There are only a few changes coming to the LM class that I’ll mention briefly here, but I’d also like to talk about an add-on that is currently available in beta and will be open to users in live once F2P launches with .lua support.

First, the changes:

Gust of Wind – this will now do Frost Damage instead of Common damage. A nice change since mobs are much more resistant to common damage than frost damage in most, if not all, cases.

Harmony of Nature – this trait in the MoNF tree will now impact Burning Embers and Lightning-Storm in place of Test of Will. This is a great change! Considering how much we cast Burning Embers, the power reduction alone would be great, but coupled with faster inductions – just wow. Rotations will change, dps will increase. Love it. Plus, we get a quicker induction speed of Lightning-Storm! I’ve been waiting for this for ages. Though I’d originally thought it would come in legacy form, I am more pleased by this trait. Thanks, devs!

Lightning-Storm – Formerly, this skill would only cast on a mob who was debuffed by YOUR OWN Ancient Craft. This has been fixed (according to the notes)! As long as a mob now has a debuff of Ancient Craft by some LM, any LM can cast Lightning-Storm on it. This is great for those moments when you cast AC, followed immediately by LS, but the other LM in the raid had the same idea or when the debuff LM is keeping up AC, but the MoNF LM wants to cast LS. Now, we can all be happy.

Fire-Lore, Wind-Lore, Gust of Wind – the traited versions of these skills will overwrite non-traited versions. A great change for raid groups with more than one LM. You can now trust that the AM-traited LM’s strong debuffs will be the ones that are typically up on the mob, without having to wait for cooldowns.

Next, the addon.

LUA scripting coming to LOTRO is a big deal and I know that people feel strongly both for and against it. I will not go into any arguments of the kind here, but rather, would like to simply highlight one of the LM-specific addons that the community has created.

*drumroll* – Pet Carousel by Paulino

This is a rather simple mod, but something that many of you may find useful. It is a small window added to your UI which contains all of your pet-summoning skills. However, rather than having all pets visible at once, they are on a circular wheel which you can spin through with your middle mouse-button.  Although this alone saves space on your button bar, Pet Carousel has another feature.

By right-clicking on the central pet-summoning skill, the Carousel will turn into a wheel of your cosmetic pets. I may actually have one out now and then with this!

Is it a game-changing add-on? No. But, it is convenient and is an option we now have to further customize our UI and make our gaming experience one that furthers our fun in game. Look for it when F2P goes live! Below are two shots of the add-on – one showing the Combat pets, the other the Cosmetic ones. The addon is still in development so there is an issue with UI scaling and text placement which is visible in the screenshots. The tooltip is present because I was mousing over the button to show you its usability and give you a sense of size.