Lord of the Rings Online: Rune-Keeper's First Class Quest
MMORPG.com Lord of the Rings Online Correspondent Pamela Blalock writes this look at the Rune-Keeper's first class quest, An Eye in the Storm.
With the power of the written word, Rune-Keepers can crush their enemies or heal their fellowship members. As either an Elf or a Dwarf, Rune-Keepers in Lord of the Rings Online use an attunement system to utilize these skills. Using abilities attunes the Rune-Keeper either to the battle attunement or the healing attunement. When they're not using abilities, the Rune-Keeper remains at the steady attunement. Some skills can only be used when attuned far enough one way while others can't be used at all at that state. In fact, some skills get stronger with the more points in the required attunement. There are nine steps of attunement on either side of the steady state.
Like every other class in LotRO, Rune-Keepers can pick up a class specific quest from their trainer at level 15. For most players, they will pick up this quest from the Rune-Keeper trainer in Bree. This trainer, Brax, is located west of the town crier. The crier appears as a purple flag on the map. Brax is located in the Scholar's Scribe Archive. Brax will offer the Rune-Keeper's first class quest called An Eye in the Storm. This is a solo quest that requires the Rune-Keeper to instance.
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The quest instructions are simple: First, the player must travel to Lone Lands and more specifically to the Forsaken Inn. The Lone Lands are technically the zone next to Bree-land to the east. The Forsaken Inn is the first building inside Lone Lands when traveling from Bree-land. The contact to meet there is named Techeryn and she is actually outside the inn standing close to the front of the building to the right of its entrance. She will explain that Rune-Keepers need to harness the power of the storm and that the only place to gather that power is atop Weathertop.
After she tells you about the quest, she will offer a "travel now" option. This will port the Rune-Keeper just below Weathertop's apex. It is stormy with rain pouring and wind blowing forcefully. Techeryn will be there, but does not aid the Rune-Keeper in the quest. However, she clarifies the quest at hand. To harness the power of the storm the Rune-Keeper must lay down three rune-stones on three different flat stones at the top of Weathertop. Lightning strikes all around the mountain. The objective is to have the lightning hit these stones.
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With the stones in place, the lightning will eventually hit them. While waiting for the lightning to strike, Orcs will come up from where the Rune-Keeper entered. It will be one level 15 and once he is dead, two level 15s will arrive. After they are slain, one level 15 elite will show up and then another. This is where the Rune-Keeper makes use of the ability to damage and heal his/herself in the thick of battle. At level 15, Rune-Keepers have a moderate number of damaging abilities, a few healing abilities, and a couple of crowd control abilities. Most of these skills will come into play during the class quest.
Standing at the opposite side of the mountain from the ramp gives the Rune-Keeper time to prepare before the first Orc arrives. He naturally runs toward the Rune-Keeper, or at least he did when I played it, and all of the Orcs follow suit when it's their turn to battle. The one on one battles are simple enough, but when the two level 15s arrive things can get complicated. I kept the Rune of Restoration out the entire time and needed to heal with Mending Verse a few times to survive. Shocking Touch came in handy when the battle was two on one, however, it's rather unreliable as a crowd control method considering it could only last five seconds.
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Following the deaths of the Orcs, the Rune-Keeper will pick up the stones and return them to Techeryn. Of course the rewards are well worth the effort. In addition to around two silver, the Rune-Keeper also receives a new rune-stone and a class trait. The rune-stone is called Stone of the Storm and has 9.9 DPS. The damage is lightning at 21-28 with a speed of 2.5. It adds a +9 to Fate and +72 to tactical critical rating. The class trait is called Tale of the Storm and it falls in the Solitary Thunder set. This trait allows Fury of the Storm skills to proc the charged rune buff 10% of the time. That increases critical hit chance and decreases the amount of power required of Fury of the Storm skills for 30 seconds.
An Eye in the Storm is the first class quest for a Rune-Keeper, but it isn't the last. Like all the other classes, Rune-Keepers will continue to receive class quests throughout their voyage in Middle-Earth.
