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

What other classes should know about Loremasters
(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 insane Sword and Staff legendary trait has been equipped. I like to hit a debuffed mob with my melee weapons at the end of a fight, so don't be surprised if you see lvl 41+ LRM vividly tanking a mob. Especially when using legendary staffs with up to 54 dps and with the -5 sec staff strike cooldown legacy, the Loremaster can actually do decent melee damage (crits up to 800 damage/strike).
  

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 lvl Lore-master pull using a stun/mez or root rather than the tank pulling. A 'good' Lore-master can pull 5 mobs and only 1 will reach the group, given there are no resists. This can be done by laying Sticky Tar (level 46) a few steps in front of the fellowship then mezzing a target, normally a ranged one, as the melee mobs run towards the Lore-master they will go through the tar slowing them 50% and the Lore-master can then root the group of mobs sticking 3 in place, the tank should have no problem peeling the remaining mob off the Lore-master. Especially in some Moria instances, this is an essential tactic for a fellowship to survive.

Mezzing

• 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 (Master of Nature's Fury (MONF trait set), we loose our mezzing capacity, reducing the mez to 10 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.
• 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 a few 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 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.
• A lore-master can't summon a pet while 'in combat', and they often die during big fights so please give the lore-master a chance to recall his pet before starting another fight.
• 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.

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 1,200 morale. 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 (traited they can cure wound 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.
• 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, or green if need be, (we can't do red and yellow from range).
• 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.

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), green (creatures of Nature) or orange (Drakes) 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 and you will hear static noise for 1 minute as this spell drains morale from a mob who attacks you.
• 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.
• Sign of Power: Righteousness will cure silence, knock-down and knock-out. So if the minstrel is silenced, ask for a buff!

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).