LOTRO Burglar Guide

The Burglar class in The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) offers players a unique blend of stealth, cunning, and tactical combat, drawing inspiration from the legendary Bilbo Baggins. With the ability to debilitate foes, initiate powerful Fellowship Maneuvers, and strike with precision from the shadows, Burglars are masters of disruption and critical damage.

In this guide, we’ll explore the lore, playstyle, combat mechanics, and optimal choices for race, gear, crafting, and virtues, helping you become a skilled Burglar in your adventures across Middle-earth.

Burglar

Story of the Burglar

The Burglar class in LOTRO takes inspiration from Bilbo Baggins, the most famous burglar in The Lord of the Rings lore, particularly from The Hobbit. Gandalf selects Bilbo as the burglar for Thorin’s company due to his stealth, quick thinking, and unassuming nature. The Burglar in LOTRO embodies these traits, utilizing sneakiness, subtlety, and guile. Like Bilbo, burglars can slip unnoticed behind enemy lines, making them specialists in disabling and tricking foes rather than direct confrontation.

In Middle-earth lore, stealth and subterfuge aren’t just for thieves; they are often heroic acts, like in the tale of Beren and Lúthien, where stealth is essential for their success. The Burglar’s role in LOTRO also ties into the broader themes of small, clever individuals making a huge impact in a world full of larger forces.

Burglar Playstyle

The Burglar is a highly tactical class in LOTRO, excelling in stealth, debuffing enemies, crowd control, and burst damage. They can play a versatile role in group content, supporting allies by weakening foes with their clever tricks, while also providing respectable single-target damage.

Burglar gameplay focuses heavily on positioning, timing, and using tricks to disrupt the battlefield. They are known for creating Fellowship Maneuvers (FMs) by “exposing” enemies, allowing the group to unleash devastating coordinated attacks. In solo play, they rely on stealth to initiate fights and burst damage to take down targets before they can retaliate.

Their primary roles include:

  • Damage Dealer (DPS): Using subtlety and surprise to deal burst damage through critical hits and ambushes.
  • Debuffer/Support: Weakening enemies with skills that reduce their effectiveness, crowd control abilities to disable opponents, and initiating Fellowship Maneuvers.

Combat Mechanics

Burglar combat is built around using Stealth, Tricks, and Critical Hits. Their signature mechanic is the Trick system, where they can apply various debuffs to enemies and then “Gamble” with skills that manipulate these tricks for additional effects.

  • Stealth: Initiating combat from stealth increases critical hit chance and damage. Burglars can use stealth to move undetected, open fights with powerful ambushes, and maintain control of engagements.
  • Tricks: Burglars can apply Tricks to enemies that hinder their ability to fight. These include slowing movement, decreasing damage output, or increasing the target’s vulnerability.
  • Critical Hits: Many Burglar skills have increased potency when they score critical hits. Skills like Surprise Strike and Aim focus on leveraging critical hits for maximum damage output.

Burglar Stances:

  • Quiet Knife (Damage): Maximizes burst damage through critical hits.
  • Mischief (Support): Focuses on debuffing and crowd control, making it great for group play.
  • The Gambler (Tactical): Revolves around using Tricks and Gambles to control combat through unpredictability.

Best Race for Burglar

While these races are viable, Hobbit is often considered the best thematic and practical choice, given the natural synergy between Hobbit racial traits and Burglar gameplay. The Burglar class is available to the following races:

  • Hobbit: With their inherent stealthy nature and lore connection to Bilbo Baggins, Hobbits are a great choice for Burglar. They receive bonuses to stealth and evasion, which enhances survivability.
  • Man: Humans offer versatility, bringing a bonus to critical hits and an extra racial skill for survivability, “Man of the Fourth Age,” which increases morale.

Looking for the right LOTRO class? Check out our Choosing a Class Guide to find the best fit for your playstyle, whether you want to tank, heal, or deal damage.🧙

Burglar Stats

  • Agility: This is the Burglar’s primary stat, increasing their physical mastery, critical rating, and evade chance. Maximizing Agility is crucial for boosting damage and survivability.
  • Critical Rating: Since many of the Burglar’s skills revolve around landing critical hits, stacking critical rating enhances both damage and combat efficiency.
  • Physical Mastery: Increases the potency of all physical attacks, making it vital for maximizing damage output.
  • Finesse: Reduces the chances of your attacks being resisted by enemies, making it essential for ensuring your debuffs and attacks land.

Burglar Weapons and Equipment

Burglar weapons emphasize precision and speed. They can dual-wield one-handed weapons, allowing for fast, agile strikes.

  • Primary Weapons: Burglars typically use daggers, swords, or clubs. Daggers provide a higher critical chance, making them a popular choice for maximizing critical hit damage. Swords offer balance with increased parry, while clubs excel at stunning enemies.
  • Off-hand: Another dagger or sword for quicker, more frequent attacks.
  • Armor: Burglars wear medium armor, which provides a balance of protection and mobility, allowing them to stay nimble without sacrificing too much survivability.
  • Legendary Items: The Burglar’s legendary weapon is typically a dagger or sword, which can be customized to enhance specific abilities and damage types. Their legendary class item is the Tools of the Trade, which boosts tricks, stealth abilities, and other core Burglar skills.

Best Burglar Virtues

Virtues can enhance the Burglar’s survivability, damage, and utility. The following virtues are highly recommended:

  • Determination: Boosts Agility, critical rating, and evade, all key stats for maximizing DPS and survival.
  • Zeal: Adds physical mastery and morale, increasing overall damage and health.
  • Confidence: Provides boosts to critical rating and finesse, improving damage consistency.
  • Tolerance: Increases resistance to crowd control effects, important when relying on stealth and positioning.
  • Idealism: Boosts morale and resistance to corruption effects.

Crafting for Burglars

The best crafting professions for Burglars focus on maximizing their weapons and armor, as well as consumables that improve stealth and damage.

  • Weaponsmith: This profession allows you to craft your own daggers, swords, and other weapons, ensuring you always have the best tools for combat.
  • Jeweller: Crafting your own jewelry provides stat bonuses, especially for agility and critical rating, which are essential for Burglar effectiveness.
  • Scholar: Scholars can create potions and battle scrolls, which can offer additional support during fights, particularly in group content.

Burglar Specializations: Strengths and Weaknesses

The Burglar class in LOTRO offers three distinct specializations, each catering to different playstyles. Below is a breakdown of their strengths and weaknesses:

SpecializationStrengthsWeaknesses
Quiet Knife (Yellow)– High burst damage through critical hits.
– Excellent single-target DPS.
– Stealth and ambush mechanics.
– Less crowd control.
– Lacks significant debuffing potential.
– Relies heavily on critical hits.
Mischief (Red)– Strong debuffing and crowd control.
– Initiates Fellowship Maneuvers more easily.
– Useful in group content as a support role.
– Lower overall damage output.
– Requires precise timing for tricks.
– Weaker in solo content.
The Gambler (Blue)– Highly versatile playstyle.
– Focus on randomness for control and damage.
– Can manipulate tricks for greater effects.
– Inconsistent due to reliance on “Gambles.”
– Requires deeper understanding of trick mechanics.
– Lower sustained damage.

Since class specializations and balancing are updated periodically, we recommend using ilovefriedorcs to make use of the Burglar Traits Planner to optimize your build for your preferred playstyle, and check out the latest community-created builds as well.

An Asset To Any Fellowship

The Burglar is one of the most dynamic and tactical classes in LOTRO, offering players a unique combination of stealth, debuffs, and critical burst damage. Whether you choose to play as a Hobbit or a Man, the Burglar thrives on agility, careful planning, and precise execution, the Burglar is an indispensable asset to any fellowship in Middle-earth.

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About the Author

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Heather

Exploring video games are one of my favored hobbies, and with a fondness for the MMORPG and Simulation genres, I set out on a quest to write guides and share my gaming adventures.

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