Yesterday I came across this great thread - a list of the things that we can expect in the Rise of Isengard expansion. It's still in beta stage, so it's subject to change before final release on September 27th:
- Tier 7 crafting name: Westfold
- Wood resource node: Birch (with wax, turned into Birch boards)
- Ore resource node: Skarn
- Scholar materials: Dunlending and Gondorian scraps of text
- Jewels and shiny metal: Green garnets
- Cook ingredients: ??
- Tailor hides/leather: ??
- Ingot combinations (khazad bronze, westernesse, white gold): ??
- Special craft item (shards, mithril flake): Cracked Rhi Helvarch Sigil
- crafting critical items for each profession: ??
- new "best" token name: ??
- new "best" LI Symbol: Worn Symbol of the Elder King (WSEK?) for level 75 First Age and Worn Symbol of Celebrimbor (WSOC?) for 75 Second Age
- new "best" empowerment scroll: Scroll of Greater Empowerment
- new guild rep level: Master of the Guild (takes 45k more reputation, so start saving up those rep. items!)
- new faction rep: Men of Dunland and Theodred's Riders
- Rep-wise Kindred is Kindred and Guild is Master of the Guild.
- epic quest beginning: Zudrugund (Nar's Peak) for both forks of the epic quest
- New LM pet: Limrafn with the following skills (Flashing Flank Attack guaranteed flank, Nature's Light returns 5% damage for 30 seconds,
- Nature's Gift returns 10% max morale but sacrifices your pet, NO auto-attack option)
- Players will be on "friendly terms" with half-orcs.
- Scholars can now make pocket items.
On crafting guild reputation: since MoG costs 45k rep. and each Large Supreme version will earn you 5k, you'll need at least 9 of them to get to the next level. You can, of course, cut down on that number by crafting ALL items.
- Large Supreme - 5k
- Medium Supreme - 2.5k
- Small Supreme - 700 rep
- Large Master - 4k
- Medium Master - 2k
- Small Master - 600 rep
- Medium Artisan - 1.5k
- Small Artisan - 500 rep
- Medium Expert - 1.2 k
- Small Expert - 400 rep
In my opinion, it's never worth using the crafting materials on smalls, unless you're using them in a recipe, but if you haven't saved up larges, you might be desperate. Something to remember about that, these are the numbers for EXISTING rep trade...there is the MoG level which will likely have it's own Small, Medium, and Large. I'm no mathematician, so I can't figure out the approximate increase, but maybe someone out there actually knows the numbers already.
The report is also that the useful and worthwhile recipes are all faction reputation linked, meaning low level alts will not have a chance to craft the important stuff.
LIs: Legacies from level 65s will not work on level 75s as expected. You will also need to level multiple level 70 weapons up to level 30 in order to get the rune types needed for level 75s, but it could be assumed that they will be awarded in quests, as drops, and available to barter with enough reputation. Just like crafting gets a new tier, relics and shard will likely get an increase to 7 and the extraordinary relic shard cost will be high.
PvMP - there will be Freep cloaks available that can be useful even as low as Rank 4 and the level 75 Freep PvMP gear is comparable to much of the other gear, meaning it's actually not a waste of time or just for fun anymore. Grinders in the Ettenmoors may actually get raid worthy or raidable gear by trading Tyrant's Crests, Chieftan's Brooches (20 per piece) for a class set AND you can trade your level 65 piece for a level 75 piece, presumably with a lesser cost. Also mentioned were ring sets, off-hands, and relics (class specific).
Skirmishes - though there haven't been any new skirmishes listed as released, you will likely have to grind out some more SMs. You can trade a Veteran Fourth Mark and 5.5 SMs for Superior Fourth Marks, but you'll need around 100 of them to get about 4 of the 6 available pieces being released for level 75 PvE. Skirmish marks will also be tradeable for scrolls according to some pictures I have seen, so why you'd want to trade in SMs for S4M instead of grinding those out in instances might depend on the drop rates OR if you can get a group together for a skirmish. It's not clear if they'll drop solo, but it seems unlikely. It's also possible that for one S4M and 2.6k SMs you can get one of the Scrolls of Greater Empowerment. For me, I first concentrated on getting a number of things together before I started worrying about the tiers, but some people might just go ahead and do all that work up front. Symbols are able to be traded for in the current release (at least the Celebrimbors) but it's not clear if any of them will be able to be skirmished for in RoI. Either way, there is a lot of work to be done and the first person with a full set pretty much will HATE skirmishes and instances until there are new ones released.
[Ardineck]
