Introducing the Burglar: Level 1-20

Introducing Class X Series

I love creating alts and playing through low level zones and I need some LOTRO points for my free-to-play account so I thought I would create a new character of each class, level it to 20 and describe my experience. 

I think every class in LOTRO is interesting, but they do all have their pros and cons, and some classes or specs may suit certain situations or play-styles more than others.

To start this series, let's look at the burglar:

The Burglar

The most famous burglar in LOTRO is Bilbo Baggins, who stole the precious Arkenstone gem from the dragon Smaug under the Lonely Mountain.

Burglars are stealthy melee fighters and specialise in debuffing their enemies.

Here I'll record my experience levelling as a burglar from level 1 to 20, talking about skills and specs and anything else that might be useful to know.

Level 1 Hobbit Burglar

Here's our brand new burglar and some basic information about her:

• Wears medium armour
• Wields daggers
• Primary stat is Agility
• Starting abilities are: Sneak (enter stealth mode out of combat), Surprise Strike (a strong single attack that does more damage from behind or when stealthed), Cunning Attack (a bleed attack that causes damage over time, extra if burglar was stealthed) and Subtle Stab (a basic single attack)

The first quest in the introduction provides a satchel that gives you two daggers to dual-wield. You are sent to improve your fighting skills at the Burglar Trainer, who tells you about how you can do more damage if you attack from stealth, and critical hits will also enable special follow-up attack ("Critical Hit Chain") abilities such as Double-Edged Strike (which becomes available at level 4). At level 5, when fighting level 5 Blackwolds in Archet, my typical dps from stealth was 19 and without stealth was 15.

At level 6 you can choose a specialisation:

1. Blue = The Gambler - increases stealth movement speed and evade chance; focuses on activating gambles (a damage over time (bleed effect) debuff on the enemy that can vary in potency depending on tier 1-6; several abilities and traits can increase the damage of gambles)
2. Red = The Quiet Knife - increases stealth movement speed and reduces the chance of being detected; focuses on attacking from stealth or from behind, getting increased critical hits and also allows some attacks to be used when not stealthed
3. Yellow = The Mischief-Maker - focuses on applying tricks (debuffs and crowd control) to the enemy then removing them to buff or heal the burglar

My interpretation: blue line is all about DoTs and is probably good at sustained damage; red line has strong burst dps but relies on stealth, positioning and getting critical hits - good for grouping when they can focus on dps with lots of buffs and support; yellow line is more about crowd control and weakening the enemy and has more healing, morale and mitigations so may be useful for soloing.

I will try all the specs but I have had the most experience with yellow line previously.

After completing the introduction, don't forget to check your mail for the adventurer's gift. It contains several useful items and starts a couple of quests, including one that rewards 5 Tokens of Salutations which can be traded with the Barterer for a pocket item that increases run speed and some health or power potions. The run speed buff can be quite helpful, especially if you don't have a mount.

At level 7 you gain the ability Find Footing which is a self-heal and buffs evade chance if you've been disabled by a stun, daze or knock-down. It has a 5 minute cooldown but may be a good get-out-of-trouble skill to keep handy. You also get your first trait point to spend in the specialisation you chose.

At level 8 you gain the Riddle ability which dazes a target for 30 seconds. Good for taking one mob out of action while you deal with someone else. Could also be helpful for isolating a mob away from others or delaying a fight until your cooldowns have finished (so that they're not hurting you while all you can do is autoattack). Note that it breaks stealth and if you use Riddle on one mob in a group the others will want to attack you.

At level 10 you gain the Touch and Go ability which buffs evade chance but doesn't require you to have been disabled first like Find Footing does. You are also now eligible to take part in Epic Battles such as Retaking Pelargir, but although you get scaled to level 100, without all the equipment slots filled and with limited abilities you will be very vulnerable, so it may not be a very successful or satisfactory experience (e.g. I died in two hits when I tried to join in, but when I stayed stealthed and let the NPCs do the fighting, the NPCs got overwhelmed and the event failed).

At level 12 you get Exploit Opening which is a 5 second stun that also starts a fellowship manoeuvre if you're in a group.

At level 14, Burgle (pickpocket mobs while stealthed) and Addle (a 20m ranged interrupt that also slows enemy casting) become available.

Around level 13-15, you'll get several quests sending you to Bree-land, including a class quest in the mail at level 15 from the Burglar Trainer in Bree, to go visit Atherol Took at Adso's Camp.

Atherol Took - master burglar of Bree-land

Atherol Took has heard that some brigands are planning on raiding Farmer Maggot's mushroom farm. He wants you to stop the brigands and collect some of the mushrooms for him instead. Succeed and you'll earn the title "Thief in the Night". Try burgling some of the brigands while you're there ... I found one had a Helm of the Burglar in his pocket!

At level 16 you get the useful ability Cure Poison which you can use on yourself or an ally. You might still want to carry some potions for removing disease and fear though.

At level 18 you gain Safe Fall which helps you avoid falling damage - just remember to use it before you hit the ground! You also get Diversion which distracts/dazes a target for 10 seconds without breaking stealth - useful for crowd control (and they turn their back to you so can sneak up from behind!).

I reached level 20 helping Rob Thornley escape from orcs in the Northern Bree-fields. At level 20, you gain the ability to Track Treasure which shows where treasure chests are located on your minimap. Note you can only track one thing at a time so if you have a gathering profession you have to choose whether to track ore/wood/crops/artifacts etc. or treasure.

You also gain a new passive ability to use "Clever Devices" such as caltrops (which slow enemies' movement speed and deal damage over time) and marbles (which stun an enemy and start a fellowship manoeuvre). These are consumed on use and have a cooldown.

I didn't have all my equipment slots filled and some gear was still rather low level, so the first thing I did was visit the Skirmish Camp vendors to get any upgrades I could. Here's how she looks at level 20:

Level 20 Hobbit Burglar

I then went to the training dummies in the Training Hall in Bree and tested each spec's unbuffed DPS over 3 minutes (starting from stealth with Surprise Strike then following the priority list below), and took a screenshot at the end to eliminate the effects of DoTs that kept going after I stopped attacking (otherwise the time would be ~ 3 m 15 s and dps would be lower). For virtues, I had one tier of Compassion and one tier of Honour active. With my 7 trait points, I focused on damage-boosting traits where possible.

Here are my DPS results (collected with CombatAnalysis plugin):

Statistics	The Gambler (Blue)	The Quiet Knife (Red)	The Mischief-maker (Yellow)
Damage	24,141	21,007	19,530
Time	3 m 0.6 s	3 m 0.4 s	3 m 0.6 s
Average DPS	133.7	116.4	108.1
Minimum Hit	14	15	14
Average Hit	62	62	57
Maximum Hit	255	420	205
Attacks	384	335	342
Critical Strikes (%)	90 (23.4%)	65 (19.4%)	81 (23.7%)
Skill Priorities	Double-edged Strike Lucky Strike Gambler's Advantage Surprise Strike Cunning Attack Hedge Your Bet Subtle Stab	Double-edged Strike Feint Attack Surprise Strike Cunning Attack Subtle Stab	Double-edged Strike Surprise Strike Cunning Attack Trick: Disable Subtle Stab

For my final adventure as a level 20 burglar, I took part in the Skirmish training and then completed a skirmish: Siege of Gondamon. I went yellow line and chose a Warrior for my solider and it went quite smoothly. I first debuffed the mobs with Trick: Dust in the Eyes or Trick: Disable and the warrior held the attention of several mobs while I stabbed them in the back one at a time ... mwahaha! Burglars might also like archers (ranged damage, good single target dps and unlikely to break crowd control) or bannerguards (tanks, deals damage, buffs you and provides some healing) as their soldier companion.

General Observations

Bleed and DoT effects on you will break you out of stealth.

Single targets near or below my level died fairly quickly, but when fighting several mobs or an elite on my own, my abilities seemed to be on cooldown a lot so I was rather helpless, and my health started dropping. Health potions and eating food or using buff items with regeneration effects before battles were helpful.

According to the character sheet, I only had about 2-4% critical strike chance and I didn't get to use Critical Hit Chains very often in the wild (the critical strike rate was much higher against the target dummies, but they don't move or have the same stats as normal mobs).

One-handed weaponsmith vendors sell throwing knives or axes that can be used to initiate combat and make a mob come to you. Players with the weaponsmith profession can make better quality throwing weapons, caltrops and marbles.

Specialisations

Blue - The Gambler: I didn't get to use Lucky Strike very often but when I did it usually killed the mob. I often didn't even bother with starting from stealth because they were dying so quick. When mobs have more health the DoT effect will probably come into play more. Hedge Your Bet was useful as an extra ability in the basic rotation and dealt more damage than Subtle Stab. Overall, I had quite a few abilities to use, and it felt pretty solid and hard-hitting. Still vulnerable to multiple mobs though. I'd be interested to try it out at higher levels.

Red - The Quiet Knife: I used stealth more and noticed that I was detected less often. I found the specialisation abilities Feint Attack and Knives Out weren't very useful - I didn't get enough crits against mobs while questing to be able to use Feint Attack and when I did it didn't seem to do much (it increases the damage of Surprise Strike, but if that was on cooldown I probably missed out on the benefit). I did use Knives Out when faced with several mobs as it is a multi-target ability that reflects damage, but it has a 2 minute cooldown! It also prevented me from parrying/evading and I felt like I took more damage from multiple mobs compared to when I was using other specs. I only had 3 abilities in my basic rotation and I was waiting a lot for cooldowns and crits so I would have something to do. Overall, I didn't enjoy it, but it could get better at higher levels with better gear and more abilities.

Yellow - the Mischief-maker: Dust in the Eyes is a great little multi-target debuff with a short cooldown that slows mobs and increases their miss chance. Trick: Disable is also a useful single target debuff with a short cooldown that reduces the target's damage, and Mischievous Glee was a very handy heal when fighting multiple mobs or elites. I had more abilities to use and could reduce the damage I took, so I felt more durable. I wasn't quite as stealthy as in red or blue specs, so it takes a bit more care to stay out of sight and not get too close to mobs. Overall, I don't think I hit as hard but I was harder to hit and I felt more actively involved so it was more fun.

Stats

• Agility - your main stat that increases your damage
• Critical Strike - essential for activating certain abilities (and increasing your damage)
• Evade - activates certain abilities in The Gambler spec, also reduces damage taken
• Mitigations and Resistances - reduces damage taken
• Morale and Vitality - bigger health pool increases survivability 

These stats should help make the levelling process a bit easier in the beginning. Look for medium armour or jewellery with agility and critical rating, morale or vitality. If a piece of gear has Fate on it, it will also increase your critical strike chance. You might not find much Evade on gear yet, but increasing Agility also increases your Evade chance. The best place to get Mitigations and Resistances at low levels is probably from virtues.

Also, try to get matching daggers with the highest dps and agility you can, but if you can't, put the best one in your main hand.

Here are some virtues that may be helpful for burglars and how to get them by level 20:

Virtue	Activity	Deed
INNOCENCE (physical mitigation, tactical mitigation, resistance)	Complete 75 quests in The Shire	Life of a Bounder (Final)(The Shire)
TOLERANCE (agility, tactical mitigation, in-combat morale regeneration)	Explore all the farms in The Shire	Farms of the Shire (The Shire)
COMPASSION (physical mitigation, tactical mitigation, non-combat power regeneration)	Complete 15 quests in The Shire Complete 20 quests in Ered Luin	Life of a Bounder (The Shire) Defender of Ered Luin (Ered Luin)
DETERMINATION (agility, morale, in-combat morale regeneration)	Defeat 60 slugs in The Shire Defeat 90 wolves in Ered Luin Defeat 90 barghests in Bree-land	Slug Slayer (Advanced)(The Shire) Spider-slayer (Advanced)(Ered Luin) Barghest-slayer (Advanced)(Bree-land)
ZEAL (morale, physical mitigation, armour)	Defeat 90 goblins in Ered Luin Defeat 90 spiders in Ered Luin Defeat 90 Barrow-spiders in Bree-land	Goblin-slayer (Advanced)(Ered Luin) Spider-slayer (Advanced)(Ered Luin) Brood-hunter (Advanced)(Bree-land)
HONOUR (resistance, tactical mitigation, vitality)	Defeat 60 spiders in The Shire Defeat 90 spiders in Bree-land	Spider-slayer (Advanced)(The Shire) Spider-slayer (Advanced)(Bree-land)

Pros of the Burglar Class

• Fun being stealthy and sneaking around
• Reasonable single-target damage
• Utility includes crowd control and debuffing enemies

Cons of the Burglar Class

• Very limited AOE or multi-target abilities
• Very limited ranged abilities
• Reliance on critical strikes/stealth/positioning for optimal damage
• Squishy 

I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to leave any questions or advice for new burglars in the comments below.

Coming soon in the Introducing X Class series: the Captain.