Thread: New to LM. Man or Elf?

Hey everyone. I'm a 51 Hunter currently in Moria, and I'm getting a little tired of the scenery and want to take a break and try out the Lore-master.

It would be great if someone could tell me the pros and cons of choosing Elf or Man when rolling an LM.

Thanks!

Elf

+No penalty to Will
+Makes a little bit more sense lore-wise
+Gets a stealth skill
-Gets a penalty to Fate
-Weapon racial is meaningless
-Stealth skill is pointless
-A little squishier at the beginning

Man

+Bonus to Fate
+Gets a self-heal
+Weapon racial is slightly meaningful for when you learn how to wield a sword alongside your staff
+Can look like Gandalf
-Penalty to Will
-Self-heal's cooldown makes it barely useful
-Can look like Gandalf

The difference, however, is so slim that you're better off picking the race that you think looks best.

elf cuz Rivendell port > Bree port imo.

also cuz I think elves make more sense with the "magic" like classes. Elves seem much more like the keepers/seekers of knowledge and lore.

real answer - which class looks better dressed as an LM with robes and stuff

While I agree that your race isn't super important, you should at least mention the one real gameplay difference which means that man is strictly better if you care about optimising your char, ie the +5% incoming healing bonus. Men get that bonus which is small but significant, and it's a bonus that is always relevant and scales with the level cap (unlike the piddly little + or - 20 to stats here and there) so if you care only about optimising your character you should play a man.

The posts above have covered it. I would just point out that today they are changing Moria. I personally love the way it is now but many don't. See what you think after update. That said getting alts going is always a good thing in my opinion.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I've decided on elf. If anything it'll be a nice change (since my Hunter is a man.)

I think I'll give it a day or two and then go back to Moria. I'm glad they're fixing it up a bit.

Originally Posted by Grimauld

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I've decided on elf. If anything it'll be a nice change (since my Hunter is a man.)

I think I'll give it a day or two and then go back to Moria. I'm glad they're fixing it up a bit.

I regret choosing an Elf. There are some big differences that do affect gameplay. The race of Man has a passive +5% incoming healing, for one. But not only that. Man LMs have much cooler animations when using signs of power skills (just compare both, Man obviously looks much better when using these skills, it's not even an opinion), and inner flame fires off instantly as a Man LM. This REALLY needs to be fixed IMO. It's extremely unfair to Elves. There is a huge difference between the time it takes for an Elf to get off the skill as opposed to a Man. As an Elf LM, inner flame has a 2 second animation before you actually start getting the heal. You can test this as well, I'm 100% sure that Elf LMs have an unnecessary inner flame animation that Man LMs don't have. These are pretty significant downsides to having an Elf LM, but if you've already chosen your race and begun to level there isn't any point rerolling. I'd just like to point out to everyone that Man LMs have a few advantages. I prefer the elf-parry racial trait over the man-heal but I think I would rather have the good SoP animations and have inner flame not take forever to fire off than have elf-parry.

Originally Posted by Zachski

Elf
-Weapon racial is meaningless
-Stealth skill is pointless

You're wrong about elves. The weapon racial is +2% one-handed sword damage for elves. This benefits LMs. The race of Man has this trait as well, but it works for both one-handed swords and two-handed swords. The elf stealth skill is very useful for a lot of people, including me. You can use it to get around mobs and it has some uses for PvP.

Originally Posted by Zachski

Elf

-Gets a penalty to Fate

Man

-Penalty to Will

These 2 are wrong, it is in fact the exact opposite, as in elf gets a bonus to fate, and man get a bonus to will.

Yes yous tart out with a -7 penanlty in that BUT at a reliatively early lvl you can easily get a racial triat that give +20 to that stat instead netting you a total bonus of +13

Except the penalty only matters at low levels where you can't get those racial traits.

By the time you get them, the penalty is pretty much ineffective.

Originally Posted by Zachski

Man

+Can look like Gandalf
-Can look like Gandalf

The difference, however, is so slim that you're better off picking the race that you think looks best.

Lol thats so very true :P

Originally Posted by babaju2

You're wrong about elves. The weapon racial is +2% one-handed sword damage for elves. This benefits LMs.

IIRC, the Race of Men bonus is 2 percent one-handed sword damage....the elves get 2 percent BOW damage...hence the zillion elf hunters (well, besides the legolas-wannabes )

the Race of Men bonus is 2 percent one-handed sword damage....the elves get 2 percent BOW damage

This is wrong. Men get the bonus for one-handed swords and two-handed swords, elves get it for one-handed swords and bows.

Also, the elf racial parry skill is very (and I do mean VERY) usefull when you need to get off that Ents or Cracked Earth to make your escape.

Originally Posted by silverblade5445

Lol thats so very true :P




IIRC, the Race of Men bonus is 2 percent one-handed sword damage....the elves get 2 percent BOW damage...hence the zillion elf hunters (well, besides the legolas-wannabes )

Nope, elves have a sword one as well as men. They may have a bow one too though. I know for sure that I slot a +2% sword damage trait on my Elf LM.

I've played both, and personally prefer Man Lore-Master.

Also Check Out These Topics:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-a-Lore-master.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...202-Elf-or-Man

Quite frankly, if anyone needs to base their decision on which race to roll on these trivial minimaxing advantages, then they are probably playing the wrong game.

(Though it does suck a bit if the Inner Flame thing is true).

I prefer elf. I really like sylvan shadows, swifttravel to Imladris and the swordbonus (I know men got it too ) Just makes more sense. The knowledge LMs use, is deep knowledge about the nature and how everything is affecting each other. Like the butterfly effect. (e.g. LMs know how to create a strong gust of wind by just slightly blowing.)

It's knowledge learnt from the valar and maiar (the reason why LMs have very similar skills to the istari(maiar)- they use the same knowledge). Men just can't gain that knowledge. They weren't trained by Valar or Maiar. They can be trained by elves trained by those godly/angelic beings and read ancient books including some of this knowledge, but they don't live long enough to learn enough of it to become a real LM. They aren't one with nature like elves, which helps a lot to use LMs power.

I have both races. Elf (73) and Man (52). For differences I made the Elf, Keeper of Animals and the Man, Master of Nature's Fury.

The number of times I HAD to use the man heal is inconsequential. Mainly used it when trying to solo things I shouldn't.

You can always get another milestone and set it to Rivendell.

Both races get the sword bonus.

I would go with the race that best fits you (aesthetically). Or make two different ones like I did!

I can indeed confirm that Elven Lore-Masters have a wind-up time to Inner Flame, but I didn't know that Man LMs didn't have this. You can, however, use this animation to run around with your weapons drawn out of combat; just start moving forward before the skill's channel starts. Of course, this has no consequence other than a cosmetic one, but always look on the bright side of bugs, I suppose!

Originally Posted by Alrandor

I can indeed confirm that Elven Lore-Masters have a wind-up time to Inner Flame, but I didn't know that Man LMs didn't have this. You can, however, use this animation to run around with your weapons drawn out of combat; just start moving forward before the skill's channel starts. Of course, this has no consequence other than a cosmetic one, but always look on the bright side of bugs, I suppose!

Yeah, that has been around since the beginning. It's pretty cool but I would still rather have the skill work.

I have seen some lms reroll because they chose elf for the simple reason that the stance on male elf looks a little girly. just a preference thing. see if it bothers you

Originally Posted by dragerslayer

I have seen some lms reroll because they chose elf for the simple reason that the stance on male elf looks a little girly. just a preference thing. see if it bothers you

Friends don't let friends roll male elves...

Partially kidding. I have two male elf characters. One, a hunter is not too bad looking (medium armor cosmetically). My male RK looks freakish though (light armor robe), the stance is part of it. While standing out of combat he is in a perpetual 'pose'.

Female elves on the other hand look decent. I would go female elf or male/female human for gender choices for the LM.

Originally Posted by Dotlbeme

Partially kidding. I have two male elf characters. One, a hunter is not too bad looking (medium armor cosmetically). My male RK looks freakish though (light armor robe), the stance is part of it. While standing out of combat he is in a perpetual 'pose'.

My male elf LM cosmetically wears Medium Armour because
1) it looks different (especially with that sinister hood/mask headgear from one of the Dunland quests - I am SO glad I didn't bin that when my hunter outgrew it)
2) it fits with his role as a master of the staff "melee" LM
3) it looks less girlie

Elf or Man honestly at end game doesnt matter in this game the little 2% or 5% dont really matter back at 65 being a man lm deff was the way to go but now man heal is kind of more or less useless unless your pveing ofc but eldar's grace is deff a plus but as I said earlier at end game it honestly doesn't matter what race

Go Man.

While I enjoyed my 65 Elf Lore-Master back in the day, I always regretted rolling an Elf Lore-Master. Elf Parry is almost useless (unrealistic cooldown for something that lasts a couple seconds). I'm rolling a Man Lore-Master now and I like it a lot better. The differences at end-game are supposedly unnoticeable, you will notice them.

PvP Lore-Masters - Elf LM was good for this (having that handy elf stealth to use once an hour so I could get in position on top of a rock and slow my target and burn it down as it went up the rock to try to reach my feet... I did have some good times on my Elf LM)

PvE Lore-Masters - I found that Man Heal would have served much better. Elf Parry helped me get a single induction off and I died regardless. I could have kited, but I died that way too (coming close to killing the horde). Man Heal would have allowed me to kite for much longer, and I would have won some fights that I've helplessly lost.

Not to say that the Elf Lore-Masters are BAD. I got loads of kills in the Ettenmoors and was able to solo some pretty impressive elites on my Elf Lore-Master. For me, I feel like the Man LM gives a little bit more, and being the kind of guy who likes to try to solo insanely hard things, Man LM is the choice for me. Some people say 3-5% better stats don't matter. Well, they do when you're soloing the kind of stuff I am.


It's certainly something to consider. If you don't try to solo crazy stuff like me, then I guess it won't matter what you choose. As long as you're happy with your choice, nothing matters more

When racially traited, Man actually has the highest will(if negligibly) out of all the races. They start out with a bonus to might and fate(also negligible) as well as a +5% incoming heal bonus - which is slightly nice if you're soloing and healing yourself. Strength of Morale as of the RoI expansion is more like a critted morale potion with a bad cooldown, and that's likely to get worse with RoR. Elves may have a slight disease resistance, but you're rolling a loremaster, so that's a moot point when you have a disease cure. Lastly, they have the sword damage bonus, but so do Elves(1h sword).

Most of this stuff is unimportant in the face of player skill. It's nothing like D&D where race has quite the impact on how well your class will work. Roll what you will roll as that is what Turbine intended. As a loremaster, you mostly play to mezz mobs and root them all over the place to indirectly reduce damage done to the tank as well as stun peels so you can buy the tank time to run over and regain aggro. You're also debuffing mobs and maintaining stun immunities on the tank and healer to top it all off. Racials have no real impact on that job for the most part.

Now on the other hand, if you're playing a hunter, that extra 2% bow damage bonus for the elves and extra agility only matter if you're looking to maximize dps by little bits and pieces.

Originally Posted by Zachski

Man
+Can look like Gandalf

Pretty much this.

Lore-Master is the Gandalf class and needs a long,flowing beard.