Virtues guide

Virtues guide for beginners

You start earning the Charity virtue very early in the game. It's not the most useful virtue and the points are precious, so the sooner you direct them to a more helpful virtue, the better. What should that virtue be?

It's easier to answer if you don't care about doing instances as you're going through the content.. It's hard to go wrong with your primary stat or Confidence.

But if you do want to do those instances, Fidelity needs to be the first or possibly second virtue you get. Nearly all instances between 54 and 105 got buffed recently and many are extremely difficult to do on-level. Fidelity primarily gives you tactical mitigation which is a direct reduction of both boss damage and environmental damage. Your ability to take a hit is what allows you to survive those fights. At 65, Ost Dunhoth starts punishing your team for falling unconscious. Honour helps a lot here too. If you want to do T2 instances from level 65, getting Tolerance as well is a good idea.

At these levels, your damage from your primary stat is capped at a level easily reachable with crafted gear alone. If you want more damage after that, you need to get it from crits (or traceries later on). This is why a lot of players pick Confidence but not their primary stat virtue.

Hopefully, now you have an idea of the first couple of virtues to get. These are only safe recommendations this article can provide but they will give you time to research the rest. Each new endgame set can change recommendations but you can use something like LotRO Companion to play with builds. You also can ask experts in your class what they think. From level 105, you start getting Essence gear and this allows you to compensate for most earlier mistakes.

Remember to grab your hobbit prizes daily. VIP players get more Virtue XP from hobbit prizes than F2P & Premium players, thus wouldn't need to eg grab tactical mitigation, which provides minimal benefit in landscape, straight away.

The worst virtue currently is Patience. Likewise, only level Idealism and Mercy if you're sure you know what you're doing.