Thread: RKs and Morale - How to get more?

I'm still developing this RK and since I've been playing on Windfola until my recent transfer to Brandywine, I've been soloing the entire way. So I don't make any great claims to know how to play the class very well...hence the reason I'm posting this.

At level 63, my RK has less than 2.5k morale. Now I know we're supposed to be glass cannons and yes I can still take two mobs at a time (if I can drop my stone first), but I have to think that I'm rather deficient in the ole' morale area. I have a few virtues to rank up, but still those won't add a tremendous amount of morale to my character. Most of my gear has some +vitality and I'm hesitant to replace anything if it lowers my vitality because I have so little.

So, is this normal? And how would you recommend that I get the morale up to a respectable number so that I can actually attempt some PvMP? Thanks for the answers!

My RK has 4800 morale unbuffed, and is pretty close to maxed out. I've seen 5k Rks running around but then you sacrifice a few things. I've been away from the game for a few months, but I'll take a look at my toon and see if I have any pointers.

No real secret: LIs (grind dem scrolls baby), gear (instances and medallions..pug them to keep it exciting), jewelry (/roll and come to papa), traits (yawn).....a captian and mini help too.
To give you an idea, here's a link to my RK....Mind you this is my moors build and hardly the best out there but I'm happy with it: about 5100 morale, 4400 power:
http://my.lotro.com/character/brandywine/bayoublaster/

4749 morale 4508 power

http://my.lotro.com/character/gladden/thunderr

I usually run aroun 4,900 morale, 4,700 power. I can switch out a few pieces to increase morale and drop power if I need to in the Moors, or I switch some traits/jewelry when I heal which drops my health to about 4,700. I generally go for Will, then Fate, then Vitality/Morale, so you should be able to reach these numbers pretty easy once you hit 65.

Basically, if you want more morale then max the traits you have, slot valour if you haven't already. Also, work on your jewelry. If you don't have a tinker, then find a friend who will craft for you Or there are good drops from instances and even some decent items you can barter with elves in Mirk and Loth.

For PvE I run with pretty dang close to 5k power/morale, just under with morale. 590 Will/Fate. I'll post a screenie later. Virtues always help, as do the methods mentioned above.

Originally Posted by Blackadar

I'm still developing this RK and since I've been playing on Windfola until my recent transfer to Brandywine, I've been soloing the entire way. So I don't make any great claims to know how to play the class very well...hence the reason I'm posting this.

At level 63, my RK has less than 2.5k morale. Now I know we're supposed to be glass cannons and yes I can still take two mobs at a time (if I can drop my stone first), but I have to think that I'm rather deficient in the ole' morale area. I have a few virtues to rank up, but still those won't add a tremendous amount of morale to my character. Most of my gear has some +vitality and I'm hesitant to replace anything if it lowers my vitality because I have so little.

So, is this normal? And how would you recommend that I get the morale up to a respectable number so that I can actually attempt some PvMP? Thanks for the answers!

Don't forget the enormous relic grind for your LI's.

you can get up to
60 morale from your setting (T9)
200 morale from your relic (T9)
even another 100 morale from your crafted relic (T2) (although, I'm not sure you'd ever slot a T2 vs the T3 tac offence/outgoing heal/crit)

Morale is good, but don't let it take away from your overall build. Find the balance you need to enjoy/live through your adventures. I've balanced my build to ~5100 Morale, 4950 Power, 1300 ICPR, 4000 Tac Crit, and 10000 Tac Offence. In that balance I've sacrificed some morale for ICPR and some Tac Crit for Tac Offence. Don't stress out about it till you hit 65, alot of the rules change by then. The one thing I highly recommend is to start the relic grind asap. I use 5 LI's (Fire/Storm/Heal Stones, DPS/Heal Bag) it took me Forever to get the T5/T8/T9/T3 layout for all 5 of them.

Originally Posted by Blackadar

I'm still developing this RK and since I've been playing on Windfola until my recent transfer to Brandywine, I've been soloing the entire way. So I don't make any great claims to know how to play the class very well...hence the reason I'm posting this.

At level 63, my RK has less than 2.5k morale. Now I know we're supposed to be glass cannons and yes I can still take two mobs at a time (if I can drop my stone first), but I have to think that I'm rather deficient in the ole' morale area. I have a few virtues to rank up, but still those won't add a tremendous amount of morale to my character. Most of my gear has some +vitality and I'm hesitant to replace anything if it lowers my vitality because I have so little.

So, is this normal? And how would you recommend that I get the morale up to a respectable number so that I can actually attempt some PvMP? Thanks for the answers!

Depending on your armor you have you may want to start looking into your Tier 1 Radiance Set and your Tier 2.5 set to accomodate some of your stats to jump up. Crafted armour is good but honestly Ive found the best Crafted is still Lothlorien Rep based set.

If you dont want to use Radiance Gear id at least aim to that armour for your RK to help. Same with Jewelry. The Lothlorien Crit Bling Bling is pretty nice and they all tend to give a good amount of morale to the wearer.

Once you hit 65 you can jump right into the dungeons of DG and start aiming for those nicer pieces of gear to help increase what you would need. Course most of the good stuff will come from HM of them but it is worth it in a good group.

The Lothlorien Gear might cost around 4 or 5g a piece if you dont craft it yourself but IMO its worth the grind of reputation and gold if needed to purchase.

If you havnt worked on your Virtue Traits the will help in the long run as well. For me I have 2 Toons Ive worked on for Traits and that would be my Hunter and my RK before I gave up my RK to my g/f but still. Those traits get really boring after a while on 5 toons.

The traits are custom chosen so you can easily work on the areas you want to improve on. Namely Valour if you want to increase your Morale.

http://my.lotro.com/character/firefoot/drytinman/

i like how i am set up, just need to replace my studs and get better relics on my LI's.

I don't PvMP, but I had similar issues when I first hit 65 and my kin started running SG. After posting for some tips (and being killed by Gorothul or one of the bonepiles by being 1 or 2 shotted dead), the major problem was my morale, or lack of.

I was nearly fate capped, so I switched out fate/will crafted relics for vitality relics. Dumped a fate virtue for a vitality virtue. Replaced bracelets from the Malledhrim for the Lorien bracelets. I was able to shed about 40 fate but gain nearly 300 morale in the changes, and went from somewhere in the area of 3800 to around 4100. The loss of fate didn't really affect performance (I'm healing, not dpsing), but the morale made a HUGE difference in my survivability. I don't use the legendary trait that gives more morale, but if I ever felt like my morale was an issue again, I easily COULD switch that out as well to beef up my morale even more.

As a general rule of thumb, I am trying to keep my fate and will as close to 600 as possible (which, with a cappy buff will cap me...in a raid, I am likely to have a captain, and in a 6 man, the extra 50 isnt going to make or break me if I don't have a cappy), and am pushing my vitality as high as I can get it without shedding too much fate and will. Make sure you are looking hard at the Moria radiance gear. The radiance on it isnt going to get you where you need to be to do BG raids, but is sufficient for all raids previous to that, and it is, statwise, just plain better (pants, shoes, gloves, I think) than the Mirkwood radiance gear. You will still need the Mirkwood pieces if you ever intend to raid BG, but you will get more use the rest of the time from the Moria pieces.

My RK has 5K Morale and that's about the best I can do without taking a bite out of Will and Fate. He is really close to 5100, and should hit over that once I can gear him a bit differently 3 DN/3 BG. Right now he is 4 VM/2 MW. He is primarily a PvP Battle RK.

PvE, I actually think you can get away with less morale. Especially if you raid and do a lot of group play where you get regular buffs.

I would concur with all of the comments above, but I think the most immediate return for you would be with crafted armour and/or jewellery.

My RK is level 52, and I have 2600 morale and 2700 power. My armour is 1/2 quest rewards and 1/2 crafted. My jewellery is mostly crafted. I also do have Martial Training traited which I believe is 300 morale, but that is more for levelling right now and may not factor into my final build.

Krysfrune

This is my main set up nowadays - a healing set up (I heal both PVP and PVE).



My ICPR is at about 1080 unbuffed.

There's really no secret to building up morale on a RK, it's just all about the work you put into gearing your toon. I have tier 9 relics in my weapon and satchel and all of my virtues are at 10. I stacked as much morale as I possibly could with my virtues. I also worked very hard on getting my gear - it took months to get to where I am now.

That's really it though: GEAR.

Here's that screenie I said I'd put up earlier...

1071 ICPR unbuffed. I'm working out a way to scrape up another 30 morale without sacrificing my tact crit multiplier...
I have Manadhgor, from the Watcher, but only use it for the moors due to 4% less tact crit multiplier...
Both the rings are the old versions - DR and Aureate.



EDIT: Sorry about the clutter, I didn't feel like taking multiple screenshots...

+morale bracelets, +morale neck, +morale/vit rings, +morale earrings.

relics. virtues. martial training.

among other things listed above.

under 4k is a bit low. 4k is plenty unless you raid (12 man stuff) or pvp. Remember that when solo, playing normally, your self heals stretch your morale by a lot over a fight, probably a good 1000 to 1500 self healed in a short battle if you start with the rock + 2 heals. Thats 5500 morale effectively, more than most players of most classes have, only tanks have more. Try to get roughly 4500 morale at 65 and thats good enough, getting a lot more than this is a combination of grinding for excellent gear and sacrificing dps for morale (not normally a great idea). So long as you are under 4k, consider yourself a bit undergeared.

Zuraldir,

The first thing you have to decide is how important Morale is to you. Some believe everything must be sacrificed for a maxed Tactical Crit, ICPR, Fate stat, etc. For my RK, I prefer a more balanced approach. Unbuffed, I currently have 5300 Morale and 5300 Power; my Vitality/Will/Fate stats are all between 500 and 570; my Outgoing Heals modifier is 17.5%; my Tactical Crit is over 11%; and my Tactical Offense is just under 27%. I did sacrifice a little ICPR, which is in the low 900s; but with such a high Power pool to begin with, plus a Self-Motivation/Power Pot rotation, I almost never run out of Power. I always take the Crit buff from Cappies, which maxes out my Tactical Crit at 15%. With those buffs, I also pass 7k Morale and almost reach 6k Power. I routinely do over 1k damage just from regular skills like Scribe's Spark, etc.; and while sometimes my ECs are only 1k, I have done over 10k before. Also, I have Main-Healed everything through SG (I haven't healed BG yet), many times without retraiting for Healing.

Please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to brag at all - I just want you to know what you can do if you're willing to put in the work, as some of these nice people have said already. Many of those who have already responded have given very good advice, which I highly recommend. My advice? (some of which may echo what others have said)

Complete everything you can...raise every Virtue trait (all 20 of them) to 10+, which lets you retrait for any situation, such as increased shadow defence, fear defence, higher ICPR, etc.; finish every Class, Race, and Legendary trait deed/quest so you have access to all of your traits; acquire every piece of radiance gear you can (I currently use 4 DN pieces and 2 Moria pieces, for 110 Radiance, with my Mirkwood and Loth sets in one of my bags to get me to 130 for BG); find a good LI DPS stone and satchel combination (by good, I mean ones with an increase to the damage of every element and the FoS crit multiplier plus an extra couple of legacies you don't need), raise the tier of every legacy to 6, use scrolls of empowerment to raise the max level to 70, acquire the highest tier relics you can and slot them, and swap the extra legacies for stat bonuses to Vitality, Will, and/or Fate, as necessary; complete every quest in places like Mirkwood, the Epic line, etc. to receive gear drops, rep items, ixp, etc.; craft (or ask someone to craft for you) jewelry, chisel, etc. to raise your stats; and then run instances for the best drops (I still don't have the Glass Flask...maybe someday )

Anyway, along the way, you'll probably discover what works for you. The main thing, though, is to have fun doing it

I would say 4.8-5.0k is optimal if your trying to dps. I'm at at 4,914 morale/ 4769 power right now unbuffed. Although vit food is a good addition. I don't exactly have every gear piece, but everything that's left might give me a slight improvement. That's my stats after I'm optimizing for dps which to me means tactical offense (29.6%), crit (14.6%) and icpr (1,170). The main area I could improve is stats on my stone. I would be looking for some combo of 97.x% icpr, +fate, +vit, +morale, +will, +tactical crit. Currently I only have the last 2, so I would do well to add icpr and one more of them. The odds are really bad on that though. Otherwise I still use t7 deep runes of the mountains for -attack duration, that's +200 morale/100 power if I go to t9s, but I feel its a dps loss from no - attack duration. Although I haven't tested attack duration to see if it still works recently. It did use to work though.

5572/4593 running with 15% crit and 5% dev can add extra 57 morale if i use charm of spirit but my crit will go down to 14.8% tact offense is at 10416. i do have the old skool tactic rings with the 176 morale. this is my pvp build. ill post my raiding build later kinda lazy atm but its like 5300/5200

Be a pro and run with 8k morale.

easily accomplished with the buffz ur running with now share

Nice for build for pvp. You really don't need morale outside of pvp though. If your getting hit alot and taking a large chunk of the overall group damage. You or the tank are doing something wrong, rks have more threat lowering/dropping stuff then any other class and if its still a problem bring a champ for RI. Even if your tanking an all dps group a healer can keep you up with ~5k morale. Although the way rk can reduce threat you should pretty much be below everyone else in the group and thus a champ or hunter is tanking.

I'm not a pvper or a raider, I mostly solo/small groups and this is my build:

http://my.lotro.com/character/meneldor/corulamiel/

4/6 watcher set, crafted hat, quest reward shoulders, crafted/bartered jewels. My morale should go up a bit more when I finally get around to finishing the valor deeds.

Here is what i normall run, I do swap bag from time to time for -CR CD

Snarfy im curious whats ur tact crit at cus ur not rocking the 390's or the t8 gems

Originally Posted by kronk32

Snarfy im curious whats ur tact crit at cus ur not rocking the 390's or the t8 gems

It's 8.9%, I don't PvE At all only pvp so This build is definately the way i would go, Then again everyone who plays an rk plays it differently

im just saying because there only is a 23 more morale difference between me and u and i have a 15% crit. yeah every1 does play differently

At 65 you should have zero problems breaking 4k Morale and Power. The nice builds here will require time in instances and grinding lots of relics but you can get much closer to them than you think with a few quick gear changes.

Some quick and easy recommendations that won't cost much more than some Feathers.

Earrings: 2 x Golloch. Barter in Mirkeaves.
Neclkace: Balanhigil. Barter in Ost G.
Bracelet: 2 x Filegor. Barter in (I believe) The Haunted Inn.

Just those low or no standing required barter items from Mirkwood will give you an extra 852 Morale, and that's before counting the extra you'll get because there's more Vitality on these pieces than what you're currently wearing. That's only 5 slots too, there's lots more you improve.

Go grab a huge chunk of extra Morale then start working on the following...

1) Capping some Virtues
2) Grinding relics. It's a long grind, but high tier Relics offer lots of Morale/Power, ICPR, Tactical Offense.
3) Gathering gold or making friends with crafters to get some crit crafted armor---OR---running some instances for set pieces.
4) Same as above, but for jewelry improvements.

If you want to let me know whether or not instances are an option I can make more recomendations for when you hit 65. Some people like running instances, some do not (or don't have time).

4882m/4755p, will and fate around 600 usually higher vitality 458. mirkwood shoulders/legs watcher everything else, relics and jewelry is really where your gonna make the largest improvements, everything i have has alot of morale or vitality on it except the glass flask.

http://my.lotro.com/character/silver...glie/charsheet

I run my rk (Big Slick) in DPS mode around 5200 morale and 4900 power with 615 will 601 fate and 10.5k tactical offense rating with just shy of 4k tactical crit rating. There are pleanty of ways to achieve 5k + morale without sacrificeing other stats.

A few things i would like to say is that i find the t9relics to be better than the t7s. i found the attack duration doesnt really effect us that much esp. lighting trait with the way the auto attacks work atm, fire traited its a makes a bit more of a difference but id still role with the t9s anyway.

If im running Sg or 3/6mans where boss fights are over in under 2 mins i tend to run around 5.9k morale unbuffed, with 4600 crit and 11k offense. my power drops rather low in this build to around 4400 and my icpr gets rather low at around 950. however the fights are always over before i run outa power. I have alot of agro issues in pugs so i tend to tank so i find the extra morale helpful.

In raids etc i drop the morale back to around 5.2k raise power to about the same, icpr comes up to around 1300 and the crit/offense stays basically the same.

I might be a perfectionist but i always tend to find i have at least one and a half bags of inv space filled with alt jewellry/armour/weapons so i can switch out depending what is needed or what buffs (cappy/mini) are available to me.

anyways some good gear for more morale is
rollos from HoM.
manadechor from DN mistress
handechor from BG durchest

also with the LI i have i normally have a legacy that i swap out for +vit so i can get an extra 60morale from stone and 60 from satchel. Also making the most out of armour set bonuses, i tend to run 3dn/3bg for the set bonuses.

I posted DPS gear earlier in the thread, but I typically main heal raids, and such, so here's my raid, lower-rad raid, and non-raid healing gear.

EDIT: Bracelets are Glowing Aureate Armlet of Power x2

Rings are Glowing Aureate Band of Tactics(Old Version) and Manadhgor, from the Watcher.

Each build has 1200+ ICPR.

Non-raid (mostly Moors, though SG etc for this build).



Low-radiance raid (Watcher, DN)



BG Healing gear