Ask The LOTRO Team – Answers to your questions – February 6, 2014

[Mar-Evayave]

But.. but.. but...

ViP are getting 4 new zones this year for free!
Honestly, hanging onto people with the promise of free content in the future is like a the bad cheeseburger skit with Wimpy from Popeye.
"I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for that cheeseburger today"

By the way.. Has anyone heard what the first new zone is and when it will be released? Quarterly means every three months and March is 2 weeks away. Will this one be Fangorn, pathways or the dead mashes or Gondor?

lol Not familiar with that skit, but I'll take your word for it.

As to the other topic, I suspect the first new zone might be included in U13 and that it'll be Fangorn. It makes sense to go there first. Also, by this time in the game (HD battle) the events surrounding Isengard and Fangorn are just now happening as well, and definitely before the Paths and Gondor. Chronologically speaking, it makes more sense for Fangorn (and perhaps an aftermath-Isengard?) to be next. And U13 simply because it's the next "big" update. Though it does make me wonder how good it will be, considering we already know that the ND, Trollshaws and Misties revamps are coming in U13 as well (plus goodness only knows what else). Yeah, not as much as an expansion, but still quite a lot.

[TheCrossbow]

Thank you, this is exactly what I was going to say. Just because an answer doesn't appeal to you, doesn't mean it's not an answer. For example, they've been REALLY clear for AGES that there will be no raids coming for awhile, and why. People still keep asking, still keep flogging the issue.



Exactly. Just because someone didn't hear the initial talk, doesn't mean it didn't happen. For example, "no new raids coming" was said in March of last year. People acted blindsided when it was mentioned again more recently, as though Turbine had dropped a bomb with no warning.

I suppose it is probably a good time to reveal the intentions behind what I've been posting...

What I have posted are the same exact words... more or less... that keeps coming from a certain segment of the player base that continues to poke and prod Turbine... as if somehow they will get a different answer. The information about "what is coming" has been presented a few times. The plans have been put forth... in as much as Turbine is prepared to give any details.

Whether or not people choose to accept the information presented is another matter entirely...

[TheCrossbow]

This is true but they never mentioned the migration to a skill tree. They never mentioned that the classes would be forced to be alike depending on what role you wanted. (In fact we were lead to believe that we would have more customization and less homogenized classes). The result was hybrid classes and freedom of choice was severely limited. Skills that certain classes used for years were now locked down a certain tree (freaking Rain of Thorns!). So I don't think the majority of people were ready for the huge changes. Maybe the devs knew that if they gave out that much info early that there would be a revolt. Now we are forced to accept it or leave.

Just because the developers never mentioned specifics prior to what we saw in Beta doesn't mean we weren't given warning that the class changes were coming... and significant.
However, it seemed to me that far too many people were glossing over the class changes and focusing on other details... that in the long run didn't matter as much as class changes.

And, I don't intend to take the discussion down this road too much, but there is something that needs to be addressed...

There is, in fact, a whole lot of customization and freedom of choice available to each class. Granted, your choices are within the confines of what is available... but there is still plenty of choice... IF you are willing to "think outside the box" a little bit. I have taken 4 different classes (Hunter, Loremaster, Captain, Burglar) to 95 with all the trait points and found plenty of flexibility in their builds. You get to pick a "primary" focus for the build and have the option to spend points as you wish. In most cases, I do end up with enough points to grab some nice additional tools out of the other trees to compliment the primary tree. In some cases, there are traits within the primary tree I can easily do without in favor of picking up something else I like from a secondary tree. Can you do absolutely everything you want with your character? No. But, you are not anywhere near being forced into a "straight jacket". Instead of the previous trait system where I could only have 10 class-related traits slotted (7 class traits + 3 legendary), I now have (on my LM) 20 traits... 27 if you count the passive traits picked up by spending down my primary tree. Easy math tells me that is a +17 gain. Not to mention, within some of those traits are some nifty new/better skills.

OK. Enough of a rant on that part. Back to discussing the Q & A.

[Beaniemooch]

There is, in fact, a whole lot of customization and freedom of choice available to each class. Granted, your choices are within the confines of what is available... but there is still plenty of choice... IF you are willing to "think outside the box" a little bit. I have taken 4 different classes (Hunter, Loremaster, Captain, Burglar) to 95 with all the trait points and found plenty of flexibility in their builds. You get to pick a "primary" focus for the build and have the option to spend points as you wish. In most cases, I do end up with enough points to grab some nice additional tools out of the other trees to compliment the primary tree. In some cases, there are traits within the primary tree I can easily do without in favor of picking up something else I like from a secondary tree. Can you do absolutely everything you want with your character? No. But, you are not anywhere near being forced into a "straight jacket". Instead of the previous trait system where I could only have 10 class-related traits slotted (7 class traits + 3 legendary), I now have (on my LM) 20 traits... 27 if you count the passive traits picked up by spending down my primary tree. Easy math tells me that is a +17 gain. Not to mention, within some of those traits are some nifty new/better skills.

I disagree with you, and I've disagreed with this idea since day one of Beta. The tree took all the flexibility out of my minstrel. I can trait red line and be OP dps, or I can trait blue line and be OP heals, but there really isn't a middle ground. Yellow line is sort of a failure in my opinion, doesn't do either well, and the point system is punitive to try and do anything hybrid. So if I'm an OP healer I have nowhere to go because they didn't create any content that needs healing. That leaves me a dps role. And....how is that flexible? I've been running T2c content full red line with a couple friends and no healing needed for anybody. What happened to making class roles more specific? Apparently to Turbine that meant making everybody able to it all themselves and never need anybody else.

The prior system allowed me to mix and match what traits I wanted, and I could swap it 10 times a day with a trait change here and a change there - one trait, not spending 1.3gold to re-spend 65 points. Not spending 100 mithril coins to buy a third trait tree on ONE character to have another pigeonholed traitline. Sorry, they did the exact opposite of what they were touting this was for. As for skill bloat? I didn't have any before but I do now. All it takes is 3 skills to dps and one skill to heal a raid. Any more than 4 is a wasted bloat now.

[Jamesm429]

Just because the developers never mentioned specifics prior to what we saw in Beta doesn't mean we weren't given warning that the class changes were coming... and significant.
However, it seemed to me that far too many people were glossing over the class changes and focusing on other details... that in the long run didn't matter as much as class changes.

And, I don't intend to take the discussion down this road too much, but there is something that needs to be addressed...

There is, in fact, a whole lot of customization and freedom of choice available to each class. Granted, your choices are within the confines of what is available... but there is still plenty of choice... IF you are willing to "think outside the box" a little bit. I have taken 4 different classes (Hunter, Loremaster, Captain, Burglar) to 95 with all the trait points and found plenty of flexibility in their builds. You get to pick a "primary" focus for the build and have the option to spend points as you wish. In most cases, I do end up with enough points to grab some nice additional tools out of the other trees to compliment the primary tree. In some cases, there are traits within the primary tree I can easily do without in favor of picking up something else I like from a secondary tree. Can you do absolutely everything you want with your character? No. But, you are not anywhere near being forced into a "straight jacket". Instead of the previous trait system where I could only have 10 class-related traits slotted (7 class traits + 3 legendary), I now have (on my LM) 20 traits... 27 if you count the passive traits picked up by spending down my primary tree. Easy math tells me that is a +17 gain. Not to mention, within some of those traits are some nifty new/better skills.

OK. Enough of a rant on that part. Back to discussing the Q & A.

I too do not agree with you, play a Mini now and than, and come back to us............................ .............

[Badwolf-Kirsty]

I'm so glad they're working on being able to mail more than one item at a time!!! I have two characters, and I didn't want to buy TB for the ridiculously overpriced shared storage, so I have to mail everything between my characters, and boy can that get boring and tedious! Also excited about being able to add an extra crafting ability!! I can see that being very useful for me

[TheCrossbow]

I too do not agree with you, play a Mini now and than, and come back to us............................ .............

Having played 4 classes all of which have (IMHO) 3 specs that are pretty awesome to choose from... I find it incredibly hard to believe that you can't accomplish the same with a minstrel... or any other class. Now, I haven't played a minstrel and won't pretend to know what you can do with one. But, given my experience with the classes I do play... I have a really tough time believing that you can't do with your characters what I have been able to do with mine.

[Beaniemooch]

Having played 4 classes all of which have (IMHO) 3 specs that are pretty awesome to choose from... I find it incredibly hard to believe that you can't accomplish the same with a minstrel... or any other class. Now, I haven't played a minstrel and won't pretend to know what you can do with one. But, given my experience with the classes I do play... I have a really tough time believing that you can't do with your characters what I have been able to do with mine.

Read the minstrel forum. If you haven't played a minstrel and won't pretend to know what you can do with one listen to those who do. And don't compare my class with the four you do play, because each one is unique.

With as botched as I feel trait trees are, if there had been viable group content that required the OP dps of classes and the OP healing of others you would not see the QQing you do now. Big battles did not cut it in my opinion, because the very class changes that were made mean nothing in there. DPS is king in a BB and you need to have rank to click stuff. That's it. Lack of raid/instances hurt Helms Deep. Turbine expected the QQing to be bad the first couple weeks and then settle down "like always" and it didn't happen. In my mind this was a business mistake that has been costly to Turbine and to the playerbase. I'm very sad for us all because I love this game.

[anthonyx]

You say "here is, in fact, a whole lot of customization and freedom of choice available to each class. Granted, your choices are within the confines of what is available"

Within the confines is my point. You are forced to play the style that is predetermined. You have some flexibility of course at major costs. Which again is how the dev team wanted it. I didn't like and still wish I could play my toons the way i want to. I play all toons except a mini. A few aren't as bad as others (LM for example is not all that bad though the yellow line needs some major love). For many years I have had the Rain of arrows traited. Now unless I want to go deep in the yellow I can't use a legendary skill that I had when I first received it around level 45ish. My pre HD build allowed me to have decent DPS with enough CC that I could run or fight. That may be a minor thing to most but it is how I liked to play. I liked my 4r2b1y setup. I could go through all the alts and most have the same thing we cant hybrid builds as much as we did before. You are stuck. I tried a hunter build that included rain of thorns. It cost 28 points to get Rank 4 RoT. That leaves 37 points for my main line (in this case Red). I can build up to 10% bow induction bow damage. I have a nerfed Hail of Arrows with out the crit reset, no upshot. What I have is the ability to CC with RoT at a steep cost to DPS. Right now, with how much ease we can roll through nearly all landscape mob, it is acceptable. But if the landscape is scaled it wil be noticable. This is the tough choices that the Devs said we had to make. I am saying that before we could keep our DPS up and borrow from other lines. We could favour certain roles and yet play the way I wanted to. So in the end they didn't lessen the homogenization of the classes. I have seen many hunter builds and depending what spec they are in they are all nearly the same. I am guessing this will change with more points and more skills. But at this rate 2016 everything might be balanced and the hunter my be able to track stealth mobs.

[TheCrossbow]

Read the minstrel forum. If you haven't played a minstrel and won't pretend to know what you can do with one listen to those who do. And don't compare my class with the four you do play, because each one is unique.

I am still finding it difficult to believe that Minstrels don't have the customization I've been able to achieve with the 4 classes I do play. Perhaps I will take up the challenge of leveling a minstrel so I can judge for myself.

Big battles did not cut it in my opinion, because the very class changes that were made mean nothing in there. DPS is king in a BB and you need to have rank to click stuff.

DPS is helpful for Big Battles but it is not even close to being as important as the other skills your character has... I have found that my characters that have heals and/or decent non-DPS skills do much better in those instances than those that are only DPS-focused.

As far as ranks... yes the higher ranks have it a lot easier... and to some extent can make things too easy. But, being high ranked doesn't eliminate the need to still contribute.

[LethalLethality]

The thing with Mini I'm disappointed with is a lack of new instruments that are worth anything. I've not really played my Mini since HD because something felt off about her, and knowing there is no gear to look forward to, I don't really care about leveling her.

[Mar-Evayave]

I am still finding it difficult to believe that Minstrels don't have the customization I've been able to achieve with the 4 classes I do play. Perhaps I will take up the challenge of leveling a minstrel so I can judge for myself.

They do have a lot of customization. I currently have a blue build for healing and a red/yellow hybrid with the focus on red in Harmony/Melody stance for solo/regular gameplay. I really like my red/yellow build, and made it up myself (no looking for "cookie cutter" builds). It is, I think, pretty unique and really works well for me. Minstrels are customizable. I have not read the specific complaints in the Minstrel forum, but I still enjoy my minstrel as much as ever. The only time I didn't post-HD was when the Harmony/Melody coda was broken, but that has been fixed.

I discovered my red/yellow build when I was yellow-specced working on that dratted class deed that required me to be DEEP into the yellow tree. I hated being in yellow at first, but then discovered some aspects of it that I really liked, and once I finished the deed, I sacrificed elements of the red tree (while keeping my focus on red, so my yellow traits were 2 points each) specifically so I could get those elements out of the yellow tree. Ya just gotta explore and experiment.

[Coxis]

Q10: When can we expect new content in the form of a new multi-boss raid?
A: [JWbarry] – A new raid is not in the plans for 2014.

I can't believe this, even after all the pleads and begging from players.

[RicardoFurriel]

I can't believe this, even after all the pleads and begging from players.

Hey listen, why bother with the single digit percentage of the population? Can't be that big of a deal... The game is just fine without them...

[Namesse]

Hey listen, why bother with the single digit percentage of the population? Can't be that big of a deal... The game is just fine without them...

Turbine just had layoffs, not sure how fine they're doing.

[Calta]

I am still finding it difficult to believe that Minstrels don't have the customization I've been able to achieve with the 4 classes I do play. Perhaps I will take up the challenge of leveling a minstrel so I can judge for myself.

There is no challenge.
It's not about hybrid builds. I use them. It's not about not exploring options. Done that. Cost me a lot of gold and mithril coins/real money to try every combination. It's about the choice of actual skills left, their placement, their bugginess and their gating. You can spec all red (warrior -skald for fighting/soloing) and still heal absolutely anything. You can spec all blue (watcher for healing and grouping) ) and still dps nearly anything. You will only use yellow to unlock a class point- i used to be a buffing minstrel, but now the group buffs are mostly useless and are still buffing non existant skills. We can't rez in combat unkess we spec all blue to the capstone. Minstrels can overheal. Or they can aoe dps. That's it. Minstrels are about the easiest and most boring and most limited class to play these days.

I rolled my minstrel to heal but I have traited blue/healing spec exactly 4 times since HD launched- 3 of those for new to me tier 2s, and 12 mans done with only 3- 4 players, (eg 6 man Sammath Gul, 12 man Helegrod giants, spiders) and most recently for the hobbit to isengard run. Heals are so OP you can one key heal almost anything so the only line with the in combat rez as capstone makes that very rez virtually redundant!

Those of us who group, now pretend we rolled hunters and dps (without the ability to trap/cc) at the request of the group. Our DPs skills crit so much we can out dps champs short term and out do average hunters. In northcotten farms tier 2 I now trait red and dps the whole fight including the cauldron, like a hunter. Recently in Seat of GG tier 2 cm (the timed challenge) i traited/specced red and just switched to harmony stance for the last fight. I am not alone in relearning to play my healing class solely as a weird dps class.

So for many of us frustration stems from the whole silent wilfully nonsensical approach to our once beautiful useful and elegant class. Trees and BBs are just a part of it.*

But go right ahead and roll one.
Levelling is super easy. You can play a minstrel as a healer while watching tv and doing your nails. If you are any good at dpsing you can solo almost anything without dieing. (Check the minstrel solo thread.) Creeps will hate you for good reason, as OP healers and unkillable dpsers due to self heals. You won't have to know how to play this utterly basic class at all, but you still get to 'win' and then post your crits in glff. I guess that's some kind of fun. Just not for me (or Beanie, i guess.)

*Nothing about our class has changed since HDs launch except the tooltips, the coda (that had been bugged since august last year, took 5 months and was never acknowledged.) Oh we got an unasked for replacement of a useful ranged dps skill with a useless melee one. Oh and we got the removal of two obvious bugs that meant you could heal others in warspeech. Two of the devs whose class changes were most successful/supported by the community here and who communicated/discussed those changes, have gone. So the message is clear to me that the minstrel class development represents WBs preferred approach to all class development in the future
ie stay silent and dumb it down to zynga level and hope big numbers =player happiness =money. I think the recent events have proven them wrong. At least I hope so.

[Mucica]

Big battles should not have been introduced. I rolled a hunter, not an engineer.
Instead, they should have made instance cluster.

Skill/trait trees should not have been introduced. Versatility is dead now, and to all who complained about having too many skills on toolbar should have just removed the ones they didn't need.
We lost too many good skills and traits, we got too few new/good things.
My hunter feels like she got a concussion, lost half of her memory and now can't even properly run (litteraly run; animation is bad).
So I stopped playing all my pre-HD toons because I dislike what they've done to them, and rolled a class I didn't have, just so I don't know what I lost.

There is no challenge in pve now. Too many dps and heals. Unlike pvp, where you can die in just few seconds.

I'm still wondering why they/somebody decided to change so many things that (nobody) asked for, and yet ignored so many things player's base really asked for.

Instance cluster, Gondor next year and Mordor in 2016. would be good to happen.

[Galwir]

I'm still wondering why they/somebody decided to change so many things that (nobody) asked for, and yet ignored so many things player's base really asked for.

Can't agree more...

[Nadrowen]

Turbine just had layoffs, not sure how fine they're doing.

Although I feel some compassion with the people who lost their positions, the recent developments in Lotro were wrong and not wanted by the players:
1) Reworking classes while they were almost good (of course there was still need for some tweaking). Now we have very simple classes which lost their versability and fun.
2) Big battles where you a play a limited class instead of your genuine class... Not to mention there is only one fellowship and one raid size of those.
3) Focussing on some purely esthetics and superficial features (hobbit gift, mitril coins) instead on core mechanics of the game and quests.

The results of those changes turned Lotro to be nearly not interesting. By having done that, Turbine alienated a lot of their loyal customers; I cancelled my subscription yesterday when I learned about the layoffs... I guess that Lotro will not be developped and will stay as it's for now (unbalanced, no more group content).

[Grimdi]

I'm still wondering why they/somebody decided to change so many things that (nobody) asked for, and yet ignored so many things player's base really asked for.

That happens when the marketing department is put in control of development: 200 fixed bugs and new/improved level-cap content don't sell to new and uninformed players. "Epic Battles starting at level 10" and "Totally new skill system for faster combat" do. Their data mining probably indicated that a new account generates more revenue per year than existing accounts on average.

It's a similar error to what Intel did a couple years back with the Pentium 4. The whole architecture was optimized for high nominal clockspeeds as that was the selling point for new/uninformed customers. The actually relevant things like actual performance, energy efficiency and thermal design (which all were pretty good on the Pentium 3 architecture) were mostly ignored. Only years later they scrapped the architecture and used the Pentium M (which was the real successor of the Pentium 3) as base for the new Core processors after suffering heavily from competition of the then superior AMD architectures. Unfortunately I don't think Lotro will have that much time nor the near-monopoly marketshare Intel had.

[Mar-Evayave]

There is no challenge.
It's not about hybrid builds. I use them. It's not about not exploring options. Done that. Cost me a lot of gold and mithril coins/real money to try every combination. It's about the choice of actual skills left, their placement, their bugginess and their gating. You can spec all red (warrior -skald for fighting/soloing) and still heal absolutely anything. You can spec all blue (watcher for healing and grouping) ) and still dps nearly anything. You will only use yellow to unlock a class point- i used to be a buffing minstrel, but now the group buffs are mostly useless and are still buffing non existant skills. We can't rez in combat unkess we spec all blue to the capstone. Minstrels can overheal. Or they can aoe dps. That's it. Minstrels are about the easiest and most boring and most limited class to play these days.

[...]Levelling is super easy. You can play a minstrel as a healer while watching tv and doing your nails.

In reverse, that last line is a little pointless. I can play any class on any MMO I've ever tried and still watch tv and do other things as well (such as eat or, in your case, do my nails). Leveling isn't supposed to be super challenging. If I want to pull my hair out due to the challenge, I'll do it in an instance or something. Not when I'm just trying to run a pie from Point A to Point B, or escort some NPC out of an enemy camp. That kind of challenge would drive me, and probably a lot of other people, away from these games. You make it sound as though you want the entire game, from start to finish, to be one massive, never-ending raid (and raid in traditional terms). That would be a nightmare. >.< A lot of people come to these games after a hard day's work and just want to do something enjoyable to relax them. It's not enjoyable or relaxing if it's as hard as you seem to want.

As for healing absolutely anything when all-red (or the reverse)... you must be geared for godmode, with the highest available armour, jewelry and weapons possible, fighting normal squishy mobs on the landscape. Because otherwise, that is simply a gross over-exaggeration. I PvP, and I raid, and I do pretty well at both of them, without the top-of-the-line everything. I soloed Dargnakh Unleashed t2c all the way to the final battle but wasn't able to beat Dargnakh on my own (his rage pretty much 1-shots me). So I brought in a lvl-cap champ to take the heat and I healed from a distance. At first I was in my red/yellow tree and my heals were insufficient once Dargnakh went into rage-mode. I had to switch to my blue stance to get all my necessary heals back (not to mention their full potency) and then had no problem. Makes sense: 2 lvl 95s in a lvl 75 3-man instance. No problem in my healing spec to keep the champ healed. But to heal him while I was red/yellow? Wasn't going to happen -- there was simply no way my reduced heals would suffice.

[Beaniemooch]

In reverse, that last line is a little pointless. I can play any class on any MMO I've ever tried and still watch tv and do other things as well (such as eat or, in your case, do my nails). Leveling isn't supposed to be super challenging.

She wasn't talking about leveling a healer - she's talking about end game raiding as a healer. Spam Bolster Courage on *anybody* (doesn't have to be the person taking damage or in need of heals) and it procs a group-wide heal for a full Bolster Courage of 5-12k on the entire group pretty much every time. Watch tv, don't watch the game monitor, put BC in your #1 slot and just tap 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1...... *yawn* .... 1, 1, 1, 1, 1..... This is how I heal undermanned T3 skirms now. And BG T2c.

Anything less doesn't require healing at all so I just go full dps mode. Yes, full dissonance and nobody needs heals unless I get a free heal from a crit proc. It's not godmode, it's the norm now.

EDIT: My guard and RK friend went into Fanghorn (75 6-man) and we 3-manned it T2c yesterday. We routinely do level 95 Sword Halls T2c without heals, as well as Iorbars Peak T2c and Great Goblin. School and library at 95 are a joke. We did Thadur yesterday to work deeds (so level 88) with just us 3. We've done 12-man skraids level 95 with just us 3 (others have soloed them). Godmode? No. Crafted or teal drop armour, BB jewelry for most pieces on me and the other 2 have a mish-mash of BB bling and drops. These are pieces that are available on the AH, through solo/duo BBs, and just crafting yourself or through kin/GLFF. I have a 2nd age sword and book, with symbols purchased through skirm camp and are available to anybody even if you don't do 12-man skirms and have one drop. I'm not sure what kind of godmode equipment you're referring to since there isn't anything in-game that's not available to solo players? With nothing but readily available gear I'm at almost 55k tactical mastery, just under 15k health, and I hit like a truck for AOE as well as one-shot damage. Want a lookout in GG prevented from bringing adds? Send the minstrel to one-shot him with Piercing Cry or Call to Fate. Want mobs dps'd down quickly for challenge? Send the minstrel with AOE. RK is traited fire line for AOE as well, rather than single target dps (that's my job). Healer? Why bother?

[Namesse]

Leveling isn't supposed to be super challenging. If I want to pull my hair out due to the challenge, I'll do it in an instance or something. Not when I'm just trying to run a pie from Point A to Point B, or escort some NPC out of an enemy camp. That kind of challenge would drive me, and probably a lot of other people, away from these games. You make it sound as though you want the entire game, from start to finish, to be one massive, never-ending raid (and raid in traditional terms). That would be a nightmare. >.< A lot of people come to these games after a hard day's work and just want to do something enjoyable to relax them. It's not enjoyable or relaxing if it's as hard as you seem to want.

Leveling should teach you the full capabilites of your class, and there should be opportunities along the way to use the full gamut of your abilities. You're right, not everything should be a challenge while leveling, but to level simply by mashing buttons and the mob dies and you're in no danger of dying, what fun is that? Mob awareness, density and dps all play a part in this; I'm not saying that pie running in the Shire should put your character at risk of death, but some quest lines or areas should be more dangerous - it should be perilous to enter an on-level Angmarim camp in Angmar!

[Stephen1981]

so basically end game is just moors nothing comming for people 95 is how i sum up these questions

[TheCrossbow]

There is no challenge.
It's not about hybrid builds. I use them. It's not about not exploring options. Done that. Cost me a lot of gold and mithril coins/real money to try every combination. It's about the choice of actual skills left, their placement, their bugginess and their gating. You can spec all red (warrior -skald for fighting/soloing) and still heal absolutely anything. You can spec all blue (watcher for healing and grouping) ) and still dps nearly anything. You will only use yellow to unlock a class point- i used to be a buffing minstrel, but now the group buffs are mostly useless and are still buffing non existant skills. We can't rez in combat unkess we spec all blue to the capstone. Minstrels can overheal. Or they can aoe dps. That's it. Minstrels are about the easiest and most boring and most limited class to play these days.

I rolled my minstrel to heal but I have traited blue/healing spec exactly 4 times since HD launched- 3 of those for new to me tier 2s, and 12 mans done with only 3- 4 players, (eg 6 man Sammath Gul, 12 man Helegrod giants, spiders) and most recently for the hobbit to isengard run. Heals are so OP you can one key heal almost anything so the only line with the in combat rez as capstone makes that very rez virtually redundant!

Those of us who group, now pretend we rolled hunters and dps (without the ability to trap/cc) at the request of the group. Our DPs skills crit so much we can out dps champs short term and out do average hunters. In northcotten farms tier 2 I now trait red and dps the whole fight including the cauldron, like a hunter. Recently in Seat of GG tier 2 cm (the timed challenge) i traited/specced red and just switched to harmony stance for the last fight. I am not alone in relearning to play my healing class solely as a weird dps class.

So for many of us frustration stems from the whole silent wilfully nonsensical approach to our once beautiful useful and elegant class. Trees and BBs are just a part of it.*

But go right ahead and roll one.
Levelling is super easy. You can play a minstrel as a healer while watching tv and doing your nails. If you are any good at dpsing you can solo almost anything without dieing. (Check the minstrel solo thread.) Creeps will hate you for good reason, as OP healers and unkillable dpsers due to self heals. You won't have to know how to play this utterly basic class at all, but you still get to 'win' and then post your crits in glff. I guess that's some kind of fun. Just not for me (or Beanie, i guess.)

*Nothing about our class has changed since HDs launch except the tooltips, the coda (that had been bugged since august last year, took 5 months and was never acknowledged.) Oh we got an unasked for replacement of a useful ranged dps skill with a useless melee one. Oh and we got the removal of two obvious bugs that meant you could heal others in warspeech. Two of the devs whose class changes were most successful/supported by the community here and who communicated/discussed those changes, have gone. So the message is clear to me that the minstrel class development represents WBs preferred approach to all class development in the future
ie stay silent and dumb it down to zynga level and hope big numbers =player happiness =money. I think the recent events have proven them wrong. At least I hope so.

Forgive my bluntness but nothing you described is at all exclusive to the Minstrel.

> Leveling is easy for everyone right now. IMHO leveling your character shouldn't be very challenging. The things in the game intended as part of "leveling" should be on the easier side. So, what is your complaint here?

> If you are any good at DPSing... well anyone who is any good at their characters doesn't die much, if at all, while doing average things. Nothing new here. This has been a "truth" for a long time.

> You mention running 3-mans as examples... but even before the HD changes none of those 3-mans ever really presented a challenge or required a lot of healing outside a few specific situations.

> You also mention PvP stuff... forgive my bluntness on this but this game has never really been a PvP-focused game. I think we should be a little more interested in the PvE side of things and making sure PvE is set right before we worry about PvP... not that the PvP area shouldn't be supported. I think it is a mistake that Turbine doesn't support the PvP stuff better than they do. But, the Moors really is only minor aspect of the game.

So, again... and I'm not purposefully trying to be difficult about this... I am just finding it really hard to believe Minstrels have all of the problems you say they have... everyone still has some issues left over from the HD changes... but when I have leveled 4 different classes to 95 and found myself quite capable of satisfactorily adjusting them to the changes...