One Druid, Many Worlds

I plan on writing up a page on Lore-master non-combat pets complete with pics and maps, but until then you can find a good starter guide at LotRO Vault.

Confirmed non-combat pets so far: hare, sparrow, turtle, dog, cat and fox. Two have yet to be found.

You can’t have a non-combat pet and a combat pet out at the same time. And you can rename your pet by targeting it and typing /pet rename (newpetname). More info in the linked article.

In the Book 11: Defenders of Eriador content patch, LotRO introduced a new cosmetic change to Lore-master pets. Using a new crafted Amulet, Lore-masters can change the appearance of their summoned combat pets.

For example, the normally black Raven pet can be summoned looking pure white or mottled brown. Every one of the Lore-masters four summonable combat pets now have different skins in addition to their default texture.

There is no other buff or change to the pet or its abilities. This is purely a cosmetic change for variety.

The Amulets need to be worn during the summoning process and are crafted by Jewellers. Their recipes drop randomly from creatures in Middle-earth. You’ll either have to farm mobs for the recipe drop or scan the Auction House for an already made Amulet.

I’m starting a separate page to collect information and will update it as I find more information. It’s the Lore-master Amulet Page and is linked to my Lore-master Info page.

I just wrote a lengthy post on WoW Insider for the weekly Shifting Perspectives Druid column going over all the Druid loot that’s dropping in Zul’Aman. Here are the highlights for Cat Druids:

2H STAFF: [item]Primal Man-catcher[/item] – +973 feral atk power? +49 strength? +315 armor negation? I’ll take two, please.

HEAD: [item]Grimgrin Faceguard[/item] – 4th best feral cat helm in the game. You wanna ask Illidan for the best one? I didn’t think so.

SHOULDERS: [item]Shoulderpads of Dancing Blades[/item] – A solid upgrade if you’re new to raiding. Get ready to /roll against Rogues.

TRINKET: [item]33831[/item] – This Trinket will replace [item]Bloodlust Brooch[/item] since they share the same cooldown.

WAIST: [item]33211[/item] – One of the top 2 -3 belts in the game. An upgrade from the Karazhan Cat belt, but you can still get better if you can find a raider to craft you the [item]Belt of Deep Shadow[/item].

Check out the full article for more details.

I’ve recently created a Lore-master in Lord of the Rings Online and am having a hard time finding core information about the class all in one place. So as I’m collecting all the information I need, I’m also putting this information here for others to find. I’ve created a page with basic information here.

In this first article, I will cover the basics of the Lore-master‘s first pet.

The Raven.

First attained at level 4, the summoned Raven is two levels lower than the Lore-master so be sure to resummon when you level up. When called, the Raven grants the group +15% Shadow damage mitigation which makes it useful in certain situations, mostly high level.

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I know I promised a write up soon on the [item]Cloak of Darkness[/item], but the new Patch 2.3 loot on the PTR has me overwhelmed. Until I get my act together, I leave you with this new weapon dropping in from Hex Lord Malacrass in Zul’Aman: [item]Primal Man-Catcher[/item].

With +973 atk in feral forms and the +2-4% dps boost of the Armor Penetration, I might have to take up Raiding again.

Something useful from the Official WoW Druid forums. I believe hell hath frozen over.

My fellow writer at WoW Insider, David Bowers, posted an article today about changes to Heart of the Wild. The short version is:

The feral talent Heart of the Wild, will be changed to gain +10% attack power in cat form rather than +20% strength…

Player Tangedyn posted a simple formula on the official forums that allows you to figure out what this means to your AP when Patch 2.3 goes live in 2009 (I kid! I hope…):

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I was a very big cheerleader for Lord of the Rings Online when it first launched. Since Druid was not an option, I went with Minstrel, the default healer in the game who had some dps capacity. I like healing. I like spell damage. Sounded like a good plan. But something happened when I finishing out my quests in The Shire in my mid-teens. I lost my motivation to continue.

This is not unusual for me. I play many different games and many alts on each. When one game gets too grindy or repetitive, I focus on one of the others for a few months. However, I talked my crazy World of Warcraft buddy Claus into trying a hunter in LotRO and he never looked back. As the level difference between us grew, I became even more desponded in catching up with him.

Then last night, I got on the Test server and got insta-leveled to 30 to check out the new Lore-master changes in the latest patch. For those of you new to LotRO, a Lore-master is a pet class (creatures of the forest) with some spell dps (lightning and fire), some necromantic type emergency healing (they give up health to heal others), and some very good crowd control (roots, stuns, mezzes, etc.) Versatile, but overall kind of blah.

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Lots of news coming from the Blizzard developers about feral upgrades in Patch 2.3. First:

For items that grant attack power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms, in general we are planning to increase the amount of attack power they give. (source)

What else is there to say, but yay! This is great news for cat and bear druids. It’s not so earth shattering for Moonkins, but many of our Balance brethren enjoying adding melee damage to their spell damage and some like to tank (!!).

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