Thread: LM Raiding: Tips and tricks

Hello fellow lore-masters,

I returned recently to the game after not playing for almost 2 years.
Yesterday I joined my first raid after so long.

I was trying to keep all the debuffs on the mobs, I tried to have stun protection up on all members, and I tried to help healing and heal wounds/diseases.

But then I got told to do some more damage. Furthermore I recognized that I could not heal some wounds/diseases and that critical wounds/diseases were healed by the players them self using potions. I felt rather useless...

Now I am asking myself: what is the role of a lore-master in a Raid, in general?

Could more experienced lore-master give some hints and tricks about general game-play in raids?

I am not asking for tactics on a specific instance. I am also not asking for gear or equipment.

But more general game mechanics questions like:

What about positioning? Where do LM need to stand in Raids?
Which characters are high priority targets for power sharing?
Are pets allowed to attack? What about flanking?
What about communication: which skills should be announced? Only Blinding flash and roots?
...

Let me say first that my kin is not a 'hardcore' raiding kin (things may run differently), but we do have some T2 experience and successes. Contributing DPS is certainly not high on the LM to-do list, at least not in the raids I participate in.

I'm generally standing more to the back, throwing around power (first healers, then tanks and supporters - our cappies burn through their supply often enough - and the damage dealers), mezzing and stunning what I am supposed to mezz and stun (the raid leader generally tells me that, or I see someone having problems and announce a stun), taking wounds and diseases when people fail to notice them or have pots on cooldown, and I try to hold my debuffs up. I mostly announce when I take wounds and diseases, and when I throw in a stun that wasn't planned. If - and that's a big if - I have the time, I throw some DPS in, but it's never anything meaningful .

As a pet, I generally use the raven since we do a lot of Orthanc and damage in boss fights is purely tactical. I have it on passive and parked somewhere, so it lives longer . Sometimes there's discussions on which pet to use, but then that also depends on the situation. Some people want the eagle to interrupt when doing Saruman, for example, if they don't have a champ or burg. If you have your pet attacking a mob, many of them have nifty debuffs (the raven especially *hint*) and if you get a flank event, use it... free power or some healing is always good.

Hope that helped a bit .

To some extent, it depends uon your configuration as a loremaster. Beastmaster works best for soloists. Nature fury is a decent second-best for soloists, with it's emphasis on dps, which can also help a little in groups. Ancient master, with its focus opon debuffs and crowd control, comes out best in groups. Sucks for solo.

Minis are usually the most useful character to throw power into, although captain healers appear to be gainng in popularity at the moment. Botttom line: find out who your tank and healer are(dont rely upon guessing it from classes present) and mother-hen the healer. Personally, I like to steal power from the boss and then dump it into the healer, but i need to be confident the tank has the aggro locked down before attempting to kill two birds with that particular stone.

I am going to give my view of how to play a Lore Master,so don't focus only on mine but also to others who will know more things.

As an LM,you must judge what your team settup lacks most and decide how to trait and be geared up.Also this depends on which instance,skirmiss etc you are going to.I am not going to talk about individual instances since this isn't what you wanted.

In general, if you see your team lacking in dps BUT (have,or, there is no need of cc/strong debuffing, or support in heals) then go full dps to end the run more quickly. I strongly believe that lms are made for cc/debuff , a support class mainly, but if traited red and have some good gear(legacies that add more dot to burning embers and wizards fire, etc) they can do a lot of dmg,especially if you have to deal with several mobs.

On the other hand,if you are going into a difficult instance with mobs and bosses doing big amounts of dmg that can one or two shoot your fellows,then i would suggest trait 5 yellow for sure and then judge what the other two traits will be. That way you will be able to keep the enemy all time debuffed and save your allies from a lot of damage or make your enemy miss,so you can save some hits taken by your tank and keep your healers job much easier and less anxious about healing. If there isn't much need of heavy debuff, you can go mixed up.

As for positiong, i would prefer to stand near healers and try to pick targets from there.Although, you may need to go closer to use some skills,take advantage of flanked effect, so judge if its really necessery or if you can avoid it. Don't forget you wear light armour so any unfortunate aoe attacks are not welcome.

Power sharing is good to use for your team,its power consuming for you.If you have traited the Healer class trait(for lower induction time),and you have some westfold parables,then you can use one(-60% to power cost of the next induction skill) and you will have about 10seconds to use share the power at a cost of ~300-400 power to anyone is needed.I would recommend using the parable in fights that last long and there is no need to use it for non-interrupting effects too. I would also point that power is really usefull for your healers(mintrels,rune keepers,captains) and tanks.So i would rather give power to the healer or the tank and then to a dps.That way you will keep the fight on but with less dps for some time. You don't want your tank lose threat or your whole fellowship cannot be healed due to power problems.Actually i would say that if your fellowship has any captain,he could use his song brother on the main healer and heal amounts of power over time(if traited well he can keep the whole power of the fellowship full).

As for pets,i would recommend using a raven mostly,cause its a pet that do a lot of things.Able to apply miss effects on target(if you are lucky enough it can apply dizzy which is 15% miss chance for 15sec),passive tactical mitigation to the fellowship,make ranged targets come to melee and has the same chances to apply flanked effect such as a lynx. Although,i would prefer it on passive mode such as any other pet,in order to keep it alive in case you run full dps or full debuff(you can try to command it attack and then come back,always in passive mode). If there isn't so much need for the tactical mitigation bonus(gives about 5% tactical defence) use either spirit for healing support, sabre cat for fm chance,eagle for in-combat rez and fear for 10sec,bear for additional 10sec of grounding an enemy(if he has adaption effect and he is already immuneto other cc effects), always depending the occasion.
Do some tests with your pets on dummies and check how often flanked effect is applied or how good dps each one has.

Communication is also important.You should talk with any other cc classes on your raid(mainly another lms or burglars and hunters) and arrange who will stun,daze,root,fear who and in which order, and who will keep debbufed which mob and for how long(in case of 2 or more lms).

I may had wrote too much that weren't needed but i hope i covered some things.

Originally Posted by wachkussen

Ancient master, with its focus opon debuffs and crowd control, comes out best in groups. Sucks for solo.

A bit off-topic, but IMO the latter statement isn't really true. It may not be OPTIMAL for soloing, but you don't need optimal for soloing. I find Ancient Master fine for soloing, and am now traited AM all the time (+ Master of Staff and Improved Flanking), which saves a lot of trait micromanagement.

From the 'do some more damage' remark, I think you may have been in a Skirmish raid? In those, it's perfectly allright to go for dps, but be carefull to not draw agro (just start the fight throwing some debuffs, tanks should have some aggro after 10 seconds or so)

The more challenging raids, you will be assigned targets to CC, so no need to call them out. As for power sharing, healers first, tanks second, all others if you have some to spare.

Anti stun and wound/disease removal are very usefull in some fight, total waste of time in others. My general rule (if I don't know the fight) Anti stun self and tank, all others are cured when needed. Wounds should be taken care off with pots, very few fights require more then that. Cure wounds/disease if you think they are really bothersome, or if someone calls out cd on pots. Also, antistun skill can cure silences, very usefull when your healer gets silenced.

Some fights you will have lots to do (like Shadow HM, IMO by far the best fight in Orthanc), some you are reduced to a debuff bot. The only way you will learn what you need to do is by experience, there is no point wasting your time anti-stunning everyone if only the tank will ever get stunned etc.

Trait wise it's pretty much AM spec for difficult 12 man raids (T2 Orthanc only at the moment, but pugs will probably want you AM specced for T1 too), MoNF for everything else. There are times you will want to spec DPS even in T2 Orthanc (FF HM), but not really the other way round - I cringe every time I see a debuff specced LM in a RoF/Foundry group. The main variation is in the 2 spare trait slots you have when going 5 deep into either line.

For skirms - I just DPS and a few debuffs.

For real raids I trait yellow with 2 greens. Typically PAAI and what ever seems needed. I am more like Bags response. I look at what the raid make up is and see what the raid leader wants. I start out mez/debuffs, toss power and heals. I too stay by the healers to pick up any healing aggro they may have generated. My heals and power are reserved in this order as a rule: Healers, Tanks, Cappy.

Kinda hard to say what LMs should do for all raids. But this works for me generally speaking. If running ToO raids after the trash has been takien out, I bounce out of the run and trait straight red as most at that point are DPS races.

A few thoughts

Since RoI came in I've found PAAI to have become medium pointless in raids (as opposed to skimishes), the induction and cooldown are such that chances are you wont get it off in time when something needed potting.

Pets.
Raids, go for spirit on trash and raven on bosses as a default. There are times when the bear is a viable alternative on trash and times when the spirit is a viable alternative on a boss, noteably Acid, because it heals when everyone else is pogoing up and down.
Skimishes, whichever pet adds to damage if that is called for, or heals if that's weak. I've taken the spirit pet and my healer soldier into many a skim and got a substantial hps rating, which allows minstrels to do more damage most of the time, given that their sustained dps is probably higher than ours.

Traits
In a raid expect to have The Study of Frost Lore available and be in deep poo if you don't.

Originally Posted by Mithithil

A few thoughts

Since RoI came in I've found PAAI to have become medium pointless in raids (as opposed to skimishes), the induction and cooldown are such that chances are you wont get it off in time when something needed potting.

...

I agree, but I still run enough of the other raids that it is still a steady trait for me less ToO. I try to post generic answers for generic questions. Sort of saddens me that new peeps rush to 75 and miss out on some other good raids along the way.

ATM many class can stun/root better than lore master.
The only good thing is about the mini buff for decrease the CD of binding and help enought for stun 2 enemy with set bonus for 35 sec.
Debuff help but usually not so much on trash, you need to know where is needed antistun and where no. Cause you can upgrade another debuff or healing skill.
The same is for wound ... you can use pots but remove only one, if you don't use the trait for group remove you can target single target and remove disease from every target ( same if isn't in your fellow ) if someone have more disiase or pot in CD you can help.

Originally Posted by Sangarillion

Now I am asking myself: what is the role of a lore-master in a Raid, in general?
What about positioning? Where do LM need to stand in Raids?
Which characters are high priority targets for power sharing?
Are pets allowed to attack? What about flanking?
What about communication: which skills should be announced? Only Blinding flash and roots?
...

Great questions. I think our role is to help everyone else do their job.

Probably the hardest thing about being a LM is that your eyes have to go everywhere. You have to watch the battle and debuff/mez/damage/interrupt/decorrupt the enemies, you have to watch the party and heal/power-share/stun-immune, you have to watch your pet to use skills and avoid pulling mobs, and you have to watch yourself and stay alive. Few people really understand what we do, but that's unimportant as long as you have a successful raid.

Regarding position, I generally stand in a place where I can see my main targets. This may involve moving away from the party, but not necessarily so. You do need to be in range so that you can power share, etc. Also, if there's a kiting tank, I try to move near enough to drop tar. Sometimes, you also have to move right towards the enemy and melee it. The staff and sword are in your hands for a reason!

As others mentioned, power sharing priority goes to healers and tanks. In specific instances, the most capable dps-er may become the top priority. Be choosy who you share power to, as the worst thing is when you pass power to someone who doesn't really need it, then not have power for a more important person.

Pets are allowed to attack. Use those flanks! The only times when pets might be an issue is if the party is superstitious about them in Draigoch.

Regarding communication, I generally wait for the leader's orders. I like to type out my mez targets to confirm the orders and also to reinforce the message to others. If my role is to mez something and the target is somehow freed, I call for backup. Most other times, I don't say much during battles.

Happy hunting, and welcome back to the game!

Originally Posted by Sangarillion

Hello fellow lore-masters,

Now I am asking myself: what is the role of a lore-master in a Raid, in general?

Could more experienced lore-master give some hints and tricks about general game-play in raids?

I am not asking for tactics on a specific instance. I am also not asking for gear or equipment.

My two cents about instances and raids. I play for over a year, mainly my lore-master but I'm not an elite raider. I just tag along with whatever my kin is up to.

What about positioning? Where do LM need to stand in Raids?

Depends on the raid. In a Draigoch raid you need to stand on top of each other because of the distributed damage. During this raid I will be traited Master of Nature's Fury because there's no CC here. It's basically a FM and DPS race, so you want to put out as much damage as you possibly can.
The Watcher has a AoE wail you don't want to find yourself in. There are two tentacles and a head that need to be debuffed with fire lore and wind lore all the time. Also, you will be asked to run back and forth for corruption removal (we can remove 3 every 30 seconds). In this raid I'm mainly Ancient Master traited for the debuffing.
Some bosses like the first boss in Roots of Fangorn (which is an instance, but I can't think of a raid boss right now) do nasty AoE damage, so you don't want to be in melee range.
It depends on what your target does, before starting a raid I've never done before I always want to know what kind of damage is done, if I'm supposed to do CC or just DPS so I get an idea what to trait.
I like to stand in melee range when possible, because I can do staff sweep on a flank to get a power HoT which makes sharing power easier for me. If I am asked to do heavy CC I'm standing more to the back so I have an overview of the battlefield and can cast roots and mezzes when needed.

Which characters are high priority targets for power sharing?

I prioritize minstrel, tank. And if I have left over, who needs. I always carry a load of power pots with me, because you can drain power, but it has a cool down, and you cannot do anything while draining power. Some bosses won't let you drain power. Having power potions may sound silly but it's necessary in raids.

Are pets allowed to attack? What about flanking?

Again, depends on the raid. During a Draigoch raid I never use my pet, because it can bug him.
In areas with a lot of tactical damage I put my raven up to give my group a tactical mitigation buff (tactical damage: shadow, fire, acid etc.). In these cases I always trait 'Study of Frost Lore' to debuff any boss that does tactical damage. There's a rule of a thumb what to cast lore-wise: if it's hitting with a sword/does melee damage: fire lore. If it shoots stuff at your (ranged): wind-lore, if it does tactical damage (casters): frost-lore. This is what I usually ask beforehand.
The bear has a skill called 'shatter arms' which can be usefull against some bosses. During one turtle raid we couldn't find a proper tank and ended up using a cappy tank and 3 lore-master's bears using force-taunts in turn. This way we could avoid the nasty poison DoT.
During the end boss in Roots of Fangorn I like to put up my eagle to help with power regen, it's not much but every small bit helps. Power is always an issue there, especially on T2.

What about communication: which skills should be announced? Only Blinding flash and roots?

The leader usually discusses what we are going to do before attacking and calls out which targets I need to mez or to root. With the proper traiting you can keep targets mezzed indefinitely (use fast loader / ancient master line) or rooted (use herb lore, 10/5 seconds before it expires cast 'cracked earth'. Repeat. It needs some practice, though.

Hoping this helps.