Lord Of The Rings Online: Beta Journal Wednesday: December 27, 2006

From the official site:

For today's Beta Journal, we asked our Beta Program participants to talk about the experience of playing the Burglar Class.

---

I'm with some burglars that fellowship together in all-stealth groups, and for us, play is a little different. As in most games, the penalty for stealth is speed and so the all-burglar game is a slower paced game. As you approach each encounter, even the incidental ones, there is time to plan as you creep up to the mobs. Who will take which mobs and in what order? Where do we approach from? It is this planning aspect I enjoy about the class. Burgling is a thinking hobbit's game - oh and those big folk too.

Last Friday our usual leader was out and I was subbing in as leader. With me were two other burglars, a human the same level and another hobbit two levels lower - we'll call them "Wingman" and "Lowbie". We headed into the goblin camps in the Lonelands. The goblins in this area have a series of camps, each different in layout with two to four goblins in each and usually one warg (a very large wolf).

The warg is a concern for burglars. Our mez (mesmerization spell), called a "riddle" in honor of the original Bilbo Baggins' ability in such things - only works on talking bipeds. We can't mez animals or insects. Further - wargs and other dogs seems to have an enhanced sense in detecting us stealthed. So even though the wargs are often the lowest level in a camp - they deserve the most planning attention.

As we were approaching one of the camps I was sending the orders. It doesn't seem right for those in a stealth group (think Navy Seals or Ninjas) to be talking. Hand signals don't work because you might not be looking at the leader at the right time so we use a form of chat where we've mapped pre-determined hand-signal-like messages to the alt-keys on the keyboard to send messages without moving our focus to the chat window or spending a lot of time typing in combat (or mostly pre-combat).

There were three goblins in the camp and one warg. Two of the goblins were higher and the warg was low in level. One goblin seemed to be strolling on a route; the other two stationary in the middle of the camp by the fire. The warg was standing out front towards us, as if on guard. I sent instructions that Wingman should attack the guy on the route - I'd attack the warg and mez the center one and our lowbie would try and mez theirs. After I finished off the warg, we'd still have a mez left and we should be able to take them almost one by one. My fellow burglars, stealthed, fanned out to get behind their targets.

Burglars get a bonus for attacking from behind and another for attacking from stealth - so if you can do both - it is the strongest attack you can make. For this reason the pace is even slower for burglar work. Each encounter starts with everyone getting into place for the back attack.

As they were fanning out I noticed that the warg was separated from the camp by quite a bit - and the moving goblin was pretty far out on the route too. If I could take down the warg alone - this camp would be cake - three on three. I sent my fellowship a note: "I think I can pull the warg". I whipped out a dagger and threw it.

The whole camp turned and charged and my friends weren't in position. I fired off my mez on the goblin I was supposed to hit - and it failed. Before I knew it I had four on me - the burglar's nightmare. Realizing I'd just created a Leroy Jenkins moment - I sent "run!" - really indicating they should stay stealthed and I'd take the fall, but the other two in my fellowship came chasing the goblins.

When they hit me - I focused on the biggest one and just hoped I could evade and parry enough to survive awhile - but my morale was plummeting like the great ball in Times Square on New year's Eve. I was not long for this fight. Then Wingman pulled the back attack on his target and grabbed aggro, and Lowbie hit hers with a conjunction!

Desperately, I hit the green button from her conjunction and the healing hit me like the annual rain storm on the Mojave; I was saved. Within a couple of seconds the goblin attacking me dropped. The warg was still chewing on my patootie, but I had an open back attack on the goblin on Lowbie and I took it. Shortly, Wingman pulled the warg off me when he finished his goblin. It was three on one on the warg by that time and soon all was quiet. I was down to vapors in the morale gas tank for the second time in two minutes. We all re-stealthed and I sat down to rest while the others scooped the loot.

Me: "My bad. Thanks - you guys saved me"
Wingman: "Somebody has to"
Lowbie: "You don't think we follow you around to get glimpses of your normally stealthed hobbit butt, do you?"

As I was saying, burgling is a thinking hobbit's game.