I’ve looked at the housing for the other races and I like the Bree-Land Homesteads the most. My kin’s house is in the Dwarf housing. The subterranean locale means there’s no grass in the yard. Fathloron is maybe too ornate for my taste, but I do like the location down by the water. The shire is nice, but Bree-Land is most similar to real world housing. It looks like its set in the hills of Pennsylvania. I don’t spend a lot of time there, but I like to work on the decorations. Sometimes I’ll hang out there after a long night of raiding and use the community facilities.

Not everyone cares to decorate their house. I’ve visited a few of my kinmates houses and I’ve yet to find one I like. Most people use a lot of the boss trophies, which I don’t like. I wanted to remove the lore from the house, so it would look more like a real world house with very few trophies and no gaudy lawn decorations. There so many decorations to choose from, thats it’s turned into something more avant-garde, but it was my original intent to keep it rustic and spartan.

The summerfest was timed perfectly. I didn’t participate in the summerfest the first year and I missed out on it last year, so I wanted to get all the summer items I could. I even got my lowbie alt to fish for the barter items. If I had known it would last all summer, maybe I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry. The harvest festival just ended and I picked up the autumn door mat. It’s probably time to put the pumpkin out on the lawn.

I want to first address something I eluded to in my “Turbine’s MO” post. Turbine would like to feel the relationship with the general Lotro community is amicable, almost as if we were in collaboration with them in developing the game. They say they read all the posts on the forums and listen to the community. Clearly, this close bond is fragile at best and whenever a nerf hits a class, the true nature of the situation emerges. Wether you want to call it a parent-child relation or just a dictatorship, we have no real power in what is implemented. I’ve never found it interesting or rewarding to lobby Turbine for any changes to the class, but I’m sure there’s some value in doing that. My testing and so forth has always been for the community and not directed at Turbine.

However, if there is anything that stands out that needs to be fixed or at least addressed, it’s the animation of skills. I was always perplexed as to why the slower weapons(axe, mace) did more damage than the faster(daggers). What I found, and you can search for the post if you want, is that the animation speed(or duration) for faster weapons was not proportional to the slower weapons. There seems to be a diminishing curve about 2.0. It’s not like might and fate, where they gradually taper off, its steep. Its so steep that it overrides any other consideration when choosing a weapon for dps. If you use the slowest combination possible(2.6/2.4) and apply ardent flurry(-20%), you will already be at the drop off.

I’ve been told that Turbine has admitted top end damage is most important in dps. This is not completely accurate. Its just redirecting the real problem of animation speeds. Why is it like that? Will they ever admit to it or even address the problem? Will it be fixed? Who knows. My only guess is that some fast skills, like clobber and swift strike, would be too fast, if they were directly proportional, to time them in a sequence.

The real crux of the problem is it makes most of the champion weapons useless. There’s something to be said for having a fast weapon for clobbering, but nobody use anything slower than 2.0 for dps. The biggest failure of this is the inability of a fast off-hand weapon to speed up the main-hand and increase the total damage. Should this work? Yes, for equivalent speeds. 2.2/1.8 > 2.0/2.0. However, the animation overrides all this, so that 2.2/2.2 > 2.2/1.8. They probably will never correct the speeds enough so that fast legendary weapons will be equivalent in the main-hand slot, but if they would only correct a small percentage of the speed, many combinations would be unlocked and we could at least use faster weapons on the off-hand.

Like I’ve said before, things are always in a state of flux and there is something about skills interrupting auto-attacks in the expansion, so new and different might be good in this case.

I was with my kin on an IXP run and the last quest was defeating Rothlug. We all took turns trying to solo him. It was one of the first days of the quest and none of us where prepared. Somehow, I forgot to hit CB before I ran in and my power and damage fizzled when he was at 22k. I was dismayed until they told me I wasn’t in a stance, then I was optimistic. Thats usually how my first attempts end up anyway. I like to test some setups, get a feel for how the fight will go, before I make a concerted effort. Even then, I’ll start by using about 90% of my buffs, and work my way up. I like to feel that I can take it to the next level, if I fail.

Adds
For some reason, players have this undying need to run in and help you, when you’re trying to solo something. It usually happens when the opponent is almost dead too, to make it more aggravating. I had Rothlug down to about 5k when a captain starting attacking for no apparent reason. I backed away and Rothlug killed him. I then said something sarcastic and pointed out that you shouldn’t tag other peoples creatures. If they’ve never considered soloing anything in their life, and can’t understand why anybody else would, they should at least know the golden rule about not hitting other peoples creatures. It doesn’t bother me, because the challenge will be there tomorrow, but it is amusing.

Imbalance
The first week I hung around Rothlug and watched people attempt to solo him. I knew that every class could do it, but I wanted to see for myself. A good guard got him down to 1k using a 2H. It makes me wonder how they compare in 1v1 encounters. Power might be an issue for longer fights, but they must be able to turtle up with a shield better than champs. A burglar soloed him easily. His morale never dropped below 3k. He was decked out in all the new jewelry. I also saw many duos and trios go down in flames, so there is imbalance in the game, in more ways than one. Maybe I’ll form an intelligent opinion about it someday and blog about it:).

Martial
For my first real attempt, I went with the martial line and used a shield. I’m most comfortable with that, and I think it’s optimal for most encounters. The fight slows down, so you can make mistakes, like missing a clobber, and still recover. After using a shield, I soloed him by DW, staying with the martial line.

Berserker
I then decided to try the berserker line. Even when using the martial line, you get 2 traits to use on the berserker line and the remaining slots, just don’t offer enough DPS to make that line worth it. I made a couple ad hoc attempts, using the same setup and failed miserably. I then planned it out and changed some of my gear and traits. On my next attempt, we both had about 500 morale. I missed the last clobber which knocked me back 50 feet. He hit me at ranged, and I still wasn’t dead, but panicked there and died. Since it was my first attempt, I didn’t go all-out. I don’t have 4 pieces from the Lady’s Power set, didn’t use fire potions and have the same 3rd age mace. I might go back and try again one of these days.

Rothlug 2
After watching people solo him, I wish they had made him twice as big. Then, when some classes soloed him, people would notice the OP nature of those classes. I know that using a shield, you could solo something much bigger than Rothlug. You don’t have to be a man champion to solo him.

Rules of Engagement
At one point, I hit a giant passing by and couldn’t continue taking both on, so I ran it off. I was essentially kiting. It might be possible to kite Rothlug, and if you did and defeated him, would the victory be tainted? Is that an exploit? I would say no, just because nobody really puts parameters on soloing things. Although, some of the challenges on the forums can be vague as to what is expected of the player. For example, I soloed Valtair.

I was trying to figure out how to pull him and all of a sudden, he was there alone. I didn’t have the right gear and was unbuffed, but you can kite and he isn’t very difficult, so I went ahead and killed him. The picture reminded me that I didn’t have potions either. I could probably handle the 3 elites near him, but not the 2 EMs behind him. It still counts :).

Dol Dinen Tent & Wardens
I’ll concede that wardens are the ’solo’ class. They have so many self heals and the icmr buff, that they can, to borrow a MTGO term, ‘go infinite’. Champs will always be on a clock, unless they can kite. You might be able to compare them based on their skills and stats, and I’m a firm believer that the numbers match in-game experience, but finding something one class can do that the other can’t isn’t easy. Since champs can wear heavy armor, maybe withstanding a lot of damage, very quickly, in a confined space can be one advantage. I have no idea where I got this idea, but as far as I know, no one has soloed the boss tent in Dol Dinen. The task is to tag the boss, kill everything in the tent and don’t die or leave the tent. It might be possible by a champion, because of deathstorm and the massive aoe dps. There are bone-speakers in there that can heal so you need to kill quickly. Champs might be the only class that can do it.

I wanted to finish this series by talking about the CD & Uru bosses, but I’ve decided to refrain from just handing out strategic ideas. I’ve written about everything I know on the subject, but you’ll have to figure out the fights for yourself. If you’ve read this far and have any interest, completing them should be rewarding. At some point, there will be a level increase and these challenges will become obsolete. Maybe, at that time, I’ll continue the series.

Some of these challenges, like radiance for endgame raids, are gated. You couldn’t complete them if you didn’t have the right gear or traits. For champions, you have to be a human for the man heal. Getting the right endgame gear is sometimes only possible in a raiding kin. A perfect example is the boss tent in Dol Dinen. Clearing that tent is something I can’t do, and I’d put forth that challenge to any champ. Probably the only way is having 6/6 of the Blademaster set for the 30 second Deathstorm. How many champs in all of Lotro have that set? Very few. I’ve never had a problem with that, but it’s a limiting factor.

One of the reasons I posted on the forums and started this blog is that few champs post about soloing big things. There are already threads in the burglar, warden and LM forums about soloing Rothlug. I know a hunter and a captain have soloed him. I’m fairly certain champs can do it, but there seems to be little interesting in discussing it.

I started these challenges because they are fun and to test the limits of the class. I don’t play other classes, so its difficult to compare. Wardens are considered the ’solo’ class, but I’ve been able to do most of what wardens can, so far. I’ve seen a warden solo Lhugrien fairly easily, so I felt that a larger drake might be the difference, enter Rothlug. Wardens have killed him, so its on the champs shoulders to do the same. I’d also like to get a controlled test comparing hunters and champs ST dps, but thats another subject.

Looking ahead, some of the 6-man and 3-man instances will be soloable at 70 or even 65. I’m more interested in 1v1 fights, like Rothlug, than having a group get me to a boss or any of the epic chapters. It seems like they are trying to remove the soloing factor from the game. There aren’t any large rare spawns that can’t be soloed easily in Moria. Maybe it detracts from the type of game play they intended. It provokes the nerfing of classes, when people post too much about what they can accomplish. I’ve always chosen to share my knowledge and interest of Lotro. I’ve never held much back, because its a game to enjoy. However, there are different perspectives on this subject.

Paying attention to quest rewards can save yourself some aggravation later. Typically, you pick rewards based on how they compare to your current gear, but some rewards have unique characteristics, or special abilities, that you can’t find anywhere else. I’ve found items on a Loreboook search, that are a quest reward, and wondered why I don’t have them now. I either overlooked them when selecting my reward, or I got rid of them.

Vault space is a problem. At some point you run out of room for all your items and need to gold some things. At the time, I regretted selling Elrond’s Exquisite Cloak. Now there are lots of nice cloaks better than that. I have no idea what I did with the Master of Barad Tironn. Its one of the few item from SoA, I wish I had.

The first time I realized that I needed to pay closer attention to rewards, I was leveling in Angmar. I was searching for weapons and found the Egg-Smasher. I had just done the Drake Queen’s Brood a few weeks ago, but for some reason didn’t select it. The armor rend is a great ability and its got some nice stats too. Then in bk12.6, when I saw the Cleaver of Barad Durghul as a quest reward, I knew immediately that it was something special. There aren’t many nice weapons for champs that have westernesse type damage. The Blade of Daring only has 25.9 dps. There is a boss drop from BG, but not easy to get. The cleaver has a bonus to the Dead, which stacks on top of the bonus you get from westernesse vs the Dead.

So when I started playing MoM, and was doing a lot of quests in a flurry to get to 60, I knew that I needed to take a second to consider the rewards. My first dilemma was at bk2.2. I liked the Symbol of Wisdom, but the Symbol of Deep Thought looked like a unique item so I selected it. I’ve never actually used it, but there are bauble’s with better stats than the Symbol of Wisdom. Then in bk7.8, I messed up. I chose the Cloak of the Golden Wood, which seems logical for a champ, but how many cloaks have those same stats? I already had the High Herald’s Hooded Cloak and would later get the Pendevig-clog cloak. It would have been better to choose the Cloak of the Dreamflower. I almost repeated my mistake with the reputation cloaks. Fortunately, I never equipped the Lothlorien Sentinel’s Hooded Cloak and was able to trade it for the Lothlorien Elder’s Hooded Cloak. You can’t always anticipate what will be valuable later on, but it helps to consider what is unique or unusual about the rewards.

Here’s a brief list of big things to kill.

Coldbear
Coldbear is in the lower level of Helegrod. Shauna, the LM, soloed Coldbear pre-Moria, but he was mezz-able. I’m not sure LMs can kill him now that they fixed that. He can be slowed by hamstring, so its all about kiting him. There are some bears that will respawn near the entrance to his lair, so avoid kiting him in that area. There are 4 bear matron adds at 135k and a few smaller adds at 60k. Use everything you got to kill the 4 matrons. You can’t use the bottleneck strategy because bosses are immune to stuns. Blow all your heals, use Invincible, Sudden Defense and CB. Target one and keep using Raging Blades as you run by. Use items with Fate for icmr. You should be able to maintain your morale indefinitely, even in glory.

Torahammas
Torahammas is a rare spawn in Forochel and its difficult to find him. He doesn’t hit that hard, just seperate him from the adds. Pull a few and kill them then pull the rest and take him down. A few classes have killed him at L50.

Bogbereth
Bogbereth is in the spider caves just west of Gath Forthnir. Kill the matron until bogbereth spawns and make sure not to pull her if she respawns. You can log out for 5 minutes to reset him. There are smaller, spider adds that occasionally wander your way. This might be the one fight that tests the limitations of the new CB timer. He’s got about 150k morale so it will take time to kill him. Update: Killed him the other day, but very challenging.

Rockwithers
A big auroch just west of EC in the ettenmoors. He only has about 40k morale but is actually very tough. You have room to kite if needed. Beware of creeps.

Caregdal/Gorgoris
He’s a spider just west of LC in the ettenmoors. You’ll get either one depending on who controls LC. There are spider adds roaming about so isolate him. Beware of creeps.

Mundlug
He’s a worm on the upper level of the ice caves in the Delving of Fror. He’s roaming in a hallway, so can be kited. Beware of creeps.

Troll Tyrant
When an ettenmoors outpost is under creep control, there will be a troll tyrant guarding it. Beware of creeps.

CD/Uru Gatekeeper
A troll near CD and Uru. The Uru troll has 2 adds.

Guldurvul
He’s a rare, spawn cargul that roams southern Nan Gurth. I think they nerfed him in bk7, because he isn’t that tough anymore.

These are easy to get to, so worth a try. I’ll cover CD and Uru next.

Its surprising how many large creatures only do common damage, and their damage is low enough that you can go toe-to-toe. Bogbereth, Gorgoris, Trolls, Rockwithers, Lagmas and so forth fall into this category. They can all be handled with the same strategy. Here is a general outline:

Gear
Use Broin’s Guard and the Wall of Resolute Guardian, then pick radiance items with the appropriate stats. Part III has a few suggestions on gear.

Virtues
Innocence, Zeal, Discipline, Empathy, Justice, Determination, and Valour are commonly used.

Traits
5 from the Martial line:At the Ready, Heavy Shield, Patience, Controlled Fury and one more. I use Blade Wall in my rotation so I use Stalwart Blade. Vicious Strikes probably adds the most to your damage output so I slot that. You could use 2 from the berserker to get the 2/6 bonus. Controlled Burn, Invincible and Fight On are your legendaries. If you ever wondered if there was a need for Fight On, it’s here. It gives you a DPS boost at the end of the fight. The other legendaries just won’t factor into your rotations, unless your kiting a lot, then Raging Blades is useful.

Common Strategy
1) Buff yourself and quickslot your consumables - Scones, Hope Tokens, Destiny Points, Racks of Lamb, Clickies, Power/Morale Potions, Soups.
2) Find adds to get your in-combat buffs - This has changed since bk8. You still need one add to get Blocking Blades going.
3) Use an efficient skill sequence to maintain your power - This is where it gets tricky for a DPS race. Since you will be using Dire Need twice, you can’t burn thru your power or else you won’t heal much. I’ve found that avoiding Swift Strike and Relentless Strikes will minimize your power consumption. I use the WA-BW-AA-BS sequence but any combination of those will work.
4) Use Dire Need twice - Invincible will reset it. I use it then pop a power potion. That should return most of your power.
5) Use Invincible and Sudden Defense at any bottlenecks - Use these at the most difficult time. Invincible creates a ‘defeat event’ where you can use blocking blades or other skills.
6) Use Fight On at finale - I use it when the creature gets below 10k. Even if it doesn’t finish him off, power won’t be an issue.

Bk8 changes to CB:
Since I did all the fights pre-bk8, I don’t know how much of an effect the changes will have. It certainly takes away from the fun of finding four adds to get your in-combat buffs going. I’ve had to kite some adds halfway across an instance, just to kill them off before the fight. Some fights will last longer than 3.5 minutes, so there will be a transition to another stance**. I have not ‘gone to the dark side’ yet by getting lots of ardour gear to make that stance viable. Glory should work fine and is better for kiting anyway. With each book, gear is getting better too, so most of these fights should be very doable.

** I just learned yesterday that you can activate CB then log out and back in tens minutes later with CB still active and off cooldown. This gives you CB for about 6.5 minutes, if you have a situation where you can log out for that long and not affect the fight.

Bottleneck Strategy
Situations where there are too many adds to handle in a normal way, you have to blow some cooldowns and use a different plan:

1) Use a war horn - My level 60 war horn can stun 6 targets for 5 secs. I have a rune that’s dedicated to stun duration, which adds another 5 secs. I also use a mace that sometimes stuns.
2) Dual-Wield while stunned - Given the opportunity to do as much damage as possible, I would start by DW, when the targets are stunned.
3) You need to use Invincible for the melee vulnerability, but you have to use Dire Need first to reset it, so its tricky using the sequence at the right time. Morale Potion, Bracing Attack, Dire Need, Power Potion, Invincible, Bracing Attack…
4) Usually killing one add will reduce the amount of damage enough to survive with a shield. If you use Invincible, Sudden Defense and the horn, you should be fairly safe for 40s. This should be enough time to kill at least one add by ST damage. I use blade wall in my rotation, so I get the benefit of some aoe damage. If you are taking too much damage, equip a shield and finish off the adds.

The bottleneck strategy has come up a few times during fights, or variations on it.

Radiance, Defense, Rating, Resistance, Might, Agility, Vitality, Will, Fate and special abilities have varying importance in each encounter. Radiance and gloom is something you’ll have to deal with, so you need to figure out how much radiance gear is necessary to negate the gloom, then consider how long the fight will last.

Hope
(forums excerpt) There are basically three lines of hope, of which you can only have one from each line active at any given time (the highest one is used if you have multiple active).
1. Token — Hopeful Heart — Scented Candles — Pre-release +1 hope items — Minstrel buff.
2. Axe — Chain — DP hope
3. Radiance gear, permanent, cannot be removed by anything
Any boss with a hope wipe would wipe the hope from Line 1, but not Line 2. Axe and chain hope have been reduced in bk8. DP hope can’t be used in combat but anything from Line 1 can be.

Here is the hope chart.

The quest rewards from bk8 and the new epic set have made it a lot easier to get gear that has both radiance and defensive bonuses. The Lady’s Power set gives you fire defense and the purple set gives you shadow defense. Before, I had to use a combination of the 2- and 3- piece sets that you get from each 6-man instance. It took me forever to get Hum-Zudur to drop in the Grand Stairs. I also used Turcham.

Jewelry
You can’t find a better earring than the Diamond Stud and bracelet than the Insidious Cuff. Unfortunately, Moria did not give the melee classes any items with high critical ratings. You’d have to pull out your SoA earrings to find one with a melee critical over 200. The Amber Ring is maybe the best ring available, but it doesn’t drop often.

Legendary items
Here’s the gear I use.

Its difficult to say how much more total damage a main-hand, first age weapon will do than a third age, maybe 8%. Its much easier to find a level 60, third age with the correct legacies. Blocking blades parry rating and sudden defense duration can be effective. Just remember to use the stalwart gaurdian scroll on your rune and the appropriate creature type scroll on your weapon.

DPS Race
If you have to kill something quickly, because its doing a lot of damage and you can’t kite it, you’ll end up with a DPS race. There’s more min/max-ing involved when choosing gear. Might is paramount in these fights. It gives you the same defensive bonuses as agility, if you use a shield, but it adds more directly to your damage output. Will is more important than vitality, even though vitality gives you some slight bonuses that are useful. You’ll probably use Dire Need twice, so your power will be converted to morale. If you started with 100 power, you’ll end up with at least 25 power and 150 morale. Having positive radiance is important because of the % damage bonus, up to 3%. Here are a few useful items: Sublime Dawn-Rose Ring, Sublime Dawn-Rose Necklace, Golden Earring. Lothlorien Elder’s Hooded Cloak.

Long Fights & Kiting
Its more important to maintain your morale, than doing lots of damage. Fate is paramount here, because of the in-combat regeneration. I would also find items with BPE rating bonuses. Some useful items High Officer’s Hooded Cloak, Heroic Noble Shoulders , Cape of the Iron Garrison, Grande Necklace.

Clickies
Items with special abilities that can be clicked on during combat are very helpful, especially in a DPS race. Just remember to equip them before battle, because they usually have a cooldown before usage. Master of Barad Tironn, Othdring.

I live in the Staffold community in Bree-Land. My current house was not my first choice. I wanted the basic house at 1 Chestnut Road. Here’s a nice picture of it.

It was taken, but I wanted to stay in the same neighborhood as my kinship so I chose the deluxe house at 3 Fountain Street.

I was walking around my neighborhood, looking at housing items, when I came across this monstrosity.

It stands about 40 feet tall. I get the feeling that somewhere, there is a chess board, used by giants, that is missing a white rook.

Out of the 24 houses in the community, I only know two of the home owners. 14 had paid there upkeep and I could enter 5 of the houses. One in particular was nicely decorated.

10 houses had failed to pay their upkeep. I took a 5 month break last year and didn’t pay any monthly fees and my house was still available to me when I came back. I’m not sure how that works, but there must be a shortage of houses if they don’t foreclose some of them. I guess they can keep adding more communities.

The first thing I had to do is figure out if I should dual-wield or use a shield. This depends on the type of damage the creature does, but typically using a shield is best. There are two main reasons. The off-hand weapon, for a champion, does only 1/3 of the total damage and shield defense is applied directly to the base damage. Small variations in stats, after mitigation, can make a large difference to your morale bar. It slows the fight down, so that your healing becomes a bigger factor.

vs Common Damage
Lets say the dwarf champion, Bumbly, attacks a creature that does 10k common, base damage per minute. Bumbly’s morale is 7.5k and in-combat morale regeneration, after bracing attack and potions, is 2.5k per minute. An estimation of Bumbly’s common mitigation is 50%, so he’s taking 10k*.50=5k damage per minute. Subtracting his icmr from the damage yields 5k-2.5k=2.5k net damage per minute. This gives him 7.5k/2.5k=3 minutes to live. He does 300 dps and his total damage output in this fight is 3*60*300=54k.

Bumbly decides to equip a shield that gives only a 10% reduction in total damage. This reduces his DPS by 1/3 to 200. He is wary of the results but charges into battle. His mitigation is now 60%, so he’s taking 4k damage per minute. His net damage per minute is 4k-2.5k=1.5k which gives him 5 minutes to live. His total damage output has increased to 5*60*200=60k.

vs Fire Damage
While DW, his mitigation against fire is only 25%. This adjusts his mitigation to 10k*.25=2.5k, total damage to 7.5k and net damage to 5k per minute. He’s only lasting 7.5k/5k=1.5 minutes and doing 1.5*60*300=27k damage. The 10% reduction from the shield is now less important. His mitigation goes to 35% and is taking 6.5k damage per minute. His net damage per minute is 4k and he can live for 4k/7.5k=1.875 minutes. Bumbly’s total damage output has been reduced to 1.875*60*200=22.5K.

Conclusion & Sparring
As the percentage of non-common damage goes to 100% and your mitigation drops, it becomes more appealing to use DW, rather than a shield. I remember being fully equipped for soloing with my shield and attacking a Dark-Maw master at the start of Dark Delvings. He killed me fairly easily with all that shadow damage. I retraited, equipped my off-hand axe and turned the tables on him. This can be applied to sparring as well. You always DW in spars because character mitigation to weapon damage(i.e. beleriand), although not specified on the UI, is very low.

Martial vs Berserker
Both of these class lines enhance each option, but neither is a deciding factor. Even when DW, it might be best to use the Martial line.

Kiting
Kiting is all about reducing your incoming damage so you can maintain your morale and kite indefinitely. Its a natural choice to use a shield.

The Wall
An important reason why it’s always best to use a shield vs creatures that do common damage is the Wall of Resolute Gaurdian. This is the same type of reduction as the Dragon-Scale BP and Broin’s Guard, both very useful in soloing. I remember having the guard and wall equipped, when I accidently pulled the Mess Hall in FG. ‘Absorb’ was scrolling up on the screen, and I almost survived. The 75% chance to reduce 21 damage is equivalent to about 16 points of damage. This applies to all common damage, including reflects and bleeds. The percent reduction in damage varies, but its much more than the usual 3%.

Othamath
For non-common damage, armor value is less important. One of the few shields that has both block rating and melee vulnerability is the Othamath. It drops off the first boss in DD, which makes sense since about every creature in DD does shadow damage. The icpr is important but you lose some stats. Another option is the Hammer-Ward shield.

Brullug
My first, big, solo challenge was Brullug. He’s either a L49 or L50 dragon in the ice caverns of Sarnur. I thought that DW was the best approach, so I went with the peerless thain’s sword on my off-hand to match up the correct damage type. I managed to kill him but later realized that dragon’s use a tail-swipe and wing-flap that both do common damage. That was the first and last creature I killed by DW.