Skip to main content

Lotro: Book 12 revisited and some fowl play

Yesterday evening Throg joined a kinship group to help a colleague complete Book 12 of Volume 1. This was the last book I completed before taking a break from the game and I remember it being particularly challenging. Last nights run through was very smooth though a far cry from the multiple wipes I remember from the first time around.

It was so much easier in fact that I have been trying to figure out what made such a big difference. I reckon several factors came together: We are all a bit more experienced with a number of players who have already completed the book, our gear is bit better all round (lotro is not particularly gear intensive but every little helps) and we were all using Ventrilo voice chat.


The group consisted of a minstrel, two captains, two champions and a lore master. There was no guardian to steal aggro from so the two champions went to town with all out area of effect damage and cut through hordes of mobs in rapid time. Normally this would be a suicidal strategy but with heavy buffing from two captains and healing from a well geared minstrel it worked a charm.

The final instance ("Weapons of the Enemy") deserves particular mention. You face a lone boss in a courtyard surrounded by a pillared walkway. The floor of the courtyard causes moderate fire damage over time. The boss nukes anyone he can see with area of effect fire balls. You can hide behind a pillar to dodge fireballs but that area is patrolled by ghosts who silence any casters (ie your healer) who try to shelter there. On top of all this the boss has some kind of invulnerability buff which he puts up, I think, if he is not engaged in melee. On my first go at the book we wiped and wiped on this mission. With our minstrel almost permanently silenced we ended up suicide tanking the boss in relays (it was a relatively quick run back from the resurrection spot). This time round we got it first time with no hassle. It went so quickly that I amn't entirely sure what went right but I think it was a combination of our minstrel standing inside the courtyard away from the silencing ghosts and one of the champions permanently clobbering the boss to prevent him using any nasty abilities. The rest of us just piled on the damage and the boss went down quickly. Book 12 completed in record time.

Earlier in the day Throg joined a fun kinship event. An officer ran around in chicken mode trying to achieve a sequence of ever more preposterous objectives while a raid group of 20 or so kinnies were tasked with protecting him. Whenever the chicken died everyone had to make their way back to the Kinhouse for a swig from the festival keg. In addition to woozy drunkenness this also transports the imbiber to a random region of middle earth from whence they must make their way back to the chicken run. We had much confusion (headless chickens?) and several feathery deaths but in the end the chicken managed to make a complete circuit of the dangerous Misty Mountains. In fact it was easier to keep the chicken alive in those dangerous parts than in the starter region of the shire because high level players do not automatically aggro mobs in the shire making it harder to distract their attention from the quick footed chicken. A fun time was had by all and a number of old friends returned to Lotro for the event, a hopeful sign of things to come with the upcoming expansion imminent.

Comments

Thallian said…
That sounds creative and freaking hilarious. You sir, have my admiration.
mbp said…
Don't admire me Thalian, I was only one of the drunken fools chasing the chicken. All credit must go to our creative officers who came up with the event.

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get