Updated the title to more accurately reflect what it is about, as Okiryon stated.

Lore-masters once use to rule the ettens, able to stop any creep dead in its tracks, they were the ones who dictated the fight, rooting and stunning enemies to then be slaughtered by a horde of freeps decending on the poor victim like an avalance.

This of course did not last. With diminishing returns, creeps gaining ranks and nerfs/patches, the roots/stuns have become far less reliable and durable.

Still, it is most often the lore-master who will stop a creep and, in my opinion, it is a smart freep who will pay attention to this and use it to his advantage.

We stand still
The most important thing to remember about lore-masters is that like hunters and minstrels, they got to be standing still for most of their combat moves. Yet unlike hunters, not all their attacks share the same range. We need to be far closer to the front to be effective. This makes lore-masters poor at charging. Where a hunter can remain standing in the back at maximum range with no ill effect and minstrels can just decide to let everyone croak if they wish to keep up, lore-masters quickly see all their skills go out of range, or face just running with the group rather then fighting.

To be clear, NONE of our offensive moves can be performed on the go. With lag, it also often takes a while for the game to realize that yes we are standing still so let me perform the move already. We can anti-stun on the move, put a debuff up and that is about it.

We are stunning
Our most famous skill is of course blinding flash. On high ranking creeps it often gets resisted as do all our other moves. So when it strikes do NOT be a huntard and break it. Get as close as possible and HIT it. This is ESPECIALLY important for wargs, the moment a warg is freed from a stun he will attempt to stealth, so a competent lore-master will be trying to cast Cracked Earth, to take the warg right back out of stealth and root him as well. This however has a fairly close range and a long induction.

We are root
Our root, is slightly more effective but on a longer cooldown. Again, it is easily interrupted by damage. A good leader should be aware of a root having taken and be ready to make use of it fairly quickly as creeps have all sorts of means now to deal with them. Especially huntards, do NOT immidiatly hit it, wait for enough people to get close to actually make a kill rather then just free some one.

We cure you
We can cure 2/3 of the debuffs creeps can land on you, within certain limits, wounds and disease can be cured and most lore-masters are specced to cure this fairly quickly and for the whole fellowship including other then our own. BUT once again, we stand still to do it. Huntards can of course cure the poison debuffs, the reason hunters are huntards is that this rarely happens.

The power is strong in this one
We can share power, but it strips an almost equal amount of our own power. Minstrels get it, captains get it, the rest. Though shit. Again, we got to be standing still to share it and even worse, got to be standing still a LONG time with a VERY revealing effect if we wish to drain power. Drain power is VERY powerfull against certain creeps BUT it makes the lore-master a BLOODY obvious target.

We wear dresses
Lore-master are the only pure light armour class so far and lack the self-healing skills of the minstrel who can always opt to medium-armor and/or carry a shield. If you expect a lore-master to fight at the front and be of any use healing, stunning, curing, powering, then you need to keep them alive. The charge is fun and all, but creeps tend to love it as it allows for classic flanking manouvers if it is done wrong, and so far freeps charge WRONG!

We spill oil
Tar is useful BUT it cannot be kept up constantly, so we need to know when to use it. Ideally, it should be a back-up to traps, traps first, then if creeps are close, tar up. Creeps hate tar as it really slows them down and makes them far easier to kill at range with long induction skills.

We are few
Once, the lore-masters were as common as hunters, now we are as rare as minstrels once were. For to long, we simple got no protection, saw our crowd control interrupted or wasted by freeps unable to spot a rooted warg-pack 5 meters away eating up the minstrel. With increasing resists, the lore-master has become less and less fun to play.

If you want them back and be able to break up a creep raid and deal with them one by one, then freeps need to start being more away not just of how lore-masters work and how other classes should interact with them, but be aware that good fighting ain't all about charging in like made but about thinking where you skills are needed most. Sometimes this means some melee classes need to stay in the back to protect the support group. Standard military tactics. Do NOT allow you forces to be flanked.

Nice post, thanks for the work and please keep it up!

If you and other Loremasters could add more about playing the class and how and when to use specific skills and what are the best traits please add it later.

Very nice post, I learned a lot of things I didn't know about LMs. Now it got me thinking : wouldn't it be smart to maybe also stick an icon on LMs heads to see where they are in the middle of a fight ? I know, as a minstrel I'd thus try to stay in the vicinity of LMs for sure...

Nice indeed.

But first we actually need to get loremasters that can play their class. What to root,stunn, mezze. Where tar is supposed to be put down. If we have 2 loremasters, one should tar around minstrels ofc. And on can actually run with the charget and tar the back. That way we can split the creeps as they dont want to run around on the tar.

But other classes= Everyone should know from PVE that u do not unstunn a stunned target.

*yawn, long post*
just wanted to add a few things

Wind-lore is #1 most effective thing to unstealth/scare wargs
Earth-Quake is #2 because they know they will be rooted - they run away to get rooted.

Both of these are AoE, so if you see one warg, use it. If you see people running where you think the wargs are lurking, use it.

Most important of all:

We are overpowered, we don't die if we don't want to. So get out there and WTFPWN them with your CC.

Lassa, you've not been in the Moors since Book14. There's diminishing returns now.
CM have handed the LM theirs CC back and told them that they could sit on it.

Very good info. But its not really a class guide, it´s more like a what we wish other classes knew about LM thread. Good work though.

We are stunning
Our most famous skill is of course blinding flash. On high ranking creeps it often gets resisted as do all our other moves. So when it strikes do NOT be a huntard and break it. Get as close as possible and HIT it. This is ESPECIALLY important for wargs, the moment a warg is freed from a stun he will attempt to stealth, so a competent lore-master will be trying to cast Cracked Earth, to take the warg right back out of stealth and root him as well. This however has a fairly close range and a long induction.

This is wrong. Since hes in combat he can´t use his ordinary stealth. He use the "HIPS" (dont remeber whats its called) to get into stealth and then u can´t break it with damage.


We cure you
We can cure 2/3 of the debuffs creeps can land on you, within certain limits, wounds and disease can be cured and most lore-masters are specced to cure this fairly quickly and for the whole fellowship including other then our own. BUT once again, we stand still to do it. Huntards can of course cure the poison debuffs, the reason hunters are huntards is that this rarely happens.

Its a good skill, but unfortunately it needs to be traited to have the in combat AOE effect. And there is other much more important traits that comes b4 thisone