The 2nd official Hobbit movie trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I832kArQM1w

Create your own ending to the trailer if you like:
http://www.thehobbit.com/index.html

Has Endingwen decided to take up the simple life and raise chickens? Or is this just to amuse the pets?

...and a new currency system, just when you thought you had the whole skirmish mark thing figured out.

Don't worry though, all those obscure emblems-of-whatnot and bright-coins-of-whomever will still be cluttering up your vault. Your superior 4th marks are still there until you decide how you want to exchange them into the new system. I don't see any reason to rush into that.

To answer the other two big questions I had when I logged in:

1) Epic book starts in the Scout Camp (far east, the ranger camp near the Big Trees).
    You are allowed to start in a group, but most of it is a series of consecutive solo quests. It would have been better in a group.

2) 3-person instances start in a big drainage pipe near Quickbeam.
     You cannot enter while in combat, so look out if you're accustomed to tearing around on your horse collecting a parade.

     Some of the special vendor items over by the 3-instances are guaranteed to give you that sinking feeling that comes when they really force a distinction between true raider gear and light raider gear. It's hard to see how it would be possible to come by the best items without spending months grinding them out factory style. Repeat after me: "we are here to have fun, we are here to have fun...we will not let the gear control our lives...."

I finally got to help slay the dragon this week and...it's pretty fun! It does require a lot of group coordination/cohesion. You pretty much need burglars (ideally 2) because missing the conjunctions messes everything up and there is a limited time window in which to complete them. Having a leader who knows the sequence for attacking the paws and who doesn't easily get lost in the tunnels is invaluable.

All that said, this run is pretty do-able as these big instances go. Easier than Watcher and DN by a long shot, and more forgiving of learning curves, imperfect gear, and all that. Equipment (includes virtues, potions, scrolls, tokens) should be as good as possible (when is that not true?) and some effort should be made to make sure of ample supplies as part of team selection,

Amryth ran it with decent rep armor and a spiffy pair of teal pants, but it was far from the best set in the game. It was sufficient with green pots, scrolls, tokens, and good healers. It's not a power heavy fight so prioritize green over blue and consider re-tratiing. Hunters have no use for crowd control in this fight so equip press onward and bow of the righteous.

Ancient Dwarf damage is theoretically ideal, but no one in the group had it. We managed. If you want to do the very best you can do, recommend going back to Dolvenview and running one of the sapphire shard instances to get an ancient dwarf damage scroll. If you have a +drakes, that's good too.

More essential than all of that though is team cohesion. The conjunctions must be hit correctly and quickly during the dragon-body phases. Certain realities must be accepted regarding player lag, player attention span, and player distractions. If you are expecting an important call or package, if your puppies need to go out all the time, if you have a small child with you, if you are you upset with Family Member X, you should probably not sign up for the conjunction team. Your team will thank you. The fight takes almost 3x as long if you can't get at least 2 of the conjunctions off each time.

About the fire breath of death at the beginning:

When you get started in the instance, It is pretty much a given you will get killed by the fire breath of death. It takes awhile to figure out the timing and the spacing, and don't stand on or near treasure. Enter the instance with the full knowledge and assurance that you will die many, many times just trying to get to the fight. No need to panic, just accept it.  It's a death by misadventure so your armor won't crumble. Just reset and try a different strategy. Your minis can take care of you at the bottom once everyone gets there, tokens will be lit, etc. Try to see the humor in it.

If you wipe after you get the fight going, the group can run back in after resetting without having to dodge the fire again. When your group wipes, and it most probably will (at least on the 12-man version), just accept it, regroup, try again.

It's similar in length to the longer Moria armor instances, shorter than DN. However, since you need to account for probably 2 total wipes while learning, recommend leaving 2.5-3 hours free to play it the first time. YMMV.

Amryth was forewarned and forearmed for this instance, thanks to the warnings and helpful suggestions from the kin.

Completed at level 70 with:

- level 70 bow with fire oil and relics (I'm going to have to deslot them again, sigh)
- bowchant (so easy to forget those)
- critted (from last expansion) +vit food and ICMR food (thank you Jeorl and Chritien)
- used Athelas pot early in the fight and then Man Heal later on; you could achieve similar results without the Man Heal by using heal pots early; elves should take advantage of Eldar's Grace
- two pieces of Dunlanding armor (*sniff* it was hard to let the instance stuff go)
- a new cloak from quests
- new rings (thank you Perigard!)
- new earring (from quests)
- new bracelet (from quests)
- old special necklace and pocket item, but if yours aren't the absolute best from the old instance drops, use the quest items on offer. There have been some decent (yellow/purple) ones. I'm sure I'll be replacing mine by 75 anyway.

This is all just to say the new equipment doesn't need to be perfect (clearly mine is rather ad hoc), and you don't need to have new stuff yet for *all* slots, but you should be running with new stuff for *most* slots. Otherwise, you have no Finesse and you can't hit anything. Very sad to be a hunter and not hit anything.

The two Dunlanding armor pieces I felt offered the best upgrade per gold were the jacket and the boots, but others could come to different conclusions. We need Finesse, new stuff has Finesse. The Dunlanding armor is helpful for when you don't want to mess around with crafted fancy stuff because it's level 70 and there are 5 more to go, but certainly fancy crafted stuff is an option for the well-connected.

START IN PRECISION, because you are going to want to cc the little guy. CC doesn't work on the boss, it almost never does,  so always try it first on the little guys. Use Precision because you really don't want to miss. Remember those big ol' traps from completing quests earlier? If you still have them, use them before you start the fight. If they run through your traps, remember Rain of Thorns and then move back a few steps. Hopefully you have at least two Huntsman traits so you don't lose focus when you do. Goal is to keep little ones cc'd until you have the big guy down, or close.

On that subject, it's easy to forget, but firing off Needful Haste, and Burn Hot is a good idea for big fights in general. If you have Shot Through the Heart equipped, remember to start with Barbed Arrow and then HS right away (you need both for max effect). The inductions will go fast when your Needful Haste is active so interruptions won't be a problem.

Remember to use Intent Concentration as needed so you can use Merciful Shot towards the end.

If all else fails, do not panic, do not quit, do not delete. Whatever the problem is, it can be resolved with some fresh thinking, patience, and help from your kin.

There has been some kinchat about how to manage the questing in Dunland. I thought it might be helpful to mention some themes that have come up. This is not meant to be the final word, but just to put some things down so everyone gets to hear them and respond/critique. Please add on as seems best to you.

Getting Started: Chose your Area
When you start the Dunland quest sequence in Enedwaith, you have two choices. Some feel that the Bonelands are an easier start area. Among other things, your Enedwaith weaponry is probably well-suited to killing the Dead. I found the area a little tedious, but some people who went the other way found it frustrating. You can pick which you prefer. You will end up doing all the quests anyway (see next).

Don't Run Out of Quests
The lvl 74s are telling us that they are running out of quests (non-bugged doable quests) before reaching 75. It is therefore probably a good idea to make the most of the lower level quests. In other words, really max out every area you are in. And on that subject....

Make Sure to Finish the Progress Quests
If you run into a new area and see a bunch of guys (it's still pretty much guys) standing around with no rings, it means you missed something. Yeah, you knew that...but it happens a lot in this expansion. Many of the areas are keyed to a certain quest. You have to finish the certain quest before it lets you pick up the next set of quests in the next area. When this happens, go back to where you last were and start hunting around for what you missed, finish off what is in your quest log, or both. Make sure you're helping all 5 people that the one key person wants you to help, etc.

You Must Unlearn What you have Learned (and then go shopping for new armor)
You will need to familiarize yourself with the new stat system and how it impacts your class build. You will need to do it soon. You will also need to let go of your old habits of thought about stats and items for your class.

There comes a point where things become difficult if you are still running around with your same old gear and your same old weapons, lovely and special as they are. You will be making things harder than they need to be.

If you are still thinking in the old way about stats, your old gear will look superior to any of the newer options for quite some time. The problem is that this is no longer really accurate. If you are level 70 and still running around with mostly 65 weaponry, you are nerfing yourself. Try something new. Nothing pre-75 is final, so experiment.

Your Traits Have Changed: Have you changed your traits?
The Virtues changed for everyone. Both the stats for your class and the virtues that carry those stats have changed a bit (some of them, anyway). Zeal is probably the most dramatic, just to give an example. Be sure to check out your virtues and consider trying a new arrangement. Do not panic about not having everything at 12 immediately. There are many opportunities to earn more Zeal etc. with the expansion deeds, many of which you will finish just by questing.

Class traits have changed for several classes. You owe it to your build to at least mouse over your equipped class traits and see if they still look attractive to you. Hunters in particular need to do this, as some formerly popular trait combos no longer make sense.

The Bottom Line
Run every quest you can at lower levels (65+), get new armor and new weapons by 70 if not before, read up on your new stats (like Finesse), take a fresh look at your traits, and consider starting your character in the Bonevales. If you've already run your main through Dunland, and you want to lvl your alts, consider doing some of your early questing in Enedwaith to help forestall the "I'm out of quests" problem.

Quel fara

Bowmaster


Why yes, those two things did jump out when I looked at the new set bonuses.
Essentially, Bowmaster is now all fun and no penalty.  The question is: why on earth would any hunter use anything else? They took a class that already lacked diversity in effective build options/style and they reduced it further.

   Bottom line: expect even more Bowmaster-to-the-Max hunters running around. It won't take nearly as long to deliberate over a trait set. Yawn. 

   Upside: We shall all be preserved (somewhat) from dumb-hunterdom. Not all players (hunters or otherwise) understood that the hunter grabbing the most aggro was not always the hunter doing the most actual damage. Hunters with the most macho trait set were generating threat faster than they were generating damage (more hat than cattle). Then they ran out of power (expensive cattle) and switched to endurance, at which point they lost all their trait bonuses and were effectively nerfed (herding goats). But no longer shall this brand of machismo be permitted: after the update, hats (threat) will more accurately represent cattle (damage).

   Downside: even less diversity, more boredom...and no quick way to size up the maturity of the play style of an unknown hunter.

Huntsman

It's hard to comment on this without going deep into hunter arcana (to the extent there is such a thing). Things cost more focus, but more focus is provided; there may be a small net good or bad here, but it's small either way and it remains to be seen how it plays out.

  Upside: Strong Draw now gives damage bonus to Pen Shot and Blood Arrow, Needful Haste cooldown reduced by 30s, and sometimes Rain of Arrows (not Rain of Thorns) resets on a critical (yawn, can't depend on it).

   Downside: With 3 huntsman equipped, we now get -2% inductions for each huntsman trait equipped (max 14%). That may seem cool at first because before, the max with 3 equipped was 10%. But...before, you got that 10% with 3 traits equipped. Now with 3, you only get 6%.  The old bonus was a better deal, because even those of us who ran with 3-4 Huntsman traits equipped usually liked to have the other 3-4 slots filled with juicy Bowmaster traits.

But, you may ask, have they provided new Huntsman traits that would justify going with 6-7 of them and foregoing the Bowmaster traits? Bottom line: not really. Effectively, this means the induction bonus is reduced.

They've messed with the morale boost on Strength of the Earth that used to come with Huntsman, though they will give it back at Level 70...to everyone. Why 70? Why not leave it as a sweetener on a less popular traitset at lower levels?

  The Bottom Line is the probable demise of The Wiley Hunter (contrast with the Machismo Hunter described earlier). It used to be that because of the power and threat costs of Strength, Wiley Hunters would trait up in Huntsman, take advantage of lower inductions and better focus skills, and start group fights in Precision to take advantage of lower relative threat per damage plus better crits, better focus, and reduced inductions. This avoided the more hat than cattle problem of the Machismo Hunter who typically had to start in endurance (and if using precision, did not get the huntsman precision bonuses). The Machismo Hunter then later got more damage out of Strength than we did, but as described earlier there was a heavy cost in both power and threat. The increased criticals + focus skills + reduced inductions gave the machismo approach a run for its money in terms of absolute damage over the course of a fight, and the fact you could start in precision without pulling aggro put it over the top.

Now that it is possible to go with the Bowmaster traits without the threat penalty, I'm not confident that the Huntsman approach can compete. I am still figuring out what Amryth is going to do, but I think she's going to wind up with 4-5 Bowmaster and 2-3 Huntsman. It used to be the other way around. I'm thinking we're all going to look pretty much the same, with some individual trait variety in terms of damage vs. focus vs. inductions.

Needless to say, they haven't really fixed Trapper of Foes/Endurance. Too bad: it would nice to be able to have the option to re-trait to be more burgler-like.

Last time I ran it, it turned out to be important to emphasize that when running away with the green eye, you have to keep running and not stop (stopping means death by green cloud). In other words, do not just run to the back...run to the back and keep running until it passes. The subtle distinction between "run to the back" and "run to the back and keep running" is rather important.

The cauldron fight is an endless power sink for hunters. There is no help for it because it's a DPS race and so it's Strength Stance and full out. I find it helpful to review all my self-power options before the fight so I am ready to use them. I use my first blue pot pretty early on. Then while waiting for blue pots to cool down, Intent Concentration provides a 585 power boost (check to make sure you have the power boost attached to yours). Sometimes I use Strength of the Earth, though that takes longer. Arguably it's better to take a few seconds to use it and keep going full out rather than trying to conserve power over the fight as a whole. Whenever I tried to be more conservative with my power consumption, we didn't get done in time. Fire oil also seems to help.

It is possible to get through Stonheight T1 with a warden/hunter/loremaster combo, though it did take a few tries to figure out the first fight. We had more trouble with T2.

Since the first fight involves having the DPS person grab Goblin 1 and burn it down, it is important to be able to survive that first goblin. The main DPS person should be prepared for as much self-healing as possible if working with off-healing.

It was helpful to trait Press Onward instead of Bard's Arrow. After burning down the first goblin, rather than immediately starting the fight with the second, there were a few seconds to invoke Press Onward (sans interruptions). This allowed me to get back to full health before starting in on Goblin 2. The temptation is to jump right into burning down Goblin 2, but actually the tank is okay for the few seconds it takes to Press Onward and get back to full health. If instead you jump right in with Goblin 2 you can't use it because you will be interrupted.

It may be helpful to use this even with a major healer to simplify life for the healer, but I haven't run SH with a major healer yet.

We had more trouble with the final fight in Tier2. Apparently Dale's really bad skills don't start to go off until he takes damage. I believer it was Mericc the other day who suggested that the key is for the tank to hold Dale without damaging Dale. I haven't tried it that way yet but it sounds potentially helpful. I read a guide that suggested the hunter essentially kite-tank Dale while shooting at the orc, but I died rather quickly attempting this (again and again). I thought of re-equipping to add more morale, but those 1500-2000 damages on medium armor are hard to address simply with more morale, and therefore probably have to be avoided somehow.

More notes on Fleet: 

A hunter is mostly likely to need the in-combat speed boost in two situations: a) strategy calls for kiting (intentional kiting) or b) the aggro dance has gone wrong and therefore the hunter starts kiting (unintentional kiting). Most cases of both seem to involve boss fights in close quarters where a speed boost is of limited utility. However, should you find yourself in such a situation longing for speed, Fleet may be helpful (if you still have enough focus left to use it).

The weird thing about Fleet is it exists in part to preserve focus while running...but it costs 6 focus to use it. If you are traited to emphasis focus while moving anyway (huntsman), you are probably better off moving without Fleet "helping" you (may cost more focus than you save). It may have more utility for hunters not traited for focus.

Another downside: you have to be holding still to use Intent Concentration. When I'm tempted to use Fleet, I'm usually already kiting and sometimes at that point the focus has gone down to the point where I can't. If I had been in fleet already, the focus wouldn't have gone down enough to make it impossible to use fleet...or something. At other times, I start running, I activate Fleet...and then the tanking comes back online and I don't need it anymore. The ideal Fleet situation seems elusive.

I have heard some other hunters talking about liking Fleet: please do post here so we can all benefit from these interesting strategies.

Just a little reminder for hunters: not only does Merciful Shot remove corruptions (as it has for a long time), but the newer skill Improved Dazing Blow does too. Hunters should remember to remove both of those skills from use for this fight, not just Merciful Shot. And now I go to follow my own advice. 

Lately some of the hunters have had some kinchat discussion of traiting issues, and I wanted to record some of the ideas discussed here for those who didn't happen to be around for the original conversation.

When looking at class traits, it is important to look at the set bonuses. When you look at the bonuses for having 3 bowmater and 4 huntsman equipped or 4 bowmaster and 3 huntsman, these are both potentially very strong, particularly for hunters who are interested in raiding/challenging group instances. We have several examples of each in the kinship.

If you are currently traited 100% bowmaster, you may want to re-think that. Certainly there are many valuable and excellent traits in that line, but you are giving up some pretty amazing bonuses in the huntsman line if you trait that way, and the bowmaster bonus maxes out at 4.

While many of us really like individual traits from the Trapper series, the big downside of equipping them is that you lose some of your set bonus from one of the other sets. This is certainly something to consider when you are deciding on your trait mixture. Moral of the story is: don't just look at the traits individually. Think of the bonuses as well.

Which bonuses are most important? This depends a great deal on your play style, whether you mostly soloing or mostly doing group work, and even perhaps a bit on what your group expects of you. If you are soloing or questing, you may find some of the Trapper traits so convenient that you don't mind giving up a bit of DPS for them.

As to which huntsman/bowmaster traits we like best, there are some areas of broad agreement (traits almost every hunter in the kin has equipped) while others are very individual. To some extent this is to be expected, since the whole idea is to accommodate multiple play styles. We discussed different perspectives on the utility of Needful Haste and related traits in particular. There is also some disagreement as to the importance of increasing skill damage vs. increasing focus/reducing cds/etc. that allow you to use damaging skills more often.

I wanted to post some of my observations and invite others to do the same.

For Oatbarton-3, Tier I, Merric and I ran it with Aratlin last week. The tricky part was getting the campfire/cauldron thingy down in time. It's always a bit embarrassing as the DPS when something isn't down in time.

Things will be different with different group compositions (this is Hunt/Guard/Mini).

Fire damage seemed to work the best. If anyone finds out differently, please post here. For now, make sure you have fire oil as things seemed to go a lot better that way.

As the sole major DPS for this fight, I had to be on the campfire pretty much the entire time, in Strength the entire time, doing all the high-powered skills all the time. It was a complete power drain. After realizing the limiting factor was the power situation, I retraited so that I not only could repower from Strength of the Earth and Intent Concentration (check to see if you have the power-up for this...also comes with some weapon legacies iirc) but also Press Onward. I used them all. Whenever I tried to be a bit more conservative with power, we didn't get it burned down in time.

If you are not the only big DPS in your group, it will also be different. This advice is good for situations in which you are going to be the only person pinging the cauldron object consistently throughout with big damage. This is also potentially a good strategy to try if your group keeps getting hung up on the water-running and hobbit-slapping aspects and missing things because they are trying to do more DPS than they can manage. If you as the hunter can do most of the work to burn down the cauldron, everyone else can run around with water and hobbits as needed and then throw some extra damage as they can.

Even with this focus, I still had to slap a few hobbits now and then. I stood uphill of the cauldron so I could easily step over for escaping hobbits without losing a lot of focus or time.

Sometimes too I had the eye and had to run to the corner. So long as everyone remains calm and you return to DPS as fast as possible following interruptions, it should work out. I am not sure about whether the eye came randomly or whether it was related to aggro (if aggro, tank is obviously going to be a big help in keeping the eye off you so you can do more damage). If it all goes wrong, go ahead and try again because the next time may be luckier.

Because you aren't getting shot at a lot in this fight, Press Onward is useful (just try to avoid doing it when you have the eye!). You don't need Bard's Arrow in this instance that I can think of, since nearly everything is an animal and you have a fear skill for that built in.  In fact, it is a good idea to remember you have the animal fear skill because if a mini tries to fear the spiders etc., it won't work.

At various points in the fight, the other people can and should come help you with the DPS. You probably can't do it all by yourself. You can however do most of it. The key is to make sure you can keep your power going without sacrificing damage.

In short: do as much DPS as possible in this fight and don't be shy about using big skills and crazy power. Make sure you have every possible power resource equipped so that you can keep your power going. The power and damage issue is especially important if you do not have a LM or another DPS class helping you take the thing down within the time limit.

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'm excited to run it again!

Well, here we are--and I don't think the changes are that big a deal. Do I miss the crazy old Heart Seeker? The reduced cooldown and induction of the new Heart Seeker have already proven practical, though less thrilling than the old version.

I am embarrassed to say I haven't really incorporated the new fleet buff into my play style, but it seems it could be useful as we wind up doing a lot of kiting and moving around in the new instances...and not only when we are playing half-tanks.   

I actually like the new Burn Hot. Before it was mostly useful either at the end of a fight (because all the power drained away) or in a situation with the luxury of allowing a re-power with Strength of the Earth (a bit awkward). I am going to have to remember to use it more often instead of saving it for special occasions. Now it seems to go nicely with Needful Haste early on in a fight. As soon as the tank seems to have the agro settled in, can do a bunch of damage and it may even reset before the end (reset time is now the same as HS used to be, to give an intuitive feeling for it).

Penetrating shot useful while moving--see earlier comment on kiting. Too bad we can't use it for Stoneheight without losing hard mode! (removes corruptions).

In short:
- HS is more boring but more frequently useful
- Need to remember to try the new Fleet
- Everyone should be experimenting with the combination of BH/NH earlier on in fights and in more mundane fight situations since the cooldowns and power costs are considerably more inviting

Other thoughts and ideas about the hunter changes?

Greetings kinfolk. I am assembling a team to attempt the Forges for my LM class quest. If anyone else has a LM at the lvl 58 point, please do come forward so we can get you set up as well. It will probably take us awhile to remember how to do this one but once we get there, it would be best to take care of everyone who needs it now before we forget it again. In case anyone was wondering, in order to do the LM class quest, we have to get through the final boss.

Offering to go at this point are:
LM - Daenaerian
Mini - Digger
Hnt - Tuiliel
Guard - Mericc (I think?)
Guard - Orophor
Burg - Varmit

I am guardedly hopeful we will get critical mass on Sunday afternoon and could perhaps run then; if that fails, Friday night has been suggested. Any thoughts on Sunday vs. Friday?
My thought is that on Monday the comps will be updating and on Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday we will all be enjoying new content; hurrah for that!

-Daenaerian/Amryth