View Raiding Essentials
Category:Lord of the Rings Online -> Raid
Introduction
A topic that comes up from time to time in our TOG community is Raiding. What to do, How to do it…and What is it? Many of us are veterans of Raids in LOTRO and other games like WoW, SWG, EQ and others. With running so many 12 man and 24 man instances you can imagine how many wipes have happened and how much experience has been gained. There have been quite a few Forum topics lately and in an effort to provide our community with the highlights of those topics and to provide some level of readiness, this page is presented for your review.
First Things First – Respect Your Fellow Raider
This is pretty self explanatory, but is an often overlooked component of Raiding. When you are starting out with your first groups, think about these things. It will make everyone’s experience better.
- The Golden Rule. Treat everyone the way you would want to be treated.
- Show up to the Raid on time and ready to go. Have your traits swapped out, your virtues picked for the Raid, your consumable shopping completed, etc. Don’t be the person that shows up 15 minutes late expecting everyone else to wait on you to get ready.
Bangemarth said it best: The Big One) Come geared and ready to a raid. Bring food, pots, tokens ect to the raid come with the right gear for the job. In a raid its not just your time but everyone else’s. if its a 6 man raid 1 hour of raid time is equal to 6 man hours thats a lot of time invested. Sometimes mitigating conditions apply such as last minute fillins ect. thats fine just a general rule. If you know you know you are going to be pushing the clock to get back in time for the raid get ready before you log off the night before.
RAID Preparation
Nothing says ‘wipe’ more than lack of preparation. How does one prepare for Raids in LOTRO? Generally speaking you need to complete many of the deeds and quests in Middle-Earth, achieve the highest level, have enough consumables (food, tokens, scrolls) for the Raid and have a good background on what instance you are going to run. Here are some specific tips for the new Raider:
- Complete your Class Quests (Level 45 and 58)
- Complete Epic Quest Volume 2, Book 6, Chapter 8 for the Class Trait
- Get your Virtues up to 10 (12 in RoI).
- Choose the Virtues that give you a solid edge in the instance you are going to run. Ex. Fidelity gives you Shadow Mitigation which is great for Dar Nargubud.
- Consumables. You should be carrying a good supply of Potions (or Salves) of all types. I good rule of thumb is 10-20 of each. All 3 food types are essential, have a good supply of the 5m food that gives you Morale and Power recover, 20m (30m) is also desirable as it will help mitigate certain effects and Trail Food to boost a key stat. If your character has shield spikes, fires, oils, Banner enhancements, inlays, etc. Stock up on them and bring them.
- Consumables pt 2. 2 Items that are KEY for each raider to have; SCROLLS and TOKENS. These have the longest cool-downs and are critical to adding to the overall effectiveness of your group. Don’t leave home without them.
Renani’s thoughts on Raid Preparations: Know your character. Know which of your abilities cause a bleed on the monster, know which of your abilities are area of effect abilities. Do not use common damage on your weapons/shield. Use shield spikes to change the damage type or use titles on your legendary to change its damage type from common to something else. You can get title for westernesse and/or ancient dwarf from the solo instances in dolvien view. You can get a title for beleriand from Thangulhad in Mirkwood for some gold stars (you do have to be kin with mirk as well for that title) All the bosses in DN are basically immune to common damage so it does not really matter what type of damage just so long as it is not common. Westernesse is handy for running Annuminas instances for STMs.
Specific Class References
LOTRO Classes and Raiding setups. These pages are in need of your help.
Going the Extra Mile – Thoughts from Veteran Raiders
From Grayman: You may want to acquire multiple sets of armour. To join a Watcher raid you’d put on the set that has acid mitigation, to do the Forges you’d use a set that mitigates for fire. One of the main things to pay attention to is the bonus given by having a set (as opposed to a collection of armour you pick up along the way.) Some armour may appear “best” based on individual piece comparisons, but the set bonuses (i.e. bonuses for wearing 3, 4 or 5 pieces of the same set) can make a big difference. Yeah yeah, I know, storage gets to be a problem. Deal with it.
From Grayman: You may also want to acquire multiple weapons so you can use whatever works on the type of enemies you’re expecting to encounter. One weapon might be modified to do greater damage to the dead, while another could be set up to do max damage to beasts. There’s an Annuminus instance that begs for Westernesse damage. And each of those weapons should have the legacies and relics that make it work best for you, including the crafted relics you’ll be able to make once you get kinned with your guild.
From Grayman: Think about your traits and virtues a little more. There are different “builds” you can utilize to make yourself more dps oriented, or more tank oriented, or more something else, depending on your class. Rather than reinvent the wheel you can do a little internet research and see what the common consensus is for builds for your class. Then make sure you have all of the appropriate virtues for each build maxed to 10. The bottom line is if you want your character to be all that it can be, you’re going to have to make it “adjustable” to fit the circumstances. Doing level 65 skirmishes and instances you’ll hear people asking, “How should I be traited?” This is what they mean.
Rileyhester’s excellent point: Do not race to be the first to shoot, especially if you are a squishy and especially with your most powerful shot! It takes a bit of time to build solid aggro. If you want to open up quickly, do it with low damage/aggro shots. Save the big guns for when the tank has had a bit of time to build the aggro. The huge difference between a group run and a solo run is that you don’t have to shine, you have to be part of the group. Giant numbers aren’t as important as control over the situation. I can’t tell you the number of times a group I have been in has simply allowed the rogue glass cannon to teach himself why grabbing aggro is a bad thing.
Osdor’s point on Target Forwarding: Target forwarding, this can be useful for support classes (I use it on the mini often) since I can heal the tank and still dish out tactical damage to their target – but it can be deadly in a raid if not turned off. My default is “on” when in a fellowship and “off” in a raid, although individual circumstances will always dictate. The leader should explicitly tell you if it’s important for a particular boss.
Additional References
Raid UI Recommendations
Raid Looting Etiquette
Rules of DPSing
Traiting for Raid