The Rangers - a LotRO kinship [EN-RP] Laurelin

What other classes should know about Loremasters:

A LOTRO Loremaster's Guide.

(this guide is partially based on information from the US LOTRO lorebook)

Loremasters are crowd controllers, moderate healers, can inflict ranged damage by spells and melee damage by staff, and (after the legendary trait Sword and Staff is equipped) also by a sword.
Loremaster is not an easy class to play since playing it to its fullest potential requires insight in skills and its effects and involves choices how to build the loremaster. Since a loremaster is a crowd controller, we're rather tactical players.

General

• Damage slows or interrupts our inductions, so Loremasters usually want to avoid getting aggro. We'll often stay back and send our pet forward to maintain our distance. However, we may stay near our pet or the Guardian, so he can pull aggro off of us quickly if we do get it.
• Loremasters tend to be a little ostentatious. Many of our skills involve bright flashes, lightning, fireballs and other such fun stuff. We enjoy that .
• Loremasters can only use light armour, but have highest auto-attack damage output since they can wield a two-handed staff and a one-handed sword at the same time after the lvl 50 legendary class trait Sword and Staff has been equipped. 
  
• A DPS traited Loremaster (Master of Nature's Fury traitline) can inflict a lot of spike damage through a powerful sequence of AoE skills. The damage inflicted can be boosted by: legacies on legendary weapons (+10% tactical damage, flame-striker scroll with +5% fire damage and legacies which boost +10-15% damage of specific skills) relics on your legendary weapons (the ones which can increase your tactical offence rating), armour with set bonuses (the Full Moria/Watcher set has a +10% tactical damage bonus) and debuff skills (Sticky Tar = +10% fire damage, Warding Lore circle = +10% tactical damage). There are a few skills which can crit for 3000+ damage per target (with 5-8 targets affected by the skill). So although crowd control and Duracell Bunny (power supply) tasks may seem the most common tasks for a Loremaster, AoE DPS can certainly be a valid role for a Loremaster as well.

Crowd Control: Mezzing and Stunning
One of the most important tactical options a fellowship has in combat is the stunning or mezzing of targets, allowing the fellowship to deal more damage on one target by focusing on the non-stunned target.
The difference between a mez and a stun is that a mez can be broken.

• Due to the nature of crowd control, in many situations it is advisable to let a high level Lore-master pull using a stun/mez or root rather than the tank pulling. Especially ranged mobs or high damage/high morale mobs can be controlled that way, while the rest of the group deals with common trash mobs first.

Mezzing. Important: mezzes are breakable by damage!

• A Lore-master's mez ('Blinding Flash') lasts for 30 seconds with a 15 second cool-down, so in theory we can keep a mob perma mezzed if it doesn't resist. Avoid attacking/damaging the mezzed or rooted mob. Damage and AoE effects will break these states. The mantra is: STUN = NO TOUCH! For all CHPs, I repeat: stun = no touch!
• A loremaster can mez a target up to 5 lvls above his level. The higher the level difference, the higher the fail chance.
• If you accidentally break our stun on a mob, we can re-mez it after the 15 second cool-down is up. You don't have to keep tanking it. The mantra is: STUN = NO TOUCH!
• If a Lore-master's stun misses/resists (or someone breaks mez), we can continue to control one mob with stuns or roots, if no one is attacking it, until such time as we can attempt to stun again.
• A rooted mob will be fixed, but ranged weapons still work. A Loremaster will therefore rather mez archers and root melee mobs.
• We cannot stun/debuff everything (for the undead,creatures of nature and other things we have a limited spell selection).
• With the MoM expasion set, a special trait called "Fast Loader" was introduced, which removes the induction time on the mez spell, allowing super-fast mezzing.
• We are not able to stun The Dead with our normal 30 second mez but we do have a skill called Bane Flare (The "Fireworks" spell) that will mez 3 undead mobs near us for 15 seconds and can only be used once every minute. This skill cannot be targeted on a mob and done from a distance, it instead is a 10 meter radius around the lore master.
• When we trait the LRM for maximum damage (with 4+ red class traits from the Master of Nature's Fury (MONF) class trait set equipped), we loose our mezzing capacity, reducing the mez to 5 seconds instead of 30 secs. Inform what trait set the LRM has equipped before asking him to perma-mez a target.

Rooting

• At level 36 Lore-masters get Herb Lore, which instantly roots up to 3 mobs for 30 seconds. Damage has a good chance to release them. Cracked Earth has a delayed root effect (after 10-15 seconds, active for 15 seconds), so it can be used as well.
• Some LMs use the trait 'Deep Lore' and can root up to 8 mobs at a time.
• Unlike stun, root is not able to be recast on a mob but has to be re-applied once the original root ends.

Non-breakable stuns
Other spells with non-breakable stun capacity (mainly damage spells with stun side-effects):

• Light of the Rising Dawn (the wellknown "pling!" [beam from the sky]) will stun for 6 secs, Test of Will stuns for 3 secs, Storm Lore (AoE spell, 3-8 targets) will stun for 3 secs. Furthermore, the legendary book AoE spell Ents go to War (the *big* flashbang spell) will stun for 6 seconds besides doing a nice amount of damage. These spells give you time to prepare your attack and these stuns cannot be broken by attacking the target.

Pets
Pets are the Loremaster's best friends, since they are their tanks.

• There are 6 types of combat pets: Raven, Bear, Lynx, Snow Cat and (legendary class quest pets) the Eagle and the Bog Lurker. Each have their own pros and cons; each pet has 3 skills/spells available.
• Pets can be used in different ways: deal direct melee damage (use as tank), keep mobs at a distance, distract mob from (ranged) fellowship member.
• A special ability is to "flank" the enemy. This is the wellknown "pwwoaang!" sound you sometimes hear in battle. The mob is marked by a few red horizontal arrows. Once a mob is flanked, the loremaster has 7 seconds to: perform the spell "Staff Strike" and get a few hundred bonus damage, strike with "Staff Sweep" to get a Power restore over time bonus or perform the spell "Sign of Power:Wizardry" for 500-800 points of self healing (depending on the level). With MoM, the spell Sign of Power: Wizards Fire was introduced, which results in both bonus damage and a self heal (up to 550 morale). The Bog Lurker has the highest flanking rate, followed by the Eagle.
• The eagle has a special spell called "Sacrifice", which allows the LRM to auto-rez himself if the eagle is still alive if the LRM is incapacitated. Please mind that the skill needs to be activated (right click it for permanent activation) before you die.
• Try not to fear any mob the pet is on, as the pet will chase it resulting in dragging everything back to the group when the fear wears off.
• Pets can give bonuses to the fellowship: the Raven gives 15% shadow mitigation and the Eagle gives +60 ICPR.

Debuffing

Debuffing is one of the essential tasks of a Loremaster. Familiarize yourself with all skills and slot them in your quickbar in such a way that you can cycle through them. A good loremaster knows the durations of the debuffs, so he can anticipate renewal of the debuff. Please note that maximum debuffs are achieved through the Ancient Master Class trait line (yellow) and that the Loremaster's Book has a legacy that is essential in decreasing resistances to debuffs: Target resistance (Debuffing skills).

The various debuffing skills and their effects (at level 65):

example of a quickslot setup:

Healing and rezzing
Yes, a Loremaster can heal and rez, but special conditions apply. Get a minstrel (or Captain as a second choice) if you need serious healing or rezzing.

• The Loremaster heal (Beacon of Hope) has a 30 second cool-down (20 second if they have it traited) and it takes a few seconds to cast. It can heal up to 1,000-1,500 morale depending on outgoing healing modifiers on your legendary items. You're going to die if you absolutely need him to heal you faster than that.
• A Loremaster's healing is not like a minstrel's healing. The lore-master heal costs morale and power.
• Loremasters can cure diseases and wounds during combat. If you need cured and your Lore-master is not watching you, politely ask for some wound or disease removal. For Fear or Poison effects, ask your Captain or Hunter.
• In addition to curing wounds and diseases a lore-master can also cure silence, knock-down and knock-out. This same skill can be used to give you immunity to stun for 30 seconds or one minute if its traited. An important feature of this is to give the tank and healer protection from stuns during the fight.
• Yes a loremaster can rez! But can only do so out of combat and only from a max distance of 5 meters. So if you die and no MNS is available, just wait patiently for battle to stop and hope the loremaster will start smoking close to you (the spell needs shire sweet leaf pipe-weed).

Transferring Power
A Loremaster can not only heal, but also transfer power to a fellow.

• Our Power of Knowledge skill allows us to drain power from mobs, and then use Share the Power skill to transfer it to other players.
• The Share the Power spell actually costs almost as much power to a loremaster as is being transferred. Asking for power is asking for a loremaster to drain himself. Usually we only transfer power in dire need and to those who are important to the fellowship, like the minstrel and the main tank.
• We prefer to contribute blue for conjunctions, though since the last update we can also cast red and yellow conjunctions from distance.
• Draining the power from a mob is an effective way of attacking, since it often prevents it from executing its special attacks, except bosses which automatically refill their power to full when empty.
• Having the Power and Wisdom class trait slotted will not only increase your will bonus to +80, but it will also extend the duration of the powerdrain and the strength of a power drain, allowing you to drain 3000+ power in the maximum 18 seconds the spell can last. Essential in long fights to keep the healer's motor running.

Other crowd control spells
There are some crowd control spells you should be aware of: Sticky tar and Warding Knowledge (Dead, Nature and Drakes).

• If you see a Loremaster cast a black substance on the ground, STAY BEHIND IT. The Sticky Tar will decrease a target's moving speed dramatically (especially when combined with Burning Embers), leaving the target defenseless against high DPS ranged attacks. Most Elite Mobs will be dead before they hit you if you allow this skill to be played the right way. Guards and Champs, hold yer ground!
• If a loremaster casts pink (Dead, and Orc-kind, Men if traited for Ancient Master), green (creatures of Nature plus Beasts, if traited for Ancient Master) or orange (Drakes, plus Ancient Evil if traited for Ancient Master) circles on the ground, step inside and draw the mob in. It's defenses will be reduced, thereby making your attack more efficient.

Can a loremaster cast a buff on me?
Yes, next to the cure disease and heal wounds, there are three other buffs available:

• Ask for Air Lore when you want some extra protection: a whirlwind will briefly swirl you. It is a channeled skill, with unlimited durastion as long as the target is in line of sight and the Loremaster has enough power. This spell drains morale from a mob who attacks you; in groups it is often casted on the Tank.
• Sign of Power: Vigiliance adds a 30 sec +3 stealth detection for 1 minute. Handy when under attack by stealthed Warg packs in the Ettenmoors.  It is an AoE skill since the November 2010 update.
• Sign of Power: Righteousness will cure silence, knock-down and knock-out. Much needed for the tank in bossfights. You can cast it on the main tank while having the mob boss targeted if you enable "target skill forwarding" in >options > combat options.

Class Trait sets

There are 3 class trait sets:

• Master of Nature's Fury - this traitset in meant to increase your damage output. Will decrease damage output (most notably fire damage), reduce cooldowns on major DPS skills, but has the disadvantage it will reduce your stun duration (to 5 seconds if 4 or more red cklass traits are equipped.
• Ancient Master - this is the debuffing traitset which is often used for the main loremaster in raids and instances. It will extend the effects and the duration of your debuffing skills with the powerful Force of Will capstone trait, and it will make your warding circles (which give +10% tactical damage) more useful by adding more types of mobs that are sensitive to them.
• The Keeper of Animals - This traitset will allow you to upgrade your pet and enhance your pet buffs, and allows you to use the Bog Lurker pet. This pet has the highest flanking rate of all pets, allowing you to use self-heals, power returns and damage bonuses every 10 seconds.

note: this part of the guide was based on the excellent guide on the LOTRO forums by Mosby (Human Burglar), Leader of The Palantíri kinship (Landroval server).