I noticed a few people have wound up on this site while searching for terms like “lotro rarity colors”. I figured it would be nice to go over how LotRO displays the overall rarity of equipment here for those who are new to the game or just can’t remember.
As implied, LotRO color codes equipment names based upon their rarity. Pretty much every MMORPG does. However, LotRO does not use the “standard” (as in, World of Warcraft’s) color template for this. It can be jarring if you’re used to that system, but it’s nothing to be too concerned about as it’s easy to remember.
Items are divided into five different categories, which I’ve listed in order of scarcity along with some notes and in-game images:
- Common: White text
- Uncommon: Yellow text
- Rare: Purple text
- Incomparable: Teal text
- Epic: Orange text
As you’d expect, the rarer an item the more valuable and impressive it typically is. Some of the rarest equipment is only found through raiding. Currently, to my knowledge, Epic equipment is only dropped by the Balrog.
You may read some random posts or threads out there that call orange items “Legendary” as opposed to “Epic”. This is not the case and Epic is the official rarity descriptor. Legendary only describes special new items and equipment that will debut with Mines of Moria. A lot of this gets confusing solely because a lot of sites (including databases such as MMODB) do not label these properly .… There winds up being a lot of inconsistencies because of it.
Additionally, the border for used for Legendary Item icons is far more detailed, with some jewels and other design elements applied around the edges. There is also an image of a hilt acting as a background for the text itself, which does not exist for other equipment in the game.
Hopefully this brief write up will be of help for some people. If nothing else, it does give more of an idea of what you can probably safely sell to the vendor or give away and what you should research at the Auction House.
