This is the last of my own LOTRO character introductions (the first and second are located here and here).
Next up, will be an intro for my husband’s character, and the last will briefly cover our friend’s (although I won’t be covering all of her characters, and most likely not in detail). Then I’ll probably take a little bit of a break from LOTRO-blogging for a short while. It has been fun blogging about something a little different, and I’ve especially enjoyed getting fun screenshots, even with my limited computer and skills! 😉
Another elf!?
I mentioned that I wasn’t interested in playing a human, and I’m (shockingly, I know) not really a big fan of hobbits. I love dwarves, but I couldn’t bring myself to having the two dwarves “fight” for my main attention. I do have an interest in eventually playing a Beorning, but those aren’t free to build (wait for a sale) and I want to do that with hubby — his most likely only other potential character. One seems to be enough for him for now.
So another elf it would be. And it also worked with why I wanted to build another character.
“So how does this craft work?”
While wandering around Middle Earth, mining for resources with my other two characters, I would see things for “scholars.” They were items I couldn’t touch, because I didn’t have the training to get them. I was curious how the scholar crafting worked, and if it would be useful for any of my characters or anyone else’s.
As it turned out, scholar crafting hasn’t been as interesting as I’d hoped. And it’s not easy, either. Resources never seem to be enough, and I am definitely at the mercy of Auction House prices, or worse… nothing available to buy, no matter the price. With scholar-craft leveling, I focus on another crafting aspect as much as I can (more on that in a moment), but that still takes time.
Finally getting to gather these resources… and wishing there were a lot more of them to find. 🙁
I had also been seeing other players running around with “pets” — but these were not cosmetic pets, just following them around weakly. No. They were fighting too! And the fighting style was very different than my hunter and champion. And it all fit perfectly, in my mind, with another elf.
What a fighter!
I chose to build a Loremaster (LM). I guess you could consider them a weak wizard. Their fighting is with magic!
The armor you have to wear is light, and that scared me (especially after the issues with my medium-armored hunter for a while), but as long as you pay attention to how you play them and keep an eye on their basic stats you probably won’t notice.
You start off with a staff I think it was (although I’m very upset that I skipped her first introduction… thought I was turning something else off, and wah! So I don’t know her “story” and how powers are explained. I should really look that up and see if someone has covered that somewhere). At level 40 you get to use both the staff and an added sword.
The attacks are mostly distance-based, and wow do some of them pack a punch! Lots of stuns, and there is also a lightning attack that I’ve seen hit at least two — and there may have even been a third — bad guy. Mwahahah! But that’s not the only plus side to playing a LM…
Casting a spell to stun a warg (and moving the camera angle to the side slightly so I can see around my little friend there).
A stunned warg! I do so love doing that.
Solo first, but not really solo
She was also built to be my “truly solo” character since the first two were paired up with my hubby and friend. I also didn’t need her for any crafting resources for the others, so I could mostly play her freely as I wished. Except, she’s not alone.
LMs have pets that can fight, as I mentioned. It confused me at first, but online resources claimed a raven was the first pet. It’s now the bear (raven comes next). You get a little variety of fighting pets as you level up, and each have their certain specializations that work for different situations. However, when I acquired the bog guardian (the freaky-looking tall critter in the background of many of my images on this entry), I pretty much have stuck with that one. It’s always a level above my own character, it sticks by my side most of the time, has a nice variety of distance attacks (as well as bopping bad guys over the head too), and almost always attracts the bad guys’ attention taking the bulk of attacks while I barely get hit.
The downside of the bog guardian, as another LOTRO-playing friend of mine has put it: “boggy-butt.” Since it’s so tall and stays (mostly) behind you, it’s always in my way. I’ll situate myself, only to have ol’ boggy-butt run up behind me and either block my view or stand right where I’m about to click (I use the “tab” key for targetting during fights, but I’m talking about clicking on NPCs and picking up resources — I use my mouse instead of keyboard commands for many things). Even Christopher has found it distracting, and I will sometimes send him through first so boggy-butt will take up the rear so he can get settled in and start fighting before the inevitable “ahhh! You’re in my way!” happens.
I would post some of her pets here, but there are so many now that perhaps I will save that for another blog entry.
Questing with hubby
Speaking of questing with my hubby, this is the character that has now been paired with him. I’m hoping he is having fun, but I can’t tell. You see, fights don’t last very long with my LM and the pet. I’ve seen him a few times just stand there and watch (maybe he’s taking screenshots heheh). The flip side of it is that we don’t get to play often, and we can definitely push through quickly and get a lot done. So maybe, at least for now, he really doesn’t mind.
It has taken him a while to get used to this new style of attacks since he was used to playing with my hunter. It’s still distance-based (although she has a nasty staff-lightning attack for closeup fighting), but he knew when my hunter was about to set a ground-trap, and he’d let me do that first before sending a barrage of arrows. My LM has a lot of stun attacks. This is nice, because sometimes bad guys are standing next to each other. You attack one, you’ll pull more in. Not so bad with a group (and sometimes helpful), but stinks solo when you have light armor and need to stay away from trouble. Sometimes he’s forgotten (and I get tired of calling to him in the next room to wait), or he didn’t realize what I was doing and he starts attacking the person I was trying to stun for a while to take out the other bad guy.
Another favorite attack…
… a powerful lightning bolt! Sometimes this will hit multiple bad guys too. This one cracks up my husband, especially when he doesn’t know I’m running up to help him when he got into a bit of trouble. My bog guardian is about to start attacking next.
It’s just a matter of time and getting used to things, though.
And he’s doing me a favor. My LM has weaponmaking (forged weapons) as well, but she can’t mine for her own ore.
Not this again
I wish I could have skipped this crafting focus, but sadly I have a second character that uses it now. My dwarf also has it, but he can mine for his own ore. The hunter does not make things, but she can gather and process. Unfortunately, E is behind a little level-wise on the ore she needs from L, so it’s helpful for Christopher’s dwarf to mine for my LM — and the best part is, his particular crafting uses different things, so he doesn’t need what I use. But I also do something that helps one of his crafts.
How did all three of my characters end up working in front of a forge? Ugh! I enjoy this okay with the dwarf, but this is a little too repetitious.
Crafting for him too!
So scholars gather relics and create “spell-like” things, as well as make weapons from ore. One of the things you do as a scholar is making dyes and paints for cosmetics in-game. Thankfully, aside from gathering ingredients you find, you can also grow them, because farming is the last crafting focus. At first I thought I’d hate it, but as it turns out — it’s my favorite!
I was glad to try the farming craft once I discovered I enjoyed it. Especially inside the Thorin’s Hall farming area.
You would think I would use the farmlands in the Shire to grow my vegetables, flowers, pipeweed, and whatever else you can grow. You wouldn’t think Thorin’s Hall would have their own greenhouse, but wow do they! It’s inside, slightly eerie, and very peaceful. It has its own music (practically puts me to sleep too, it’s so soothing), and barely anyone uses the place. I try going there every time I can, and I’m so thankful the farming tiers are so much easier to do. It just takes a little while, and hey… what Christopher and I don’t use (his dwarf cooks), I can sell at the Auction House. Yay money! To be honest, I’m a little envious I don’t have a place like that to go to myself!
It takes a little while to do, but it’s worth it and goes quickly in the long run for me.
What’s she like?
I haven’t really talked about her personality much yet, and admittedly I do very little with her character-wise. As an example, I kept referring to her as “my LM” instead of “E.” I’m really not sure why, I like her a lot.
Her quickly put together back story is that she knew my hunter L when they were younger (and I forgot to mention, L is from Rivendell, while E is from Lothlorien — their fathers would travel back and forth and take them to see the other, and they would write and stay in touch the rest of the time). This also makes me a little sad that all three of my characters will never meet, despite the fact I like to talk about how they all know each other, and the funny things that happen to them all.
E mostly sticks to herself and her pet companions, but she went a little overboard trying to impress the head of the kinship (my friend’s character). She ended up with a LOT of pipeweed while leveling her farming crafting and gave him several gifts. She must have been nervous the dwarf wouldn’t want “yet another elf” hanging around. It must have worked — dwarves do like their pipes. And ales. She really must grow some things to give to Christopher’s dwarf so he can make some ale soon! She also recently figured out where to gather things to get my friend reputation with Thorin’s Hall and went a little overboard gathering those for him. She definitely seems to want to get on his good side, doesn’t she?
Current location
She is currently in Echad Dúnann in Eregion, finishing quests in that area with Christopher’s dwarf, before heading through to the pre-Moria area.
Sadly, I keep realizing there are a lot of holes with this character skill-wise. I always forget, being my third character, what she has or hasn’t done. Already bad habits (such as skipping the main quests) are far worse — I ended up having to do lower level main quests simply so she could run the quests to acquire cosmetic pets. Oops. I have a feeling I’ll be having a lot more annoyances with her especially even as she continues leveling up.
But I love those awesome attacks, even if I do forget to do something she needs. 😉
I can’t forget a shot of her on my favorite LOTRO mount — the Thorin’s Hall Reputation Goat. All three of my characters have one, and Christopher decided he simply had to have one too!
Thanks for reading! (pictured with a variant of the raven pet — the blood raven.)
Next up, my husband’s character intro!
