Minstrel Feedback on Helm's Deep

[SouthernBelle0927]

Skills are now trait line dependent, not stance dependent. Stances will alter some skills and gate outgoing healing, but they don't affect skill availability.

Then why does the tooltip state "Requires Dissonance Stance"? Is it just a case of someone being on auto-pilot while revising tooltips?

[00CloughRN]

Then why does the tooltip state "Requires Dissonance Stance"? Is it just a case of someone being on auto-pilot while revising tooltips?

I think its actually a bug (the same bug which makes FH and TS available in Dissonance.)

[Aineas.]

Then why does the tooltip state "Requires Dissonance Stance"? Is it just a case of someone being on auto-pilot while revising tooltips?

it's a class under development still. Lots of those issues weren't adressed during the many bèta's it being mentioned They said it would be under further development and lets pray for a finished class with release of 12.1

[Gillmour]

If DPS get lowered, how will I be able to solo then? Yes, I can kill things quickly now, but I'm a LOT squishier which means that I die very quickly and there's less healing for me to use so if I don't kill the mob quickly, I'll be the one who falls
I'm questing in a lower leveled area than me at the moment but the mobs hit me very very hard. I can't keep up with my healing, but since I hit them hard, I can still get by.

If DPS gets lowered, I will need my defense back

If you are having trouble doing any quests because you don't have enough self heals or you can't handle a nerf to your dps then you are doing something wrong. In most instances, skirmishes or raids I end up with aggro either single target or AOE. The other players aren't lacking dps or skill or gear, just that mini dps is now tops. Should it be? Probably not. Am I complaining? No.

Learn to stun, slow, kite if that's what it takes. Ask other minis about gear, traits, rotation etc. Go PVP, probably the best place to learn your class and how to survive... Although the issues there are widespread ATM

[Calta]

If you are having trouble doing any quests because you don't have enough self heals or you can't handle a nerf to your dps then you are doing something wrong. In most instances, skirmishes or raids I end up with aggro either single target or AOE. The other players aren't lacking dps or skill or gear, just that mini dps is now tops. Should it be? Probably not. Am I complaining? No.

Learn to stun, slow, kite if that's what it takes. Ask other minis about gear, traits, rotation etc. Go PVP, probably the best place to learn your class and how to survive... Although the issues there are widespread ATM

This would all be good advice if the poster was level capped and had been for some time. As you are. Unfortunately, to a leveller still trying to get instant bolster and some other skills, it doesn't necessarily apply.

In other words this player and others not at cap are still learning to play their class in the new build and their concerns are legitimate- red is fragile for non maxed players without PVP gear and some vital class deed points. For example, while finding most content faceroll easy due to one-two-three shotting, if I don't crit, or the mob gets 2 crits on me in a row, my heals can be slower now in red (I used to use sos a lot for the hots and the coda for the self heals.) In addition, although my morale went up with the class changes and quest drops over 85, MY icmr has dropped so low I've had swap back in some lower level jewellery for the fate... and start cooking icmr food and fate food. Stuff i haven't had to do since level 70.

Non maxed minstrels-even those with 45 points to spend-are having a very different experinence without those addional 6-8 class deed points to spend on some key skills. And 6 of those vital class deed points are gated in yellow and blue.

And the poster is are asking other minstrels. They are 'asking around' in here. So please don't chase them away with 'learn to pvp and 'learn to kite'-no matter how well intentioned, it's not really appropriate or helpful to a non 95 level player..

[Beaniemooch]

I tried going into a raid size big battle today because they were desperate - they'd been asking in glff, and finally one person offered to pay 10 gold each to the last 3 people they needed. Fun much? But I digress.

I went in blue line for my own amusement to see if I could actually heal the NPCs, and because people seemed to think it was necessary. I found a very weird phenomena where sometimes the heals worked and sometimes they didn't. We had a commander down to 10k health and I was spam healing single target with Bolster Courage, and only about one in 10 actually gave him a heal. I watched him nearly die as I'm standing there spam healing - what the hell? Then one would actually affect him and raise his health, then the next 5 or 6 wouldn't. It seemed a little better if the NPCs were out of combat, I'd get about 3 out of 4 heals to work, but this is horrid. No wonder so many of us have said "you can't heal NPCs" because we probably tried and it didn't work.

Short version - I ran around feeling useless, trying to heal NPCs and being ineffective, occasionally using a dps skill and in general contributing nothing. But I did get a platinum for some side quest I don't remember seeing, and an overall silver. Yay me. /sigh

[Wabeccolicious]

The yellow line trait "sharing a story" which if it was WAI should reset the cd of Piercing Cry with every ballad crit (that is pretty overpowering by itself) is not working properly. For it works with every ballad use. That's right. I have exactly 63 trait points which means I can spend 31 in red line and have enough left to go for that trait in yellow line. This is very powerful, I can basically spam piercing cry, with a ballad in the middle.

[Norwrei]

Other classes still out dps a Minstrel yet there are always people who want to keep the Minstrel as a healer or solo act only so they complain that the Minstrel is OP or too much dps, etc.. because they don't want the Minstrel to have a viable dps role in a group. The Minstrel is not OP and infact I found the Minstrel very squishy and lacking self heals but was ok with that since there is a needed increase in dps. As one who plays the Minstrel in the red, a warrior skald Minstrel, I'd rather have more dps and less heals anyway because I prefer to have dps roles in groups so would rely on potions and the group healer to heal my Minstrel. I'm very happy with the Minstrel changes, especially the red line since I do play my dps Minstrel as a raiding warrior skald only. For the first time ever, the class feels complete.. balanced..the dps is nice. The only thing I would ask is to keep rally a general skill and perhaps make enhanced for blue line. Even the LM is keeping their rez skill so why shouldn't the Minstrel too? I think it's great that the classes are hybrid now, having multiple roles. More choices and playstyles for players can only be a good thing. For those who want to heal, they will heal and they shouldn't care if others want to dps the Minstrel like me! Thanks! Minstrel is perfect.

[Gillmour]

And the poster is are asking other minstrels. They are 'asking around' in here. So please don't chase them away with 'learn to pvp and 'learn to kite'-no matter how well intentioned, it's not really appropriate or helpful to a non 95 level player..

Much easier to give advice in-game where you can be inspected and show someone key traits or rotation, rather than on forums when no one knows your setup, level, etc.

[Calta]

Much easier to give advice in-game where you can be inspected and show someone key traits or rotation, rather than on forums when no one knows your setup, level, etc.

I completely agree.

When people could see character stats on the forums a lot of misunderstandings were be avoided and fairly accurate info was available by a quick check of mylotro but that facility is no more. I wish turbine would host a screenshot site at the very least.....

Just to explain my comment which reads more harshly and personal than I intended, and for which I apologise:
Recently some minstrels have PMd for advice/discussion because they've been scorched (either in game or on forums) when they've asked for help publicly. Minstrel forums have generally been a refuge from 'L2P' abrasiveness and I hope we continue to be like that and all keep trying to help each other out.

[Gedrevn]

Big Battle Healing

Tested this out over the weekend here's what I have so far.

1. You -> CAN <- heal NPCs in Harmody and Melody stances
2. Healing works bizarrely. Sometimes heals work, sometimes they don't.
3. The timing is very off, heals land and then apply incongruously. Sometimes you have to stack heals to get them to apply (I.E. cast Bolster 3 times before it actually heals, but than it stacks 2-3 heals at the same time)
4. Because of this, some heals (mostly Chord) don't seem to work since the cooldown makes it hard to stack.
5. AE heals do not work (for obvious grouping reasons)
6. Warspeech heals do not work (for obvious self only reasons)
7. It does not appear that you can crit heal an NPC.
8. A previous poster said that you were able to heal up to 75% health. Anecdotally I feel like I was able to heal higher than this, but I didn't try healing anyone to full since it currently takes way too long to be strategically worthwhile.

[Fearless.one]

It seems there's always one class that has to bite the bullet upon release of a new expansion. I remember upon release of RoI in 2011, Wardens had become completely broken. They were unplayable as tanks and useless as dps, so Wardens had to wait for several months before their issues could be fixed and had to be put on hold. I know more classes have gone through similar phases (including Minstrel in the Moria days), so I guess it's our turn again this time around.

I trust that eventually these problems will be fixed and rebalanced. In the meantime we will just have to make do with what we get and continue to provide feedback on the forums.

Since I am no longer a frequent raider, Lotro for me is all about the immersion and adventure (and the cosmetics, duh). I just hope that between the process of relearning a new trait tree system and dealing with underwhelming dps on landscape, I will still be able to enjoy the new scenery and quests.

I sorry but the warden was never broken I respect my warden in 10 min and was back it it was right it should have never been might based.

This trait tree is garbage and I did not pay to be a beta tester in almost every single build i have tried on my 150 character's over my 2 accounts plus playing thru all of the beta testing i can find one good thing or better yet that is was needed at all.

There is a old saying that was said buy wiser men then me "if it not broke don't fix it" because this is a train wreak There are post everywhere showing how much this new system is garbage. I am a 2.5 year vet to this game I said it garbage in beta and I say its even more garbage Live.

I mean why change a game that is almost over let face it if it lives thru this change at all what left to the story one more expansion in its done right why make the change now to a 8 year old game engine. This game change should have been saved for LOTRO 2 built on a new engine. Let face that what this was all about anyway just testing us. The story is almost done.

for a good player you can see garbage in just about 2 min if take longer that your not a good player. 2 weeks is long enough most trial versions are only a few levels and any gamer wroth his salt know a good well built game and decide at that point to buy it or not. I played Diablo for the 10 free levels and bought the game and it a great game it took me about 3 hours to test. after doing the beta here I new in the same way this was garbage then after testing it live I realized I was so right but I don't have the chance to buy it or not my 500$ US just went up in smoke this was not the game I bought and I want my money back

[Norwrei]

I completely agree.

When people could see character stats on the forums a lot of misunderstandings were be avoided and fairly accurate info was available by a quick check of mylotro but that facility is no more. I wish turbine would host a screenshot site at the very least.....

Just to explain my comment which reads more harshly and personal than I intended, and for which I apologise:
Recently some minstrels have PMd for advice/discussion because they've been scorched (either in game or on forums) when they've asked for help publicly. Minstrel forums have generally been a refuge from 'L2P' abrasiveness and I hope we continue to be like that and all keep trying to help each other out.

I don't know about that but I hated when stats were on the forums. I don't like all those sites either who show alts, etc and find it to an invasion of privacy.

[Beaniemooch]

I don't know about that but I hated when stats were on the forums. I don't like all those sites either who show alts, etc and find it to an invasion of privacy.

I found it very helpful. I could check my characters as well as other characters I knew were well geared. Once I could see the gear they had I could look up where it came from and decide if I wanted to get it. The nice thing about the stats being listed was it made it easy to compare pieces of gear and how it would add different things to your character.

I'm not sure why it would be an invasion of privacy to know people's alts. The alts don't seem to mind. The only people that ever seemed to object in my experience were those who'd try and remain anonymous to troll GLFF.

[Calta]

I don't know about that but I hated when stats were on the forums. I don't like all those sites either who show alts, etc and find it to an invasion of privacy.

Off topic: On my.lotro you could choose to make your character public. Altfinders then mined the information. I found it useful but agree people should be able to choose a privacy setting.

On topic: Healing works randomly as Ged outlined. Healing using single target seems buggy on npcs-feels to me like hit-skill, hitch, lag, then animate, hit-skill animate, then all animated skills fire immediately without animations. I could not detect a pattern on what level to heal NPCs to. Now, I am running around as an officer in BB in red/bit of yellow and only being asked to dps. My level 28 RK is more awesome at damage than my 90 minstrel in BB though-20 points in fire and she's happily killing the trolls.

My Observations at level 90 while going as slowly as possible. On landscape, I'm competitive with my hunter mate-if i can round the mobs up to wizard, PC, an aoe. Done. Hardly ever get to ballad enough to get my anthems up but when i do they seem to stay up. Coda and PC crit routinely. (So often I notice if they don't.) Manage to solo a warband 1 level below me in MC-at which i royally fail. But still feel as tough on foot against most mobs. Can't afk and survive one spawning on me though-that's about the only time i've died-due to inattention...

ICMR has been an issue as I levelled, so I have restacked some fate on my thrid age level 89 dps sword. I'm still using secnd age 85 healing mace and book. Will change those at 95, i think.

The crafted set at 90 is amazing but the epic rewards are also really nice and quest rewards are what i've used since 85 until now. I've just got three pieces of the purple light armour crafted set and some new purple jewellery and watched my fate drop to 300 and my morale nearly double along with my vitality. So I had to fiddle a little bit with jewellery.

I'm wondering what's in store for us that needs 2K will 2K vit and 11-12K morale at 90?

[00CloughRN]

ICMR has been an issue as I levelled, so I have restacked some fate on my thrid age level 89 dps sword. I'm still using secnd age 85 healing mace and book. Will change those at 95, i think.

Did you mean ICMR? Or ICPR? ICMR is virtually pointless. 100 Fate gets you the equivalent of 2.5 HPS.

[Calta]

Did you mean ICMR? Or ICPR? ICMR is virtually pointless. 100 Fate gets you the equivalent of 2.5 HPS.

Sorry fate for ICPR (and i only put it back up to just under 500.) and the icmr relic on dps stick.

Edit:

quote and calcs courtesy of Moebius
ICPR from fate is (fate * 94 / 55 + 240).

No, I have no idea why 94 / 55, but it seems to be accurate within as long as you round off.

[Familiarity]

The yellow line trait "sharing a story" which if it was WAI should reset the cd of Piercing Cry with every ballad crit (that is pretty overpowering by itself) is not working properly. For it works with every ballad use. That's right. I have exactly 63 trait points which means I can spend 31 in red line and have enough left to go for that trait in yellow line. This is very powerful, I can basically spam piercing cry, with a ballad in the middle.

This is a hilarious bug that I have shamelessly begun using to further solidify my role as a tactical champion by spamming interrupts.

[Gedrevn]

@Deviled_Egg Not sure if you're still around reading this stuff but Calta had a great comment related to Rally in another thread.

As for minstrels being healers-ROFLMAO-heal what? Anyone seen a 'need healer' or 'need minstrel' for 85-95 content in glff since HD? We are simply not needed.

And our heals are unreliable in BBs. (Our aoes don't work, our single targets are erratic on npcs-seem to work about 1 in 5 times. Commanders are better at it. Players don't need heals. )

So it's good we can dps a bit, now-like everyone else-because dps is the only role needed in anything. But be warned, we can't rez you in combat as dps (red)or as a buffer (yellow), though. Captains can. <edit: and RKs can, too. And they out dps us> And they both can heal NPCs. LMs can heal NPCs in BBs with aoes (we can't) and they can rez out of combat, too. <edit: And do massive more dps than minstels>. We can't compete with that.

We're the best healers in the game now...which doesn't really matter since no one takes damage and they can all still heal themselves. Heals don't work properly/aren't needed in BB. Our DPS is below all of the DPS classes, which is most everyone else. And our in-combat res is now gated into Blue which means we do less DPS than an RK who can in-combat res and have less combat utility than a Captain...who can also res in combat.

Can we get any love?

[Calta]

@Deviled_Egg Not sure if you're still around reading this stuff but Calta had a great comment related to Rally in another thread.



We're the best healers in the game now...which doesn't really matter since no one takes damage and they can all still heal themselves. Heals don't work properly/aren't needed in BB. Our DPS is below all of the DPS classes, which is most everyone else. And our in-combat res is now gated into Blue which means we do less DPS than an RK who can in-combat res and have less combat utility than a Captain...who can also res in combat.

Can we get any love?

and we have no threat management tools but our heals still draw aggro....

This may be a tanking issue-for wardens especially- but as 12.1 reduces the threat skill (Fray) duration for guards and doesn't address threat gen issue for non dpsing/damaging tank it remains a problem. as said in class summary and feedback threads, over and over.

In game it means we can't heal tanks taking damage but not dpsing. (See Cloudie-wan's thread https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...17#post7034317) These instances are the last remaining venue for our class role as healers and we can't properly heal in there due to threat issues.

what are we for?

[Gedrevn]

Minstrel Specific Patch Notes from 12.1

Minstrel
- Traits -

Trait "Soothing Voice" is being balanced down to provide +2% Outgoing Healing / Rank
Trait "Poignant Phrase" is being balanced down to provide +4% Critical Healing / Rank
Set Bonus "Open Ears" now has a 50% chance to apply but also has a 30s cooldown.
Set Bonus "Harmonious Anthems" should no longer break set Coda of Melody's fellowship heal.
"Sharing a Story" should no longer reset Piercing Cry on normal hits.
Several traits ceased displaying trait info when fully ranked. This should now be fixed.
Warrior Skald Set Bonus 1 "Discordant Ballads" now grants "Fresh Voice", a short-term Tactical Damage buff gained when swapping into Dissonance stance



- Skills -

Fellowship's Heart can no longer be used in Dissonance Stance
Minstrel Stances will now be organized under a single heading in your skills page
Cry of the Wizard's Cooldown is being reduced from 60s-->30s
Skill "Perfect Ending" will no longer be placed in your quickslot bars automatically
Echoes of Battle should now be associated with the Stance "Melody." Melody of Battle should now be associated with the stance "Resonance."
Melody of Battle should properly dispel when swapping out of Resonance Stance.
Cry of the Wizard's Cooldown is being reduced from 60s-->30s
Changing Stances will no longer dispel your active Anthems.