We’ve previewed the Minstrel, Burglar, and Champion classes so far, but what about the rest of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar’s combatants? While we’ve yet to touch the Guardian, LotRO’s tank class, and the Lore-Master, a ranged spell blaster, we have managed to build a Hunter to 15 and a Captain to 10. Playing around with these types gave us some experience with pets for the first time, a prominent feature of the Captain. At this point we’ve logged a substantial number of hours wading through the introductory content for this game, and have yet to get sick of it. It’s a much more user-friendly MMO than those many longtime veterans have been playing for years. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the quest descriptions, which give extremely specific navigation directions for finding objectives. The current level cap of 15 prevents us from bringing you details of how the classes fare against higher level content or how complex this game gets later on, but that limit should be alleviated when the game moves to final release on April 24.

One strange effect of the low level cap has people treating level 15 as an end-game growth limitation. Instead of stopping play once they hit 15, we’ve seen many players continuing to quest for powerful rare items even though they’re getting no experience. It seems like a waste to us, since they could have done the same quests after the retail launch and likely gained a few levels in the process. Even with such powerful level 15 gear, it’s likely such equipment will be quickly rendered useless in a short while, given how easy it is to level in this game. Since questing for additional equipment after reaching maximum level is an entrenched MMO mentality, such occurrences aren’t entirely unexpected, but why not create another character instead?

For the Hunter, we went with the Dwarven race, which unfortunately suffers from a reduced agility statistic. Since ranged damage is affected by agility, this may not have been the best decision, but such statistical racial fluctuations as this with low level characters may be obliterated by the 30s and 40s by the benefits of high level equipment. We’ll have to experience it to know for sure. When an enemy’s engaged, ranged and melee attacks are switched between automatically, reducing superfluous skill bar clicks. There’s also unlimited ammo for your bow or crossbow, which may leave some MMO players obsessed with customization a little miffed.

Like the other classes, Hunters skills work in tandem for increased effectiveness. His Barbed Arrow shot, which decreases enemy run speed and does a minor amount of damage over time, is a good way to start off a fight. Setting up a trap before the fight lets you ensnare the aggroed mob and get off a few more shots before they close for melee. We’ve so far been using Swift Bow, which unleashes two arrows after a charge time of about three seconds, and Quick Bow, which shoots an extra single shot. The aforementioned special bow shots add focus points to a bar at the bottom of the screen and can be consumed to pull off a Penetrating Shot, a single arrow attack with a large amount of bonus damage.

When combat closes range Hunters have a few abilities, the most notable being Scourging Blow, which does decent damage if the mob is still suffering from Barbed Arrow. The Focus ability generates focus over time, and if things get too hectic, Cry of the Predator scares off beasts. While engaged in melee the bow attacks still seemed to be the better options, even if the charge time occasionally gets reset while taking damage. Out of combat, Hunters have a useful Find the Path toggle, speeding up your fellowship’s run speed by 15 percent. To help boost damage output, Hunters get a Stance: Strength toggle which always stays active, boosting ranged damage by 10 percent by consuming more Power per ability used and increasing your threat. For those who don’t know, Power is this game’s mana that regulates all special skill use.

We chose the race of Men for our Captain class, mostly because that’s the only race that permits this class to be created. These guys, like Champions, have a number of melee-focused abilities and can use a wide range of weapon types. Captains have a few mundane skills like the Defensive Strike, which does extra damage and provides a temporary armor bonus, and a damage over time Cutting Attack, but things more interesting with their Battle-shout and after-combat options. By literally screaming at an enemy and doing a chunk of light damage, a Captain becomes Battle-ready, opening up a new tier of melee attacks like Devastating Blow, which causes bigger critical hits, and Pressing Attack, which delivers an extra swing. Once an enemy hits the dirt, there’s a limited window of time to trigger Routing Cry, which acts like an area of effect damage spell, War-Cry to speed up your fellowship’s attack speed, and Rallying Cry to do an instant fellowship heal with additional healing over time.

At level 10, a Captain gets the benefit of summoning a guy who runs around with a banner. Though these Heralds of War, as they’re called, may look silly as they follow you around waving a flag, they’re quite useful in combat and party play for several reasons. First, they fight along side you. Second, their presence gives you and your party members a sizable bonus to Might and Agility. Third, they have their own special skills, including a stun attack, an attack that draws the enemy’s attention, and the ability to sacrifice his own Morale (health) to restore yours. The Captain seems to encompass nearly everything desirable in LotRO: he can heal, inflict significant amounts of damage, command a pet, and buff himself and fellowship members. At level 14 Captains learn another heal, Words of Courage, which does an up-front and over time Morale boosting. At 15 this class can even learn Shields, further bolstering their defense.

For the Captain we chose the Historian profession, which includes Farmer, Weaponsmith, and Scholar subsets, and has proven to be much slower going than any other profession so far. Urns need to be harvested for creating the Scholar battle and lore scrolls that buff combat and crafting skills. Only found near crumbling ruins, urns seem much rarer than any timber piles or ore deposits required for other professions, making the already slow progress of production crafts even more sluggish here. We paired our Hunter with the Explorer profession, which benefits from the ability to harvest ore and lumber nodes, both of which are plentiful. We treat the wood with wax and send it off to characters with the Woodworking profession subset who fashion it into spears and bows. Ore can be used by many, including jewelers, weaponsmiths, and armorsmiths. The third Explorer subset, Tailoring, uses hides picked up from mobs to make light and medium armor pieces.

Moving around Eriador, in which we’re basically trapped right now because of the level cap, we’ve experienced more and more of the Deed system and like how it works. Killing mobs, discovering special structures, and completing quests in a new zone, such as The Shire or Ered Luin, unlocks traits and titles. Traits can be equipped on your character to alter statistics, whereas titles are strictly cosmetic. Sometimes the Deeds have several tiers. For instance, upon killing enough wolves to meet the first tier, you’d be rewarded with a title like “Fur-cutter.” This would unlock an advanced wolf killing Deed, which rewards you with a trait. Sometimes another tier can be opened up, allowing access to an even more powerful trait. It’s an enjoyable system because many of the Deeds are completed as side effects of questing in a zone. Of course you can always resort to Deed grinding if you so choose, which would ensure you get the best traits, but also mean you’re grinding. We don’t think we’re alone when we say grinding is among the least desirable gameplay experiences out there.

Another ancillary customization system can be tapped into through Destiny Points, earned by leveling after 10, completing main story quests, or completing quests and killing mobs in Monster Play PvP mode. For your PvE character you can purchase temporary character upgrades like an accelerated accumulation of experience or increased statistics. In Monster Play they can be exchanged for permanent skills for your monster character. Destiny Points earned by any of your characters, which includes any PvE or PvP monsters, pool together, meaning you don’t have to grind points for every character separately.

Though we haven’t gotten very far in the main storyline yet, we have played through the introductory main quests that slowly guide characters to Bree, the current hangout of the majority of our server. We’ll keep you updated on our travels as this game nears launch. In the meantime, we’ve uploaded more screens and videos for your enjoyment so make sure to check those out.