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can loremasters cast spells?
Shoey
Member Posts: 16
Do they actually get to cast spells, or do they rely more on melee damage and their pet?
Comments
Standard gameplay is sit and blast, direct your pet (Raven or Bear), heal, mez as needed. Not very soloable, dont be fooled by the pet. Though well, ALL classes can solo decently compared to other games. Heal is too weak to really be sole healer later on, and DPS sucks compared to the dedicated DPS classes, so its really a crowd control / support class with some fire nukes thrown in (well ok, cold and earth too)
Sadly the loremaster still is an affront to lore. They're basing it on Elrond. Ok now lets see which people did demonstrate powers that loremasters have been given.... Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman, to a lesser extent Arwen, Glorfindel and Aragorn.
Now all of the first four are either: Elven lords/ladies of great power, Istari, ringbearers of one of the elven rings, or a combination of 2 of that.
The latter 3 again are either elven royalty/nobility or destined for glory and power, aswell as imbued with ancient blood that no longer exists in middle-earth.
In the elven racial prologue Elrond slays a snow troll with a single blow, which stretches his powers from the books already.
In the dwarven racial prologue gandalf makes a ray of sunshine burst into a cave to stone a troll. Now guess what one of the Lore-masters nukes is? Yes, you got it, the ability to call forth a ray of light to hurt your enemy.
So now there's people all over middle earth, freely selectable as a class, from the most common of heritages, that are able to perform feats that are reserved for Istari, elven lords and ringbearers. And that because they READ SO MUCH LORE. Well i can tell who didnt read much lore to let this happen.....
Yes, Loremasters dont fit in very well. No, you cannot have no mages in a fantasy mainstream MMO today. But its a game first and foremost, and turbine needs it to succeed after 2 disasters, so its either get over it, or dont play it I am afraid.
Really, the entire game would ve been better as a sandbox / non-levelcentric MMO without fixed classes, but that doesnt sell these days.
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Being upset about everyone being able to have Gandalf's magical powers is pretty stupid when you take into consideration that:
a)NPC's just stand in one spot all the time waiting for random strangers to walk up and inquire about a quest because there was a floating ring above their head.
b)NPC's will give said quest to everyone that comes up to them. As if the first person didn't really accomplish what was asked. The named bandit leader lives!
c)Normal mortals constantly die and are reincarnated as the same person with all their gear and such.
d)No one needs to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom.
e)You have to stab a rat 15 times before it dies.
f)Do I really need to go on?
Coming from many previous RPG's it is already strange enough that only one class actively casts magic(while the other classes are more using abilities than actual magic), so I think they are doing just fine.
Don't say you didn't have it coming
*EDIT: This is more directed to Kaalinn, Mara, and guy###. There are plenty of other threads describing how the Loremaster works as a class compared to other games.
--
psyconius Cthulhu
Gothika Studios
But it doesnt mean there was no magic or such powers.
For one. Gandalf was highly powerful wizard. But he was not allowed to use his powers at all.
Saruman , did use some of his powers - after he became corrupted. Namely creating snow blizzards and avalanches ...
Here is what Wikipedia writes about LOTR wizards (The Istari)
"The wizards already appeared old when they entered Middle-earth. They were stripped of much of their powers and deliberately "clothed" in the bodies of old Men, as the Valar wished them to guide the inhabitants of Middle-earth by persuasion and encouragement, not by force or fear."
Loremasters in LOTRO
Do not use spells - but tricks, like flashpowder. Or knowledge of communicating with animals and nature
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
I have to say...I played every class to level 10 during the CB..and while that's not the greatest test, the loremaster and captain's were my two least favorite classes. I think its because it seemed to me they had the greatest support roles of all the classes (even more than Minstrels) and I wasn't looking for that sort of playing experience.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Loremasters are not "mages" as you would understand that from another MMO context. Traditionally, the "mage class" has been associated with very powerful nukes from range with very poor defense and melee capbilities and some CC capabilities to manage threat and survive. The Loremaster is a caster class, but his "nukes" are not very powerful at all, and his pet is not that powerful either. He's mostly there as a support class to CC in group situations. He's not at all like a "mage" or "mage pet class" as in other MMORPGs.
Comparing it to other games is a bit more tricky, cause the LM doesnt fill the role of DPS, which traditionally is the usual job for the mage type classes. Its a bit like a crossover from EQ1 Druid + Enchanter I suppose, or a Balance druid in WoW with some added mez, or Red Mage/beastmaster from FFXI without the melee.
Its important to note that its one of the 2 pet classes, and both are support classes otherwise, so if you are looking for a pet + nukes gameplay style, LotR doesnt have it at all. Loremaster DPS isnt that great.
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Loremasters clearly are casters. NOT nukers, but casters. There's been other caster classes that werent nukers in other games. A good example would be DAoC, which had tons of cloth casters, none necessarily a nuker.
Also they dont just do flashpowder tricks, they can summon wind, beams of light, etc. out of nowhere, aswell as the obvious pets.
Also to the person that said how everything else like the NPCs and death are unrealistic....
There is no death. You get defeated and retreat. You dont die in LotRO. NPCs rarely ever stand around doing nothing. Most are either talking to other NPCs, minding their job as barkeep or whatever, standing inside their merchant tent (which is legitimiate standing around :P), fulfilling their duty as town guards (that will attack any enemy that gets to close to town) or tons of other things. Also most of the time quests arent so much about killing an unique named human guy, but getting an item from him, which you could technically achieve without killing him. Sure you kill stuff like a spider queen, but those can be re-bred.
Now on to Magic in Middle-earth...
Someone said that the other people dont use magic at all, and more something like "abilities." In fact Minstrels use probably the most legitimiate kind of magic you could get in tolkien lore. The entire world of Arda was spun out of music, evil only exists because Melkor contributed to it, etc etc. Minstrels HAVE the power to alter things akin to what magic would normally do. It still stays as subtle as any other magical power in Tolkiens works, but its definitely more legitimate than anything else i've seen.
Now about stuff like healing, and the loremasters healing in specific. Remember there's no health, its all morale. Loremasters can heal stuff like poison and disease, curative stuff, with Leechcraft etc.. Which seems perfectly fine to me, and fits in with a knowledgeable persons skills. But Beacon of Hope, a ranged heal that takes a chunk out of their morale and adds a lot to the targets morale is just ridiculous. It is by all means clearly a heal, but even if you look at it as morale, what kind of thing would demoralize you and make your friends more motivated? Are they sadists that are enticed by your suffering or what? There's just a whole lot of stuff that doesnt make sense for loremasters, and clearly depicts them as the caster class.
I for one have always played casters main, healers secondary. I'm probably going with Minstrel, although im not very happy with their overall healing abilities (which, for the best healer in the game, are pretty crappy). But Hunter was also an option for me. Why? Because its ranged DPS and some crowd control skills. Essentially what a damage dealing caster would be like.
Lots of people would probably have taken up on that if it werent for loremasters, having magic-like abilities, and generally occupying the spot for caster-like RP that many wouldve missed, but obviously had seen no place for it in LotRO, so wouldve chosen something else, maybe Hunter, to play their favorite char concept.
Hunters have taken on the traditional role of the mage ranged dps class. I think that is a great evolution. I've always disliked the bow-using class in other games. It seemed so obvious to me to make them the ranged nuker. Well, the lore restrictions actually allowed Turbine to be innovative in this regard. Make the Hunter a nuker.
As for the Loremaster...the class does stick out glaringly as distinctly non-lore in its presentation. The devs said they would get rid of the loremaster's Force Lightning particle effect, but they haven't.
It might have helped if the devs working on the Loremaster had truly believed they were creating a new type of class. Instead it seems they've spent their time trying to shoe-horn classic mage abilities into a LOTRO theme. Essentially, they don't seem to have believed their own rhetoric regarding the loremaster class.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
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Its that simple, most of the stupid Fantasy followers these days give a s**t about consistency of fantasy universes. Ever been to a LARP or a medieval reenactment festival? People just dont care, they want to get away from their 9-to-5-bohoo-I-lead-a-boring-urban-life-with-no-excitement-experience; the more bling bling, the better... Its REALLY that simple...
So if a dev team tries to respect the ideas of a double PhD in germanic languages and philology that spent the last 30 years of his highly successful, academic life in the wonderful lands of mid-England;.... Dude, they have to REINVENT the word compromise...
So back on topic, no, I already appreciate how they conserve all the given lore as good as possible while still making this game attractive for non-care-non-life-basement-geeks that obviously swarm every MMORPG, every tabletop, every P&P you can possibly think of. So Loremaster is fine I guess, they couldve screwed up much more stuff in this game...
And yes, I think there are plenty of exceptions from this rule, but the vast majority wants the "jerry springer Lord of the Rings"....
Meridion
BtW, what I forgot earlier, the ray of light thing is an alchemy feat in the Tolkien Lore, Gandalf uses it in the Hobbit to drive off Orcs and afterwards it smells like gunpowder... just to clarify this particular point...
Meridion
When scary things get scared, that's bad...
I really hope that the WoW-damage>all-mentality will not infest LotRO too quick. Its been a plague ever since release and excluded supporter classes many many times...
Meridion
Well said. I think they have done a fine job preserving the lore while keeping the game fun and accessible.
--
psyconius Cthulhu
Gothika Studios
Sure, it will look strange when 20 lore-masters blast away with fire and rock, but that's well within my tolerance tbh, as such people are well mentioned in LotR. It's just that the main stories are not about those people but about non-magical societies (Men, hobbits, dwarves); Wood elves for example do a darn lot of tricks in Tolkiens mother-work, "The Hobbit", from igniting fire at will to magically sealing doors... he just doesn't focus on those...
Meridion