Thread: RK changes on Bullroarer

Definitely noticed some more healing power issues after further testing, but fire is way more fun now, despite the essay nerf. Would really like to see the -10% power cost put back in or pth power restore buffed up again.

Wait a second...
1.Wheres my bubble );

2.The auto crit from winter skills is kinda hard to get (if we think it in moors situation)

3.When tier 5 lighting thingy, could we do insta chilling retoric also?

4.reserved for more stuffins

Originally Posted by marlwyn

3.When tier 5 lighting thingy, could we do insta chilling retoric also?

Master of Tragedy – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Lightning skills put a stack of “Master of Tragedy” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ is instant cast and has no cooldown.

Not tested, but seems that only writs.

I managed to get some quick testing in once my Bullroarer client finally felt like installing (a full virus scan and a video re-compression seemed to suck all the computrons away from the installer ).

* I can't think of the Prelude power return as anything but a bug! It's such a huge reduction that it can't be anything else *crossing fingers*

* Those who try to sing the requiem of fire DPS should go and try it out first. ... Seriously! ... It's hard to compare as I didn't copy my character from live but (a) the rotation is soooooooo much more alive now! I will have to shanghai a training dummy I think (b) it seems (not the same gear so cannot make any valid conclusions here) I do about the same damage and (c) a fire DPS:ing Rune-Keeper will never run out of power thanks to Smouldering Wrath!

* I think winter skills will be a lot more prominent in DPS rotations from now on, especially WoC, so DPS:ing Rune-Keepers will bring more utility now rather than stick to only fire or only lightning. The same goes, to some extent, for healing Rune-Keepers that will be able to use the odd WoC when time and circumstances permit.

* Lightning feels like it's received a small boost. Again, gear is not identical so I can only extrapolate. I love how you're able to insta-cast Writs meaning I can debuff with WoC or heal myself with WoH without loosing a ton of mobility waiting for inductions. It might even be worth having at least one of the fire legacies on your lightning stone now. With the Audacity change I might even consider starting to PvMP

* Healing? Need a group to test it. Healing output seem better but I consume power like an old worn-out turbo-injected V8 on steroids. It seems like the AoE from EftA is about equal to Inspire Fellows? I didn't bother making healing gear (0:30am) so my values are way off to what they should be.

Originally Posted by braak1

Couple of questions around Affinity:

- If I want to cast "Do Not Fall to Flame" and I currently have lightning affinity, does this mean I have to cast some kind of fire attack (presumably on a mob that is very resistant to fire) and then I can cast "Do Not Fall to Flames"? That's certainly going to make me a lot less likely to use it if I'm healing.

Yes. However, there's no reason to use lightning skills while healing, so you should just put a writ of fire on the boss at some point so you have fire attunement for the rest of the fight. In my opinion, especially given that you get a free instacast writ of whatever every five healing skills anyway if you use the Master trait, this is a far less onerous requirement than having all the stones with you and being required to switch them for different attunements. In fact, given the lag after you switch stones before you can use a skill, it'll probably end up being faster too. The only detriment is the single point of affinity lost, which is easily regained.

- How long do the "Rune Sign of X" buffs last?

It lasts 30 seconds. It has a 30 second cooldown. If you pay attention to it, it shouldn't be particularly difficult to keep up all the time. Incidentally, the HoT component is singularly unimpressive; it heals for less than PtH and less often (every 6 seconds instead of every 5.) Of course, the buffs more than make up for this.

- When you first login, do you have no Affinity? Are all the affinity-based skills unavailable until Affinity is set?

You are lightning attuned when you log in, which makes sense since on live you are lightning attuned when you are disarmed or have no weapon equipped.

Originally Posted by Telcharan

There is no -10% power costs in CV. It's -20% threat and +10% damage/healing. In any case, at the moment it's pretty difficult to run out of power while healing, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. It might be annoying in small groups, but in full fellowships and raids chances are you'll have either a captain or a LM for power anyway.

Indeed, there will be changes(nerfs) in our power restoration. 3 set bonus was 10% power reduction, now it´s gone. iPtH gave 200 power back, now it´s like 20 and it costs more so there is no chance i will be wasting 150 power for giving someone 20 power. No way. And despite the change on reduced CD due legacy, our power restoration skill has been nerfed. We might end up using the Red trait for getting less cost on skills.

We have no power issues right now - i just have to watch it on long fights with OFE activated. But with these changes, be ready to get way worse power management than minstrels ... well, it can be a refreshing change.

I really hope the iPtH nerf wasn´t such a big one. If not, stack power pots, consider not to use OFE, just cast iPtH on tank for an extra, if small, hot, and be ready to call your LM and captain friends .

In the shinning side of the changes, our HPS seems to be improved and we will be again masters of the single target healing despite everything will be very costly. Can live with it, but don´t understimate the power issues guys. They seem to be kinda harsh.

Originally Posted by Bradegor

Indeed, there will be changes(nerfs) in our power restoration. 3 set bonus was 10% power reduction, now it´s gone. iPtH gave 200 power back, now it´s like 20 and it costs more so there is no chance i will be wasting 150 power for giving someone 20 power. No way. And despite the change on reduced CD due legacy, our power restoration skill has been nerfed. We might end up using the Red trait for getting less cost on skills.

We have no power issues right now - i just have to watch it on long fights with OFE activated. But with these changes, be ready to get way worse power management than minstrels ... well, it can be a refreshing change.

I really hope the iPtH nerf wasn´t such a big one. If not, stack power pots, consider not to use OFE, just cast iPtH on tank for an extra, if small, hot, and be ready to call your LM and captain friends .

In the shinning side of the changes, our HPS seems to be improved and we will be again masters of the single target healing despite everything will be very costly. Can live with it, but don´t understimate the power issues guys. They seem to be kinda harsh.

Yes, the power costs are rather harsh... I am hopeful that Z.C. will tell us if the substantially increased power costs are intended and whether IPtH is wai or bugged. Getting barely ~20 power back (or giving that to any ally back) is... astonishing (and not in a good way). Otherwise, like others, I'm very much excited about the RK changes.

Originally Posted by Sizzling

Yes, the power costs are rather harsh... I am hopeful that Z.C. will tell us if the substantially increased power costs are intended and whether IPtH is wai or bugged. Getting barely ~20 power back (or giving that to any ally back) is... astonishing (and not in a good way). Otherwise, like others, I'm very much excited about the RK changes.

Yeah, im also looking foward to the changes, but would like to get iPtH to be 20 power (or a bit more) on the target and 200 on ourselves or so. We know we can´t give many onto others or it would be overpowered, but right now i don´t feel it´s worthy to cast the new iPtH on anyone besides the main tank for extra heal (even if it´s small).

I also hope it´s a bug but who knows. iPtH has been the reason RK power control has been good in RoI, if it gets so heavily nerfed, ... well, it will need serious testing but things don´t look good. Fortunatly it´s still Beta and things can be changed.

Originally Posted by Bradegor

I also hope it´s a bug but who knows. iPtH has been the reason RK power control has been good in RoI, if it gets so heavily nerfed, ... well, it will need serious testing but things don´t look good. Fortunatly it´s still Beta and things can be changed.

This is so true! Taking a general +10% power cost increase would still be maneagable if the power restore of iPtH was untouched. As it is now... *shudder*

I'm really pleased with these changes...... only...... flurry of words has been left out AGAIN
maybe he's like the duke nukem forever of the lotro world?

zombie were you planning to make changes to flurry of words?
even if you made it 0 attunement cost and spammable i'd be happy, i could permanently sit in my frosty cloud and anything that tried to stealth up on me would take 30 damage..... YEAH!!!! take that wargs!!!!

Originally Posted by loki84

I'm really pleased with these changes...... only...... flurry of words has been left out AGAIN
maybe he's like the duke nukem forever of the lotro world?

zombie were you planning to make changes to flurry of words?
even if you made it 0 attunement cost and spammable i'd be happy, i could permanently sit in my frosty cloud and anything that tried to stealth up on me would take 30 damage..... YEAH!!!! take that wargs!!!!

This, 0 attunement, 15sec cd would be great


The more I play on BR

Have we become Tanks, or are the Mobs using feathers instead of swords

The good:

+ Lightning line and Frost line updates. Im actyally going to bring my RK back to Moors with this update now after seeing how fun lightning line has once again become. Was using 7 (!) lightning traits at once and had some epic spars with creeps.

+ Healing looks AWESOME. Healing finally got its rightful buff. Thank you

+ Fire rotation is much more fun now. Yes its much more fun to play around with it buuuuut please do read the "The Bad section" also..

-The bad:

- .. Fire rotation is good but DPS inst. I can remember testing at last beta with same gear and same RK to the exact same training dummy (inside EG, doesnt reset buffs, and its lvl 65 with alot of group buffs) and i got to about 2k DPS average. Now i got to about 1500-1600 DPS after multiple trys, Im sure ill need to learn the fire better but atm it looks like a HUGE dps nerf to the Fire line

- Flurry of Words. As much as I love this update... seriosly? This skill still not updated.. cmon..

- Some of the new updated tooltips still need some updatating with typos. Examples.. Chillling rhetoric trait says it will give you a buff that will automatically make Essence of Storm do critically high damage. This sounds alot like "It will automatically crit" and it took me quite a while to figure it doesnt.. not saying its a bad thing since i like the real version much more. Just a little typo

The Evil (The things that shoulndt be changed but were...)
- I quite dont get the fact of losing 11% overall DPS from calming verse and Weapon of X-buff suddenly. And honestly i dont even like the new calming verse. The duration should be changed to atleast 20seconds. Also the Weapon of X-buff should be a steady attument skill instead of the healing attument.. it would be a quick self-heal.. a very very minor one while providing some extra DPS (certainly not the same amount as the lost 11%...)

- Decrease of +20% writh of health legacy into +10% at max tier. Why? You wanted to give this skill a buff and make it useful for making it non-attument and then you nerf basically 10% of its healing.. hmh.

I want to thank you for the overall solid and fun update for the RKs Zombie. Lightning/Frost line is now alot of fun while soloing, I'm still hoping abit of DPS increase into Fire-line so we will be on pair with other DPS classes in instances and certain small bug fixes/typo updates. But until then... back to bullroarer and back to my RK!

With Master of Writs gone, what happens to Rifflers that made this skill become a toggle?

Are rifflers being reworked too or will some of them just *disappear*?

Originally Posted by Anoir

I quite dont get the fact of losing 11% overall DPS from calming verse and Weapon of X-buff suddenly. And honestly i dont even like the new calming verse. The duration should be changed to atleast 20seconds. Also the Weapon of X-buff should be a steady attument skill instead of the healing attument.. it would be a quick self-heal.. a very very minor one while providing some extra DPS (certainly not the same amount as the lost 11%...)

Looking at how you usually traited for lightning 5Y+R+B you actually gain quite a lot. 5% from capstone, 1% from each Y trait and 6% from being able to slot two more yellow traits for a total of +16%. Seems to be that you actually gain DPS. Even without the Weapon of X buff! And you don't have to click CV every minute. Seems like a pure win-win situation.

Originally Posted by Anoir

Decrease of +20% writh of health legacy into +10% at max tier. Why? You wanted to give this skill a buff and make it useful for making it non-attument and then you nerf basically 10% of its healing.. hmh.

My legacy on live is +10% and have been for as long as I can remember.

Originally Posted by TiNdA-LoS

Master of Tragedy – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Lightning skills put a stack of “Master of Tragedy” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ is instant cast and has no cooldown.

Not tested, but seems that only writs.

I would like it to extend to chlinning retoric becouse it gives those BADASS buffs now!

Master of Tragedy is really awesome..Writ of Health on the move

I´m especially happy since I already started a Lvl 75 SA Moors Satchel (to max out DPS and Healing as much as possible)

Originally Posted by Chris91

Master of Tragedy is really awesome..Writ of Health on the move

I´m especially happy since I already started a Lvl 75 SA Moors Satchel (to max out DPS and Healing as much as possible)

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Healing is now valuable for the DPS player, awesome! Loving the insta-cast writs.

Originally Posted by Chris91

This, 0 attunement, 15sec cd would be great


The more I play on BR

Have we become Tanks, or are the Mobs using feathers instead of swords

It's likely because of the buffs to martial training, you got a tact mit defense, an armor boost and morale more then trippled.

Im looking forward to reading your assessments on the impact in PvP and how you are playing your RK when the changes go live. Im planning on transfering my RK off my current server (its the one I creep on) and investing time into pvp with him again.

Originally Posted by Thorgrum

It's likely because of the buffs to martial training, you got a tact mit defense, an armor boost and morale more then trippled.

Im looking forward to reading your assessments on the impact in PvP and how you are playing your RK when the changes go live. Im planning on transfering my RK off my current server (its the one I creep on) and investing time into pvp with him again.

Actually I have no idea, for example, when just seeing the changes in theory I hated Master of Tragedy, now that I tried it, I love it

I´m pretty sure I go 6 Yellow + Writ of Well-Being, when DPSing, I can´t imagine 7 Yellows to be better
Though any Yellow trait seems to have it´s uses now, gotta do a lot of testing

Have yet to try Healing, though I imagine it to be extremly powerful in the Moors

I updated my BR client and copied my toon over.
Thought 1:
One thing I don't like (as others have mentioned) is the pre-castability of Fall to XXXX and Armor of XXXX.
I was running through the solo forges instance in Galtrev, and whatever my last type of skill was, that was what started the next battle. If it stays this way (and hopefully an elegant solution to being able to switch affinity out of combat can be found), we'll have to get used to ending of a damage type that we want to start the next battle with.
Also, The argument of keeping a LI with each type is erroneous, because there are crafted stones easily available to switch just for the damage type.
Also...what damage type is our stone now? common? (Not that I melee that often)

Thought 2:
Since Master of writs is gone, is there a power penalty on writs of opposite attunement, or is that mechanic totally gone?

Thought 3:
I did bug this in game, but the cooldown amount on distracting flame no longer makes sense.

Thought 4:
Time to get the EftA and +Cold damage legacies on my LIs!

Originally Posted by Chris91

Have yet to try Healing, though I imagine it to be extremly powerful in the Moors

Particularly if you trait the new "steady hands".

NERF ALERT

Self-motivation applied a heal to Elronir restoring 488 points to Power.

ZC i asked for it to heal more, not less?

is this WAI, becouse if it is...its just a nerf.

Originally Posted by braak1

One interesting thing about Steady Hands is that it seems like now the fastest way to 9 attunement to start a fight is to go one (or maybe two steps depending on how quickly it ticks down) in the opposite direction and then cast Steady Hands.

So do Prelude to Hope and then Steady Hands and you have all your top damage skills ready to go. You haven't built up any of the buffs that make them more powerful, but you can get to 9 attunement in a hurry.

This is strange....Am I missing something?

it seems that if you trait steady hands then basically you are playing a RK without attunement. Consider, combat starts then (1) hit a quick PTH (2) hit steady hands. Now one is up to a dps attunement of 8 all in less than 3 seconds without use of an enamel.

Its a nice buff, but seems like it might take away some of our flavor. Seems like that this will add to our dps or healing ability with in the first ~6-15 seconds of any battle. (lower for the first 3 seconds, but make it up quickly with the higher attunement).

Fought a really good RK last night on BR... Aenir or something like that? Dealt out sick dmg against my r15 Warg w/ max Audacity =( Managed to beat him once or twice but I have a feeling he/she/it wasn't really trying. The few fights that I lost... I lost handily w/o taking it's morale down more then 3-4k.

Gratz on the Update... your squishiness, IMO, has been addressed (at least somewhat)

Originally Posted by ShammWoww

Also...what damage type is our stone now? common? (Not that I melee that often)

Wasn't it always common? I slapped a beleriand + tactical mastery scroll from Bron in Galtrev on my lightning stone....

Originally Posted by DelgonTheWise

Wasn't it always common? I slapped a beleriand + tactical mastery scroll from Bron in Galtrev on my lightning stone....

I became of the opinion that its damage type was that of its affinity ie my lighting rock was lighting type affinity. For this reason I never slapped a scroll on it as I wanted to maintain either lighting or fire damage types.

Originally Posted by swt46

I became of the opinion that its damage type was that of its affinity ie my lighting rock was lighting type affinity. For this reason I never slapped a scroll on it as I wanted to maintain either lighting or fire damage types.

But even if so, its damage type only matters for melee auto attacks, which is why I went for the tac mastery...

Originally Posted by Gohankuten

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ges-to-the-RKs

There's the link to a thread I made in the Bullroarer forums that has the patch notes that deal with the changes to the RK. It seems ZC responded well to our cries though the healing RK has gotten a semi distressing new mechanic that is clunky and could hurt us.

Oh....my.....G. I LOVE YOU ZOMBIE I LOVE YOU!!!!!!! THIS IS F-ING AWESOME!!!!!
Being a troll about the RK being underpowered sure paid off, we will return to our former days of glory ONCE MORE!!!!
When do these changes take place?=D

3 Questions:


1- Since Martial Training effectively takes away the dps addition we could get to melee - and since melee is not really appropriate in a raid for something as squishy as an RK, can we get our auto-attack ranged?

For instance, make it an invisible tactical arrow using the hunter mechanic, to make it a simple fix?


2- Since Fire no longer has a strong Burst component (IEoF being used for itself and SM (or other long induction)), and some of the T2 ToO fights *require* burst, can lightning range be extended past 20m?

20m is very short. We cannot burst or hit incoming targets or control our positioning well with such range. In T2 Shadow, we cannot burst the incoming, because it's on us by the time our range is available - and Fire cannot drop it w/o burst.



I would hate to be excluded from competitive content because my RK is not suitable to DPS there, but it looks like that can happen now.


3- Im less concerned about power and more concerned about threat.

I do not know what causes it, but RKs are threat-heavier than competing/equivelent DPS'rs. I assume it is the constant plink plink dot damage combined with the constant plunk plunk from supporting writs.
As it is, it is very difficult for me to control threat. It appears we are losing +10% damage off of linnod (correct?) so my dps will be lower and that will help that (and fire dps in general being lower), but it is now more beneficial to heal while DPS'ing - so threat is going to get really nasty.

Yet we seem to have no better threat skills, other than distracting winds being more impactful - now I have DW legacy on my firestone, and swap to it when healing, but once every couple of minutes ain't near sufficient enough, and unless mystifying flame is threat debuffing to a greater degree, what are we supposed to do? Just not use our skills?

Is there some change to the guts of the RK threat mechanic or something going on here we aren't seeing?


If not, can we use Minstrel Strings or something like that?

On the affinity changes, I was pretty bummed out about it but after playing around with our newly improved class I'm seeing this as a really positive change (Sorry healing RKs I know you're all upset over the attunement issue), but for dps players who like the moors, think what you are going to be able to do in combat much more easily than you could before. If the fights last longer as intended, think what you will be able to much more easily in combat more than once. You also get the addition of doing a bit of damage to get there which we could not before.

The amount of time is going to be the same, but it's going to be easier, and it comes with a benefit we did not have before...damage and/or debuff.

Why when we are given something that is nice/of use does it come with a large power cost, it seems like we're destined to be shafted constantly..

I know this is a random and silly thing, but my rune-stone was getting my AOE heals and saying 'Absorbed' over it then in the chat log it would say things like 'Meraithe scored a critical hit to Savvy.' as if I was damaging it. Kind of random and I don't think it's supposed to do that, so I bugged it. *shrug*

Heals are very nice, I definitely approve. Still trying to figure out the flow of it though. I find myself spamming a bunch of nonsense just to see pretty numbers flying above my head then my power pool gets hit pretty hard.
A few things I noticed though..

Rune-stones still go through the floor.
Our new dread removal skill has the same icon as our rez as well as the same animation. Kind of confusing right now.
Power return from Prelude is about 10% of what it was. Costs more to cast it, not worth using.
Power costs across the board are a bit harsh, but still manageable with the right set up.
Improved Our Fates Entwined is still fantastic but make sure to keep yourself healed up or you'll be in trouble!
The new PvMP heal set is great but we seem to lose a bunch of crit rating in return for much much higher morale.

Originally Posted by distillered

Heals are very nice, I definitely approve. Still trying to figure out the flow of it though. I find myself spamming a bunch of nonsense just to see pretty numbers flying above my head then my power pool gets hit pretty hard.
A few things I noticed though..

My thoughts on the healing changes are that we're now similar to minstrels in that we can no longer spam skills for the entire fight. With the change to EftA, I believe we're going to have to play more around moderate group heals than spamming hots on everyone the whole time.

About the % healing and damage lost, it´s balanced by the capstone legendary trait and the extra % on the 4 set bonus.

The thing is, if you trait for let´s say Lightning, you will do more or less same damage on Lightning skills, but you will deal less damage with Fire and will heal 10% less. Same about Fire, or healing (you will deal 10% less damage than now if you´re traited for healing). Meaning that while we won´t lose power on the duty we´re traiting for, but we will be less effective if we plan to hybrid (totally forbidden now not to equip capstone legendary trait) or if we decide to emergency switch roles.

Originally Posted by distillered

The new PvMP heal set is great but we seem to lose a bunch of crit rating in return for much much higher morale.

I´m definitly gonna use this for PvE I´m glad I did not invest my seals into the healing set yet

Reasons:
I loose 120 will, however, cap will be easy to reach with the new barter jewelry sets anyway
5-set bonus helps me a lot, as I´m one of those Healers who forget to heal themselves quite often
IOFE will now hurt my power pool even more, not sure if I´m gonna use it

Originally Posted by Thymelody

Z.C. - thank you for the changes. They look very nice and I'm now anxious for Update 6 being released live.
Do you think it's possible to have the improved rune-sign of x changed to group-wide instead of just single-target for the healing RKs? It's a wonderful boost to one player, but it would be rather nice to have the whole group benefit from it.
I'm not sure if that would be overpowered or not though, or if it's even possible.

Now that would be excellent in terms of group-wide utility, but I don't see it happening. We've gained a good amount of utility overall, and the improved rune-sign looks pure win for single-target, but our group-wide looks like it will still be lacking to a certain extent (outside of the Orthanc healing set bonus - which no one seems to care about presently) When I know I'll be healing (due to a minstrel not being available of course..), the general consensus among the DPS classes, particularly the melee deps classes, would rather have the Anthem of War/Prowess buffs than my crit buff with OFE. I suspect that's because most of our DPS classes have their crit at 20-21% unbuffed anyway. /Sigh. Still, as you said, I, too, am very anxious for Update 6.
Anyway, good question, but it will likely remain single-target.
Edit: The good news is I'll likely be using WoC more often than I do presently on boss fights, and I'll just have to stagger steady attunement skills to avoid too much attunement lost. Making them useable at any attunement is a welcome change - without needing to use the writs chisel or without having to continually toggle writs on temporarily without the chisel. I often preferred the crit chisel over the writs one. Then again, if I struggle too much with power while healing, I may be back to not using WoC much at all!

I´d love the Rune-sign to be a neutral skill useable at any attunement and with 4 Healing traits it requires 6 healing attunement, but is group-wide

Won´t happen, however

Now as we dont need chisel of writs, could it become chisel of masteries, reduces the skill need for the insta cast writ thingies to >>>3<<<

seens like a nice idea?

Originally Posted by marlwyn

Now as we dont need chisel of writs, could it become chisel of masteries, reduces the skill need for the insta cast writ thingies to >>>3<<<

seens like a nice idea?

Well there is a new riffler of writs..
"Writs don't attune you in the opposite direction"
When healing attuned WoH will build more healing attunement but WoC and WoF won't reduce your attunement and the other way round

So it's basicly useless

But I don't like your suggestion either, as I seem to have WoH Tier 3 on me almost all the time..the Master of Tragedy buff goes up fast enough

To make that Riffler usefull, I'd suggest the following:
Riffler of Frost - reduces the Frost skills needed for Lightning Autocrit to 3

That may seem like a lot of a buff..well that riffler needs a lot of a buff to be usefull compared to the +crit/+icpr/+finesse/-threat chisels/rifflers

Originally Posted by Chris91

I´m definitly gonna use this for PvE I´m glad I did not invest my seals into the healing set yet

Reasons:
I loose 120 will, however, cap will be easy to reach with the new barter jewelry sets anyway
5-set bonus helps me a lot, as I´m one of those Healers who forget to heal themselves quite often
IOFE will now hurt my power pool even more, not sure if I´m gonna use it

You'll get a nice morale boost from the new martial training as well. The PvP armor looks intriquing indeed....