Original content created by community member: Artie

A Guide for New Burglars

"This guide reflects my own opinions, drawn from my experiences and lots of information throughout this board posted by the Burglar community. The continuation of this guide will reflect input from everybody who wishes to contribute." ~Artie

What is a Burglar anyway?

Class: Burglar

Burglars are masters of stealth and misdirection. They are able to confound their foes with a variety of clever and debilitating tricks. Burglars' sleight-of-hand and startling attacks allow their companions to overwhelm adversaries.

• Role: Debuffer
• The Burglar's role is to rob monsters of the ability to deal damage and attack at full strength. As the only class that can reliably initiate fellowship manoeuvres (high-yield group-based attacks), its role in groups is a coveted one.

Fellowship utility and survivability (and to a lesser extent, crowd control) are the name of the game.

When rolling a Burglar, this is something you need to keep in mind. You're not a DPS class, although Burglars are typically considered 3rd rank in the classes and have decent burst DPS. What separates the Burglars from the pack is our ability to move around undetected, and our uncanny ability to get out of sticky situations using many of the skills at our disposal.

There have been a few very handy guides written for Burglars already covering Traits (including great Legendary traits information), Gear, and Fellowship Manouevers (AKA Conjunctions), and very little of that will be repeated here.

Hobbit vs. Human Burglars

(Thanks Teowulf)

Hobbits

Pros

• Short and all around awesome.
• Feign death is incredibly useful in PvE (another way to drop aggro) and somewhat useful in PvMP.
• You can throw stones!!!!!!!!
• Extra vitality is nice.
• Club damage is ok.
• Extra damage for the yellow conjunction.
• They're freaking hobbits!!!!!!!!
  

Cons

• Stones do little damage.
• Short (not too bad for most people though)
• Reduced Might

Men

Pros

• + Sword Damage
• Human Heal is all around great.
• +1% evade and parry from the racial
• Extra fate, will, and might.

Cons

• Not nearly as cool as hobbits.
• Human heal is not always as good as the hobbit feign death.

The Unwritten Rules

Unwritten Rule #1

When you are fighting a mob, you should always *always* have Reveal Weakness (Level 22) and one of your tricks active on it. This is especially important in a group. A burglar that does not do these things is rather useless.

Unwritten Rule #2

A burglar should always set up a conjunction order in a fellowship. A burglar who says "go red" or "go green" in any sort of non-raid group will greatly limit his group's effectiveness.

Tricks: A Burglar's Bread and Butter

The question is often asked "Which trick is better for situation X...". I will give my opinions here:

Counter-Defence (Level 26)

• This trick answers the question "How do we (or I) kill this mob as quickly as possible?" This mitigates the B/P/E of most mobs to virtually nothing and increases the chance of melee critical hits for yourself and your party.

Disable (Level 2)

• Disable is best used for damage mitigation, as it can cut a mob's damage output by over 20% (numbers are on this board somewhere). Personally this is the one I use most often when grouping on anything Elite level or above.

Dust in the Eyes (Level 16)

• Although Dust gives a mob a 15-20% miss chance, the math shows that it's not as good for single-target damage mitigation as Disable is. However, traited Dust gives an AoE that affects up to three targets, which is very handy indeed. Standard procedure is to throw Dust in the Eyes on the group you've pulled, then throw Disable or Counter-Defence on your current target.
• Dust will also slow a mob (or the multiple mobs) movement to 70% and has a much longer duration than Disable, so this is actually extremely useful for getting away from enemies or keeping them from outrunning you (eg. Ettenmoors). If you think you're going to need to run, throw down an AoE Dust and your chances for getting away will certainly improve.

Enrage (Level 38)

• Enrage will cause a mob to start aggroing a different random person every few seconds. This skill out of the box is great for spreading a mob's damage across the group if you do not have a designated tank, and also good for forcing a mob off of a particular individual (like a minstrel).
• The traited version of this skill is even better, as if it hits it will force ranged attackers into melee combat. I feel this aspect of Enrage is greatly undervalued.

Stacking Burglar Debuffs

This is still a subject of debate in the Burglar community. Once upon a time one of the Developers (allegedly) stated that Burglar tricks stacked to the tune of 50% diminishing returns. This had been the belief of many until some recent information.

The tests referenced in that post show that Reveal Weakness does, in fact, stack additively, and it seems possible that the others do as well. We still do not have official information on this, but the numbers are certainly worth taking a look at.

My recommendation to get the most bang for your buck out of a multi-burglar group, it's best to have everybody throw Reveal Weakness (see Unwritten Rule #1) and then divvy up the tricks.

A Quick Guide to Crowd Control

Riddle (Level 8)

When using Riddle (Level 8) in a group, a lot of Burglars will Riddle a target in close and then try to tell their group to not AoE. I do not agree with this at all, as Champions especially excel at AoE, so the real solution is to always make sure that your riddled targets are well away from the group. If you really hate accidental Riddle breakage (from Hunters especially), slotting the trait will give you a 5 second grace period of stun. Personally I rarely have a problem with this. It's oftentimes a good idea to start a pull with a Riddle, and when doing so you will want to Riddle the ranged attackers first the majority of the time.

Mischief (Level 20)

Mischief (Level 20) dramatically improves our crowd control abilities. The most obvious benefit (worth the ability all by itself) is that it cuts the cooldown on Riddle from 60 seconds to 30 seconds, allowing you to keep a Riddle up on a target perpetually. This is extremely powerful against the Undead, as with Mischief we become the only class that can do this. Something to keep in mind is that it doesn't seem you can simply have a second un-traited Riddle ready to go when the first one wears off, as it appears to not have any effect (no miss message or anything). Safest bet is to give the mob a second to wake up, then hit them again. This doesn't seem to be as big an issue with traited Riddle.

Confound (Level 46)

Confound (Level 46, available only with Mischief toggled on) is a powerful skill that requires a little planning and oftentimes coordination to execute. It will apply a time-delayed daze to up to 3 targets (in melee range), and if not interrupted via a stun or another mezz, will apply the equivalent of a Riddle to all three targets after 15 seconds. Using Counfound + Riddle will allow you to mezz 4 targets at the same time if used properly. An excellent scenario of this utility is in Sarnur, where a Burglar with Confound and Riddle plus a Guardian can succeed where other 6-man groups may struggle.

Note: On top of Riddle, the Burglars have several stun abilities. The most obvious is Startling Twist (Level 20), which will remove an active trick and stun the mob for 8 seconds. However, when soloing, it's worth pointing out that Exploit Opening (Level 12, your conjunction starter) and Exposed Throat (Legendary Trait, and only when it hits) can both be used as extra stuns when you need them. It's good to get into the habit of using stuns often when attacking multiple targets as this can often mean the difference between survival and defeat.

Mischievous Glee & Clever Retort

Mischievous Glee (Level 10)

MG is the Burglar's only reliable in-combat self heal (outside of a successful conjunction). It's actually a good idea to use this skill very early in a fight if you think you are going to need it (as soon as your health drops low enough to get the full benefit out of it), as it's only on a 45 second timer and in nasty fights you'll be able to use it more than once. There has been confusion for new Burglars as to when this can be used, so remember that just like Startling Twist, a trick (one of the four listed above) must be active in order for MG to be used (and will remove the trick).

Clever Retort (Level 30)

Clever Retort (Level 30, available with Mischief toggled on) is a basically a private, random conjunction starter. It will remove a trick (similar to MG), and then will apply either direct damage, a DoT, a small heal or some power restoration just like a conjunction color would do. Unfortunately, it's random, but with only a 2 minute cooldown it's a great utility skill to have while you're running with Mischief on.

Run Awaaaaaay!

Apart from the fabulous stealth abilities, the Burglar's most defining aspect is their ability to get out of tricky situations.

Touch and Go (Level 6)

T&G will boost your Evade by 50%, making you almost impossible to hit for 30 seconds. The main thing to remember here is to try to get the most benefit out of the boost: don't pop this when you have 1/4 morale left, it won't do you much good. You're not completely invulnerable with this on, so you want to throw it down so that 30 seconds will be long enough to survive or escape, depending on what you're trying to do.

In Book 12, Burglars got an (alleged) companion skill to T&G called Knives Out (Level 42), which shares the same cooldown with T&G, making them mutually exclusive. KO deals roughly 2-300 damage to up to 3 targets, then for 50% of the hits you take for the next 30 seconds will reflect about 80 points worth of damage to your attacker.

Along with KO, Burglars got Escape Clause (level 48), which will allow you to reset the shared T&G and KO cooldown after a successful conjunction.

Hide in Plain Sight (Level 30)

This is usually the Burglar's "I Win" button, as it drops you into stealth immediately, and for 10 seconds will make you immune to detection (new in Book 12) and also prevent you from unstealthing from damage.

A few quick tips for HiPS:

• It often helps to try to use this as you are already running away.

• Although DoT's won't break stealth immediately, once the HiPS effect wears off, leaving you in normal stealth mode, any leftover DoT's will actually pop you out of stealth. It's always a good idea to carry around wound/fear/disease potions, and if you throw HiPS with a DoT burn a potion to get it off (especially in the Ettenmoors).

• There have been many claims in the Burglar community that "HiPS is broken!" This is actually not true, but there are some situations that can appear this way. First of all, although HiPS is very likely to succeed, there's still a (small) chance that whatever was on you will still detect you (especially in the Ettenmoors). Secondly, if you've placed a DoT on a mob or have Riddled it prior to using HiPS, it will come after you once the HiPS effect has worn off.

• Damage reflection gear seems to cause a lot of problems when using HiPS. When you throw HiPS, oftentimes mobs will still get an attack off before dropping aggro, which can cause the same problem that putting a DoT on the mob can cause. As a Burglar, it is not usually a good idea to wear damage reflection items (especially when much better things can be worn in their place!).

• Using HiPS will usually reset the fight that you were engaged in, in a similar manner that Still as Death, Hobbit Silence, or simply running far enough away that mobs stop chasing you will.

• Using HiPS in a group is a very controversial move as all aggro on you will immediately move to other players without warning - I have seen a burglar kill a minstrel like this! One use is in Mischief when a very big boss is nearly finished but the entire group is running out of everything (moraled, power, skills on cooldown) and all your Fellowship Manouevers are on cooldown. By hitting HiPS you deactivate Mischief, go into stealth and can now use Trip on the boss to end the fight and then switch back to Mischief once out of combat.

Positional Damage

The Burglar gets a positional damage bonus from being behind any mob, which can be further improved through traits. You will get the most damage on a mob if you are attacking it from behind every chance you get. In a group fight this is very easy, as you simply get on the backside of the Main Tank's target. Soloing is a little trickier, but remember to always attack from behind when in Stealth, and using Startling Twist is an excellent opportunity to get behind an opponent due to it's lovely 8 second duration. You can use Exploit Opening's stun ability to get behind an opponent as well while soloing.

Well-Placed Strike (Level 40) applies a stronger DoT than Cunning Attack, but has quite a wind-up timer creating controversy to its effectiveness. However, many Burglars have found using Aim + WPS to be a pretty potent attack. If you use WPS from the front, the DoT is not nearly as strong.

Sneaking? He Said SNEAKING!

The ability to move undetected (AKA Stealth, obtained at Level 4) is arguably the skill that makes the Burglar class so addictive. Everybody knows what Burglar stealth is and how to engage it, but here are hopefully a few useful tips and the answers to a few new Burglar questions:

• Always attack from behind when using Stealth. Using Aim (Level 12) + Surprise Strike (Level 1) while behind and in stealth is one of the most powerful single attacks of any class in the game. At level 50, this damage can be further boosted with Location is Everything, adding an additional 20% to the next stealth-based attack.

Seize Initiative (Level 44) will allow you to reset Aim, Location is Everything & all your critical response chain skills after a successful conjunction.

• In early levels it sometimes takes some maneuvering to get behind an opponent, but don't worry: you will get a skill called Diversion (Level 18) which will cause a mob to immediately turn its back to you.

• When stealthing, never ever blatantly walk in front of a mob regardless of color. A lot of Burglars have complained about being detected by light blue and lower color mobs, but this is primarily because in a patch several moons ago the frontal area stealth detection range was greatly increased for many mobs. With Diversion at your side, you should never have any problem sneaking behind mobs, and as long as you're behind the chances of being detected (even by orange, red, and purple) mobs is extremely unlikely (yet possible).

• Burgling (Level 14) is a subject of great controversy in the Burglar community. I am personally a believer, many are not. Just remember that a successful Burgle comes from a different loot table than the one used when a mob dies, so this will at least yield you a great amount of vendor trash. Allegedly in a recent patch the possibility of yellow and purple items found during Burgling was increased, but there are still differing opinions on this.

• Share the Fun (Level 42) gives you the ability to take a buddy into stealth with you. Keep in mind this skill requires you to stay within 5m of each other, will cut movement speed to 50% (Leaf-Walker or no Leaf-Walker) and will drop the stealth level of each party by two. To stay within 5m, target can select Follow, but if you have Leaf-Walker switch from Run to Walk or move in small steps.

Your Stealth Level - and How to Raise It

Every class (including mobs) that can enter stealth has a stealth level, and in its most basic form it is equal to their own level. If your level is higher than the 'stealth level' of a stealthed player or mob, you will be more likely to detect them. If your level is less than a mob's stealth level, you will likely not detect them unless they move into your frontal detection range.

You may have noticed that Elves and Hobbits have a stealth racial skill that is " -3 to stealth level", which means that a level 50 Elf in stealth actually has the stealth level of a 47. Black Arrows and Wargs in the Ettenmoors actually have skills that add to their stealth detection level, so, for example, a BA with the +4 detection ability will have a stealth level of 54, so anything creature under stealth level 54 will likely be detected (especially when tracking).

The question is asked all the time, "How can I raise my stealth level?"

Cloaks

There are several cloaks in-game that will add +2 to stealth level. Here are the more popular ones

• Ghost Walker's Cloak, which is easily obtained as a quest reward from the level 30 Burglar quest. This is highly recommended over the dagger.
• Winter Cloak, obtained as a reward from The Great Beast chain in Aughaire. I used this one for a long, long time.
• Ever-shadowed, need confirmation where this drops (Urugarth I believe it to be)
• Hammer-mark Cloak which drops off of Barz and Zurm in the Rift (sorry, Lorebook has no stats), also adds +1 to Stealth Detection (only item I know of that does)

In addition, here's a few lesser-known cloaks

• Cloak of the Galadhrim
• Hooded Cloak of the Rangers
• Halchol, a quest reward from Aughaire for finding the Malenhad Hillmen camp (NOT from the Earth-Kin, thanks Nyric!)
• Hooded Cloak of Moonlight
• Hooded Cloak of the Shire
• Hooded Cloak of Lothlórien
• Cloak of Shadows
• Cloak of Greyhammer, +2 Stealth
• Cloak of Subtlety also gives a +2 boost

Baubles AKA Pocket Items

There are four known +stealth pocket items

• Strange Flowers, obtainable through a small quest chain in Oatbarton (Hobbit village in Evendim)
• Trade Secrets, a quest reward at the end of Book 10.
• Burglar's Badge, found in Urugarth. Although the Book 10 patch notes say this +stealth was removed, this has been confirmed to currently add +2 to stealth (thanks Doddric!).
• Ornate Copper Sphere,+2 to stealth
• Miner's Charm, +2 Stealth Ally Standing Iron Garrison Miners

Traits

The Footpad class trait will add +2 to your stealth level. The deed unlocks at level 20, and is a reward for using the Diversion skill 1000 times.

Shadow-Stalker Armour

The final +stealth modifier comes from having four pieces of the Shadow-Stalker Armour set, which drops off bosses in Helegrod or through extremely rare drops from level 47+ mobs throughout Middle Earth.

The maximum stealth level achievable at this time is +8.

Conjunctions (AKA Fellowship Manouevers)

• HiPS + trip is an excellent way to throw a conjunction in an emergency, and rarely misses

• Conjunctions will not work on mobs with stun immunity (the red circle buff) or within 60 seconds of a previous conjunction (red shield buff). This is extremely important where execution of CJs is the difference between life and death.

• Marbles are manufactured Burglar equipment (Weaponsmithing recipe and work well on enemies on or below your level.

• (Personal recommendation): Most of the time in a group, the Burglar should be setting up a straight (FM Sticky). The primary reason is that even if you get the first three colors off correctly, your group will get a bonus, whereas in some of the fancier 6-man conjunctions all 6 must be hit or the CJ fails. Many Burglars say "I can't do straights in a PuG!" Actually, you can...I've done it 100 times Just don't freak out when it doesn't quite go right and keep (gently) hammering it home until they get it. It's best to pick the three most reliable people (yourself included) to take the first three slots. If the Burglar is assisting the Main Tank at all times, they should take the first two colors. When setting orders, always put your meleers towards the front, Minstrels towards the back with Blue or Green, but put the Hunters in the VERY back as their long induction timers makes it very tough for them to hit an early color. If you're running a 6-man straight with one blue, assign it to the Main Tank as the Oathbreaker it summons acts as a guardian. If you're doing it with two, give the Tank the first blue and the Minstrel the second blue.

• The colors on the FM wheel can be assigned to a hotkey! I'm still amazed by how many people (including Burglars!) do not know this little tidbit. Personally I have the arrow keys mapped to the colors on the wheel, and have "X" assigned to the "FM Assist" button, the one you see when an FM is started on a target other than the one you're fighting, hitting the "target" icon will change your target to the right mob. Even in PuGs I tell my fellows this up front, and most of them are extremely glad to hear about this (possibly another reason I have great luck with PuG 6-man straights). This will dramatically increase response time during conjunctions.

Dual-Wielding and You

Burglars in their present form can use maces, swords, and daggers (and clubs in book 12). Given that Burglars can dual-wield any combination of the three from starting at level 10, there is a post about every other week regarding the best setup to use. The answer to that question involves understanding a few mechanics:

1. The DPS rating on a weapon is not the issue. One of the base mechanics in LotRO involves all skills that do mainhand and/or offhand damage. This number is calculated off of both the damage ceiling as well as the weapon's speed. Between two weapons with an identical damage ceiling, the one with the slower attack speed will yield the most damage.

2. Your auto-attack speed is the average weapon speed of both hands. A 2.3 speed weapon in your MH (main-hand) and a 1.7 speed weapon in your OH (off-hand) will yield a 2 second autoattack.

There have been rumors of a global minimum 2-second cooldown between skills, but this is certainly in question. The principles seem to be simple though: faster weapons will net yield more autoattacks, but less skill-based damage, while slower weapons will yield fewer autoattacks, but more skill-based damage (exception: only on skills that do offhand damage as well, and the burglar only has a couple).

With that information, to maximize DPS from a gear perspective, you want your heaviest hitter in your main hand, and a weapon in your off hand that will bring your average weapon speed to 2.0. Dual-wielding maces will give you some big hits with Double-Edged strike and Flashing Blades, but you will certainly be getting fewer skills off per fight. Dual-wielding daggers will allow you to possibly execute your skills faster, but will undercut the damage dealt via those skills (especially Surprise Strike). It is worth noting that the usual +crit% chance on daggers is auto-attack only.

The consensus most Burglars have come to is to slot a mace in your mainhand and a dagger in your offhand, thanks to the maximum single-hit damage (read: Surprise Strike from stealth) and the fact that many daggers in this game have amazing bonuses. However, a pair of 2.0 speed swords is an alternative, especially if you rolled a human burglar with their sword damage bonus. Anything outside of that will cut your overall DPS in one form or another...but who cares, since we're not a DPS class anyway. (Note that after a stun induced by a mace wears off, the mob has stun-immunity which means startling twist and stun dust will be inactive for a considerable time so many Burglars avoid maces like the plague!)

Choosing a Legendary Path

Burglars have one of the most challenging and unique build opportunities based on traiting of any class in the game. These come from the three legendary trait paths of "The Mischief-maker", "The Quiet Knife", and "The Gambler". These can be capped with 5 class traits of a given color (yellow, red, or blue, respectively) to get access to an improved version of an existing Burglar skill with a short cooldown. Additionally, legendary item legacies can improve the cooldown of this skill to make it usable every 15 seconds.

The Mischief-maker

This is one of the most underrated class trait makeups. In theory, this trait setup works out as the CC setup, as the class traits available to it improve riddle quite a bit (making it longer lasting and harder to resist). It is perhaps more significant for its ability to vastly improve single-target DPS for an entire group. It has all of the following group dps bonuses (on top of what the skills originally provided):

+2% reveal weakness incoming damage
+3% counter defense incoming melee critical chance
+-1560 counter defense target block, parry, and evade ratings
+1% quite a/small snag incoming damage

Additionally, because Quite A Snag can have a 15s cooldown as opposed to Small Snag's 5-minute cooldown, it can be maintained for the duration of a fight instead of only applied for 30 seconds of that fight. Comparing its incoming damage over such a time:
+2% for 30s every 5 minutes over 5 minutes = +0.2% during that 5 minutes
+3% for 30s every 15s over 5 minutes = +3% during that 5 minutes

Thus rather than simply being +1% increase in damage, it's more accurate to say it is +2.8%, at least in long fights such as boss fights. It also helps by debuffing the attack duration of the target, making enemies do far less damage to the tank over that timeframe.

The Quiet Knife

The Quiet Knife is, in some ways, the easy trait setup, as it has only one big trick to make it work really effectively. With this trait setup, the burglar's personal DPS is greatly increased, especially when receiving the benefits of positional damage and stealth damage. Feint Attack becomes Improved Feint Attack, which can be used every 15 seconds. This can be a big deal, because it causes some skills to act as though they were fired off from stealth (which, with the stacking bonuses of stealth damage and positional damage, could make for extremely large hits).

The Gambler

The Gambler is potentially the most complicated of all Burglar builds, so much so that the best explanation for it is given by a lorebook entry dedicated entirely to that one build. Please visit the Gambler Guide for more info.