Bonsai Huorn

Rare housing item drop from the Tree bosses in Ost Dunhoth. So cuuuute!

Ost DundundunDUUM

Previously, on Raid Channel: Balrogs have wings now lol

Our kin has been plowing slowly but steadily through the newest raid in LotRO; Ost Dunhoth. It's been a nice raid so far, although it does feel like a theme park ride with a ton of reused encounter concepts. In that sense though the whole LotRO game is starting to get old; after the latest update landed I found myself wondering "is that it?". Run new instances, get new barter stuff, get the couple new shinies in those instances with stats a point or two higher on our previous gear, grind all those until you have everything. Oh, a new Legendary Item, must grind! Oh, I need 2000 instance medallions for this armour set which will be obsolete in a few months anyway! HMMMMM.


Yay, back to hunter tanking! I totally have never done this before in a boss fight!

That line of thought got me wondering if I'd even have the energy to grind through the next update, or the Isengard expansion after that, if it's just the same stuff in a new (but deviously recycled) package. I do think LotRO is going to need some seriously new mechanics, be it mounted combat, dynamic events, enhanced pvp or even just a character model update to stay fresh.


Golden showerpoison wing boss. Fun fight, even more so on T2.

Anyway, back to OD. So far I've seen and beaten the first four bosses, two of them on T2. The boss fights themselves are a good challenge and the hard modes will definitely be a tough nut to crack (we've only got one T2 challenge done so far).

I must say though I've been very disappointed in the loot so far, at least for hunters. The regular, non-raid instances don't really seem to have any must-haves for hunters so I've been more tempted to run them on my alts. I haven't yet seen all the OD loot and the hunter armour set sure is sweet, but I'm really put off by the medallion grind, especially since I just burned my meagre collection on Empowerment scrolls to upgrade the godawful first-ager LI you see here on the left. I was seriously considering just throwing it into the bin and grinding a few weeks for a new one!

Oh well, I thought I'll just grit my teeth and do it — replacing every single legacy on the bow and then upgrading them to t5+. If only it had 4 or 5 major legacies! But no, NO I can't have nice things.

Well, the grind is over, now I'll just have to complete the raids and I'll be happy - for now.

Meanwhile, cooling my toes in a place that starts with R and ends with T. More on that later.

Tower of the Bracelet of the Tower

After running Durchest HM over and over again for a year, finally the elusive Bracelet of the Tower dropped. I went all in with BKP and got it. Now my hunter is complete!



With the new Legendary Item changes coming in the next book I'm going to swap out some stats and normal legacies on my weapons to lower my Agility in favour of more Will. I should already probably swap out Treasury Stone for the Phial, but it's just such a nice shiny item that I want to keep it. I'm fairly happy with my build right now, most of my equipment is very balanced so I have maxed Ranged Offence (ie. as high as you can get it solo), near-cap Ranged Crit, good ICPR and my morale and power stay over 6k/3k no matter what traits and gear I swap back and forth.

Now I'm ready for the new content, which will surely make all my previous efforts and shinies completely obsolete within hours!

Posers

~ can't touch this ~


~ epic raid boss: hobbit warden ~


~ got my wings, now I can die happy ~~

Remind me why I even bother

So I thought "why not?" and bid on a 2nd age symbol, won it, made a sword for my hunter. In before "3rd agers are just as good" - I wanted to get rid of my ugly 3rd age club so I could fix the relics, and hunters actually have some pretty good legacies on melee weapons nowadays, plus on a 2nd ager I could even max out all of them. I got 2 starting legacies, and on reforges I only got some crappy melee legacies nobody in their right mind would use - at least not before all the more important ones are maxed. So please remind me again why the Legendary Item system is so legendary and useful and rewarding?

I find it completely inexcusable that a 2nd ager, which are so damn hard to get in the first place, can get less than four (not to mention just two!) starting legacies - I would have been happy with just 3 pool A legacies and replaced the rest with stat scrolls, but obviously I can't have nice things EVER (I'd show the awesomeridiculously bad LM staff I made a couple months ago but I just closed the game and don't feel like logging back in again).

*grumble*

I'm guessing the only people who like the LI system are those luckwhores who get nice things on the first try - I know for certain this was my last attempt in a long, long, long time.

>> QQing over virtual items

Victolyy

The Lieutenant of Dol Guldur is no more. The chicken used HIPS, but left us a nice chest of treshur instead.





I bid high and got myself a nice pair of new pants. Finally I get the 5-set bonus! And the set is pretty too!


Here's the 5-set bonus, if anyone's interested.

Shiny new toys

My guardian just got a new 1st Age Poker. It looks so good it's almost really good.

I'm scared of all the work required to make it really, really good.

I dislike soloing. Especially as a guardian.

GIVF 5MIL IXP RUNE NAO, PLS

Little Nanu

Tonight, we found something most... curious after a very hectic fight in Moria, and brought it with us back to the kinhouse for examination.



A... shrubbery?


Suddenly, something's moving beneath the leaves!


Ai! It's a miniature Giant Turtle!


And now we have a new pet in the garden. I hope it doesn't nibble too much on the garden gnomes.

(Kinhouse address: 8 Long Street, Herbroke, Bree-land homesteads, EN-RP Laurelin)

Cunning Plan

I just decided that instead of my minstrel the next character I'm gonna push to 60 will be my huntard. Since our kin is seriously short on raiding hunters (we have, what, 2 interested in doing Vile Maw now?), if I grind some radiance for Tuaran I should have a good chance of getting MAD LOOT (ie. 1st age hunter legendaries) from kin raids.

Yes I'm a dirty powergamer.

...

On second thought, Tuaran is still butt-ugly. They should offer character re-designs as Premium Services, too. The only way I can keep playing Tuaran for longer periods of time is to constantly change her hairdo and outfits.