Whether you like it or not Lord of the Rings Online Book 8: Scourge of Khazad-dûm is going live on June 23rd.  The servers will be down from 7:00AM to 12:00PM Eastern Standard Time so they can apply the update.  To be honest I’m trying my best to squeeze out as much content as I can before the changes go live.  I haven’t played LOTRO for very long so everyday is like a new adventure for me.  I knew that Book 8 was coming but I haven’t really sat down looked at the notes.  The majority of the stuff I heard about the upcoming changes were from other players QQing in global chat channels.

I would say the top 3 most discussed topics were,

• Champions are overpowered.  They can tank and DPS at the same time.
• Guards need a buff.  Most instances do not even require a Guard because other classes provide DPS and decent damage mitigation.
• Rune-Keepers are overpowered.  A hybrid class that out perform other classes designed specifically for DPS or healing.

These 3 subjects came up frequently on a daily basis.  I can’t say that I am an expert at any of those classes but from outside the looking glass I can see why a lot of players are flustered.  In my short time in LOTRO I spent quite a few hours grouping with various classes in different endgame content.  From my experiences I would say that 8 out of 10 times a Champion would be our main Tank.  Probably 1.5 out of 10 a Guardian would tank and 0.5 for a Warden.  These numbers are skewed since they are based on my personal experiences.  I pug 100% of the time.  The only time an instance group would actually look for a Guardian would be for DD HM.  In raids of course these numbers are much different.

I don’t think players prefer Champ tanks over Guards because of damage mitigation or threat management.  I think it’s because of the additional AoE/DPS Champs provide.  The sacrifice of slightly more healing is underwhelming in comparison to things just dying faster.  Most endgame instance bosses are DPS race kills.  The longer you take to defeat them the chances of wiping increases.  Therefore having a Tank with slightly less damage mitigation with a higher damage output becomes more appealing.  According to the new changes Champions will take a serious hit to their tanking capabilities once Book 8 goes live.  They will now suffer a 30% healing penalty while in Fervour stance.

I can’t say if this is the end all fix but it will help balance the tide for Guardians.  I know a lot of players would argue that rather then nerfing Champions Turbine should focus fixing Guardians.  However a complete revamp takes time and sometimes a band-aid is required to stop the bleeding.  Even with all the Champs against this change there are a few that claim it doesn’t really doesn’t bother them.  If I remember correctly a lot of Champion players are throwing around this quote, “Book 8 will separate the real Champs from the Chumps.“  We’ll see how the Champ community handles the changes soon.  I personally think only the poor players that cannot adapt will be hurt by this change.

The third most discussed topic in the recent months would be Rune-Keepers.  A hybrid class that can do it all when spec’d correctly.  I have always been drawn to hybrid classes.  The ability to do everything but not excel at one specify thing was the perfect suit for me.  When I first decided to play LOTRO I was split between rolling a Captain and Rune-Keeper.  Both were promoted as Healer/DPS characters.  The biggest difference between the two was that Captains wore heavy armor and could tank.  So I decided to go with a Captain because at the time it looked like Rune-Keepers were FoTM.  Captains are a perfect example of a hybrid class.  My Capt was a complete package I could DPS, heal, and tank. However, no matter how hard I tried I could not close the gap between classes designed for one specific task.

This did not bother me.  I’m a hybrid class, a jack of all trades.  If I wanted to main heal I would need additional support.  If I wanted to tank, the group dynamics would have to be tweaked.  If I wanted to focus on DPS, I would have to backup heal.  That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.  Rune-Keepers are probably made from an entirely different dough.  When spec’d correctly a RK can perform on par or slightly better then most classes designed specifically for that task.  This bothers a lot of players because a hybrid class should never outperform specialize classes on the battlefield.  I can’t really discuss this matter much because I don’t know the mechanics of the RK class.  I believe Book 8 has a few changes in-stored for RKs.  Nothing really major like the Champion changes, but just enough to quiet down the masses.

I’m still a newbie when it comes to LOTRO so my biggest Pre-Book 8 QQ has nothing to do with class balance.  I want to be able to purchase items from a NPC in quantities of 2 through 49.  No, I don’t want either 1 or 50!  I want to be able to select exactly how many I need in bulk instead of purchasing one at a time or overbuying to save time.  This will be fixed in Book 8 and that is the change I am looking for forward to the most.  Thanks for reading, see ya on the battlefield!

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