First Time Character Creation

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I'm writing this guide for someone who genuinely hasn't played LOTRO before, so I'm only going to cover the classes available to everyone (i.e. not Warden, Rune-Keeper or Beorning). I'm leaving those out purely because I can't imagine why anyone would spend money on buying extra classes before they know if they like/loathe the game, especially when there's plenty of good (free) choices. (However, if you like what I've done here, let me know and I'll do an expanded version that includes all classes.) So without further ado, if you're just starting out with LOTRO who could you choose to be? The game itself divides the difficulty of the classes into Basic, Moderate and Advanced. I'll stick with those divisions since they seem pretty well thought out. In the Basic difficulty category there are three choices, two melee and one ranged. All characters, no matter what the difficulty, can choose to use a particular 'trait tree' to specialise the characters further once they get to level 6, though you can (and should) spec two trees and switch between them when you need to (e.g. one tree may specialise in skills that do high amounts of damage to a single target while another tree has skills that deal lower amounts of damage, but do so to multiple enemies). While race has some (minor) impact on characters, sex has none, so I won't be mentioning gender at all in these summaries. - Melee - Can be Dwarf, Elf or Man (i.e. not Hobbit) - Wears Heavy Armour for extra protection Champions are the DPS melee choice. The Champion does high(ish) damage using either two one-handed weapons (and pretty much all the one-handed weapons in the game are available to you) or using a single (two-handed) sword/axe. As always, there's three specs - the first is for maximum damage against a single foe, the second is mostly for AoE and the third allows the Champion to take on something of a hybrid DPS/tank role. [NB, for the champion the AoE skills mostly do as much damage as the single damage skills, so, in my opinion, it's almost always worth concentrating on the AoE (yellow) trait line rather than the single target damage (red) trait line. Of course, don't just take my word on that - pick what you want to - or better still, experiment and try both - that's always going to be the best thing to do.] Champions are also able to equip a bow or crossbow from the start, but although you can use this to whittle a little of an enemy's health down, as it charges towards you, it'll never be a major source of damage, and you'll need to reach level 16 before you earn your first and only bow skill (which still doesn't do much more damage than a bow auto-attack anyway). In my opinion, if you are only intending to roll one or two characters and you are determined to go for a straightforward melee class, this is probably a better choice than the Guardian. I say that because, while grouping up can be fun, solo play is going to be your bread and butter until you've more or less maxed any character's levels and with 115 as the level cap (at the time of writing) that's going to take you a while. Since Guardians' DPS is so low they are just s-l-o-w in any fight. So as a 'My First Melee LOTRO Character', this is probably the better choice. So, if you are going for a Champion which race should you choose? I'd say Man (please don't think I'm being sexist, it's the game that refers to Humans as 'The Race of Man' - Tolkein being of his era, of course) though Dwarf is a solid choice too, Elf not so much. Frankly, when this game began and had a level cap of 50, your character's race was extremely important, but now, as you hit higher levels, it matters less and less, and they all have useful racial traits, so if you want to roll an Elf, go ahead, just be aware that it'll take a few levels for an Elf Champ to catch up with the others). - Melee - Can be any race - Wears Heavy Armour and can equip Heavy Shields to really 'tank it up' - Classic Heavy Tank As I say above, this is the classic heavy tank class. Honestly, even when you are (supposedly) speccing a character for maxed DPS, which includes walloping enemies with your shield, it's still pretty much all based on blocking and parrying the attacks coming your way - though the 'reaction abilities' you are offered when you do parry or block are nearly all damaging (albeit not heavily), so that helps. However, one of the three specs (yellow trait line) is specifically aimed at debuffs and tanking with a two-hander to deal more damage and the supposedly most damaging (red) trait line, while it seems to encourage you to use a one-handed weapon and shield can also just as easily (if not more easily) utilise a two-handed weapon. The final spec is the true Heavy Tank, and is all about mitigating and absorbing damage and keeping it away from allies. Like Champions, Guardians get a bow/crossbow as a secondary weapon, but unlike Champs, they can't use either until they are level 7. This isn't a big deal, since you'll likely be at about level 7 by the time you have finished the introductory sequence (the intro takes, at most, about three hours of play time). Like Champions you only get one (underwhelming) ranged skill (the same one, as it happens) but this time you get it almost immediately you get a bow (at level 8) which is far better. Guardians feel slow in fights, as I mentioned, and yes, you can spec them for more DPS by using two-handed weapons, but if you are going that route, it feels to me that, if you are only going to have one melee character, that you may as well just look at rolling a Champion, as far as the role they play goes. Slow doesn't mean it lacks fun, however (each class has its own unique good points), and a well kitted-out Guardian can be the epitome of 'slow and steady wins the race' as, yes it takes longer to kill things, but that doesn't mean (s)he doesn't get the job done. The 'True Heavy Tank' spec is one that you'll be very unlikely to use while soloing, but it's the one you'll almost always want to be when grouping up, and you'll be in high demand too! Racially this is a tie between Men and Dwarfs, with Hobbits (perhaps surprisingly) also being a very solid choice. (Again Elves not so much). If you intend to employ a shield at all times then Dwarf is probably a slightly better choice since it gets a racial bonus to shield use, however if you think you want to try 2-handed weapons then Man probably has the edge. Again, there's no wrong choice here, but Elves' racial abilities aren't really quite as good for tanking (or melee in general). Still, if you like elves, don't let that put you off, as by late game you really won't feel much difference. And a short plea for Hobbits - just because Dwarf/Man is my preferred choice, don't discount them, they're surprisingly good little tanks. - Ranged - Fast-paced and high DPS - Can be any race (you'll probably want to go with Elf, though - see below) - Great utility abilities for travel and tracking I won't lie, this is, by far, my favourite choice for for a Basic difficulty character (and probably my favourite for a main character altogether, if I'm really honest); the 'utility' abilities make the solo game so much easier and, since the recent buffs, you can easily be the hardest hitting DPS dealer when grouping up too. What I mean by utility abilities is that, firstly, Hunters have lots and lots of places they can instantly travel to (one in each zone and there's lots of zones) and, when grouped up, they can take the whole fellowship along. They can also use 'camp-site fires' as an extra instant travel destination. There's a fair amount of backtracking in the game, so these travel abilities are unbelievably useful for day-to-day questing, to the point where, personally, when I've been playing as a Hunter for a while and decide to switch to a different character, I really miss the ability to just jump around the map - it's just so convenient. Don't worry, if this isn't a class you feel like playi