well, two outfits each for two characters at least.  They’re not particularly original or anything but I’m quite pleased with them

Hunter:
combat outfit: Tawarwaith Hat of the Awakened, Wood-wanderer’s Cloak, Golden Host Shoulder Pads, Coat, Gloves, Leggings and Boots.

festival outfit: Turquoise Summer Circlet, Long-Sleeved Elven Dress, Simbelmynë Cloak (dyed Sea-blue)

Loremaster:
combat outfit: Elven Cloth Leggings, Jacket and Gloves, Treasure-Hunter’s Shoulder Guards, Cloak of the Mallorn, Boots of the Golden Wood (all dyed Grey)

festival outfit: Hat of Deep Lore, Cloak of the Moth, Elegant Dress (dyed Gold)

will post a ‘what i’m playing’ post quite soon – no surprises that it’ll feature eso and lotro

not quite 10 years for me but close to 8.  Anyway, I’ve been playing regularly again (as my second MMO) since before Christmas and I’m really glad I got back into it before this anniversary started.

I’m really enjoying the Scavenger hunts and going back through old zones.  Lotro Strategery has an ongoing guide, which is extremely useful as the Lotro wiki is getting hammered at the moment!  I’m surprised at how much I do actually remember and don’t have to look up, but there have been a few objectives which completely flummoxed me…  It’s also shown that I completely ignored the re-making of Narsil questline (a very long quest chain) and so I have been catching up on that.  Being over-levelled and the quest being in the gorgeous Everswim Evendim is making it fun and relaxed rather than a chore.  I am completely up to date with the epic quest chain… except… for the final book of Vol. 2.  I am expecting to be catching up on that for scavenger reasons quite soon

We recently had an extended hobbit/lotr movie marathon over the first week of the Easter hols and our littlun thoroughly enjoyed that.  He surprised us by actually watching the films with us, we did think it would be too much!  He now has a baby Captain and saw his first Anniversary firework show which he was spellbound by and thought was nearly as exciting as the real thing   I did a few quests for him so he could get a dragon kite (obviously… I mean what 8 year old wouldn’t want a dragon kite!)

Finally, as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations (see here for the full details), there is a top ten lotro soundtracks list on youtube with comments and reflections by Chance Thomas – really interesting and fab to get some background on the creation process.

as is probably patently obvious, I’ve really fallen by the wayside with regular blogging.  I think I’m mostly out of the habit rather than anything else.  I’ve decided though I’m going to try something different out over the summer – I’m going to try hmm, sort of micro blogging I guess by posting to G+ instead for a while.  I may still post here occasionally as some things feel better on this site.

My G+ profile is here, and I’ll be posting to either the Good Guys Gaming community (friendly gaming community – new members welcome :)) or to one of my collections (linked to on my G+ profile).  Easiest thing is to follow me if you have a G+ account, I’ll follow back gamers / bloggers   I’m looking into seeing if I can connect g+ to twitter…

hmm I think this is outfit posting week for me

This is my High Elf Minstrel, she has been unplayed for a while as I have got distracted trying to get my Hunter through Mordor so she is ready for Mirkwood (her origin) and a certain new High Elf…

Head: Turquoise Summer Circlet (undyed)
Back: Symbelmyne Cloak (dyed turquoise)
Shoulders: Noriel’s Folly (dyed turquoise)
Upper body: Time-Worn Tunic and Waistcoat (dyed Sea blue)
Gloves: Ceremonial Voice of the West Gloves (dyed Sea blue)
Feet: Gardening Boots (dyed turquoise)

Horse: Steed of the Citadel

Is it possible to overdo it with bears?  My warden certainly doesn’t think so…

Head: Skinchanger Hat (L), 1000g
Chest: Nord Jerkin 2 (L), 100g
Shoulders: Skinchanger Epaulets (L), 500g
Hands: Skinchanger Gloves (L), 500g
Waist: Nord Belt 4 (M), 50g
Legs: Nord Guards 3 (H), 100g
Feet: Nord Boots 2 (M), 50g

Dyes: Craftmaster Gold and Motif Master Brown

It accidentally turned into outfit week here at StarShadow with the release of the Dragon Bones DLC for Elder Scrolls Online introducing the outfit system at long last.  Here’s a list of all the outfits I created this week (and a few earlier this year) for both ESO and LoTRO.

ESO:

• Stamina Warden
• Skyrim Thieves Guild (kinda)
• Lightning Battlemage
• Magicka Thief

LoTRO:

• High Elf Captain
• High Elf Minstrel
• Elf Lore-Master and Elf Hunter  (I may redo these as the screenshots could be clearer)

I love the caves in ESO, they can be very pretty.  This one, in particular, is very striking with the contrast between the red and heat of the lava fall and the cool green lake areas.

I really enjoyed working out a dwarven themed levelling path for my Dwarven Champion, so I thought I’d do one for my new High Elf Captain.

I’ve used the Zones by level page on the wiki again, but this time I will be following the epic story through the zones.  Aside from the elven connected areas mentioned below, I will be doing side quests only to bump up levels as needed.  This ends up being a little more complicated though…

Levels 1 – 40:

• Ered Luin [elven starting area]
• Bree-land | Lone-lands (epic story)
• North Downs – epic story plus Lin Giliath [elven outpost]
• The Trollshaws | Rivendell – epic story plus quests  [lots of elven outposts]

Levels 40-50:

• Misty Mountains – epic story
• Angmar | Evendim | Forochel (epic story) [story revolves around great evil and the elves]
• Eregion epic story plus quests [ancient elven presence, now mostly abandoned]

Levels 51-65:

• Mines of Moria – epic story [necessary for legendary weapons]
• Lothlórien – epic story plus quests [home of the Galadhrim]
• Mirkwood – epic story plus quests [home of the Malledhrim]

Levels 65-75:

• Enedwaith | Dunland | Ford of Isen/Isengard – epic story
• Great River – epic story [elven involvement plus elven outpost in the Great River]

I’ll probably just follow the epic story through Rohan, Gondor, Anorien and Mordor, doing side quests as needed.

what are your favourite zones to level through?

This is quite similar to my outfit for my magicka sorc (in fact I have changed his to be more like this).  It’s quite expensive but I really love this style.

head: N/A
chest: Ebonshadow Jerkin (M) 2,000g
legs: Ebonshadow Breeches (M) 2,000g
shoulders: Ebonheart Pauldrons (H) 500g
feet: Ebonshadow Sabatons (H) 1,000g
hands: Ebony Gauntlets (H) 1,000g
waist: Ebonshadow Sash (L) 1,000g

Dyes: Cyrodilic Steel and Arcane Blue

Bow: Ebonshadow, 6,000g
Swords: Soul Shriven, 750g

Dyes: Cyrodilic Steel and Aetherial Blue

All outfits can be found under this tag, and recent outfits can be found here.

This is quite a long quest in the main story line for Elder Scrolls Online and it takes place in an absolutely stunning underground tomb.  I was messing around for so long, I was surprised the Companions waited for me…

Nb.  I did have ReShade running for these screenshots and it does intensify the colour and contrast somewhat.

I haven’t been gaming much this week, hence the lack of posts.  I have dabbled with questing my Captain through the Lone-lands in lotro, and gained a level on a baby alt in eso.

It’s been a freezing week here in the UK, and my diet now mostly consists of hot chocolate and crumpets.  I knitted myself a hat on Sunday evening in preparation which I am really pleased with.  It’s a slouchy beanie hat with a pom pom

As I live on the south coast and we normally have extremely mild weather (a frost is quite exciting in normal years), the couple of days of snow we currently have is a very fun change, especially for my 9 year old (it’s the first time he’s seen snow – there was a day or so of snow when he was 2 but that, apparently, doesn’t count).

We’re currently watching our way through Mad Men on Netflix, which we’re really enjoying.  We alternate between cheering on Peggy, doing pretend shocked faces when Don has yet another liaison and discuss whether Dimzad could get away with a couch in his office

I’m currently reading Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds.  I’m really enjoying it, although I have  no idea how it’s all going to turn out.  That’s probably a good thing.  I hope I find out exactly what happened with the Amarantins, although I suspect I may not..  (Dimzad gave me a hint that not all is explained…)

I’m hoping to get a gaming post out tomorrow, we shall see.

While questing my Captain through my elven levelling path, as planned I quested through the elven settlement of Lin Giliath, Meluinen.  It is a gorgeous area and I got very distracted taking screenshots (again).

I think Lin Giliath can roughly translate to Pool of the Host of Stars, and now I wish I’d taken a screenshot of the pool/pond to see if they are reflected…  (once the servers are back up I will)

I love this screenshot of mine and a friend’s characters – it just looks epic

It was very fun to duo those Craglorn dungeons, though not quite as fun as when we duoed Craglorn before it was solo-ised    It was especially fun as I had a ridiculous not-even-a-hybrid build (bow and resto staff) as we needed both dps and heals.  It worked though and we did manage to duo all of Craglorn aside from two boss fights where we persuaded a guildy to come and help us.  Must have been back in the days of veteran ranks too I think…

The world building team have surpassed themselves with Update 22.  It is absolutely stunning and a real treat to be able to explore areas I first encountered as a child.   I have been thoroughly enjoying myself in the new area of Eyrn Lasgalen and have even enjoyed getting lost in the Forest (many times!)   I’ve put together a selection of images of Thranduil’s throne area in Felegoth – it’s very grand.

I’m writing this to try to gather all stealth and thieving passives in one place,  mostly for my own benefit (for my non-NB characters) but maybe it will be useful to others.

I use stealth for general stealing, for reaching objectives quickly (when questing), for the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood dailies, and also for moving quickly around Cyrodiil (pvp).  It’s very easy on my NB (as it should be!) but you can get non-NBs to a very reasonable level of stealth.

The passives I look for are to increase stealth speed, reduce cost of stealthing and decreasing the detection range.

• Crafted – Night’s Silence – 5 set bonus: Ignore Movement Penalty speed while sneaking (only requires 2 known traits per armour piece)
• Dropped (medium) – Night Mother’s Embrace – 5 set bonus: Reduce the range you can be detected while hidden by 2 meters. Reduces crouch cost by 25%
• Dropped (medium) – Night Terror– 3 set bonus: Decrease detection radius by 2 meters. Reduce Sneak cost by 25%
• Dropped (light) – Shadow Dancer’s Raiment – 5 set bonus:  Ignore movement penalty of sneak

Night’s Silence | Night Mother’s Embrace | Night Terror | Shadow Dancer’s Raiment

I use AlphaGear 2 to save gear & skill sets and have separate sets for pve, pvp and thieving.  You can keybind your builds to quickly switch when out of combat.  I find a lower level / lower quality of set for thieving, heists and sacraments works just fine as you don’t tend to need to fight. (cheaper).  I recommend having either Night’s Silence or Shadow Dancer’s Raiment combined with Night Terror.  The dropped sets include jewellery.

General skill line passives:

• Medium armour passives – Windwalker (increase stamina recovery) and Improved Sneak (reduces cost of sneaking and reduces detection area).
• Legerdemain passive – Improved Hiding (reduces stamina cost of sneaking).
  • Legerdemain also has Force Lock (very good for Heists), plus pickpocketing, fence interactions and reduction of bounties.

Nightblade skills & passives:

• Shadow Cloak (invisibility* for 2.5 seconds)
• Veiled Strike > Concealed Weapon (increases stealth speed – with Night’s Silence  or Dark Stalker, you basically sprint stealthed – really tough decision as the other morph is an excellent dps choice)

Bosmer skill line passive:

• Y’ffre’s endurance (inc stamina regen) and Stealthy (reduces detection radius)

Khajiit skill line passive:

• Stealthy (reduces detection radius)

Vampire skill line passive:

• Dark Stalker (increases stealth speed and enter stealth more quickly at night).  N.B. this trait does not stack with the gear set bonus but does stack with the Nightblade’s Concealed Weapon.

Thieves Guild skill line passive:

• Veil of Shadows (Witness range and Guard Accost range reduced by 10%)
  • also has many passives useful for general thievery.

Dark Brotherhood skill line passive:

• Shadow Rider: Aggression radius from hostile monsters is decreased by 50% while mounted
  • see here for full passives

Alchemy:

• Invisibility potions are good for busy, hard to hide areas.  Take the relevant alchemy trait for longer potion effects.

• The Thief
  • Wind Running.  Increase all types of movement speed by 2%
• The Shadow:
  • Shade.  Reduces cost of stealth by x%.
  • Fortune Seeker (Rank 10) increases amount of gold found in treasure chests and safeboxes
  • Treasure Hunter (Rank 75) increases the quality of items found in treasure chests.

*Invisibility and Stealth are two different mechanics.  Stealth is not being noticed and you are less likely to be seen if you are not in their sight path or the further away you are (stealth radius).  Invisibility means just that and as far as I know isn’t affected by any skill or set bonus.

Let me know if there’s anything to add or you’ve spotted a mistake

I’ve been looking for a solo build for my Hunter and haven’t found anything up to date that has all the information needed in one place. So, I’m collating the advice I’ve found and taken. I’m just playing solo content at the moment, so the build reflects that. If anyone can point me to a guide or has any tips or suggestions for improvement, please leave a comment.

Bow Legacies:

• Hunter Damage over Time
• Quick Shot Damage
• Focus Bow Critical Multiplier
• Ranged Skill Evade Chance
• Focus Bow Power Cost and Damage
• Induction Bow Damage
• Induction Bow Power Cost

Sword Legacies:

• Precision Stance Critical
• Merciful Shot Cooldown
• Agility
• Stance: Precision Finesse
• Barrage Damage
• Power Restored by Intent Concentration
• Bubble Potency

Relics:

• Westemnet Setting of Endings (or True Setting of the Three Hunters?)
• True Gem of the Rising Moon
• Westemnet Rune of Power (or True Rune of the White Mountains)
• Westemnet Device of Potency

For relics: as I’m soloing, I’m not necessarily looking for best in slot (though if anyone knows, please let me know!) but generally a cheaper version which is along the right lines. I use same or similar relics on both bow and sword.

Title: Conflict of Eldar Days III (beleriand damage + physical mastery)

Skill points: This build seems most popular, with some minor variations according to personal play style out there. I’ve always liked precision stance so I’m glad it’s currently in a good place.

Virtues: Innocence, Honour, Charity, Tolerance and Dedication. Although there is some wiggle room in this depending on what you feel you need.

Current: Purple 112 Towers set (70 ash each) from High Enchanter, Elf Smith. If you’re sticking with Mordor gear for now, I found this thread hugely helpful (gear is last post iirc)

I’m using a Tome of the Wind-Rider for reduced power costs. Off hand sword I will be hoping on drops or waiting until level 115 (for a bartered or crafted sword).

Working towards: the Eryn Lasgalen 115 agility set plus teal quest rewards (cloak and upperbody I’ve seen so far). Depending on how much I grind for tokens, she will either settle for purple level gear but possibly will go for the teal gear items with crafted items. I’ll update this once I get there.

Essences: Finesse to get to a reasonable level, plus crit / agility / physical mastery for other slots. I’ve used the numbers here as a target for stats.

(N.B. My Hunter has benefited from my main LM character who can pass gear / currency on)

I really struggled when I first hit Mordor as my Hunter hadn’t been at cap since just before Rohan. I had managed to get some flower armour but had some awful jewellery from who knows where.

The first thing I did was max the dps rank of my imbued bow, this pretty much doubled the damage and started upgrading gear from quest rewards and drops in Udûn. I also did some levelling outside of Mordor by using Task, Festivals and the Wastes quests to get to 112, and so be able to wear the bartered lvl 112 purple gear. It’s now pretty easy and I just have to be careful with large groups, adds etc.

I did go to Eryn Lasgalen at level 112 and I will be leaving it till closer to 115! It is possible, one mob was fine, two was ok if I cc’d but if I was surprised I died very quickly.

Have I left anything out? Any tips?

I’ve written a number of reference posts, mostly for my own benefit, but may be helpful to others as well.

Quests: I’ve recently updated the Provisioning Writs post as there have been some big changes to writs.  I also compiled a visual cheat sheet for the Blackfeather Court dailies.

Appearance: I also have finished guides to the Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant and Ebonheart Pact disguises.  The Costume Rewards and Trophies need to be updated with Morrowind and beyond items but previous content is unchanged.

Outfits: I’ve also put together a few outfits: my first attempt (way before the outfit system was introduced, nightblade, magicka sorc, stam sorc, stam warden, skyrim thief

Other: I’ve also noted down my key pad bindings and collated all the passives and gear sets for stealth.  I need to update/redo my addons page…

I love this zone, the autumn trees, the music… and you see it a lot during the epic quest

Near the Wreck of the Raptor (a ghostly ship wreck) in Auridon, there is a high bluff where you can see the effects of the ghostly thunderstorm (which presumably wrecked the ship).  It’s pretty cool.

I got carried away taking screenshots in Rivendell, so I made a few more collages (will post the final two, later this week or next).