November Update Lore-master Changes

By: Ken "Graalx2" Burd

Hail and well met to all masters of lore! This missive will bring you up to date on the various changes we are making in the November Update for the well being of Lore-masters everywhere. This is not a massive revision of the class; just some tweaks to playability here and there, primarily to address those issues that have been discussed on our forums.

New Skills

So, what have we done? First of all, let’s go over the new skills we’ve added to fill out the repertoire of all Lore-masters.

Staff Sweep

Available at level 30, Staff Sweep is a frontal arc staff attack that will hit up to three targets. As a bonus, the skill gains an additional attack when the Lore-master is equipped with a sword in addition to a staff. When attacking a Flanked target the Lore-master will gain a moderate Power-over-time restoring effect.

Frost-lore

To round out the debuffing abilities of the Lore-master we have added “Frost-lore” at level 40. This skill applies a debuff to the Tactical damage abilities of the target and is affected by the same traits that modify the behavior of the other “Lore” skills.

Combat Summoning

To further improve the lives of Lore-masters that concentrate on their companions we have added “Combat Summoning” to the skills granted for taking the legendary trait Nature-friend. This skill will allow the next summoning skill used by the Lore-master to ignore the not-in-combat restriction of a normal summons.

Companion Teleport

This new ability allows summoned companions to teleport to their master. This skill appears on the pet’s skill bar immediately to the left of the triggered skills. While this skill may not be used while the pet is in combat, its usefulness should be readily apparent to anyone who ever fell off a cliff without dismissing their pet. Note: Captain Heralds and Archers will also get this ability.

While we were making changes to companions, we addressed some of the other issues Lore-masters have brought to our attention, including changes to the visual indicator that displays when a companion successfully flanks an enemy. This effect is now only visible to the Lore-master whose pet initiated the flanked event. In addition the sound effect from the Flanked event is now controlled by the combat sound volume, not the Voice Over sound volume.

Companion Appearance Changes

We have completely re-worked the way we are handling the Lore-master’s companion appearances. All of the necklaces that previously granted a new pet appearance have been converted to single use Talismans. These new Talismans will grant the Lore-master a new skill that will summon a raven, bear, or other pet with the new appearance. Unfortunately, this means that anyone using the old necklaces for their stats will have to find new neckwear.

As part of this change we’ve created additional Talismans for entirely new appearances, even for those companions like the Sabercat that did not have any alternate appearances. Talismans will be crafted by jewellers from recipes found in loot. Plus, for those who don’t want to hunt down these new Talismans, they are all available in the LOTRO Store. We have also added a few bonus Talismans that are store exclusives.

 

Changed Skills

That’s all we have for new stuff! Now, let’s take a look at what we’re doing for existing skills and general quality of life improvements for Lore-masters.

Fire-lore

We have removed the genus restriction on Fire-lore. It was never explained well and had no feedback, so now a Lore-master can use Fire-lore on any monster.

Call to the Valar

We have added “Dispel Corruption” and “Frost-lore” to the list of skills that are reset by “Call to the Valar” as well as lowering the time it takes to cast. We have also added a 10 second immunity to induction setback events to “Call to the Valar.”

Sign of Power: Vigilance

This skill will now affect all fellowship members near the Lore-master. You will no longer need to cast it on each member individually.

Knowledge of the Lore-master

We have added a minor resistance debuff to account for the specific vulnerabilities that a Lore-master can notice with a little bit of study. However, “Knowledge of the Lore-master” cannot be used in combat, so choose your target wisely!

Wards

It was odd that Ancient Evil is the one thing that Lore-masters are unable to affect with Wards. Now when a Lore-master slots 4 traits in the Ancient Master trait set the following changes are made to the improved Warding Knowledge skills gained:

• “Warding Knowledge: Drakes and Orcs” becomes “Warding Knowledge: Drakes and Ancient Evil.”
• “Warding Knowledge: Dead and Men” becomes “Warding Knowledge: Dead, Men and Orcs.”

Blinding Flash

We’ve added an interrupt effect to “Blinding Flash” to give Lore-masters the ability to affect some monsters that are immune to daze effects.

Inner Flame

Finally we felt that “Inner Flame” was a somewhat weak skill so it has been much improved. First, the Lore-master is no longer interrupted while channeling the skill. Secondly the amount of healing the skill delivers to both the companion and the Lore-master has been greatly increased. Lastly the skill will transfer 5% of the total threat from the Lore-master to his companion per tick of healing. All of these improvements forced us to add a base power cost to the skill in addition to the existing per tick power cost .

Miscellaneous Changes

We have changed the way that Lore-masters contribute to Fellowship Maneuvers. They will now have the ability to make Red and Yellow contributions at range, just like Rune-keepers. Minstrels will be happy to know that they also are included in this change.

As far as Lore-master Traits go, we didn’t really change them very much. We did go through all of the descriptions and updated them to include all kinds of numbers for what they actually do. We also upgraded the Hardy Bear trait to affect all companions.

We have also standardized the effects of the three resistance modifying legacies.

• Target Fire Damage Skills Resist Rating will now be Target Resistance (Fire Skills) and will be unchanged in affect.
• Target Tactical Damage Skills Resist Rating will now be Target Resistance (Damaging Skills) and now affects all damage skills.
• Target Physical Resist Rating is now Target Resistance (Debuffing Skills) and will now affect the resistance of all debuffing skills, not just physical resistance skills.

And now the one change you have all been waiting for… Lore-masters can now use the Frost damage Legendary item titles. Well, maybe not waiting per se, but it has been added to Lore-masters for completeness.

Missed it by that much

We are currently working on a brand new ranged slot item for Lore-masters that will affect your companions; from giving them more morale, to higher Block/Parry/Evade ratings, to affecting their skills in various ways, and much more. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues getting them to work correctly and decided to leave these to a later update so that we could get them implemented the right way.

We hope you enjoy the changes to the Lore-master and look forward to hearing your feedback!



http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/877-developer-diary-november-update-lore-master-changes