Upcoming Lore-master Changes

[OnnMacMahal]

The Lore-master​

Bullroarer 1 > 2 changes in yellow.
Bullroarer 2 > 3 changes in blue.
Bullroarer 3 > 4 changes in purple.


First off, thanks to everyone who chimed in to prior discussions about the Lore-master class. I’m going to dive straight into an outline of some upcoming class changes, so please keep in mind that most of these changes have not been implemented and they are subject to change. With that said, I thank you for your continued engagement with these changes and for your ongoing feedback of these proposals.

Pets
Fundamentally, Lore-masters are a pet class, and there are no plans to remove pets entirely from any trait lines. That said, these changes aim to better differentiate the roles and playstyles of the three different LM specializations, and pets play a big role in that. Overall, pet summoning-skills will likely retain their current cooldown timers (meaning you can always re-summon any pet at will in combat). In yellow-line, pets would still play a role in debuffing, but without supporting endless/rapid pet cycling the way players currently do. In red-line, pets are still be present, but with a reduced impact on player output. In blue-line, pets are the star of the show, with gameplay revolving around buffing your pets and using your pets to deliver most of your output.

Return to Master
This skill should be usable in combat, with a 15s cooldown. This skill’s cooldown will be reset when you summon a new pet, so it should always be available for you if your pet somehow gets summoned in a stuck spot or somehow paths into a bad location.

Dismiss Pet (new, 1s cooldown)
This is a new, baseline Lore-master skill which simply dismisses your active pet. This is a minor addition that simply saves new LM players from being required to set up an alias/hotkey to manage pet dismissal. (A couple players reported that using this skill takes just a smidgen more time than the alias/shortcut. I couldn't easily identify any reason for this, but the reduced rate of pet cycling in yellow should limit the absolute speed at which you feel you need your pets to be dismissed. In any case, you're welcome to continue using the alias; this skill is largely meant to help new LMs more than anything).

Pet Skills
We’re still working out a few minor technicalities with pet skills, but pet skills across the board have changed in a major way: they are now driven by player skills. This means you will have player skills that correspond to each manually-activated pet skill, and those player skills will manage (and enforce) the cooldowns of pet abilities. Re-summoning a pet will still reset skill cooldowns on that pet, but your player skill cooldown will prevent your pet from re-using any skills before their cooldowns have elapsed.

When actively executing a pet skill, your pets will negate 30% Incoming Damage. This means your pets won’t be completely immune to damage, but if you’re smart about your skill use, you can ensure your pets are able to successfully execute their skills without being vaporized.


Major Pet Skills
60s cooldown
Spirit: AoE HoT
Bear: Challenge: Taunt (10 target AoE 5s force taunt, no copy)
Raven: Fear No Darkness: AoE Cleanse and Modest Heal for the Fellowship
Eagle: Frontal AoE that burns enemies and tiers up Burning Embers if it is present
Bog-lurker: Bursting Root (Fellowship Manoeuvre)
Lynx: High Damage, AoE attack
Feline Hunters: AoE strike, tier up +5% Damage per target hit for 20s



Inductions
You may notice in the traits outlined below that several sources of -Induction Speed have been removed. Lore-master baseline inductions have been reduced across the board by 30-60% concurrently with this change, so you should not notice the absence of those traits. The goal here is to both reduce the number of trait points you must sink into Induction Speed, and reduce the ‘expected’ Lore-master Induction modifier to a lower value, as the current traits make it possible for Lore-masters to hit -100% Induction Duration in some contexts (hitting -100% causes some wonky technical issues and can break some animations).



Traceries
In light of the changes below, a number of traceries have slightly different effects or slightly altered potency. No new traceries are being added and no traceries are being removed.

Burning Embers Initial Damage > Burning Embers Damage
Burning Embers exists for its DoT, not its initial hit. This tracery now affects all BE damage.

Test of Will Damage and Critical Multiplier > Test of Will Cooldown
This reflects the fact that Test of Will's value is primarily due to its stun, not its damage.

Air Lore Reflect Potency > Air Lore Potency
This reflects the fact that Air Lore is most valuable for its damage negation, not its reflect. The tracery now improves both aspects equally.
Potency reduced slightly.

Light of the Rising Dawn Damage and Critical Multiplier > Retribution Damage
With LotRD now being a low-damage interrupt skill, Retribution is a better fit for this damage bonus.

Signs of Power Durations and Debuff > Knowledge of the Lore-master Duration
These debuffs have been consolidated into the KotLM debuff, and no longer gain tiny potency increases from this tracery.

Sticky Gourd Direct Damage > Sticky Gourd Damage
Like Burning Embers, Sticky Gourd is about the DoT, not the initial hit. Sticky Gourd and its subsequent DoT both now benefit from this tracery (though it does not impact Burning Embers, even if it was applied or tiered up via Sticky Gourd).

Storm Lore Damage > Storm Lore Cooldown
Like Test of Will, Storm Lore is not used for its negligible damage. This tracery now reduces its cooldown, which has a real impact on the skill for you.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

General Skills

Dispel Corruption
Dispel Corruption’s exact effect would depend on your most-recently-summoned pet.
Bear: Removes 1 corruption from your target (7s CD)
Birds: Remove 3 different corruptions from your target over 5s (15s CD)
Cats: Remove 2 different corruptions from up to 5 targets in a small (5m) AoE (20s CD)
Bog-guardian: Remove 1 corruption from up to 5 targets in a large (15m) AoE (15s CD)
Spirit: Remove 1 corruption from up to 5 targets in a moderate (10m) AoE and restore morale for each corruption removed (20s CD)

Knowledge of Cures
The baseline version of Knowledge of Cures no longer has an induction, and should be usable on the move.

Blinding Flash
Blinding Flash will no longer be a baseline skill. It is trait-able in the yellow tree only (see below for more detail)

Light of the Rising Dawn
This skill becomes your core ‘Interrupt’ skill. It would no longer have an induction, and its cooldown would be reduced to 15s. Damage reduced and stun removed.

Sticky Tar
Tar would become yellow-line only. (see below for more detail)

Ancient Craft
Ancient Craft would become yellow-line only. (see below for more detail)

Burning Embers
Burning Embers will no longer tier down in any circumstances. Its tier-up would be gained by a red-line trait, meaning the ‘core’ BE will not have any tier-up at all.
Burning Embers Damage reduced slightly (mostly impacts Searing Embers). This is to reduce the reliance on BE DoTs damage in all lines, as well as keep blue-line and yellow-line skills from being completely eclipsed by Burning/Searing Embers.

Cracked Earth
Cracked Earth has essentially been split into two versions – a base version with higher damage but no root, and an alternative you can trait into in the yellow tree that reduces its damage but adds the root countdown (essentially restoring it to the skill it currently is).

Gust of Wind
Gust of Wind is now red-line only, and does not interact with Pleasant Breeze.
Gust of Wind is once again a baseline skill. It gains potency when specialized in The Master of Nature's Fury, and gains a new effect after using the skill 'Nature's Fury.'

Signs of Power: Vigilance
Stealth Detection bonus has been changed from +3 to +5.
Stealth Detection duration is now 5m by default.
SoP: Vigilance now has a 90s cooldown, but applies its stealth detection in a small AoE around the Lore-master. Additionally, it should pop enemies out of stealth in a moderate radius (though this may not be WAI at the moment).
This skill applies the 'Motivated' buff to yourself and nearby allies, granting +10% Max Morale.

Signs of Power: Command
This skill has been removed.

Knowledge of the Lore-master
This skill now debuffs mobs regardless of whether or not you are in combat. This debuff has gained the effects formerly applied via SoP: Command and See All Ends. When used out of combat, it will additionally pop up the monster 'examination' panel.

Light of Hope
Cooldown increased to 15s
Now costs 5% of your max Morale.
The potency of this heal has also been increased 50%, so this change should only impact frequency, not overall throughput.

Staff Strike
Staff strike now deals Frost Damage by default.
Staff Strike’s damage from consuming a flank increased substantially.

Wisdom of the Council
Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. The damage negation/reflect procs on all types of incoming damage, and the buff duration reduced to 10s. The damage negation/reflect should no longer be enabled in PvMP.

Inner-flame
Inner-flame is now blue-line only. (see below for more detail)

Wizard’s Frost, Wizard’s Fire, and Wizard’s Spark
These three skills would be available to all Lore-masters at level 1.
Wizard’s Frost will apply Hoarfrost, reducing target Mitigations by 3%.
+100% Wizard’s Frost flank heal potency.
Wizard’s Fire flank would buff your DoT Damage by 10% for 60s.
Wizard’s Spark flank gives you +35% Movement Speed for 4s.
- Spark now has a 5s cooldown.
Lightning Strike (from red-line) is now able to proc the Flank effects of Wizard's Spark.

Water-lore
Water-lore’s healing reduced by 33%, and water-lore is usable on the move with no induction. (the value of this healing loss is shifted into the Wizard’s Frost flank heal)
Water-lore earned at level 32

 

[OnnMacMahal]

Keeper of Animals
This outline constitutes a fairly major change for the Keeper of Animals tree. The goal of these changes is in part to differentiate the playstyle of this specialization from the ‘Master of Nature’s Fury’ playstyle. This tree focuses explicitly on your pets, with the playstyle centered mainly on buffing and supporting your pet, while your pet delivers most of your total damage output.

Skills
Minor Pet Skills
20s cooldown
Bear: Single-target Stun
Raven: +5% Mitigations to the Lore-master (30s)
Eagle: -40% Speed, + DoT (10s)
Bog-lurker: DoT (slightly weaker than small cats)
Small Cats: DoT (most potent)
Big Cats: AoE DoT (slightly weaker than small cats)

Sign of the Wild: Rage (Specialization Bonus)
Specializing in the Keeper of Animals grants the skill Sign of the Wild: Rage. SotW:Rage is a pet skill that causes your pet to make a devastating attack against its target.
15s cooldown

Sign of the Wild: Protection (Specialization Bonus)
Specializing in the Keeper of Animals grants the skill: Sign of the Wild: Protection, which helps your pets shield themselves from harm.
20s Duration, 2m Cooldown, Individual pet effects:
Bear: 75% Damage negation, +25% Incoming Healing
Raven: +100% Evade Chance, +25% Shadow Mitigation
Eagle: 25% Damage Negation, Eagle's Sacrifice (due to persistent issues with the sacrifice, this effect has been replaced by one that prevents the LM from being defeated. If the LM receives a death-blow, they will instead restore some morale and lose this protection)
Bog-lurker: -50% Incoming Ranged Damage, CC Immunity
Small Cats: -100% Perceived Threat, Potent HoT
Big Cats: Restores Morale every time the pet is attacked

Note: All offensive/damaging pet skills now have some inherent bonus threat.

Wild Sigils (Specialization Bonus)
Wizards sigils of Frost, Fire, and Lightning each tier up (12s duration, 5 tiers max) buffs on your active pet:
Wizard’s Frost: *0.9 Incoming Damage (-10% per tier)
Wizard’s Fire: *1.1% Outgoing Damage (+10% per tier)
Wizard’s Lightning: -5% Induction Duration and +1% Critical Chance per tier


Specialization Traits
Inner Flame (formerly Kindred Flame)
Grants the skill: Inner Flame
Inner Flame no longer tiers up a Damage buff for you or your pet.
+20% Inner Flame healing
Inner Flame now transfers 15% of threat to your pet with each pulse.

Inspiring Rage (formerly Peerless Wisdom)
Sign of the Wild: Rage inspires your pet and your allies
+10% Pet Damage
+3% Damage for allies (does not stack with Captain’s Inspire or Mariner’s Inspiring Presence)
18s Duration

Naturally Armed (formerly Raven’s Protection)
Sign of the Wild: Protection applies ‘To Arms’ to your raid group (does not stack with Captain’s To Arms or Mariner’s West Wind)

Battle Knowledge (formerly Critical Coordination, which is now in the trait tree)
Grants the skill Battle Lore, which allows you to create an area on the ground that enhances your allies' offence (Offensive buff is mutually exclusive with Captain's Standard of War)
This effect now correctly gives +25% Outgoing Damage.

Bolstered Bond (merged with the old Tutelage of the Brown Wizard)
The old Bolstered Bond and Tutelage of the Brown Wizard bonuses (which are all passive bonuses to your pets’ stats) will be merged into a single trait here.

Tutelage of the Brown Wizard
Wizard Sigils give your pets additional bonuses when at their max ranks:
Wizard’s Fire: +15% SotW: R Critical Chance
Wizard’s Frost: +5s SotW: P Effect Duration
Wizard’s Lightning: CC Immunity


Trait Tree
Survival Instinct (formerly called Wild Protection)
Unchanged

Potent Sigils
+5-30% Wizard's Sigil Damage
4 Ranks

Hunting Instinct (formerly called Wild Rage)
Base Effect Unchanged
Also gives +5% 'Call to Pet' Damage per rank

Unwearied Companions
Newly-summoned pets gain a temporary Damage Bubble
10s Duration
Bubble is 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, or 80% of your pet’s Max Morale, depending on the rank of this trait.
This bubble now uses a fixed base value, rather than a percentage of your pet's max.

Prepared Materials
Reduces Pet summoning induction times (20% per rank)
Now also reduces Call to Pet cooldowns R1: -10s, R2: -20s, R3: -45s)

Friend of Lurkers
Grants the skill: Friend of Lurkers as well as the ability to summon Bog-lurkers.

Prepare for War
Incoming Pet Damage when executing Player commands is reduced an additional 5% per rank.
(Note: both the above 5% reduction and the Lore-master Mastery appear to be broken in the current BR build)

Synchronized Movement
Wild Sigil durations increase 3s per tier.

Friend of Noble Birds
Grants the skill: Friend of Eagles as well as the ability to summon Lesser Noble Birds.

Hearty Diet
Unchanged

Don’t You Touch Him!
Grants the skill: Retribution
If your pet is hit with a critical attack, you gain access temporarily to ‘Retribution’
Retribution is now available at all times. Critical hits to your pet will reduce Retribution's active cooldown.
Retribution will damage and stun your target and reduce the active cooldown of Beacon of Hope by 3s per tier.
Retribution will increase the potency of your next Wizard's sigil, making it AoE and causing it to apply the maximum tier of its corresponding Wild Sigil buff.
Cooldown increased from 30s > 60s.

Catmint
Catmint now restores Morale over time and removes 5 PDFW effects from your pet.

Friend of Feline Hunters
Grants the skill: Friend of Hunters as well as the ability to summon Big Cats.

Loyalty
When sacrificing Morale, your pet also leeches threat from you.
This trait now has only 2 ranks.

After-battle Treat
This trait now has only 2 ranks.

Unbreakable Bond
Grants the skill: Unbreakable Bond
Unbreakable Bond had some issues with the Power conversion and transfer happening simultaneously, so it now causes Incoming Pet Damage to be converted 20:1 to your pet's Power (5%), while preventing your pet from BPE'ing. It also redirects healing from the Lore-master to your pet while active.
1m Cooldown

Don’t Interrupt Me
Potency changed to 5% (damage reflected) and 10% (damage absorbed) per rank.

Critical Coordination
Unchanged

Murder of Crows
Duration increased to 20s

Feral
Feral buffs have changed slightly:
Bear: +10% Morale
Birds: -15% Inductions, + Induction setback Immunity
Bog-lurker: +5m Attack Range
Cats: +5% Critical Chance, +10% Melee Damage

 

[OnnMacMahal]

Master of Nature’s Fury
A couple notes: the changes below do not remove pets from the red-line Lore-master’s kit, but they do minimize the amount you have to interact with/micromanage pets, and they reduce the overall impact pets have on your personal damage output. The core rotation here still revolves around tiering up embers and cashing out with lightning strikes, but you will gain greater access to lightning strikes, and each strike will fully remove an existing embers DoT, leading to more active play overall, and cutting out the moments in the current rotation where you can run out of meaningful buttons to press.

Skills
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire is now placed on the ground in front of you (like tar or warding lore) rather than on your target. The actual ring no longer doubles in size at max rank.
The Ring of Fire once again primarily delivers Damage via a DoT applied to enemies standing inside it
20s duration.
Cooldown increased from 30s to 75s.
Damage increased.
- The RoF damage style of Br 2 is now the PvMP version of this skill: Ring of Fire now deals significant damage when passing into it. While inside the ring, it deals minor damage over time. When leaving the ring, passing through the barrier deals additional damage (but much less than passing through the barrier into the ring).

Nature’s Fury
Nature’s Fury deals more damage, and if its target is killed while active, it spins off into a new storm.
Nature's Fury now deals significantly more damage to its primary target, and deals weaker AoE damage.
Storm effects now last 10s.
After activating Nature's Fury, the Lore-master gains a short buff which enhances Gust of Wind and Wizard's Frost, while giving +10% Critical Chance and +30% Elemental Damage.
Cooldown increased from 90s to 2m.
Nature's Fury animation now correctly cancels when the induction is interrupted or aborted.

Sticky Gourd
Sticky Gourd deals fire damage over time and, with Dry Kindling, tiers up Burning Embers over time on affected enemies.
+10s Cooldown (30s > 40s)
Cooldown returned to 30s.

Ents Go to War
Cooldown reduced from 5m > 2m. Now reduced 5m > 1m.
Damage increased, and will knock down enemies below 20% Morale.
Note: several sources of passive and active CD reduction have been lowered in potency to compensate for Ents' lower base cooldown.
Ents now deals bonus damage to any targets that have recently been 'shaken' by Cracked Earth.
Base damage and Shaken bonus damage increased.

Lightning Storm
Cooldown reduced from 90s > 60s.


Pet Skills
Pet skills will change automatically when you specialize into Nature's Fury.

Minor Pet Command > Minor Pet - Flank
This skill applies the flanked effect to your target.

Major Pet Command > Major Pet - Distraction
This skill applies the flanked effect and reduces your current threat.

Summon X > Call to X
Each of these skills will deal immediate damage as well as apply a secondary effect (listed below). They currently all share a 2m cooldown.
Bears: AoE Fear
Ravens: Distraction/Enrage
Eagles: Tiers up Burning Embers over time
Lurkers: Stun and DoT
Feline Hunters: AoE Damage
Feline Stalkers: DoT
Eagle, Lurker, and Lynx bleeds all now correctly benefit from the 'Call to Pets' trait effect from the blue line.
Note: The summoned wild animals from these skills now have a much higher base perception radius. Under the hood, these are essentially pets in the aggressive stance, and they previously had a low perception radius of 6m, meaning they would stand around and do nothing if they didn't see any enemies within 6m of them. That radius is now 15m.




Specialization Bonuses
Lightning Strike
When specialized in the Master of Nature's Fury, Wizard's Spark becomes Lightning Strike.


Specialization Traits
Improved Ignition
Gives Lightning Strike and Lightning Storm the ability to cash out Burning Embers for bonus damage. Bonus damage is based on the current tier of Burning Embers - scaling up non-linearly (meaning you get more damage from cashing out at higher tiers of Burning Embers).
Damage from Improved Ignition (Burning Embers cashout) now deals lightning damage, and as such benefits from bonuses to your lightning damage.

Master of the Elements
Frost skills apply debuffs if they follow a Fire or Lightning skill.
Fire > Frost: +3% Incoming Critical Chance for 30s
Lightning > Frost: -30% Movement Speed for 5s

Quickening Flames (formerly Exposure to the Elements)
Fire skills tier up an Induction Duration buff: -10% per tier, max 3 tiers, 15s duration

Liquid Fire
Grants the skill: Sticky Gourd. Sticky gourd deals damage and (with Dry Kindling) tiers up Burning Embers over time.

Staff Sweep (formerly Hasten)
Grants the skill: Staff Sweep. Staff Sweep reduces the active cooldowns of Sticky Gourd, Lightning-storm, and Ents Go to War.
Staff Sweep no longer reduces skill cooldowns.

Ents Go to War
Unchanged (skill grant, see above for skill effects)

Flame of Anor
Unchanged


Trait Tree
Master of Fire
Gains 2 ranks (max +25% at rank 5)

Tactical Damage
Unchanged

Knowledge of Storms
Unchanged

Burning Earth
Unchanged

Storm and Staff (formerly Storm and Sword)
Your staff collects lightning charges every 15s. This effect stacks up to three times.
When using Staff Strike, a single lightning charge will be consumed to bring a Lightning Strike down upon your enemy. This strike benefits from Improved Ignition and Fierce Lightning.
When charged with Lightning, Staff Strike now has 15m range.

Ancient Fire
Unchanged

Fend Them Off
Increases the bonus damage dealt when Staff Strike consumes a flank (+20%/+50%/+100%).

Lightning-storm
Unchanged

Slow Burn
Unchanged

Unyielding Sweep (formerly Rapid Fire)
Staff Sweep gives you +7.5% Critical Chance for 14s. Ranks 2-3 give +4-8s duration (meaning they aren't necessary for 100% uptime, but will increase your window for re-applying this buff)

Fierce Lightning
Overall duration/pulses reduced by half, and damage lowered by 20% (reflecting the fact that its damage is more frontloaded and less of its value is being lost by being replaced). This is meant to better reward actively maintaining Fierce Lightning. The long duration and cap of 2 targets it currently has means that any primary target is just getting Fierce Lightning refreshed all the time without any gameplay around it.

Dry Kindling
Reapplying Burning Embers will cause it to tier up (+1 tier per rank; 3 ranks max).

Mighty Wind (requires Dry Kindling at max rank)
Bonus at max rank increased from 70% > 100%

Ring of Fire
Now improves RoF Damage rather than debuff potency (since the debuff has been removed)

Nature’s Fury
Unchanged (see above for changes to the skill)

 

[OnnMacMahal]

The Ancient Master
The Ancient Master still has access to most of its core and iconic abilities, but it has undergone some slight pruning here, for two reasons. First, though some players are loath to sacrifice any skills, skill/button bloat has been a longstanding complaint from the LM community. Second, some of these changes are slight nerfs intended to bring yellow-LM power more closely in line with yellow-line Burglars and Mariners. LMs should still be a fully-equipped support role, but some of their historical skills and effects were so strong that LM was a role unto itself. Toning that power down slightly is meant to allow other support classes to stand on equal footing, as well as keep LM players out of ‘yellow jail’ where you can’t join a group in any spec other than yellow (due to yellow’s sheer power and dominance).

Specialization Skills
Fire and Frost Lore
The skill, Fire and Frost Lore, is granted by specializing in the Ancient Master.
Fire and Frost Lore reduces an enemy’s Damage (*0.9 Outgoing Damage).
30s Duration

Test of Will
Cooldown reduced from 60s > 40s.

Friend of Nature
Specializing in the Ancient Master grants the ability to summon Spirits of Nature.
Spirits of Nature no longer have an initial cooldown on their player-commanded skills.

Minor Pet Skills
30s duration, 20s cooldown
Spirit: Bonus Morale restored when you are healed
Bear: *0.97 Outgoing Damage
Raven: *0.9 Outgoing Ranged Damage, Enraged
Eagle: -2% Incoming Damage, +1 Hope
Bog-lurker: +3% Incoming Ranged Damage, +2% Incoming Tactical Damage
Cats: +3% Incoming Melee Damage, +2% Incoming Tactical Damage

Insult to Injury
Insult to Injury has been adjusted somewhat. It is now has two Lightning and two Fire sources. After using Sticky Tar or Test of Will, your next Burning Embers will apply bonus damage. Likewise, after using Ancient Craft or Bane Flare, your next Wizard's Spark will deal bonus damage.

Sticky Tar
Sticky Tar applies in a slightly modified way now. It has a base duration of 20s, but that duration can be increased by 'Force of Will' adding up to 15s. Additionally, when Sticky Tar falls off of an enemy (through leaving the tar area or the tar area expiring) they will suffer from an additional 20s of Minor Rent Armour. This means you can achieve a maximum Rent Armour duration of 55s per use, though the actual ground effect will only persist for 35s max.


Specialization Traits
Sticky Tar (Warding Lore moved to the bottom of the specialization bonuses)
Grants the skill: Sticky Tar.

Storm-lore (Beacon of Hope trait moved into the trait tree)
Grants the skill: Storm-lore

Enough for Everyone
Unchanged.

Herb-lore
Unchanged

Air-lore
Now correctly benefits from Shield of Knowledge.

Ancient Craft (Knowledge of Cures is instant by default)
Grants the skill: Ancient Craft

Warding Lore
Grants the skill: Warding Lore
Warding Knowledge is now a defensive skill benefitting your allies when standing in its area, rather than debuffing enemies. Warding Knowledge applies a x0.7 incoming damage effect (reducing incoming damage by 30%).
15s duration, 2m30s cooldown


Trait Tree
Grasping Earth
Reduces Cracked Earth Damage by 50%, but adds the delayed-applicated root back to this skill.

Shield of Knowledge(formerly Level-headed)
Rank 1: Using a Lore skill applies a short defensive buff to you (-1% Incoming Damage, 10s duration).
Ranks 2 - 4: Increase the potency of the buff by 1% per rank.

Bane Flare
Rank 1: Grants the skill, Bane Flare.
Bane Flare base cooldown increased from 1m > 2m.
Grace period on the base skill reduced from 4s to 2s.
Ranks 2 & 3: -30s Bane Flare cooldown per rank.

Force of Will
Increases debuff durations by 3s per rank.
Debuffs affected: Fire and Frost Lore, Wind-lore, Ancient Craft, Tar, Knowledge of the Lore-master

Earth Power
+5s Cracked Earth Root Duration per rank.

Mending Lore
No longer gives Water Lore an Inc Heal buff at max rank (currently found on Beacon of Hope)

Power of Knowledge
Unchanged

Signs of Power: See All Ends
Grants the skill, SoP:SAE. This skill is now a short-duration defensive buff for the Lore-master.
Negate 45% Incoming Damage
+100% Partial Parry Chance
3s duration, 20s cooldown
Note: most of this effect's 3s duration elapses while the animation is playing, so this is very active Damage Reduction, and doesn't give you any real benefit outside of the specific time when you are actively executing the skill.

Flow of Power
Rank 1: Grants the skill, Share the Power.
Ranks 2 - 4: Increase Power restored by 5% per rank.

Blinding Flash
Grants the skill: Blinding Flash
Blinding Flash interrupts and Dazes your target for 10s.
30s cooldown

Sign of Power: Righteousness
Grants the skill: Sign of Power: Righteousness
Immunity now has a 15s base duration.
45s cooldown

Wind Lore
Grants the skill: Wind Lore
Wind Lore no longer tiers, and simply applies at 5% potency when used.

Explosive Flash
+5s Blinding Flash Daze Duration per tier

Immemorial Wind
Wind Lore spreads Fire and Frost Lore to nearby enemies.

Pleasant Breeze
Rank 1: Grants the skill: Pleasant Breeze. Pleasant Breeze restores a small amount of Morale to a small area around your target. Critical hits with Wind-lore will temporarily increase the potency of Pleasant Breeze.
Ranks 2 - 5: +5% Healing per tier
Pleasant Breeze cooldown increased 10 > 30s.
Pleasant Breeze Healing increased 50%.

Quick Packing
-5s Blinding Flash cooldown per tier.

Disable
Unchanged

Firm Grasp
Unchanged

Beacon of Hope
Light of Hope becomes Beacon of Hope, halving the amount healed but becoming AoE.
Currently also gives Water Lore 5% Incoming Healing when used.
This skill is now limited to the fellowship of its target.

The Ancient Master
Grants the skill: The Ancient Master.
3m cooldown
The Ancient Master allows you to store power when you land critical hits or heals (up to 1x per skill use). At the 10th tier, it will turn into an Ancient Master charge. Alternatively, the skill itself (The Ancient Master) will immediately give you the maximum of 5 charges. Using an empowered skill consumes one charge. Charges will fall off slowly when out of combat, down to a single charge (so you can always start combat with one charge, but should not be forced into re-building charges before every pull)
- Note: The Stored Power buildup had an internal cooldown of 3s in the last beta. It now has an internal cooldown of 1s, so you can build them much faster, though you still cannot gain multiple tiers from a single skill.
These charges will empower many of your skills as follows:
Fire and Frost Lore: Becomes AoE
SoP: Righteousness: +20s Duration
SoP: SAE: Doubled potency (partial parry becomes full parry)
SoP: Vigilance: Buffs allies' Critical Defence
Air Lore: Applies a Bubble
Wind Lore: Doubled Increased Potency (7.5%)
Wizard's Frost: Becomes AoE and debuffs Enemy Inductions
Wizard's Fire: Applies a potent DoT
Wizard's Spark: Stuns Target

Enfeeble
Enfeeble now improves the debuffs from Ancient Craft and Knowledge of the Lore-master.

 

[Laurelinarien]

I'm no theory-crafter or t5 player, nor I want to be, and I appreciate all this work for the class that you've outlined here.. the only thing that jumps at me is that, after all these years and considering these changes, LM has too many skills.
I'm glad to see the rework around the relevance of certain skills and the increased differentiation between trait lines but at the same time I wince thinking of my crammed quickslot bars.

 

[CasualActual]

thanks to everyone who chimed in to prior discussions about the Lore-master class

Where were these prior discussions?

as the current traits make it possible for Lore-masters to hit -100% Induction Duration in some contexts

So each time we see this disclaimer it means longer inductions for skills. We're not off to a great start here.

We’re still working out a few minor technicalities with pet skills, but pet skills across the board will change in a major way: they will be driven by player skills. This means you will have player skills that correspond to each manually-activated pet skill, and those player skills will manage (and enforce) the cooldowns of pet abilities. Re-summoning a pet will still reset skill cooldowns on that pet, but your player skill cooldown will prevent your pet from re-using any skills before their cooldowns have elapsed.

I'd prefer to see the entire pet rotation thing just scrapped. The whole concept of summon(bear), do thing(Armor crush), desummon, summon next pet, etc,etc is just tedious.

 

[Thingolanor]

Wow, that's a lot of exciting stuff! Thank you so much for sharing all this information. I really appreciate the opportunity to look through these changes, as well as the chance to provide feedback.

I like the pet and induction changes a LOT. They look like a big improvement overall, so long as pets are strong enough with dps and morale to contribute even without their special skills. I hope these changes will do away with pet rotation. One question though: I assume the Raven’s skill Shield of the Raven’s Wing applies to the fellowship, but even so, it doesn’t seem to have as much usefulness as other skills on the list. Perhaps it could negate 10% of all damage for 10 seconds or something like that to be more up to par. Or maybe more enemies deal Shadow Damage than I thought?

The changes to general skills are overall very nice as well, with a few exceptions. I think having pets change the use of Dispel Corruption is a great idea and could contribute significantly to the pet being used in any given situation. I don’t like that Blinding Flash and Sticky Tar become yellow line only. Burgs have a 30 second stun in any trait configuration, so why take that from the Loremaster? Sticky Tar is a nice skill to have in any trait line, particularly as it makes any kiting situation for solo LMs much easier. I don’t like the thought of restricting it to a trait tree used primarily for fellowships or raids. I also don’t like the decrease to Water-Lore’s healing. I don’t know about what it’s like at 150, but on my 120s LM, it feels like Water-Lore already doesn’t heal enough. The rest of the changes look fun, though they will take some getting used to.

Changes to Blue Line look decent, with three big exceptions. First, it seems like with the proposed setup, blue LMs will need to spam Wizard’s Frost/Fire/Lightning in any significant fight. I understand the pets are the focus in this trait tree, but I don’t like the idea of being forced to focus primarily on these three skills only. Second, the trait Unwearied Companions seems powerful enough that it might require resummoning a pet prior to each fight, which would very quickly become tedious. Third, shouldn’t Friend of Feline Hunters be at least somewhat easily accessible to Red LMs, as the Saber-Tooth also has a strong focus on damage?

I like a lot of the changes to Red line. Nature’s Fury sounds particularly awesome. I will say that if Red LMs are going to lose so many useful crowd control skills, I hope that the loss is alleviated somewhat with a significant increase in DPS.

I haven’t played much of Yellow line, but as far as I can tell, the changes look decent. Is Share the Power becoming Yellow-line only though? If so, I’m not a fan of the idea. It’s another skill that is circumstantially very useful for LMs in any trait line.

Overall, this looks very interesting. I like that pets will become more useful and relevant, the general improvement or removal of multiple skills (including making some usable on the run!), and the (hopefully) improved damage of Red line. My biggest grievance is simply that so many skills are being relegated to specific trait trees. Besides that, it just needs some polishing and balancing and it looks like it will be a significant upgrade to LM play. Thanks again for sharing these changes, and I look forward to seeing further development!

 

[Mythic]

Wow! It's been a long time coming, but yea, some major improvements for sure!

 

[Thingolanor]

Where were these prior discussions?

Here: https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?threads/lore-master-thoughts-and-collected-notes.1296/
Unfortunately, much of the discussing dissolved into bickering on this thread. Hopefully we can avoid that here.

I'd prefer to see the entire pet rotation thing just scrapped. The whole concept of summon(bear), do thing(Armor crush), desummon, summon next pet, etc,etc is just tedious.

Me too! I think that's the goal with these changes. If I understood correctly, making the skills player-based should prevent pet rotation from being useful (I hope), since you will only be able to use one minor pet skill every 20 seconds and one major pet skill every 150 seconds.

 

[Aeroniel]

This comment is minor compared to the scale of changes proposed, but please, can we have Water Lore available before level 77? I think the basic heal skill of most other classes is available much earlier. Always seemed odd to me that Water Lore isn't available til so late in the levelling process.

Thanks for all the work and thought you've given to one of my favourite classes

 

[OnnMacMahal]

This comment is minor compared to the scale of changes proposed, but please, can we have Water Lore available before level 77? I think the basic heal skill of most other classes is available much earlier. Always seemed odd to me that Water Lore isn't available til so late in the levelling process.

Thanks for all the work and thought you've given to one of my favourite classes

Oh, yep! I forgot to add that above (will correct that momentarily). I think I've got it slated to be earned at level 32 now.

 

[Aeroniel]

Oh, yep! I forgot to add that above (will correct that momentarily). I think I've got it slated to be earned at level 32 now.

Hallelujah! Thank you for quick response

 

[Drarin]

Toning that power down slightly is meant to allow other support classes to stand on equal footing, as well as keep LM players out of ‘yellow jail’ where you can’t join a group in any spec other than yellow (due to yellow’s sheer power and dominance).

Making a class weaker in a role won't incentivize players to bring them on other roles. It'll just incentivize them to not bring them at all. Its only when they're comparable to other classes in the same role do people consider bringing them.

 

[rofflekohn]

The Ancient Master
The Ancient Master still has access to most of its core and iconic abilities, but it has undergone some slight pruning here, for two reasons. First, though some players are loath to sacrifice any skills, skill/button bloat has been a longstanding complaint from the LM community. Second, some of these changes are slight nerfs intended to bring yellow-LM power more closely in line with yellow-line Burglars and Mariners. LMs should still be a fully-equipped support role, but some of their historical skills and effects were so strong that LM was a role unto itself. Toning that power down slightly is meant to allow other support classes to stand on equal footing, as well as keep LM players out of ‘yellow jail’ where you can’t join a group in any spec other than yellow (due to yellow’s sheer power and dominance).

Specialization Skills
Fire and Frost Lore
The skill, Fire and Frost Lore, is granted by specializing in the Ancient Master.
Fire and Frost Lore reduces an enemy’s Damage (*0.9 Outgoing Damage).
30s Duration, 3s Cooldown

Friend of Nature
Specializing in the Ancient Master grants the ability to summon Spirits of Nature.
Spirits of Nature no longer have an initial cooldown on their player-commanded skills.


Specialization Traits
Sticky Tar (Warding Lore moved to the bottom of the specialization bonuses)
Grants the skill: Sticky Tar.

Storm-lore (Beacon of Hope trait moved into the trait tree)
Grants the skill: Storm-lore

Enough for Everyone
Unchanged.

Herb-lore
Unchanged

Air-lore
Unchanged

Ancient Craft (Knowledge of Cures is instant by default)
Grants the skill: Ancient Craft

Warding Lore
Grants the skill: Warding Knowledge
Warding Knowledge would become a defensive skill benefitting your allies when standing in its area, rather than debuffing enemies. Warding Knowledge would apply a x0.7 incoming damage effect (reducing incoming damage by 30%).
10s duration, 2m30s cooldown


Trait Tree
Grasping Earth
Reduces Cracked Earth Damage by 30%, but adds the delayed-applicated root back to this skill.

Shield of Knowledge(formerly Level-headed)
Rank 1: Using a Lore skill applies a short defensive buff to you (-2% Incoming Damage, 20s duration).
Ranks 2 - 5: Increase the potency of the buff by 2% per rank.

Bane Flare
Rank 1: Grants the skill, Bane Flare.
Ranks 2 & 3: -30s Bane Flare cooldown per rank.

Force of Will
Increases debuff durations by 3s per rank.
Debuffs affected: Fire and Frost Lore, Wind-lore, Ancient Craft, Knowledge of the Lore-master

Earth Power
+5s Cracked Earth Root Duration per rank.

Mending Lore
Unchanged

Power of Knowledge
Unchanged

Signs of Power: See All Ends
Rank 1 grants the skill, SoP:SAE. This skill would change into a short-duration defensive buff for the Lore-master.
Ranks 2 & 3 increase the potency of its effect to a max of:
Negate 50% Incoming Damage
+100% Partial Parry Chance
3s duration, 20s cooldown

Flow of Power
Rank 1: Grants the skill, Share the Power.
Ranks 2 - 4: Increase Power restored by 5% per rank.

Blinding Flash
Grants the skill: Blinding Flash
Blinding Flash interrupts and Dazes your target for 10s.
30s cooldown

Sign of Power: Righteousness
Grants the skill: Sign of Power: Righteousness

Wind-lore
Grants the skill: Wind-lore

Explosive Flash
+5s Blinding Flash Daze Duration per tier

Immemorial Wind
Wind-lore spreads Fire and Frost Lore to nearby enemies.

Pleasant Breeze
Rank 1: Grants the skill: Pleasant Breeze. Pleasant Breeze restores a small amount of Morale to a small area around your target. Critical hits with Wind-lore will temporarily increase the potency of Pleasant Breeze.
Ranks 2 - 5: +5% Healing per tier

Quick Packing
-5s Blinding Flash cooldown per tier.

Disable
Unchanged

Firm Grasp
Unchanged

Beacon of Hope
Light of Hope becomes Beacon of Hope, halving the amount healed but becoming AoE.

The Ancient Master
Grants the skill: The Ancient Master. For a short period, you channel your knowledge of the natural world to heighten your senses and improve your abilities.
The Ancient Master now grants: Negate 50% Incoming Damage, -50% Attack speed, +50% Resistances, Immunity to slows and roots, and your skills will not miss nor be resisted.
20s duration
3m cooldown

Enfeeble
Enfeeble now improves the debuffs from Ancient Craft and Knowledge of the Lore-master.


View attachment 7

I stopped playing burglar because the class became both one-dimensional (whatever trait tree you're in, you're doing one thing only) and boring.

You're doing the same thing to LM.

Stop ruining classes.

 

[rofflekohn]

Also, as I understand it, the impetus behind these (terrible) changes was to get LMs out of yellow jail.

So... you put tar and blinding flash and ancient craft in yellow ONLY?

This... can't be serious.

 

[rofflekohn]

LM has been my favorite class since game start. I can honestly say that with these changes, I think I won't play it any more.

Which means perhaps no more LOTRO for me, either.

 

[CasualActual]

Me too! I think that's the goal with these changes. If I understood correctly, making the skills player-based should prevent pet rotation from being useful (I hope), since you will only be able to use one minor pet skill every 20 seconds and one major pet skill every 150 seconds.

This means you will have player skills that correspond to each manually-activated pet skill, and those player skills will manage (and enforce) the cooldowns of pet abilities. Re-summoning a pet will still reset skill cooldowns on that pet, but your player skill cooldown will prevent your pet from re-using any skills before their cooldowns have elapsed.

You could be right. I read this section, realized there is also another nerf here in that the lm wouldn't be able to use the same pet debuff on multiple mobs anymore shook my head and just moved on. Yes, I have done excatly that on t3+ HH B1.

 

[CasualActual]

Making a class weaker in a role won't incentivize players to bring them on other roles. It'll just incentivize them to not bring them at all. Its only when they're comparable to other classes in the same role do people consider bringing them.

I wish they would at some point realize this. SSG really could accomplish this very same goal by boosting the other classes instead of (in this case) nerfing the LM.

 

[auximenes]

I wish they would at some point realize this. SSG really could accomplish this very same goal by boosting the other classes instead of (in this case) nerfing the LM.

If they're unhappy with a particular trait-line then it's far easier to tweak that situation directly instead of trying to re-balance everything else. They didn't do the other class revamps just so they could re-do their numbers again because of the LM work.