Forging Legendary Weapons

Forging Legendary Weapons

Weapons of eldritch power and memorable names are sprinkled throughout the lore of The Lord of the Rings. They are legendary creations of such arcane might that tales of their greatness are spread across all the lands of Middle-earth.

The sword Narsil, the blade wielded by Isuldur that was shattered by Sauron and Men and was used to cut the One-Ring from the finger of the Dark Lord.Hadhafang, the weapon of the Elf princess Idril, Elrondâs ancestor, wielded during the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and later given to Arwen.And lastly Glamdring, the defender of Gandalf that glows in the presence of an enemy and is inscribed with runes created by Elves for Turon, the King of Gondolin.

Now players of The Lord of the Rings Online can forge their own fabled items by adventuring in the Mines of Moria expansion. Having a special ânamedâ weapon is an important part of Tolkien lore, and you can customize your own one-of-a-kind item using the Legendary Items advancement system.

The Legendary Items system gives you the tools to create powerful magical items, like Bilboâs short sword Sting or Thorinâs sword Orcristâprovided your character reaches 51st level. This system lets you customize special equipment your hero finds within the evil-controlled halls of Khazad-dûm, and these items garner experience alongside your hero. As your item levels it earns Legend Points that can be used to advance the weaponâs Legacies, special modifiers that improve class specific skills and abilities. You can also add ârelicsâ from other Legendary Items you find in Moria by âdeconstructingâ those items and applying the abilities to your own custom creation.

There are three types of Legendary Items: rare, incomparable, and epic. Each type possesses increasing amounts of potential power and advancement. The cost to identify, re-forge, and deconstruct each item is based on its rarity. Your character can have up to six Legendary Items bound to him or her at any one time, all of them gaining experience and becoming ever-more powerful.

Just as legendary characters such as Frodo and Bilbo started out as ordinary hobbits, so too do Legendary Items start off as rather ordinary items. The Legendary Item system gives you the ability to build them into legends through the choices you make and the stories you forge.

Most importantly, as your item gains levels you can also change its name to better reflect your own personal bravery and background, such as: âThe Great Sword of Alastor of Breeâ or âThe Hammer of Lotor Gravelgrinder.â With a little work and a splash of creativity, you can have a weapon as powerful as Glamdring Foe-hammer, Durinâs Axe, or the re-forged Andúrilâthe Flame of the West.

Item Advancement

At the core are the unadorned items your character discovers. From these, great weapons can be forged. These items are found in random loot drops in the ancient halls of Khazad-dûm. More can be acquired as quest rewards and barter items, as well as rescued from the clutches of some of Moriaâs more notorious villains. They are not typically difficult to find, as characters delving into the numerous quests should discover multiple loot drops during a normal hour to two hour play session, so long as theyâre working to wade through the enemies of the Dwarfs. The Legendary Items you can find in Moria are composed of Main-hand weapons, Ranged Weapons, and new Class Items that go into the new Class Item slot. Each of these items is class-restricted and can be traded or put on the auction hall.

As mentioned above, another way to obtain these items is through barter; this is accomplished with a Legendary Trader. These Dwarf traders operate out of The Great Delving, as well as in a few others locations in Khazad-dûm. There is a Legendary Trader for each of the character classes, and they accept Barter Tokens in exchange for items. Gained from loot, these Barter Tokens are based on minimum character levels, with the level essentially determining which items can be bartered for. Once bartered for and identified by the Forge-master, the true nature of an item is revealed.

The Item-masters of The Flaming Deep.

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Item-masters

So what do you do once you find a potential Legendary Item?

To begin the process of fashioning a Legendary Item, you first need to find a Forge-master within the Dwarf-occupied halls of Khazad-dûm. These Dwarves are stationed in any of the major quest hubs in Moria, beginning in the Great Delving beyond the Doors of Durin. Even if you happen to find a potentially powerful Legendary Item in the field, you still have to get it back to the Forge-masters to identify it before it can be equipped. The deeper you travel into the Shadowy Abyss of Moria, the more difficult it will be to get back to the Dwarf-controlled regions of Khazad-dûm. Of course, the deeper you delve the more interesting items you might come across.

Selection of a Burglarâs bartered items, and the identified Legendary Item.

The Forge-master identifies items for a fee, revealing the Legacies, which are special abilities and powers that can be increased as the Legendary Item gains levels. For example, if you are playing a Guardian, a Legacy might equate to an increase in your Engage Range percentage. Or in the case of a Rune-keeperâs Rune Bag (a class item), you could increase the potency of skills and effects. Since you can have up to six Legendary Items, careful planning can land your character with several different âversionsâ of weapons or class items. A Loremaster might use one type of Legendary Staff for raiding, another for heavy casting of support skills in a fellowship, and a third that is a combination of both for solo adventuring.

At this point you need to decide if the Legendary Item youâve found is suited to youâbased on the Legacies it possesses and how you have built your character. For example, letâs say that as a Guardian you obtain a weapon that gives you a +300 melee critical to your attacks and reduces the length of some of your skillsâ cooldown values. While this is a definite bonus to your arsenal, another Legendary Item might instead present you with a +300 Parry bonus and provide +5% to your Warriorâs Heart morale heal. If youâre a Guardian looking to last a little longer during a boss fight, the latter would be a much preferable weapon. On the other hand, the former would be a better choice if you tend to go on solo adventures rather than Fellowship outings.

In addition, if you believe that the Legacies of this item will not further the path of your characterâs development, then you might opt to sell it in the auction, deconstruct it for its parts, or trade it to a fellow player.

However, once you equip any identified Legendary Item it becomes bound to you. At this point it can no longer be sold or traded, or even destroyed by dragging it out into the worldâit can only deconstructed for its parts.

Item Advancement weapons are tied to specific classes and become apparent when your character examines the item. Examination will also help you determine if it is something your character can wield or use. For example, if an item does not fit your characterâs class and you need components to forge another item, you can âdeconstructâ the incompatible item into its component Relics. In turn, these Relics can be applied to something more compatible with your class. The higher the level of the Legendary Item that is deconstructed, the higher the level of Relic or multiple Relics recovered. The modifiers on Relics are similar to what you can currently find on similar items in game. The difference being is Relics let you place the exact modifiers you want on your item.

There is a small amount of ârandomâ factors when an item is identified, created, and deconstructed, and these are determined by the Forge or Relic-masters. Remember, no two items are the same. Regardless, the Relic-master requires a fee for each item he touches, and deconstructing items can become a very expensive proposition.

Deconstructing Legendary Items, and the resulting relics.

After a Relic-master has deconstructed an item, he gives your character a combination of several smaller relics in the form of settings, gems, or runes. A Relic-master can also combine lesser Relics to create greater ones, for instance taking sets of gems to forge more a powerful gem.

The most common method of obtaining Relics for forging Legendary Items is by deconstructing other identified items that you have no use for. One of the benefits of traveling in a Fellowship is the increased amount of loot that can be obtained by working as a team and defeating a greater number of opponents. Hence, it provides a greater opportunity to discover things than can be turned into Legendary Items.

The Item Advancement Panel.

Experience, Levels, and Legacies

Once your Legendary Item is identified and bound to you, it can now start earning experience and gaining levels. A Legendary Item gains experience when you kill monsters, complete deeds, or finish quests that have an Item Experience bonus assigned. In addition, you can use Heritage Runes consumables that increase the experience of your Legendary Item. Heritage Runes can be found in loot, as quest rewards, and can be obtained when you deconstruct a leveled-up Legendary Item.

The icon of the Legendary Item in your character interface designates its progress through an experience bar. This also indicates if it needs identification and re-forging and displays the color of the Legendary Item slot it occupies (blue, red, green, yellow, purple, or brown).

Item Experience is split between all identified Legendary Items in your Item Advancement Panel. Hence, the greater number of Legendary Items you have equipped and are gaining experience for, the slower each will advance. In turn, you can also disable an itemâs leveling, This will increase the rate your other Legendary Itemâs level at, though youâll be earning less item experience overall. Legendary Items never take experience from your hero; it all comes from a separate pool.

As your Legendary Item gains experience, it progresses in its own levelâto a maximum of 50th. In addition, after every 10th level a Legendary Item attains, your character must return it to a Forge-master to have its next 10 levels âunlockedâ (the last one being at 40th level) so it can continue to gain experience. Until an item is âre-forgedâ it cannot gain further experience. There is one last re-forge available at level 50 that will add an additional legacy to the legendary item, but will not unlock additional levels of advancement. You will also gain new legacies during the re-forge process at level 10 and 30. At levels 20 and 40 the quality of one of your existing legacies will be improved thus decreasing the legend points necessary to rank up the legacy.

As your Legendary Item gains levels it earns Legacy Points, which in turn are used to increase the Ranks of your Legacies. It might sound complicated, but youâll pick up on it quickly as your character continues to adventure. Your Item Advancement Panel will tell you how many Legacy Points you have available, and how many you have already spent. As the level and rank of your Legendary Item increases, the more Legacy Points you will need to gain to raise the Legacy to the next rank.

After your Legendary Item is unlocked by the Forge-master, up to four Legacies related to the class are initially revealed. The number of Legacies an item can have is based on its rarity, with a maximum of nine for the most powerful Epic items you will find in the caverns of Khazad-dûm. Legacies can also have different levels of qualities based on the rarity and item, with the higher qualities yielding the greater the bonuses for each rank.

There are six tiers of Legacy quality with the lowest levels costing more legend points to advance, while the higher quality legacies cost less legend point to advance. The Legendary Items user interface tells you the current power level and how many Legend Points are needed for the next rank. The tooltip for the legacy will also show you all the available ranks you can purchase, the bonus for each rank, and the cost to purchase that rank. During re-forging you can choose to refund all of your spent Legend Points, allowing you to re-spend them in a new way.

Legacies can only be added to a Legendary Item during identification or re-forging. As a special note, if you have all top quality legacies at levels 20 and 40 instead of upgrading a legacy you will receive another new one.

Beginning in Volume 2, Book 1, your hero is able to identify and equip Legendary Items. Once these items are bound to a character, they earn experience and gain wondrous abilities. The possible combination of powersâcalled Legacies and Relicsâare in the order of billions. When you consider that even if two items had identical Legacies and Relics, the different ways Legend Points can be spent to upgrade the rank of the Legacies all but ensure the uniqueness of Legendary Items.

Legendary Class Items

All LI objects are tied to specific character classes. For example, a Burglarâs weapons of choice consist of maces, clubs and daggers, while a Champion would instead favor great two-handed axes and hammers. Since the weapons you use to create Legendary Items are the same as those normally available to specific classes, a Burglar would need to stick with a mace, club, or dagger . . . not a two-handed axe. In addition, each class has at least one class item that can be forged into a Legendary Item. Some of these are listed below.

• Burglar: Burglarâs Tools
• Champion: Championâs Rune
• Captain: Captainâs Emblem
• Guardian: Guardianâs Belt
• Hunter: Bow and Crossbow
• Loremaster: Book
• Minstrel: Songbook
• Rune-keeper: Rune-satchel
• Warden: Javelin

Even though some of the character types have similar weapons availableâsuch as great swords, clubs, and daggersâa class restriction is still assigned to all LI items. Just because a Burglar can use a club, that doesnât mean he can use an LI club that is specific to a Minstrel.

Relics & Re-forging

Once youâve identified and decided to keep a Legendary Item, it must be equipped (or bound) so it can start gaining experience and abilities. Immediately after being âequipped,â a Legendary Item might look something like the Burglarâs Dagger of the Second Age, detailed below.

At this point your weapon also can be assigned Relicsâpowerful magical components that can be acquired by having Item-masters (Relic-masters and Forge-masters) identify and deconstruct other LI objects. You can deconstruct LI weapons and class items once you finish the Moria introduction quests, Volume 2, Book 1. The three types of Relics are Settings, Gems, and Runes.

Relic bonuses provide 2 to 3 static boosts, which enhance the value and effectiveness of a weapon. These components are not considered part of your inventory, and they cannot be traded to another character or put up for auction. However, they can be destroyed. This happens when you replace them with other Relics, or when they are forged into more powerful Relic components.

There are eight levels to Relic Forgingâessentially the higher the Tier, the mightier the Relic. And only the highest level characters can meet the requirements for Relic Forging at the top Tiers. Too, you can only combine Relics of the same Tier . . . say, two Tier 1 Relics, not a Tier 1 and a Tier 2. The Relics do not have to be the same âtype,â just the same Tier. Further, as you combine Relics of higher Tiers, the cost to the Relic-master also increases. In other words, the more power and abilities you want your weapon to have, the deeper your character is going to have to dig into his pockets.

Once youâve spent time gathering and deconstructing LI items after your character exceeds 51st level, youâll likely end up with several Tier 1 Settings, and possibly a few Gems. Runes, the rarest of the three, are seldom gleaned from deconstructing level 1 Legendary Items.

When youâve garnered five Relics of any Tier, you can combine them to create one or more higher Relics. For example, your character can take five Tier 1 Relics and forge them into a Tier 2 Relic or perhaps even a Tier 3. What you gain from this combination does have a bit of a random factor applied, but thatâs part of the fun.

What Settings, Gems, and Runes are obtained from deconstruction is based on the level youâve advanced the item to and its rarity. Youâll discover all the possibilities when you delve in and do some deconstructing of your own. But consider this: if your Legendary Item has several âlevels,â the resulting Relics obtained from the deconstruction could boost your newly-forged item into a higher Tier than you might have expected. However, if you deconstruct an LI item that is newly identified and hasnât been around Middle-earth all that long, youâll be lucky to get a Relic beyond Tier 1. To give you a better idea of the concept, picture a Legendary Item that has reached level 50 being deconstructed. The results, because that weaponâs been around the proverbial block for a while, would likely consist of multiple Relics of Tiers 1 through 4. When a high level Legendary Item is deconstructed it can produce dozens of Relics compared to just a few for a level 1 Legendary Item. You will also notice that deconstructing high level Legendary Items produce Heritage Runes containing a portion of the Itemâs Experience that can be applied to other Legendary Items and Legendary Shards that crafters can use to create new Legendary Items.

If your character just entered Moria and gathered components to put together a Legendary Item, you probably have objects that fall into the first four Tiers . . . Settings (common), a few Gems (uncommon), and if youâre very lucky a few Runes (rare). Runes are not available until Tier 4. The following are some example of Relics and their abilities that you can obtain through Tier 4:

Tier 1	Abilities
Bronze Setting Of Warding	+10 Might/+2.5% Partial Block Mitigation
Bronze Setting Of Fleetness	+10 Vitality/+2.5% Partial Evade Mitigation
Bronze Setting Of Deflection	+10 Agility/+2.5% Partial Parry Mitigation
Bronze Setting Of Deftness	+10 Agility/+10 Might
Bronze Setting Of Endurance	+10 Vitality/+10 Agility
Bronze Setting Of Might	+10 Might/+10 Vitality
Tier 2	Abilities
Copper Setting Of Rage	+204 Melee Critical/+10 Might
Copper Setting Of The Enduring Hand	+204 Ranged Critical/+10 Vitality
Copper Setting Of The Deft Hand	+204 Ranged Critical/+10 Agility
Copper Setting Of Whelming	+204 Melee Critical/+10 Vitality
Agate Gem Of The Fateful Word	+2% Tactical Damage/+10 Fate
Agate Gem Of The Willful Word	+2% Tactical Damage/+10 Will
Tier 3	Abilities
Iron Setting Of Fleet Hand	+208 Ranged Critical/+2.5% Partial Evade Mitigation
Iron Setting Of Stout Deflection	+208 Melee Critical/+2.5% Partial Parry Mitigation
Iron Setting Of The Stout Ward	+208 Melee Critical/+2.5% Partial Block Mitigation
Amethyst Gem Of The Determined Mind	+30 In Combat Power Regen/+10 Will
Amethyst Gem Of Determined Fate	+30 In Combat Power Regen/+10 Fate
Amethyst Gem Of Destiny	+10 Will/+10 Fate
Tier 4	Abilities
Early Rune Of The Heart	+75 Morale/-2% Attack Duration
Early Rune Of The Spirit	+75 Power/-2% Attack Duration
Steel Setting Of Great Might	+212 Melee Critical/ +12 Might/+12 Vitality
Steel Setting Of Great Rage	+212 Melee Critical/+12 Agility/+12 Vitality
Garnet Gem Of The Mindful Touch	+4% Incoming Healing/+12 Will
Garnet Gem Of The Fateful Touch	+4% Incoming Healing/+12 Fate

Applying Relics

When your character has a number of Relics, you should apply them to your Legendary Items. This is done by simply dragging each one from the lists of available Settings, Gems, and Runes in the selection area to their Relic placeholders in the Legendary Items user interface. You can also select the Relic you want to slot and click the slot Relic button, or right-click on the Relic to slot it. In any case you will have to confirm your selection to ensure you donât accidentally slot a Relic you donât intend to.

An example of a new Legendary Item.

In the above example of a veteran LI weapon, you can see how to build Legacies and Relics into your Legendary Itemâwhich in this case is a belt that has been re-named to Gloriâs Glorious Belt. Over the course of his adventures Glori has been able to combine together a number of Relics obtained from deconstruction, drops, and quests.

For the Setting Slot he has slotted a Steel Setting of Great Might which increases his partial Parry and Block mitigation ratings. While he has access to higher tier Settings these bonuses do the most for him as a Guardian in his opinion. Part of the freedom of the system is slotting the Relics you feel assist your character the most.

As a tank the Ruby Gem of Respite helps minstrels keep his morale high with its bonus to incoming healing and his power restocked.

A recent Relic Forging attempt left him with a shiny new Tier 7 Deep Rune of the Mountains. While his Tier 6 Profound Rune of Action provides some great bonuses, heâd really like the extra morale and power the new Rune provides. If he chooses to slot the Tier 7 Rune it will destroy the Tier 6 Rune, so heâs not sure what to do. If he wants too, he can wait until his next re-forge at level 50 to un-slot all of his Relics safely before adding new ones.

In the second example, a 7th level Guardianâs Belt, you can see the progression of a Legendary Item after it has gained just a few levels of experience and has a full set of Runics applied. This magnificent belt has 47 of 48 Legend Points applied to it, raising its Legacies several ranks and considerably increasing the Guardianâs threat block rating.

As for the Relics, even though the item has a full set of Runics, the Steel Setting of Great Rage could potentially replace the Copper Setting of the Deft Hand. Of course, doing this destroys the Copper Setting so it could not be used in another Legendary Item

You can earn additional experience for your Legendary Items by going on Item Advancement Quests. These are slayer (defeat a large number of foes), lore (completing a deed related to retrieving objects), or boss (kill one or many named rare monsters or evil leaders). Successfully tackling these deeds earns additional experience toward the bound Legendary Items in your XP Pool.

An Item Advancement Experience reward could include a Title. These quest rewards allow you to add a suffix to the name of your Legendary Itemâsuch as: the Guardianâs Belt of Iron Will or the Captainâs Axe Troll-bane. Some Titles may be useable only by a certain weapon or class items. Titles can change the damage type of a Legendary Weapon, add Slayer effects, or defensive bonuses. There is a whole range to choose from and the list will continue to grow.

By now, you should have a good understanding on how Legendary Items will make your character truly unique in Middle-earth. The task that awaits you now is to enter the darkness of Moria and become the stuff of legend.