Helegrod is the current top raiding instance in Lord of the Rings Online. It takes a solid group of 24 players to complete the entire thing and it can be run in 2.5-3 hours once entirely practiced and learned. Now that I’ve given that info out let me jump right into my first true Helegrod experience. Lastnight I was invited by the Reunion Kinship to join them on their weekly weekend raid. Having done the first boss in Helegrod with them before at level 40 and knowing a good many of the players from PVP I decided to give it another shot. My first trip to Helegrod was very boring. I was level 40 and all that I could do was sit back and heal if you can even call what I was doing healing… because Captain heals are pathetic to begin with. So my first trip I was pretty much a buffbot. Things changed now that I am level 49 and almost 50!
This time through I was actually able to stand toe-to-toe with the bosses and I could actually hit them and hit them hard! I was doing my usual 150-200 damage with the occasional 250-650 devastating crit. I was very proud of my damage ability last night. In addition to the damage I was tossing heals, placing tactics, applying my curse, combat ressing, and getting the full LOTRO raid experience. I am really building a stable bond with Reunion and I think highly of all their players. They know how to listen and they recover when something goes wrong. As for loot nothing dropped last night that I could use except for the emblem – but that’s understandbly not obtainable by me for some time because it goes to their guild members first.
As for my gear it’s also shaping up very well! I was inspecting others on the raid who had been doing Helegrod and Carn Dum and Barad Galaran for some time. My gear was actually better than many and on par with the others. I finally found someone to sell me my Medallion of Passage for 3g which completed my Halberd of War! That’s one Captain class epic quest down and another very…very…tedious one to go. But aside from that I have had a great past few days in LOTRO and hope to continue this streak of fun until I have seen and done all that I wish to in Middle-Earth.
Most impressive.
I’m so far behind!
0_o
Hey Bart! You’re not really too far behind. It’s basically just levels. 🙂 The gear comes naturally and as a Minstrel we could have used you last night sooo much.
I can’t wait for this line as the guild I am in has the numbers we need to do this, we just need the time to get everyone up to 45+. I think we are almost there.
I heard there was something like 11 or 12 quests for this raid, is that true Keen? I’ll check it out either way.
Just finished Book 5 last night after trying to escort Legolas 5 times. That was a tough fight. I used to hear people complain that all the boss tactics are the same in this game, that is just simply not true. They obviously have never been to Tomb of Elendil.
-brackish
Yes there are about 12 quests that you can access by talking to someone in Rivendell who sends you to Elrond who then sends you to this dwarf up near Helegrod. The dwarf then sends you to about 4 different NPC’s with 2-3 quests each.
The rewards are very nice.