I did finally manage to lose a fight in Evendim. Seven of them actually. However this only underlined how overpowered the warden class is, seeing as the fights that I lost were all in the Tomb of Elendil – an instance intended for six players – and despite those defeats I managed to complete the entire quest, except for the final boss – solo and under-level.
It wasn't easy. Over time I've picked up all sorts of free combat boosts and I used most of them to get me through a couple of the toughest fights, but that's not the point. The point isn't that it was hard, the point is that it should have been impossible.*
I was level 38 going into a level 40 instance. I was one player going into an instances designed for six players. I don't have an optimal build or optimal gear. I had, at that point, yet to even browse the rep vendor who is the source of the best gear in the zone. I took an essentially off-the-shelf warden into the Tomb of Elendil and did way better than I had any right to expect to do.
I did enjoy it. As I said in my last post the Tomb is a fun instance. It looks good, it's atmospheric and it has some good storytelling. Added to that it was by far the most exhilarating combat I've experienced in LOTRO since... well, since the last time I solo'd a group instance.
Which is the problem.
In the Tomb of Elendil I could take on 4 elite mobs at the same time – all of which were either 1 or 2 levels higher than me – and win. A fight with 'only' one Elite and a couple of signature mobs became a relaxing intermission and an opportunity to top my health up. Elite Masters were dangerous, but 1v1 they were killable, even with adds.
What this tells me is that the likelihood of being challenged by any encounter in the open world during regular questing is now something close to zero. That's already been my experience in Evendim, which has likely contributed to the sometimes sour tone of my recent posts. So much of what's to come in the Lord of the Rings Online is still new to me and this isn't how I want to experience it. Nor do I want to fragment the epic and zone stories by constantly jumping ahead in search of something, anything, that actually poses a threat to me.
*The only impossible fight was the last one, and as much as it might sound contradictory to what I've said above, I dislike the Nemesis boss types for being such a huge leap in difficulty from even the Elite Master mobs. It's the second time in LOTRO that I've fought through a difficult but doable instance only to be more or less insta-killed by the final boss – the first being an excursion into the Inn of the Forsaken a long time ago. I shouldn't have been able to get as far as I did in the Tomb of Elendil, but since I did get that far it just seems cheap to make the last boss so immeasurably tougher than any and every fight leading up to it.
So as I wrap up this run of LOTRO it's likely that when I return to the game it will be on another character, and my warden can take some time off until either the class gets rebalanced or the game gets substantially harder – assuming either of those things ever happen.
Will it help? I'm not sure. SSG have recently been talking about nerfing a couple of the other classes – Beornings and Guardians – based on how they've been performing in the new PVP server. That raises the question of whether or not all of LOTRO's classes are currently overpowered.
I guess I will find out next time.
An additional character (or three) was always on the cards for this game. There is after all a reason why my bank is full of unused crafting materials I've been storing for future alts. I just hadn't expected one of them to become my new main.
Comments
Post a Comment