Bullroarer Update 37.2 - Beta #2 - CLOSED

[LordOfTheSquids]

Bullroarer is CLOSED

A new build has been deployed and Beta has been extended until Friday at 3:00 PM ET.

Server Opening Time: Monday, September 18 ~4:00 PM ET (subject to change)
Server Closing Time: Friday, September 22 ~3:00 PM ET (subject to change)

• Report A Bug
• Guide to the Eyes and Guard Tavern
• Character Copy is AVAILABLE. This can be accessed through the 'Transfer' button on any LOTRO Launcher.
• Player database was wiped on 09/13.

Welcome to Update 37.2!​

New Class - Mariner:
Mariners are confident melee fighters who wield swords deftly to challenge the forces of evil. Mariners have an innate sense of the flow of combat, and use their balance to adjust their fighting style to best fit the moment. Mariners also know how to use combinations of individual movements to create powerful skill chains. In fellowships, Mariners can use shanties to coordinate and motivate their allies, as well as craft strange concoctions to confound and disrupt foes.


Balance
Mariner's use a forward-backward system called Balance. In that system, your three main states are 'Aftward' 'Steady' and 'Foreward.' You will default to a 'Steady' state, and the skills you use will push your balance Foreward or Aftward. Watch out, though! If you find yourself too far to either end of the balance spectrum, you become unbalanced, and will need to quickly move back towards Steady, lest you find yourself penalized for remaining off-balance.

Swordplay
Mariners are practiced melee combatants, and their swordplay skills can be used to create chains of skill combos. Every individual swordplay skill will give you a short buff of your 'last used' swordplay skill, which will enhance one or more other swordplay skills. For example, using 'Thrust' will improve Step-back or Advance, if you use one of those directly after Thrust. On the Thrust skill tooltip, you'll also notice that it says 'Advance applies a bleed' in red text. That indicated that there is a trait in the red-line tree which will give Thrust that swordplay combo effect.

Swordplay effects only impact your 'next used' swordplay skill. So if you use Riposte then Blade Shield, the Blade Shield swordplay combo effect will overwrite the one gained from Riposte. However, non-swordplay skills will not overwrite these effects, so you can use Haversack skills or Shanty skills without breaking a Swordplay combo chain.


The Mariner has 3 trait specializations: The Shanty-caller, The Duellist, and The Rover.

The Shanty-caller
The shanty-caller is a group-support specialist, with a focus on maximizing group damage. This line is built as a direct counterpart to the Captain's Master of War red-line. Specializing in the Shanty-caller tree gives you access to a number of otherwise-unavailable shanty skills, and will make all of your shanties more potent. Skills like the West Wind and Guided by the Stars will benefit your group, while skills like Marked Foes and the Breaking of Thangorodrim will cause your enemies to take more damage from all of your allies.

The Duellist
The duellist is a flexible melee fighter, focused on maximizing your own damage output, while retaining a flexible kit of skills to help you avoid damage and escape unwinnable engagements. A duellist sacrifices most of the group-support potential found in other specializations, but gains much-improved swordplay damage and effectiveness.

The Rover
The Rover is a group-support specialist, with a focus on controlling and debuffing enemies, and helping to keep the group alive. This line is a direct counterpart to the Lore-mster's Ancient Master and the Burglar's Mischief-maker specializations. Specializing in the Rover tree will give you access to a number of potent debuffing and CCing skills which are otherwise unavailable. Though the Rover still gains several unique swordplay combos, most of their unique skills and effects are gained from Haversack skills.

Mariner Notes - Beta#2 Notes in Yellow:​

Skills no longer require the player to have a dagger equipped in their off-hand weapon slot. This should resolve the issues with improperly-acting daggers. The theme of the Mariner's combat is that you have a parrying dagger in your off-hand, but these were overwritable in cosmetic outfits with non-daggers anyway, so loosening this requirement should reduce confusion for players. You will still need to have a weapon equipped in both hands, and will only be able to choose a 1-handed sword for your Legendary Weapon.

You should now be able to move the Balance UI with the normal click and drag method after pressing ctrl+\ to enable repositioning of UI elements.


Mariner Tuning:

• Damage of most Mariner skills increased considerably - about 50% for direct skill damage.
• En Garde's Power restore has been improved.
• Mariner healing potency from swordplay combos and Toss a Bottle have been increased.
• Thrum of the Sea cooldown reduced slightly.
• The North Wind cooldown reduced slightly.
• Feint cooldown halved.
• Increased Mariner skill damage & DoT damage.

Mariner Changes:

• Guided by the Stars now increases Single Target Healing Critical Chance by 15% rather than overall Critical Chance by 3%
• Shanty: Fore with Haste now applies a 10s buff at tier 5, and will toggle off after 15 seconds. Additionally, this skill may not be used while out of combat.
• The Breaking of Thangorodrim and thrown pot skills are no longer resistable. Individual effects from pot skills should still be resistable.
• Flèche requires the player to be grounded.
• The trait 'Natural Explorer' now gives Vitality rather than Fate.

Mariner Fixes:

• Relaxing Wind potency has been corrected. This trait should now cause wind shanties to heal 0.5-2.5% of your max morale (not 400%)
• Booming Voice now displays it's effect correctly.
• The enrage effect is now hooked up to the Step Back > Riposte Swordplay combo. Note: this currently affects some Blackarrow skills, but it is not intended to, and will be fixed soon.
• Enrage is no longer a Burglar trick and has a fixed 15s duration.
• The Salt Cure reset tracery should now correctly cause your Swordplay finishers to reset Salt Cure.
• The Feint > Dodge Swordplay combo should now correctly apply its heal.
• The Swordplay tooltip on Sweeping Advance no longer suggests that it benefits from the trait 'Shocking Counterattack.'
• 'Instance: The Mirror of Galadriel' will now properly advance for Mariners.
• 'Instance: A Silent Presence' will now properly advance for Mariners.
• Breath of Fire and Fire Pot benefit from bonuses to fire damage.
• Salt Cure CR trait correctly applies incoming damage debuff.
• Pot skills should only generate one hotspot effect.

​

​

Known Issues:​

• The Cosmetic outfit in the River Hobbit starter 'Instance: Humble Beginnings' is not rendering correctly
• The Valar Level-up Packages are not providing the correct weapons for Mariner, and the armour is placeholder. You can barter for the weapons in the Craft Hall of the E&G Tavern or the Archive in Rivendell. The Tracery packages that support your Trait lines are correct.
• Stumbling Forward sometimes fails to be applied correctly.
• The Test Defences trait ranks 2 and 3 are not functioning correctly.
• 'Sail to' skills are not currently applying a fellowship travel effect.
• Enrage currently disables some Blackarrow skills, even though it should only impact NPCs.

Release Notes - Beta#2 - New Notes in Yellow:​

Classes:

• Buff Interactions:
  
  • Oathbreakers Shame, The Breaking of Thangorodrim, and Murder of Crows Incoming Damage debuffs no longer stack with one another. The 'Oaths Fulfilled' effect has been renamed to 'Renewed Defences' and will prevent another potent debuff from being applied for 45 seconds.
  • Caustic Brew, Ancient Craft, and Trickster each apply 'Major Rent Armour' and will not stack with one another.
  • Pitch Pot and Sticky Tar each apply 'Minor Rent Armour' and will not stack with one another.
• Burglar:
  
  • Trickster tricks now apply Major Rent Armour, reducing all enemy mitigations by 10% for 20 seconds.
  • Location is Everything now increases Critical Chain Skills Damage rather than causing those skills to ignore some enemy Mitigations.
• Champion:
  
  • Champion's Advantage now increases Blade Skills Damage rather than causing those skills to ignore some enemy Mitigations.
  • Damage for Champion Blade skills has been increased by 8%.
  • Damage for Champion Strike skills has been increased by 20%.
• Guardian:
  • Bolstering Blocks can now only proc once per second. This entirely passive heal was capable of generating more HPS than intended for the guardian, and was not in line with reactive healing available to other tank specializations.
  • Damage for most Guardian skills has been reduced by 5%.
  • Rupture has been corrected to a 10 second duration at slightly reduced potency (10% max).
  • Hammer down has 2nd hit again.
• Hunter:
  
  • Bodkin Arrows now increases Induction Skill Damage rather than causing Hunter skills to ignore some enemy Mitigations.
  • Damage for most Hunter skills has been increased by 15%.
• Lore-master:
  
  • Murder of Crows debuff is now 10% Miss Chance but 20% Incoming Damage, and does not stack with Oathbreakers or the Breaking of Thangorodrim.
  • Ancient Craft now removes 5% of all enemy Mitigations, rather than Armour rating. Enfeeble will increase this amount to 15% for 10 seconds and 10% thereafter.
  • When Enfeeble is traited Ancient Craft has the correct priority level, so it will overwrite weaker forms of Greater Rent Armour.

Forester Event:

• All movement bonuses are now suppressed as they should be.
• The synching issue with the event should be solved.
• We have made all of the forester tools that can be made and upgraded as part of the event account bound.
• The forester event will now run, regardless of participants, every 21 minutes.
• The quest for the forester event will no longer invoke the mithril coin reset on failure or cancelling.
• There was an odd race condition in the quest that could cause the quest to fail in the second step. This has been rectified.
• Guardians were able to bypass the speed restrictions in the forester event with Sprint. This has been remedied.

Miscellaneous:

• The Pure Seagull cosmetic pet now sounds like a seagull.
• Several avatar clothing models that had missing textures and were displaying as white are now fixed.
• War-steed combat fidgets now correctly play only in combat.
• Level 130 Shrews should no longer be able to sneak into 'Instance: Humble Beginnings'
• Sarabeth Lowbanks found her name again.
• Sagroth Flutes now use flute entities.

Preview Only:

• E&G Tavern - Snowlight will now offer a Racial Trait level up quest to River Hobbits.

 

[Gekh]

If the class stay the same, it will be played right from under 1% of your community.
Also will literaly kill the need ofred cpt/yellow burgler in raid, due his versatility.
I personaly have no problem with the class complexability, but i fail to see the idea why release such advanced class.
Its literaly combining the hardest part of burgler, rk, warden, captain and lm in one. Add lag and bad server performance to it, and you may get the picture.
Beta is not oficialy up, so i have hope that you will make the right decisions and do some changes to make it "playable" not only for your hardcore base. You have time.

 

[Elmagor]

Mariner looks like fun class and yes, it's advance class, but so far he looks more easy comparing with warden. And he can have really cool gear with great bonus sets

 

[Gekh]

Mariner looks like fun class and yes, it's advance class, but so far he looks more easy comparing with warden. And he can have really cool gear with great bonus sets

The cool loking gear, and the 4 piece set bonus wont change much.
Most of the ppl stil dont have full set even if expansion is years old
Too much skills, too much to mentain. And red capstone limits you to AoE ? Time will tell.

 

[Greenpath]

soooooo what you are saying is that lotro's playerbase is too dumb to press more than a couple buttons in a rotation?

 

[Elmagor]

The cool loking gear, and the 4 piece set bonus wont change much.
Most of the ppl stil dont have full set even if expansion is years old
Too much skills, too much to mentain. And red capstone limits you to AoE ? Time will tell.

Depending on how this bonus can affect balance bar. Like make it work more easy, allow you don't fall from it and stay in the middle

 

[Gekh]

Depending on how this bonus can affect balance bar. Like make it work more easy, allow you don't fall from it and stay in the middle

You dont need to stay in the midle at all. You need to be close to it BEFORE starting to execute your rotation, so you wont go far left or right and get stuned. Its easy to atune because there is a balance skill + tracery to reduce cd. You need to be far /but not at the end/ left or right, to give your finishers more dmg or heal. Lag will puish mariner more than warden, but wont be that noticable /for untrained eye/ because he wont be tank or healer. So most of the time will will have underperfomer in grp, pretending we dont know it
Dont get me wrong. The class is great and looks fun, its just too far ahead from skill cap we have in LOTRO.
Lets say more advanced than needed to be.
Sails (teleports) also look cool, even if we dont know its a guide skill or solo teleport.
Frontal bonus dmg /red tree/ gives 15% dmg which is HUGE and i can see most dps picking it, and trying to face boss on finishers, to bump their dmg. This will lead to many wipes, tm
Will be fun to see. Cant wait

 

[Illthallion]

We need more time with this class to provide the best feedback - not discrediting those that have invested in Palantir already - it would be great to ask for BR availability to be on a weekend.

 

[gildhur]

We need more time with this class to provide the best feedback - not discrediting those that have invested in Palantir already - it would be great to ask for BR availability to be on a weekend.

I mean, it’s not going live next week. There will be other BR builds with more of the xpac too before too long.

This preview is basically just marketing.

 

[Hathlen]

I love that the Mariner support spec basically is a different way of using the captain buffs.
With each class in LOTRO having 2-3 specs - there should be various classes capable of using the same effects. (but obviously using each classes unique playstyle to "do" them)
We currently have a massive bloat of buffs and debuffs in lotro and a system like this is great for condensing them - and providing more of a mix of classes in the group.

 

[Elmagor]

You dont need to stay in the midle at all. You need to be close to it BEFORE starting to execute your rotation, so you wont go far left or right and get stuned. Its easy to atune because there is a balance skill + tracery to reduce cd. You need to be far /but not at the end/ left or right, to give your finishers more dmg or heal. Lag will puish mariner more than warden, but wont be that noticable /for untrained eye/ because he wont be tank or healer. So most of the time will will have underperfomer in grp, pretending we dont know it
Dont get me wrong. The class is great and looks fun, its just too far ahead from skill cap we have in LOTRO.
Lets say more advanced than needed to be.
Sails (teleports) also look cool, even if we dont know its a guide skill or solo teleport.
Frontal bonus dmg /red tree/ gives 15% dmg which is HUGE and i can see most dps picking it, and trying to face boss on finishers, to bump their dmg. This will lead to many wipes, tm
Will be fun to see. Cant wait

Frontal bonus working only in ladnscape/pvp, disabled in instances, so tanks don't need to worry about someone stand near them

I like how they provide mechanic what make new class looking like he fighting on board when ship rocking on high waves

 

[Finaurion]

*High elves faces seem to be bugged a bit and in combat their eyes are always looking upward as pictured in the screenshot. Hopefully that can get fixed.*



From what I've played so far I really like the mariner, here are my first thoughts, impressions, and a few desires.

The mechanics are interesting and unique while keeping gameplay engaging, and while there's definitely going to be a learning curve that takes some time to get used to, I think mariner is going to feel rewarding as a result when you do end up learning how to play it. The combo system, along with the possible short stun you can apply to yourself make it so you can't just spam abilities, which is good. In the little bit of time I had to play it I was enjoying figuring out which order I should use my skills in to buff my next skill and maximize my damage without trying to stun myself.

I really like the new swordsmanship animations and sound effects as well. They look and sound great, and it definitely helps me buy into the role of the class as an actual duelist swordsman, making it quite distinct from the champion and other melee classes visually. The in combat running animation is a bit too hunched over for my taste, and kind of looks a bit silly at times as a result. I think it would look a bit better with a straighter back, but overall I really like the new animations. Good job there.

Shanties are fun and add some nice flavor to the gameplay mix too, and I like how the one morale buff from blue (the name escapes me) lets me quickly play on an equipped instrument of my choice. Though in saying that- I almost lament that mariner can't at least equip a bow for auto attacks to pull mobs. Unless I've missed something I didn't notice a reliable pull in red. Rummage sometimes gets you a ranged attack, but it's not really practical or ideal for pulling consistently. That's to say I'd like some reliable pull, at least just for landscape quality of life in any case.

As for a few other random or personal things I'd like to see-
-Standard elves should be able to be mariners. I don't quite understand why they'd be locked out of it, lore wise it's perfect for them.
-The mariner starter outfit, at least the chest when I tried, doesn't seem dyeable. I hope that's just a bug and that all pieces will be dyable in the future.
-I think it would be really nice for Mariner to get a new unique cutlass skin for their LI, or for them to start with a unique cutlass and dagger. It would be a nice touch and the small bells and whistles really sell it as a package.

I'm looking forward to future beta builds when I have more time to play, and to continue to watch the progress of the mariner. My first impressions are great and I had a lot of fun trying it out.

 

[gildhur]

Feedback so far:

• Skill interplay looks incredible (and super complex).
• Trait lines look diverse and fun as hell.
• River-hobbit frost damage trait is going to be nice with a couple of the Wind skills.
• The sheer number of skills might be a little overboard (*badum*). At 140 I have 3 bars full of skills, and that's without travel skills, pots, cures, mounts, crafting trackers, etc. But, "Advanced", I guess.
• The skill animations are awesome. Guided by the Stars might be my new favorite animation in the whole game. Just stunning.
• Did we decide against vocal shanties? The musical notes are fine, I guess, but I was hoping for a little la-ti-da singing, or at least humming from the
• Landscape difficulty titles are currently TBD but should be "X of Tides." Super epic.
• I like that the combat stance and animations are fencing-inspired, but then what does the offhand do? It doesn't get used in any skill damage or animations at all that I can see. Why not make the offhand something non-combat class oriented instead of a dagger or sword that doesn't get used, if it's just going to be a stat slot? Small shield? Bottle? Rope? An unused weapon just hanging out there just feels awkward.
• Is Fizzling Rocks supposed to only do "1 Light damage" at level 140? Mainly an interrupt, damage just there for technical reasons? Either way, an AOE interrupt is kind of awesome.
• How is potentially perpetual stun immunity going to work in the Moors?
• Agree with others that Elf needs to be included in the race choices. I get the monetization reason for the other non-Man limitations, but Elves of all kinds were viscerally obsessed with the Sea. It makes no sense that they can’t be Mariners.

 

[BrethwynEU]

I have one point of feedback so far, and I made it all the way to the forums to voice it:

* The combat animations are good, but unrealistically quick. Slow down, matey! Especially "Lunge", but in general they all feel a bit too fast.

Otherwise fun class so far

 

[Harvain]

I have one point of feedback so far, and I made it all the way to the forums to voice it:

* The combat animations are good, but unrealistically quick. Slow down, matey! Especially "Lunge", but in general they all feel a bit too fast.

Otherwise fun class so far

Yeah, something I had noticed watching the Preview & now trying it: Skills can be used way too fast.

I just did it messing around but you can quickly go through all the Skills. Pending which Trait Tree & how many Skills, the Mariner seemingly can go through almost every single skill in probably less than 30 Seconds (Longer when ensuring the use of Skill Combinations). Granted this is in an optimal situation but Combat is "Fast" and the only break between certain Skills is purely the ones with Long Cooldowns.

 

[Zaheer]

I've not checked the class fully yet, but as a mirror skill to oathies, I think the breaking of thangorodrim is a tad too strong if it's not limited to a set amount of targets on the AOE part. Other than that I am still looking into the class and might post my feedback in a list later.

 

[Aleziana]

I found the lack of instruments and dagger animations disturbing!

 

[Lillyn]

New Class - Mariner:

All I have to say is... well done! I didn't level to 140 and haven't done any raids, so I can't speak to end-game. I will say, however, between the River Hobbit and the Mariner, I am excited! After 16 years and dozens of characters, even starting over on Ithil/Anor & Treebeard, I swore off ever starting a new character again. You have officially changed my mind! Mariner is advanced enough to keep this ol' mind of mine occupied for some time. Looking forward to it all! Again, well done! #riverhobbit #mariner

Edit: to add one major complaint. Makes NO sense that the River Hobbit has to complete Wells of Langflood/Misthallow/Lyndelby quests available at lvl 125-130 in order to get the npcs to appear and so you can complete the racial deed of completing the quest Farewell Lyndelby to get the Return Home skill. ALL other classes get it before level 35. Please reconsider... maybe the Shire as a Home Away from Home port. Change the Lyndelby deed/quest for that actually makes it that far and completes all the quests and offer some other special reward.

 

[Andrane]

soooooo what you are saying is that lotro's playerbase is too dumb to press more than a couple buttons in a rotation?

yes

 

[Gekh]

soooooo what you are saying is that lotro's playerbase is too dumb to press more than a couple buttons in a rotation?

This is what you say. I dont mean it. Do ppl are too dumb to play warden ? No. How many wardens you see on actual endgame ?Few. Even less compared to other classes. Reason ? Advanced class. More punished by lag and server hickups than rest of the classes. So mariner have all this issue + some more. Like to be played well, the player behind it need to know the whole boss mechanic + the timers, and prepare his skills in advance, because they are not just rotation, but build up rotation. Now tell me how many players know the boss mechanics? Rly few. Like rly few. And how many players use plugins like Prime and Gibberish ? Even less. There you have it.