© Elvencraft Legendary Technology morsel@elvencraft.com
There is an intrinsic conflict of interest between casual players and serious players which stems from the reasons why we play. Most people play for fun. If it wasn't fun at least some of the time we wouldn't be playing, however, there are varied opinions on what constitutes fun. Some people are willing to put up with more undesirable activities than others in order to achieve their goals. Grinding for traits and item experience can be boring. Some don't like to solo, others don't like to group. Doing the same instance 50 times to get a rare item is enough to exasperate anyone. For others, earning money is a problem.
Good gear, traits, and playing skill make a huge difference in the ability to succeed with difficult game content. Coming unprepared to an end game instance is a crippling liability for fellow players. Casual players often take offense when given advice or criticism of their gear, traits, or techniques, and refuse to take action, yet they see the rewards serious players earn and desire these rewards without doing the necessary work.
There are plenty of mediocre kins for casual players. In order to be a productive member of an end game instance raiding kin, players must be motivated to learn and fully develop their characters. Getting good gear requires a lot of work. Every day, players languish trying to get groups capable of completing end game instances, yet many of these players have not adequately geared, traited, and trained themselves first. They just want gear handed to them. Even if this were done, and often it is, these players will not be fit for end game instances, because they do not improve their skill commensurately with their gear and traits.
Consider this document a measuring stick by which raid leaders will determine if players are fit to participate in end game instances. Read this document completely and comply with all of the recommendations to maximize eligibility for participation.
Be courteous and honest with other players. Expletives, graphic sexuality, bigotry, racism, personal attacks, and fraud are inappropriate. Be on time. We all have real lives outside of the game and have better things to do than wait for tardy players. Be prepared. Bathe, eat, drink, bio, repair, sell, and resupply before the raid begins. Listen to and obey the leader. Do not go AFK during combat without permission. Do not set your character as anonymous, this prevents necessary inspection of your traits and equipment. Never loot a Bind on Acquire item your character can not use, does not need, or should not acquire, as this deprives other players who may have been waiting weeks or months for the item, and typically results in expulsion from the raid, excoriation on public server channels, and ostracization by other players.
Use a computer with a fast processor, at least 8GB of memory, high performance video card, solid state drive, high resolution digital LCD monitor, and a high speed internet connection. Check AnandTech and Tom's Hardware for reviews of computer equipment. Intel Core i5-4670K processor, Asus Z87 motherboard, EVGA GeForce GTX 760 video adapter, Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, and Samsung 840 Pro 256GB solid state drive are good choices for Spring 2014.
Hard disk drives require regular defragmenting to maintain acceptable performance levels. Solid state drives benefit from regular trimming but should not be defragmented as this shortens SSD life span without improving performance. A solid state drive is imperative for good system performance. Zoning on a solid state drive takes about 1/4 second. Auslogics Disk Defrag and IOBit Smart Defrag are free disk defragmenters. AVG is a good free antivirus program.
In game music and sounds should be turned down to 10% of voice communication levels so other players can be heard clearly. Monitor resolution should be set as high as possible, preferably 1920×1200 on a 24" widescreen monitor, to maximize field of view and reduce the amount of screen real estate used by controls. Enable triple buffering and sync to refresh rate for optimal performance without tearing on digital LCD monitors. Graphics quality should be set to the highest level that maintains a frame rate of 30-60 fps along with a long drawing distance to see targets before they become aggressive.
Speedtest.net measures internet connection speed and ping latency. Hiren's Boot CD has many utilities and diagnostic tools. Asus RT-AC66U and RT-N66U wireless internet routers are the best. Free DD-WRT or Tomato firmware runs on many older routers.
Playing without voice communication is fine when soloing, and some people get away without using voice for easy content, but difficult instance raids require voice communication for expeditious interchange of commands and intelligence. Use a headset and turn down the speakers, or they will feed back into the microphone, echoing other player voices and distracting them. Many headsets have poor microphone quality. Sennheiser makes good quality gaming headsets.
Enable microphone boost within the sound card control panel and adjust the microphone level for adequate gain out of game, then adjust the in game level using the mic test checkbox so the average voice level is well into the green bar graph about 1/2 way across, but not into the yellow or red clipping distortion region. This will maximize your microphone volume with minimum noise, hum, and distortion. LOTRO only recognizes USB headset adapters that are already plugged in when the game is started. Headsets plugged directly into permanently configured computer sound ports always work.
Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, and Mumble are third party voice communication programs used by some kins. Ask your kin mates for configuration information.
Learn every aspect of the user interface, command line, and options configuration. This may require reading a player guide, traversing all of the menus, and reading command line help.
Be skilled at moving your character effectively and efficiently using both mouse and keyboard, including the essential skills of strafing and circle strafing. Be aware of hostile NPCs. Be a master of combat. See Lotro-Wiki Combat for details. Know all of your class skills by name and function. Know all of the common fellowship maneuvers by name and function, how to interrupt your current skill to participate quickly, and how to change your color selection. See Lotro-Wiki Skills and Lotro-Wiki Fellowship Maneuvers for details.
See Lotro-Wiki Character Stats for a complete list of stats and their benefits. All classes should appropriately balance Armour, Resistance, Mitigation, Critical Defence, Critical Rating, Morale, Power, In-Combat Morale and Power Regen, Vitality, and a modest amount of Fate along with their primary stat. Vitality is better than Morale because it also provides Resistance and Mitigation. Block is for tanks. Parry and Evade are primarily for melee classes, but all classes can use them. Physical Mastery is for melee classes. Tactical Mastery is for casters. Lore-masters are the only class that use both. Consult experienced players for advice on configuring stats for your class and playing style. Purchase all tiers of the stat tomes from the Lotro Store for a permanent increase in Might, Agility, Vitality, Wisdom, and Fate.
| Class | Primary Stat |
| Guardian, Champion, Captain | Might |
| Warden, Burglar, Hunter | Agility |
| Minstrel, Lore-master, Rune-keeper | Wisdom |
See Lotro-Wiki Virtues for a complete list of virtues, the stats they increase, and the deeds required to attain them. There is some flexibility in traiting virtues according to class and personal preference. See Lotro-Wiki Deed Farming Locations for the best areas to complete slayer deeds. The following recommended virtues and any others traited should be at maximum rank:
See Lotro-Wiki Traits for more details on traits. All race, class, and legendary traits should be attained. Missing traits, however seemingly useless, may be essential for certain raids, and demonstrate a lack of commitment to excellence. Missing crucial traits are raid wreckers. Know all traits by name, what they do, and how to group them effectively for the task at hand. Know how to trait properly for an instance before going, so other players are not kept waiting.
Good equipment comes from instances, crafting, reputation vendors, and quests. Ask experienced players of your class for advice. Use legendary items for main hand and class slots. For the off hand slot, crafted weapons or instance weapons are good choices. When developing legendary items, choose legacies wisely, maximize legacy tiers and ranks, add an extra major legacy slot if appropriate, increase the maximum legendary item level to 70, equip class appropriate maximum tier relics, maximize stats with 3 starlit crystals, use Beleriand or Westernesse damage legendary titles for weapons, and class appropriate titles for non combat legendary items. Never use a common damage weapon, as most bosses are immune or highly resistant to common damage. Every character should have at least one mount with 68% speed, and one war steed with fully developed legendary bridle. Journeyman Riding grants 78% speed to all steeds and goats, and the Riding Skill to all characters in your account, and is available at the LOTRO store.
Use maximum level consumables. Low level consumables are less effective, and low level debuff removal potions do not work at all. Always carry full stacks of the following items:
Lacking supplies is a burden to other players, a source of resentment, and a contributing factor to instance failure. Chronic lacking supplies may result in loss of instance privileges.
A fully traited and leveled Skirmish Soldier is important for skirmish raids. While it can be fun to choose a Warrior, Protector, Archer, Bannerguard, or Sage, the Herbalist is the required role, as it heals, provides power, and does not start fights before the raid is ready. Raise the following traits to maximum level:
For each of your characters, click the Note button in the Social Kinship panel and list all your characters. This lets everyone in kin know who is who, and makes keeping track of members much easier for the officers. Click the small square button next to the Location heading to cycle through Location, Player Note, and Join Date.
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