New to game and have Minstrel questions

[diefree]

Hello just got game and looking for good solo class that can also be helpful to a team. Heard Minstrels are great at soloing. How do they play? What spec is best for solo play and leveling? What stats are most important? What weapons should I use? Any other tips, builds, or things I should know? Thanks for any help.

[Oelle]

solo minstrels use the middle red traitline. thats for damage. they do huge amounts of burstdamage while running in that line and still can heal themselves.

when teaming up, minstrels use yellow line for great buffs or blue line for healing more often than playing damagedealer although damage in redline is in the middle field and therefore not that bad either.

minstrels heals are so crazy strong, that for healing, minstrels use tanky equipment like morale and mitigations. for dps, of course, more will is always better.

as long as you are leveling, it does not really matter, its easy no matter what you do as long as you know your skills.
the weapon does not change anything. until lvl50/moria, your weapon has no influence on your damage (besides the one singletargetmeleeskill). from moria on, you just take the legendary weapon with the highest +tactical damage attribute. weapontype does not change much, swords and clubs have a slight advantage, but all other weapons are totally fine either.

[TamX]

Hello just got game and looking for good solo class that can also be helpful to a team. Heard Minstrels are great at soloing. How do they play?

Depends a bit on what are you going to solo, and what kind of group content you plan to take. From the classes I have (listed in signature), the most enjoyable landscape solo toon is Champion, it is straight-forward and much sturdier than Hunter or DPS (redline + warspeech) Minstrel. It is true, that Minstrel has - or can have - some notable DPS, but in places your kiting possibilities are limited, you may be struggling.

On the other hand, in any bit more serious group content, as a Minstrel you are healing 99% of time: Minstrel is a healing beast, and almost always preferred choice for that spot in pretty much all content. Because of how Minstrel heals work (they are grazy strong even without much buffing up), you will have pretty defensive gears for healing (healers draw aggro pretty often). This means, that for DPS/solo, you need another set, so you don't save that much work compared to rolling two toons, one for healing, one for DPS'ing.

Another drawback is that Minstrel DPS is AoE DPS, and if you can't use AoE, your DPS drops pretty dramatically. If you want a toon for both, I think that Runekeeper is better bet than Minstrel.

What spec is best for solo play and leveling? What stats are most important? What weapons should I use? Any other tips, builds, or things I should know? Thanks for any help.

For solo play (and if DPS'ing in groups), you most probably tailor a red line for that, and usually run in Dissonance (Warspeech) stance. In groups, you may swap stances according to situations, so you can off-heal a bit. As DPS Minstrel, you look for Tactical Mastery (comes from Will) and Crit Rate. As healing Minstrel, you look for Crit Rate, and lots of Morale (after getting base defenses).

You can choose any Weapon you like. You don't do damage with your weapon, but with your instrument.

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EDIT: Bit late addition for other "tips", but anyways... Prepare yourself mentally to have few, like 2 to 4, active toons for few group roles. Group playing is much more interesting than solo playing, so consider what roles you like to play in groups. DPS role (e.g. Champion, Hunter, Runekeeper) is usually easiest, and especially as ranged DPS'er you have good opportunities to learn a lot from instances as you can observe action from distance to see the big picture (as a healer, you are usually too busy with morale bars to make any observations). Tank role (e.g. Guardian, Warden) is IMO the most stressful and demanding (as role), and may need lots of very detailed knowledge about the instance. Healer role (e.g. Minstrel, Runekeeper) is a solo game inside a group game. Support roles (e.g. Captain, Burglar, Loremaster) can be pretty demanding, when they are really needed.

[Ingiogal]

Minstrel is a class that has good versatility and has good strength in the various roles that a minstrel can take so I think it's an excellent class for someone new to the game (and new to MMOs in general if that's the case). I think that Minstrel, Hunter, Champion and maybe Guardian are great starter classes in the game.

That said, if you are reasonably new to the game, you may want to roll up characters of many classes and play them through to about early Moria (lvl 50-60) because that's when most classes finally come into their own and you get a glimpse of the true nature of the class and what your role with the class can be. As you discover classes that you like, keep that character. If you discover that a class definitely isn't your cup of tea, delete that character to make room for the next experiment, with the satisfaction of knowing that all the loot, Turbine points, money, and so forth that you accumulated in your experiment is helping you as a player and your remaining toons be better. (Create the new toon before you delete the old one so you can transfer the wealth before deletion.)

So, what do I like about the minstrel that might help you out? Other people have already clued you in about the three roles of the tree system so I'll skip that.

I enjoy the three roles: DPS, Heals, Support (via buffs to skills for your allies). Even just questing by myself, I will switch stances up just for the variety of playstyle.

I enjoy that I can DPS on the move and am not pinned down during combat when I'm the damage dealer. I don't mind being pinned down for healing because I should be protected by my tank in those situations and can afford to sit tight.

Our primary dmg is done via our minstrel instruments and I like the variety we have in that system to tailor our effectiveness to our role and playstyle. In early days of the game, the instrument you choose will help you in ways defined by the type. For example, drums will give you a damage edge that is different in the boosts than lutes, than flutes, than harps, etc. At the end of the game, you gain access to an even better instrument system that lets us pick any instrument type and assign any of the various buff profiles to the instrument with the sound that you want.

I like that minstrels have the earliest, simplest access to the player music system. In case you didn't know, LOTRO has a nice way of giving concerts in game with the .abc music file system.

I like that most any group will welcome a minstrel in this day and age where some other classes feel like they have to scratch and claw to find people willing to group with them. The only time you won't get a welcome is when they've already gotten enough minstrels/healers.

Minstrels have good utility throughout the entire game. Some classes have "dead zones" where they have to go through a few levels with the game feeling more difficult and a bigger slog.

Minstrels can team up pretty easily with any other class for running together on landscape for questing.

Minstrels can do quite well with mounted combat (arrives at lvl 70) in comparison to some classes where there is a feeling that mounted combat is nothing but a headache.

There are a LOT of other minstrels who can talk shop with you. This minstrel forum is one of the better class forums.

Hope that's a help to you.