A Beginner's Guide to the Lore-master in the LOTRO

Master of nature, animals, and ancient lore, the Lore-master is probably the most versatile class in the Lore of the Rings Online. He is of all the classes, built for the fellowship, a supporter and an aid for a group of allies, a comrade not on the front lines in battle, but behind the scenes controlling the crowd. He is also a friend to creatures, calling on pets to assist him, not just to fight alongside, but also to give him or his group stat boosts as well. The Lore-master's wisdom enables him to have abilities that can drastically affect the outcome of a battle, as he can raise the stats of his fellowship and take away the strenghts of his enemies. A well trained Lore-master will be very handy for your allies and very dangerous against a mob of foes. But the Lore-master some say is a weak class compared to the others because he has low morale (health meter), wearing only light armor (weak defense), and without a wide selection of high damage attacks. Unless you're an MMO veteran who can quickly level up and earn lots of money from the start, it will be more challenging for a rookie to mold the Lore-master. Patience with this class will be required, since he doesn't start out with amazing spells, health, or defense, and this can wear down a player who prefers a solo adventure. The key here for the Lore-master is to be make wise decisions on how you level up from the beginning of the game. This class will take time to develop but the hard work pays off in the future, once he gets all those wonderful spells and traits later on in from level 20 and beyond. For example, the Dark Earth spell becomes avaible when you get to level 22, giving you the power to target a couple of enemies for damage and slow down their movements.

The Lore-master's magic is categorized into separate categories, some of them which are: melee, knowledge, nature, signs, and cures. For example, knowledge spells lets you control the environment, raising the temperature or influencing the air, thereby limiting an opponent's movements, attack, or defense. Cure spells revive fallen allies or heals those who are wounded. Once you get all your spells through level 10, use them often to become familiar with their strengths, so you will understand what the Lore-master is all about from here on out. Don't be too concerend how soft the Lore-master is from the beginning, because more powerful skills and abilities will eventually be available to you, like Warding spells. With these spells, you can create an area of the environment to hurt specific enemies that step in there, lowering their defense and reducing their hit accuracy. Through the first few levels, there are two things that you must know about your Lore-master: understand the benefits of your pet Raven's abilities and don't rely too much on your staff in combat. Your Lore-master is not a fighter. Don't ignore your first few spells that can reduce your enemies' accuracy, parry, attack, and speed. Take advantage of them. Learn to do this effectively, and it will have benefits for you in the future, so you will know how to complement them alongside with the later spells you acquire. The next part of my introduction to the Lore-master will be tips to improve the class better from the beginning.