The secondary problem with LotRO’s legendary item system is grinding, particularly for relics. The main problem is its randomness. Every item gets random draws from the pools of legacies, with a random number to start, of random tiers (which can now be upgraded). The ideal weapon will have the four best legacies for your class/playstyle plus a couple of other good ones. Three of four is good, although you may need two specific ones and then either of the other two. Anything less than that is trash. Almost everything was trash under the previous system, and you still go through a lot of trash to find something worthwhile.
The nice thing about lotteries, however, is that sometimes you win. For those of you who do not know LotRO or the Hunter class there, the image is of a really nice bow, almost the best possible in the present game (before upgrading). Second Age weapons are hard to come by right now, and there are no level 65 First Age weapons yet; this will be my Hunter’s bow for the next three months, probably the next six to eight months, and possibly until the level cap rises.
I dodged what was the worst part of the LI grind under Mines of Moria: churning through in hopes of a good one. I could use a similarly nice legendary melee weapon, but she already has a good Third Age. I still have grinding ahead of me, since I can level it to 70, upgrade any or all of the legacies to tier 6,and grind grind grind relics. My best setting combined into a caster relic instead of the setting I wanted, so I have a bit of work to do there. Upgrading one legacy rank by one tier costs 75 Medallions of Dol Guldur or 1950 skirmish marks, which I estimate around 5 hours of efficient play per legacy per tier, with four free from leveling the item (I don’t think I will need to spend 45 hours and take them all to tier 6; only so many points to spend). You can see that I already turned the one useless legacy into a Fate bonus, using the free scroll from questing.
Yeah, I’m kind of bragging. Getting a bow like this a week after hitting the cap feels like beating the system, and it is about a 33% DPS increase over the bow I had been using. A Second Age may not differ from a Third Age except for a few DPS, but it is nice to get something that is about as good as it gets.
: Zubon
Reminds me of ToA
that is nice – I’ve seen quite a few of the crafted items that have turned out rather poorly. And then the rest in the group is bummed that they didn’t win the crafting drop roll :)
I’m probably most happy that I know sooner whether the LI will be any good (level 30 isn’t that hard to get too) but the randomness in both the ID/reforge process and in rune deconstruction is a bit rough. SoM is better as there are more ways to earn relics but they still are both pretty painful grinds. But at least there are some grinds that are clearly defined – the upgrade scrolls aren’t terribly expensive if you either like skirmishes or raid.
I really like the LI concept and hope it can be resurrected so here’s hoping Volume 3 is the LI re-work ;)
Talk about horribly complex! Just look at that thing.
I don’t mind complexity, Especially at later levels. Confusion however is something LotRO has at Level 1.
I tried out LotRO about 1 to 1.5 years ago. I found the icons for the skills/spells were horrible. They seemed tiny, they all kind of looked similar, didn’t really seem to go well with the skill itself.
That combined with the same old system of ‘Get a million ‘quests’ that you don’t care about, finish them as quickly as you can, and get a million more’ really turned me off from the game.
I feel justified in my decision when I read about how each expansion just raises the levels and obsoletes all the old gear you worked so hard to get, just like WoW.
I really think an MMO should focus more on enhancing your character’s skills and your existing items for each expansion.
Oh, by the way, Congo rats on your bow!
I’m sure when you feel pretty awesome now when your killing things with it :)
Be careful where you spend your legacy upgrade scrolls. There is a problem that many legacies do not benefit from being upgraded past a certain tier. They neither get cheaper nor stronger. The best way to tell is to look at the point cost of upgrading the very first rank. If it’s 5 then chances are you won’t get a benefit from upgrading it any further. Of course you can’t see the cost of the first rank if you’ve already put points into it, so you have to take a chance or wait for a reforge, or grind for a reset scroll.
Rather than releasing an expansion with bugs in the instances like they did with Moria, it seems that Turbine released an expansion with bugs in the LI and Skirmish systems. People are finding ways to get back more legacy points than they should with the new scrolls, and other legacies are only giving a fraction of the bonus they should. They are also some strange bugs with Minstrel healing that are most likely due to the switch from tactical skills doing a static amount of damage or healing to them doing a range.
The problem with legacy upgrades isn’t going to be fixed until the next Book update because they want to do it “right”. In the meantime players are going to be frustrated over the next month or two as they grind through skirmishes to get their LI legacies maxed out and find that the scrolls do nothing.
Oh, I did not notice that. But I noticed that destroying max rank weapons now gives back IXP runes that easily max new ones again instantly. This is especially true for the old 3rd age level 60 legendaries, that cant get levelled up and salvaged for relics over and over and over.
The system is still odd, what’s the point of making 2nd/1st age weapons level slower after level 30 or what was it again. People have decided whether to keep them or sell them at this point anyways.
Congratulations on the bow.
I also got fairly lucky with a 3rd Age Axe, max rank Crit Multiplier/Area Skills/Relentless Strikes, no Wild Attack (or is it called Wild Strikes in English, don’t remember) legacy unfortunately.
You will now experience the new grind – getting the +10 levels scroll and the legacy upgrade scrolls. The 1950 Skirmish marks or 75 Medallions of Dol Guldur, the first one is much more reasonable than the latter.
The real bomb is the new incentive to maximize crafting and crafting guild rep: +600 to attack and some 400 to crit rating x2 on your two legendaries are almost like combining the bonus stats of four +X rings. Needless to say, I finally bothered to max my reputation with the tailor’s guild, as both crafted relics are bound to the crafter, unfortunately.
Wow. That is one sweet weapon, indeed. As an aside, Beleriand damage is the best possible overall damage type; good against Ancient Evil, Spiders & Insects, and Half-Orcs. As individual damage bonuses go, Orc-kind is the most useful due to their prevalence throughout the game. Incidentally, the separate bonus against Orc-kind stacks with the bonus against Half-Orcs, meaning you’ll tear through those guys like a hot knife through butter. There aren’t a lot of Half-Orcs in game, but they have reason to fear you now. ;)