Rune-keepers are one of two new classes added with Mines of Moria. I thought it would be nice to play a bit as one and give you an idea of what to expect if you’ve not tried one out yet.

Starting out as a Rune-keeper is just like starting out as any other class. You begin in an introduction area, which you can skip as you like. As I’ve played this as a Dwarf a couple of times now, I skipped it and was handed the items you’d typically get for completing the introduction. I quickly equipped my new tarnished rune-stone. Rune-keepers use rune-stones as their main weapon type and each one is affiliated with a certain attack type. The tarnished rune-stone that I have right now does lightning damage.

As a Dwarf, my early life pretty much focuses on Thorin’s Hall. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary here, aside from the addition of Warden, Rune-keeper and Crafting Hall trainers. The local Town Crier told me about Moria and Eregion, but at this point those are just distant dreams.

Skills of the Rune-Keeper

Ignoring Lore and just thinking about the class from a gameplay perspective, the Rune-keeper is essentially the Mage class that LotRO has always lacked and every other MMORPG has always had. Turbine has added a bit of a twist to this by allowing players to attune their Rune-keeper toward a battle (or healing focus. Attuning more toward healing allows for greater healing abilities, but greatly weakens damage abilities (and renders some nonfunctional). The opposite is true as well.

You attune by using skills. Healing skills raise your healing attunement, while attack skills raise your battle attunement. There are also Steady attunement skills that aim to balance out your attunement.

You start with the following three skills:

• Prelude to Hope: A basic healing over time ability. The more you’re attuned toward healing, the more Morale it restores.
• Scribe’s Speak: A basic lightning damage attack. The more attuned you are toward battle, the higher the damage it deals.
• Fiery Ridicule: Same deal as Scribe’s Speak, except with Fire. It has a 3 second induction time, unlike Scribe’s Speak which is instant. Additionally, it cannot be used if your character has any healing attunement.

Level 5

By Level 5 you can train in three additional active skills:

• Chilling Rhetoric: A basic frost damage attack that can also significantly slow down the movement speed of an opponent. The more attuned you are toward battle, the higher the damage it deals.
• Essence of Storm: A lightning attack skill. The more attuned you are toward battle, the higher the more likely that the skill will score a critical hit. Critical hits with Essence of Storm have a 75% higher damage output.
• Rune of Restoration: Creates a stone called the “Sigil of Healing”. It heals those nearby it over time. It can be destroyed, but it can not be mended. A new one will have to be created to replace the old and only one can be active at any time. It cannot be used if your character has any battle attunement. They’re similar in nature to “Totems” from other MMORPGs.

I am admittedly far more interested in the Rune-keepers damage capabilities than its healing capabilities. Even early on, the Rune-keeper doesn’t disappoint here. Two-thirds of your abilities by Level 5 are damage related and cover a good sampling of elements: frost, fire and lighting. Both lightning attacks are instantaneous and the casting time of Chilling Rhetoric is so short that it’s barely noticeable.

So far this has led to a character with surprising damage ability given enough time. You can get some of your attacks out quickly and the more they’re used, the more effective they become. The start of a battle tends to go slowly, but near the end the damage builds up and you’ll overtake your enemy. The result is something similar to a result you’d get from damage over time attacks, without a multitude of actual damage over time skills. At this point, I only have one and due to its casting time it’s mostly good as an opener.

My two healing skills both over time. At this stage they don’t raise Morale by much, but they do get the job done and help ensure that you can stick around a bit longer while doing damage.

Thoughts So Far

As far as appearance goes, I felt the main attunement meter was a bit large. Luckily, you can enable a smaller version in the game’s options that appears over your attack button (like Fervor for Champions does). I think this set up makes a bit more sense.

Overall I’m having fun with the class type. It remains to be seen how things will play out as I learn better skills and take on stronger enemies. I’m still not totally comfortable balancing out my attunement so I can be prepared to heal or attack right when it’s needed. I guess that’s just the dance of the Rune-keeper though. I have a feeling this one will be hard to master.

With Mines of Moria officially out, you were probably expecting a screenshot from one of the new areas. Sorry!

I actually spent my time playing in Forochel yesterday. My brother has a Guardian he’d really like to get caught up and he isn’t getting Mines of Moria until later today. I figured the least I could do is help him out. Plus, in the meantime, I get some rep points with the Lossoth.

You also have the bonus of a free rant!

I like the concept and culture within Forochel. Being there is quite different from being in the rest of the game. It even has a far different feel than the other snow covered area in the game, the Misty Mountains. Still, I have to admit the quests in the area drive me pretty crazy. It’s pretty much the only area in the game where you’re noticeably being asked to go kill the same things over and over. You can overlap your quests so you can take out two birds with one stone (getting Sabretooth teeth and furs at once, for example), but unfortunately it didn’t go that way this time.

Most of it did go relatively quickly, except for one quest that required moose antlers and meat. LotRO is extremely good about drops of this sort, typically giving you almost a 1:1 ratio. This unfortunately also creates situations where rarer drops become extremely noticable. Is it as bad as getting lynx hides in World of Warcraft was for me? Probably not, but the contrast makes it feel like it.

There’s also a few quests in Forochel that I feel are not given the proper level or group size. We did a couple of them: taking out Pikta-hammas (a signature cat) and bringing a Lossoth off an island littered with cats. A lot of this depends on your class, obviously . . . but these two are quite difficult for their level.

Pikta-hammas itself is flanked by two additional cats that you cannot avoid. Soloing her at the recommended level is difficult. Soloing her at the level when you can actually get the quest is essentially impossible. I’ve finished her off by myself, but only once I was a few levels stronger and wanted vengeance on the thing.

The second quest is more just frustrating. You’ve probably wound up on the island I’m talking about if you need cat-gut or if you’re saving Johari. Since you know saving Johari will be a escort quest, you’ve also probably cleared the path to him. Good enough.

The entire way down, new cats spawn specifically for this quest. They usually come in pairs, you’ll take them out together. Right after you take out one group, he continues down and another appears. This happens about four times before he decides to take a rest. If you’ve survived up to this point (and were lucky enough to do this before the normal cats respawned) it’s an absolutely necessary break.

Then you continue, with more cats appearing. A stray area of effect spell will probably pull in a hind, who will then scream for a buck to show up. If you’re really unlucky a bear might also be in range. Luckily Johari is safe around this time and you might be lucky enough to have him run off before he notices the aggro of the bear.

It’s doable, but dying during it is maddening and frequent. Keep in mind this is supposedly a Level 47, soloable class. I’m Level 50 and I couldn’t do it myself; something would always go wrong. We barely did it together.

I’m sure certain classes can manage this better (say, if you can heal quickly or reliably stun an enemy), but those two have been big frustrations for me. Frankly, I’m surprised neither of them have been adjusted . . . . Maybe that just means I’m in the minority?

A few interviews with Turbine’s Jeffrey Steefel have made their way online.

The first is a short one conducted by Massively. It deals with his general feelings on how the expansion’s development has been going. To me, the biggest point of interest is that they’re already working on Volume 2, Book 7 with plans for it to hit sometime in the first quarter of next year.

The second is up at IncGamers, a site I’m not actually too familiar with. This interview deals with the new additions to the game, with questions about entering Moria, the new classes and the Legendary Items system. Steefel is asked about new Raid content, where he talks briefly about their new “Raids” that use a smaller number of players and don’t take 6 hours plus. He does mention, however, that they are working on two new large raids that will be available shortly after the expansion’s launch.

The third is actually part two of the last one. IncGamers and Steefel discuss Eregion, changes since the beta, launch dates, the lifecycle of LotRO, the development team, working with the Tolkien estate and more. It briefly gets into LotRO’s success, wherein Steefel claims the game is within the top few MMORPGs out there (which seems hard to prove from our end because Turbine isn’t very forthcoming with the numbers).

Their console work is also discussed, although no real details are given. It pretty much comes down to the typical “we’ll talk about it more when we’re ready”.

Anyway, it’s nice to hear a bit about their plans for the future of the game.. LotRO being a successful title certainly makes me happy as I don’t want it ending any time soon.

If you’re like me, you’re way behind on your Volume 1 Epic quests and, as such, Book 15 is unavailable to you.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t go on to new things if you wish. Despite some misinformation going around, Volume 2 is completely separate from Volume 1.  You can start on Volume 2 no matter where you are in Volume 1.

Obviously there’s benefits to completing the Epic quests in Volume 1 first, but that’s up to you. You’re likely to find quite a few players who want to catch up on Volume 1 with you, but just in case no one is available you don’t have to just sit around.

In order to proceed, you’ll need to head to Eregion. This area is the bridge to Moria and is pretty large in and of itself. I noticed a few people in-game unsure of where they should be going next, particularly people returning to the game after a long hiatus.

You may have noticed the two bits of text on your Trollshaws map saying “to Eregion”. Now these pathways actually lead somewhere, instead of simply turning into dead ends. One is in the Giant Valley and one is south of Echad Candelleth.

At level 50, neither path should give you any issues. However, the path south of Echad Candelleth leads directly to the first point of interest in Eregion, a town called Gwingris, where you can gather up several new quests.

If you choose to go the other way, you can just keep following the road. On the way, take out a worm and a Dunlending man as both drop items that start quests. As you head west you’ll eventually hit Gwingris and can be on your way.

Mines of Moria is probably going to go down as one of the few MMORPG launches (expansion or not) that went off as planned. All servers are online and you can play now.

Of course, that’s assuming there’s no queue on your server. I have to admit I’ve never seen that message in this game since I signed up near launch.

Mines of Moria is now live and all servers are open! If you are seeing your server as closed or down, or getting an error message, please be patient and wait for the launcher to update as demand for the login servers is very high at the moment. Thanks for playing LOTRO, and we’ll see you in the game!

Have fun if you get in!