Thread: Shem's Stealthy Supplement - A Budding Burglar's 1-20 Overview

So you want to be a Burglar huh? You’ve read the class descriptions, remembered ol Bilbo from the books and are maybe even carrying over some preconceptions from other games about the “Rogue” class (not to be confused with the Rouge class – One is a scoundrel, the other is Red). Let me stop you right here. If you’re expecting the Burglar class to be the Tier 1 DPS King that you’re used to, look somewhere else. That is not the case in LoTRO.

Lord of the Rings, like with so many other aspects, has envisioned the Burglar as a slippery, subtle, tricksy, befuddling sneak. Over the course of this Overview, I will attempt to describe the Burglar Class and a broad scope method of play (from levels 1-20 only) as best I can from both my own experience and of those I’ve witnessed. Please keep in mind that this is Only my opinion. I, in no way, represent Turbine or quite possibly the Burglar Community “at large” (mind the pun).


Character Generation:

Race:

So, you’ve decided to be a Burglar, Great! Welcome! Now you must choose between Human or Hobbit. Those are the only two races that may follow the path of the Burglar.

Like in many other games, LoTRO issues each race specific Pros and Cons.

EDIT: As pointed out by "Forusrname " I have amended the Racial section to include Racial Traits (something that will help all you head scratchers and over analyzers in your Race choice )

Hobbit

Hobbit Courage - Improved Fear Resistance (+1.0%).
Hobbit Toughness - Improved Vitality (+15).
Rapid Recovery - Improved out of combat Morale Regeneration (+1.0).
Resist Corruption - Improved Shadow Mitigation (+1.0%).
Small Size - Reduced Might (-8).

Racial Traits:

Guile and Conviction Fellowship Bonus -- every race gets a bonus to two types of fellowship moves, this is not terribly important but as a burg, you might give it a slight consideration since we can start FM.

Hobbit Club-damage -- moot at high levels due to dagger ability (the are about the same speed and dps etc), this can be helpful leveling up.

Hobbit-resilience -- small, non-stacking hope bonus is worthless in the end due to hope tokens, minor use at low levels.

Hobbit-silence -- this is the BIG one, feign death to get out of trouble or manage pulls in groups.

Hobbit-stature Re -- Its +20 might, which is very nice!

Hobbit-stealth useless for burg, burg stealth is better.

Return to Michel Delving -- priceless, but all races have one of these (the elf one is frustrating).

Stoop for a Stone This grants you a short ranged attack. -- This is nice, as burg gets few ranged options, but it has a cooldown (its not an attack, really, its a pull mob skill) and does next to no damage.

Summary:

Hobbit-silence (feign dead)
Hobbit-stature (20 might)
Stoop for a Stone (ranged attack)

best passives:
Hobbit Toughness - Improved Vitality (+15).
Small Size - Reduced Might (-8). //not a bonus, but something that must be considered


Man

Diminishing of Mankind - Decreased Will (-8).
Easily Inspired - Increased Morale Restoration.
Gift of Men - Improved Fate (+15).
Strong Men - Improved Might (+15).

Racial Traits:

Balance of Man -- improved defenses, important in the Moria combat engine.

Duty-bound -- morale bonus to your group, nice to have.

Man of the Fourth Age -- +20 will (I think), not the best burg trait but its ok.

Man Sword-damage Bonus -- great for burgs, dual swords is a solid setup for men.

Return to Bree -- takes you home, great skill.

Strength of Morale -- A fairly large (level based) extra self heal. This is very nice!

Tactics and Might Bonus -- FM bonus as above.

Upper-cut -- a wimpy, useless attack.

Summary:

Balance of Man (defense)
Duty-bound (small morale increase)
Man Sword-damage Bonus
Strength of Morale (self heal)

best passives:
Easily Inspired - Increased Morale Restoration.
Strong Men - Improved Might (+15).



Now, for the Burglar class we have several attributes which are important to us (regardless of what order of importance we personally choose to assign them).

Below is a list of the different core attributes. The ones in Bold (Might, Agility, Vitality) are arguably more important to a Burglar than the ones that are Not bolded (Will, Fate).

Might

Might increases your ability to block incoming attacks with a shield, parry incoming blows, or cause greater damage with a weapon. It also reduces incoming damage from common sources and increases the effectiveness of your Armour.

Agility

Agility increases your ability to evade and parry incoming blows, increases your chance to critically hit a foe, and adds to the amount of damage you deal with a ranged weapon. It also reduces your miss chance. 50 agility equates to 1% Crit Chance.

Vitality

Vitality increases your maximum morale, ability to regenerate morale when not in combat, resistances to Wound, Disease, and Poison. It also reduces incoming damage from non-weapon sources like Shadow, Fire and Frost. 1 Point of Vitality equates to 3 points of Morale.

Will

Will affects how much power you regenerate when not in combat, how much you resist fear effects (including cowering from Dread) and increases your maximum power total. 1 Point of Will is equal to 3 points of power.

Fate

Fate adds to your momentum in combat, directly influencing how quickly you regenerate both power and morale while in combat. Fate also influences the chance that you will Critical on certain Morale enhancing abilities, as well as non-direct damage weapon effects such as a damage over time.

Some people will argue that certain Races are better for certain classes, they may be right, but in the end, how much does +15 Fate or +15 Vitality really make a difference? +15 thats how much. If a +15 bonus is enough to tip the scales for you, then by all means, Pick that race.

I personally went with Hobbit purely for the RP value but that’s just me! There is no right or wrong in this choice. Its all a matter of Personal Taste.


In Game:


Level 1:

So you’ve appeared in Middle Earth, Fantastic! I’m not going to go through a basic tutorial because well the game does a good job at it and I’m also kind of assuming that you’re at least a little familiar with the game, so we’ll dive right in

At level 1 Burglars have 3 active skills:

Cunning Attack - Main Hand Damage + Damage over Time
Surprise Strike - Main Hand Damage + Based On Level Damage. Does more damage from behind and while in stealth.
Subtle Stab – Damage

You also have several Passive skills which allow you to use the following:

Light Armour
Specialized Equipment
Daggers
One-Handed Maces
One-Handed Swords

As you can see, we don’t start out very well off. We can only wear Light Armor but we can use pretty much all 1 handed weapons (aside from axes… who ever saw a Burglar carrying an Axe?!)

This of course leads us to the next question: What weapon should I use?! Whats the best for my Burg?!

Well, this question is very much like that of the “Race” question in that there are definite answers but then again, there isn’t one. (Some people will argue here that number crunching and data mining can be used to “Prove” what the best weapon/combo is. The truth is they may be right but remember, we’re only talking about lvls 1-20. Late/End game Chars are Vastly different from early game chars with different priorities and different play styles. Lets leave the number crunching and data mining for later levels shall we?)

Daggers do less damage but attack faster resulting in an overall slightly lower DPS than swords of the same level however, the increased speed means that you attack more times in a given battle. This is a very good thing because it gives you more chances to “proc” special abilities and Critical Strikes which are the beloved of every Burglar!

So you do less damage per hit, but you have a higher chance of critical strikes and you’re able to execute your skills faster (because the auto attack sequence “refreshes” faster. Remember, you can only use a skill After you’ve auto attacked. It cues it up as the next action taken after an auto attack)

Swords do more damage but swing slower. They are “The” balanced weapon. Not too strong, Not too weak, Not to fast Not to slow. Also, they do the most damage out of the 3 possible weapons you can use. If you’re looking to do the most potential damage per hit (crits not included) then the Sword is your best friend.

Maces do Slightly less damage than a sword but more than a Dagger. They swing about the same as swords BUT the mace has a chance to stun your target on hit. Some will say that this chance alone makes it stand well above the Sword or the Dagger as well.

In the end, its really up to you. At lower levels it probably matters Much less as our options are very limited and we are usually reliant upon Quest rewards and chance drops. I would say that until around lvl 17-25 (depending on your involvement in the economy and crafting) Take what you can get. If you’re using a dagger and a better sword comes along, use the sword, if a mace tops the others, use the mace. The only decision comes when you need to choose between 2 comparable (dps / stats) weapons. In that case, go with your gut. If you like the idea of stunning your foe from time to time, go mace, if you like faster attacks, go dagger, if you like more Umph in each hit, Sword is your weapon.


At this level you’re basically just frontal attacking mobs and alternating between the 3 skills.

Keep in mind that Surprise Attack does more damage if you use it from behind. This means that if you come across a Non-Aggressive mob and you can get behind them for the first hit, use Surprise Attack.

Also keep in mind that it is a good idea to use Cunning Attack early on so that the DoT works for you as much as possible.


Level 2:

At level 2 not much changes however you Do get your first Debuff. Learn to like, and use it because it will be your only debuff until level 14 (Addle)

Trick: Disable - Debuff: Slows target Attack Speed and Melee Damage by 15%.

Pretty strait forward. Apply this buff in every fight. It takes a very little time to cast and the benefits are pretty high for the level. You’ll be using it a Lot.

We are skipping level 3 because you do not get any new skills (passive or otherwise) and so your game play doesn’t really change.

Level 4:

At level 4 you take your first step [read: colossal leap] towards becoming a true Burglar. You gain two abilities that you will use extensively for the rest of your Burglar experience.

Sneak - Enters Stealth Mode (Movement speed reduced to 50%, can be increased to 70% with a trait).

Ahhh sneak, the skill you’ve no doubt been waiting and salivating for, running to the trainer every level to check if its available (unless you’re one of the smart ones and unchecked that little box that only shows you available skills, in which case you saw it waiting for you at level 4) Sneak in LoTRO is not very dissimilar to other games. It hides you from the eyes of others (both PCs and NPCs*) unless you’re in a fellowship in which case they see you as you see yourself. A “Ghost” image.

While in Sneak, as stated above, you move 50% slower and so you’re moving pretty slow. A common mistake I see a lot of players make is to enter stealth too early (meaning too far away from their target) and then end up either taking forever to reach it, or have it “tagged” by someone else who didn’t even realize you were en-route.

It is worth the time to learn the approximate agro range for mobs early in the game. Of course this range varies from mob to mob and also has to do with the level disparity between yourself and the mob, but get a good “feel” for the distance and then, when you spot your target, run up and just before you enter that agro range, hit your button. It saves time, and is a Lot more efficient.

It is also important to note that in LoTRO direction matters! That means that if you come strait at your target, approaching its face, you will get spotted faster than if you approach from the back. In LoTRO you must Think like a Burglar. Would any self respecting burglar try and sneak right up in front of her target?! No and neither should you! Always approach from the back and attack as soon as you can (remember Surprise Strike? Yeah, this is the time to use it!) Attacking from behind and from stealth adds to your damage.

I say attack as soon as you can because the closer you get to your target the more likely it is to spot you. So, learn the range of your attack and as soon as you can, Hit em! Don’t give them the chance to spot or sense you.

This leads me to the next point of Stealth. There are 3 situations you can find yourself in during stealth.

-Stealthed: In this case you are completely undetected by anyone (NPC)

-Sensed: In this case your target has been alerted to your presence (you know this by a squiggly line that appears above the NPCs head and the NPC turns to face you. Note: This does NOT mean that you have been spotted you are still stealthed and if you move away and circle around, the NPC once again becomes oblivious to your presence.

-Spotted: Your cover has been blown! Fight or Flight!

Stealth is an art and anyone who tells you otherwise is half arsing it. If you want to be a respectable Burglar, take pride in your work, you will enjoy the benefits and others will appreciate you for it when you successfully sneak past some Elite Mob to scout the chamber beyond instead of catching agro and wiping your group.


Burglar's Advantage - You are able to hit an enemy again after a critical hit, inflicting more damage from behind.

Burglar’s Advantage is a personal favorite and how could it not be?! It is a conditional skill, meaning that you cannot use it just like that (like for example cunning strike). This skill becomes available only after you’ve scored a Critical Strike. Once it does the skill becomes available for a Very limited time so use it promptly.

Personal Note*
I like to have very useful skills mapped to easy to access keys on my keyboard. I use the WASD style of play and for example I have my Stealth key mapped to the “Q” button. I have my Burg`s Advantage mapped to my “E” button. They are right there for me when ever I need them.

Now that you have Stealth this is a good time to practice with it, while the mobs are still fairly weak and pose no real threat to you. Keep in mind that you’re going to want to use Surprise Attack from stealth (and while behind your target). Practice makes perfect and while you don’t Need to attack from stealth at this point because the Burglar is a pretty solid class, it will be useful to you later on so polish your skills early!

Level 5:

At level 5 we don’t get any new active skills but we do get a new Passive one:

Evade Rank 1 - Adds 3.0% to Evade Chance

We also get 2 Novelty skills:

Clarinet Use
Lute Use

These are used to play music (not related to combat in any way) you can buy the instruments at any Bard (looks like a lute on the map), equip it and then type /music to play. Please refer to http://www.thefatlute.com/ for more info on this.

As a whole, game play does not change.


Level 6:

At level 6 we get 1 “defensive” skill:

Touch and Go - Increases evade chance by 50% for 30 seconds. 5 minute cooldown. Shares recovery timer with Knives Out.

This is a very helpful skill that you should use when facing a tough mob (like a boss or elite). Keep in mind it has a Long cool down so try not to spam it on a normal mob or when you may need it, it will not be available.

While this skill adds another useful tool to our growing arsenal, it doesn’t change our play style by much.


Level 7:

Level 7 is also an almost non-event as the only skill we get is

Parry Rank 1 - Adds 3.0% to Parry Chance

Once again, play style does not change.


Level 8:

At level 8, we take another giant leap forward in our usefulness to both ourselves and others. We get an invaluable skill that you will use more than you can imagine (if you play right) This skill will save your Burglaring butt in a pinch and allow you to take on encounters that up until now were simply not an option or left you fleeing for your Morale!

Riddle - 30 seconds daze, 60 second cooldown. Can be reduced to 30 if Mischief is toggled.

Say it with me: Riddle, Riddle, Riddle! This baby is Right out of the Lore Books, from the pen of JRR himself. I will direct your memory to “The Hobbit” where Bilbo meets Golum for the first time. Basically the premise here is that you pose a riddle to your enemy which is so perplexing that the person literally has to stop and think about it for a whole 30 seconds! As expected, this effect breaks on damage so make sure there are no DoTs on your target before casting it. Also make sure that any party members you have KNOW that you’re about to daze your target or they might hit it and break the effect.

The versatility of this skill is nearly endless, when used skillfully it will make you a very powerful class indeed! The range is greater than agro and it almost never misses (but it can!)

Also keep in mind that it only works on Intelligent creatures: Humanoids (goblins orcs etc), Undead and Dragon Kind. So don’t try and pose a riddle to a boar because you’ll get smacked for your effort

At level 20 you get a new skill that makes this one Much more viable and potentially changes the way you play substantially. (But we’ll get to that at level 20) For now, this is an extremely useful tool but keep in mind the long cool down.

Use it


Level 9:

At level 9, like with almost all the Odd number levels we get 1 passive skill

Critical Rank 1 – Adds 1.0% to Critical Hit Chance.

While this is a great addition to your abilities, it doesn’t change the way you approach combat, so we’ll move on.



Level 10:

Level 10 is a critical point in your Burglaring career. While offering only 1 (albeit very useful skill) it offers you something much better. The ability to dual wield and the ability to wear Medium Armor!


Mischievous Glee - You can surprise a foe with an active Trick on them, removing the Trick and restoring some of your Morale. This will never miss against on level targets, nor can it be parried, blocked, or evaded. Range: 3m Base Cooldown: 45s

For those of you scratching your heads here’s the scoop. Remember “Disable” ? that Trick you’ve been using for the past 8 levels? Well it just got better! With this skill, once you apply a “Trick” like disable to your target, you have the option of removing that trick and applying a small HoT (Heal Over Time) to yourself (and only yourself) As stated this never misses so as long as your target has a Trick (any trick you placed on it) and is alive, you can get a HoT. This HoT, like every other skill you get, scales with your level, so it gets better as you do (imagine that!)

The intelligent use for this skill (aside from times when you simply Must heal yourself ASAP) is to apply your trick, wait until the Cool Down on that same trick (or a different trick you wish to use is over (aka the skill becomes available again) by then, the current Trick will still be active on the target but fading fast. At this point you should use your Misc. Glee and then immediately cast another trick (same or otherwise) on the target. This way you get the full benefit of the trick, the heal, and only have about 1 second where the target isn’t effected by a trick (debuff). Play around with this a bit until you master it and feel comfortable with the timing.

It’s a Very very very very useful skill, the Cool down is not very long a mere 45 seconds which makes using this skill often a no brainer. (I tend to use it towards the very end of the battle because you end up killing the mob almost immediately after the HoT becomes active and so you get the full benefit of the heal without having to lose any to damage.


Dual Wielding - Allows the usage of two weapons in each respective hand.

This is our baby! A weapon in each hand, what could be better?! There are tons of threads out there that analyze the raw math of this and frankly, this guide is large enough without adding all that in here! (but I have to just a little)

Some people will tell you to place the higher DPS weapon in your off hand because you only get a certain percentage of the damage (50%?) which means that if your weapon does 10 DPS you will be doing at most 5 DPS. So if you have a weapon that does 10 DPS and a weapon that does 9, placing the 10 dps in your off hand gives you 9+5=14 vs 10+4.5 = 14.5 as you can see, this is not the case because you’d be losing .5 dps

So in the end, it is probably always going to be worth placing the Higher DPS weapon in your Main hand and the lower DPS weapon in your off-hand.

Moving on…


Medium Armor – This allows the use of Medium (Leather) armor. It substantially increases your Armor Rating and adds a TON of survivability. Make sure you upgrade your armor here. It will make your life a LOT easier


Level 11:

Accuracy Rank 1 - Reduces Miss by a medium amount.

Not much to say here. Keep on doing what you’re doing!


Level 12:

At level 12 you get 2 very useful skills, one of which becomes one of the Core reasons to have a Burglar in a Fellowship (and is a skill exclusive to the Burglar class)

Exploit Opening - Stuns enemy for 5 seconds, allowing your fellowship to perform a maneuver. 5 minute cooldown

For those of you who don’t know… a Maneuver is a Fellowship tactic that requires the cooperation of the entire fellowship in order to unlock a special effect. You may have seen it before.. it’s a diamond of 4 options that pops up on occasion (random). Please direct your browsers to:

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mechanics:Fellowship_Maneuvers for a detailed explanation of this phenomena.

The big deal here is that while there are several skills that “Can” start a Maneuver, only we can start one on command. (That, if you didn’t guess, is a Huge deal in big boss fights…)

Now keep in mind that not everyone knows that we have this ability so be sure to spread the news but remember to use it at the appropriate times (boss/hard fights) and be sure to coordinate it with your Fellowship. There’s nothing worse than to waste that skill and watch the Maneuver fizzle.



Aim - The next damage dealing attack will be a critical hit and your chances to miss will be significantly reduced. Using this skill will not break stealth. 10 seconds duration, 1:30 cooldown. Can be reduced to 1:00 with a trait.

Basically what this means is, you want to use this skill right before a hard hitting skill (for now that would probably be Surprise Strike). Also, I will direct your attention to “Using this skill will not break stealth”. This is very important because it allows you to score a Critical Strike on an opening move.

There are invariably 2 Burglar camps out there. Those that use Stealth regularly and those that do Not. (that camp becomes further divided at level 20 but more on that later). Those that use Stealth regularly know that the best way to start a fight is by sneaking up behind your target and then using Surprise Strike, this way you get the Bonus damage of “from stealth and from behind.” Now add to this a Critical Strike, Mmmm can you taste the victory?!

While sneaking up towards your target (no need to stop moving in order to use this skill) pop this skill off, you’ll see a ghostly circle appear above your head, then when you get behind your target pop Surprise Strike and WHAM! Critical+from behind+from stealth a brilliant combination that immediately opens up Burglar's Advantage for use (use it asap)

For those who don’t use Stealth as an opener, don’t fret, there is a good tactic for you as well! If you’ve been using Burglar’s Advantage you’ve no doubt noticed the Class Trait that calls for the landing of a critical strike with a skill unlocked by a critical strike (meaning score a crit with Burglar’s Avantage). Now we have a sure fire way to advance that trait. While in battle, wait until you naturally score a Critical Strike, once Burg’s Avd. Opens up, use your Aim and then use Burglar’s Advantage, You’re almost guaranteed to land a critical strike with it and it counts towards your trait

This method means that you might not get to use it every time Aim is available. If you feel like you need an extra Umph of damage, use Aim and then Surprise Strike to maximize damage and then immediately use Burglar’s Advantage.


Level 13:

Evade Rank 2 – Adds 2.0% to Evade Chance

Nothing much to say here. Keep doing what you’re doing, its obviously working



Level 14:

Well now, I’m sure that at least several of you have been wondering [read: complaining] about the fact that we are Burglars… but we cant Burgle!! Well, your wait is over! At level 14 we can officially call ourselves Burglars.

Burgle - While sneaking about, you can attempt to lighten the pockets of unsuspecting targets.

This skill can be used from Stealth and has a short-ish range of 4 meters. It doesn’t always work and you must make sure you have room in your inventory for it to work. Using this skill does NOT break stealth so it’s a great little addition to your combat initiation sequence. Mostly it’s a novelty skill but it can yield some extra cash so why not!

Addle - You confuse your enemy so thoroughly that he fails any skill attempts in process, and any subsequent skill attempts for a short time take much longer to execute.
Duration: 30s Range: 20m Base Cooldown: 15s

Addle is an interesting skill, its not a trick so it can stack along with Disable (but keep in mind that it cannot be used along with Misc. Glee for the Heal) this skill is useful in that it guarantees the failure of the next skill the mob tries to use, and make the use of the following skills (for 30 seconds) take much longer.

It is a good idea to use this skill early in the fight since most mobs will attempt a Debilitating or Disabling skill within the first 10 seconds of a fight. Popping this skill early means their first attempt will fail.



Level 15:


Parry Rank 2 - Adds 2.0% to Parry Chance

Another odd level and while most Odd levels are pretty dull, this isnt one of them! At level 15 you'll notice a new Quest Ring Icon pop up on your map sitting right on top of your Class Trainer!

Yes, at level 15 we get our first Class Quest! These are exciting times, It is now that you must test your skill and sneakyness in order to reap great rewards!

I wont go into what the quest is or how to finish it because I'm not that evil but I will tell you that the major reward for this quest is indeed Major (In my opinion)


Ambidextrous - You are able to wield your off-hand weapon more efficiently, dealing greater damage to your foes. Adds 15.0% to Off-Hand Damage Multiplier.

Cant get much better than that! (actually you can, Do the quest and check out one of the other rewards <hint hint>)


Level 16:

Level 16 is a seemingly uneventful level but things are often more than what they seem. We get a second trick!

Trick Dust in the Eyes - Debuff: Adds 20.0% to Miss Chance and Slows movement speed by 25% (Including Mounts)

This trick is fantastic. Look at it this way, it could read “Adds 20% evade chance vs the Target” basically; this skill is 2 skills in 1. It not only gives you a 20% evade chance vs your target, it is also an emergency evac skill or even a good breather with its -25% movement speed debuff.

Note: This Trick applies 2 distinct debuffs on the target. This is important to note because the -25% speed debuff is NOT considered a trick and therefore will remain on the target even if you use Mischievous Glee.

Note2: This skill will break Daze if used, keep that in mind!

Here is a tactic that I like using if I’m facing a particularly nasty enemy (boss or elite or +5 lvl mob):

Start off normally, with sneak + aim + surprise strike, then I’ll pop Disable, then Burglar’s Advantage, then start alternating between the 3 damage skills. Around half way through the battle, when I’m about 50% Morale (OR right before Disable is about to fade out) I’ll pop Mischievous Glee and then immediately Dust in the Eyes and then step away from the mob (Assuming Dust landed). You’ll Easily be able to keep away from the mob because of the -25% movement speed

This allows me to kite the mob for the duration of the HoT. Since the mob is still In Combat, it will not be regening much of its HP… but I will. Once the HoT fades out I rush back in and keep hacking away! (This tactic takes on a new dimension at level 20 but we’ll elaborate then.)


Level 17:

No skills for you! Come back.. 1 level!

Alas, level 17 shows us no love, we all weep for injustice!



Level 18:

Level 18 brings with it a great “Sneak” and combat aversion skill that will help you greatly in getting in and out of places without a fight. Any way you look at it, that’s a good thing!


Diversion - Distracts enemy to look in opposite direction. Can only be used while in stealth. This skill can be used to stop a patrolling mob for a short time, if it is not resisted.

This skill basically has you toss a “something” at the enemy and will cause it to turn away from you. It does not result in agro or “sensing” of you. Once the effect fades, the mob goes back to normal (either facing here it was before, or continuing its patrol)

This is also a great addition to your opening sequence since it causes the enemy to expose its back to you which means you don’t have to circle all the way around (and sometimes you cant) so when you cant go to the mountain, make the mountain come to you


Level 19:


Accuracy Rank 2 - Reduces Miss by a medium amount.

Nothing to see here, move it along.



Level 20:

At last! Level 20. We’ve been through a lot together these past 20 levels and here we stand, at the doorway to a whole new world (not really). Level 20 brings with it several skills and perhaps a whole new way of approaching battles. (For those who think I’m being a bit overdramatic… you’re probably right but hey, it’s my guide and I’m allowed :P)

Clever Devices Enables burglars to use devices such as caltrops, marbles, and stun dust.

Tools of the Trade - Enables burglars to use special tools to facilitate their clever tricks.

These two two skills are passive and go hand in hand. They allow you to equip special items that can be bought at your Burglar trainer (or crafted) Be sure to browse the wares and see whats available.

Track Treasure - Tracks chests, marking them on your minimap. This works exactly like your Crafting Profession Node Trackers.


Startling Twist - You startle an enemy with an active Trick on them, stunning them for 8s and removing the Trick.

This skill works on the same basic premise as Mischievous Glee in that it requires an active skill on the target in order to be possible. It also removes the trick. Though more difficult to set up, as an active trick is required, this skill can be used as an interrupt on casters or summoners, if it is not resisted.

You would be surprised how long 8 seconds can be in a fight. Also note that this is a Stun, not a Daze and so it will NOT be broken by damage. Slay away friends!

Note: Once the stun is activated, Make sure you get Behind your enemy as we cause more damage from behind

Remember “Dust in the Eyes”? We established 1 particular tactic (that may or may not work for you, I wont take it personally )

Well now we’re able to expand on that tactic. In the previous method, we would use Disable, drop that for the HoT and then use Dust to get away from the mob while we heal.

Now that we have Startling Twist, we have 2 Tricks and 2 Skills that need a Trick. This is too perfectly aligned to pass up. The idea behind this tactic remains the same. To allow us to heal during battle without taking any additional damage (DoTs aside) from our target but where before we had to kite the mob in order to achieve this, Now we have no such problem!

We’ll start with the same method, sneak + aim + surprise strike, then pop Disable, then Burglar’s Advantage, then start alternating between the 3 damage skills. Around half way through the battle, at about 50% Morale (OR right before Disable is about to fade out) pop Mischievous Glee and then immediately Dust in the Eyes.

Now you have a decision to make, you can either step away and kite, saving the stun for later, OR you can pop the stun immediately. Since Dust in the Eyes applies 2 separate debuffs on the target, using Startling Twist will only remove the -20% miss chance and will Leave the -25% movement speed in effect. Of course, using Startling Twist means you now have 8 seconds to attack your target (from behind of course) AND heal uninterrupted.

If you decided that you’d like to save your stun for later, that’s fine too, make sure you use it before Dust in the Eyes fades or after you’ve applied your next trick (obviously)

Since I personally prefer Dust in the Eyes over Disable (I’d rather have them miss more – in which case I take 0 damage, than have them deal 15% less damage per hit and have them hit 15% slower.) I tend to burn Disable for Mischievous Glee and then use Dust in the Eyes because then I have the luxury of either kiting, fighting or stunning.

Hope this helps


Mischief - Instead of Sneaking, you set your mind straightway to Mischief. While active, your Tricks and Twists cost less power to use and the recovery timer of Riddle is reduced. This skill can only be activated out of combat and cannot be used while sneaking. -25% Tricks Power Cost, -30s Riddle Cooldown

Throughout this guide I’ve hinted that a potentially big change happens at level 20. Well, here it is! Mischief is potentially an approach changing skill to many players and all that aside, it is a Very valuable skill by any measure.

This skill demands a choice. Stealth or Crowd Control. While it reduces the power cost of your tricks and twists (and that’s nice) I do not consider that effect to be anywhere near the importance of the -30 second cooldown reduction on Riddle. Yes you heard me right, your Riddle skill now has a Stun duration of 30 seconds AND a cool down of 30 seconds!

This of course means that you are now able to “Perma mezz” or permanently remove 1 “intelligent” creature from the fight for as long as you want (or until someone messes it up for us!) The value of this ability cannot be overstressed. It can take a boss out of a fight, allowing you to kill all the adds at your own pace. It can give you unlimited healing time. It can give you and your fellowship time to regroup, recover a fallen comrade or just do a /dance1.

Also, it is a great way to “tag” a mob for later. You can Riddle a mob, then fight a different one while that one ponders your tricksyness and then once you finish with your current target you can move on to Number 2. Furthermore it can allow you to always start your fights on your own terms (when dealing with “intelligent” mobs) that means that you can always start your battles with a strike from behind which means that all you’re lacking from the Stealth Camp is the “From Stealth” damage bonus.

I tend to go into Mischief mode when in groups, or when I’m fighting Humaniods and I need to juggle the potential for adds. (Lets say I need to get to a barrel of rotting flesh that’s sitting right behind 2 Orcs. Instead sneaking up and then fighting 2 mobs, I’ll pop a riddle on one of them, his friend will agro to where I am and I can fight on my own terms. Then when I’m done, I can move up to the second guy and attack on my own time and terms.

The Hard Core Stealth camp will tell you that you can sneak up, begin your attack and then immediately pop a riddle on the second guy.. you know what… they are right! However, this carries with it the problem that if at the end of the 30 second daze you aren’t ready (for any reason) to enter a new fight… you’re out of luck. It also means that if you’ve engaged your second target and a 3rd enemy comes rolling in.. you’re also out of luck.

Any way to spin it, Mischief gives you an amazing ability that should not be overlooked by any means!




Well folks, that’s just about it for this guide. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it! Of course, it goes without saying that I have No intention of insulting anyone and if for some bizarre reason you have managed to take insult during the reading of this Guide, then I truly apologize. Point out your problem and I’ll do my best to remedy it!

Also, if anyone has any factual corrections on anything I’ve posted here let me know and I’ll correct it asap! You may of course disagree with the tactics and conclusions I’ve drawn and that is of course your right. Don’t be silent about it, post it below! I’d love to hear your point of view and your take on things. Who knows, sometimes the smallest comment can change your gaming experience forever! (Insert Dramatic music)

I play on the Elendilmir world and go by the handle of Shemesh. If anyone would like to contact me and trade ideas/tactics, say Hi, or team up, Please send me a tell!

I wish you all good gaming and good luck!

Shem.

<Reserved>

Very well made starter guide. I haven't read it through all of it yet (at work) but I thought I should give you a positive comment nonetheless.

very well done. I would add in the racial traits, to really explain the choices you need all this. These go WITH the passive racials to get a true sense of your race choice:

Hobbits:

Guile and Conviction Fellowship Bonus -- every race gets a bonus to two types of fellowship moves, this is not terribly important but as a burg, you might give it a slight consideration since we can start FM.

Hobbit Club-damage -- moot at high levels due to dagger ability (the are about the same speed and dps etc), this can be helpful leveling up.

Hobbit-resilience -- small, non-stacking hope bonus is worthless in the end due to hope tokens, minor use at low levels.

Hobbit-silence -- this is the BIG one, feign death to get out of trouble or manage pulls in groups.

Hobbit-stature Re -- Its +20 might, which is very nice!

Hobbit-stealth useless for burg, burg stealth is better.

Return to Michel Delving -- priceless, but all races have one of these (the elf one is frustrating).

Stoop for a Stone This grants you a short ranged attack. -- This is nice, as burg gets few ranged options, but it has a cooldown (its not an attack, really, its a pull mob skill) and does next to no damage.



------------------------

Man

Balance of Man -- improved defenses, important in the Moria combat engine.

Duty-bound -- morale bonus to your group, nice to have.

Man of the Fourth Age -- +20 will (I think), not the best burg trait but its ok.

Man Sword-damage Bonus -- great for burgs, dual swords is a solid setup for men.

Return to Bree -- takes you home, great skill.

Strength of Morale -- A fairly large (level based) extra self heal. This is very nice!

Tactics and Might Bonus -- FM bonus as above.

Upper-cut -- a wimpy, useless attack.

---------------
to boil them down (removing worthless ones, my opinion, added in the passives) for a potential burg, we have:

hobbits:

Hobbit-silence (feign dead)
Hobbit-stature (20 might)
Stoop for a Stone (ranged attack)

best passives:
Hobbit Toughness - Improved Vitality (+15).
Small Size - Reduced Might (-8). //not a bonus, but something that must be considered

men:

Balance of Man (defense)
Duty-bound (small morale increase)
Man Sword-damage Bonus
Strength of Morale (self heal)

best passives:
Easily Inspired - Increased Morale Restoration.
Strong Men - Improved Might (+15).

IMO those bottom two lists are what really matter on a daily basis, its the stuff you really get a lot of benefit from. I tried to keep it unbiased and to judge each item on its own merit.

Thank you both for your kind words!

I've edited the OP to include the info you've provided here Forusrname, Thank you!

Oh yea, there IS something to say about level 15... I think thats your class quest (which is way, way too easy) ... it unlocks club use I believe, or medium armor, or both I cannot remember but its important.

Originally Posted by forusrname

Oh yea, there IS something to say about level 15... I think thats your class quest (which is way, way too easy) ... it unlocks club use I believe, or medium armor, or both I cannot remember but its important.

Don't clubs come a bit later? Up in Oatbarton?

Actually, at lvl 15 there IS a Class Quest and the reward is:

Ambidextrous - You are able to wield your off-hand weapon more efficiently, dealing greater damage to your foes. Adds 15.0% to Off-Hand Damage Multiplier. Line Bonus: Increases Critical Chance with Burglar Skills by 1.0%.

Which is awesome. I cant believe I missed that Editing now!

EDIT: Done

EDIT 2: Removed Line Bonus. Thanks Celestial!

Just a quick reminder; Line Bonuses were removed upon the Launch of MoM.

Edit:

Originally Posted by FutenCake

Don't clubs come a bit later? Up in Oatbarton?

Yeah they do. From this quest.

Having just started the game after the holiday, I was a bit apprehensive about a Burglar. I have a warden, and enjoy it, but I've never been a great tank, so I was thinking about something new. All I knew about the burglar was that "its not the typical stealth-DPS" class. But I was a bit confused on how to play one.

Now I'm looking forward to getting in there

Thank you!

verify:
you listed glee and wanted a verify, but such skills increase as you level, I do not know the function for it. Other skills the same thing, your cunning attack numbers are for a low level (of course) but *everything* damage scales by levels (and often by weapon as well).

Originally Posted by Scelte

Having just started the game after the holiday, I was a bit apprehensive about a Burglar. I have a warden, and enjoy it, but I've never been a great tank, so I was thinking about something new. All I knew about the burglar was that "its not the typical stealth-DPS" class. But I was a bit confused on how to play one.

Now I'm looking forward to getting in there

Thank you!

I'm so happy you found the guide helpful! Be sure to let us know any tips or tricks you happen to come across!

@ Forusrname

I've amended the post to now read:

"This HoT, like every other skill you get, scales with your level, so it gets better as you do (imagine that!)"

Thanks for that info! (What a great community!)

Very nice post! Thank you for your work.

I have one thing to suggest: that Mischievous Glee be tried earlier in the fight, after you have lost 15-20% of your morale. I do it even sooner. Because it is a heal over time waiting until near the end could be a mistake, In a long fight against some boss or a group you might want to use it twice. Another good reason for this habit is that, if I recall, Reavers in the Moors have some skills that activate if you get below half morale. It wouldn't surprise me if some NPCs are like that as well. That's after lvl 20, but good habits start early. Just remember you need to bail the water out of the boat faster than it's leaking in.

Thank you again fro this thread!

Yours in fellowship,
Stephen "Trotter"

Originally Posted by Trotter

Very nice post! Thank you for your work.

I have one thing to suggest: that Mischievous Glee be tried earlier in the fight, after you have lost 15-20% of your morale. I do it even sooner. Because it is a heal over time waiting until near the end could be a mistake, In a long fight against some boss or a group you might want to use it twice. Another good reason for this habit is that, if I recall, Reavers in the Moors have some skills that activate if you get below half morale. It wouldn't surprise me if some NPCs are like that as well. That's after lvl 20, but good habits start early. Just remember you need to bail the water out of the boat faster than it's leaking in.

Thank you again fro this thread!

Yours in fellowship,
Stephen "Trotter"

Absolutely use glee the moment it is up and you have lost enough morale to benefit, the sooner you use it the sooner it is ready again. The exception to this is a heavy gambler setup, you want to wait for the dev-crit bonus to use it (if you can) to get your gamble bonus from the skill. Hopefully it will not take long to get a dev-crit, but at the early levels that may be an issue (post 40, your crit rating soars from gear and you can get one in short order).

My burglar is now level 30 (Sharing game time with my wife while we play a RK/Warden combo, so its been slow)

Loving it! Wheres the next part of the guide! I want 20-40! or even 60!

I am a new Hobbit Burglar and thank you for the guide. Where do i get Feign Death. I am only level 19 and do not see it listed under my skills?

Originally Posted by Zinn23

I am a new Hobbit Burglar and thank you for the guide. Where do i get Feign Death. I am only level 19 and do not see it listed under my skills?

The Hobbit version is Hobbit Silence - a racial trait. I can't remember what level it is available but a quick search should find more info.

Originally Posted by slack_n_hash

The Hobbit version is Hobbit Silence - a racial trait. I can't remember what level it is available but a quick search should find more info.

Hobbit Silence or the Feign Death is the last of Hobbit Racial Traits . It can be started at lvl 35 and from killing goblins.

Edit: Nice Starter Guide. That should help any Budding Burglar on the path to successful Burglin.

Nice starting guide.

I would suggest possibly adding this to the lore book (not sure where these types of guides go there).

From the OP:
Some people will tell you to place the higher DPS weapon in your off hand because you only get a certain percentage of the damage (50%?) which means that if your weapon does 10 DPS you will be doing at most 5 DPS. So if you have a weapon that does 10 DPS and a weapon that does 9, placing the 10 dps in your off hand gives you 9+5=14 vs 10+4.5 = 14.5 as you can see, this is not the case because you’d be losing .5 dps

What? Where did you get this from? I've never heard this before. If you can quote a source to prove this I would really like to see it, as would any class that dual-wields, I'm sure. Honestly, I think you're confused with the speed of the weapons being averaged.

Burgs only have two skills (eventually) that even use the off-hand weapon so why bother even caring (to a degree) what DPS your off-hand weapon is? That being the case the main damage we get from our off-hand weapon is in the form of auto-attacks. As such the biggest factors of the off-hand weapon is simply to speed up (or down) your overall attack speed and the bonus to your stats.

This is too useful not to bump!

Currently leveling my burglar up.. this guide is very very helpful. thanks for posting this

OO found another small error:

agility is NOT 1% crit per 50, else I would be capped at 15% long ago.... it has diminishing returns and is nonlinear, and basically capped at about 500-600 (the DR is so bad its pointless to stack much over 500-600 ish).

Might is the same, you get more damage but the more might you have, the less you get per point, here again 500-600 is about all you can stack efficiently.

Will and vit stack forever, both add 3 (morale or power) per point. A burg would stack vit once might and agi were high.

@OP:

Your weapon breakdowns are a bit off. Maces swing a good deal slower than swords, but hit much harder. The stun chance from maces is very unreliable, and, for the most part, useless if you are a burglar (it's a short, 3 second stun, and it makes your target immune to any other stuns for 10 seconds after it becomes unstunned). This is why, back after release, Clubs and Hammers were changed from ALSO having a stun chance, to what they are now (clubs slowing attack speed, hammers lowering evade chance). Burglars were complaining about people in groups randomly stunning NPCs and messing up their ability to pop conjunctions or Startling Twist.

@forusrname:

1% melee crit chance is (approximately) 150 crit rating. This means 75 agility is ~1% melee crit, until diminishing returns kicks in.

Unfortunately, we have not seen Shem in game for months. It's a good guide, but I doubt the OP will be updated.

Even though some of the advice is suspicious (weapon choice), this is excellent and should be stickied.

Wanne preserve this thread so bumping it before The Big Scary Purge !

My baby burg is now level 21. Thank you for this guide, as it had a lot of really good information.

I had tried Burg before and hated it. However, after getting my warden to 60, I got a better grasp of playing an advanced class. My altitis has been sated, and I am taking my hobbit burg to 60.

Soloed 1.1.11 last night. Kind of disappointed it isn't a group quest anymore, but it felt awesome soloing it, with no deaths.

Thank you for such a great guide! I just started my Burgler and this guide was just what I was looking for.

Cheers!

Thanks. This helped me get my alt Burg going. Lvl 21 all solo so far. Excited to get into some group action later on.

Since someone bumped this post, it should be noted that weapon speed is now normalized, meaning daggers are not faster, as far as I know. Nice guide.

Thanks for this. I've got a level 16 burg coming along and am still a little blurry on when to use what and what all these skills can do. I look forward to getting to 20 and trying out all this fun stuff!

Originally Posted by platypus94

meaning daggers are not faster,

They aren't faster, but don't do less damage either, so you can weight the benefit of the weapon type bonus, stats, etc. to consider. Of course there is still the dagger bonus to damage
for burgs, but can be offset by the man damage bonus with swords, or clubs for hobbits. So Sword, Dagger, Club seem to be equivalent choices now with those bonuses.

Great post

This is a great post. Hugely helpful walkthrough for how to play a class that is not always intuitive for n00bs like me.

I wish every class had a guide like this.

This is a great candidate for the Lorebook!

Originally Posted by Clover

This is a great candidate for the Lorebook!

If, by lore, you mean information from long ago, maybe =)

Its a bit dated and needs a re-write for mirkwood.

I have taken it upon myself to update this to help the upcoming F2P folks a bit. If anything is still wrong (due to changes since the original) let me know. I kept most of the original text and spirit of the post. I will also re-read it again later to see if I missed anything. Also, if I broke any formatting in the process, tell me =)

Originally Posted by CzarrRom

So you want to be a Burglar huh? You’ve read the class descriptions, remembered ol Bilbo from the books and are maybe even carrying over some preconceptions from other games about the “Rogue” class (not to be confused with the Rouge class – One is a scoundrel, the other is Red). Let me stop you right here. If you’re expecting the Burglar class to be the Tier 1 DPS King that you’re used to, look somewhere else. That is not the case in LoTRO.

Lord of the Rings, like with so many other aspects, has envisioned the Burglar as a slippery, subtle, tricksy, befuddling sneak. Over the course of this Overview, I will attempt to describe the Burglar Class and a broad scope method of play (from levels 1-20 only) as best I can from both my own experience and of those I’ve witnessed. Please keep in mind that this is Only my opinion. I, in no way, represent Turbine or quite possibly the Burglar Community “at large” (mind the pun).


Character Generation:

Race:

So, you’ve decided to be a Burglar, Great! Welcome! Now you must choose between Human or Hobbit. Those are the only two races that may follow the path of the Burglar.

[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Like in many other games, LoTRO issues each race specific Pros and Cons.

Hobbit

Hobbit Courage - Improved Fear Resistance (+1.0%).
Hobbit Toughness - Improved Vitality (+15).
Rapid Recovery - Improved out of combat Morale Regeneration (+1.0).
Resist Corruption - Improved Shadow Mitigation (+1.0%).
Small Size - Reduced Might (-8).

Racial Traits:

Guile and Conviction Fellowship Bonus -- every race gets a bonus to two types of fellowship moves, this is not terribly important but as a burg, you might give it a slight consideration since we can start FM.

Hobbit Club-damage -- moot at high levels due to dagger ability (the are about the same speed and dps etc), this can be helpful leveling up.

Hobbit-resilience -- small, non-stacking hope bonus is worthless in the end due to hope tokens, minor use at low levels.

Hobbit-silence -- this is the BIG one, feign death to get out of trouble or manage pulls in groups.

Hobbit-stature Re -- Its +20 might, which is very nice!

Hobbit-stealth useless for burg, burg stealth is better.

Return to Michel Delving -- priceless, but all races have one of these (the elf one is frustrating).

Stoop for a Stone This grants you a short ranged attack. -- This is nice, as burg gets few ranged options, but it has a cooldown (its not an attack, really, its a pull mob skill) and does next to no damage.

Summary:

Hobbit-silence (feign dead)
Hobbit-stature (20 might)
Stoop for a Stone (ranged attack)

best passives:
Hobbit Toughness - Improved Vitality (+15).
Small Size - Reduced Might (-8). //not a bonus, but something that must be considered


Man

Diminishing of Mankind - Decreased Will (-8).
Easily Inspired - Increased Morale Restoration.
Gift of Men - Improved Fate (+15).
Strong Men - Improved Might (+15).

Racial Traits:

Balance of Man -- improved defenses, important in the Moria combat engine.

Duty-bound -- morale bonus to your group, nice to have.

Man of the Fourth Age -- +20 will (I think), not the best burg trait but its ok.

Man Sword-damage Bonus -- great for burgs, dual swords is a solid setup for men.

Return to Bree -- takes you home, great skill.

Strength of Morale -- A fairly large (level based) extra self heal. This is very nice!

Tactics and Might Bonus -- FM bonus as above.

Upper-cut -- a wimpy, useless attack.

Summary:

Balance of Man (defense)
Duty-bound (small morale increase)
Man Sword-damage Bonus
Strength of Morale (self heal)

best passives:
Easily Inspired - Increased Morale Restoration.
Strong Men - Improved Might (+15).



Now, for the Burglar class we have several attributes which are important to us (regardless of what order of importance we personally choose to assign them).

Below is a list of the different core attributes. The ones in Bold (Might, Agility, Vitality) are arguably more important to a Burglar than the ones that are Not bolded (Will, Fate).

Might

Might increases your ability to parry incoming blows and cause greater damage with a weapon. It also reduces incoming damage from common sources and increases the effectiveness of your Armour.

Agility

Agility increases your ability to evade and parry incoming blows, increases your chance to critically hit a foe, and reduces your miss chance.

Vitality

Vitality increases your maximum morale, ability to regenerate morale when not in combat, resistances to Wound, Disease, and Poison. It also reduces incoming damage from non-weapon sources like Shadow, Fire and Frost. 1 Point of Vitality equates to 3 points of Morale.

Will

Will affects how much power you regenerate when not in combat, how much you resist fear effects (including cowering from Dread) and increases your maximum power total. 1 Point of Will is equal to 3 points of power.

Fate

Fate directly increases how quickly you regenerate both power and morale while in combat.

In addition to this, gear can have effects that add morale, power, critical chance, resists, etc. Burglars work by scoring critical hits, so one top priority is to stack melee critical rating (agility supports this). Critical hits unlock many of our skills, just as guardians need to block attacks with a shield to perform their skills. Also, currently (mirkwood era) our power runs dry very fast so a good in combat power regen rating is important, this is improved with fate. Finally, everyone needs a decent morale pool, and that is helped with vitality. On top of this, melee defense at the higher levels is important to improve our toughness, this is mostly found on virtues such as innocence at the lower levels. Might is great to have to improve damage.

In Game:


Level 1:

So you’ve appeared in Middle Earth, Fantastic! I’m not going to go through a basic tutorial because well the game does a good job at it and I’m also kind of assuming that you’re at least a little familiar with the game, so we’ll dive right in

Note: I have removed the odd levels which all said "you get passive skills and little else". Go to your trainer, and look at the dialog, there is a 'tab' for 'passive' skills (the default one is for active skills). These need to be trained, you get stuff like improved defenses, new weapon types, critical hit chance, etc. Do not forget to check the passive tab and train these skills!


At level 1 Burglars have 3 active skills:

Cunning Attack - Main Hand Damage + Damage over Time
Surprise Strike - Main Hand Damage + Based On Level Damage. Does more damage from behind and while in stealth.
Subtle Stab – Damage

You also have several Passive skills which allow you to use the following:

Light Armour
Specialized Equipment
Daggers
One-Handed Maces
One-Handed Swords

As you can see, we don’t start out very well off. We can only wear Light Armor and only have a few weapon choices.

This of course leads us to the next question: What weapon should I use?! Whats the best for my Burg?!


All burglars get (eventually, but not yet) a 2% bonus to damage with daggers. Daggers also have a chance to crit the auto attacks to open up your crit-based skills. Swords have a hit chance bonus and help against higher level mobs which are harder to hit. Clubs you cannot use yet. The mace bonus is lackluster. In time, you will earn a 2% bonus with your racial weapons, which means a hobbit gets a 2% with a club while men get a 2% with swords. 2% is fairly small: at 65 a 3000 damage suprise strike would gain... 60 damage, and the difference between 3000 and 3060 is insignificant in this game most of the time. So, if you can do it and have earned the levels/traits to gain a 2% bonus, it helps a tiny bit. If you find a weapon that is better but is not of the type that gives you a bonus, use the better weapon. I think its possible to earn the racial hobbit club bonus before the quest to use clubs is available, but be patient and you will have your clubs in time. For a weapon, the first thing to look at is its DPS value, the higher it is, the better the weapon. If the dps is the same, you compare the stats, looking for melee crit, might, agility, vitality, etc same as a piece of armor. Your best weapon goes in your main hand, your second best in your offhand, because skills do mostly mainhand damage only and so the higher dps rating is important to be in the main hand slot. The best choices for a low level burglar are swords or daggers, choosing between hit or crit; possibly the very best would be a mainhand sword and offhand dagger so your main skills hit more often while your auto attacks get a crit boost. However, in the end, just use the best dps rating weapons you can find with the best other stats. Note that you occasionally find a weapon, even at early levels, that does non-common damage (fire, beleriend, westernesse, ancient dwarf make, or the like). These do extra damage to some mob types and a bypass the common mitigation of monsters which is usually their highest defense, so "anything besides common" damage is good (however still secondary to dps rating, so don't drop dps rating to get fire damage for example).




At this level you’re basically just frontal attacking mobs and alternating between the 3 skills.

Keep in mind that Surprise Attack does more damage if you use it from behind. This means that if you come across a Non-Aggressive mob and you can get behind them for the first hit, use Surprise Attack.

Also keep in mind that it is a good idea to use Cunning Attack early on so that the DoT works for you as much as possible.


Level 2:

At level 2 not much changes however you Do get your first Debuff. Learn to like, and use it because it will be your only debuff until level 14 (Addle)

Trick: Disable - Debuff: Slows target Attack Speed and Melee Damage by 15%.

Pretty straight forward. Apply this buff in every fight. It takes a very little time to cast and the benefits are pretty high for the level. You’ll be using it a Lot.

Level 4:

At level 4 you take your first step [read: colossal leap] towards becoming a true Burglar. You gain two abilities that you will use extensively for the rest of your Burglar experience.

Sneak - Enters Stealth Mode (Movement speed reduced to 50%, can be increased to 70% with a trait).

Ahhh sneak, the skill you’ve no doubt been waiting and salivating for, running to the trainer every level to check if its available (unless you’re one of the smart ones and unchecked that little box that only shows you available skills, in which case you saw it waiting for you at level 4) Sneak in LoTRO is not very dissimilar to other games. It hides you from the eyes of others (both PCs and NPCs*) unless you’re in a fellowship in which case they see you as you see yourself. A “Ghost” image.

While in Sneak, as stated above, you move 50% slower and so you’re moving pretty slow. A common mistake I see a lot of players make is to enter stealth too early (meaning too far away from their target) and then end up either taking forever to reach it, or have it “tagged” by someone else who didn’t even realize you were en-route. Gear that improves out of combat run speed can help your sneak speed (its 50% of your 120% which is 60% of normal..!) and later on, traits and other items help you sneak faster, even getting it darn close to normal speed. Also look out for items that add to stealth level, often cloaks have this benefit, making you harder to see.

It is worth the time to learn the approximate agro range for mobs early in the game. Of course this range varies from mob to mob and also has to do with the level disparity between yourself and the mob, but get a good “feel” for the distance and then, when you spot your target, run up and just before you enter that agro range, hit your button. It saves time, and is a Lot more efficient.

It is also important to note that in LoTRO direction matters! That means that if you come straight at your target, approaching its face, you will get spotted faster than if you approach from the back. If you must hit a mob from the front from stealth, use cunning attack as its bonus is not positional. Also use CA if aim is on cooldown or you do not yet have aim, to open from stealth. If you have aim, use aim and suprise strike from behind for a deadly stealth attack.

I say attack as soon as you can because the closer you get to your target the more likely it is to spot you. So, learn the range of your attack and as soon as you can, Hit em! Don’t give them the chance to spot or sense you.

This leads me to the next point of Stealth. There are 3 situations you can find yourself in during stealth.

-Stealthed: In this case you are completely undetected by anyone (NPC)

-Sensed: In this case your target has been alerted to your presence (you know this by a squiggly line that appears above the NPCs head and the NPC turns to face you. Note: This does NOT mean that you have been spotted you are still stealthed and if you move away and circle around, the NPC once again becomes oblivious to your presence.

-Spotted: Your cover has been blown! Fight or Flight!

Stealth is an art and anyone who tells you otherwise is half arsing it. If you want to be a respectable Burglar, take pride in your work, you will enjoy the benefits and others will appreciate you for it when you successfully sneak past some Elite Mob to scout the chamber beyond instead of catching agro and wiping your group.


Burglar's Advantage - You are able to hit an enemy again after a critical hit, inflicting more damage from behind.

Burglar’s Advantage is a personal favorite and how could it not be?! It is a conditional skill, meaning that you cannot use it just like that (like for example cunning strike). This skill becomes available only after you’ve scored a Critical Strike. Once it does the skill becomes available for a Very limited time so use it promptly. In a group, you can use it from behind for extra damage. Soloing, unless you stun or mez the mob, your few positional attacks are your opening attack from stealth and BA will not be one of those atttacks as you have not yet crit. Once you have more skills that stun, running behind to do aim, suprise strike, thats a crit so BA is open, etc. gives a lot of positional damage in a short amount of time.


Level 6:

At level 6 we get 1 “defensive” skill:

Touch and Go - Increases evade chance by 50% for 30 seconds. 5 minute cooldown. Shares recovery timer with Knives Out.

This is a very helpful skill that you should use when facing a tough mob (like a boss or elite) or several mobs. Keep in mind it has a moderate cool down so try not to spam it on a normal mob or when you may need it, it will not be available.

While this skill adds another useful tool to our growing arsenal, it doesn’t change our play style by much.


Level 8:

At level 8, we take another giant leap forward in our usefulness to both ourselves and others. We get an invaluable skill that you will use more than you can imagine (if you play right) This skill will save your Burglaring butt in a pinch and allow you to take on encounters that up until now were simply not an option or left you fleeing for your Morale!

Riddle - 30 seconds daze, 60 second cooldown. Can be reduced to 30 if Mischief is toggled.

Say it with me: Riddle, Riddle, Riddle! This baby is Right out of the Lore Books, from the pen of JRR himself. I will direct your memory to “The Hobbit” where Bilbo meets Golum for the first time. Basically the premise here is that you pose a riddle to your enemy which is so perplexing that the person literally has to stop and think about it for a whole 30 seconds! As expected, this effect breaks on damage so make sure there are no DoTs on your target before casting it. Also make sure that any party members you have KNOW that you’re about to daze your target or they might hit it and break the effect.

Also keep in mind that it only works on Intelligent creatures: Humanoids (goblins orcs etc), Undead and not much else. So don’t pose a riddle to a boar because you’ll get smacked for your effort.


Level 10:

Level 10 is a critical point in your Burglaring career. While offering only 1 (albeit very useful skill) it offers you something much better. The ability to dual wield and the ability to wear Medium Armor!


Mischievous Glee - You can surprise a foe with an active Trick on them, removing the Trick and restoring some of your Morale. This will never miss against on level targets, nor can it be parried, blocked, or evaded. Range: 3m Base Cooldown: 45s

For those of you scratching your heads here’s the scoop. Remember “Disable” ? that Trick you’ve been using for the past 8 levels? Well it just got better! With this skill, once you apply a “Trick” like disable to your target, you have the option of removing that trick and applying a small HoT (Heal Over Time) to yourself (and only yourself) As stated this never misses so as long as your target has a Trick (any trick you placed on it) and is alive, you can get a HoT. This HoT, like every other skill you get, scales with your level, so it gets better as you do (imagine that!)

The intelligent use for this skill (aside from times when you simply Must heal yourself ASAP) is to apply your trick, wait until the Cool Down on that same trick (or a different trick you wish to use is over (aka the skill becomes available again) by then, the current Trick will still be active on the target but fading fast. At this point you should use your Misc. Glee and then immediately cast another trick (same or otherwise) on the target. This way you get the full benefit of the trick, the heal, and only have about 1 second where the target isn’t effected by a trick (debuff). Play around with this a bit until you master it and feel comfortable with the timing.

It’s a Very very very very useful skill, the Cool down is not very long a mere 45 seconds which makes using this skill often a no brainer. (I tend to use it towards the very end of the battle because you end up killing the mob almost immediately after the HoT becomes active and so you get the full benefit of the heal without having to lose any to damage.


Dual Wielding - Allows the usage of two weapons in each respective hand. Remember the bit about main hand and offhand in the "what weapon do I use" section? From here on, you will always want to be useing dual weapons.

This is our baby! A weapon in each hand, what could be better?! There are tons of threads out there that analyze the raw math of this and frankly, this guide is large enough without adding all that in here! j)


Medium Armor – This allows the use of Medium (Leather) armor. It substantially increases your Armor Rating. Armor rating in this game has minimal impact on your actual toughness, so this helps a little bit and you should use medium armor from here on unless you find an *extremely* good light armor piece. Since you were probably wondering, block parry evade (and, burglar cannot block, no shield) ratings and melee/ranged/tatical defense ratings are the true armor of this game, while armor value is "in addition to" those values and adds a little bit but not much.



Level 12:

At level 12 you get 2 very useful skills, one of which becomes one of the Core reasons to have a Burglar in a Fellowship (and is a skill exclusive to the Burglar class)

Exploit Opening - Stuns enemy for 5 seconds, allowing your fellowship to perform a maneuver. 5 minute cooldown

For those of you who don’t know… a Maneuver is a Fellowship tactic that requires the cooperation of the entire fellowship in order to unlock a special effect. You may have seen it before.. it’s a diamond of 4 options that pops up on occasion (random). Please direct your browsers to:

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mechanics:Fellowship_Maneuvers for a detailed explanation of this phenomena.

The big deal here is that while there are several skills that “Can” start a Maneuver, only we can start one on command. (That, if you didn’t guess, is a Huge deal in some fights…)

Aim - The next damage dealing attack will be a critical hit and your chances to miss will be significantly reduced. Using this skill will not break stealth. 10 seconds duration, 1:30 cooldown. Can be reduced to 1:00 with a trait.

Basically what this means is, you want to use this skill right before a hard hitting skill (for now that would probably be Surprise Strike). Also, I will direct your attention to “Using this skill will not break stealth”. This is very important because it allows you to score a Critical Strike on an opening move. Remember, after using aim your critical "chain" is opened, so you can now use burglars advantage as well, so a single aim opens up a lot of big hitting skills later on, use it strategically, but try to use it often.

There are invariably 2 Burglar camps out there. Those that use Stealth regularly and those that do Not. (that camp becomes further divided at level 20 but more on that later). Those that use Stealth regularly know that the best way to start a fight is by sneaking up behind your target and then using Surprise Strike, this way you get the Bonus damage of “from stealth and from behind.” Now add to this a Critical Strike, Mmmm can you taste the victory?! Remember, aim also works on a cunning attack from stealth if you cannot get behind a target, and again, remember that cunning attack is usually more damage from stealth if aim is down because your odds of a non-aimed suprise crit are low, while a non crit cunning attack from stealth gets a big boost. Also note that cunning attack from stealth and normal are different attacks, so you can put TWO bleeds on your enemy this way, and critial attacks are also a stack, for THREE bleeds on one target. So, say aim has 15 seconds left on its cooldown, you sneak in, pop cunning attack from stealth, hit the mob a few times and stick a second CA bleed on it, then aim pops up, and you aim + ca to stick a third bleed on it... there are times when this sort of thing is better than suprise strike.

While sneaking up towards your target (no need to stop moving in order to use this skill) pop this skill off, you’ll see a ghostly circle appear above your head, then when you get behind your target pop Surprise Strike and WHAM! Critical+from behind+from stealth a brilliant combination that immediately opens up Burglar's Advantage for use (use it asap)

For those who don’t use Stealth as an opener, don’t fret, there is a good tactic for you as well! If you’ve been using Burglar’s Advantage you’ve no doubt noticed the Class Trait that calls for the landing of a critical strike with a skill unlocked by a critical strike (meaning score a crit with Burglar’s Avantage). Now we have a sure fire way to advance that trait. While in battle, wait until you naturally score a Critical Strike, once Burg’s Avd. Opens up, use your Aim and then use Burglar’s Advantage, You’re almost guaranteed to land a critical strike with it and it counts towards your trait. If you riddle a mob, you can get positional aim and suprise strike, or if you stun a mob, you can aim, SS, and BA all from behind for extreme damage.

This method means that you might not get to use it every time Aim is available. If you feel like you need an extra Umph of damage, use Aim and then Surprise Strike to maximize damage and then immediately use Burglar’s Advantage.



Level 14:

Well now, I’m sure that at least several of you have been wondering [read: complaining] about the fact that we are Burglars… but we cant Burgle!! Well, your wait is over! At level 14 we can officially call ourselves Burglars.

Burgle - While sneaking about, you can attempt to lighten the pockets of unsuspecting targets.

This skill can be used from Stealth and has a short-ish range of 4 meters. It doesn’t always work and you must make sure you have room in your inventory for it to work. Using this skill does NOT break stealth so it’s a great little addition to your combat initiation sequence. Mostly it’s a novelty skill but it can yield some extra cash so why not!

Addle - You confuse your enemy so thoroughly that he fails any skill attempts in process, and any subsequent skill attempts for a short time take much longer to execute.
Duration: 30s Range: 20m Base Cooldown: 15s

Addle is an interesting skill, its not a trick so it can stack along with Disable (but keep in mind that it cannot be used along with Misc. Glee for the Heal) this skill is useful in that it guarantees the failure of the next skill the mob tries to use, and make the use of the following skills (for 30 seconds) take much longer.



Level 15:


Parry Rank 2 - Adds 2.0% to Parry Chance

Another odd level and while most Odd levels are pretty dull, this isnt one of them! At level 15 you'll notice a new Quest Ring Icon pop up on your map sitting right on top of your Class Trainer!

Yes, at level 15 we get our first Class Quest! These are exciting times, It is now that you must test your skill and sneakyness in order to reap great rewards!

I wont go into what the quest is or how to finish it because I'm not that evil but I will tell you that the major reward for this quest is indeed Major (In my opinion)


Ambidextrous - You are able to wield your off-hand weapon more efficiently, dealing greater damage to your foes. Adds 15.0% to Off-Hand Damage Multiplier.

Cant get much better than that! (actually you can, Do the quest and check out one of the other rewards <hint hint>)


Level 16:

Level 16 is a seemingly uneventful level but things are often more than what they seem. We get a second trick!

Trick Dust in the Eyes - Debuff: Adds 20.0% to Miss Chance and Slows movement speed by 25% (Including Mounts)

This trick is fantastic. Look at it this way, it could read “Adds 20% evade chance vs the Target” basically; this skill is 2 skills in 1. It not only gives you a 20% evade chance vs your target, it is also an emergency evac skill or even a good breather with its -25% movement speed debuff.

Note: This Trick applies 2 distinct debuffs on the target. This is important to note because the -25% speed debuff is NOT considered a trick and therefore will remain on the target even if you use Mischievous Glee.

Note2: This skill will break riddle if used, keep that in mind!

Here is a tactic that I like using if I’m facing a particularly nasty enemy (boss or elite or +5 lvl mob):

Start off normally, with sneak + aim + surprise strike, then I’ll pop Disable, then Burglar’s Advantage, then start alternating between the 3 damage skills. Around half way through the battle, when I’m about 50% Morale (OR right before Disable is about to fade out) I’ll pop Mischievous Glee and then immediately Dust in the Eyes and then step away from the mob (Assuming Dust landed). You’ll Easily be able to keep away from the mob because of the -25% movement speed

This allows me to kite the mob for the duration of the HoT. Since the mob is still In Combat, it will not be regening much of its HP… but I will. Once the HoT fades out I rush back in and keep hacking away! (This tactic takes on a new dimension at level 20 but we’ll elaborate then.)


Level 18:

Level 18 brings with it a great “Sneak” and combat aversion skill that will help you greatly in getting in and out of places without a fight. Any way you look at it, that’s a good thing!


Diversion - Distracts enemy to look in opposite direction. Can only be used while in stealth. This skill can be used to stop a patrolling mob for a short time, if it is not resisted.

This skill basically has you toss a “something” at the enemy and will cause it to turn away from you. It does not result in agro or “sensing” of you. Once the effect fades, the mob goes back to normal (either facing here it was before, or continuing its patrol)

This is also a great addition to your opening sequence since it causes the enemy to expose its back to you which means you don’t have to circle all the way around (and sometimes you cant) so when you cant go to the mountain, make the mountain come to you


Level 20:

At last! Level 20. We’ve been through a lot together these past 20 levels and here we stand, at the doorway to a whole new world (not really). Level 20 brings with it several skills and perhaps a whole new way of approaching battles. (For those who think I’m being a bit overdramatic… you’re probably right but hey, it’s my guide and I’m allowed :P)

Clever Devices Enables burglars to use devices such as caltrops, marbles, and stun dust.

Tools of the Trade - Enables burglars to use special tools to facilitate their clever tricks.

These two two skills are passive and go hand in hand. They allow you to equip special items that can be bought at your Burglar trainer (or crafted) Be sure to browse the wares and see whats available.

Track Treasure - Tracks chests, marking them on your minimap. This works exactly like your Crafting Profession Node Trackers.


Startling Twist - You startle an enemy with an active Trick on them, stunning them for 8s and removing the Trick.

This skill works on the same basic premise as Mischievous Glee in that it requires an active skill on the target in order to be possible. It also removes the trick. Though more difficult to set up, as an active trick is required, this skill can be used as an interrupt on casters or summoners, if it is not resisted.

You would be surprised how long 8 seconds can be in a fight. Also note that this is a Stun, not a Daze and so it will NOT be broken by damage. Slay away friends!

Note: Once the stun is activated, Make sure you get Behind your enemy as we cause more damage from behind; its a great tatic to save up AIM to use after a twist so you can crit a suprise strike from behind.

Remember “Dust in the Eyes”? We established 1 particular tactic (that may or may not work for you, I wont take it personally )

Well now we’re able to expand on that tactic. In the previous method, we would use Disable, drop that for the HoT and then use Dust to get away from the mob while we heal.

Now that we have Startling Twist, we have 2 Tricks and 2 Skills that need a Trick. This is too perfectly aligned to pass up. The idea behind this tactic remains the same. To allow us to heal during battle without taking any additional damage (DoTs aside) from our target but where before we had to kite the mob in order to achieve this, Now we have no such problem!

We’ll start with the same method, sneak + aim + surprise strike, then pop Disable, then Burglar’s Advantage, then start alternating between the 3 damage skills. Around half way through the battle, at about 50% Morale (OR right before Disable is about to fade out) pop Mischievous Glee and then immediately Dust in the Eyes.

Now you have a decision to make, you can either step away and kite, saving the stun for later, OR you can pop the stun immediately. Since Dust in the Eyes applies 2 separate debuffs on the target, using Startling Twist will only remove the -20% miss chance and will Leave the -25% movement speed in effect. Of course, using Startling Twist means you now have 8 seconds to attack your target (from behind of course) AND heal uninterrupted.

If you decided that you’d like to save your stun for later, that’s fine too, make sure you use it before Dust in the Eyes fades or after you’ve applied your next trick (obviously)

Since I personally prefer Dust in the Eyes over Disable (I’d rather have them miss more – in which case I take 0 damage, than have them deal 15% less damage per hit and have them hit 15% slower.) I tend to burn Disable for Mischievous Glee and then use Dust in the Eyes because then I have the luxury of either kiting, fighting or stunning.

Hope this helps


Mischief - Instead of Sneaking, you set your mind straightway to Mischief. While active, your Tricks and Twists cost less power to use and the recovery timer of Riddle is reduced. This skill can only be activated out of combat and cannot be used while sneaking. -25% Tricks Power Cost, -30s Riddle Cooldown

Throughout this guide I’ve hinted that a potentially big change happens at level 20. Well, here it is! Mischief is potentially an approach changing skill to many players and all that aside, it is a Very valuable skill by any measure.

This skill demands a choice. Stealth or Crowd Control. While it reduces the power cost of your tricks and twists (and that’s nice) I do not consider that effect to be anywhere near the importance of the -30 second cooldown reduction on Riddle. Yes you heard me right, your Riddle skill now has a Stun duration of 30 seconds AND a cool down of 30 seconds!

This of course means that you are now able to “Perma mezz” or permanently remove 1 “intelligent” creature from the fight for as long as you want (or until someone messes it up for us!) The value of this ability cannot be overstressed. It can take a boss out of a fight, allowing you to kill all the adds at your own pace. It can give you unlimited healing time. It can give you and your fellowship time to regroup, recover a fallen comrade or just do a /dance1.

Also, it is a great way to “tag” a mob for later. You can Riddle a mob, then fight a different one while that one ponders your tricksyness and then once you finish with your current target you can move on to Number 2. Furthermore it can allow you to always start your fights on your own terms (when dealing with “intelligent” mobs) that means that you can always start your battles with a strike from behind which means that all you’re lacking from the Stealth Camp is the “From Stealth” damage bonus.

I tend to go into Mischief mode when in groups, or when I’m fighting Humaniods and I need to juggle the potential for adds. (Lets say I need to get to a barrel of rotting flesh that’s sitting right behind 2 Orcs. Instead sneaking up and then fighting 2 mobs, I’ll pop a riddle on one of them, his friend will agro to where I am and I can fight on my own terms. Then when I’m done, I can move up to the second guy and attack on my own time and terms.

The Hard Core Stealth camp will tell you that you can sneak up, begin your attack and then immediately pop a riddle on the second guy.. you know what… they are right! However, this carries with it the problem that if at the end of the 30 second daze you aren’t ready (for any reason) to enter a new fight… you’re out of luck. It also means that if you’ve engaged your second target and a 3rd enemy comes rolling in.. you’re also out of luck.

Any way to spin it, Mischief gives you an amazing ability that should not be overlooked by any means!




Well folks, that’s just about it for this guide. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it! Of course, it goes without saying that I have No intention of insulting anyone and if for some bizarre reason you have managed to take insult during the reading of this Guide, then I truly apologize. Point out your problem and I’ll do my best to remedy it!

Also, if anyone has any factual corrections on anything I’ve posted here let me know and I’ll correct it asap! You may of course disagree with the tactics and conclusions I’ve drawn and that is of course your right. Don’t be silent about it, post it below! I’d love to hear your point of view and your take on things. Who knows, sometimes the smallest comment can change your gaming experience forever! (Insert Dramatic music)

I play on the Elendilmir world and go by the handle of Shemesh. If anyone would like to contact me and trade ideas/tactics, say Hi, or team up, Please send me a tell!

I wish you all good gaming and good luck!

Shem.

I just started a burglar a few days ago (lvl 12 as of now) and this is easily the best starter guide I've read. I know this thread is kind of old, but FWIW - fantastic guide and thank you. Would love to see a continuation for the next 20 levels!

Continuing the guide, I’ll fill in details on skills for levels 22 through 40. Note that during this time you will really begin to rack up the traits, and there are several strategies for picking the right traitline. I won’t touch on any of those. This guide will simply discuss how the next 20 levels worth of skills work. Other folks can fill in the rest at a later date.

Please feel free to offer corrections and add stuff that I missed!

22 – Reveal Weakness

At level 22, you get Reveal Weakness, a burglar signature skill. This is one of the skills that gets us invited on fun group adventures, so get the hang of using it well. Basically, you tag a mob (one at a time) with this skill, and EVERYONE in your group starts applying 8% more damage to it from EVERY attack. Once you earn and equip the associated trait, the damage bonus goes up to 10% for EVERYONE in the group. (It works solo, too, but the real miracles happen when you have hunters, champions and damage-dealing rune-keepers helping you out.)

Note that that this is not considered a trick. Once you apply it, feel free to toss Disable or Dust (and later Counter Defense), as well.

Applying Reveal Weakness does not wake a mob. Toss it something before the action even starts.

Don’t wander away once it’s applied. If you walk outside the range of the skill, then it resets. Also, at higher levels big bosses can clear Reveal Weakness. If you notice that it’s not active, immediately re-apply it.

Most important for group play: Make sure Reveal Weakness is on the mob that everyone is trying to kill. If you have it on the boss that’s being tanked by a guardian, but everyone else is killing the adds, you’re wasting it. Slap it on something that you’re actively trying to kill.

24 – Double-edged Strike

Double-edged strike is a skill that causes some pretty decent damage. Before you can use it, however, you first have to get a critical or devastating hit on a mob. This critical hit causes the Burglar’s Advantage skill to light up. Using Burglar’s Advantage causes Double-edged Strike to light up. Using Double-edged Strike causes additional skills to light up. But you don’t have any of these skills yet, so more on this later …

In the meantime, you may want to improve your likelihood of getting critical hits. Look for equipment that increases your agility. Look for equipment that increases your melee critical rating. No, not tactical or ranged critical rating… we don’t really have any tactical or ranged skills. Melee critical. It will help you later see Burglar’s Advantage and Double-edged Strike more often.

By the way, getting a critical hit, then Burglar’s Advantage, then Double-edged Strike, then a very powerful attack yet to come is called the Crit Chain. Remember that phrase, as it will become really useful later.

26 – Contact Pedlar

Level 26 gives you three skills, one awesome, one okay and one worthless. Let’s go in reverse order by starting with Contact Pedlar.

As you travel through the world, you will notice that there are frequently camps just outside the entrance of instances. These camps have a horn for summoning people to your aid. They frequently have NPC’s giving out quests. But they generally don’t have vendors to get rid of vendor trash. With this skill, you call out a vendor that was presumably hiding in a bush somewhere and sell that trash without going back to town.

For this skill to work, you have to be at one of these camps. Having someone build a campfire isn’t good enough.

Yeah, I know … now that instances are started by accessing a menu while you’re standing in town, this skill is even more useless than it was originally.

26 – Cure Poison

Cure poison cures poison. You can do it to yourself, or one of your friends. To remove poison from someone else, target them and fire the skill. It’s very slow, it’s interruptible and it has a long cool-down compared to the hunter’s version. Don’t worry, no one will ask you to use this in anger. Use it to save poison pots.

26 – Counter Defense

Oh, did I mention that there was one awesome skill at level 26? That would be Counter Defense. Counter defense is a Trick that makes mobs die faster. It increases crits from EVERYONE in your group by 3%. (Remember the crit chain? Yeah, it helps make that pop up more often, too.) It causes the mob to be worse at block, parry and evade, so it’s hit more often by EVERYONE in the group. It works ridiculously well with Reveal Weakness to make mobs die quickly. Note, however, that if a mob hits really hard, you may still want to have Disable up instead. (As always, you can only have one trick on any give mob at a time.)

Using Disable, immediately followed by Startling Twist, immediately followed by Counter Defense works well. Especially if you then run through the mob, turn around and attack from behind while he’s stunned. Getting a 3% better chance of getting crits from behind with Surprise Strike is a big win.

Also, when in a group, don’t forget that while any given mob can only have one trick on it, each separate mob can have a separate trick. Disable the big mob on the tank, and then Counter Defense the adds to make them go down faster.

28 – Trip

With level 28, we get a new opening skill. Trip can only be used from stealth, but it immediately drops a stun on the mob. If you’re in a group, that stun comes with a fellowship maneuver. It can be very useful on occasion. Unfortunately, it has a pretty long cool-down, and can’t be used in Mischief mode, so it’s a very situational skill.

Note that since it requires stealth you can’t use it once combat has started … for two more levels anyway.

30 – Hide in Plain Sight

Level 30 brings one good skill and another skill that’s a game changer. This time let’s start with the best. Hide in Plain Sight (abbreviated HiPS) somehow allows you to hide even if you’re surrounded by seven mobs and one of them still has his spear stuck into you. It’s unclear exactly how you do this, but don’t ask questions. It will save your britches more times than you care to count.

If you’re fighting solo, HiPS causes any mobs that aren’t dead yet to reset and combat ends. Four mobs together? No problem. Throw a rock at one and get them to run towards you. On the way riddle one a little bit away from the starting point. Touch and Go, Disable and/or Dust the ones that you won’t kill and then burn down the other. Once that one is dead, HiPS. The two active mobs will now reset. The other mob is still mezzed from the Riddle. Get out of range of the other two and throw a rock at the mezzed one. (Or use Addle if you’re human.) It will run to you, but the others shouldn’t wake. Kill it. Now wait a couple seconds for your health to come back and riddle to reset and take out the last two.

(Note: There are situations where one or more of the mobs won’t drop combat, but more often than not it works. One example is if a mob is in the middle of an induction against you. HiPS works more often than it doesn’t, so just learn to live with it, it’s not getting fixed.)

If you are fighting in a group, any mobs that are attacking you when you HiPS will run off and attack someone else, like the healer or the hunter. It’s a bit selfish, but it’s useful sometimes. Like when you immediately use your newfound stealth to execute a Trip, stunning and creating a fellowship maneuver.

Note that if you were in Mischief before you used HiPS, you aren’t any more. You may want to avoid HiPS if you’re being asked to chain mez a mob (unless you’re really going to die, of course).

Finally, if you’re soloing against trash mobs and you know you won’t need HiPS, use it anyway. At a 10 minute cooldown for HiPS, you’ll need to spam it at unnecessary times to get the 250 necessary to see the Leaf-walker trait in your natural lifetime. Leaf-walker makes your movement speed in Steatlh improve from 50% normal speed to 70% normal speed. It also has an interesting effect on the level 34 Provoke skill mentioned later.

30 – Clever Retort

The other level 30 skill is kind of useful in a weird, random way. Clever Retort is a Trick Release that will apply either big damage, damage-over-time, a heal or a power regen on a random basis. Note, that if you try to save it for when you need a heal, you won’t get a heal, and you will die. If you use it too early, you will get a heal when you don’t need it and waste the skill. So, the best time to use it is halfway through the fight, when the mob still has some health, yet you’re missing some health and power. Then it can’t help but help.

Note that until you slot the Honed Wit trait, you must be in Mischief to use Clever Retort. Also, like the other Trick Releases (Mischievous Glee & Startling Twist), you must have a trick on the mob to use it. That active Trick will be removed when Clever Retort is fired, so follow it up with another Trick.

(Clever Retort and all Trick Releases become much more useful if you trait for Gambler, which is not covered in this guide.)

32 – Find Footing

This is another strangely random, but in this case amazingly useful skill. If a mob stuns you, you can fire Find Footing to break out of the stun early. In addition, you get a huge heal. Put it somewhere on your button bar where you will remember to use it.

34 – Provoke

Provoke is one of your three unique aggro control skills. (HiPS and Enrage are the other two.) Provoke increases the threat on the player in your group that already has aggro. Use it to help your tank keep agro on the mob, so that it doesn’t attack the hunter or the healer.

Provoke also does a decent amount of damage, so there’s no reason not to use it solo, as well.

Finally, when the Leaf-walker trait (remember it from HiPS?) is slotted, you have a 60% base chance to apply a disabling gamble when Provoke is used from Stealth. While gambles are not discussed in detail in this guide, let me simply say that a disabling gamble is a mez (like Riddle) that lasts a random amount of time from 10 to 60 seconds. This is a very powerful opening move. It can also be used during combat in group play by using HiPS to enter stealth. At very high level (over level 50 – not covered here), you get another skill called Improved Feint Attack that allows you to attack as if you were in Stealth much more frequently. If completely tricked out with Improved Feint Attack and weapon legacies, you can use Provoke to possibly start a mez every 15 seconds. We’ll save the details on that for a later chapter, however.

36 – Ready and Able

Ready and Able resets most of your skills with long cool-downs to be immediately active. Touch and Go, Find Footing, HiPS, Exploit Opening (FM starter) and Trip (FM starter) are all included. Ready and Able itself is on a one-hour cool-down, so use it wisely.

38 – Enrage

Enrage is my all-time favorite bizarre burglar skill. It’s one of the burglar’s three unique aggro skills. (HiPS and Provoke are the other two, remember?) Enrage causes a mob to randomly change aggro between all of the different members of your fellowship. Yes … randomly.

Before you use Enrage, the first thing to remember is that it’s a Trick. Whenever you want it to stop, like when you want the tank to re-establish aggro, apply a Trick Release or another Trick.

Enrage is most useful in group play. Use Enrage to get a mob off of yourself or a healer (and then immediately remove the Trick, so that the tank or off-tank can get aggro.) Use Enrage when you don’t have a real tank and you want to spread the damage out between all members of the group. If you have ranged and tactical damage classes in your group, spread out in a big triangle or square and use Enrage. The mob will run back and forth between you all while the other folks fill it full of arrows and runes.

Do NOT use Enrage when your tank has aggro. (Use Provoke, so that he keeps it.) Do NOT use Enrage on mobs that can one-shot light armor wearing players. Do NOT use Enrage to pull mobs when in a group. The tank won’t be able to get aggro until you remove it.

When playing solo, Enrage CAN be used to pull. It has one of the longest ranges of any of the burglar’s skills, and it wakes the mobs. When playing solo, you can use Enrage as your throw-away trick that you use and then immediately remove with Startling Twist. Using Enrage as your throw-away trick is very useful, in fact, for getting your Blind Fury trait that makes Enrage even MORE useful. With Blind Fury traited, ranged mobs stop firing from range and come to fight you or the group wherever you happen to be standing. No more waking the whole room to get to the ranged mobs. They’ll run up to have the privilege of being killed by you. Enrage … weird, but powerful.

39 – Flashing Blades

Around level 39, you will receive a book called “The Book of Knives.” That book is missing eight pages. Four of the pages can be found by looting mobs in Angmar. The other four can be found by looting mobs in the Misty Mountains. Once you have all eight pages, you can read the book and receive a new legendary trait called Flashing Blades. Slotting Flashing Blades gives you a skill of the same name.

The Flashing Blades skill will likely be your first crit chain capstone. As mentioned earlier, when you get a critical hit, you can use Burglar’s Advantage, which activates Double-edged Strike. Double-edged Strike activates all of the capstone skills that you have available from your slotted Legendary Traits. So, in short, after Double-edged Strike, you can use Flashing Blades.

Flashing Blades is a high-damage, low-power attack. It has a long animation, but it is an efficient attack. You’ll use it (and another capstone called Exposed Throat) pretty often at mid-levels. At higher levels (60+) you’ll get some better captsones, however, and you’ll have to choose which ones you use.

You have now everything you need to complete your first full crit chain.

40 – Practical Joke

Stealth up to a friend, target him or her and use Practical Joke. That friend and everyone else nearby will sneeze. The joke’s on you, that’s all this skill does. It’s only useful for entertaining yourself and others in your group while you wait for your healer to finish Dol Guldor.

40 – Well-placed Strike

Well-placed strike applies a nice, high damage-over-time wound on a mob. It has a three second, easily interrupted induction. Solo you need to use it as an opening move from Stealth or after a stun. In group play, you can use it when you’re behind the mob with no aggro. It has a relatively long cool-down, as well, so it’s pretty situational. Use it whenever you have a couple of seconds to kill for a decent DoT.


So, that’s the scoop on skill from level 20-40. Who wants to do 40-65?