Today I reached my boiling point in PVMP. I was doing battle against the Freeps on the South Bridge of Tol Ascarnen when I realized that a champion was out damaging me with their bow. I am a Blackarrow and to have a Champion shoot arrows at me that do more damage than my arrows do to a cloth wearing Lore Master was a slap in the face. Deciding to stick it out I played a few more minutes and things only got worse. I was rooted multiple times for 30 seconds and then destroyed by hunters dealing 300-700 damage with their arrows.
I’m a Rank 2 (500 pts from rank 3) Blackarrow with all abilities up to this point purchased. I also have a Rank 2 Reaver. The following reasons are why I have retired from monster play indefinitely.
– Armor bug (Monster armor is lost permanently and can move into the negative permanently. In addition to our armor loss we also lose resistances.)
– Freeps deal 2-3x our damage on average. Monsters are unable to keep up with this damage even with all of our damage passive upgrades.
– Running parallel with the previous point that our damage is lower it seems Freeps also resist and mitigate 2-3x more. This is unbalanced in both PVP and the Keep taking.
– Freeps have roots that last approx 20-30 seconds. While a Monster is rooted they are helpless save for an overpriced potion that deals damage to us. This potion is not good enough.
– Monsters do not scale like Freeps do. Freeps are provided the means to evolve their characters abilities and capabilities. Monsters are restricted to purchasing skills and passives that once gained in their entirety do not equal that of an underequipped Freep. Given time Freep’s gear will provide a significant boost to their already unbalanced abilities.
Those are my reasons for now taking a break until Thursday’s patch. If this patch does not do something to fix the balance issues then I am most likely done with LOTRO. Playing since beta has allowed me to experience the PVE gameplay and it simply does not interest me (I’ve played up to level 40 on multiple chars and I simply can’t get into it.). The Monster play has been the greatest part of LOTRO for me but the unbalanced gameplay has broken the camels back.
🙁 That is all.
I’m making one last effort at the PVE game by playing a Captain with some friends. Hopefully it revives that aspect of the game for me because Monster Play is just too horribly unbalanced right now. 🙁
I believe, come to think about it, that there were hints in a recent devchat about some way to turn the tides in PvP for the losing side should they start to just get walloped. That it might be coming in the next update. I could be dreaming it, but I think it was to be something like the superheroes or supervillains coming to help your side as they do in CoH.
Man, I could just be wishfully thinking though.
That would actually be really cool! I hope something like that makes it into the next patch.