Gameplay
Burglars cycle through their Critical Hit Chain to deal damage to their enemies. They use Stealth to sneak up on enemies, and with 
Combat Stealth, temporarily go invisible in the midst of fight to deal bonus damage and gain additional abilities. Burglars have exceptional crowd control capabilities in Yellow-line with skills such as 
Startling Twist, 
Riddle, and 
Trip.
- Blue-line (Bleed Damage): Burglars specializing in the Gambler trait tree use Gambles and other bleeds to damage their enemies. Most of their damage is caused by
Damaging Gamble, and other bleeds from skills such as 
Gambler's Advantage. Their damage is highly variable, as it's dependant on the dice rolls for their Gambles. Certain traits and skills allow the Burglar to 'load the dice' to receive more favorable rolls. 
Even the Odds grants them a random bonus, forcing the Burglar to stay on their toes and quickly adapt to the odds.
- Red-line (Burst Damage): Burglars specializing in the Quiet Knife trait tree use Combat Stealth to blink in and out of their enemies' field of vision, dealing bonus burst damage. The bulk of their damage is dealt by the combination of
Perforate and 
Exposed Throat. Red-line Burglars hunt random procs on 
Return Strike and 
Well-placed Strike that let them deal additional damage.
- Yellow-line (Pure Support): Burglars specializing in the Mischief-maker trait tree use Tricks to debuff their enemies.
Trickster is their key skill, as it allows them to apply Tricks to multiple enemies at once, and protects the fellowship. Using 
Reveal Weakness and 
A Small Snag, they can increase the incoming damage of their enemy targets. 
Clever Retort lets the Burglar build a unique skill to satisfy any fight requirement.
This class is more difficult to play, and is not recommended for newer players. They can be fairly weak at lower levels, and their damage is heavily linked to playing through the Critical Hit Chain. However, they are an invaluable class at endgame, with yellow-line Burglar providing important debuffs for fellowships and red-line Burglar dealing high damage.
Critical Hit Chain
Several Burglar skills are by default unavailable, and become available for use when the Burglar lands a critical hit. Landing a critical hit grants 
Critical Response, which allows the use of first step Critical Chain skills (such as 
Double-edged Strike). When one of these skills are used, the Critical Hit Chain is opened, allowing for temporary use of second step Critical Chain skills (such as 
Flashing Blades). Several other skills and traits allow the Burglar to gain a Critical Response from other sources.
For more information, see Critical Response.
Stealth
Burglars have the ability to enter stealth. They can enter stealth out-of-combat, or in-combat via a subset of skills. Stealth lasts until a Burglar uses one of their abilities. Burglars lean into stealth usage, with skills such as 
Cunning Attack and 
Surprise Strike gaining additional damage and bonus effects while in stealth. Stealth is also required to initiate a Fellowship Maneuver with Trip. Certain skills like Trickster put the Burglar into an extended window of Stealth, where Stealth is not broken by using skills.
For more information, see Stealth.
Gambles
Gambles are unique to blue-line Burglars. When picking the Gambler specialization, a Burglar has access to three gamble effects with 6 tiers:
When a skill is used that applies a Gamble, an imaginary 6-sided die is rolled. Depending on the rolled value, the potency of the applied Gamble changes, with lower values granting weaker benefits and higher values granting stronger ones. Only one of each Gamble can be applied at once, and when a new Gamble is applied, it overwrites the roll of the previous one.
For more information, see Gambles.
Tricks
Tricks are unique to yellow-line Burglars. When picking the Mischief-maker specialization, a Burglar has access to two different trick effects:
Trick: Disable: reduces damage and increases attack duration of the enemy target
Trick: Enrage: increases incoming damage and disables most ranged attacks of the enemy target
Only one Trick can be active on a target at any time. If another trick is applied to the enemy, the effect is replaced for the new one. Trick-applying skills are single-target only, but they become AoE when used from Stealth.
For more information, see Tricks.
Guide to the Burglar
The Burglar is a master of stealth and misdirection. He is able to confound his foes with a variety of clever and debilitating tricks. He also excels at attacking from the shadows, allowing him to take his enemies by surprise.
The primary role of the Burglar is that of a Support/DPS:
- They possess several debuffing skills which reduce the damage dealt by an enemy or increase the damage it takes.
- Furthermore, they have an arsenal of Crowd-control (CC) skills that stun, daze or root enemies, which helps when dealing with a big group of enemies.
- Finally, using critical hits and powerful bleeds, a Burglar can deal reasonable damage. When traited in the Gambler or Quiet Knife trait tree, they can trade in some of their supporting abilities to improve their damage output.
As their name suggests, Burglars often enter stealth to deal devastating damage with their opening attack or just sneak by unsuspecting enemies.
Gameplay
In Lotro, the role of a Support is mostly fulfilled by the Burglar or Lore-master. Lore-masters possess more and (in general) slightly better debuff skills and have two strong healing skills, therefore they are traditionally seen as the true Support class. Burglars on the other hand can output a reasonable amount of damage while fulfilling this role and, unlike Lore-masters, they can reliably open up Fellowship Manoeuvres (or FMs).
Further in this section, I will be discussing the most useful skills when playing a Support or DPS'ing. This guide is not meant to be strictly followed, at all times you have to keep an eye on what is happening around you, if a new group of enemies appears, your Morale is getting low or specific instance mechanics require using less used skills. Cooperating with your fellows is the key to defeating a difficult boss.
For a complete list of skills, see Burglar Skills.
Trait Trees
There are three trait trees to choose from:
- The Gambler (blue): Gambler Burglars rely on the roll of the dice to inflict damage and influence outcomes.
- The Quiet Knife (red): Quiet Knife Burglars pounce on their enemy from the shadows, dealing large amounts of damage on their opening attack.
- The Mischief-maker (yellow): Mischief-maker Burglars control fights by tricking their foes into submission.
For all traits and set bonuses, see Burglar Traits.
Support
There is only one trait tree for Burglars willing to play the role of a Support in a group: The Mischief-maker. The main mechanic of the yellow line is the usage of Trick skills. Each Trick applies a different debuff to the target and only one Trick can be active on any target. Four Trick skills can be earned in this tree:
Tricks are unique to yellow-line Burglars. When picking the Mischief-maker specialization, a Burglar has access to two different trick effects:
- Trick: Disable: reduces damage and increases attack duration of the enemy target
- Trick: Enrage: increases incoming damage and disables most ranged attacks of the enemy target
Only one Trick can be active on a target at any time. If another trick is applied to the enemy, the effect is replaced for the new one. Trick-applying skills are single-target only, but they become AoE when used from Stealth.
Depending on the situation, you should try to keep up a specific Trick on the boss. If it deals a lot of damage, Trick: Disable can be useful to help and keep everyone alive. If your group wants to kill it as quickly as possible, Trick: Enrage is mostly used. In a situation where the Tank wants to kite the boss, Trick: Dust in the Eyes can be used (that is, if the boss can be slowed).
At the capstone of the trait tree, the skill Trickster can be earned. This is possibly the most important skill for yellow Burglar, as it enables them to apply a version of the above Tricks (except Trick: Dust in the Eyes) that can stack to multiple targets. The base cooldown of this skill is 45 seconds however and most Tricks last shorter than that. The Word of Mastery tracery Tricks Duration & Resistance Penetration is a must-have for this reason.
Next, there are three Trick Removal skills that remove one or more Tricks for an immediate effect:
The first two skills always remove a "non-Trickster Trick". This implies that if you remove a Trick from a target with two Tricks on it using Mischievous Glee or Startling Twist, you can immediately apply a new Trick.
Other important skills to support your fellowship are the following:
- Reveal Weakness is a toggle skill which increases the incoming damage of one target.
Quite a Snag increases the incoming damage and attack duration of the target, while also rooting it in place.
Addle interrupts the target's induction from range and increases its attack duration. The improved version Improved Addle also decreases its tactical damage.- Riddle is a CC skill that dazes the target. With the set bonus Joke With Legs, its cooldown is shorter than its duration, enabling you to "chain daze" one target.
Burglar's Antidote removes 2 debuffs on all fellowship members with the trait Burglar's Antidote.
Exploit Opening is the basic FM opener skill available to yellow Burglars. It can function as an interrupt for "grey inductions" of enemies, inductions that are not interruptable by other interrupt skills such as Addle. Make sure to carry some marbles in your bag as another option to open a FM.
After the enemies are properly debuffed/CC'ed, you should try to use your bleed and critical chain skills mentioned below to deal damage.
DPS
Burglars can fulfill the role of a DPS, even though some other classes are better at it. They have access to strong burst damage and sustained damage, but possess only a few AoE skills to deal with lots of enemies. Two trait trees offer an approach to play the DPS role:
- The Gambler (blue) trait tree offers Gambles that deal damage over time, debuff enemies and heal your fellows as they deal damage. The capstone skill
All In increases your outgoing damage greatly for a short time.
- The Quiet Knife (red) trait tree improves your damage from stealth, positional damage (when attacking from behind the target) and Critical Magnitude (which increases the damage of your critical hits).
The main mechanic of both lines is the usage of a Critical Hit Chain. On a critical hit, the following skills become available:
After using one of them, another set of skills becomes available:
Blind Bet (only available in blue line) deals damage to one target and applies a Scrapper's Gamble of random strength.- Exposed Throat (only available in blue line) deals damage to one target and has a chance to open a FM.
- Flashing Blades (only available in red line) deals high damage to up to three targets.
Three other skills are initially only usable in the Critical Hit Chain, but are later replaced by an improved version without this requirement: A Small Snag, 
Feint Attack and 
Lucky Strike. All of the skills in this chain have a short cooldown and deal good damage, so they are used quite often.
A few other skills are used to enable your Critical Hit Chain, apply a bleed or provide another advantage:
- Sneak increases your damage, especially in The Quiet Knife trait tree (it guarantees a critical hit with Cunning Attack or Surprise Strike with the set bonus Improved Sneak).
- Cunning Attack applies one or more bleeds and is one of your strongest single target skills.
- Surprise Strike is also a good opener from stealth. In blue line, it applies a random Gamble from stealth.
Subtle Stab deals decent damage and has a short animation.
Provoke deals high base damage and increases the critical chance of your next skill.- Reveal Weakness is less potent than in yellow line, but still increases the damage of you and your fellows.
Aim (only available in red line) guarantees a critical hit on your next skill.
Improved Feint Attack (only available in red line) enables several stealth skills to be used while out of stealth, increasing their damage. Also applies a critical magnitude buff to you on a critical hit.
Gambler's Strike (only available in blue line) applies a Damaging Gamble of random strength to one target.
Finally, when playing as a DPS Burglar in a group, try to remain behind your target (which should be facing the tank), as several of your skills deal increased positional damage (especially in red line).
Equipment
The Burglar is a Medium Armour class and can dual-wield most one-handed weapons, but receives a bonus to damage with daggers as their level increases (see Passive Skills). From level 20 onwards, they can carry Tools and from level 25 onwards, Signals. It is also the only class that can use Clever Devices: marbles to open a FM, caltrops to slow enemies and deal a bit of damage over time and throwing weapons. See Burglar Items Index for an overview of all items.
Important Stats
As a Support/DPS, you should try to find a balance between defensive and offensive stats.
When trying to increase your survivability, look for:
To increase your damage, improve the following stats:
Choosing crafting professions
The crafted items that are most useful to a Burglar come from the following professions.
- Tailor: being able to craft medium armour and signals that you can wear, makes this one of your best choices.
- Jeweller: rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings make up a lot of your equipment slots, so this is a good option too. Furthermore, Hope Tokens are consumables used at all levels.
- Cook: Food can be consumed by all characters, which makes the cook a fine choice for you as well.
- Weaponsmith: here you are able to make metal weapons, caltrops, marbles and throwing weapons. At higher levels, you can start using Legendary Weapons and so this profession becomes less interesting.
- Scholar: Scrolls of Battle and Warding Lore are consumables used at all levels. Moreover, you can craft class-specific consumables for other classes.
Notice that these are all production professions, but the components used in their recipes can only be obtained by appropriate gathering professions:
Further Reading
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Restorative Gamble (green gamble): heal over time
Scrapper's Gamble (blue gamble): buff
