Thread: Help! Tips and advices for LM in the Ettenmoors

Hi there,

Sorry in advance if my topic has already be addressed in a previous thread, but I was unable to find information enough, so I took the liberty to create a new one.

I have been playing lotro for some 10 months now (I play on the french rp server Estel), and after months of hard work I finally managed in march to get my LM to the cap level. Now I was ready to deploy all the devastative effects of my LM skills against monster players, I naively thought. So I ventured into the Moors and got immediately smashed in pieces by every monster I was unlucky enough to come across, especially wargs. That was a good lesson for me, since it made me realize that my gameplay was way too weak to have a chance against super skilled monsters, and that I needed to work on my equipement.

So I tried to join as many pvp raids as possible, humbly obeying every single order my raid master could give me, keeping to myself my rage and frustration when I would without any warning be kicked out of a raid I was obediently playing in it for 2 hours because the raid master decided he would replace me with a higher ranked friend of him (the ambiance is very elitist and arrogant in the Estel Ettenmoors, don't know how it works for other servers), and patiently gathering commendations enough to get my pvp armour set (some 35'000 in total!). Apart from that, I managed to get a 2nd age staff and a 2nd age book, while raising my virtues to their cap. I enjoyed the feeling that I became more and more skilled with my LM, a lot of skills of which I didn't or poorly use.

Now I finally managed to get my pvp armour set complete and I have dramatically improved my gameplay (I never go without antistunning, use sticky tar and debuffs as much as possible, know more or less how to adapt my gameplay depending on the monster class I must confront, etc.).

But to my great disappointment I still find myself desperately weak in the Ettenmoors.

1. My dps is very very low, 2-3 times less than what I hit normally on NPC's. And I almost never crit. Most of my damages skills work with induction, and they are very difficult, sometimes impossible to cast. Monsters on the contrary are extremely fast.
2. My control skills, which are the main assets for LM's, are incredibly useless in the Ettenmoors. 9 times out of 10 monsters are immune to my mezz skills, and when I do manage to mezz them, the effect doesn't last more than 2 or 3 seconds. Rather short to do anything decisive.
3. Although I have worked on my morale (some 7,500 now) and my resistance, I still have the impression to be the ever "weakest link" on the Moors. My morale regeneration abilities are ridiculously low and I take huge damages from my opponents. Besides I have no ability to hide or flee; when I come across a couple of high-ranked monsters, I know for sure I will perish in the next 30 seconds. On the contrary, monsters seem to be invincible, immune to all my skills and as a rule they have at least 50% more morale than me...

True, I managed to defeat some rank 9 monsters, but theses cases were pretty much exceptions and I usually have no or very weak chances to defeat monsters above rank 6. I know I am a light armour and I don't expect to be soloing rank 12 warleaders, but still, I find it very frustrating to have the impression that beating me for them must represent more or less the same challenge as killing a hobbit NPC at Hoarhallow... I have one player in my kinship that has a rank 9 blackarrow, when we fight it's like free infamy for him. I try every single debuff and attacks on him - nothing really works and I end up beaten after a 2 minute fight during which I have used up all my morale regeneration skills while he didn't use any.

I may be playing poorly, and I must admit I happen to make mistakes such as missing the correct button, not reacting quick enough to enemies' tactics, etc. My gear isn't the state of the art either, since I don't have the best jewels available. I thought I was doing ok with a near 20'000 tactical offence rating, but after seeing some 30'000 stats I know it's not, and rather shameful actually. But although I play on a daily basis, I must maintain my job and some social interaction, in other words I just don't have time enough to run 100 times the same instances to get the best of the best equipement which will be completely useless in september once the new update is out.

But still, do you share my feeling that monsters are way advantaged in terms of resistance and dps compared to heroes? Or am I doing something wrong with my LM? Do you have some advices or tips that could help me feel less newbie in the moors? Or on the contrary, is it required for a LM to have a 30'000 tac off to have a small chance to resist high ranked monsters and thus I should stick to groups or stay home, or only attack rank 1 monsters (which are unfortunately very very few on my server)?

Thanks in advance for you replies!

Hi and welcome to the moors (though not on my server, but part of the PvMPing community of LMs)


First and foremost.....most important thing to know (and you'll have already experienced this by now) in the moors is that youre gonna die.....a LOT.....everyone dies.....from the most skilled to the most noobies.....with PvP come in a lot of factors that are not stable as they are in PvE (luck, freep to creep number ratio, zerging, missing skills, lags, etc).....and as light armor, induction class, we die a tidy bit more than others.....especially when by ourselves.....so dont feel bad or weak if that happens.....took me a long time to even get used to that feeling of being in the rez circle sometimes every 2-5 minutes on a bad day.....but once I accepted the fact that its not bad dying and doesnt have any bad effects, I enjoyed it much more....

Secondly, since audacity and due to diminishing returns, our cc is close to useless in the moors....so the best bet is build up your build and playstyle to survival and offense.....shoot for 20-25k tact mastery, 7.5k+ morale.....if you already have that, you should be fine.....


Now importantly, we not being a heavy armor class nor a class like rks which can hit and heal on the move, we rely on what we are best at.....gain Knowledge!! Its a HUGE advantage in the moors.....Study the monster classes.....read up on their skills, traits, buffs, debuffs, cc, DoTs, etc etc.....learn whats the playstyle is like.....and plan your skills accordingly.....learn what each of their skills animations look like so you know whats coming.....and you can counter act quickly.....learn which of their buffs/debuffs/wounds/poisons/etc are removable, which are not....so that you dont waste pots......keep a very close eye on which pots/potions your opponent is using and use your skills based on it......the moors is all about reacting and adapting very quickly.....which brings us to....practice....

Its all about practice.....practice kiting.....its a very vital part of fighting in the moors.....took me months to learn how to kite decently......and me being a clicker, the time it took me to hit the skills was more than the usual keyboard users.....but with practice, it got faster...


In groups, be extremely helpful and co-operative....and communicative....give fight status, news, movement reports of creep groups......use your rezzes, heals, power share, antistun......being a helpful LM will always get you a good response we can do much for a group.....but unlike PvE, we cant just walk away silently, knowing and keeping to ourselves, how much we've done for the group and letting the kids hog in the glory.....in the moors.....let them know...let them see how useful youre being to the group doesnt mean we say it in their faces :P but be more outspoken than usual.....


And most of all.....have fun.....play however you feel like that you enjoy most.....good luck and hope you enjoy the moors!!

Salut l'ami!

You made some very good points in your original post. I play a LM since the game launch in 2007. The first time I entered the Moors was around december 2007. Since then, I play on and off. and I can tell you the pvmp with the LM changed a lot since then. I remember a time when LM were one of the best pvmp class, now it is certainly not true anymore.

You are right about survivability. In my experience and observation, the LM is the most fragile class in pvmp. So you need to kite and run, keep you distance and use the LM tome that prevent induction to be interrupted (regardless of its tier, the anti-induction 10sec. is what matters). Its a must have, bound it to one of your mouse key to use it on the fly, previously put it on your bar.

CC doesn't work much, so dont care about it. It means slot class trait to do the more damage you can. A 5sec. daze is more then sufficient. I use the 5sec. timer on StaffStrike to my Legendary Weapon. The crit is awesome in pvmp since its possible to hit melee while running without induction. I use StaffStike a lot. It quite usefull indeed and it might seems strange, but our melee dps is great when you weapons (staff and swords are great). The only downside is that you cannot stay up melee for long, got to run and take distances, so I use SS when I pass by...

I always use the coffee that give a little run speed 5% or 10%, since I got a whole bunch of crafter, I craft whole stack of this coffee, so I can use 50 in one single night. It gives you a little bit of speed in battle. Yes it does work in battle pvmp.

I always try to keep my distances and use my debuff as best as I can, that include of course the amber 30% slow down. When its done, I use on anti-interruption tome and use Ent go to War asap, since I previously used Ancient Craft as debuff, I go and give a shot to Lightning-Storm, hopefully the 6sec stun will be enough . This is if all go well.

But my best advice is to group up, kin, pugs, anything, because our greatest chance and skills are in group.

Ketzal on Brandywine

[EDIT: Correct misstatement on Moors armor, it should be correct now]

Depending on which creep you ask, the LM is the easiest or second easiest freep to kill. Even a skilled LM is in a tight spot thanks to diminishing returns, audacity, the proliferation of brands and our standing still, interruptable, induction based attacks.

I would recommend using the eagle for solo play and try to heal yourself with flank heals. Last time I checked, each flank was a 1000+ morale heal (roughly a Rohirric Athelas essence potion), and for longer fights I could get as many as 4 flanks in. As a bonus I have been slain many times in a fight, only to have the eagle rez me for that final revenge shot KB. I have found ents to be mostly useless outside of groups. Some people swear it is the greatest, I find it rather benign unless I get a crit--I don't like to leave my damage to chance. I prefer to heal myself and get off more LotRD, Sticky gourd, BE, and staff strike/sweep. As a plus, if you decide to use the eagle for flanks, if your health is ok you can just go with Staff Strike on a flank for extra damage and a chance to stun.

When using debuffs be sure to use SoP:C, followed by the debuff you want to use. That way when the creep pots it, they only remove SoP:C and not the debuff you wanted to apply. Use fire-lore on melee targets. Wind-lore on ranged. If you use the raven, don't forget the distraction debuff on ranged targets. Ancient craft is a must to reduce their armor, especially melee classes.

Crowd control is useless, yes, but sometimes a BF will give you that 1 second you need to put a BE on an opponent at melee range for the 30 second 30% slow, or to fire off tar. LotRD can be a lifesaver with its stun. It is not long thanks to all the CC nerfs, but it can buy you that split second to fire off another skill. Your stun/mez/root attacks are: BF, ToW, LotRD, ents, storm-lore, CE (after 10 seconds or 5 second AM traited), herb lore, and perhaps another I've forgotten.

For a reaver, try to put down tar followed by a BE on him. From there, combined with BF and LotRD, you can kite him about and keep burning his health down. For wargs, same measure. Sometimes I've fought a warg to a standstill, and both of us died thanks to 3 BE DoTs. Using the eagle at this time is ideal. The reaver will catch you at times and you use the eagle to spot heal the few hits the reaver gets in.

For legacies I would recommend a ranged staff and a melee staff plus a dps book:

Ranged Staff: CE Range (45 meter), BE Range (40 meter), Tact damage, fire crit, and if you have a 4th major put on BE Initial Damage.
Melee Staff: Tact damage, fire crit, SS cooldown, fire DoT, if you have a 4th major I would recommend LotRD initial damage
Book: Fire crit, BE pulses, Damaging skill resist (effectively adds +1500 finesse to your damaging attacks), if you have a fourth major put in sign of power righteousness or Debuff skill resist.

LotRD, Sticky gourd, BE and staff strike/sweep will be the bulk of your skills in most fights. This is why I recommend using legacies to up them wherever possible. Though your other skills are nice, the induction time for the damage they induce are seldom worth it. Use ents/lightning as last ditch attempt for a KB, typically I'll fire it off with a call to valor first. Some wargs are good enough to silence me once they see that. If they do, kite until silence is off, hit a parable, and blast them.

At 20k tact mastery you will have difficulty. Try to up it to 22k with the full moors gear. The problem with low tact mastery, is in a battle you'll feel as if your damage is not greater than a full audacity creep's ICMR. I have not yet decided whether it makes more sense to stop stacking tact mastery at 22k (with full moors gear) with morale approaching 10k, or if it makes more sense to break into the 30k tact mastery range with 8k morale or less. If I stack more morale, the fight goes on longer. But on E, a long fight guarantees a warg will come by and jump me from behind, so stacking tact mastery to end the fight quickly may be the best option. I have not decided yet, and I'm waiting on a few legendary weapon changes and gear upgrades before I can both test that and check the results.

Use 4 storm-caller audacity gear, and 2 restoration audacity gear (boots and pauldron, pauldron gives tactical resist). The bonuses combined are nice. Extra tactical mastery plus +10% fire damage make a huge difference. 7 audacity is mandatory if you want to have even the slightest hope of surviving.

If a warg uses a brand, you're pretty much screwed for the minute they have the brand. If you can figure out how to keep out of melee range for that minute or dish out enough of your interruptable, induction based dps to bring his morale to zero before he brings yours to zero, then you may win. Otherwise you're free infamy.

Though in the end, I tend to work with groups and use my ranged staff to make myself effective from behind the lines. I have grown exceedingly tired of entering a one on one, only to be jumped from behind by a warg. Or two BA's show up to prevent me from winning. Or half the creeps I face always having a brand up (I exagerrate but at times I wonder). Anymore, LM's work much better with a group.

-Synlas

Thanks for all your replies and advices

I wrote a long reply but got logged out before posting, so I lost everything Nevermind, I repost here shortly what I can remember of my previous post.

I know it's all about training and I don't mind dying, but I would like to be a little bit more challenging an opponent to the monsters. As for playing in groups, on my server unfortunately players rarely and rather reluctantly team up, and I don't feel like leading a raid myself for the moment. But yes, the best way for a LM to have a chance to survive is joining raids. It's the only moment in the moors I really have the impression to make a difference on the field, and when I have time enough to debuff, stun and aoe dps a lot of monsters.

I never wander in the Moors without my tomes against deduction interruptions, but you have a good point reminding that the tier doesn't matter, as lvl 20 and lvl 75 tomes have exactly the same immunity length. Coffee is definitely something that I will buy in large quantities, thanks for the advice!

I also tried the eagle in the moors, mostly for its rezz ability. But as it is a legendary slot, it involves removing the sword trait, which means losing 300 moral + all the stats increasers that are binded to the specific sword I use... A rather tough choice I think. Now I tend to use more and more my heal pet (except against blackarrows), which is rather a bad healer IMO but nevertheless gives me the opportunity to pick up some morale when all my morale regenerations skills are cd, and it actually saved me sometimes and allowed me to beat my assailant.

There is someting that really pieces me off since a couple of days: as if it were not enough, more and more wargs and spiders tend to silence me when I try to cast ents or lightning storm on them, which each time means wasting a tome or a call to valor for me... Is there anything one can do about it?

My comments were more on general gameplay and a little bit of gear. Here is a bit more on specific trait setups and gear.

Originally Posted by Aeglanor

I also tried the eagle in the moors, mostly for its rezz ability. But as it is a legendary slot, it involves removing the sword trait, which means losing 300 moral + all the stats increasers that are binded to the specific sword I use... A rather tough choice I think. Now I tend to use more and more my heal pet (except against blackarrows), which is rather a bad healer IMO but nevertheless gives me the opportunity to pick up some morale when all my morale regenerations skills are cd, and it actually saved me sometimes and allowed me to beat my assailant.

When I mentioned slotting in the eagle for a legendary, I meant unslotting ents instead. That way you have sword+staff, improved sticky gourd, and eagle slotted for legendary. I have never slotted sword+staff ever since I obtained it, irregardless of PvP or PvE. I only put in ents when in a group that is willing and able to give me heals.

For virtues I run with honour, zeal, fidelity, charity, valour/innocence.

For class traits I almost always run with: fast loader, secret of tar, harmony with nature, flame of arnor, tactically adept, master of the staff, awareness of body.

Originally Posted by Aeglanor

I know it's all about training and I don't mind dying, but I would like to be a little bit more challenging an opponent to the monsters. As for playing in groups, on my server unfortunately players rarely and rather reluctantly team up, and I don't feel like leading a raid myself for the moment. But yes, the best way for a LM to have a chance to survive is joining raids. It's the only moment in the moors I really have the impression to make a difference on the field, and when I have time enough to debuff, stun and aoe dps a lot of monsters.

You don't have to be a great leader. If you have a few friends, say a cappy and a hunter, you three can make an amazing trio. You just have to agree to go in the same direction and focus fire. Quite a few LM's on my server (Elendilmir) do this, and it drastically improves the survivability of the group.

Originally Posted by Aeglanor

There is someting that really pieces me off since a couple of days: as if it were not enough, more and more wargs and spiders tend to silence me when I try to cast ents or lightning storm on them, which each time means wasting a tome or a call to valor for me... Is there anything one can do about it?

You may be able to use a fear pot, but I'm not sure. I never use stun pots or any of those moors specific pots / brands.

Lastly, some quick comments on gear and legendary weapons

For jewelry I have found sometimes slotting a non tactical necklace is best, as they tend to give the single greatest morale boost and mitigation boost (fated necklace of theodred is easy to get on the AH and very useful). For general gear I would recommend slotting Great River jewelry and a few skirm pieces. Outside of that, the crafted Great River and Theodred Jewelry is good enough.

For legendary weapons create 2 staffs and 1 book. Aim for second ages if you can. Otherwise make your ranged staff a third age.

Ranged Staff: tactical damage, fire skills crit, cracked earth range, BE range, if a fourth major add BE Initial damage. After that slot a vitality legacy on your staff for roughly +120 morale.
Melee Staff: tactical damage, fire skills crit, SS cooldown, if a fourth major I would pick LotRD initial damage, last two minors place vitality and will (unless you have a 5th major, then I would add your LotRD crit mult legacy).
Book: Fire skills crit, BE pulses, Damaging skills resist, fire DoT, if you have a fourth major I would put sign of power righteousness or Debuffing skills resist, if a fifth major put the one you missed on the fourth major. If you have one minor left over I would pick a vitality legacy.

For relics, don't waste your time with the level 70+ extraordinary ones. Instead, slot tier 8 relics and tier6 extraordinary ones. Personally, I think you can get away with just plain t6 relics. When I get online tonight I will update what relics I have slotted in my main weapons. I tend to favor relics for heavy morale+tactical mastery gains. ICMR ones are nice, but they just don't cut it with the duration of a fight and the dps your opponents unleash.