Deeds of the Lone Lands

As I felt I was falling a bit behind in levels relative to the quests I had been chasing in the Lone Lands, having rushed into the zone a bit early, I decided to take a level or two off from questing to pursue some of the deeds available in the zone.

You know which server I’m talking about

In LOTRO deeds are something like achievements and something like quests and they come in a few regular flavors.  You can finish them by doing quests in a zone, but visiting points of interest, by slaying some of the nearby mobs, by gaining reputation with the local faction, and by simply using some of your skills a bunch of time.

Pretty standard achievement stuff these days… except for many the skills thing.

The difference is that they sometimes come in different levels, they are very zone-centric, and that can pile on a lot of rewards.  You get titles, but WoW will give you titles for some achievements.  However, you can also get faction, boosts to virtue traits, faction boosts, skirmish marks, and even LOTRO Points for use in the cash shop.

North Downs Orc-Slayer Advanced Deed

As an aside, the fact that deeds hand out skirmish marks like candy means that you really don’t need to do much crafting to keep your gear up to spec.  The local skirmish camp… and they are outside every major settlement… will sell you armor, weapons, and jewelry that will keep you going.  So you have that, virtues to improve your character’s combat abilities, cash for the store, and reputation that will unlock items at the local faction store.

And still I don’t always do them, or concentrate on them at least.  But this time I thought I would take a day or two off to just work on those.  And while, as noted elsewhere, grinding mobs isn’t as good for xp as quests, if you persist at it you will get your due there.

I had also gotten a deed accelerator writ as a daily Hobbit present.  For 90 minutes each kill would count double.  So I decided to use that wisely.

The Lone Lands

On the list was a deed for slaying trolls.  Those are tough, signature mobs and, aside from the one you meet at the summit of Weathertop, they only show up in the swampy eastern portion of Harloeg, in the southeast of the zone.  I headed out there to find some trolls.

He is a big boy

I needed 40 trolls for the first deed, which included a title, a 80 more for the advanced deed.  But with the writ running for 90 minutes and one in the bag already, I just needed to kill 59 trolls to get there.  So I found a quiet corner of Harloeg with plenty of trolls close by, put on a podcast, and set to work.

Thanks to another troll hunter who happened by for a bit… casual team ups are definitely a thing in LOTRO… I actually finished up the trolls more quickly than I thought I would, getting the advanced deed done with an hour still left on my writ.

I headed over to Haragmar, a bit to the north, to use the remaining time on the writ to get the advanced deed for wights out of the way and then get stuck into the bog lurkers for another deed.  Bog lurkers are a bit rare, but both deeds together need just 90 overall.  I managed to knock out the first deed for 30 and get 30 out of 60 for the advanced deed before time ran out.

I was keen to get the slayer deeds done as they wrapped up into a meta deed that I had never bothered to do before.  With four months or so to get ready for Moria I figured I could spend the time.  In addition to trolls, wights, and bog lurkers, I needed to kill craban (those spying birds), goblins, orc, spiders, and wargs.

Craban are everywhere in the zone.  Goblins are all over the western half, and I was well into that deed, while orcs are all over the eastern half of the zone, so I wasn’t worried on that front.  What I really needed was bog lurkers, though I was pretty set there, and spiders, which are pretty common, though you need a 180 for both deeds, and wargs, which are not uncommon but you need 150.

It was easy enough for me to run around and finish off the goblins and the orcs and the craban.  Then I made a pretty big dent in the spiders, though the wargs were giving me some trouble.  They spawn in a range of areas, but seem to share the spawn table with other mobs that people don’t care so much about, so they tend to be hunted off the map unless you want to stand around and work the spawn table by clearing out the other mobs so wargs can pop.

Spending time with that got me up to level 29, at which point I decided to pick up with quests again.  I had about exhausted all the quests in Ost Guruth save for the story line quest with Radagast the Brown.  So I followed him through the Red Pass.

Radagast and his little animal pals

That gave me access to the quest lines into Agamaur where, among other things, I was set to hunt bog lurkers.  I was successful in that, as well as in finding another rare creature of the realms.

The idle level 31 bard in the Red Pass

Having managed to knock out the bog lurkers, I was left with only spiders and wargs, and I was about 30 shy on each.

I headed back out to work the spawn table a bit more, sitting in a little dell where orcs, spiders, and wargs shared the same spawns.  I just cleared out anything that spawned, collecting spiders and wargs as they appeared.

I was not alone in my quest for wargs.  I spotted at least three people passing by again and again, on the roam for wargs, tagging mine if they were in time, but not touching any other mob, and so basically populating all the spawn points with things other than wargs.

Spiders finished up first, but not too long later I finally got that last warg.

The last warg done

And that, in turn, popped this.

Slayer of the Lone Lands

The rewards that show up in the first screen shot are for both deeds.  That got me two out of three of the meta deeds that would unlock the finish off the final deed for the Lone Lands.

All the meta

I just needed the explorer deed.  So I headed back up to the Red Pass, which was the only place I hadn’t explored, and carried on with the quests there.  I soon hit level 30, which is actually required to even get the final exploration deed.

However, it was not going to be as easy as all of that.  I managed to grab the first few locations fairly quickly, but the balance of them are deep in the east side of Garth Agarwen, which is an area for fellowships.  The quests that would lead me through to the points I wanted to visit were not viable for me at level 30, and certainly not alone.

All group quests

However, on hitting level 30 I also received the second quest aimed at getting me to Oatbarton and Evendim.  I figured that probably ought to be my next major destination.  I would return to the Lone Lands to get that last set of deeds done later.   Though, in doing the quests I could, I did get to kindred status with the Eglain, the local faction, which allowed me to purchase their signature mount.

The mount of the Eglain

I can ride that on into Evendim.  But first I had to make a detour to Esteldin in the North Downs as the story line required me to check in there for a few tasks.  But after that, Evendim.

Rushed to the Lone Lands

Back to the LOTRO Legendary server.

Just going to be in every Legendary post

It has been long enough since I have played the low level game in LOTRO… still the best part of LOTRO to my mind… that I have lost some of the “feel” as to where I ought to be for a given level.  I have to take the game’s word for where I ought to go next.  I last left off heading to the Old Forest.

Very atmospheric, but the fog machine only covers some of the zone

I was rolling through there, slaughtering as usual, when the game popped up a quest for me pointing me at the Lone Lands.  I had just hit level 19 and was starting to level out of the Old Forest, the quests having all gone that aqua blue color.

Visit the Lone Lands

I still had the Barrow Downs and Tom Bombadil to see to however, the latter being part of the main story line, so I figured I would put off heading out for at least a level while I worked on that.

The leveling and quests have always been a bit off, but with the experience reduction set for the server it was more on track than it has been for a while.

40% of quest sale

And it did seem pretty spot on as I moved through the opening quests out of Thorin’s Hall.  There is that odd set out of Gondomon where you’re level 8 or 9, get a level 12 quest in a chain, but then the quest after it goes back to level 10, but for the most part I was on track through there.

Things seemed to get a little off the rails in Bree, though I suspect that gaining experience through harvesting and crafting wasn’t helping me.  I can’t remember when harvesting and crafting started giving you experience.  It wasn’t there at launch… I don’t think it was.  Anyway, it showed up at some point and the Blizzard copied the idea for WoW.

Anyway, I left some quests behind in Bree and a few more in the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs.  Some of them I didn’t mind.  I wasn’t going to chase Lalia all over again.

Must suppress this memory…

I did run up to Hengstacer Farm to do the quests up around there.  That wide range of open and almost empty land around Nen Harn is something I couldn’t pass up.  Then there was that odd quest that asked you to speak to Elrond in Rivendell, which I figured I would pick up and look into later.  I don’t recall Gandalf teleporting you up there, he not being all that big on overt magic.  But there I was!

Wait, I just skipped a few chapters I think

But eventually I ran down the quests up at the north end of the zone of the Bree fields and wrapped up things in Rivendell. Having hit level 21 along the way I was feeling a bit worried about getting too far ahead, so I started out for the Lone Lands.  Soon the Forsaken Inn was in sight.

Still have to fix that roof

Of course, on arriving I found I was anything but too late.  The first couple of quests were about on level, but most everything to hand was three or four levels up from me.  I ran through a few… being a guardian means I can take a punch and keep going, and the Forsaken Inn drops a good dozen quests on you right away… but eventually I started thinking that maybe I had missed something along the way.

Then, looking in my quest log, I found that quest about getting to Trestlebridge.  You get that as part of the intro quest lines on your arrival at Bree.  The mayor seems almost indecently eager to send you on to some other jurisdiction, like he thought I was there just to… well… I guess I was there to cause trouble and murder the locals.  He might have been on to something.

Anyway, that quest was already fading into blue so I figured maybe I ought to go up there and get a few levels before getting stuck into the Lone Lands.

Of course, on arriving there, I found the quests equally above my level.  I knocked out a few, managing to level up myself, before deciding to head back to the Lone Lands to just see what I could do.

Back at the Forsaken Inn, I started cleaning up around the area, ending up with my friend Pengail, who cannot bear to see a living goblin.

Still better than Lalia

At that point I had fallen behind the curve with everything but the main story.  So I made my way around to Candaith’s camp and helped him out with his work around Weathertop.

That put me ahead, to level 24, so when I was done there I could start clearing out the quests at the west end of the Lone Lands fairly steadily.  I did notice that experience started to taper off noticeably at about that point as well.  That was bad timing as I was really at a point when I felt I needed a bit of a boost to catch up to the zone.

I supplemented my experience gain with the local task quests… I was bypassing those… and carrying on with trade skill harvesting and processing.  I also took another ride around to the North Downs to run down some quests there for a bit of an additional boost.

Still, as noted, the guardian is a strong solo class.  My guy does decent damage and his mitigation skills keep him from taking too big of a hit from higher level mobs.  And, of course, the Lone Lands are practically like home to me.  I know where to go, how to get there, and generally where to find the things in the zone.

As of last night I stand at level 26 and am facing the quests between Ost Guruth and the Trollshaws.

The Lone Lands, little flags marking where I have been

Keeping with how things have gone, the quests are levels 29 and 30.  I’m tempted to put that xp boosting item in my pocket for a couple of levels.

Continuing on with the same “too early” trend, in Ost Guruth you immediately get the quest chain that eventually sends you off to Oatbarton, at the far end of the Shire, which starts you off towards Evendim and Annuminas.  That, too, is an area in which I very much enjoy questing.  But I will hold off on that… the starter quest itself is level 30… until I’ve finished up in the Lone Lands… and maybe the North Downs as well.

On the plus side, I have managed to stick with my second character so far.  I do tend to alt like crazy at some point when playing LOTRO.