From Lotro-Wiki.com

Contents 1 Combat Roles 2 Combat Types 3 Combat Strategies 4 Crafting 5 Damage 6 Environment 7 Equipment

Combat Roles

Raid/Fellowship Leader • Main Tank • Main Assist • Off Tank • Nuker • Healer

Combat Types

Melee • Ranged • Tactical

Anti-Exploit Mode

This mode is triggered when an enemy cannot reach/attack a player. It will be signaled with red/yellow/orange question marks flashing over the enemy's head. The enemy will absorb/resist/evade all attacks, and will be, for all intents and purposes, invincible. The enemy can be brought out of this mode by moving into the enemy's range, or moving to a location where the enemy can reach the the player. If an enemy stays in Anti-Exploit mode for too long, it will disappear and reset at its spawn-point.

AoE (Area of Effect)

AoE, or Area of Effect, is a spell or skill that affects more than one target in a certain area.

Evade/Block/Parry

Gives a chance to not be affected by a foe's melee and ranged attacks. Tactical attacks cannot be Evaded/Parried/Blocked, but they can be Resisted.

Block Chance

Your Block Chance displays the percentage of hits you should block. To be able to block an attack, you must have a shield equipped. A high block chance is especially useful for the Guardian class as many of their skills are available after you block an attack. Many items add to your block chance and it generally becomes higher when your level increases. You can also purchase Passive Skills to increase your Block Chance.

Buff

A buff is a beneficial condition that is applied to a character or an ally. Buffs may have any number of effects, to include increased damage output, more Morale, faster Morale/Power recovery, increased Critical/Devastating hit chance, or even resurrection after being defeated.

Debuff

A Debuff is a detrimental condition that is applied to an enemy. Debuffs may have any number of effects, to include reduced armor value, DoT's, reduced mitigations to specific kinds of damage, and crowd-control effects.

Crowd Control

Crowd Control refers to spells and abilities which limit your foe's ability to fight or that reduce the number of foes that a fellowship must fight at once. This may include:

• Roots -- skills which stop an enemy in place, but do not prevent the enemy from using ranged/tactical skills.
• Snares/Slows -- skills which slow an enemy's movement or increase the induction time for skills.
• Stuns -- skills which prevent an enemy from moving, attacking, or using any skills.
• Dazes (aka Mesmerize or Mez) -- skills which prevent an enemy from moving, attacking, or using any skills, so long as the enemy does not take damage.

Damage

See Damage section, shown below.

Damage Transfer

This is a condition in which any damage inflicted on one character/enemy is inflicted on another character/enemy. Common examples of this are the Rune-keeper skill "Our Fates Entwined," which transfers all damage inflicted on the group to the Rune-keeper, and the Insidious Cuff, in which a certain amount of damage inflicted on the player is reflected back to the damaging enemy.

HoT (Healing over Time)

Short for Healing Over Time, such as a skill that heals a fellow for x amount of healing for 30 second over 300 seconds.

Interrupt

An Interrupt effect stops an enemy's skill induction from completing, preventing the effects of some attacks.

Resurrect (also, Rez)

Resurrection is the restoration of Morale (and usually Power) to a defeated ally. This has the added benefits of the ally not suffering from Dread, and the ally does not have to Retreat. A Rez'd ally will usually not get all of his/her Morale/Power back, and will have to use other means to recover them.

Combat Strategies

Tank-n-Spank

This strategy is used in groups, and is the most common because of how quickly enemies can be defeated. This involves using a main-tank class (or pet) to draw enemy attention, while nuker classes deal massive amounts of damage from range. The main tank should also turn the enemy so that the nuker's can attack the enemy from behind, thus increasing the chance of a Critical/Devastating hit. Healers aren't necessarily required for this strategy because the idea is to defeat enemies before they can deal significant damage to the main tank. In practice, a healer is usually on-hand to prevent unexpected mishaps (such as another player generating more threat than the tank, underestimating the enemy strength, pulling too many enemies at once, etc), and to quickly recover morale so the group can continue against more enemies.

Turtling

This strategy is usually used in solo play, but can be used in small groups. This involves using strong healing skills to heal damage faster than the enemy can inflict it, while allowing auto-attacks to slowly damage the enemy. Tanks and nukers aren't necessarily required for this tactic. In practice, nukers are usually kept on-hand because without them, an enemy would take a VERY long time to defeat. When nukers are used, they must be careful not to generate too much threat. This strategy is common when there is no main tank to generate threat and draw enemy attention.

Kiting

This strategy is used by solo players. This involves using skills that do not require a player to be stationary. A player will continuously run and use these "on-the-run" skills until the enemy is defeated. Players using this strategy must have very precise control of their character's movements so as to prevent the enemy from reaching them, yet keep the enemy in range and Line-of-Sight of the player's own attacks.

Root-n-Scoot

This strategy is used in solo play and in groups to control the number of enemies that are able to attack. This can be somewhat slower than using other strategies, but is significantly faster than Turtling. It can also be used in situations where pulling any enemy will draw too many enemies with it to defend against using any other strategy. Multiple enemies will be rooted/stunned/dazed in place, while a nuker chooses one enemy to be the target of focused damage. In this way, enemies can be drawn one-by-one away from their comrades, making their defeat much easier.

Exploiting

This strategy is against the Turbine Acceptable Use/Code of Conduct agreement with players, and may result in in-game disciplinary actions.

This involves taking advantage of programming bugs in-game to defeat an otherwise significantly more difficult enemy. Usually, enemies that cannot reach/attack the player will enter Anti-Exploit mode, and will reset themselves after a certain amount of time. However, some enemies will not enter Anti-Exploit mode when they should, and therefore are exposed to damage from the player, with no risk of damaging the player. In multiple-enemy situations, some enemies can be trapped behind obstacles/doors without entering Anti-Exploit mode. This results in the player not having to defeat these enemies, making an otherwise much more difficult combat situation much easier.

Crafting

Basic Recipes:

Basic recipes are those recipes given to you by default when you achieve a level of crafting.

Crafting Trainers:

Crafting trainers are the novice and expert tradesman that provide additional recipes, improved tools, and other materials for each profession. They do not reward any xp.

Critical Success:

Critical success means that the player succeeded in either creating more of an item than intended, or created a far superior item than intended. Using better crafting tools and using recipe-specific Critical Items will improve a player's chance of critical success. Scholars can make scrolls that also raise the chance of a Critical Success for a short amount of time.

Gathering

Gathering professions collect and process items from Resource Nodes to supply Production professions. The Gathering Professions are Prospector and Forester. In many ways, Farmers can be considered a Gathering Profession. However, these Professions do not need to gather resources from the landscape - instead they produce them from components purchased from NPCs.

Production

A Production Profession consumes resources gathered from the landscape and from mob drops and produces end-use products. Tailor, Weaponsmith, Metalsmith, Woodworker, Jeweller and Scholar are all Production Professions. In many ways, a Cook can be considered a Production Profession. Cooks produce end products (Food) from components purchased from NPCs rather than those gathered by collectors.

Trophy:

Tropies are somewhat rare items dropped by creatures and enemies after they are defeated. Most trophies can be sold to a vendor for a small amount of money. Some trophies can also be useful in some way to the player, e.g. rare recipes, crafting ingredients, barter items, etc.

Damage

Ancient Dwarf-make Damage

Refers to a special type of damage done by some high-end weapons, typically those of Dwarven ancestry. Dragon-kind are known for being highly susceptible to Ancient Dwarf-make damage.

Beleriand Damage

Refers to a special type of damage done by some high-end weapons, typically those of Elvish ancestry. Half-orcs, spiders, insects, and the Ancient Evils are known to be highly susceptible to Beleriand Damage.

Common Damage

Common damage is the type of damage that most weapons, abilities and mobs inflict. It is also the most easily mitigated, since both Might and armor value reduce its damage. For this reason, weapons with uncommon damage types such as fire damage deal around 20% more damage. This should definitely be taken into consideration when comparing weapons.

Damage

Loss of Morale through an attack leading to defeat of the character or death of a npc.

DoT (Damage over Time)

Damage over time, usually abbreviated DOT or DoT, is a class of skills which deal an amount of damage discretely over time, e.g. 4 damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. They are usually more damaging per Power cost, but this is offset because the target can die mid-DoT and thus decrease the effective damage per Power. DoTs are commonly from bleed effects, poisons and magical spells. Have a DoT on a mob can often make it impossible to cc the mob. DoT's usually will not trigger effects that depend on a specific type of damage, even if the DoT deals that type of damage.

DPS (Damage per Second)

DPS or Damage per Second is the calculated number that takes the average of the min and max damage on a weapon, the weapon Speed, and your own strength or other attributes that effect damage or speed. It will take all of these and calculate a balanced result.

NOTE: usually these DPS counters do not take into consideration special damages (Like heat instead of kinetic) also the use of special abilities changes DPS greatly. Even though DPS is a good way to judge a weapons potential but it still is important to look at max damage as that is usually what special abilities relate to.

Damage Mitigation

Damage Mitigation (Common, Fire & Shadow) reduces incoming damage to your character. Your Character Journal lists your base value for each of these three categories. However, a foe whose level is higher than yours will lower that chance. Common damage mitigation is determined by your Armour Value, your Might and any Traits or equipment that adjust mitigation. Fire and Shadow damage mitigations are determined by your Vitality and any Traits or equipment (commonly called resistance gear) that adjust those mitigations.

Fire Damage

Fire damage is a special type of damage dealt by some weapons, attacks and abilities. The amount of fire damage players take is determined by their fire damage mitigation (fire resistance), which is increased by Vitality. Trolls, Ents, and other Creatures of Nature, are known to be susceptible to Fire Damage.

Frost Damage

Frost Damage is a special type of damage dealt by some weapons, attacks and abilities (until now, only in Forochel). The amount of frost damage players take is determined by their frost damage mitigation (frost resistance), which is increased by Vitality.

Light Damage

Light Damage is one of the several types of special damage, including Common Damage, Fire Damage and Shadow Damage. It refers to damage caused by bright light, rather than meaning minimal damage. Trolls, Orcs, and Goblins are known to be susceptible to Light damage

Positional Damage Multiplier

This is the modifier applied to the damage dealt based on your position in relation to the target. For example, a burglar gets a +15% damage modifier to Surprise Strikes performed from the 180 degree arc behind a person (aka: from Backstabbing them).

Shadow Damage

Shadow Damage is a special type of damage dealt by some weapons, attacks and abilities. The amount of shadow damage players take is determined by their shadow damage mitigation (shadow resistance), which is increased by Vitality.

Westernesse Damage

Refers to a special type of damage done by some high-end weapons, typically those of Human ancestry. The Dead are known to be susceptible to Westernesse damage

Environment

Resource Node

Resource Nodes are landmarks that signify an area where a player can gather crafting resources. Examples include Ore nodes, Piles of wood, and Sage's Lockers. There are more node locations than there are nodes, and once a set number of node locations in an area have spawned a resource node, no more nodes will be spawned until a player begins gathering resources in the area. Non-aggressive creatures (such as crickets, snakes, and rabbits) also spawn at Resource Nodes, so killing them will help to spawn other kinds of resources.

Spawn Point

Most areas of Middle Earth's landscape includes fixed "hookpoints" where enemies appear. These enemies will roam a small area, following a specific path. Once defeated, the enemy will reappear at its spawn point. If an enemy attacks a player, and that player subsequently runs away to avoid the enemy, the enemy will eventually break off its attack and return to its spawn point. Contrary to popular belief, looting/not looting a defeated enemy does NOT affect spawn rate. Enemies will happily patrol right next to their own corpse.

Invisible Wall

These define a location beyond which a player is not allowed to go. These are places around areas to deny a player from going into places that would cause gameplay issue (such as leaving Weathertop during the Weathertop instance), or to prevent players from playing in undeveloped/unreleased areas. Developers try to hide invisible walls around areas by using in-game cliffs and obstacles, or with invisible, un-attackable enemies that can quickly defeat a player before reaching the wall. However, invisible walls still can be found in a few places in Middle Earth.

Seam

These are locations where 2 separate surfaces meet. An interesting aspect of seams is that if they are not constructed properly, a character may find a way to pass into an area not specifically designed to have a character in it. This has historically been the way players have found ways into normally unreachable areas. This can also result in corrupted characters, and is NOT recommended.

Equipment

1H

One-Handed Weapons require only one hand to use as opposed to Two-Handed weapons which require both hands to use.

2H

A Two-Handed Weapon requires both hands to use.

Off-hand

The Off-hand slot is used for One-handed Weapons and Shields. Other related weapon slots are your Main-hand slot and Ranged slot.