The Ultimate LoTRO Newbie Guide - Part 6: Titles, Traits, and Deeds
by Cameron "Aelryn" Sorden
Table of Contents
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Heroic Deeds Provide Heroic Rewards
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In addition to buying skills and improving your gear, there are a few other ways to really make your character stand out in the lands of Middle Earth. Both Traits and Titles give your character ways to differentiate yourself from other players. Titles are cosmetic and traits are functional. The one thing that they have in common is that both are obtained primarily by performing deeds, which are simply actions that you can perform in Middle Earth.
In this section we'll discuss Titles, Traits, and Deeds in more detail. You'll learn what they all are, what you do with them, and how you get more of them to work on. Read on, and you'll be a Middle Earth legend in no time!
A Rose by Any Other Name Would Be Twice as Cool
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The first thing we'll talk about is Titles. While you're out adventuring, you'll probably notice people running around with suffixes after their name, like "of Rohan," "Bane of the Barrows," or "Pie-Eating Champion." These are all titles that that player has inherited or earned, and they help to define your character and make you stand out from your peers.
Everyone starts with one title which indicates your origin. If you're from Gondor, you get "of Gondor." If you're a Fallohide, you get "of the Fallohides." That's just the beginning, though. You get new titles to place on your character for pretty much everything you do: questing, killing, receiving emotes, staying alive, and finishing deeds.
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The first one most players see after their initial one is "the Wary" for reaching level 5 without dying, but the majority of your titles come from slayer deeds (explained later). Don't assume that's the only way to get titles, though! You'll never be a "Pie-Eating Champion" with that attitude. Keep your eyes peeled and do lots of quests. You'll have lots of opportunities to earn unique titles (if you want to see a list of lots of special titles you can earn through emotes, take a look at our social deeds guide).
You'll be notified in-game whenever you've earned a title, and you can look through all of the ones that you've obtained by pressing "C" and selecting the "Title" tab. This is also where you assign yourself a new title or remove it entirely. You can choose new titles whenever you like and as often as the mood strikes you. Just because you're the "Guardian of the Shire" doesn't mean you can't switch to "Bane of the Barrows" if you're going undead hunting.
Deeds, Deeds Everywhere
You're probably wondering what exactly Deeds are and where you can get some at this point. Well, Deeds are simply tasks that you can complete over time and that give you Titles and Traits upon completion. You can think of them as quests, except that their objectives are usually much more time-consuming or larger than those found in quests because they're intended to be completed over time as you do other things. Each area of the game has a number of deeds associated with it, but you can't see them right off the bat in your Deed log (press shift + L to examine your Deed log).
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You'll need to complete one step of a Deed to open it up and begin working on it, so usually you'll just trip over new Deeds as you wander through Middle-Earth. For example, the first time you kill a wolf in the shire, a message will pop up saying "New Deed: Wolf-Slayer" or something similar. You can then view the Wolf-Slayer Deed in your Deed log along with the number of wolves remaining that you need to kill and the reward you get for doing so. With kill Deeds, there are usually two levels of them. The first generally awards a title, like "Fur-cutter," and the second grants a trait. The advanced version of the Deed opens to you as soon as you finish the basic version and requires you to kill twice as many as the first. Keep in mind that when you're working on a Deed, you don't necessarily need to kill monsters that are close to you in level. If you just want to finish the Deed, go find greens or greys (low-level enemies) and slaughter lots of them at once.
There are also other kinds of Deeds. Tasks, like restoring the Shire Postal service by running mail from town to town, or exploration Deeds, like finding all of the Dunedain ruins in Bree-land, will also appear in your Deed log after doing one step of them. These longer deeds will sometimes provide you with a Trait and a Title simultaneously.
Traits? What are those? This is getting complicated...
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Don't worry-- it's not as complicated as it seems. Traits are the rewards you get for doing Deeds or completing your class quests. They're sort of like equipment in the sense that you apply them to your character for stat bonuses or special effects, and you have a limited number of Trait slots that increases as you level up. You can see all of the Traits you have and also the Traits you currently have equipped from the "Traits" tab in your character menu.
There are four types of Traits in Lord of the Rings Online: Virtues, Race, Class, and Legendary. Virtues are the Traits you've been collecting from your area Deeds-- Justice, Patience, Compassion, et cetera. These provide statistic and resistance boosts and increase in power as you gain more of the same Virtue.
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Race Traits are gained from racial Deeds and tend to provide large stat bonuses or special effects. These are obviously affected by what race you chose when you made your character. Class Traits are also similar-- all members of your chosen class get these Traits and they tend to be awarded for class Deeds and class quests. Class Deeds are based on how often you use your skills and take a lot of time to obtain. Finally, Legendary Traits are special Traits that you obtain at high levels and let you do neat things. The Lore-master, for example, gets a Trait that allows her to dual-wield a sword and staff at the same time.
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When you've earned your first few Traits, you'll probably want to equip them. You can't just swap them out anywhere though... you'll need to find a bard. Bards usually hang out near the inn in towns. You can recognize them by the lute symbol floating above their head. Just go talk to them when you see them, and ask to assign your Traits.
You'll be taken to a screen where you can see all of your Trait equip slots. The ones you don't have access to yet will be crossed out by an X, but you can put any trait you like (and that fits there) in the open slots. The bard will charge you a fee to change your traits each time you do it. For virtue swapping, the costs aren't that bad. Be careful when selecting your class, race, and legendary traits though. Those tend to get rather costly if you're switching them all the time.
Make sure that you fill your trait slots as soon as you can, and update your traits on a regular basis to make sure that you have the best ones for your playstyle equipped. Those little bonuses might seem negligible, but they actually add up and provide a hefty boost over time.
(Continue to Part 7: Trade Skills and Auctions)
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