Fellow Valar Guild member Avengelina needed a Sigil of War for her Champion training … and the only way known to get one of those is to defeat the master of the arena in Urugarth, in the fortress of Carn Dum.

Well, duty is duty, as they say, and so Maedhroc put aside his task of slaying snow-beasts in the Misty Mountains (a task which instills a great sense of determination) to accompany a party of five into the bleak land of Angmar. We were quite the damage-dealers, consisting of two wardens, a guardian, a champion, and a hunter … there was some worry as we were without healing or magical assistance, but until we actually reached the arena itself, this was not an issue.

In the arena, however, something happened to Maedhroc which has never happened before: the enemy broke his shield.

Now wardens, as a group, tend to be unflappable even in the direst of circumstances … but I don’t mind telling you that Maedhroc was rattled. At a conservative guess, roughly half of his skills require having a shield at hand — especially the ones he uses to enable himself to fight on when his morale is low! A warden without a shield is a warden looking at a quick trip to the grave.

But being a warden is as much a state of mind as it is a set of skills. His shield was gone, yes, but he still had a javelin, a spear, and the throat of a bullroarer! Once over the initial shock of realizing what had happened, Maedhroc began chasing enemies down and pulling them off of other targets with javelin strikes and goading taunts. Unfortunately, a sucker-punch that dazed him for 18-30 seconds(!) prevented Maedhroc from saving the hunter, who was pulled down by a sea of enraged pale-folk. But in the end, the group was victorious, and Avengelina had the Sigil … although it came at a high cost.

After such a trying battle, Maedhroc was happy to return to his house at 6 Chalk Road, where he collapsed wearily on to the bed. Unfortunately, the snow beasts in the Misty Mountains still need dealing with…

-The Gneech

Normally, I hate grinding deeds. As a general rule, I am Mr. All-Story-All-the-Time, and have a hard time finding a decent rationalization for killing 300 wolves in Angmar and the same 75 orcs in Tham Gelar three times each.

But last night, I did manage to actually have fun with one — the deep claws in Angmar deed for Maedhroc. Why? Two reasons: first, I found a fast-respawn camp of them, on a ridge right outside Dolven View, and second, wardens love fighting crowds. Slayer deeds go much, much faster when you can take on 4-6 at once, so all I had to do was stand on the ridge and chuck a javelin at every one that spawned there … frequently a new one would spawn and “Threaten to attack!” while I was finishing off the previous one, leading to a nice cycle where there was always another one “queued up” for me.

Now that Suburban Jungle has come to the end, I’m looking forward to having a little more free time to enjoy myself in LotRO for a while, and to that end my priorities are going to be to finally get Maedhroc past 2.5.5 (he’s got 1/3 down) and get those last few virtues up to 10, preferably before Mirkwood comes out.

Have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to Mirkwood?

-The Gneech

Time keeps grinding by, and yet there’s precious little LotRO going on. I’d like to be playing, but as the beavers say, it’s been one dam thing after another. What little time I’ve had in the game has been restricted mostly to resource instances or a bit of grinding Galadhrim rep. I did manage to get Maedhroc through one facet of 2.5.5, but it took almost an act of congress.

*muttergrumble non-soloable rassin’-frassin’ content and #&#$^@ hardmodes*

I’m really at a frustrating wall with the game right now, because all the stuff I want to do, requires a solid group and at least 3 hours of play — neither of which are realistic possibilities for me. Hopefully when Mirkwood opens up there’ll be more, but right now there’s little for me to do because so little is possible to accomplish in the 45-minute chunks I manage to carve out for it.

Being a grownup sucks.

-The Gneech

Work has been eating me alive lately; what time I’ve had to spend on LotRO has consisted mainly of levelling up Faradawn in 20-45 minute chunks, doing only solos and deleting any fellowship quests, ’cause there’s no way I’ll be able to gather a group and get a significant instance done in the small slice of time I have at my disposal.

This makes me sad; for a brief shining time we had a great regular group going with the Valar Guild … myself, Pippin, Indis, Poppi and Eolfric, with fill-in times by Belleg, Varda, or others. Getting through to the end of Vol. I was the most sustained fun I’ve had in this game, and I miss it.

Alas, there’s been little sign of “the gang” lately. Pippin and Indis are always around and Varda is a fairly regular presence, but my own appearances are rare and fleeting, and I’ve seen none of Pippi, Eolfric, or Belleg for many moons.

Thus it is that Maedhroc and Galadhalion are still sitting, stuck, on 2.5.5 with no apparent chance of getting past them, and none of the high-end gear to be had. Galadhalion wants him some WW/Hall of Mirrors goodies (”Finally! A helmet that doesn’t SUCK!!!”), and Maedhroc just wants the story to move forward. Mirkwood is coming!

Ah, Mirkwood … how I’ve been looking forward to that. Mirkwood is one of those iconic Middle-Earth places that I’ve always wanted to go, much like The Shire, Rivendell, and Goblin Town. But how am I supposed to get there if I’m still stuck in Moria? And how am I supposed to get out of Moria if I can’t get to play for more than half an hour at a time?

Stupid 2.5.5. Stupid raids! We hates them, Precious! We wants our earn-tokens-in-small-chunks, we does! It’s certainly not like I’m not willing to work for goodies — Maedhroc and Galadhalion both did about a month’s worth of grinding to get their Annunimas and Galahdrim horses, respectively, but in both cases those were things that could be earned solo over time. The armor that Galadhalion wants so bad? Raids only. The storyline that Maedhroc wants so bad? Requires an act of congress to get through this chapter.

I love the game, I really do. But it still has some very hard bottlenecks of suck.

-The Gneech

http://twitter.com/the_gneech

…for those interested.

-The Gneech

LotRO has had to take a back seat somewhat, as I’ve been having long days at work, and when I’m not at work I’ve been trying to get Suburban Jungle on track again, so what playing I’ve done has been in fits and spurts when I could grab a few minutes. Galadhalion and Maedhroc have been grinding deeds and crafting instances for cash anyway, so there’s not a lot to say. “How ’bout those globsnaga, eh? Pretty gross.”

Faradawn has been progressing nicely, tho. In fact, last night he just finished the last of the New, Improved Bree-Land (except for the Great Barrows raids) and moved on to Ost Guruth. He’s one bubble away from 26th level, and now gets to start the ping-pong game between Lone Lands and North Downs, although I do need to get back to Bree and finish off a few of those deeds. The Bree-Land revisions certainly do make it an easier place to get through — so far Faradawn has soloed Lalia, Malin, the Bone Man, the Vale of Andrath, and all of Book I, including the infamous Breaking Alliances. On the other hand, some of the changes just plain don’t make sense, not the least of which is three separate camps of NPCs in the Barrow Downs(!).

Y’know, the remote, creepy Barrow Downs, where only Tom Bombadil can save your furry-toed hide from the wights ’cause there’s nobody else around? Practically as many NPCs there as, say, Gondamon now.

The idea for putting all those NPCs in the Barrow Downs is that it was too much of a pain to go back and forth from Bree to the Barrows and then back to Bree. I never had a problem with that, but I will say that if that was the motivation, then it would have been better to simply put one NPC camp just outside the entrance of the Barrows, rather than three scattered all over it.

But, as always, my opinion and $4.50 will buy you a latté. So, bottom line: the New, Improved Bree-Land is great for leveling alts because it’s fast and soloable, but not so hot from a story perspective because it doesn’t make as much sense. On the other hand, I’m still dubious about the weeding out of group content. It used to be that the Great Barrows, required for the Book, was everybody’s first experience in a big group dungeon, and thus was usually a disaster but a valuable learning experience.

Now, the first time disaster has been shoved off to Weathertop, which is a pretty tricky instance already without having to be where everybody learns how to play their character in a group. Mind you, I love, love, loooooove “Retaking Weathertop” — still some of my happiest memories of this game ever — so anything that has the potential for turning it into a disaster area makes me nervous. The Great Barrows I never cared about all that much, if for no other reason that it’s always such a mess anyway. I’d prefer the mess stayed there instead.

-The Gneech

Sorry all, but I won’t be able to be online tonight. I’ll try to organize this again in the not-too-distant future.

-The Gneech

Title: Monday Night Post-Turtle Run
Location: Grand Stairs
Description: Galadhalion needs him some high-end armor! So I’m going to try to set up Monday night post-turtle runs for interested parties. Unfortunately, while I’m a fairly good gatherer-of-people, I’m not much of a battle captain, so my first priority is going to be finding a good raid leader.

Inspired by Varda’s thread here: http://valarguild.proboards.com/index.cg….play&thread=898 I made a list of the pieces I need, figuring I’d try to pick them up systematically.

The raids come in two basic tiers, with the “copper coin” set being intended to give you the stats you need to succeed at the “silver/gold coin” set. Right now, as Galadhalion has only one piece of the copper set and none of the silver/gold set, I’m going to concentrate on the lower tier — that is, Grand Stairs, Forges, and Fil Gashan.

I imagine most of us are pretty sick of the Grand Stairs by now — I know I am, and I’ve never won the coin from there. However, that makes an excellent argument for finishing it off and getting it out of the way! Therefore I propose to start with GS this coming Monday (August 3rd) around 9:00 p.m. (depending on when the turtle run finishes). Any assistance would be welcome, and everyone who needs it is welcome to try for the coin. If I don’t get it this time, I’ll just keep trying ’til I do. Once Galadhalion has it, if anyone else still needs it, I’ll switch over to Maedhroc for GS runs.

Who wants in?

-The Gneech
Start Time: 21:00
Date: 2009-08-03

Now that my two main characters are at 60, I often end up feeling with them that I’ve got “nothing to do,” because I can’t progress in the story. (They’re both stuck on 2.5.5, and all evidence currently points to them being stuck on 2.5.5 for the forseeable future.) The truth of the matter however, is that there are things I want to accomplish with them, but these things are all such large projects that it’s easy to lose sight of them. Like getting past 2.5.5, many of these things are not feasible solo, although in some cases it’s just a matter of breaking down and doing the grind necessary to finish off a task or earn the cash to buy resources at the AH.

So I’m making a list for each character, of things to do when signed on. While levelling up Faradawn is certainly something I will be doing as well, he’s just turned 16 and has a lot of room to grow, so he hardly needs so formal a strategy.

Maedhroc

• Do 2.5.5 (duh)
• Finish “hero of upper levels” deed in Moria to gain swift travel routes
• Get all virtue traits up to 10+
• Finish supreme master tailor rank
• Finish last class quest
• Achieve friend rank with Galadhrim in order to access city and travel routes
• Turn in Mirdinant (holding onto it by kinmate request for hope pop)
• Defeat trolls in Sarnur for “troll-kicker” title
• Collect and run Fornost quests
• Collect and run Helegrod quests
• Finish off Goblin-Town quests
• Get two more pieces of radiance gear in order to take on Watcher
• Take on Watcher
• Build up 10 G cash reserve

Galadhalion

• Do 2.5.5 (duh)
• Collect and run Rift quests
• Acquire Rift set helmet (for use as a cosmetic, actually)
• Acquire all radiance gear set pieces except helmet
• Acquire 1st age champion spear
• Acquire 2nd age or better champion rune
• Join Jeweller’s Guild and begin earning JG rep
• Complete supreme master prospector
• Get all virtue traits up to 10+
• Finish Vol I
• Gain kindred rank with Iron Garrison Guards
• Finish last class quest
• Build up 10 G cash reserve

There are probably more, but these are the ones that really strike me as “unfinished business” for these characters. A lot of these things, particularly the “ancient history” quests, might be soloable; for others, I’ll probably try to tap Shamat and any other kinmates I can get to come along. Building up the cash is actually the easiest one — crafting instances and Lorien rep quests can easily net over 1G per night. The Rift set helmet is probably the hardest one, just because finding people willing to run the Rift generally is tough, and I have to keep doing that one encounter over and over again until I actually manage to win the roll for the helmet.

Stupid random treasure.

-The Gneech

Originally hailing from Rivendell, Faradawn is something of a “Wandering Company of One.” A fighting companion of Elrohir and Elladan, Faradawn was part of the company who travelled with Lord Elrond to defend Edhelion against Skorgrim Dourhand [1].

Some centuries later, Faradawn found himself struck with the longing for the sea and headed west again, finding himself in Celondim. There he met Bregar and Toronn, brothers and fellow elves who were arguing about whether to sail across the sea or to remain in Middle Earth. Their decision to stay inspired Faradawn to stay as well, and to turn his efforts toward defending the free peoples against The Enemy.

-The Gneech

[1] Faradawn first met Galadhalion in this encounter, and while the two are not exactly close friends, they are at least acquaintances. At this time, Faradawn has not met Maedhroc.