Lotro Loremaster Pet Guide

This post was first published on Aug. 7th, 2014

The Loremaster has always been one of my favorite classes to play in Lotro. Partly because I love crowd control and spellcasters, partly because I absolutely love summoning pets. And boy, does the Loremaster have pets. The Loremaster has so many pets; it’s difficult to keep track of them all. With nine non-combat pets and seven creatures to go rip heads off, how is anyone supposed to keep track of them? It’s hard enough making sure that they don’t eat each other! Each of the Loremaster’s pets (we won’t be touching non-combat pets), have different skills and uses. Needless to say, it can get a bit confusing. Hopefully, this guide will help you sort them out.

Before we jump into our menagerie, it’s important to understand two things. Firstly, there’s flanking. Every now and then when your pet hits an enemy, you’ll hear a little ding. When this happens, it means that your pet has flanked the enemy. This unlocks some very cool things for you. First off, if you need more health, hit Sign of Battle: Wizard’s Fire. This will give you a very nice heal that could potentially get you out of a very rough spot. An Improved Staff Sweep to the face will cure you of all your power needs, regenerating some very nice power. On the other hand, you can also cash the flank in for extra damage with a good old Staff Strike. Second of all, we need to cover your pet’s skill bar. When you summon your pet, a little bar will appear on the bottom right corner. Get to know this bar well. As well as holding key commands like, “Go hit things,” your pet’s skills are on this bar. Never, ever, ever forget that your pet has skills. Ever. There, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff. Please note that all of the data gathered was pulled from lvl 84 pets without any buffs or fancy traits boosting their stats.

Lvl 84 bear (attained at lvl 1)
morale: 12,519
power: 876
average dps: 500
flank rate: 9/10
crit rate: 4/10
evade/parry/block rate: 8/10
skills: Roaring Challenge (forced 5s taunt)
Shatter Arms (+10% armour debuff and deals dmg)
Bear Hug (3s stun and deals dmg)

This is the first friend you will ever make. What the bear excels at is tanking. This furry monstrosity stuns, taunts, and rends armour. He’s pretty useful in a tight spot. The bear is a good one to pull out if you ever want your enemy to just hit someone else for a change. He was built for tanking, and he does a great job. A high flank rating ensures a steady stream of extra morale, power and damage boosts. While before update 14 the bear was the most terrible flanker ever, when update 14 came around, the bear became the flanking king. Currently, it has the highest flank rate of all of the pets. All in all, a great pet to have. While maybe not the right choice when you need to put in some more damage, it’s hard to go wrong with the bear.

Lvl 84 raven (attained at lvl 15)
morale: 12,273
power: 859
average dps: 400-500
flank rate: 8/10
crit rate: 5/10
evade/parry/block rate: 3/10
skills: Benediction of the Raven (-10% fire mitigation)
Distraction (-50% ranged dmg, +10% miss chance and deals DoT)
Evasion (+50% evade chance, +30% shadow mitigation and increases armour value)

The raven is a good all-purpose pet. If you want to focus on fire damage, the raven is good to have around because of that handy Benediction of the Raven skill. It’s also very useful when dealing with a clump of archers. In fact, the raven can increase your all around survivability. What it’s really good at is surviving. If Evasion is used properly, it becomes difficult to kill this bird, which means less micromanaging for you! The raven (unlike the enormous eagle), won’t reduce your visibility at all. You would think that a flying bird would irritate you just a bit, but it’s small enough that it won’t get in your way.

Lvl 84 Bog-Guardian (attained at lvl 20)
morale: 12,535
power: 1,007
average dps: 600-800
flank rate: 3/10
crit rate: 5/10
evade/parry/block rate: 2/10
skills: Angry Bees (deals dmg and DoT)
Root Strike (+5% incoming ranged critical chance and deals dmg)
Bursting Root (20% chance to apply 6s stun, deals dmg and starts fellowship manoeuvre)

The Bog-Guardian is a cool pet for one reason. It is the only pet in your arsenal that is a ranged attacker. That and it looks like a giant woody bug. 😀 Some people really love this pet for that reason. I love to bring it along when I’m in a group because this pet will guarantee you a fellowship manoeuvre. I like fellowship manoeuvres. That and it does a fair amount of damage. Although keep in mind that for this pet to truly excel in a dps role, you need to keep your enemies attention. The Bog-Guardian doesn’t do that much damage in melee combat.

Lvl 84 Lynx (attained at lvl 30)
morale: 11,544
power: 988
average dps: 600-800, applies bleeds
flank rate: 4/10
crit rate: 6/10
evade/parry/block rate: 5/10
skills: Surprise Attack (a sneak attack that deals more dmg from behind. This only works in stealth mode)
Feral Strike (deals dmg in a 90 degree front arc)
Slashing Claws (2 attacks that deal dmg in a 180 front arc)

This is a pretty cool pet. One of the reasons I love it is because it’s like having a cute, fuzzy burglar following you around. The Lynx even enters a stealth mode all on its own! Although the Lynx is the squishiest of all your pets it has a fast attack speed. You would think that because of this you would get more flanks, but it isn’t the greatest flanker. If only it picked pockets… Its auto-attacks have a very nice bonus. They tend to add bleeds to the target. The bleeds are minor bleeds, but every bit counts. Altogether, the lynx is great for killing things quickly. It does a lot of burst damage, but be careful to keep an eye on its health, as the poor thing is quite frail.

Lvl 84 Spirit (attained at lvl 40)
morale: 13,993
power: 958
flank rate: see skills
evade/parry/block rate: ?
skills: Flashing Flank (triggers a flank)
Nature’s Light (targeted enemy returns 5% dmg as health when attacked)
Nature’s Gift (heals 10% of max morale to all within a 20m radius)

And here we come to the pet that hardly anyone uses. This tiny ball of light is content to follow you and heal the shit out of you if you micromanage it, but it can’t attack. This is the only pacifist combat pet in the game. You don’t have to worry about not getting any flanks as every 45s you can trigger a flank. Unfortunately, I was unable to give this tinkerbell wannabe an evade/parry/block rating. Mostly because I had a difficult time getting anything to attack it… I believe that the main reason no one uses this pet is because the Loremaster relies on its pet to help it deal damage. Without a pet dealing damage, it gets very hard to kill anything. If you are desperate for healing, the Spirit is useful, but otherwise, don’t bother pulling it out.

Lvl 84 Sabre-Cat (attained at lvl 56)
morale: 12,152
power: 859
average dps: 300-400
flank rate: 2/10
crit rate: 4/10
evade/parry/block rate: 2/10
skills: Frostbite (-10% frost mitigation and deals dmg)
Fury of Winter (deals dmg in frontal arc. Flank occurs on critical hit)
Throat Slash (deals dmg in frontal arc. May stun and start fellowship manoeuvre if target is flanked)

The Sabre-Cat may not seem to do a lot of damage at first glance, but guess again! This pet does AoE damage with each attack. Not only that, but unlike the other pets, it will always deal frost damage. Not many enemies have good frost mitigation, which ensures that the Sabre-Cat gets ’em good. It’s sort of like having a furry champion around. The Sabre-Cat’s best use is when you are certain that multiple enemies are going to be pulled into your fight. Be careful though, because the Sabre-Cat is notorious for breaking any dazes or roots you put on anything.

lvl 84 Eagle (attained from blue trait tree)
morale: 12,822
power: 964
average dps: 500-700
flank rate: 7/10
crit rate: 9/10
evade/parry/block rate: 8/10
skills: Fan the Flames (deals dmg, 15s fear if target has been hit by Burning Embers)
Beak Rend (deals dmg and heals eagle)
Sacrifice (resurrects Loremaster)

The eagle is a very special pet. For one thing, it is the only pet that has to be unlocked. Loremasters who have specced into the blue line must spend 6 trait points to unlock the eagle, while everyone else has to spend a whopping 12 trait points! Is the eagle worth it? Yes. Yes, it is. As you can see above, the flank, crit, and evade/parry/block rates are all pretty high. It has a little crowd control effect, can self heal a small amount, and resurrects you if you die. It should be noted however that the eagle can only resurrect you if the eagle is still alive, the skill has been triggered, and you die in combat. This will require very good timing on your part, but it is worth it. The only problem with the eagle is this. It’s really big. The bear can block a good half of your screen if it stands up and roars or if it plays one of its idle animations, but even the enormous bear can’t top the eagle in this category. The eagle blocks a full third of your screen when it’s in flight. It is a very, very big bird. It will also be a big distraction if you are in a raid or skirmish. The eagle is great for soloing, but I suggest equipping a smaller pet when grouping, if only to avoid the confusion and rage that occurs when a giant bird suddenly swoops in to fill up your entire screen. Then again, the Loremaster does have a lot of flashy skills. I always say that when you’re grouping as a Loremaster, if your party doesn’t cry out, “Stop doing things!!! I can’t see anything!!!!!” you’re doing something wrong.

I hope that this guide has helped you as far as the Loremaster’s pets go. I hope that you have learned something useful and have enjoyed reading this guide as much as I enjoyed writing it.