So things have been a bit slow on the news side, but hopefully now that PAX is done we may hear some things from Turbine on what all they have planned for us down the road.  There were a bunch of folks (including myself) who sent a nice long list of questions to Merric and Goldenstar from CStM and they’re in the process of pulling all the info together. I’m not expecting anything earth shattering after Sapience’s comments on the forums, but we shall see.  However, Patience did chime in on a conversation between me and @wickedpt on twitter “@wickedpt Just because we are not talking about something yet doesn’t mean we’re not working on it. Stay tuned. :)” so I suspect they’re just phasing the news updates between DDO and LOTRO.  I would expect to start seeing some new diaries and such starting to filter out as we near the end of the Spring festival, although due to the horse issue that might get extended a bit.

In game for me I’ve been enjoying the spring festival doing the dirty work for the dwarves and their Ale Association.  I just hit the first tier of reputation with them and I’m curious to see what’s available from that kindred vendor.  For this festival, I’m just focusing on my Warden but I may grab a few of the rewards/items on my Minnie as well.  I have saved most of my fortunes, so those titles should be pretty transferable – and they’re also relatively cheap on the AH 🙂  Sadly though I didn’t get in too much time with my RK so she’s still stuck at 20 (or maybe 21) but I’m interested to not only see the new Lone Lands but also see what it is like to run Skirmishes from the start and not from the level cap 🙂

On Friday I mentioned a new website (well new to me) I stumbled across lotro.mmorsel.com and today’s tip was one I really wanted to stress.  The tip is regarding using the fellowship assist options to better coordinate attacks between DPS classes.  This has been in the game for a long time for raids, but didn’t come in for fellowships until more recently and many still don’t know it exists.  As a tank (and a healer) I can’t stress how important and helpful this setting is when used properly as it makes everyone’s job that much easier.  Not only does it provide a way to select the proper target, but it also gives the tank and healer a good gauge on how the fight is progressing without having to switch targets.  By focusing all your DPS on one target, not only do they all drop faster but it makes tanking that much easier as you only have 1 mob to compete with DPS on and then you just have to out agro the healer on the rest.  Using the fellowship assist not only can you set up the tank’s target and the main target for DPS, but you can also do things like designating targets for crowd control or other such tasks.  In groups that I’m not leading, I always make sure that not only is this turned on and used by the leader, but that everyone in the group has it up and knows what to do with it.  So if you haven’t used this tool before, next time you’re in a group check it out!

I still have a piece in work on comparing not only the different tiers of skirmishes but also comparing the Rift to other skirmishes as I’m now very convinced it is by far the toughest skirmish out there, excluding the Barrow Downs one of course 😉