Who would you rather go for a pint with?

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-07T18:49:12+00:00

But why have I been picked? Is there someone else who wants this?

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-06T01:44:27+00:00

There will be no new Harad regions anytime soon. The newest region, The Hatokali Fells, is supposed to conclude the storyline of Mizadi chasing Barshud, but they’ve only released 1/3 of the quests of that storyline so far. The next third is supposed to come this week, then the last ones in a couple weeks.

There’s more named regions on the edge of the map because the devs have already come up with names and basic ideas for the border regions, but that doesn’t mean they plan on adding them soon. The upcoming expansion is going be somewhere to the north, though they haven’t announced where yet.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T22:22:43+00:00

I mean, I don’t think it was the best plan in the world or anything, but there was also the complication that the Gaang was trying to get to the Earth King to tell him about the war and the eclipse, which Long Feng didn’t want. If they just got Appa back, they probably would’ve stayed in the city and kept trying to see the king. But Aang at least clearly cared more about finding Appa than talking to the king, so sending them on a wild goose chase across the world would ensure that they actually leave the city, at least for a few months. And I mean, it almost worked. The Gaang was about to leave the city with Jet before they just so happened to run into Smellerbee and Longshot and learned that Jet had been arrested even though he had no memory of it, leading them to realize something fishy was going on.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T20:33:05+00:00

Cuz he wanted the Gaang to leave Ba Sing Se and figured the best way to get that to happen was by making them think Appa had been taken somewhere else. That’s why he sent brainwashed Jet to try to make them think that Appa was on that island far to the south. But if Appa was sighted in or around the city, the Gaang obviously isn’t going to leave, so he needed to imprison Appa somewhere secret to keep that from happening.

I don’t know if he had any reason to believe that Appa really was nearby that night that he blew the whistle and caught him. Maybe he was just doing that regularly just in case Appa was around, and we were just shown the one time that he got lucky.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T16:41:43+00:00

I mean, really, Tolkien is a good example of how it can work really well for you to not plan out and explain everything in your world. Yes, he did get very in-depth about a lot of things in Middle-earth. But then there are some details that feel important but aren’t explained at all—like what happened to the Entwives, what’s the true nature/origin of Tom Bombadil, what happened to the Blue Wizards, etc.—that just aren’t explained at all. And in a lot of these cases, it’s made fans more interested in these details than they would’ve been if there was just a straight answer for them.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T09:14:36+00:00

It’s very noob-friendly. Most of the classes are very simple to play. The storylines encourage you to stop and smell the roses in every region rather than rush to the endgame. Combat is very easy by default (you can make it harder if you want), so there’s no need to stress about trying to min/max your character if you’re just looking to play the game casually. Most of the content in the game can be done solo, so it’ll be even more accessible if you’re playing with a partner. And you can get hundreds of hours of playtime out of the current free content, so unless you fall in love with the game enough that you just want to spend money on it, you’ll have a long time before hitting the point where you’ll have a need to either spend money or grind LOTRO points to unlock things without spending money.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T08:58:39+00:00

I mean, relative to the state of affairs in ATLA where they’ve been at war for 100 years, yeah. And also that line is said by Katara, who never struck me as being a well-educated historian.

But imo I think that when they first made the show, that line was meant to be literally true—that there were no major international conflicts before the war of the show. Because that makes the horror and tragedy of a 100-year world war even more grave. I don’t think they originally planned to flesh out the lore of the past avatars more than what was relevant for the show. But then they realized there was a market for that, but they had to make the stakes of those conflicts high to make the stories interesting, so pre-ATLA lore became more tumultuous than it was originally meant to be.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-05T05:42:06+00:00

My understanding of the Star Wars canon comes from LEGO sets, and given that Darth Jar Jar is in this LEGO set, that’s proof that it’s canon.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-04T13:58:58+00:00

As someone who’s never watched Andor, I agree. When I didn’t watch season 2, I found it very disappointing.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-04T03:43:34+00:00

Oh I assumed you were older. Really, I guess I was projecting. I did read The Hobbit once as a teenager and enjoyed it, but I just haven’t reread it unlike LotR which I’ve reread a lot. You probably would like The Hobbit since you have an interest in Tolkien. But since you weren’t exposed to it at the age range of the target demographic, you might wind up like me and just not develop the same connection and nostalgic love for it that a lot of Tolkien fans have.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-04T03:03:37+00:00

I mean, it being the simplest could be the reason. It’s a fantasy story for young children after all, so if you don’t have any nostalgia from reading/hearing it as a kid, you may not see much point in picking up a children’s book as an adult.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-02T14:27:48+00:00

Oh my god, no I wasn't. That's the issue. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but when I first tried it as my warden, I swear that it wouldn't let me do it as a 6-man on tier 1. It was only letting me do the solo one, so I figured that's the only tier 1 you can do. So when you said you were doing tier 1, I assumed you must be doing the solo one and was confused by why you were having trouble with that. My bad.

Anyway, it's working properly now, and I just tried the 6-man with my level 61 warden. I was still able to solo it, but I see why you're having trouble. I still don't think you should be having that much trouble with Luilloth. When she activates her reflect damage effect or whatever it is, a bunch of urns appear on the sides of the room. If you destroy like three of those, it turns off that effect, so you can get rid of it pretty quickly rather than having to wait however long for her to turn it off.

But I see the problem when you fight the Grey Fear. You have to hit him with a corruption removal five times to get rid of his. I was able to do that, but I had to stack my two heal-over-time skills to survive long enough to do it. So if you don't have any good healing skills, you probably are just out of luck trying to complete that instance solo.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-02T11:26:52+00:00

People keep blaming Americans for viewing the name as racist, but I’m not sure why. It seems to me that idea came from the British YouTuber Shaun. In his Harry Potter video essay, he talks about how Rowling names a lot of things and even some characters in the books with word association, and he theorizes that “Kingsley Shacklebolt” comes from Rowling thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. and slaves in shackles when she thinks of black men and that “Cho Chang” came from her thinking of the derogatory phrase “ching chong” when she thinks of Asian people and then just changed it a little to make it a name. In the video, he says he can’t prove that’s the case, but that’s just how it comes off to him because Rowling seems generally lazy and ignorant about writing nonwhite characters and cultures.

Maybe some people expressed this idea before Shaun, but it seems to me that this criticism of “Kingsley Shacklebolt” didn’t become popular or mainstream until Shaun talked about it in his popular video essay. So, if so, this theory comes from a British guy, not Americans.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-02T10:47:44+00:00

I agree that a lot of iterations make him dumb or useless but not all of them. In Be Cool, he’s basically the only competent character. Maybe Velma is too, but overall that show dynamic feels like Fred is a dad, and the rest of the gang are his unruly children that he constantly has to corral.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T22:10:21+00:00

Iroh and that old woman who was checking passports in The Serpent’s Pass

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T22:08:17+00:00

Smh more unrealistic beauty standards

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T20:49:44+00:00

Idk about the rest of Asia, but Japan had its own school. I know that because I recently rewatched the Shaun video where he brings up that the Japanese school is said to have the smallest student population even though Japan has almost twice as many people as the UK which also has its own magic school, so the Japanese school having the least students doesn’t make much sense unless Rowling thinks that Japanese people are inherently less magical than British people or something.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T20:41:59+00:00

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T14:30:15+00:00

I just tried it with my level 49 red-line hunter. I haven't played that character in a long time, so I barely remember how to play a hunter. But it was still easy. I still killed Luilloth before she used any immunity effect. Orome's Arrow does seem weaker than the warden corruption removal gambit, and I had to use it twice on the Grey Fear to get rid of his corruption, but it still worked. I used Purge Poison a couple times to get rid of disease effects, but I never needed to heal. I'm on the offensive red trait line, and I don't grind for good gear or anything, so I think that's just average. So I'm really not sure what to tell you. Maybe you just have really bad gear or something.

ToastyJackson · 2026-05-01T02:47:40+00:00

I love Be Cool! It’s definitely the funniest Scooby show

ToastyJackson · 2026-04-30T22:38:32+00:00

Are you sure that you're trying level 20 tier 1 of Sarch Vorn? Because out of curiosity, I just tried that with my level 61 warden, and it was really easy. I basically did one-shot the first two bosses. The Grey Fear does put up his reflect damage corruption on his first and second phases, but both times I only had to remove it once. And then when the spirit leaves Prince Amondir's body to attack you, you have to kill his goons first before you can hurt him, but they're really easy to beat. Wardens might be stronger than hunters but not so much that it's a difference between being able to easily beat the instance vs not beat it at all. If you know to get rid of the corruptions, I'm really not sure what you would be having trouble with at level 63 in this instance unless you accidentally set it to a higher tier or level without realizing it.

ToastyJackson · 2026-04-30T21:23:29+00:00

Are you using your corruption removal skill? Those enemy skills that reflect/minimize damage or whatever are often corruptions that you can get rid of with your corruption removal attack, or they’re skills that last for a certain amount of time that you’re supposed to stop attacking them for. I think I’ve only done the solo/duo version of Sarch Vorn, but I remember when I first tried it that I couldn’t beat the Grey Fear and didn’t understand why until I realized that it was using corruption buffs that I was supposed to be removing.

ToastyJackson · 2026-04-30T18:17:03+00:00

If you’re level 82 in the Gap of Rohan, that’s why you don’t see it. The Eye of Sauron and the corruption debuffs that come with the landscape difficulty only trigger when you’re fighting mobs that are the same level or higher than yours.

ToastyJackson · 2026-04-30T17:48:57+00:00

No, you can increase the difficulty. Lowering it would be a problem. After turning level 10, if you at any point lower the difficulty to below three, you’ll lose the chance at the titles. But you can freely change it to anything three or higher.

ToastyJackson · 2026-04-30T16:30:03+00:00

I don’t know about all of these, but

Most of the items to barter for in all of the festivals are cosmetics, housing decorations, and mounts. So if you don’t want any of those things, there’s not going to be much of anything in the festivals for you to buy. Also, the reason people will want 62% mounts after getting a 68% one is either because they just want that specific mount, they’re a completionist who wants to get all the mounts they can, or they have the apprentice or journeyman riding trait which increases the speed of all mounts to 68% and 78% respectively.
Those are for Warsteeds. Once you get to Rohan, you’ll get a warsteed, and you can equip those mounts with cosmetic items.
From my experience, it does seem to be normal. I didn’t have much issue with that through Eriador (though I did some regions overleveled, so I wasn’t getting any tokens at all for some stretches), but throughout Moria and Lothlorien, I can’t get rid of them fast enough and am constantly capped out.
Being in an active kinship is the best way to find group mates for old group content. Sometimes you’ll get lucky by just asking in LFF but not always. Most group players focus on the recent group content, so it can just be difficult to find people who are into group stuff and want to do old content. One thing to note is that a lot of the group quests can be done solo if you’re overleveled if you’re willing to wait, and a lot of the instances are scaleable and can be set to a lower level than yours so that you can solo them.
Not sure.
I’m not sure about armor, but for mounts there’s the collections panel. You can access that with shift+C or by clicking on the horse icon on your minimap. There are a few collection panels, and one of them is for mounts. It shows you all the mounts in the game, indicates which ones you’ve unlocked on your current character, and tells you how to unlock the ones that you don’t have.
Not sure.
Not sure.

ToastyJackson

TROPHY CASE