Thread: Advice - which Orthanc armour set to get if seals are limited?

I'm a casual player- currently running Draigoth hoping for the scales drop; but, have the helm and shoulders. Now starting Orthanc Tier 1.

I currently have enough seals for 2 to 3 pieces of the blue Orthanc armour; but, my feeling is I'll never get more than one full set (that's assuming I get to finish Saruman) because it takes so many seals to get a piece of armour.

Given the seals limitations, any advice on which set of armour to get? Or should I get 2 pieces of each set and mix it with 4 pieces of the regular raid armour (from the adventurer vendor)?

Currently, in Draigorth, I'm rarely in the FM group. In Foundry, I'm the classic DPS/off tank. So, in raids or six persons, I don't think I'll ever lead a run. My kin runs a lot of tier 2 in those runs; so, I succeed in those runs on the strength of my stronger kinnies. I don't think I'll run raids or Foundry unless it's with kin.

I'm ranked 5 in the Moors- if I wander out to do some of the repeatables, I'm looking at the best armour in the event a single creep jumps me (or I'm trying to jump a creep in Hoarhollow.)

So, the majority of time, I play in 3 person instances. The challenge is I mostly end up being the "tank" of the group and I won't know the make up of the group. In 3 persons, I'll likely play with friends and PuGs as I would kinnies. I don't have a regular group that I run with. So, especially with the adds, I end up tanking and DPSing at the same time. I play Tier 1s and only played Tier 2 once (Fangorn); but, would like to get to where I can play Tier 2 regularily.

Given my situation and my limited access to seals, any recommendations as to which set/pieces of the blue Orthanc armour to get?

Thank you.

I understand your point, fact is that turbine want keep us busy gearing up till next raid that might probably be in next expansion.

You can get seals too by making skurmish raid, beside that well pugging some orthanc raid.

Concerning the set you might want : depend what is your real job in your kin or fun playing . Personnaly i took the tank set as draigoch set is average on dps. I got full set tanking, now working for the dps one (single target) as now a day not much job for aoe.

Some changes might come up on update 6 (hopping) that could make your life easyer.


Good luck


Fabroy - Laurelin -Innocent raid alliance

The 2set bonuses on the Tower gear are pretty nice (for 2set bonuses ) If I was in your situation, I'd probably aim to get an equal amount of vit and might from whatever you barter for. 2 builds would obviously allow you to do different roles, but I get the feeling you're looking for a nice balanced build that lets you kill stuff quickly but isn't dependant on supreme healing at all times?

Leaving the chestpiece & shoes (the saruman deed items) out of the equation for the moment, I'd probably go for 2 from the Orthrod set and 2 from the Delualagos set. That means, on top of whatever stat combination you decide on, you'd get 34might, 34 vit, 352crit, 183morale.

Given that there are quite a few different combinations, and my time constraints, I'm afraid I'm leaving the spreadsheet up to you! http://goo.gl/CrlM5 has the set comparisons, so you could pull out the specific combinations from there.

Well, it sounds like the tanking set could possibly be your best bet for your current playstyle, but if you start running more stuff with skilled groups where you don't have to tank (i.e. more raids and DPS positions in smaller groups) you'll want some variation of the DPS armor. Unless you really love traiting 5-deep in yellow, I can't really see the appeal of going for 5/6 pieces of the AoE set. The 5-piece single target set bonus is also nice but not really mind-blowing, so I think the best option is 4 pieces of the single target and 2 pieces of the AoE for the extra 2-piece set bonus (imo 340 mastery and over 1k finesse > 10% strikes only crit multiplier). Having that extra finesse also allows you more freedom in the rest of your build. With just the finesse on the armor itself, the 2-piece AoE bonus and the teal Orthanc barter necklace, you should have enough finesse for most situations, so you're not tied to needing rings with finesse for example.

Thanks, everyone, for your input... I've been checking out the combos you suggested. Greatly appreciated.

you don't really have to worry about seals imo.

Foundry: 25
Fangorn (t1 + t2): 11
Dargnakh (t1 + t2): 11
Pits (t1 + t2): 11

All the above are twice weekly, for a total of 128/week

Skirmishes: 6 (*16 providing you leave out icy) = 96

Hele: 12 + 6 = 18

Classics: ? (can't remember how much)

Draig: 19

Orthanc: 19-25/boss

So that gives you a total of 350+/week, and that's not counting the sigils... so there's no real shortage of seals as you can see.
But as stated previously, choose a set you feel comfortable with

Originally Posted by Fralin

you don't really have to worry about seals imo.

Foundry: 25
Fangorn (t1 + t2): 11
Dargnakh (t1 + t2): 11
Pits (t1 + t2): 11

All the above are twice weekly, for a total of 128/week

Skirmishes: 6 (*16 providing you leave out icy) = 96

Hele: 12 + 6 = 18

Classics: ? (can't remember how much)

Draig: 19

Orthanc: 19-25/boss

So that gives you a total of 350+/week, and that's not counting the sigils... so there's no real shortage of seals as you can see.
But as stated previously, choose a set you feel comfortable with

Provided you want to spend every minute of your time every day doing all of these... But still good info to know and may help in figuring out what to run, when do put time aside to do these. I had also been wondering to an extent the same as Original poster except I haven;t collected quite as many yet lol

I enjoy tanking for friends and kin-mates but dps in raids when get into one. Though I find the set bonus on the single target dps kinda sucks for a duel wielder. I'm thinking am lucky if can get another shoulder piece. I have a dps one and want get a tanking one. I don't really have a raid kin to call on for unlocking the pieces. Shoulders is only one have unlocked currently from one of Gamarin's rare pugs I made it to.

Originally Posted by Gylve

Well, it sounds like the tanking set could possibly be your best bet for your current playstyle, but if you start running more stuff with skilled groups where you don't have to tank (i.e. more raids and DPS positions in smaller groups) you'll want some variation of the DPS armor. Unless you really love traiting 5-deep in yellow, I can't really see the appeal of going for 5/6 pieces of the AoE set. The 5-piece single target set bonus is also nice but not really mind-blowing, so I think the best option is 4 pieces of the single target and 2 pieces of the AoE for the extra 2-piece set bonus (imo 340 mastery and over 1k finesse > 10% strikes only crit multiplier). Having that extra finesse also allows you more freedom in the rest of your build. With just the finesse on the armor itself, the 2-piece AoE bonus and the teal Orthanc barter necklace, you should have enough finesse for most situations, so you're not tied to needing rings with finesse for example.

I completely agree with Gylve.

Let AoE set be the very last set to get.
The 3 set bonus doesn't even last the full duration of BA. The only use for the set right now is as a macro'd swappy to quickly swap on before you hit Battle Acuity.
Single target DPS set is best as the 5 set bonus is constant.


If you are a fan of solo'ing, then I would suggest the Orthod(tanking) set.

Originally Posted by Shredex

Let AoE set be the very last set to get. The 3 set bonus doesn't even last the full duration of BA. The only use for the set right now is as a macro'd swappy to quickly swap on before you hit Battle Acuity. Single target DPS set is best as the 5 set bonus is constant.
If you are a fan of solo'ing, then I would suggest the Orthod(tanking) set.

The 5 ST set bonus is only "constant" on something that might happen. I thought Schaijian did a nice job analyzing the set bonus in a previous thread.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-bonuses/page5

Originally Posted by Schaijian

The 5-piece set bonus sounds better than it is I would say. +10% critical multiplier seems to be a big increase, but if you look at it closely, it only increases your damage by 1.25% at best:

Assume a normal hit as 100% damage, critical hit is 150% or for most champs with the critical multiplier legacy 200%. The 5-piece bonus makes it 210%, thus a 5% increase of damage for every critical (not devastating) hit. Assuming the best case with 25% crit chance (which I think hardly any champ reaches) this would be 5% more damage for 25% of the hits or in total 1.25% increased damage. Lets take an (slightly above) average champ with 20% crit buffed it is only 1% (or about 0.75% solo) .This does not take into account the class trait (don´t remember the name right now) which increases the critical magnitude for strike skills by 25%. That would decrease the benefit set even more.
I´m not sure at the moment if the 5-piece bonus affects all skills or only strike skills, the latter would make the overall dps increase even smaller (at least for aoe heavy situations).

Being that the AoE and ST sets have the same base stats, you are essentially comparing the +10% crit to strike line on the ST set to an extra 34 might and 1068 finesse by using a 4 ST / 2 AoE set mix. Personally, I prefer the guaranteed stats but as we all know, there is no one ideal way to build your toon since ROI.