Count Batlord's Guide to the... Burglar.

[CountBatlord]

Hello everyone.
I have decided to make a slight guide to all the newbie players out there. And my first guide goes to the Burglar. Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree. This is only my opinion, so please do not say I am wrong, this is only what I think.

The burglar is, as it's name suggests, the rogue/thief/ninja of the game, compaired with other games. They like to attack from sneak attacks, and, when combat has been entered, make their enemies lightened of their great loads. Sneaking as a burglar won't increase many skills' damage, but the ones it does increase will go up quite a bit. However, in spite of the damage from stealth, they are NOT the best for a DPS role. Their attacks are somewhat weaker, even weaker than that of a guardian sometimes.
The most known and perhaps the greatest thing about them is their debuffing abilities, and also their skills allowing FM (High dealing damage or healing skills, performed from fellowships). Burglars have a great deal many skills which make the enemy much, much easier to kill, for both themselves and their fellows. They are also the only class which can reliably start a FM (Some other roles, such as a Lore-Master with the Bog Lurker, can start them, but not always, unlike the burglar), and have class items increasing FM's power.
They are not the best class for solo play, especially as their DPS is low, their armour is medium, and they can't easily take on multi enemies, but all in all, a rather good class. In fellowships, a Burglar will prove highly useful, especially when dealing with bosses, or enemies higher lvl to yourselves.
If you choose a Burglar, you will not be disapointed.

[Babarat]

tbh i can't agree completely with 2 facts; 1) that they aren't nice/easy to solo because of the dps and 2) they can't handle multiple enemies simultaneously.
So firstly , they are (for me at least) the best class to solo coz of stealth , high dps and quick rotation skills.With over 2k agil and so many survivability skills (KO,T&G,Hips) it's almost impossible to die questing + u have many advantages in pvp.
And secondly they really have many CC skills especially when u use the MM traitline (yellow one) so it's easy to keep mezzing/stuning mobs one by obe until u kill some others first.
But yes it's true that if u roll a burg u won't be disappointed

[CountBatlord]

1st of all, if you were reading, I said this is for NEWBIE Burglars, so no newer player is gonna have over 2k Agility. Later in the game, maybe, but for beginning, no. Focusing on agility, it is true you will have better attacks and defences, but still won't be as good at dmg as a champion, hunter, rune-keeper, lore-master, or even a War-speeched Minstrel. Stealth is useful to start a fight, as I said, but once you enter combat, you don't have such powerful attacks. 2nd, when multi fighting, yes, you can stun enemies to take many at once, but that's hardly multi FIGHTING is it? Stun one enemy, take another. There are hardly any (If any at all) skills which strike many enemies at once. 3rd, even if you can stun 1 enemy and take another, what's to say a member of your group won't use multi fighting skills, and break Riddle?
Just one more thing, this is, as I said, just my opinion. Anyone can feel how so ever they like. This is not saying the Burglar is a bad choice, it's just giving a few pointers.
Ranking wise, I'd say 7/10 for the burglar.

[Hydo5]

Guides are supposed to be informative and either help someone choose a class or give instructions on how to be better. This is neither.

You're posting a guide that is not a true reflection of the class, who cares about pre end game, you don't select a class because it's easy to level surely?

I'm sorry, but these Burglar forums do not need another guide that gives either new or existing players false information about the class - we have enough of those already.

[Frieja]

Good attempt, but to be brutally honest, there wasn't much substance to your "guide".

A much more informative guide would be this one on lotro-wiki.

I understand that you want a short, concise introduction to the class, but honestly the in-game character creation screen does that very well, and there's even a short movie to watch.

You give your opinion that burglar DPS is low - sometimes lower than a guardian's, but I have not found that to be true. When you use your skills in an efficient rotation (using debuffs, positional damage, bleeds, etc) burglars have VERY good damage. You also state that burglar isn't a very good solo class. On the contrary, I think it's one of the best. What other class can sneak through an enemy encampment to get a quest item that's all the way in the back? The burglar also has so many different skills to get out of a sticky situation. I'm leveling a burg for my husband right now. He's level 45 and has never died from combat (he's had some misadventures though, lol).

You are free to give your opinion, but please don't state those opinions as fact, and worse yet, try to influence a new player's decision with this "guide".

[Merowin]

I would put more of a positive spin to your post Bat. Instead of saying that burglar cannot fight multiple enemies at once, I would say that where most classes are forced to fight multiple enemies at once, the burglar can crowd control them and fight them one at a time.

Writing that the burglar is the ninja of the game and then that his attacks are weaker than a guard's desn't inspire people to play the burglar. Maybe you could say that the burglar during the early levels doesn't have the damage potential of the higher levels.

I would also mention that the burglar's survivability comes from clever use of all his llittle tricks and abilities. Once you really learn to use all your skills, the burglar can survive fights where most other classes would die.

I would completely get rid of the following sentence "They are not the best class for solo play, especially as their DPS is low, their armour is medium, and they can't easily take on multi enemies" since it's plain wrong. Maybe you could write that LotRO is designed so that any player on any class is able to successfully solo.

I would also not focus so much on fellowship maneuvres since fellowship maneuvres in their current state are not worth much. These days I mostly use the FMs openers as a stun.

When I had to explain the burglar I wrote the following down:

Burglars are melee fighters capable of doing significant damage to a single target, especially if the burglar is able to stand behind his enemy. Burglars are not able to do as much damage as hunters or rune-keepers and do not have the Area-of-Effect (AoE) attacks of the champion, but on a single target, standing behind the enemy, burglars can compete with champions. (fully decked out and under ideal circumstances burglars can out DPS any class in the game, but I wouldn't go into that debate here)

To make up for the lower damage output, burglars have a lot of nifty skills available to them. First and foremost riddle which will make an enemy ponder the meaning of life for 30 seconds, several tricks which will increase the damage done by the burglar's fellowship or decrease the damage done by his enemies, and last but not least burglars have the ability to initiate fellowship maneuvres on demand.

In solo play and with small fellowships burglars are characterized by all their little abilities which individually are nothing special, but when combined can make a big difference in difficult fights. Creative use of all these abilities is an important part of being a burglar. Allthough burglars are no tanks, all your little abilities will be able to keep you and your fellowship alive through more than you would think.

While leveling, burglars group especially well with other burglars, but also with other melee classes such as champions and guardians. For 3-man instances burglars typically have the role of DPS in a traditional tank, healer, DPS setup, but burglars may in some cases also replace the tank or the healer. A lot of 3-man instances can also successfully be run with three burglars. For raids you will typically be used in a more narrowly defined DPS-role with the ability to debuff and initiate fellowship maneuvres.

The three burglar traitlines are Mischief Maker, Quiet Knife and the Gambler. The Mischief Maker traitline is focused on your tricks and debuffs. Quiet Knife is focused on from stealth attacks and will boost your damage while you are behind your enemy. The Gambler is focused on damage over time and will give you extra debuffing and crowd control abilities. The traitlines will improve some of your abilities, but they will not significantly change the role you play in a fellowship. Whichever traitline you pick, you will DPS, and you will debuff. A very popular way to trait is to stay 5 Quiet Knife and rotate the last two traits depending on the instance you run.

Skirmishes may be handled in many different ways. A safe option is to use a protector as skirmish soldier. Pull the enemies by using riddle on the lieutenant. The enemies will now cluster around your protector, and you can kill them one at a time. Once all enemies on your protector are dead, you switch to the lieutenant. If it takes you longer than 30 seconds to kill the enemies on your protector, you may want to run in mischief stance and re-apply riddle to the lieutenant every 30 seconds. Make sure not to give your soldier any AoE damage skills, or he will break your riddle.

[Gilias]

Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree. This is only my opinion, so please do not say I am wrong, this is only what I think.

You asked for feedback so here goes...

It's a horrible guide... In fact it's not a guide. Guides usually explain "How to", whereas your post does nothing else than give a very vague and unclear description of the burglar. Also it's full of faulty assumptions and personal opinion. Try and base it on facts instead. Or don't call it a guide... or don't ask for comments

Rude part over with... We could do with some good burglar guides - but we've had plenty of half-finished guides and certainly a lot of misinformation about burglars in these forums. The last thing we need is more of those... Hope that goes some way to explain why your guide-attempt is not very well received...

Ideally a guide should be short and concise, easy to understand and full of facts and information. Hope your next one will be better

[TheOrcsBane]

Hello everyone.
I have decided to make a slight guide to all the newbie players out there. And my first guide goes to the Burglar. Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree. This is only my opinion, so please do not say I am wrong, this is only what I think.

The burglar is, as it's name suggests, the rogue/thief/ninja of the game, compaired with other games. They like to attack from sneak attacks, and, when combat has been entered, make their enemies lightened of their great loads. Sneaking as a burglar won't increase many skills' damage, but the ones it does increase will go up quite a bit. However, in spite of the damage from stealth, they are NOT the best for a DPS role. Their attacks are somewhat weaker, even weaker than that of a guardian sometimes.
The most known and perhaps the greatest thing about them is their debuffing abilities, and also their skills allowing FM (High dealing damage or healing skills, performed from fellowships). Burglars have a great deal many skills which make the enemy much, much easier to kill, for both themselves and their fellows. They are also the only class which can reliably start a FM (Some other roles, such as a Lore-Master with the Bog Lurker, can start them, but not always, unlike the burglar), and have class items increasing FM's power.
They are not the best class for solo play, especially as their DPS is low, their armour is medium, and they can't easily take on multi enemies, but all in all, a rather good class. In fellowships, a Burglar will prove highly useful, especially when dealing with bosses, or enemies higher lvl to yourselves.
If you choose a Burglar, you will not be disapointed.

The first thing that comes to mind after reading your so-called "guide" is: Has the OP ever played a Burglar?

Please don't compare the Burglar to a Rogue, as the two are not the same. A rogue is a completely DPS orientated class, while a Burglar is a support class. The only similarities they have are stealth.

Their attacks are somewhat weaker, even weaker than that of a guardian sometimes.

This also makes me wonder if you've ever played a Guardian, as well as a Burglar. The only way for a Guardian to possibly do more damage than a Burglar is if he's in OP with a two-hander orientated for DPS, and the Burg is traited MM with bloody awful Agility. (No offense to you MM burgs, but damage in MM is not so hot.)

They are not the best class for solo play, especially as their DPS is low, their armour is medium, and they can't easily take on multi enemies

This begs the question, have you ever seen a Burglar actually fight a mob? At low levels, Stealth + Aim + SS is enough to one shot mobs. We're not that squishy, and we can take on plenty of enemies.

All in all, this is not really a guide, but more of a paragraph of your personal opinions and misguided observations.

[Melmadoc]

This isn't a "guide" this is a (false) description of the class...

bad for solo? lack of dps?

I wonder if you played a burg...

[joev]

The best thing about CountBatlord's guide is it attracted Burg players that are willing to impart their incredibly useful knowledge.

Thanks for the posts folks, made this thread worthwhile reading.

[KSoze]

Hello everyone.
I have decided to make a slight guide to all the newbie players out there. And my first guide goes to the Burglar. Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree.

Welcome to the burglar forums, where all members are helpful, positive and always agree with each other!

[RJFerret]

Since this thread will come up when future readers search for a burglar guide, here's an actual one, that shows how to take on multiple foes at beginning levels.

Shem's Stealthy Supplement, A Budding Burglar 1-20 Overview

It's older, some of the stat info had changed, but the strategies still apply. For the OP, if you follow this guide, your "opinions" might change. ;-)



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

[thisisanewname]

Hello everyone.
The burglar is, as it's name suggests, the rogue/thief/ninja of the game, compaired with other games. They like to attack from sneak attacks, and, when combat has been entered, make their enemies lightened of their great loads. Sneaking as a burglar won't increase many skills' damage, but the ones it does increase will go up quite a bit. However, in spite of the damage from stealth, they are NOT the best for a DPS role. Their attacks are somewhat weaker, even weaker than that of a guardian sometimes.

burgs are actually 1 of the highest dps once you understand how to play them and early on they still have ALLOT more dps than a guard (my burg does around 4x the dps on my guard when the guard is full op traited) and early on guard dps is totally pathetic. they may not be the highest in dps(being behind rk's ,hunters,and champs) but unless there's enough mobs to take advantage of the aoe's guards and lm's aren't in the same league.


[QUOTE=CountBatlord;6152821]
The most known and perhaps the greatest thing about them is their debuffing abilities, and also their skills allowing FM (High dealing damage or healing skills, performed from fellowships). Burglars have a great deal many skills which make the enemy much, much easier to kill, for both themselves and their fellows.They are also the only class which can reliably start a FM (Some other roles, such as a Lore-Master with the Bog Lurker, can start them, but not always, unlike the burglar), and have class items increasing FM's power.

FM's are really only important in draigoch most of the time they are used more for the stun than the actual cj. OP guards might actually be better at starting cjs when u add in the extra cj's started from fray the edge and To The King seems to have a MUCH higher proc chance than exposed throat(the 1 time i did draigoch on my guard TTK proc'd everytime vs the last time i went on my burg i had trip+ exposed resisted 2x each in a row and my burg has almost 8k fineness and is much better geared.)

While the debuffs are nice lm debuffs are better and for the majority of the content debuffs really aren't needed

They are not the best class for solo play, especially as their DPS is low, their armour is medium, and they can't easily take on multi enemies, but all in all, a rather good class. In fellowships, a Burglar will prove highly useful, especially when dealing with bosses, or enemies higher lvl to yourselves.
If you choose a Burglar, you will not be disapointed.

Actually burgs are 1 of the best solo classes (all classes can solo well the only class that really seemed easier to me to solo on was my warden and i have leveled all classes to at least 65 mostly solo with just my hunter and mini under level 70) and have pretty high dps and can handle multiple mobs quite easily if you know how. back in the soa days when quests actually required groups allot of group quests were actually EASIER to do solo on my burg than actually in a group even at low levels (my kin was probably getting sick of hearing i solo'd that everytime they asked for help in group quests ) and once u understand how to actually use stealth effectively and use a hips pull even fights that have a boss+ adds become quite ez since u will only have to fight the adds.

[Eliaf]

they are NOT the best for a DPS role. Their attacks are somewhat weaker, even weaker than that of a guardian sometimes.
.

i argh. er.. WHAT?! i 1 hit 70% of on lvl mobs from sneak and if i dont i finish them in the next 3/4 shots..goes like this : stun go to his back hit with best skills..BOOM dead..also i cant agree about that he cant solo..he can easly take on 5 mobs at a time stuning all of them and killing 1 by one.but its nice to see you want to help nwbies keep it up!

[forusrname]

Ok, some of this stuff needs some better thoughts.

Lets take a level 10 nooburg. The nooburg cannot take on multiple enemies easily -- weak armor, low dps, few skills, its pretty true that early in the game, both dps and ability to fight multiples can be much lower than other classes. Typical of classes that turbine labels as "advanced", the class matures slowly and things it can do at higher levels are not open at the start. A level 75 burg can take on 6-10 normal landscape enemy and leave them all dead and looted. Its not hard for us. A level 75 burg can kill something before the server side AI kicks in for the mob to even defend itself. Takes a while to get there!

It would be equally misleading to say that the nooburg is a dps machine capable of wiping the floor with an orc camp right off the bat. Not gonna happen. Even as an experienced player, the first few levels as burg are at best a bit slow, and 3 mobs is usually either fatal or worth running from --- remains that way until mez and dust are opened.

There is NOTHING wrong with the perspective --- his stuff matches what I recall of the early days of the class. But please STATE that in your guide --- you would not want the potential player to think his burg would always be a weakling. The class, long term, is neither weak in dps nor weak at solo play.

Work on it just a bit. You have the spirit to do something neat here, but focus on it. It could evolve into a decent "getting started" or "what to expect" guide for new players, as long as you explain that the class at lower levels and the high end play are very, very different.

[D3-Rook]

I can't help but think about how many poor newbs looking for a good Burg guide are going to waste their time and bandwidth opening this thread.

Please change the thread title to "Count Batlords vague and subjective description of the Burg".

Thank you.

[Beleg]

Burglar DPS is very good. The OP's "guide" is not. I think he would have been better off simply asking us burgs to write a paragraph about why we play burgs.

Other poster have provided some good suggestions. I may have missed it, but I didn't see anyone mention "interrupts". Burgs have the best induction interrupts in the game. Champs are not bad; wardens are okay. But if you really need something interrupted, bring a burg.