Lord of the Rings Online: Book 8 Instances and Raiding

June 11, 8:25 PMMMORPG ExaminerJaime Skelton

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Image: Turbine

A new developer blog by Jared “Amlug” Hall-Dugas from Lord of the Rings Online's development team has brought to light many of the changes that will be new to instances and raiding in Chapter 8. Per Amlug, players can look forward to the following:

• New instances and raids:
  • The Mirror Halls of Lumul-nar - a three-man instance located in Zirak-zigil (contains a hard mode)
  • The Water Wheels: Nala-Dum - another three-man level 60 instance located in the Flooded Deeps (contains a hard mode)
  • Halls of Crafting - a six-man instance located next to the entrances of the Forges of Khazad-Dum and Fil Ghashan (contains a hard mode)
  • Dar Narbugud - a twelve-person raid that contains 6 bosses with First Age Legendary Item token drops and the new Tier 2 class set
  • A ton of new quests for the instances and raids - opportunities to gain Galadhrim reputation, Rare Drops, and Legendary Item XP.
• Changes to existing raids:
  • The Vile Maw is now a little bit easier than the 2.0 current version.  Think of it as new version 1.5 with a slower transition from stage 2 to 3, slower pile-ups of corruptions, etc.
  • The Vile Maw and Turtle Raids can now be run 2 times a week
  • Vile Maw gloom went down to 140 from 150.  This will allow people to fight in 30 gloom when using the full radiance set
  • Hope buffs from Helegrod and The Rift have become a Radiance Buff that lasts 3 hours even if you disconnect or log out of the game. These buffs have been also been adjusted from +3 Hope to +10 Radiance.
• Changes to Item drops for instances and raids:
  • All First Age Legendary Items are now dropping only in raids via a token system.  We’ll get into the hows and whys of this system but suffice it to say, you now can pick your First Age once you get enough tokens instead of hoping the random number gods are in your favor
  • All 3 Moria raids will be dropping First Age tokens at varying rates — it is up to you to figure out where the best place to get tokens is!
  • A new barter system for the hard modes of the 3 new non-raid instances.  Every player will be able to loot 1 barter token from the chests if they achieved hard mode and will be able to collect and trade these tokens in for a +15 radiance piece of a 3-piece set or Legendary Item XP tokens
  • All of the previous instances are dropping more Second Age items per instance!
  • Tier 2 class set is now a 5-set bonus max rather than a 6-set bonus max so that players can now mix and match that sixth piece to their heart’s content.

The First Age system has been changed into a barter system. 4-6 First Age tokens will drop per Watcher's death in book 8, and Watchers will be available twice a week instead of once. Items will remain bind on equip so that they can be traded on the Auction House. Radiance items will now be more available for players to make it easier to gear for Watcher encounters.