Thread: Traiting/Equipping for Fate&Will over Vitality? (Wall of text)

Howdy

I've recently hit 75 and as I'm finishing up quests in Dunland (to go from Ally -> Kindred with Theo's Riders) and starting to do my first raids I'm noticing something that I wanted to ask the more experienced players about because this is my first MMO, first character, and so on. I could really use the advice.

Traditionally I get the sense from these forums and the community that hunters equip/trait first and foremost for Agility (and the things it contributes to), and then Vitality (morale in general) with will/fate being relatively lower compared to the former two. And might is sorta not in the picture.

As I'm finishing up solo quests, I definitely agree that having a lot of health has helped me for doing things, but I get the sense that once I'm done the dunland quests I'll be doing a lot of skirming/raiding, so far I and haven't felt the need for health almost at all.

In the raids I've been in that go as planned, I almost don't even get hit by anything, and of course even if I am, I'm buffed to a ridiculous extent already and healz are coming in non-stop. When things go wrong because a healer was killed or a tank gets punted off some cliff etc, it won't matter how much morale I have, everyone in the raid is going to die very quickly. On the other hand, I burn through power like nobody's business and while hunters are aptly equipped to restore a lil power with a couple skills, my gut tells me I'd much rather just trait/equip for a higher in-combat power regen rate and more of it to begin with and not worry about the green bar so much.

So, opinions/warnings/I'manoob-ings against doing so?

A factor to consider I suppose is that most equipment geared towards hunters pairs Agility with Vitality/moral...which is to say by swapping out some vitality items for will/fate items I'll be decreasing my most important stat as a hunter? But then again maybe with some searching I can keep high agility while still boosting my power and regen rates, I'm not as familiar with gear as I'm sure some of you are.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

You should be able to find quite a few items with vitality/morale, agility and icpr, especially bracelets, rings, off-hand weapon and relics for your Legendary Weapons. I cannot really recommend you to get gear with Will on it, it's a waste of a good agi/morale/icpr item.

As much as you should not be getting hits from mobs, some raids will cause you to lose a lot of morale, e.g. Draigoch. You cannot really avoid getting hit by claws, and a ~4k morale hunter will have a rough time even with buffs.

Whether to stop at 5k, 6k, 7k or even 8k+ is your choice really, however, too much agility/physical mastery and you will find yourself either holding back on skills or pulling aggro quite easily from most tanks.

In the Hunter forum there's a Hunter Gear thread, you'd be better off giving that one a look for items that may be useful for your build.

The problem is not that mobs could hit you or something like that, and not even troll/giant aoes and stuff as they are indeed easily avoided, but the fact that you need to survive massive tactical aoe hits, effects and dots and things like that which happen in raids (even in skirmishes - take for example the Frigid Squall or Rage of Morgoth, or the Will and Courage Breakers). In most cases you won't have to maximize morale, but keeping it around 5.6k-6.2k would be good imo. There are however also fights that don't revolve around a dps race (believe it or not) and having high morale (eg. 7k unbuffed) will benefit the raid a lot. Tactical mitigation is very good for a lot of these circumstances (in face, invaluable for some) and is recommended. You can afford to have some fate on your gear, it's still a great asset for icpr and crit, but I would never pick it over vitality - hunter survivability has already taken a hit as it is. Will is practically useless.

In 3-mans, power issues will probably be commonplace. With food/buffs the other day I was at around 2000 icpr and still ran out of power in fangorn lol (although the last troll only had like 10k morale left when I did). However, in raids/6mans, with all of the buffs and power restores you get, you really shouldn't be having many power issues at all...certainly not enough to be sacrificing agility/morale over. I say that 1200+ icpr is fine...I know a lot of people on this forum go down as low as 900 and say it works for them, but that seems like it would be much too hard to sustain to me. Also make sure you're using all 3-4 power restores when you can (depending on legacies/traits, those are intent concentration, power pots, strength of the earth, and press onward). I'd personally slot bow of the righteous over press onward though, it returns a substantial amount of power over longer fights. Also not to mention...if you roll on any 122 will or fate items, every caster in your raid will totally rage at you lol.

As for morale, I wouldn't focus on it...but I would agree that you should have the ability to swap to a high morale setup when needed. And there are always going to be random aoes/things that hit you, so you need to be able to survive those. For example, I normally have 6.1k morale unbuffed, but I keep 3-4 high morale items that I can swap out if I'm going to need to be able to take a hit...those put me up to about 7.5k unbuffed at the cost of ~15% ranged damage.

Okay some good advice going on here. My resting morale is ~7000 (~8500 with buffs) which seems to be on the higher end of the spectrum from what you guys have mentioned...looks like maybe I have a little wiggle room? My agility is pretty low for a 75 hunter I think, just shy of 900...but then my crit is closer to 7500 which is more acceptable I think.

Something tells me I'm just having really wonky armor/jewelry problems...I feel like my stats are a mess.

If you're curious...the morale is wrong for whatever reason, maybe I was still buffed when it took my last snapshot. Everything else should be right tho.

http://my.lotro.com/home/character/1...3212633478736/

From the sound of it, I think you all hinted at setting up different profiles of traits/equipment for different situations. If I ever figure out ### is going on with my stats being all over the place, that sounds like a good idea.

Originally Posted by 7h3C47

Okay some good advice going on here. My resting morale is ~7000 (~8500 with buffs) which seems to be on the higher end of the spectrum from what you guys have mentioned...looks like maybe I have a little wiggle room? My agility is pretty low for a 75 hunter I think, just shy of 900...but then my crit is closer to 7500 which is more acceptable I think.

Your agi needs to be at least 1200 in order to deal meaningful damage.

Your armour is fine to start getting enough seals to get the Draigoch set.

Some quick fixes that will help you a lot:

Get to Theo kindred (give in tasks, do Pit of Iron, do Defence of Galtrev, do Isen dailies).
Buy 2 x Excellent Resilient Dunlending Rings (or 1, and 1 Ring of the Falcon if you have Dunlending rep)
1 x Bracelet of Villains Unmasked and 1 x either Oaths Spoken or Wrath's Hour

Medium-term:

Run school/library and get Master Tiller's Jewelled Cluster.
Run skirmish raids. Get any of: the Wristband of the Footpad, the Bracer of the Huntsman, Wood-bound Boots, Shoulders of the Keen Eye, Ring of Conflict Resolution, Shadowstalker's Stud.

Longer-term:

Run Draigoch. It's actually pretty easy, even in HM, as long as you remain in the MIGHTY ZERG BALL OF DOOM and run towards the tail when he flies up in Phase 3. Oh, and follow RAT.

My build for comparison: http://my.lotro.com/home/character/snowbourn/aedfrith/

You will notice my high resistance and mitigation levels (for a hunter). This is a conscious de-squishifying decision and MASSIVELY helps my survivability.

...on the road to recovery now, thanks for the advice!

Also, how do the armor sets you can barter from the hunter trainer just outside of Isengard compare in your opinion to the Impossible Shot set?

Your unbuffed morale be between 6-7.5k, so target your vitality accordingly. Anything more then that are your probably hurting your damage output too much, If its less your a bit squishy...this is up for debate but its my opinon. Fate is >>>> Will and you should not be equiping will at all. If you want power go for gear with power on it. Fate gives your icpr and crit, both of which are important.

Originally Posted by 7h3C47

...on the road to recovery now, thanks for the advice!

Also, how do the armor sets you can barter from the hunter trainer just outside of Isengard compare in your opinion to the Impossible Shot set?

Depends whether you want instance or raid gear. If you don't want to raid, get Huntsman head and shoulders and 4 Draigoch (Impossible Shot). If you want raid gear, 5 Faron all the way (and IMO wood-bound boots, as they give the best single-piece bonus out there - 61 vit and an extra 328 PMR).

Originally Posted by Aedfrith

Depends whether you want instance or raid gear. If you don't want to raid, get Huntsman head and shoulders and 4 Draigoch (Impossible Shot). If you want raid gear, 5 Faron all the way (and IMO wood-bound boots, as they give the best single-piece bonus out there - 61 vit and an extra 328 PMR).

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