Well, the hobbitses are off for a couple of weeks.
When we return, look for more investigative adventures from the Nosey Hobbit, further culinary delights from the Hungry Hobbit, and the continuation of our Welcoming Committee series on LOTRO classes.
Have fun!
[The Welcoming Committee is a category of posts created in the spirit of Meavar’s New Player Relations initiative.]
In this series of posts, we’ll look at each of the classes available in LOTRO, from the standpoint of a new player. We’ll be focusing on each class’s strengths and weaknesses, and the type of player each might attract. We’ll also try to tie that classes in with general LOTRO lore, to see what makes them a special part of the story environment.
Please note that these notes are taken from my own experience playing each of the classes. I’m not a min/maxer, and don’t spend much time calculating damage, bonuses, etc. I play these classes for the unique experience each one offers in terms of solo and group play. More in-depth discussions can be found in the LOTRO Class Forums.
We start with the Burglar.
What Defines the Burglar Class?
New players to LOTRO often think that the Burglar class is the equivalent of Rogue classes in other games. However, while Burglars in LOTRO are indeed sneaky and make their best attacks from the shadows, they’re not the DPS monsters that, say, Rogues in World of Warcraft are.
The LOTRO Burglar is best thought of in relation to the character of Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Bilbo was recruited to help Thorin and his Dwarves reclaim the Lonely Mountain and its treasures from Smaug, and there are numerous references of him as “a Burglar” (though he’s quite inept in the beginning!). However, although Bilbo did have to resort to violence at times (against the spiders in Mirkwood, for example), he usually preferred to find other, more diplomatic ways around dilemmas. Remember that he “defeated” Gollum by winning a riddle competition, and chose not to kill him in the end (a choice that would at first be criticized by Frodo in The Lord of the Rings). Likewise, he used his wits to steal from Smaug’s treasure horde.
Thus, in LOTRO the Burglar can best be described as a Crowd-Control/Debuff class. The Burglar’s most powerful abilities involve moving unseen, mesmerizing enemies through the use of the Riddle skill (which only works on humanoid mobs), and weakening them through a series of “Tricks” that lower armor, reduce speed, etc. This doesn’t mean that the Burglar can’t deal a respectable amount of damage; but damage often relies on being able to strike from stealth or by flanking an enemy, and is thus more dependent on specific achieving specific conditions. Players interested in dealing large amounts of head-on damage might want to look at the Hunter, Champion, and Warden classes instead.
The Class Traits available to Burglars are divided into the following branches:
In terms of armor and equipment, Burglars can wear Medium Armor (not right away, but after a few levels), and dual wield various weapons. Hobbits receive a racial damage bonus fro using clubs (which also have the advantage of sometimes stunning your opponent), and Men/Women receive a bonus to sword use.
What LOTRO Races Can Play a Burglar?
The Burglar class is restricted to players who create Hobbit or Human characters. The class is not available to Elves or Dwarves for (probably) lore reasons. While Elves are naturally stealthy, they would probably not want to partake in the thievery and mischief associated with Burglars! And from what we know about Dwarves, we can imagine that they would prefer to meet their enemies head-on.
Burglar Play: Solo and Group Strengths and Weaknesses
In my experience, while Burglars make good solo characters (I’ve leveled mine mainly through solo play), they’re much more fun as part of a group.
For solo play, Burglars have the advantage of being able to sneak by mobs and to reach certain quest objectives (for example, retrieving an object, scouting a location, or defeating a specific enemy). Of course, this means that they don’t receive the XP from defeating all the mobs on the way to that objective, but on the other hand they can move on to the next quest more quickly, and in LOTRO quest completion gives more experience than defeating mobs.
One disadvantage that I’ve found in solo play is that the poor Burglar can easily be overwhelmed when there are more than 2 mobs to handle at the same time. If those mobs are humanoid, Riddle is a definite advantage. But against, say, a group of Wargs, things can get dangerous! This is where tools such as Marbles and Caltrops come in handy, but even then it can be a tough fight because Burglars can’t take enemies down as quickly as the highest DPS classes.
Groups are much more fun. Burglars are great for scouting ahead, and with a good tank it’s easy to attack from behind and thus deal more damage. Also, Burglars can initiate Conjunctions for their parties, which makes them a valuable addition to any fellowship.
In Conclusion...
Burglars are a great option for players looking for a challenging class that has solid roots in Middle-earth lore. Remember that for solo play the Burglar needs to choose battles wisely, and that sometimes the best solution is to sneak by! While Bilbo would never have dared charge Smaug head-on, he did manage to steal some treasure and eventually draw the dragon out of hiding! When grouped Burglars make a great support class: Riddling, scouting, initiating conjunctions, and striking from the shadows while enemies are distracted by the tank’s shiny armor!
[The Welcoming Committee is a category of posts created in the spirit of Meavar’s New Player Relations initiative.]
One of the first things we do as LOTRO players is create a character; and one of the first choices we have to make here is what race our character will be. In this four-part series, we will look at each of the races from the perspectives of lore and gameplay.
Today, we look at the Elves. Mae govannen! Well met!
Who are the Elves?
The Elves have the most complex history of all the races in LOTRO, and in Tolkien’s lore in general. Although we see some Elves in The Hobbit (Mirkwood elves, mostly) and The Lord of the Rings (Legolas, Elrond, Galadriel, and a few others), their story really belongs to The Silmarillion.
Elves are sometimes called the “First-born” or the “Children of Ilúvatar.” This is because they were the first race Ilúvatar created (the Race of Man came later, Dwarves had been fashioned by Aulë, and Hobbits are of unknown origin).
There are many families of Elves throughout Arda and Middle-earth, but we can separate them into two broad categories: those who have been to Valinor, and those who have not. We can also separate them into those who decided to travel West (whether or not they actually made it to the end of the journey), and those who refused from the start. What happened to the Elves, to create this split in their branches? Soon after the Elves were “awakened” on Middle-earth, they were discovered by the Valar and invited to travel with them to Aman, in the West (mainly to keep them safe from Melkor/Morgoth). While many Elves accepted the offer, others decided to stay; and many of those who did set out on the journey stopped along the way. These aspects (decide to travel or not, reach Aman or not) help us tell some Elves apart from the others: the few Elves who have traveled to the West and returned to Middle-earth (such as Glorfindel) are described as being surrounded by (or emanating) an unearthly light. They are described as taller (in Tolkien, stature often means nobility of spirit or heroism), fairer and more powerful than their non-traveling counterparts.
Otherwise, there are several “families” of Elves described throughout the Silmarillion, and their stories are often extremely intricate, especially once they begin interacting with the Race of Man. Describing their history here would take pages, but there are some interesting details that become important in The Lord of the Rings, and thus for LOTRO. One of these is their love for fine craftsmanship, and their talent for creating objects of unfathomable power that become the focus of strife. The Silmarils, the jewels that give name to The Silmarillion, were crafted by Fëanor and became greatly desired by Melkor. The struggle to possess the Silmarils is a central story of the First Age in Tolkien’s lore. And then, of course, we have the Rings of power, which are created during the Second Age. Sauron, a servant of Melkor/Morgoth who has taken over his late master’s ambitions, forges the One Ring to control the ones made by the Elves. Once again, a great struggle begins over these objects, spilling from the Second Age into the Third, and from The Silmarillion into The Lord of the Rings.
The second important detail about the Elves, which we had briefly discussed in our previous post on Men, is that of their immortality. While Elves are certainly subject to death through war or other mishaps (sometimes grief will “kill” and Elf), they are otherwise immortal, and will live on while creatures of other races pass on. Many Elves become weary of this, and at some point might choose to sail West and there “die.” This “death” simply means that they spend some time as spirits in the Halls of Mandos, and are later returned to a body and (usually) sent to Valinor (we see some exceptions, such as the “reborn” Glorfindel). In time, it is said that Elves will join Ilúvatar in a new symphony of creation. What does all this mean? That Elves are inextricably bound to Arda (the planet), and will always be part of the world, either in bodily or spirit form. This is why, as we discussed last time, many Elves consider the mysterious after-death of Men to be “the gift of Ilúvatar.”
One final interesting fact is that the first Orcs were once Elves, tortured and twisted by Melkor for his own evil purposes in what can be seen as a parody of Ilúvatar’s act of creation.
So we can see how Elves can be a very intriguing race for role-players. In the timeframe of The Lord of the Rings, they are slowly vanishing from Middle-earth, heading West and letting the Race of Man take over as stewards of Middle-earth. There’s a sense of melancholy and almost resignation that can provide a lot of material for a character’s backstory.
Playing an Elf in LOTRO
Passive Skills and Traits
For players who choose race/class combinations according to traits and bonuses, it’s important to know what makes the Elves special in gameplay. But even for those of us who don’t take these characteristics into consideration when making a character, it’s interesting to see how the lore was adapted by LOTRO.
The LOTRO Lorebook has a nice chart with a detailed description of Elf Skills and Traits (there’s also a good overview of Elf history towards the bottom of the page). Here’s what you get as an Elf:
We can see how much of the character described by Tolkien has been incorporated into these characteristics: Elves are closely bound to nature and expert fighters; at the same time, they’re aware of their fading role in Middle-earth, and are putting much effort in guiding the races that will stay once they have passed on.
Male or Female?
Before you choose your Elf’s class, origin, appearance, and name, you will need to decide whether to play a male or a female avatar. There are absolutely no differences in terms of stats or bonuses: in LOTRO, male and female characters can play the same classes and are affected equally by their race’s Passive Skills and Traits.
Class
Your next choice will be class. We will go more into the various classes in LOTRO in our next Welcoming Committee series, but for now it helps to know what classes an Elf can be.
As an Elf, we can choose to play a Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Lore-master, Minstrel, Rune-Keeper, or Warden. The classes not available are Burglar and Captain.
Origin
One of the interesting aspects of character creation in LOTRO is that you not only get to choose a race, but also an origin within that race. Choosing an origin will affect the appearance of your character (general body shape, plus available ranges of skin, hair, and eye color) and also give you a backstory to work with for roleplaying.
For the Elves, this means that you can choose from one of five nationalities:
Thus, origin gives us important details about Elves: where they originate; their ties to other famous figures; and their place in Middle-earth history. There are no advantages or disadvantages to choosing one branch over another; it’s simply a matter of personal preference.
Name
The character creation screen gives us some good tips for naming our Elf. Elves almost always have Sindarin names, and there are very good resources for these online. For example, the Sindarin Name Generator provides many examples and good guidelines for choosing a name. There’s also a comprehensive list of Sindarin names at the Tolkien Gateway. For a quicker approach, there’s an automatic name generator at Slack ’n’ Hash.
Hopefully this will help you choose a cool and meaningful Elvish name; and will hopefully keep me from having to see too many more Legggolllassses and Aaaarwwens running around! ;-)
Cuio mae! Live Well!
I hope this has been a useful introduction to the lore and characteristics of the Elves, both in Tolkien’s works and in Lord of the Rings Online.
Next up in our Welcoming Committee section is an in-depth look at the various classes, starting with Burglars.
Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days! Between the record heatwave we’re having and a few days away from my computer, the last post on the Race Matters series has been stuck in limbo. I’ll be back at my keyboard (and hopefully a little cooler) next week, so stay tuned!
Posts
All Comments
