Skills

Character Topics: Getting Started, Character Stats, Races, Classes, Skills, Traits, Cosmetic

Classes	Be	Bu	Ca	Ch	Gu	Hu	Lm	Mi	Rk	Wd
Skills	Be	Bu	Ca	Ch	Gu	Hu	Lm	Mi	Rk	Wd
Traits	Be	Bu	Ca	Ch	Gu	Hu	Lm	Mi	Rk	Wd
Deeds	Be	Bu	Ca	Ch	Gu	Hu	Lm	Mi	Rk	Wd

There are 2 types of skills which a character can have: characteristics, or "passive" skills, which modify your character's stats; and "active" skills, which are abilities like attacking or harvesting. All characters start out with a set of characteristics that are unique to their race. More characteristics and skills become available as your character reaches higher levels.

Characteristics

Characteristics are found in the "Passive Skills" area of the character window. Types of characteristics will vary with race and class. Following are some of the types of characteristics.

Armour Proficiencies

	Beorning	Burglar	Captain	Champion	Guardian	Hunter	Lore-master	Minstrel	Rune-keeper	Warden
Light Armour	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Medium Armour	•	•	•	•	•	•				•
Heavy Armour			L:20	L:20	L:15
Shields			L:15		•			L:20		•
Heavy Shields					L:15
Warden's Shields										•

• Starting proficiencies

• L:? Level at which you can learn armour proficiency

Weapon Proficiencies

	Beorning	Burglar	Captain	Champion	Guardian	Hunter	Lore-master	Minstrel	Rune-keeper	Warden	Bonus
Bows	•			L:7	L:30	•					+% Critical Hit Chance to ranged auto-attacks
Crossbows				L:7	L:30	L:7					Ranged auto-attacks are 5% tougher to Block.
Daggers	•	•	•	•	•	•		•		•	+% Auto-attack Critical Hit Chance
Dual Wielding	•	•		•		•					--
Halberd			L:15								+% Auto-attack Critical Hit Chance
Javelins										•	Ranged auto-attacks are 5% tougher to Block.
One-handed Axes	•		•	•	•	•		Dwarf	Dwarf	•	Chance to lower target's armour
One-handed Clubs	•	L:25	•	•	•	L:15		•		•	Chance to slow target's attack speed
One-handed Hammers			•	•	•	L:15					Chance to lower target's ability to evade
One-handed Maces		•	•	•	•	L:15		•			Chance of slowing the target's movement speed
One-handed Swords		•	•	•	•	•	L:40	•		•	Parry-chance is slightly increased
Rune-stones									•		Sets rune-keeper affinity
Spear	•		L:10	L:10	L:10	L:20				•	Chance to add damage over time
Two-handed Axes	•		•	L:10	L:10						Chance to lower target's armour
Two-handed Clubs	•		•		L:10						Chance to slow target's attack speed
Two-handed Hammers			•	L:10	L:10						Chance to lower target's ability to evade
Two-handed Staves							•				None
Two-handed Swords			•	L:10	L:10						Parry-chance is slightly increased

• Starting proficiency

• L:? Level at which you can learn weapon proficiency

Accuracy

Accuracy in LOTRO is called Hit Chance. It determines the chances you have to hit an opponent and not miss. Keep in mind that it doesn't reduce the chance of your attacks to get blocked,parried or evaded.

Your Hit Chance increases by adding points to Agility. Also your Hit Chance reduces when you attack enemies with a higher level than yours and increases when you attack enemies with a lower level. In addition, some weapons reduce your miss chance like swords. For more info please see Hit Chance.

- Reduces Miss by a medium amount.

Critical Rating

Overview

Critical rating is an "Offence" stat.

Critical rating (CR) determines a character's (or NPC's) chance that any normal attack they make will be a critical hit. This is distinct from critical multiplier or magnitude, which determines how much extra damage a critical hit does. Many skills alter their own critical chance in addition to the base critical chance determined by CR.

Critical rating is converted into a percentage chance to land a critical hit with an attack. The equation that governs this conversion has built-in diminishing returns. This means it takes a larger increase in critical rating to go from 5% to 6% than from 1% to 2%. The percentage chance to crit also depends on your enemy's level. The equation used is:

•  % = Critical Rating / ((1190/3) * Enemy's Level + Critical Rating)

More information about differences in this formula, based on level, can be found here: Rating to percentage formula

To reverse the calculation and find out how much CR you need to reach a certain percentage, use this formula:

• CR = ((1190/3) * Enemy's Level * %) / (1 - %)

So if you want to have 10% critical percentage against a level 65 enemy, you put in ((1190/3) * 65 * 0.1) / (0.9) = 2864.8 CR.

At the time of this writing, the highest level of any enemy in the game is 68, so the CR needed to completely max out one's critical hit chance is 4760; against lvl 65 enemies, it's 4550.

In-game experimentation suggests the following magnitudes for critical hits:

• Autoattack critical hits deal approximately 1.25 times weapon max damage.
• Skill use critical hits deal approximately 1.5 times skill max damage.

Devastating Criticals

CR also affects your chance to land a devastating critical attack on your enemy. These do more damage than normal critical hits, but have less chance of occurring. Devastating critical hits still open critical response skills that many classes have.

Your devastating critical percentage is worked out in a similar way to critical percentage. To work out your percentage chance, use this formula:

•  % = Critical Rating / (1330 * Enemy's Level + Critical Rating)

To work out the critical rating required to reach a certain devastating critical percentage, use this formula:

• CR = (1330 * Enemy's Level * %) / (1 - %)

In-game experimentation suggests the following magnitudes for Devastating critical hits:

• Autoattack devastating critical hits deal approximately 1.5 times weapon max damage.
• Skill use devastating critical hits deal approximately 2.0 times skill max damage.

Devastating critcal hits were introduced around the time of The Mines of Moria expansion combat changes. They were discussed briefly in a Developer Diary from 22 Oct 2008.

Development History

Critical Ratings were introduced into LoTRO around the time of the Mines of Moria expansion. At the time, a Developer Diary dated 22 Oct 2008, elaborated on the changes. Tooltips were also improved to help players see the effects of this change. In the previous system, your character's ability to cause a critical hit was based on enemy mob level and percentages. In order to make the system more adaptable to future level expansion, a ratings system was introduced.

Update 9 - Dev Diary Update 9 - Combat Revisions - 13 December 2012

• Instead of reducing Critical Hit chance, Critical Defence will now reduce the magnitude of incoming critical damage.
• Once a hit has been determined to be a Critical or Devastating Critical Hit a multiplier is applied to the attack giving it the bonus damage. Critical Defence directly reduces this multiplier, causing a Critical or Devastating Hit to do less damage. The multiplier can never be reduced below 1, ensuring that a Critical or Devastating Hit will never do less than the base attack damage.
• It’s important to note that between the base critical multiplier value and additional critical damage mods acquired via advancement and itemization it is unlikely that a player who builds for Critical Hits will see their critical damage completely negated.

U9 Miss Chance Revision

1. These events are now called “Deflections”.
2. “Deflection” checks are only made when fighting a mob that is 4+ levels higher.

Dev Diary Update 10 - Critical Defence Revision - 28 February 2013

• Previously, we changed Critical Defence from a rating that reduced incoming Critical Chance to one that reduced incoming Critical Damage. In this update we are examining the other side of the coin and making alterations to Critical Rating and nature of skill crits.
• Critical Rating now increases your Critical Magnitude in addition to increasing your Critical Hit Chance. This provides a reason for Critical Attack builds to continue invest in Critical Rating after they reach the Critical Hit cap.
• The amount of Critical Damage reduction you gained per point of Critical Defence rating has been reduced. Previously you gained roughly 2% for every 100 points of Critical Defence, this has been reduced to roughly 1% for every 100 points. The reason for this reduction is a simple one -- we are now allowing all classes to itemize for Critical Defence.
• we’ve unified this system so that the skill makes a singular critical check; the result of which is then passed to all applied target effects that modify morale or power. A ‘target effect’ is any effect applied to your currently selected target.
• A skill’s critical result is only applied to the initial pulse of HoTs and DoTs. All subsequent pulses perform individual critical checks.
• Currently, Critical Rating is only applied to the skill and skill damage, not to associated effects. It’s something we are actively looking into, but we felt this could have a serious impact on heal potency and want more time for analysis.

U10 Impact on Monster Play

• Changes to the per-point value of Critical Defence will cause a significant reduction in Creep critical protection. Creeps will lose roughly 50% of their current Critical Damage reduction, which we feel is a good thing as the current values are so high that Creeps need never invest in Critical Defence Corruptions. That being said, we did feel this more negatively impacted the lower armour Creeps so we increased the amount of Critical Defence granted by the Rank 1 Armour Passive from 600 to 800.
• We’ve added a new set of Critical Rating Corruptions to Monster Play, to provide Creeps with an equal opportunity to make Crit builds. The premise we used when creating these was that if a Creep should fully invest in Critical Rating they should be able to push the Critical Cap similar to Freeps. Each Corruption grants 1717 Critical Rating, and all six can by acquired by Rank 4.

- Adds to Critical Hit Chance

Avoidance

Overview

Avoidance encompasses the three game mechanics of Block, Evade, and Parry. If you Block, Evade, or Parry an attack, you take no damage from it. All 3 are rating based mechanics, and use the Critical Rating equation to calculate the percentage chance to avoid an attack. All 3 use the following formula to calculate this percentage:

• Avoid % = Avoid Rating / ((1190 / 3) * Your Level + Avoid Rating)

where Avoid = Block, Evade or Parry.

As with Critical Rating, you can reverse the formula to work out the rating you need to achieve a certain percentage:

• Avoid Rating = ((1190 / 3) * Your Level * %) / (1 - %)

Note: the percentage chance to Block, Evade or Parry an attack due to your Block, Evade or Parry rating is 15% for each. Effects such as the Guardian skill Pledge which add a percentage to Block, Evade or Parry can break the cap.

Block

A Shield must be equipped in order to block, and your attacker must be in front of you. Your chance to block an incoming Melee or Ranged hit is determined by:

• Block rating = Might * 3

Evade

You can evade a hit from any direction. Your chance to evade an incoming Melee or Ranged hit is determined by:

• Evade rating = Agility * 3

Parry

A Weapon must be equipped in order to parry, and your attacker must be in front of you. Your chance to parry an incoming Melee or Ranged hit is determined by:

• Parry rating = Might * 2 + Agility * 2

Partial Avoidance

As well as completely avoiding an attack, you can also partially avoid an attack. When this happens, you may still take some damage, but less than if you had been hit normally. Partial avoidance is similar to Devastating Critical and uses the same formula to work out your chance to partially avoid an attack:

• Partial Avoid % = Avoid Rating / (1330 * Your Level + Avoid Rating)

where Avoid = Block, Evade or Parry.

To work out the avoidance rating required to reach a certain partial avoidance percentage, use this formula:

• Avoid Rating = (1330 * Enemy's Level * %) / (1 - %)

Note: as with Devastating Critical, the chance to partially avoid an attack caps at 10%.

Partial Avoidance Mitigation

This determines how much of the damage you avoid when you partially avoid an attack. The amount taken depends on the way you partially avoided the attack (whether it was a partial Block, Evade or Parry) and the damage type (Common, Fire, Frost, Lightning, or Acid). You can also improve your partial avoidance mitigation with gear, mainly as bonuses on Relics.

•  % Damage Avoided = (20% + (Avoid %) + (Damage type Mitigation %) + (Gear bonus %))

where Avoid = Block, Evade or Parry and Damage type = Common, Fire, Frost, Lightning, or Acid.

It is possible to increase your partial avoidance mitigation to 100%. In which case when you partially avoid an attack, you take no damage at all, just as if you had avoided it normally.

- Adds to Parry Chance

Base Passive Skills

Beorning

 Might of the Wild: +15 Might.

 Few in Number: -7 Fate.

 Natural Resistance: +1% Poison Resistance.

 Thick Hide: +15 Vitality.

Dwarf

 Lost Dwarf-kingdoms: -7 Fate.

 Stocky: -7 Agility.

 Sturdiness: +15 Might, +10 Vitality, +1% Common Mitigation.

 Unwearying in Battle: +30 In-Combat Morale Regeneration, +30 In-Combat Power Regeneration, -60 Non-Combat Morale Regeneration, -30 Non-Combat Power Regeneration.

Elf

 Agility of the Woods: +15 Agility.

 Fading of the Firstborn: -7 Fate.

 Sorrow of the Firstborn: -20 Max Morale, -60 Non-Combat Morale Regeneration.

 Suffer no Illness: +1% to Disease Resistance and Poison Resistance.

High Elf

 Fading of the Firstborn: -7 Fate

 Peace of the Eldar: +20 Maximum Morale, +60 non-Combat Morale Regen

 Sorrow of the Undying: -7 Will

 Suffer no Illness: +1% Disease and Poison Resistance

Hobbit

 Hobbit Courage: +1% Fear Resistance.

 Hobbit-toughness: +15 Vitality.

 Rapid Recovery: +60 Non-Combat Morale Regeneration.

 Resist Corruption: +1% Shadow Mitigation.

 Small Size: -7 Might.

Man

 Diminishing of Mankind: -7 Will.

 Easily Inspired: +5% Incoming Healing.

 Gift of Men: +15 Fate.

 Strong Men: +15 Might.

Misc. Passive Skills

Common

 Adept

 Journeyman

 Heroic

 Legendary

 Newbie

 Novice

 Master

Hunter

 Improved Range

Crafting Passive Skills

•  Track Mines - You are able to track the location of ore deposits.
•  Track Wood - You are able to track the location of wood.
•  Track Crops - You are able to track the location of crops.
•  Track Artifacts - You are able to track the location of artifacts

Instrument Proficiencies

		Beorning	Burglar	Captain	Champion	Guardian	Hunter	Lore-master	Minstrel	Rune-keeper	Warden
Bagpipe Use									L:25
Bassoon Use		L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5
Basic Cowbell Use									•
Clarinet Use			•				•	•	•	•
Drum Use									L:10
Fiddle Use		L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5	L:5
Flute Use									•
Harp Use									•
Horn Use		•		•	•	•			•		•
Lute Use		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Moor Cowbell Use									L:40
Pibgorn Use									•
Theorbo Use									L:15

• Starting proficiencies

L:? Level you can learn instrument proficiencies

Active Skills

Each class has its own unique set of abilities. The effect of the abilities grows as a character gains levels.

Class Skills

	Beorning Skills
	Burglar Skills
	Captain Skills
	Champion Skills
	Guardian Skills
	Hunter Skills
	Lore-master Skills
	Minstrel Skills
	Rune-keeper Skills
	Warden Skills

Milestone Skill

Main Article: Milestone Skill

Return Home — A skill that teleports the user to his/her last designated Milestone. This skill is available to all players who completed the Introduction Quests. Normally, this skill has a 1 hour cooldown. You may purchase aditional destinations or an (Unbound) Destination in the LOTRO shop. This will remain unusable until the player binds a milestone to this skill.

Fellowship Skills

See Conjunctions