Letters make words, words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs, and paragraphs make for some spectacular results when you’re a Rune-keeper!  Now that we’re familiar with the basics of keeping the runes—attunement and your early skills—we can confidently embark on the intermediate portion of the leveling journey: levels 11 through 30.  We’ll talk about important Rune-keeper stats, the skills learned from levels 11 to 30, traits, and the tools of a Rune-keeper’s trade.  That’s a lot to cover, so let’s get to it!

Shocking Words to a Troll

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my words can call down lightning.

Fated to Win: important stats for Rune-keepers

Rubywing’s first post here at the LOTRO Reporter talks about the stats that are important to minstrels; it applies to Rune-keepers as well.  Minstrels and Rune-keeper skills are primarily tactical (ie. “magical”) in nature, so look for items that improve your Fate, Will, Tactical Offense and Critical ratings.  More Morale is always welcome, too, so also keep your eyes peeled for equipment with +Vitality or +Morale.  It’s hard to do any writing if you’re defeated!

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Expanding Your Audience: your skills at levels 11–30


 Skill Level Attunes Requires
Essence of Storm (12) 1 Battle 6 Battle
Writ of Cold (12) 1 Battle 3 Battle
Self-motivation (14) 3 Steady -
Writ of Fire (14) 1 Battle 3 Battle
Writ of Health (16) 1 Healing 3 Healing
Essence of Winter (18) 1 Battle 6 Battle
Nothing Truly Ends (20) - -
Epic Conclusion (20) 1 Battle 9 Battle
Rousing Words (22) 1 Healing 3 Healing
Scathing Mockery (24) 1 Battle 6 Battle
Calming Verse (26) 2 Steady -
Word of Exaltation (28) 1 Healing 6 Healing
Abrupt Words (30) 1 Steady -
Distracting Winds (30) 3 Steady -

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By the time you reach level 30, you will have gained nearly all your most important and useful abilities.  You learn skills to bolster your entire fellowship, harm hordes of foes, revive defeated allies, interrupt inductions of skills your enemies are trying to complete, and stay below the notice of your enemies.  Most of the skills are self-explanatory, but a few merit special mention.

Your writs (Writ of Cold, Fire, or Health) all work similarly.  Each time you reapply a writ, the duration of the writ is restarted and the effect of the writ becomes more powerful.  Writ of Fire does more damage as it ticks away at the target’s morale, Writ of Cold’s penalties to attack speed and induction increase, and Writ of Health bolsters more morale with every 4 second tick.  You can reapply an individual Writ up to three times before its effect is at its maximum strength; further reapplications will simply refresh the Writ’s duration at the maximum effectiveness level.  If a Writ is allowed to complete its full duration, you will have to start all over at “one stack” strength again, so it’s best to reapply a Writ before it has time to run its course.

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Gaining the Edge: Rune-keeper traits

Another key component of playing a class is understanding your traits.  By using your class skills and completing class quests, you will earn class traits.  You can equip the traits you have earned by speaking with a Bard NPC, and each trait typically improves an individual skill.  Rune-keepers have three different trait lines: Solitary Thunder, Cleansing Fires, and Benedictions of Peace.  Solitary Thunder traits improve both your Fury of Storm (lightning damage) and Chill of Winter (frost damage) skills, Cleansing Fires traits improve your Wrath of Flame (fire damage) skills, and, predictably, Benedictions of Peace traits improve your Words of Grace (healing) skills.

While selecting your traits can be a matter of practicality when leveling (equipping whichever ones you earn first), there are a few that are of particular use to the leveling Rune-keeper.  Solitary Thunder traits are popular, because many of the Fury of Storm skills don’t have an induction, and thus are not interruptable when you draw the ire of your enemies.

I’ll discuss all the traits in more detail in a later post, but I’d like to call your attention to Confounding Principles and Rune of Endurance.  Unless you’re fortunate enough to be adventuring with armored fellows at your beck and call, you’re likely to take your fair share of beatings from the boars, bears, wolves, wargs, orcs, and uruks of Middle-Earth.  Since our robes don’t hold up quite as well as a suit of dwarven chainmail, we Rune-keepers have to be a little more clever in how we avoid becoming troll-food.

Confounding Principles adds another 5 seconds to the duration of Shocking Touch, which often gives you the time to bring down the first of your foes before the second recovers from their daze.  In addition to giving a 30% boost to Rousing Words, Rune of Endurance makes your personal pocket protector (aka your Sigil of Healing) 30% stronger, which lets it withstand orc blades that much longer while you deal with any friends the orc may have.

Also, be aware that the Rune-keeper trait set bonuses are riddled with bugs and may not work the way they’re supposed to.  As far as I’m aware, the 4 Trait Set bonus for Cleansing Fires (-1% Power Cost for all skills per Attunement Step) is not working, and the other 4 Trait Set bonuses are suspect.  A complete list of bugs or suspected bugs can be found here on the LOTRO Rune-keeper forums.

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Tools of the Trade: rocks, bags, chisels, inlays and enamels, oh my!

Every warrior needs his sword, every minstrel needs his musical instrument.  Rune-keepers need a rune-stone.  Without one, a Rune-keeper is effectively disarmed and cannot use his skills.  In addition to doing either fire, frost, or lightning melee damage, each rune-stone has an elemental affinity, which can also be fire, frost, or lightning.  Depending on the affinity of your currently equipped rune-stone, skills like Fall to Storm and Armour of Storm have different effects.  Try equipping a rune-stone of each affinity to discover how it changes your skills!   If you’re eager to upgrade your rune-stone, talk with a jeweller to see if he or she can craft you a new one.

Rune-satchels are our class slot items, and come in three varieties (until you acquire a legendary rune-satchel): Dagor, Thalas, and Nestad.  As you may have guessed, a rune-satchel of Dagor improves your Battle skills, Thalas improves your Steady skills, and Nestad improves your Healing skills.  You can acquire a basic rune-satchel from a Rune-keeper class trainer, but you’ll need to seek out the services of a tailor if you’re looking for upgrades.

Chisels replace the ranged weapon that many other classes use and increase our offensive capabilities.  Either check with an auctioneer or a metalsmith to find a chisel for your use.

Finally, inlays and enamels are special scholar-made consumable items that provide small, one-time benefits.  Low-level inlays prevent your inductions from being interrupted for a certain amount of time, while high-level inlays also decrease the power cost of the spell you cast after using the inlay.  Enamels see a bit more use than inlays, and shift your attunement three steps further when applied.  For example, if you currently have 2 Battle attunement and you use a Blue Enamel, your attunement will increase to 5 Battle.  Enamels are useful if you need to access those higher-level skills in a hurry!  However, unless you’re a scholar with nothing better to craft, you probably won’t use inlays or enamels much while in the lower levels.

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Hopefully, you’re off to a good start and are successfully adventuring o’er and yon across Middle-Earth!  There’s always more to write about, but it’s time to bring this week’s post to a close.  Since your first group instance becomes available right around level 20, I had been hoping to discuss how a Rune-keeper works within a fellowship, but my verboseness got the better of me and that topic will have to wait until next week.  Until then, may your words echo beyond the Halls of Mandos himself!

—Omsi