Lord of the Rings Online: Class Guide

Burglar (22 per cent)

Bilbo & Frodo are the archetypes for this class (though it's also available for humans) and, though they can deal decent damage rapidly, the thing they're best at is staying alive, debuffing enemies and starting Fellowship manoeuvres. Indeed, whilst a burglar is one of the best classes to solo (unlike the pretty-tough soloing for Minstrels) their role in a Fellowship is to keep enemies weak through debuffs and crowd control, and set up conjunctions to take down tough bosses.

Of course, Burglars specialise in being dead sneaky, using their stealth skills to get around easily in solo play, but unlike rogues in That Other MMO they're not so great at dealing damage - though if they attack from stealth or behind, they can do great burst damage. Terrifyingly, burglars can tank quite well for about a minute, but this is a really short term solution whilst the main tank is healed. After their heals run out and their massive variety of stuns and debuffs are used, all their skills take a long time to cool down, so then they're pretty much dead. This illustrates their survivability - often a burgular will be the last man standing, being unable to aggro enough to draw enemies down on him.

In solo, burglars can kill enemies one-on-one nice and quick and get away with it. In Fellowship play, Burglars should be the conjunction experts, knowing when to trigger one, and what colours each player should pick to get the maximum benefit - and then should just wander around, stabbing from the back where possible and performing a general crowd-control role. Best of all, if it all goes pear-shaped in an instance, Burglars have enough skills to give the essential minstrel a chance to get away...

Minstrel (28 per cent)

Traditionally, Minstrels have been the class that everyone else loves to hate, the wussy troubadours that are tuning their lute in the background whilst everyone else is clonking orcs and goblins by the troll-load. Yet over a quarter of the Turbine chaps play as these (Elves, Hobbits and Humans are the best minstrels) possibly because they're essential for Fellowships - there's little point in going into an instance without a minstrel, despite each class's buffing and patching-up abilities, because only the minstrel has the ability to "heal".

The Minstrel is one of the most complex classes to use, so one of the most rewarding to master. Minstrels also have the ability to play any instrument in the game (other classes have access to a limited selection), meaning they can make full use of the bizarrely-comprehensive music-crafting abilities in the game.

Playing as a minstrel is a bit like playing a strategy game or spinning a hundred plates, what with the resource-management inherent in trying to keep your team-mates alive whilst stacking up songs. Your songs work in an odd way, strong ones stacking on top of weak ones to allow more powerful tunes, until you get to the top-end anthems after three songs; but as soon as a Minstrel deploys one of these, he'll have to start the chain over. The healing effect is slightly more obvious and easy to use, though Minstrels only get their resurrect spell at level 20 - and that's only usable out of combat, so DON'T DIE.

There are a few things to remember about Minstrels; they can only heal with line of sight and they're only any good with no enemies attacking them - as soon as that happens, or they have to move, their ability to heal disappears. If a Minstrel heals when one enemy is not aggroed, it will attack the Minstrel - so make sure all the enemies in a fight are occupied! Fellowships with two or three Minstrels in aren't unheard of and can work quite well - just remember that there's a trade-off somewhere, so for every class you double up on in a Fellowship, you're losing one other class.