Developer Diary : Lore-master Class Changes in Helm’s Deep

By Deviled_Egg

Hey folks! I’m Deviled_Egg and I’m going to fill you in on some of the goodies the Lore-master will be receiving in the Helm’s Deep expansion. The Lore-master will feature three distinct specializations, each one catering to a different play-style. The Keeper of Animals is the Lore-master’s pet line. Specializing in this line will make your pets stronger and tougher to take down, as well as offer new interactions between you and your pets. The Master of Nature’s Fury is the Lore-masters DPS Line. Traits in this line will give you the ability to wield Flame, Lightning, and Frost to great effect. Last, but certainly not least, is The Ancient Master. This specialization will give you a suite of debuffs and disables which can render your enemies’ attacks useless, or make them more vulnerable to the attacks of you and your allies. The Ancient Master also has the ability to restore the Morale and Power of allies.

Keeper of Animals:

Keeper of Animals is all about your pet, and how you interact with it. The specialization bonuses for choosing Keeper of Animals will net you a stronger pet right off the bat, with major bonuses to pet stats. Specializing will also grant you “Coordination”, an ability which causes a pet’s critical strike to remove the induction from your next skill. The former skill, “Sign of the Wild: Rage” has been converted to a passive trait. Ranking this up will give permanent, passive bonuses to Attack Duration and Damage to your pets. Its sister skill, “Sign of the Wild: Protection” has received a similar treatment, and will significantly boost Morale and reduce Incoming Damage. Most Passive traits enhance both you and your pet at the same time. For example, “Prepare for War” will increase your Tactical Mastery, but enhance your pets’ Physical and Tactical Mastery. It is not all passive, though. A new trait, “Loyalty” will, under certain conditions, cause your Pet to sacrifice a portion of its Morale to restore yours. Finally, the Legendary Skill for the Keeper of Animals, “Sic’ em!”, summons a host of animals to your side at once to swarm the enemy.

Master of Nature’s Fury:

The Master of Nature’s Fury commands powerful elemental abilities. The passive traits from this specialization will greatly improve your Fire, Lightning, and Frost damage, which is really quite lovely, but it’s the new toys which are most exciting. Lightning Storm is now an AoE skill, and no longer requires targets to have the Ancient Craft Debuff on them. A trait called “Fierce Lightning” also gives Lightning Storm a chance to ignite the ground when it strikes, engulfing targets in flame. For all Lore-masters, the skill “Gust of Wind” now has a chance to spread Burning Embers from one target to nearby foes. The trait “Mighty Wind”, increases the chance of this happening. Finally, the Legendary Skill,“Nature’s Fury”, summons a cyclone of destruction onto your foes. Enemies trapped inside will be dealt significant Frost damage, and have a chance to be struck by Lightning.

The Ancient Master:

The Ancient Master’s ability to control and support a fight takes many forms. The skills Fire-lore and Frost-lore hinder an enemy’s ability to defend from Physical and Tactical attacks respectively. New traits, “Playing with Fire” and “Out in the Cold” allow you to upgrade debuffs on enemies by using combinations of elemental skills for different effects. For example, using a Fire skill on an enemy with a Fire-lore debuff will trigger a bonus attack duration debuff on the target. Using a Frost skill, on the other hand, will trigger a Miss Chance debuff. The Ancient Master also has the ability to restore Power to the fellowship. The trait “Pleasant Breeze” offers significant Power healing to a group of allies whenever Gust of Wind scores a critical hit. This specialization also contains significant boosts to disabling skills. For example, the trait “Disable” significantly increases the duration of stuns.

As always, everything mentioned here is subject to change as we continue to re-work, balance, and refine these classes. Please feel free to comment and discuss. Thanks so much for reading, and we hope you enjoy when all of this goes live!