Silver or Lead

Highlights: Resolina enters Iron Hills

Where Dragons Dwell is a quest pack that came out October 9, 2018 for 1995 lotro points. That sounds quite expensive at first glance. It has 120 quests, 4 resource instances, ice and dwarf themed decorations tradeable with marks, 4 instances, and a raid. For a comparison Far Anorien is priced the same amount with 70 quests, rohirrim themed decorations tradeable with marks, 3 instances, and a raid. In all fairness, there is much to applaud and complain about this quest pack. 

How many dwarves does it take to carry a hero?

Iron Hills is a region to the east of Erebor that is included in the quest pack. The area is so tiny that there are deeds for completing 30 quests and killing 40 (and then 80 for advanced) beasts and easterlings. The reputation builds on top of Erebor's Kindred status to Respected for a few more buyable decorations. It is too bad they all cost 90 Tokens of the Lake and Rivers. The Dwarf Painting shown in The Black Book of Mordor Chapter 7.7: The Hidden Chamber is probably the only thing worth getting anyways.

 

I really did enjoy this area. The landscape was beautiful and the controvery over the town of Utterby was very interesting. Following Dori (the explori) through his old home in the expanded Erebor base was pretty cool too. They must have been thoroughly prepared as it took a full 10 seconds to pack each backpack. Though I didn't appreciate him comparing me to "old Mr. Baggins" as an invaluable ally of the dwarves. Náin the Slakeless offers a repeatable quest that takes you through Utterby if you are a tad short on reputation. I was kind of upset with the Ironfold Skarn Deposits. Although you can still track them on the minimap if you are a prospector, the deposits themselves seem to only load once you are practically on top of them. For a brief time I was able to collect one dwarrowgleam shard every 30 minutes of mining the area and sell them on the Auction House for 350g each. Yet in the past few weeks I have not been able to obtain a single shard from 2 hours of mining now that their value has dropped to 120g each. 

 
 
 

 

Howling Pit: I really wish there was more to do in the area but Howling Pit is a huge dissapointment. It is a survival instance where waves of enemies come and attack you. I don't know why they decided to make a new instance require 200 Light of Earendil when the stats on your equipment doubles from level 115 to 120 and does not include any Light of Earendil at all. At least they "threw in" 80 Light of Earendil at level 120 for whatever that matters. I have a theory that perhaps when we return to Mordor we will be able to finish this instance and find out what that Ashmâr-abân pendant does. Until then the only rewards are three separate titles given for each phase of the instance. 

 

2019-07-18