Thread: The LM Just isn't Useful Anymore!

I got to agree with the OP, but not for the same reasons. I play the LM since Lotro launch in 2007. We went from a rocking pvping class, to the worse...

1. CC is one of our greatest asset, it isnt usefull and efficient as it were before.
2. Our greatest damaging skills are bound with induction and are not efficient when your targeted.
3. We have no armor, not much morale, no block, parry, evade, nearly no heal, and no skills to improve survivability. We are the easiest target to get down. We do not run faster, so no flee either, stay and die.
4. Pet is useless, since everything improved on the other classes and in the game pve, but the pet is still the same as it were when the game was 1 year old.
5. Debuff is the only thing useful... in group.

Ketzal LM on BW

Originally Posted by synfin

When I bring my Lore-master into a difficult raid (Tower of Orthanc being the latest) I set myself up in the Ancient Master line and seldom dps as it is not necessary. My job instead is to reduce the incoming damage on either the tanks and/or the champs off tanking the RAT, and keep additional mobs locked down that would otherwise overwhelm the tanks and healers. In add pulls I almost never dps outside of gust of wind, but that is only because I want the miss chance debuff.

I feel LMs should be able to dps in between their regular duties. Not doing so is a waste in my opinion (always bugs me when I watch videos of boss fights and see the LM standing around. I keep wondering why they're not tossing in some dps.) Yes debuffing, antistunning, and cc take priority, and if one is new to loremastering, sure, just concentrating on those aspects is good. But if one has been LMing for a while, I think you (a general you I mean of course) should start adding in dps. I mean, you do one round of debuffing, spot healing/power sharing or antistunning and then you have to wait for the cooldown. All that doesn't take one minute to complete. Throw some dots in there! Fights are so short nowdays that I'm using my dps book most of the time. Those burning ember dots stack and help. So do stuns from light of the rising dawn or test of will. This is through trash and the bosses. In T2 CM Shadow, I'm able to keep two mobs permamezzed (an uruk from phase 3 and another through phase 4) plus debuffs on the boss and off tank group and I still manage to get a bit of dps in. I'm expected to help with using Lotrd and ToW on defilers, plus dps them and the elhudan and of course dps the boss. Granted it took a fair bit of practice and I certainly have plenty of room to improve (use of warding circle and tar to help the group's dps), but it's good to challenge oneself I think. Using all these skills should definitely be doable on trash.

Same for being in melee. Unless there's some serious aoe damage going on, get in there and wack stuff with your staff instead of standing around. LMs auto attacks are melee after all and we also have one of the best auto attacks in the game.

Just because you trait AM doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother dpsing in my opinion. Every little bit helps.

Ops thread was The LM Just isn't Useful Anymore!

And da rst of yall cnt rad or smething cuz u tlk but useless or sumting.

Lothirieth, this answer is really a philosophical one, covering what I feel the LM should do in a raid. I PUG alot and tend to find myself in situations where I am the only LM. With 2 LM's I may dps more, but it depends on the raid.

I'll respond in two posts as Loth's statements beg two answers, though one indirectly and more at the OP. The first describing the LM and why I generally don't dps for hard end game instances (it is situational though), and the second more generically describing how I believe why fellowships are formed and ultimately why the OP (six pages back or so) is a fool.

Originally Posted by Lothirieth

I feel LMs should be able to dps in between their regular duties. Not doing so is a waste in my opinion (always bugs me when I watch videos of boss fights and see the LM standing around. I keep wondering why they're not tossing in some dps.)

Yes, I used to do that too. But over the years, perhaps it is me just growing older, but all I care about is that the raid achieves its end goals. If the raid finishes 30 seconds early, that is nice. If it finishes 30 seconds later, that's ok too. All I care about is that the raid see's its end objective. That is my only goal when I enter a raid, regardless of what class I am playing, I play that class to assist that goal.

I bring a lore-master to help control the pace of battle in difficult fights. The lore-master achieves this through power management, crowd control, enemy damage reduction (pets + debuffs), enemy incoming damage increase (pets + debuffs), and situational burst dps (ents, lightning mostly). By adding appreciable dps to a raid, I have found this hinders my ability to control the battle, chiefly through power management. When I use any damage skill, I lose power and morale. That is morale the minstrel has to heal. And that is power the minstrel could have used to keep the tank alive. Or power a well geared champ, hunter, rk or burg could have used for significantly greater dps. Furthermore, it puts me in a difficult spot for endurance fights, as though I have given a decent amount of dps at the start of the fight, now I am low on power, it is time to put my debuffs up again, and I have to take a long break to drain power. In other words, I just lost control of the battle. The raid can no longer rely upon me in the middle of the fight to help maintain control. At which point, why are you bringing a lore-master instead of a champion?

Some people say the lore master is not a battery, some say that he isn't. I neither agree nor disagree. All I care about is the raid achieving its end goals. More often than not, I feel a lore-master is better served controlling the battle so the true dps classes can do what they're best at: dps.

Furthermore, I tend to keep my ToW, LotRD, CE and such skills on reserve so I can use them for situational stuns if the battle runs out of control, or for certain adds in a boss fight (grims in F&F, root in Bukot, adds with Acid boss, CE on some of the larger pulls to hopefully buy a tank time if it goes bad). I prefer to keep those skills in reserve so if the situation turns south, or one of the situational adds needs to be taken care of, the main dps and raid can rely on me to continue controlling the battle. Whether it be situational dps, or additional crowd control, or reducing the enemy's damage and crit chance while making them more vulnerable, I position myself to assure I can always provide that for my raid. If I cannot be relied upon to control the battle, then one might as well bring another champ or hunter.

Fundamentally, all I care about is that the raid achieves its end goals. I have found that adding much dps beyond the occasional BE DoT tends to detract from my other duties that raid expects me to fulfill. I PUG alot, and tend to be the only LM in the group, so perhaps that is part of the problem.

-Syn

This whole post begs the question, why are certain classes brought to a raid?

Briefly, for *hard end game* instances
* One brings a lore-master to control the pace of battle
* One brings a minstrel to heal damage
* One brings a rune-keeper to heal damage / deal massive single target dps
* One brings a captain to strengthen your fellowship and rez casualties back into the fight
* One brings a guardian to hold agro on dangerous opponent(s)
* One brings a warden to hold agro on dangerous opponent(s) with a specialty in single target tanking or kiting large assortments of mobs
* One brings a hunter for single target dps, dps and...dps
* One brings a burglar for dps, conjunction control and melee debuffs.
* One brings a champion for off tanking and massive dps, both AoE and single target.

If you stack guardians and champions with 2 minstrels for healing, that is like making an army based solely upon tanks. You have a hard punch, but you are brittle.

If you bring a normal raid make up of 2 fellowships of 1 guardian/warden, 1 lm/burg, 1 minstrel/rk, 1 captain, 2 champion/hunter, then you have a robust raid. Your raid can handle a few deaths and pull through. Deaths can happen from random numbers chaining off a few crits. If you have an LM debuffing, especially sign of power see all ends, then this is less of a likelihood. If you have a captain, your morale is uniformly buffed and all your parry or crit or ICPR are increased as appropriate for the raid, further increasing your dps fellow's outgoing damage and reducing the likelihood of sudden damage spikes taking out members. Sure, you may only have 4 champions/hunters, but these 4 champions/hunters are now well supported by their formation. They are robust, very hard to kill, and can focus exclusively on massive dps.

If you have a raid of 2 guardians, 2 minstrels and 8 champions, though that could work, you now have a formation with effectively less morale on the champions (no captains), more incoming damage (no lore-masters and to a lesser extent no burgs). Though you'll have fantastic dps, the situation can rapidly spiral out of control.

It is called combined arms. It has worked very well for thousands of years of military history.

-Syn

P.S.: This touches upon the quote I have seen in several forum signatures, it went something like this: "No one understands what an Ancient Master Lore-master does until he is missing from the raid."

"The LM Just isn't Useful Anymore!"

Clearly you haven't experienced the sheer power of back to back dev-crit lightning storm, ents, and sticky gourd on a full creep raid.

But in all seriousness - whether it is full debuffs, full DPS, or as I generally like to run with - a fusion of the two, a truly skilled LM who really knows what he is doing in any given raid situation will dramatically shape the outcome, especially in endgame content where CC and debuffs are crucial.

I concede though, for an LM to really get the most out of his class (not that an LM isn't efficient if undergeared - don't misunderstand me), he or she must be geared appropriately for whatever situation they are in. I personally go so far as gearing for a particular SKILL, for instance I keep 3 staves (third, second and first age) all with different functions, relics, and legacies - when I need to give power I'll quickly swap to my third age which has increased share-power output, when I want to crit-burst DPS I'll quickswap to my first age, when I simply want to survive and maintain control I'll go to my all-around second age. You get the idea. I even do it with my books - I have one primarily for DPS and one for debuffs such as increased ancient-craft targets (CRUCIAL when there are a lot of mobs around - also increases your overall lightning dps exponentially as you're hitting more targets). Without these small additions and quickswaps I wouldn't be anywhere near as effective, personally.

And of course, how can one forget the Draig set bonus? Whether your normal gear set is a combination of OT/Moors/Draig/whatever gear, one can NEVER underestimate how useful SOP:SOE with the full draig 5 set bonus is on a boss mob, the incoming 5% crit chance can be the difference between winning and losing the DPS race. Speaking from experience, and experimentation. Of course it becomes absolutely hectic to maintain every other requirement like stundotting, debuffing, curing diseases and so on while trying to gear swap efficiently to get the most out of your /individual skills/, but the end result is worth it. You notice the difference.

If you play an LM who isn't always traited properly (or is missing crucial traits), cannot maximise his debuff potential through gear/legacies/LIs and so on, then sure, there is MUCH that can be done to increase your usefulness.

At the end of the day, like any other class, the loremaster will only be as "useful" as one can make it through effort, understanding, and knowing how to maximise their potential right down to each individual skill/debuff, and so on.

"The LM Just isn't Useful Anymore!"

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahaahhahahaahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahha
hahaha




ha!

(though i will NEVER forgive Turbine for their horrible audacityhit on our dazes+roots in ettens- THERE i feel not needed now!)

Originally Posted by Kerin_Eldar

DPS-traited our damage isn't too shabby, but an LM doing that kind of damage is pretty useless for any of the LM's other roles and is wasting a slot a good damage dealer could use.

You are also talking about your LM, right?
I don't know what you are wearing and what/how you skilling for DPS, but as long as my LM has a 124% tactical damage and can make 1.100 - 1.600 DPS in Raids, it is a good DPS klass beside his other abilities.
But here in the LM forum we allready had this diskussion and i'm really tired to argue with players (in general) who are not willig to find (grind for) the appropiate equip and do not want really learn the klass and then just mocking about DPS-LMs

Regards
CA

Originally Posted by CaerArianrhod

You are also talking about your LM, right?
I don't know what you are wearing and what/how you skilling for DPS, but as long as my LM has a 124% tactical damage and can make 1.100 - 1.600 DPS in Raids, it is a good DPS klass beside his other abilities.
But here in the LM forum we allready had this diskussion and i'm really tired to argue with players (in general) who are not willig to find (grind for) the appropiate equip and do not want really learn the klass and then just mocking about DPS-LMs

Regards
CA

Depends on context. In a 3-6man or easy raid (like T1 orthanc, draigoch, t2 lightning etc.), LM DPS is more than good enough. For situations where you really need max DPS (acid zergmode, ff challenge, shadow challenge etc.) it really isn't up to par with 'real' DPS classes (hunter/champ/burg/RK).

Originally Posted by Tarenius

For situations where you really need max DPS (acid zergmode, ff challenge, shadow challenge etc.) it really isn't up to par with 'real' DPS classes (hunter/champ/burg/RK).

There are so many possible situations, group combinations, instances etc. And all that is depending on the hunter/champ/burg/RK AND the LM, equip, mastering the class and so on. I know some hunters/champs/burgs to whom i may compare my LM's DPS and i will usually stay on the second place. But those hunters/champs/burgs are rarely widespread. I do not say, that (my) LM is the best, i'm sure this is not the case, but i really disagree with the myth that LMs would be not good for DPS.
I will not post damage/DPS numbers, but i find funny if i hear my kinnies to say, that LMs has to be nerved, because they make to much damage or if friends ask me for my LM to join a group/raid as a DPS-class

Regards
CA

I know we can deal a good amount of damage and I really respect good MoNF (good means damage + debuffing, healing, powersharing, SoP:R when necessary), but it's not my kind of fun.
Every time I test MoNF for a few skirmishes I feel uncomfortable. I feel so.... weak. I feel a lot stronger as an AM. Staffstrike and eagle, that's all I need for damage. (+ BE-dots and wizardsfire)

Whenever i see a post that offends a class in anyway, there's always at least 2 pages of people quoting, calling the OP a troll (even though he is in this case) and stating on personal experience. Whoever makes these posts generally is either a: NOOB at the class or was partied with a NOOB at the class... They make these posts because they want everyone to have the same opinion of the class.

Lms are useless ? hmmm ask the 5-10 creeps that get aoed and die if lms are useless (: that is all .

Originally Posted by CaerArianrhod

There are so many possible situations, group combinations, instances etc. And all that is depending on the hunter/champ/burg/RK AND the LM, equip, mastering the class and so on. I know some hunters/champs/burgs to whom i may compare my LM's DPS and i will usually stay on the second place. But those hunters/champs/burgs are rarely widespread. I do not say, that (my) LM is the best, i'm sure this is not the case, but i really disagree with the myth that LMs would be not good for DPS.
I will not post damage/DPS numbers, but i find funny if i hear my kinnies to say, that LMs has to be nerved, because they make to much damage or if friends ask me for my LM to join a group/raid as a DPS-class

Regards
CA

Then you have a lack of real good dpsers in your kinship.

Originally Posted by spockerized

I just don't see a use for them..
And apparently neither do you :?

You dont know anything about a lore master you frikin noob. we have a heal that can heal like 8k . In raids we can heal enemies, cure diseases, and debuff. Our knowledge when traited allows us to heal all fellowship members from dieseases. You also have no idea how much our debuffs help

we can almost aoe better then champions ok, improved sticky gourd, gust of wind, cracked earth, ents go to war, amazing aoe attacks. Improve sticky gourd dealses MASSIVE DPS when combined with our sticky tar. A full dps build can be emtremley powerful, especially when paired with a raven. I spared a champion and my raven got 6 flanks. People underestimate the power of the raven. My raven healed almost 6k of my morale, I took out the champ with out even using WOC. Ravens flank a ton so you can heal a lot and sign of battle wizards fire also deals damage to then enemy. When traited it does 25 percent more damage as well

lore masters are great

Originally Posted by Pauly0120

we can almost aoe better then champions ok, improved sticky gourd, gust of wind, cracked earth, ents go to war, amazing aoe attacks. Improve sticky gourd dealses MASSIVE DPS when combined with our sticky tar. A full dps build can be emtremley powerful, especially when paired with a raven. I spared a champion and my raven got 6 flanks. People underestimate the power of the raven. My raven healed almost 6k of my morale, I took out the champ with out even using WOC. Ravens flank a ton so you can heal a lot and sign of battle wizards fire also deals damage to then enemy. When traited it does 25 percent more damage as well

LOL. That champ has to be very bad or you were very lucky. Just one word: CBR. Champs are probably the class that has more edge over Lore-Masters at spars.

You guys do realize that you are posting in a troll thread, right?

LM are probably the only class in the whole game doing unique jobs in raids (and in progression raid in particular) with the captain.

Any other class has their role covered by another. Not the LM. The backslash of that: they dont stack well.

I dont remember a raid (BG, OD or ToO) being possible before farm without a very good LM, multitasking.

Originally Posted by Leonide

LM are probably the only class in the whole game doing unique jobs in raids (and in progression raid in particular) with the captain.

Any other class has their role covered by another. Not the LM. The backslash of that: they dont stack well.

I dont remember a raid (BG, OD or ToO) being possible before farm without a very good LM, multitasking.

Seems we found the problem of the opener

There is also the fact that a well geared red line LM will do more burst aoe dps than a champ easily which is all the trash is about in T2. We often take two LMs and go dps for the boss taking turns for the debuffs etc.

We started this to train other LMs on the CC and found out that no champ is not such a big deal especially in Lightning, the LM stuns the crawler spawns then aoe's them down. Personally with the Draigoch set on (don't use macros) have had ents crits not devastates on 4 targets of over 14k......., add lightning storm and a couple of sticky gourd's and cracked earths, + all the usual support stuff (defubbs heals pwr share etc) and you have a pretty capable damage class so why not use it.

Also I'm probably wrong but isn't stacking a certain class to get something done easily a bit boring and takes the fun out of it.

We don't take two Lms all the time but if two mains sign up then there is no harm it works well for us anyway.

Originally Posted by spockerized

Let's look at this from the most logical point. A squishy class that really only makes the job of a healer harder when faced with burst damage. The actual damage done by a Lm is laughable and the pets hit for what 64? What is always the first class to die... The LM. Look at these points.

1. The Bosses that anyone does in ToO are zerg bosses no need for CC.
2. Because how short the bosses are the debuffs actually help mitigate what damage.
3. Since most of the damage that happens in these fights is melee seems logical to stack burgs.. More debuffs+outgoing damage.
4. At this point everyone should have enough ICPR or class skills to sustain dps plus the fights are short again. You bring a lm just for Power looks like a fail raid.
5. If you bring a class for 1 skill say SI looks like the raid is fail?

Sorry to burst your bubble but someone had to say it.

I don't completly agree with you, but I must admit that LM seam getting less useful...

1.
Acid, Shadow and FnF wings are Zerg pull rooms, but not Lightning's nor Saruman's, cc there is needed.



2.
Sadly none AM speced LM debuff aren't that useful; I suggested in my post...

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...29#post6123929

to make Deep Lore increase lore duration instead of maximum target and move the maximum target increase into the 3 traits set bonus of AM line.

That would allow debuff to be more relevent since they would last as long as CD.



3.
there I don't agree, burg don't have more debuff and they are more prone to die since they are melee.



4.
There I agree.
Only in few long boss fight did raid are getting power issue; most of the time, if a class go OOP, it means that they are doing something wrong....
Cappy got song-bro/inspire switch and now for wrath RC
Mini got the Anthem of Composure/coda PoT
Champ Second Wind/Vigour of Champion, Controlled Burn... I only get OOP when using in mid fight but with Vigour of Champion/Second Wind I can nullify that.
...( I won't list all the classes that's not the point)


5.
Well there is still many skill that are useful: anti-stun/root/daze, just GoW debuff is quite useful.
but yes LM isn't as much a REquirement as they used to be.





As for DPS well even deep DPS traited LM cannot do as much as RK/hunter/Champ deep DPS, but they do more damage then Cappy for sure.

Originally Posted by Adingostolemybaby

There is also the fact that a well geared red line LM will do more burst aoe dps than a champ easily which is all the trash is about in T2.

MMM no, Champ DS4 or 5 can ditch out more AoE dps then LM... in 3 seconds:
Battle Acuity,
Battle Frenzy, Raging blade
Blade Wall, Swift Blade, Blade Storm.
then after just reapply rend armour debuff
and repeat the mantra:
Blade Wall, Swift Blade, Blade Storm/Raging Blades.

What have done the LM in 3 seconds?... at best... ancient craft + Lightning Storm and Storm Lore...5 minute CD o.O

Off course most Champ are 4r/3y 2handers, those don't put as much AoE as a DW 4y/3b.

Sorry, don't know to know champs too well so probably shouldn't make a big assumption apologies, however, I know from experience that when a champ hasn't been available and we take a dps Lm the pulls go just as well. Perhaps this is down to the extra debuffs and the fact that a lot of the aoe attacks have a cc element to them.

In lightning, we like most have been grinding it a while so try new pulls out to make it a bit less boring so tend to pull everything now bar trolls and have a big messy fight for a bit of fun The LM aoe CC / Damage seems to work really well there.


Also....I would say your mistaken about LM dmg. Yes, they have cool downs which are perfectly suited for orthanc as each room takes near enough that amount of time give or take a min or so and when moving to the next the attacks are usually off cd.

Ents, LS, SL, cracked earth with enough mobs for them to be useful will do enough dps to burn down the 2-3 sets of crawlers and give you some hefty damage on the larger mobs too (haulers, TMs)

Just another way to use a LM to the same or close to affect as the traditional champ.