Helegrod Raid Tonight!  

Tonight is the scheduled Helegrod raid with Legacy of the Last Alliance.  It will be an exciting time.  Some of us have been there before, but it's going to be fun no matter how well we do.  Here is a wonderful walkthrough to Helegrod if you'd like to read up beforehand.

For those of you who don't know, it's a good idea to bring some extra items to use during the raid.  +5 Edhelharn Tokens are required, a stack of "Flasks of Conhuith" to cure fear is necessary against Thorog, and other potions to cure poisons, wounds, etc. are always helpful.  You should also be carrying food, pots of Athelas and Celebrant, and anything specific to your class.

Please go sign up if you have not done so and you intend to run with us.  Here is a link to the LLA Calendar - click on the event and then click on the link to sign up.  Also, the alliance leaders are requesting that we use Ventrilo.  Please make sure you have it installed and working before the raid starts.  Here is a link to download the Ventrilo software, and here is a link to the Vent server information you will need to configure for LLA access.

Please have all your items in your bags and ready to go well before the start time.  Get signed into Vent at least 10 minutes before the start.  We are all meeting at the Bitter Stair, in the Misty Mountains.

Have fun, we'll see you in Helegrod!

A Beaut of a week!!  

Disregarding any of the Real World woes some of us are going through, this upcoming week promises to be an awesome week. Not only is Book 14 coming out, but we also have the Helegrod raid...

The LOTRO game servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, July 22 from 6:00AM - 12:00PM Eastern (-4 GMT) for the latest free content update, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion! Visit the LOTRO Lorebook to view the full release notes. If you'd like to pre-patch your game, please click here for more information! Thanks for your patience during the downtime, and we'll see you in the game when the servers come back up with Book 14! Get to pre-patching, guys and gals!!!

'Tis less than a week 'til the Helegrod raid and I am truly heartened by the sign ups from our kin!! We would love for a couple of couples that haven't signed on to come with us; you know who you are!  We could easily compose half of the raid. The other positive aspect of the raid is that it will be after the B-14 patch and the changes to the loot drops will be in effect. Just in case, here's the link to the Alliance page once again.

Gamespy's expanded Book 14 coverage.  

Gamespy's Allen "Delsyn" Rausch recently visited Turbine for a preview of LOTRO's latest free content update, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion, and the upcoming expansion Mines of Moria! Click here to read his overview of Book 14, and click here for the index of articles about Mines of Moria, including overviews of the expansion, Legendary items, and the new Warden and Rune-keeper classes!

Book 14 Developer Diary: Instance Updates  

Instances make up an important part of LOTRO, enhancing the storyline through dramatic and challenging experiences, and Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion brings updates to many of these. Read about some of the upcoming changes to instances in Angmar, Annúminas, Helegrod, and several of the epic Books in our Book 14: Instance Updates developer diary! Read more here.

Highlights: New armor set from from trading boss drops in Angmar's instances (CD, Uru and Barad Gularan). Annuminas instances and armor set reworked. Annuminas instances have been reworked to better reflect the appropriate difficulty each one is supposed to have. Helegrod's armor will no longer drop the pieces but rather a barter item like the Rift. This means that they've pulled the Helegrod armour pieces from any other treasure sources. They've made some Epic (Book) instances give rewards if you repeat them. For all of you escort quest fans out there, they've basically chosen all the escort quests from Book 4 and up to be part of this new feature. 

Alliance Rift Raid: Friday 11th, 9pm EST. CANCELLED!  

Knights of Amon Sul (KoAS) will be hosting a Rift Raid through the Legacy of the Last Alliance webpage. This is still an Alliance event, though. You can sign up for the event here. The quicker you sign up, the better chance you have to get a spot.

I know many of us have scared the bejeezus out of you with Rift horror stories, but we've had other experiences that have shed some light on the big boogeyman and it isn't as scary as it was before. Why the Rift now, when we never had much emphasis on it? The Mines of Moria expansion will have some focus on shadow damage, the Rift armor sets have shadow mitigation built into them. They also have bonuses to certain of your class skills as you get more pieces of the set. There are other sought after drops and there's a chance of getting Helegrod legendary armor in the chests (alternate sets of armor that give buffs to class skills). Hope you take the plunge!

Edit: Due to a sudden change in schedule by the Raid leader this even was started on the 10th. Sorry for the inconvenience and we hope this doesn't detract you from future events.

Mines of Moria and Book 14 featured on Gamespy!  

Book 14: The Ring Forges of Eregion (Roheryn release)  

Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion is now available on preview server Roheryn! PLEASE NOTE: These Release Notes are for the Roheryn Public Preview Server ONLY, and should not be considered final. Book 14 is currently scheduled to go live in July, 2008.

Welcome to the latest free content update for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar! Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion brings a wide array of changes to LOTRO, including the addition of Eregion, the continuation of the epic questline, and preparations for Moria! The team has also been hard at work adding even more player-requested features to the game! Click here for the Roheryn Release Notes!

Legacy of the Last Alliance Raid: Helegrod  

Legacy of the Last Alliance is hosting a raid for Helegrod on July 25th at 9PM EST. Enrollment is at the Alliance website. Helegrod is a FULL raid (24 people) instance dungeon. Legendary Class armor can be gotten in this dungeon as well as some other nice drops. Raid quests from Rivendell, Misty Mountains and other areas with desirable rewards can also be acquired. For those of you who are still apprehensive: sources say that Helegrod is easier than the Rift and that it can work with 18-20 people for most of the content. 

FOTTA's Guide to Urugarth  

After countless visits into Urugarth, and careful consideration of all currently available strategy guides and scholarly thoughts on the topic, Founders of the Third Age is ready to publish it's own guide to Urugarth.  Granted, some of the strategies described herein may seem unorthodox, but they are in fact thoroughly tried and tested, and deemed to be the best possible methods for our purposes.

We begin at GF, since we have found a creative way to get to Urugarth.  Go ahead and spend an hour or two gathering all the fellows, because we're going to use our Burglar to sneak in and use the mustering horn.  If for any reason, he happens to get halfway there and does not have the Carn Dum key, send your guardian to fetch one, and then use his whistling nuts to bring him to your location and open the gate.  Now we can reach the mustering horn, and summon everyone right to Uru's gate.

Enter the gate, proceed forward, veer left, and kill the mobs.  Easy.  Mez Sorkrank, kill Burzfil, kill Sorkrank, done.  Gj guys.  Back the way we came, skip the trolls because we don't need the Teeth of Grothorog.  Oh, wait - we do? - ok, turn around and get the trolls.  Go ahead and break the Lore-Master's mez and aggro 8 trolls; it's all ok because we have uber DPS and healing.  Ok, now back down the hill, across the bridge, and all the way to Arkur.  Tank and spank that mug.  Easy.

Now on to Lhugrien, the big nasty dragon, and here is where it gets tricky.  Most strats say to take on the dragon hatchlings one at a time, that way the larger dragons will only come one at a time.  But as you're approaching the top of the hill, make sure your Lore-Master goes ahead and pulls one or two additional hatchlings.  This way you can take on 4-6 dragons at once.  Right about now your Minstrel needs to be combat-rezzing your Guardian, cuz he's already dead.  Obviously we're relying on the hunters and the champion to kill those dragons before they get the Minstrel.  Oh, wait, what? the Champ's dead, too?  Res her then.  Now take Lhugrien.  She will seem a piece of cake compared to the 4-6 other dragons.

Now proceed to the warg area.  The crowd-controllers can stand around and do nothing while the other fellows kill Lamkarn, because Athpukh won't aggro untill Lamkarn is dead.  Alright, 3 bosses left.  Next on the list is Gruglok.  Don't call him, he'll call you.  Send in your brave Guardian to pull one or two at a time (or three, ok, but no more please); take out all Grug's buddies, then him last.

Now Morthrang is up inside, so go back up to the front door and get ready to ring the doorbell.  Wait, Guardian, I said get ready, I didn't say ring it.  Run from the pursuing plague of mobs.  This was the plan the whole time actually.  Here is the beauty (and the irony) in this method - we are exploiting the games's anti-exploit feature.  Haha, in your face Turbine!  As you run back to the entrace, the mobs get stuck one at a time, so now when you reach the entrance to Uru, you only have a couple to contend with.  Take 'em out, and re-trace your steps all the way back to the fortress, killing one or two mobs at a time as they come out of anti-exploit mode.  Easy as mushroom pie.  Alright, now let's get ready to pull Morthrang.  Wait, Minstrel, I said get ready to, not "go".  Ok, well, the Minstrel is dead now, so lets run back to the main entrance again.  Now we're there and Morthrang is still upon us - Minstrel go ahead and retreat and now you're right with us.  Funny how Morthrang is much easier to kill right here at the start.  Great work guys!

Last boss is Lagmas, and he drops a Captain item.  What?  There aren't any Captains left in LOTRO?  OK, well, let's skip that one then.  We're done!  Oh, our Champ lost the roll on Lhugrien's Flawless Scale, so we need to reset the instance and go back again.  Alright, just like before, when we get to the top, make sure we pull in some extra dragons to speed things up.  What the?  Tank is dead?  Champ is dead?  Mins is dead?  Why didn't it work this time?  Hmm.  Well let's make a note to go back and review the strat on this one.  Anyway, for now, let's res, and finish killing Lhugrien again.  Good job guys!

So here's a quick graphic view of how our mission went:



We'll run Uru again, but I'm not sure we could ever do it as smooth as this run was!

Grats to Adanbelnor for collecting all the items she needed for the class quests and on becoming a full-fledged Champion!  And grats to Grunion, Xanderric, and Daesonuil on the acquisition of some of their class quest items.  Special thanks to Daesonuil, Cainnadan, and Andribald for killing things for us.

Book 13: Doom of the Last-king is Live!  

Book 13: Doom of the Last-king is now live on the LOTRO servers!  For an overview of what's new in Book 13, click here.  For those who want the nitty-gritty details, click here for the complete release notes.  Have fun in the game!