. Wondering what the status is of all the members of the Grey Company?

A few of the Grey Company in a later story moment – lotrowiki

A forum thread originally started in 2013 for a players interest in their own roleplay it the most comphrensive list of an ongoing lotro group/storyline. Still getting some updates and comments by the Lore developer MadeofLions as their companies story plods along.

Deserving it’s own highlight in this article

https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?495679-The-members-of-the-Grey-Company-and-their-fates

A few examples of minor clues

Celairant – Young Ranger who can be found alongside Langlas at Thrasi’s Lodge in Ered Luin. Dies in the Battle of Pelennor Fields

Quote Originally Posted by Tirian-HammerfistI’m hoping this means that Amarion is safe up until this point, although if we take Halros into account, the poor ranger of Amon Raith may be a goner!

Amarion was in my first draft of ‘The Ballad of Bingo Boffin,’ but he didn’t end up making an appearance. I consider him alive but missing until revealed otherwise, although he didn’t meet up with Aragorn when the rest of the Grey Company did. 

MoL

https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?495679-The-members-of-the-Grey-Company-and-their-fates&p=7614757#post7614757

[CC] Hytbold quickly guide 2022

While finishing off Year 8 Reflection III for the anniversary you might have found out you needed to rebuild Hytbold. Or you want access to the crafting resource instances to avoid spending 100’s of gold to get past the Riddermark tier. For whatever reason you want to rebuild Hytbold and you want to do it quickly. With help from some kinnies, mission trickery and some patches in 2020 it can now be done in 2,5 evenings from scratch instead of a full expansion and 50 days.

What is and why rebuild Hytbold?

Hytbold is a settlement located within the Sutcrofts in East Rohan. [57.6S, 56.3W] Hytbold was recently burned down in an attack by Orcs from the East Wall. Rebuilding the town will allow access to class armor, special resource instances and more.

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Hytbold

Riddermark resource instances, reputation, deeds, tokens and anniversary quests etc.

Changes to Hytbold that make it possible

A few things have changed since 2012 and this full guide was published. Or this plugin that still mostly works.

  • Each handin now only requires 1 Hytbold token instead of 10
  • Each Daily now awards 10 Hytbold token
  • Each Daily quest are available from the start
  • You can cancel the 5-quest limit to avoid the daily lock
  • Too many marks so you can now buy Reputation accelerator from the skirmish camp easily
  • Exchange Hytbold tokens for Rohan reputation

The actual quick guide

Make sure you can start Hytbold by being 84+ and went to Hytbold and did the introduction quest. At this point you pick up the Aiding the Eastemet to allow you to pick up the daily quests.

  1. Go to Cliving, Snowbourn, Harwick or Eaworth and pick up all quests that take place in an instance
    1. Quest guy that has 4 sets of 2 quests with a similar name. Other are landscape and require travelling
    2. Other quests can be done to complete deeds, but doing the 4 by 2 sets in each town awards you 320 Hytbold tokens
  2. Cancel the Aiding the Eastemet before starting any of the quests.
    1. After cancelling you have to wait 5 minutes and you can’t pick up any new quests
    2. If you complete any 5 quests before canncelling you will be locked out for the day
  3. Complete the quests inside the instances. Leave the instance and start the next set of 2. Do this for any quests you’ve accepted.
  4. Head back to Hytbold from any town you are/have reached Ally with (Swiftravel available) Repeat this for as many days you might need to do.

Day 1 – Exchange all tokens earned for reputation with Wold, Northcroft, Suthcroft and Entwash vale. To reach atleast Ally status to open up Swiftravel.

Day 2 – After doing all 32 quests you should now have earned enough reputation and or tokens to get atleast 2-3 factions to kindred. You can hand in all quests inside hytbold to rebuild each section or use the tokens to get kindred with the last factions.

Day 3 – Do quests in the town/area you’re not kindred with yet. Head back to Hytbold to rebuild the last few quests and sections. You won’t need to do all 32 just to rebuild Hytbold.

Quick pointers

Depending on if you’ve access to 200 reputation accelerators you will need double the quests/tokens. If you’ve quested in Rohan you will offcourse need fewer. However doing the Hytbold quests and exchange for reputation is quicker then questing for reputation the normal way.

If you don’t have much room in your questlog. You can pick up the 8 quests in a specific town and then cancel the Aiding the eastermet quest. While really quick it will still take atleast 5 minutes allowing it to reset. Heading back to Hytbold if you don’t have swift travel from a town is just a pain.

LI base guide – Update 33

The base LI guide is meant to be an evergreen reference guide for all things Legendary weapons in lotro. Introductions to all the terms, what to get and where to find them along with information for returning players.

Alternative version – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B4kQt-HSu_0vLkrv7ehzPDkNZ1pOUc8XubCAeLtbo3A/edit?usp=sharing

This guide was last updated before Update 33. This contains

  • Currency and terms
  • Legendary item panel in detail
  • Legendary reward track
  • Tracery room
  • Replacing your LI (returning player)
  • Where to find more materials (general places)
  • General hints for farming

Update specific, level specific or seasonal information can be found in LI Appendix U33

Currency and terms

If you’re leveling you won’t need many currencies as most of your legendary items will come from quest rewards, drops or the Legendary item reward track. But for clarity we’ll go over them.

Old Legendary items materials

Nearly all old items such as scroll, crystals, relics, weapon titles etc will be turned into Ancient script. This works the same as ember/mote/gear. Right click the item while using Flame of anacalmir to break them down. Of special note is your old legendary weapons. These can be converted/apraissed to get a large influx of new currency and barter items.

Ancient script

Your main currency to barter specific items. With these you can visit the “Tracery room” in Rivendell. See below

Fragmented token

To get teal or gold quality traceries you’ll need these in addition to ancient script. These are limited by the expansion or level you’re running content from.

Appraisal

If you have Li’s already from before the revamp. You can create a copy of it that will be broken down into the currencies you’ll use to make a new LI. At this point in time you can keep your old LI’s for cosmetics, but a new LI will be easier to use, do more damage and be maintained then keep using your old ones.

You can reach the old legendary item panel through the Arrow on the left side of your toolbars under Legendary items. Unappraised LI’s will have the button at the bottom right.

Tracery

These work like gems you put into sockets of your LI. These will give a boost to a type of skills (damage, healing, mitigations), a specific skill or a specific stat (vitality, physical mastery). More details in Tracery types

Runes

Each socket or slot on your LI will have a level to it. You can enhance or increase the level of the slot by using runes of enchantment. These aren’t that important if you’re leveling, but will be important if you’re at a levelcap and want to progress into higher tiers.

Legendary item in detail

Depending on your level you’ll have anywhere between 3 and 13 sockets. Below you see how it’s all laid out for you.

Base item

Your blank sheet in which you build your legendary weapon. You will get these from the Moria intro quest or from the Tracery room for 300 ancient script.

Item name – What you want to call the weapon (can be changed on reforging)

DPS (min/max) – Base damage of the weapon

Item level – The maximum level of enchantment and overall damage level (not minimum level of use)

Tracery slot – The socket where you put in your tracery

Tracery types

There are 4 different types of slots each existing of 2 effects. The top one is a special effect that depends on the type. These range from +5% morale, -20 second cooldown or +25% damage of a certain skill. The higher the quality the more effect you get (see word of mastery). The bottom effect is a fixed normal stat. This will get higher depending on the enhancement level (not quality).

Words of mastery

These are often called skill or class traceries. Since these provide bonuses depending on the class and their skills.

Word of mastery quality

Yellow/uncommon – Landscape, quest and other easy or cheap barter options

Purple/rare – Quite cheap and abundant on quest and instance drops.

Teal/incomparable – Require additional tokens to barter and only drop from the instance chest with limited locks on them. No repeatable farming till you drop.

Gold/legendary – Very limited in instances and reward tracks. Tier 4 or above usually.

Word of power

Role or traitline tracery. These come in 4 groups as indicated by the 4 colors

Red for offensive, Green for healing, blue for defence and yellow for support

Variations of them boost single target, aoe or bleeds. Or protect against melee, range or tactical. Upgrades work the same as word of mastery.

You will eventually unlock a total of 5 or 6 slots. You can only slot 1 of every specific Word of power.

Word of craft

A small but targeted increase in 1 specific stat. They come in little focussed groups such as “healing” with critical rating, outgoing healing. Only 1 set bonus currently for critical rating

Heraldic tracery

These come in a few variations, but mostly these provide a large stat boost

leaning more heavily to either Might/agility/will or vitality. These are meant to change the damage type of your weapon the same way titles do now (beierland/ancient dwarf/westerness)

Legendary reward track

By pressing Shift-I you will open the Legendary item reward track. Any item experience from quests, mobs or xp runes will advance this. Once you have filled up a level you can claim the reward. These start off small with boxes of ancient script and runes. But will get more interesting with traceries, embers and even fragmented teal or gold barter tokens.

Once you’ve reached level 100 (very easily with normal playtime in season 1). You can keep repeating level 101 which in season 1 awards 50 ancient scripts. For a full overview of season 1 numbers and rewards visit https://laurelsden.wordpress.com/2022/01/26/u32-li-reward-track/

The reward track usually resets every 3 months. It’s expected that rewards and xp requirements will change for season 2. Unknown at this time if unclaimed rewards go into escrow, spillover or vanish.

Tracery room

To get to the tracery room head to Rivendell-East for Elrond’s library. From the front door take the left stairs to level 1 and make a 180 to find the door there.

The first room will have the Legendary item barterer on the left and the class traceries on the walls of the first room

In the back room all the other Words of power can be gotten by clicking on the bookcases

Replacing your (current) LI

You can go about getting a new LI in two ways. Start from scratch and build a new one from the ground up or convert your current LI to a large sum of resources. For both ways you’ll need to to get a new LI.

Step 1 – Get a new LI by either completing the Moria intro or barter one in Rivendell

Step 2 – Reforge LI to your current level to open up more sockets and increase DPS

Step 3 – Acquire traceries from quests, drops or barterer in rivendell

Step 4 – Putting in the traceries into your LI

Step 5 – Upgrading the item level of each tracery individually

Step 1 – Acquiring a base LI item

If you’re new you can head to echad dunann to complete the Volume 2 introduction in Walls of Moria to get a set of LI’s (minimum level 45). Otherwise you can visit the Tracery room in Rivendell to barter 2 LI’s for 200 Ancient script each.

Step 2 – Reforge to your current level

If you have leveled past 45 or grabbed a new base LI you will need to reforge your LI’s. This will take it to your current level’s power. This can be done every 5 levels (50/55/60 etc). This will open more sockets for traceries and higher dps/healing

You can only power up traceries to the current item level of your LI.

Step 3 – Getting traceries for your LI sockets

You will need traceries to fill out your LI’s sockets. The way you get these is dependent on the quality of the tracery you’re looking for. In general yellow or purple traceries are more than enough as you’re leveling.

If you’re getting them after Appraisal and got all the barter currency already. You can visit the tracery room in Rivendell. One very important part of getting these traceries is to not blow the full appraisal budget by getting everything Teal. You won’t have enough ancient script for that.

Grab a mix of rare and a few teal traceries that closely resembles your current legacies. Any legacy that could be considered a boost to all skills is replaced by a Word of Mastery.

If you’re a dps class or healing focus on getting teal Word of mastery and purple Word of power.. For tanking or other non-dps/healing legacies such as – cooldown on a vital skill focus on teal version of those and get rare Word of Mastery.

Words of crafting can be done later or grab any cheap ones for now.

Step 4 – Slotting traceries from step 3

You will need to work in the “essence socket panel”. This is opened by dragging the LI over on the flame icon or Shift-double left click on the LI . You can then drag the tracery over to one the twinkling sockets. Repeat this till all slots or traceries you have are filled.

Now these traceries are active if the LI is equipped.

Step 5 – Upgrading traceries

You can upgrade traceries by slotting a better quality of the same type over it. See Word of mastery quality. However you can upgrade the normal stat bonus from it by using Runes of enchantment.

Each rune has a quality that determines its max enchantment level. The same way scrolls of empowerment work. A “max level 74” scroll can only get the legacy up to 74. Same with yellow runes that go up to 415 and purple to 430.

It’s important to first use your lower quality/level runes. If you start off with 15 of each and use your purples to get the item to 415. You can’t then use your yellow max 415 to improve the tracery beyond 415.

Where to find more?

All out of Ancient script, fragmented tokens or other LI materials? Below you’ll find the current known sources.

Traceries

The traceries themselves will come from any ingame activity. Except landscape drops. (Epic) quests and the Legendary reward track will provide the earliest traceries for most players. If you want to get more or better quality these will drop from repeatable quests such as Dolven view and others.

Instances are the main repeatable content to farm these items. The higher the difficulty/tier the better quality traceries that will randomly drop. For a full list see tracery farm.

If all else fails, you can always visit the Tracery room in Rivendell to barter specific traceries for ancient script and/or tokens.

Ancient script

Currently the main source of ancient script beyond appraisal is to disenchant traceries you won’t use yourself. Depending on the quality you’ll get 20,40 or 60 ancient scripts. For farming these scripts see Tracery farm..

Fragmented teal/gold tokens

Beyond appraisal, these tokens are very limited. Epic quests, reward track and very rarely raid bosses will award these tokens.

Runes of enchantment

Same as traceries, these drop from chests. Usually boss 1 will drop runes where later bosses award traceries. Select epic quests have Legendary runes. 1 is awarded for Legacy of Durin. Usually the area’s daily or weekly repeatables award boxes with different quantity and quality of runes.

Lower quality runes such as yellow or purple can be bartered for ancient scripts.

Tracery removal scroll

To unslot all your traceries you’ll need a removal scroll. These function the same as essences or relics. These can be gotten from disenchanting pre-30.3 essence removal scrolls or from the legendary boost box you get from doing 15 or 45 missions weekly reward boxes or bartering them for ancient script in the tracery room.

Overall tips

If you’re unsure, practice making a new LI with yellow and purple traceries. And be careful using your ancient script if you hadn’t stocked up on appraisal LI’s before the update. While it’s incredibly cheap and easy to make a decent weapon. Each quality upgrade doubles in cost.

Nearly all instances can be run on the low end of the level range for the same rewards. Level 121 for 121-130. Not all instances award the new LI’s just yet.

Farming traceries and ancient script

For a more up to date and specific list check out the latest LI appendix U33.

Teal vs purple traceries from School etc

In general, the only way to farm traceries and ancient script is by finding the most efficient and quickest boss kill in any instance you can reset. For purple traceries this would be School of tham midraim boss 1. Kill him and reset the instance. Currently teal traceries and up only come from limited repeatable content such as favored loot/chests.

They added a rather artificial lock on instances you can reset above level 100. If you’re “max level” you can only get a teal tracery if the instance is run at the max level for you.


Example a 140 that runs school at level 132 will get no tracery from the final boss if that boss would drop a teal. A level 139 will get one. On newer instances they only drop on higher tiers and you can’t set a higher tier on a lower level instance.

Repeatable Legendary reward track level 101

Once you’ve reached level 100 on the reward track. Any further XP will go to a repeatable box that as of update 32 awards 50 ancient script. Not massive, but it does add up over time.

CCQ4 – Easy access allegiance

Easy access to your allegiance panel and a ton of other panels you might not be aware off. In UI settings you can assign any panel to the buttons that are on the left or right of your 1 to = skillbar. Normally this is where you find your bags, crafting, deed log and much more. But what if you dont need those options or have grey out bags cause you resized them?

Grey bags not used for anything waiting for a new purpose
First go into your settings and search “toolbar” This will lead you to UI settings.
Set whatever bag that’s not used to Allegiances
For example Bag 2 is now replaced by the allegiance panel

There are roughly 50 other options you can use to have quick access to these panels. While C for character might be quicker. Plugin manager, Mailbox or mounted combat might be a good panel to have access to without going through the arrow and scrolling through it everytime.