I haven’t played LotRO since shortly after launch, never got the Mines of Moria expansion before either. With their recent second anniversary, and the price drop they had for it, I decided to give the game another shot and check out what I’ve missed. First up is one of the expansion’s classes, the Rune-Keeper, and tomorrow I’ll have the other — the Warden.

Rune-Keeper

The Rune-Keeper (RK from here on) is a nuker/healer, the slash between the two is quite appropriate too. If you’ve ever played Warhammer Online and tried the Archmage or the Shaman you know they have their own mechanic that revolves around using your healing or damaging abilities and getting additional effects for the opposite type through it — the RK uses the opposite of that, kinda.

The RK's alignment bar.

In the middle is balance between damage (to the left) and healing (to the right). The RK’s abilities play on these alignments, the more powerful damage spells require you to be shifted towards the damage side (with no healing alignment, in fact many won’t work if you have any points towards the healing side — this works with the heals too) and the same with healing. Many of the spells also increase in strength the further you are towards their alignment.

So, what does this mean play-wise? It means the RK takes a bit to get going. It also means that switching that moment around once you get going will be slower. Once you start nuking you’ll be nuking very well, but your healing will be crap. Same with healing. There are some ‘neutral’ balance spells that will set you back towards the center — these are helpful for shifting towards healing or damage, but it will take some planning ahead of time to do it right. If you think you’re going to need some solid healing soon, you need to plan on that.

I still haven’t gotten deep into the class, I’m favoring the Warden right now — before I loved the Captain, so I can’t make any overall class impressions yet. But the RK is a very fun and interesting class.

For other basic info: it’s available to Dwarfs and Elves, uses light armor and rune stones. The rock in the first screenshot is basically a totem that you throw down and it provides an AoE HoT. Rune stones have affinities such as lightning, different stones can have different effects on some of your spells. Rune satchels are the class equip slot item — it’s the bag hanging on the side of my character, basically a rune stone fanny pack. Wolves don’t like being struck by lightning, but it is fun to do.