Knowledge of the Lore-master

General Information

Level: 20

Effects

Using this skill out of combat will cause Knowledge of the Lore-master to occur on the target. Note that this effect gets applied after the inspect is taken. In other words, whether you take an inspect in- or out of combat doesn't influence the results of the inspection.

Interactions

The Lore-master's Book Legacy Target Resistance (Debuffing Skills) decreases the resistance to this skill by up to 3608.

The Knowledge of the Lore-master debuff (out of combat only) does not stack. It does stack with all other Lore-master debuffs, though.

Tactical Information

This Analysis box pops up after using Knowledge of the Lore-master on an enemy target. The result will show the relative difficulty of the creature for your Lore-master.

The skill Knowledge of the Lore-master is useful to detect the strengths and weaknesses of enemy targets. Upon use, a box entitled "Analysis Details" will pop up. This box looks like the one to the right, with the exception that it is of course filled in.

Example will be replaced with the name of the creature. Level, Genus, Species, Max Health, Max Power, Type and Alignment are self-explanatory. Combat Effectiveness, Resistances and Mitigation will show results varying from Feeble, Poor, Average, Fair, Good, Superior, Remarkable and Incredible to Extraordinary, with exceptions to Fellowship Maneuver, Stun/Mez and Root Immunity. The latter only show True or False. In the Analysis box, they show up as follows:

Feeble - Poor - Average - Fair - Good - Superior - Remarkable - Incredible - Extraordinary

The result shown in the Analysis Details might not be the same for all Lore-masters. This is because the game tries to give an idea of how hard the creature is compared to the particular Lore-master inspecting it. The results of an inspection of the same creature will be different if taken by two Lore-masters of which one has a much higher or lower level than the other. This is how it works:

Each creature has certain ratings, which the game converts to percentages using special formulae.

For combat effectiveness and resistances this formula is:

% = Creature Rating / ((1190/3) x Lore-master Level + Creature Rating)

For mitigations, this formula is:

% = Creature Rating / (150 x Lore-master Level + Creature Rating)

Based on the resulting percentages, the game sorts each mitigation, resistance or combat effectiveness into a category (Feeble, Poor, Average, Fair etc). We do not know the exact ranges of these categories, but here is an extremely rough guess only valuable as a manner to illustrate:

0-1% = feeble, 1-3% = poor, 3-5% = average, 5-7% = fair, 7-9% = good, 9-11% = superior, 11-13% = remarkable, 13-15% = incredible (for ratings that cap at 15%, like resistances)

Lastly a trick on discovering the weaknesses of enemies: sometimes it looks like all the mitigations of an enemy are the same, even though they are in fact not. One value can be at the lower end of the category, while another is at the higher end of the same category. It would look in the inspect as if the resistances or mitigations of these are the same, even though there is in reality a difference of several percentages. A way to get around this is to apply an armour debuff such as Ancient Craft to the enemy. The more armour debuffs you apply, the better it works, so use more if you have them at your disposal (e.g. traited Rend if you have a pocket Champion). If you inspect while an armour debuff is applied, some values might just shift into another category.
It seems like this trick only works for hard enemies (i.e. instance bosses) and enemies that are some levels above your own level. On lower level enemies, applying Ancient Craft will just result in resistances and mitigations that are all Feeble.

Now about the interaction of the skill with creatures:
Using Knowledge of the Lore-master will not cause an enemy to aggro. Using it on a stealthed enemy will break it out of stealth, but will not aggro it. You can thus safely inspect without having to fight.
Knowledge of the Lore-master cannot be used on Monster Players ("creeps") or friendly players in a spar. It can, however, be used on pets, since the game regards them as NPCs. The pet hatchling of Spider monster players can be inspected if it is in combat. The pets of Lore-masters can be inspected during a spar, as long as they're in combat. Heralds of Captains can even be inspected out of combat during a spar. Even Skirmish Soldiers can be inspected in combat if you summon them in a housing area and spar there.

Trivia

Other classes can inspect as well, but need a Wildlife of Middle-earth Tome (consumed on use) for it, bartered at Caras Galadhon.

References

Crit / BPE / Resist / Mitigation Ratings: How they convert to % based on level - Thread on the LotRO forums containing the rating formulae
User talk:Ravanel/Archive 2011#Interesting_observation_about_LM_and_mob_stats - Contributor discussion about how to use Knowledge of the Lore-master on creature articles