LotRO progress and tidbits

Did I mention I was an avid altoholic? My highest character is level 25, and I already have 5 of ’em. Dream team of 4 on Crickhollow (four races, different classes, and all crafting professions covered between them), plus one on Gladden. That last one I just created yesterday for three reasons. First, house. My elf visited the Duillond housing area and I realized I want an elf-house. The problem is, my original team of four is getting a hobbit-hole, and it is not for discussion; I even got money set aside for a deluxe hole with bells and whistles (processed crafting materials, even – or especially? – at tiers 1 and 2, sell for ridiculous lumps of money). So, since there can only be one home per account per server, if I want to see the inside of an elven residence, I need a character somewhere else. Second, I wanted to try playing a minstrel. Third, I wanted a character that wasn’t part of the exchange network that is going on between the main four, so that, for example, I shouldn’t be thinking “is this useful for another alt, should I mail it” when sorting my inventory, or “I should go and get some leather so that another alt can level tailoring to make armor for yet another alt”. A character for cranky solitary times; escapism within escapism. So I went and made that elven minstrel on Gladden (and, tbh, marathon leveled her to 20 within the 24 hours that a rental horse is active. Now that she’s got four hooves of her own, I can let go for a while, likely parking her next to a task spot to log in once a day and unload them broken hatchets). And I want to say,

Minstrel is OP.

At least at low levels. I play Warrior-Skald (red tree), always in the Dissonance stance, and the burst damage is insane. I think she is doing better than my (blue) hunter, plus no energy resource that needs constant recharging (hunter play: as soon as you are out of combat, Focus. Got nothing better to do? Focus. You have this creeping feeling that you forgot something when you left home this morning? Check your Focus), plus self heals. Granted, she has no armor and no lifepoints to speak of, but maybe it is just my lousy gear (skirmish camp, here I come). Plus, the sound effect of the burst skills is annoying (basically, you scream at your opponent really loud), but this can be helped by turning the combat sound volume down, or just takes getting used to.

Today, I was yelling at trees in the Southern Barrow-downs, and paired up with a guardian who was doing the same. I took aggro off him every single tree, whenever I used anything except Minor Ballad! I don’t know how people tank in this game. Granted, if we were in an instance, I would have been in a Resonance stance, and wouldn’t have attacked unless the tank was dead (I am a big fan of a “healer heals, and if at times healing isn’t needed, healer sits back and enjoys moments of respite” approach – by the way, I don’t plan to heal with this character, or go to instances at all). But wouldn’t the same happen with any other DPS? Or is minstrel that much OP?

Meanwhile, for some reason the elven minstrel story line tipped it for me in terms of small things (not) adding up.

What do some obscure Englishman’s writings have to do with our awesome game?

I understand that making separate quest zones for different races is too taxing, but… Bree, of all places, crawling with elves? A human minstrel telling an elven colleague to prove her worth by getting on the table and singing for entertainment of the tavern guests, then praising her condescendingly and referring to her as “young blood”? Young? Look who’s talking.

Then, all these big heroic types like Boromir talking to my hunter like she is a one hobbit elite commando squad. “We got a problem that we don’t know how to deal with, and we think you are just the right person for the job”. Boromir, who hasn’t seen a hobbit in his entire life, and who doesn’t trust anything that isn’t Gondor military power?

These seem small though after reading that forum thread on PvMP (I was researching the thing to try and find out whether it is worth getting into) where someone argued that using monster alts to spy for the freep side was backed up by the lore. Indeed, what do some obscure Englishman’s writings have to do with our awesome game?