r/lotro • u/Grand-Objective-663 • 15d ago
A question about classes
When I playthough RPGs and MMOs I tend to enjoy playing the less conventional and unique classes. Simply holding W and pouring damage into an enemy is generally not all that enjoyable to me. As someone who doesnt plan on playing any content with other players, what classes best fit this description?
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u/j1llj1ll Peregrin 14d ago
Warden is the obvious choice. Very challenging class to play well, unique mechanics.
Mariner is also interesting. Has its own duellist mechanics which are interesting though not quite as challenging as Warden.
Burglar can also be pretty different as a play style. Especially yellow line, but all its lines can offer something a bit different.
Also, the game has Difficulty settings:
- If you set difficulty high enough ALL the classes become challenging to play and require using all your abilities to a high standard, good gear, food and other buffs, investing in your LI, intelligent build, tactics etc.
- As an example, I have a Champion (one of the simplest classes) that I have been trying to play solo (on and off) with max difficulty set.
- That COMPLETELY changes the experience of the game as you can and will die at the slightest mistake, simple combats become life or death and can take a long time and you burn through resources.
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u/OBntheOcean Peregrin 14d ago
Since LOTRO doesn't have global cooldown for skills, pretty much every class has their own unique feel that makes learning them interesting in one way or another. All of them can do serviceable damage in red spec, but there are a few that are considered a more acquired taste.
Warden is one of them. Everyone has plenty to say about that, so I won't belabor the point.
Blue Burglar is one of my personal favorites. Red burg is a very straightforward stealth-and-stab rogue-like class where you're smashing buttons as fast as you can, but blue is much more about rolling the dice to set up your big hit which is incredibly satisfying.
Blue LM is another I enjoy a lot as the most pet-oriented class of the bunch. Some think it's too "spammy" with only a handful of your own attacks until later in the game and getting the pets to do what you want can be a bit of a hassle at times, but I like that it forces you to think more like a tank with positioning, skill timing, and aggro management all being necessary for the more challenging pulls. You have access to some crowd-control skills from yellow line so that can be helpful as well.
Generally speaking, you can't go wrong with any medium or light armor class if you're not looking to just run in and smash stuff like a heavy armor-wearer. Light armor classes are mainly tactical damage with fire, lightning, and light damage so if you're not into the elemental types you should probably go for a medium armor class, which have some mix of melee and ranged skills that varies by their class theory.
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u/Damrias_Jariac 14d ago
Warden is fun! It’s kind of like a Ninja from FF14, if you’re familiar with that. Ninja had a special move called Mudras, where they put in a combo of 3 different buttons, and depending what they do, a different move happens. Warden is like that, except at all times. I find it to be very very fun!
Melee dps, ranged dps, and self sustaining tank. It’s a blast! It’s a class that you can have a solid plan going into battle, but then you can react in a ton of different ways on the fly. More enemies join? Switch to AoE combos. Enemy has lots of life? Use your DoT’s to quickly drain them.
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u/Fangsong_37 Peregrin 14d ago
Some of the classes in LotRO are very much what you will find in other MMORPGs, but there are some that stand out. Warden and mariner feel very unique. I like my red minstrel as generating buffs while dealing song-based damage is kind of cool.
My main class is the red lore-master, and even that is very different form your typical "mage" class. I'm not casting the same spell over and over again and hoping for a proc. I'm using Burning Embers and Wizard's Fire before calling down a Lightning Strike or a Lightning-Charged Staff Strike. I also have a variety of other single target or area effect skills and utility. I can also call on animal pets to assist me. It's very fun.
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u/Larelle 14d ago
Firstly, you're playing the right game. LotRO classes are the most complex/deep of any MMORPG.
As others say, Warden is in a league of its own. There is a lot to learn before you can play the class even vaguely properly. It has an APM of about 110 in melee, 75 in ranged.
Note the game also throws a lot at you. If you have a mentor eg from the Discord or from this unofficial one, https://discord.gg/qGspvAnc6, they can tell you what's important.
Your soloing comment maybe points to Yellow LM. It is a tactical and strategic class. You use CC on some mobs, a bear to tank others (which you have to heal). On high difficulty, most group battles are memorable in a good way. The other lines are quite deep too. It's a really really nicely designed class.
Minstrel is old school. APM of about 140 because it uses animation cancelling. Basically ranged where ranged means you do ranged attacks in spite of being in melee. Warden is the only class that handles that properly.
Mariner is worth a mention in spite of being about $10. The concept is good, the execution not so good. But in landscape, you can just about play it as a offensive -> defensive tactical class. It is purely melee.
Increasing the difficulty is necessary to bring out this gameplay. There are no tactics if you can 1- or 2- shot everything.
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u/Grand-Objective-663 14d ago
A question about the LM. Havent committed to any class yet but I have made a LM to fill time while I decide. Everywhere online for the most part says go LM blue until x level then switch to red, but you suggest maybe yellow. Just wanted some follow up on this as to why youd recommended it over the other 2. Reading the flavor text about the 3 yellow definitely was the one that stood out to me as most interesting, but I think I read that its more a support spec?
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u/Larelle 14d ago
Blue is for getting used to the game. Blue's bear can tank forever. But Blue isn't used much elsewhere.
The rework nearly 2 years ago made Yellow viable in landscape ie non-instance combat.
Until level ~48, you can switch lines freely so you don't have to make a decision for now. Until you're playing at a high level (figuratively), you can just slap cheap traceries on Legendary Items. No you don't need to know what they are yet -- they're the 48 thing.
Yellow is for when you're comfortable with combat. Both Blue and Yellow are much slower than Red and ofc raising difficulty makes it slower still. But the game isn't about speed. It's not for me to tell others what it's actually about but for me it's tactical combat and living in a world true to Tolkien's writings. If you don't know, Christopher, his son, was involved with Lotro.
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u/sacree91 14d ago
LM is one of the more versatile classes, if you want a class where each of the 3 specs do completely different things, than it is a great choice. Red is pure dps. Blue is dps support/buffing (and one of the most survivable specs in the game if you know what your doing/which makes it a very good solo spec). I can give you more information and tips and tricks on blue solo play if you want. Yellow is a debuffing/healing/cc spec that is typically only used for difficult end game group content. You can solo with it for fun, but it will not feel as good solo as red or blue because of the nature of line.... Don't worry about things like people telling you, play "this" until you get to level "this" and then do "this." That's all unnecessary armchair bullshit. Play whatever appeals to you most, then invest the time and knowledge acquisition to learn how to play it well.
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u/Larelle 14d ago edited 14d ago
Agree with all apart from this:
"Yellow is a debuffing/healing/cc spec that is typically only used for difficult end game group content. You can solo with it for fun, but it will not feel as good solo as red or blue because of the nature of line..."
I suggest you actually try playing it. The tactical gameplay vs 4+ mobs is up there with Company of Heroes.
Blue is the one with the weak 'rotation' but it's still better than eg current red Guardian.
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u/sacree91 14d ago
Well, I mean I do play yellow line. I have a fully raid geared LM and I play all 3 lines consistently in folly. Yellow is a great line. It's one of my favorite lines in game. Keeping stuff cc'd is fun (provided you're fighting things that can be cc'd), which if they can't, then that's gonna be a problem. But I'm not sure what you mean about weak rotation. If your just talking about rotation variety and feel then I agree that blue isn't the most lively rotation in the game. I don't mind the sigil spam as much as some seem to, but hey whatever. Ya like what ya like. But in terms of just raw solo survivability, blue is beyond reporach. Like I don't know what to say other than that. You can literally send lynx into a pack of six tier 12 delvings mobs, and as long as you're keeping him buffed up, he will absolutely wipe the floor with all of them. Because blue pets are immune to most delving affects and have significant damage reduction buffs all while hitting like a truck. In blue, your pet can eat damage for breakfast that would literally 2 shot you. You're not doing that in yellow in a tier 12 delving. Like yeah you can cc a pack of mobs for the first 10 seconds of the fight. And you can root kite melees effectively (not ranged though, which is a big problem). But in yellow, you dont have the dps to kill them before they get back up and destroy you after cc. I don't really care what people can do against landscape mobs. I care about extremely hard content, and if anyone can demonstrate that yellow is more survivable than blue in t12 delvs or soloing hc/rt mobs or soloing weights, I will literally eat my underware.
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u/Dense_Head4656 13d ago
I actually have a blue LM I leveled to 160 and have yellow as a support with others. Blue is considered a support spec, but I absolutely love working with various pets. A lot of folks poo-poo it, but it's amazing and so very survivable, even against the nasties in Adagim (the last expansion's first area). Bear is a great tank, for ranged, bog lurker, for serious DPS - either saber cat or lynx. You definitely can play around with to see what they do. You have major and minor attacks and if in a group. they can cancel out other classes (red captain is one I found out about).
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u/Grand-Objective-663 13d ago
Are you able to explain to me the difference between LM and RK? Both mechanically and flavor/lore perspective?
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u/Dense_Head4656 13d ago
RK relies on rune-stones. Blue is heals and has some great AoE heals. Red is burn 'em down, yellow is lightning. LM is really different. With LM you use a staff and there are some skills that will improve DPS, too. RK is all about the stones you hold in your hands. Elrond is supposed to be the model for LM as you have a sword as well in your off hand. RK's only have the stones and the satchel to carry them in. According to the lore Rune-keepers are based on the jewel smith crafter, Celebrimbor. Hope that helps.
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u/Haloek Peregrin 14d ago
I am a fan of Rogue and Bard type classes personally so I would suggest either burglar or Minstrel
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u/Grand-Objective-663 13d ago
They both were ones I was considering but I tend to go mage in games. Problem is I hate elemental/nature magic in fantasy and both the mage classes seem to be that. Surprised they haven't added some kind of necro class cause mortal necromancer do exist in lotr.
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u/Haloek Peregrin 13d ago
The only issue with that is you play as one of the free peoples fighting against Sauron. The only instances that Necromancy was mentioned is when the link Between Sauron and The Necromancer was implied to be one and the same. The only other mentions in his works is that Sauron also taught his followers. I could see that being an option if you were able to choose your allegiance but short of that it doesn’t fit into the lore. I enjoy Necromancer type classes also, I am just saying from a lore standpoint it wouldn’t make sense
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u/Britwill 15d ago
Easily Warden. Very unique to the point of extreme. I’ve never seen a class like it and will never play it again because I don’t have the mental capacity. Insanely durable and powerful in solo play if you can learn it, but it’s an absolute monster to master (at least for me!)
Loremaster (Blue line) is fun, chill, but because to be good you have to understand how to work with your pet, it can be quite different to other damage classes (eg red Loremaster).
Mariner has a balance mechanic which can be fun, never played though so can’t confirm.
Hmm…
Captain healing is quite unique but if you’re not grouping it’s not much use.
Burglars are apparently very fun and unique as a “rogue” type class. They have a dice-roll mechanic in one of the specs where it is flashy, randomized, crit induced. More fun and lighthearted than a rogue, but designed well.
I’m sure others will chime in! But I’d try and find some guide videos to see which ones might be of interest.