HD beta NDA has been released

[Hayburn]

Finally! Now everyone can discuss about the coming update and current beta of it.  There are guides to how classes get changed in LOTRO forums, made by players. Find them from links below, as well as official announcement of NDA drop.

Beta is not over yet, though, so some changes might be expected.

Helm's Deep NDA Dropped as of Today, November 4, 2013

Changes per class:

Burglar                                         Captain

Champion                                    Guardian

Lore-master                                 Minstrel

Rune-Keeper                               Warden

Hunter

[Simone B.]

There was an NDA? I swear I didn't know. When they said it I was sleeping :P

[Hayburn]

LM seems interesting enough I think, but I'm afraid what will happen to my warden... With total threat revamp and missing threat transfers, tanking with plain dps sounds wierd. Also since threat is multiplied based on traits and not stance, can't be offtank and dps the main tanks target. DPS in red seems fun though.

Big battles... Well, they are big and messy. I like it

[Spamwise]

Interesting, judging solely on the champion page it seems things will be interesting, some things seem bad (ebbing ire no longer transfers threat which used to be really useful) but then there's this:

"Fury of blades:

• AoE, targets everyone in front"

Everyone!  I really hope that does mean everyone.

[IguanaMama]

seems with the changes will have to learn how to heal again ... grr...

 

which is a pain since i plan to take stella out first off to give us a viable heal to start with ... once she becomes a viable healer again... (note to self add entire collection of healing for dummies books and read once back in lotro)

[Ulthanfric]

Threat/aggro management is being changed/simplified and is now mainly being generated through DPS.

For the Guardian this means threat/aggro is only manageable through a increased passive threat level opposed to other classes and though force taunts.

Sigh... seems now every moron will be able to tank by just standing there, as long as he has the passives traited right. Was planning on leveling tank first but now im actually considering another class...

Was there really a need to dumb down tanking? Like the game wasnt already easy enough -.-

 

[Nerglor]

Hildorth wrote:

Threat/aggro management is being changed/simplified and is now mainly being generated through DPS. For the Guardian this means threat/aggro is only manageable through a increased passive threat level opposed to other classes and though force taunts. Sigh... seems now every moron will be able to tank by just standing there, as long as he has the passives traited right. Was planning on leveling tank first but now im actually considering another class... Was there really a need to dumb down tanking? Like the game wasnt already easy enough -.-

They did that for everthing. Even healing for RK/mini is super simple. Rotation is hit whats not on CD excluding the few CDs for oh s**t moments. But hey this means I might be able to be a viable tank :D

[Hayburn]

Hildorth wrote:

Threat/aggro management is being changed/simplified and is now mainly being generated through DPS. For the Guardian this means threat/aggro is only manageable through a increased passive threat level opposed to other classes and though force taunts. Sigh... seems now every moron will be able to tank by just standing there, as long as he has the passives traited right. Was planning on leveling tank first but now im actually considering another class... Was there really a need to dumb down tanking? Like the game wasnt already easy enough -.-

dumb down tanking? yeah, but more so it seems to be death of CC. With warden having only one skill of agro without threat, defiant challenge, everyone must be just spamming every aoe they got. I haven't actually been to an instance outside of the big battles on my warden, and soloing them seems to be impossible to tank most mobs. They just run around no matter what. No idea how it's going to be in traditional runs, since they are currently disabled from IF in beta.

[Hayburn]

By the way, remember to use all your bounder's tokens as they get removed when HD launches. Universal toolkits for little alts, craft xp accelerators, fancy morale-pots and more.

[Patriotpea]

Overall, changes are upsetting..... I mean, having to relearn sux. Not sure bout others but I know its a fancy way of nerfing classes. They gave us crazy OP skills that we know will get nerfed all the way back to Archet once creeps see how stupidly unfair they are(which they will) As for threat revamp, tanking is gonna be a 1 button wiN. Force taunts work 2 ways now. 1. If I have aggro and you force taunt, it acts as a force taunt. 2. If YOU have aggro and you FT, its like engage. Your aggro will be whoever has next highest aggro +~20%. So if you have 2 tanks. It would be (in theory nway) impossible to pull because they can take turns FTing and literally 1 up each others aggro by 20% each time to infinity aggro. That means. If ur an experienced tank, you are going to be just a tiny bit better than the guy who cant read and has the attention span of a Marsh Bog-Fly. Same for other classes. Now, instead of filling multiple roles well, can only do one. Cant even switch gear/LIs in combat now. Thats something alot of people do. I swap atleast 4 things regularly on hunt and even more on burgs. Can understand armour/jewelry as that gives some serious flaws paired with macros, but we should be able to switch LIs incombat..

[Hayburn]

 
Lore-master trait tree. Set bonuses to the left need to be unlocked with TP same way trait slots are bought in live. If you got all slots open you will have all set bonuses open.

 
Virtues. You can drag and drop or just right click them to slot/unslot what you want whenever out of combat. Same works for race traits. Also you can see the size of the panel, the size virtue ring is about equal to the live version. Panel size can't be changed so may be bit too large for laptops with small screeen and resolution.

 

So basically, the trait trees are coming. As we can change traits non-combat and have at least 2 preset trait sets, it's fast to jump from healing or tanking to dps. Though you cannot change it in battle, so offtanks will have to sit by and watch or else they pull off the main tank by accident.

When traiting, you first choose what spec you want to go, yellow, blue or red. If you choose blue, all blue traits cost 1 trait point, and others cost 2. Every point you use, no matter in which tree, unlocks set bonuses on the left side of panel. Set bonuses are chosen as you choose your spec, so you can choose blue to get blue set bonus, and use all your points to red tree. This will cost massive amount of trait points though, so might not be best idea becouse you dont get as many traits.

 

Videos from the battle! i bet someone is eager to see how it is.

 Big Battles -videos

Earlier Massively is talking about the update here:

Thirty thousand Orcs and you: A LotRO epic battle story

[Nerglor]

Hayburn wrote:

dumb down tanking? yeah, but more so it seems to be death of CC. With warden having only one skill of agro without threat, defiant challenge, everyone must be just spamming every aoe they got. I haven't actually been to an instance outside of the big battles on my warden, and soloing them seems to be impossible to tank most mobs. They just run around no matter what. No idea how it's going to be in traditional runs, since they are currently disabled from IF in beta.

Ran a few dales T2 on bullroarer with some horrible pugs. Really till the end I only used 3 skills and even was more afk then I usually am in dale. Absolutely terrible. There is a reason why they made the big battles big, so people can actually do something and not be bored out of their minds

[Bethollind]

Hmmmmm....

Main feeling i got about this is regret... that i already bought the expansion.

This is like dumbing down the game so much it looses all appeal.

It sux to have to relearn your class after playing 85!! levels with it. It makes it way worse if they on top of that dumb it down so much that all complexity is gone...

Was already considering coming to SWOTR to have some fun - but that isnt so great either i hear from several people... also dumbed down combat system...

What alternatives are there out there available or going to be available ? Would love playing with you guys again - and the way i am reading this new update - it won't be long after its release that i might actually abandon Lotro... with a lot of pain in my hart.

[Hayburn]

ok now i'm depressed. Healing threat is sooo small at the moment. I tried this healing my raven in NCF for 1000 HPS (yes, very large healing from the LM O.o) and he had no prob holding 3 spiders off me if i made him change targets occasionally. And his single target dps was 360... yellow traits and raven so shouldn't have had any tanking aid traited for that.

So does this mean the most important thing to do, getting adds of fthe healer, is no longer needed since they won't be interested on the player anyway?

[Patriotpea]

Straight.from beta so hush hush..


Gear


Mini : http://i.imgur.com/4jmsByH.png



Hunter: http://i.imgur.com/fFCDIfV.png



Burglar: http://i.imgur.com/OwW5QuS.png



Loremaster: http://i.imgur.com/lfBCs8F.png



Runekeeper: http://i.imgur.com/sN51xzc.png



Warden: http://i.imgur.com/95apy9O.png



Guardian: http://i.imgur.com/uNKkXJQ.png



Champion: http://i.imgur.com/r0kkhaI.png



Captain: http://i.imgur.com/i43NIL6.png