User:Tempos

Aldric's Guide to Turbine Lore

An assortment of ramblings and potentially useful tips on navigating the world of Middle Earth.

Beginner Tips

UI toggles

Enable the following:

• Induction Bar Display - this allows you to see when the enemy is casting a spell or other channelled ability, which allows you to interrupt the channel or avoid it by hiding behind an object (also known as Line of Sighting).
• Enable Skill Target Forwarding - this allows you to automatically attack your target's target when you use an offensive ability. This is helpful for two reasons - it allows healers to easily swap between offensive and defensive spells while not deselecting their tank, and allows DPS to attack what their tank is hitting, which is helpful for keeping aggro.
• Show the Vitals of your Selection's Target - this allows you to see what your target is targeting. Especially helpful for tanks, but useful for anybody.
• War Steed Auto Slowdown - this allows you to control your war steed's momentum with greater ease, which is important if you need to stop quickly.
• Lantern - this allows you to add an additional light around your character, which is very useful in dark places and not visible in bright ones. Default keybind is Alt + F10.

I'd also suggest disabling the profanity filter, provided such things do not bother you.

You are also able to move around game elements with the Reposition UI command (default keybind Ctrl + \). I suggest moving your portrait (the UI element that contains your health, power, and buffs), your target's portrait, and the target of your target to a more central location on your screen. This is because being able to easily see this information is critical; if you lose all of your health, you are defeated, and the same (generally) goes for your opponent. Since managing health ("kill them before they kill you") is the crux of LOTRO combat, having that information readily available is helpful. There is no 'right' answer for where to put the portraits, as long as you can easily see them while you focus on eliminating your enemies.

Incidentally, moving the target's "Progress Bar" (also known as the Induction Bar or the spell cast bar) to an easily visible location is also helpful for similar reasons; it's harder for the enemy to kill you if you prevent them from casting their spells.

Keybinding

LOTRO classes have a lot of spells at their disposal, and most of them are useful depending on the situation. As such, it's useful to have your spells ready at hand. If you navigate to the Quickslots section on the right-hand side of the Options menu, you can enable your Quickbars, which are sets of bars that you can put your spells on. Enable as many of these as you need for your spells, and then navigate to Key Mapping (also on the right-hand side of the Options menu, below Quickslots and Input) to assign a keybind to your Quickslots. Keybinding your spells is very important, because it allows you to keep your eyes on the action instead of on your mouse when you fight. Using keybound spells is also faster than clicking when you're used to it, just like using a bike is a big boost to your speed when you've learned to balance correctly.

If you're new to keybinding

I suggest keybinding a few of your most commonly-used abilities, just to get used to it. Commonly-used abilities should be mapped to keys that are easy to hit - that is, keys that are close to your WASD movement keys. Some examples for the QWERTY keyboard configuration are: Q, E, R, F, Z, X, C, in addition to the numbers 1-4. Of course, this is all relative, since the keys that are easy for you to hit will also depend on the size of your hands, your range of motion, and your keyboard's size and layout.

Once you've gotten the basics down, you can introduce keybinds that are slightly further away (for example 5, T, and V), or, more commonly, you can start using Modifier keys. Modifier keys are special keys, usually located to the left of your keyboard, which do not do anything by themselves - instead, they modify the input of a regular key. In order of (standard keyboard) size, these are your Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys. Holding the modifier key down while pressing the regular key (for example, Shift + 1 or Ctrl + Q) will let you cast an entirely different spell while still using the same regular key. This allows you to hit more of your keys quickly and effortlessly, instead of wasting energy and time by reaching across the keyboard.

One more thing - it's faster to turn using the mouse than it is to turn using your movement keys. I suggest rebinding your A and D keys (or whatever you use to turn left and right) and bind this to strafing left and right instead. Strafing is a little bit slower than running forward in LOTRO, but it is still faster than keyboard turning if you want to quickly reposition, and turning with the mouse (hold the right mouse button down and move it in the direction you want to go) is faster if you want to run in a different direction entirely. Changes like this may seem small, but they can really save your neck in a hairy situation once you're used to them.

Filtering

Filtering annoyances

Entering the Filter panel (default keybind Alt + R) allows you to filter out annoying items, quests, and sounds so you don't have to see or hear them anymore (unless change your mind). One common use for this is filtering out Traveller's Steel-Bound Lootboxes, because they drop frequently and are rarely worth spending LOTRO points to open. I also like to filter out eating sounds, but your mileage may vary on what bothers you. You can find more information about the Filter panel here.

Filtering chat

If you want to remove unwanted types of messages from your main chat (for example LFF if you're a solo player, or emotes if you don't care about them), you can right click the chat tab on top of the chat window (default name: General), left click 'Change Filters', then select or deselect any messages you wish (or do not wish) to see. It's also possible to create new chat windows to segregate different types of messages (for example, to keep loot spam separate from chat, but still be able to see both) by right-clicking a panel, left-clicking 'Create new tab', and then changing filters as before. New tabs can also be dragged out of the main window by left-clicking them and using the mouse to drag them out of the window, and can be joined back to the main window by using the mouse to drag them into it.

Assorted tips

• If an instance is scalable to your level, it can also be scaled below your level - this is very nice for solo instance deed farming, or just making quest completion easier. To scale an instance down, click the level box on the top left-hand corner of the Instance Finder window. Keep in mind that not every instance is scalable (though most are), and even scalable instances have a minimum - for example, Sambrog has a minimum level of 20, so you can't scale it down to 10. Still, this can be very handy in the right circumstances.
• You can reassign your toolbar buttons on the bottom of your screen. To do so, navigate to Options -> UI Settings, and the list of your toolbar options will appear. Click the dropdown bar to reassign any given button. I like to have my Reward Track and Reputation easily accessible with a single click.
• Speaking of reassigning things on your toolbar, did you know that you can reassign your bag slots as well? Open Bag 1 and click the cog wheel to the left of the bag search bar. This will allow you to move your inventory slots as you see fit; you could make one big bag for a simpler UI, six smaller bags for more granular item management, or something entirely unique.
• A currency that you've completely spent no longer appears in your wallet. Consider cleaning up unused currencies to remove clutter.
• If you are trying to search for a specific item in a window that lacks a search bar (some vendors, for instance), you can use your inventory's search bar to filter the results instead.

World Events

Ale Association / Inn League reputation guide (completely F2P, less than one hour)

You will need:

• Return to Bree (Bree reputation/Man racial deed)
• Return to Thorin's Gate (Thorin's Gate reputation/Dwarf racial deed)
• Return to Cardolan (Dunedain of Cardolan reputation)
• Return to Ost Guruth (Eglain reputation)
• Your Milestone set to Zigilgund
• A house (to be able to use Travel to Personal House)
• A 62% speed mount (or higher) - the faster you are, the more forgiving the run.
• A decent PC (the run is relatively tight and you need to load in fast enough).
• The quest The Road to the Lonely Mountain, given by Gandalf in the Prancing Pony in Bree, must not be complete. This is critical to the run.

Glossary of terms:

• Port: Teleport using one of the Travel Skills listed above
• Swift: Teleport using Swift Travel from a Stable Master. Note: only F2P Swift Travel is included in this run
• Stable: Move to the next area using a ride from a Stable Master. Note: if you happen to have Journeyman Riding and are comfortable with your pathing, simply Ride everywhere 'Stable' is mentioned
• Ride: Move to the next area using your own mount
• Gandalf: Teleport to Rivendell using Gandalf in The Prancing Pony
• Pony: Teleport to Bree using the Festival Grounds Horse at the Festival Grounds

Procedure - Please read before you begin!

1. Starting at The Party Tree in The Shire, pick up every quest available from the Ale Association NPC.
2. Ride to Frogmorton in The Shire. Pick up a drink order from the inn.
3. Ride to Bywater in The Shire. Pick up a drink order from the inn.
4. Ride to Hobbiton in The Shire. Pick up a drink order from the inn.
5. Ride to Michel Delving in The Shire. Pick up a drink order from the inn.
6. Ride to the Shire Homesteads.
7. Swift to Bree Homesteads.
8. Ride to The Forsaken Inn in the Lone Lands. Pick up a drink order from the inn.
Port to your Homestead
9. Swift to The Party Tree in The Shire.
10. Ride to Brockenborings in The Shire. Pick up a drink order from the inn. Deliver a drink order to Foxglove Grubb, who can be found near the stable master.
11. Stable to Oatbarton. Deliver a drink order to Harigar Mudbottom, who can be found to the north of the stable master.
Port to Bree
12. Ride to The Prancing Pony in Bree. Pick up two drink orders from the inn.
13. Gandalf to Rivendell.
14. Stable to Gloin's Camp.
15. Swift to High Crag.
16. Swift to Hrimbarg. Deliver a drink order to Óli, who can be found by going up the stairs to the right of the stable master, then going left.
17. Swift to High Crag.
18. Swift to Gloin's Camp.
19. Ride to The Last Homely House. Pick up a drink order from the Hall of Fire, which can be found on the left side of the ground floor of The Last Homely House.
20. Stable to Echad Candelleth. Deliver a drink order to Saerliuthel, who can be found to the north of the stable master on the "roof" of the ruins.
Port to Thorin's Gate
21. Pick up a drink order from the inn, which can be entered from a door to your right, and then the door to the centre in the next room.
22. Ride to the Refuge of Edhelion, east of Thorin's Gate. Deliver a drink order to Lendasil, who can be found in the heart of the ruins. ^{[14.1S, 100.7W]}
23. Ride to Thrasi's Lodge, which can be found by following the path west from the Refuge of Edhelion, south from Thorin's Gate to Noglond, then east past Gondamon. Deliver a drink order to Alrek, who can be found just beside Thrasi's Lodge.
24. Port to Ost Guruth.
25. Ride to Ost Haer, which can be found to the southeast of Ost Guruth. Deliver a drink order to Wald Mugwort, who can be found atop a hill in Ost Haer.
Port to Cardolan
26. Swift (Mission Stable Master) to Trestlebridge.
27. Stable to West Bree. Deliver a drink order to Wesley Hopwood, who can be found to your right as you approach Thornley's Worksite.
28. Ride to the Festival Grounds.
29. Pony to Bree.
30. Gandalf to Rivendell.
31. Swift to Bail Avarac.
32. Swift to Esteldin.
33. Stable to Othrikar. Deliver a drink order to Múli, who can be found to the northwest of the stable master.
34. Ride to Aughaire. Deliver a drink order to Nathalan, who can be found on the far west side of Aughaire.

Port to Zigilgund using your Milestone

35. Deliver a drink order to Lófi, who can be found on the north side of Zigilgund.

You're done!