Minstrel Changes and Feedback

[Faudyen]

While I might take issue with the fact that you describe this as ‘boring’ I appreciate you illustrating what you mean in greater depth. Do you think anthems would feel less bad if they had a more direct impact on your ‘main’ role? IE: if anthems also pulsed an AoE heal while you were blue-line or in Resonance, or dealt damage while you were in red-line or Dissonance? Are the Invigourating Anthem effects (formerly anthem-coda effects) too insignificant to impact your moment to moment play, or is it just that you feel the anthem cycle is too restrictive for those effects to even enter the equation?.

I’ll bite and say I wouldn’t mind something like this. Coming from a solo mini perspective, I don’t have a reason to use anthems anymore. In the past I could pre-buff myself with anthems while I was running to a group of mobs. Now I’m expected to engage and then waste buttons on an anthem. As a solo player it is faster in landscape to just kill the mobs. I press 7 then 8 then 9 and I’ve let off 3 AoEs to the group I’m fighting, then they die. It’s an odd feeling because if it’s faster to just kill the mob I don’t really “need” the dps boost granted by the anthems I would use but I’m still left feeling, well that sucks, it’d be nice to play at my full potential dps.
I admit it, it’s a really odd spot for solo minis, or at least this one. Maybe some sort of weird benefit to using an anthem would entice me to take the dps loss on a mob every few pulls and use it.

[Arabani]

It’s an odd feeling because if it’s faster to just kill the mob I don’t really “need” the dps boost granted by the anthems I would use but I’m still left feeling, well that sucks, it’d be nice to play at my full potential dps.

Why on earth do you want to work harder for the same result? Why does it matter if you can hit for 1000 or 1200 damage if the enemy has 900 hp? Anthems are meant for the fights longer then a few seconds. And sometimes there are such fights, even solo. But in general, there is no need to overcomplecate things while playing solo.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

Minstrel is always going to feel clunky with in combat only Anthems. There is also zero need for this restriction since Anthems share a CD and have a short duration precluding the possibility of 'pre-buffing'.

This is called bad design.

The fact the Dev doesn't get this but instead ups Anthem duration should tell you everything. That's not a mistake you can make if you actually play the game/class.

[Arabani]

This is called bad design.

It is a good enough design to avoid prebuffing. I won't deny, I would prefer anthems being usable outside of combat as before, but only if every buff (and any other spec specific stuff like traps) drops and disappears when the spec is changed. But I guess it is hard to impliment, so combat only will do for now.

[DoRonRon]

For years my routine for buffing Anthems was having appropriate legacies split on different ILI (still maxed) books as well as an unimbued for a variant choice of War. I like to think that my going that extra step distinguished me from taking a less prepared Minstrel instead. The swaps/refreshing during the encounter done at a time of my choosing not during a narrow window that might be coincident with other more pressing concerns. My Tank had a swap "heal" Belt for heaven's sake. I never could experience the "delight" minnie's got from healing him over other tanks, nor the better buffs on my MT. Distant memories now.

Those saying it's just a button to press every 20 seconds isn't at this level of consideration. If only considering a HiPS or DPS before and after as the bar, then ticked box. And no waiting the 40 odd seconds for an Anthem preload in Yellow or are hunters still doing Yellow "groundworks"? While it still remains a thing!

[savetheroadtodoriath]

It is a good enough design to avoid prebuffing. I won't deny, I would prefer anthems being usable outside of combat as before, but only if every buff (and any other spec specific stuff like traps) drops and disappears when the spec is changed. But I guess it is hard to impliment, so combat only will do for now.

No it's still bad design, you could remove the combat limitation and prebuffing would still be completely impractical because of the shared CDs and low durations. Then you consider that prebuffing is something that occurred for 1% of your gameplay and the trade off here is extremely inconvenient for the other 99% of gameplay it's a truly atrocious design decision, a heavy handed solution that causes more problems than it fixes by any measure. Again, this is a redundant measure, shared CDs and low durations (not to mention weaker and split up Anthems) already discourage prebuffing, so why disable Anthems OOC?

And then you consider that if someone really wants to prebuff they absolutely still can by dragging along 1 mob to remain in combat or maybe even sparring or a few other unsavory solutions I don't intend to share, but the point is if anything this change encourages more unintended gameplay while penalizing regular gameplay. It takes 1 look at this sort of thing to clearly see the devs don't know what they are doing.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

I’ll bite and say I wouldn’t mind something like this. Coming from a solo mini perspective, I don’t have a reason to use anthems anymore. In the past I could pre-buff myself with anthems while I was running to a group of mobs. Now I’m expected to engage and then waste buttons on an anthem. As a solo player it is faster in landscape to just kill the mobs. I press 7 then 8 then 9 and I’ve let off 3 AoEs to the group I’m fighting, then they die. It’s an odd feeling because if it’s faster to just kill the mob I don’t really “need” the dps boost granted by the anthems I would use but I’m still left feeling, well that sucks, it’d be nice to play at my full potential dps.
I admit it, it’s a really odd spot for solo minis, or at least this one. Maybe some sort of weird benefit to using an anthem would entice me to take the dps loss on a mob every few pulls and use it.

This is a good post because it begins to approach the backwardness of the current design, but there's more to be said. I wrote a pretty detailed post on this but of course that gets ignored since the Devs only respond to softballs so I won't won't dwell on the matter... But imagine now if you weren't super geared and are actually a newer player, maybe you even take damage and are actually in danger questing in Gundabad, does the new Anthem system feel more or less cumbersome to you since you actually need both the DPS increase and the reset and probably even self healing? Obviously the answer is more, since it is at all points extra GCDs to use. It's important to point out the current system also heavily encourages you using Coda AND Anthems are not always available (shared cds) even if you have 3 Ballads, so those GCDs have a much higher secondary GCD cost at pretty much all times too. This is where the clunkiness begins.

In very direct terms the current system has you constantly choose between buffing the damage of your skills or resetting them, so no matter which you choose you are wasting half the effect of Anthem of the Third Age Dissonance. This is a very strange and unpleasant interaction to begin with on its own, but when you consider the fact that historically we have had both -- the feeling of this interaction becomes exceptionally unpleasant. The result is you feel like you've had something taken away, which is odd considering technically the exact opposite is true. Our reset now extends to more skills. Except as a geared player you NEVER experience this on landscape and instead you just never use Anthems because they waste a GCD that could be spent simply killing the mob in question, the end result being you don't feel like a Minstrel at all and the class fantasy is null. Probably the only time you feel the 'benefit' of this effect is trolling in PvP where every Creep on this side of Grams is complaining about the psychotic endless uptime and spread on Cry of the Wizards. All of this speaks to to the backwardness of the new design paradigm.

[Joedangod]

Any player who forgoes all healing, tanking, support, etc potential in favor of maximizing raw DPS ought to find that their maximized DPS is at least competitive.

Can't really forgo the support when it's rotational.

[Neinda]

Hopefully SSG will use this whole mini forum and how the changes were communicated as a lesson going forward with all future class changes. Looking at the conversation of the past couple of days, this is a good example of interacting on the part of both SSG and the customer base. It would have been outstanding if all the changes started out on a forum and were discussed like this ahead of time. I fully understand SSG is under no obligation to discuss anything with us but having customer buy in goes a long way for the future of the business and the acceptance of change. If something is not broken and does not require immediate attention there is no reason why the proposed changes could not be discussed prior to Bullroarer. People don't like change and in the case of a massive change like this, presentation makes a difference. Even great changes will hit a roadblock if presented poorly. SSG can go with the "our way or the highway" but they are a business and happy customers should be a consideration. The past is gone but please think about all of this with future class revamps. Discussing it with the customer base up front can't hurt and may actually get better buy in from people. And as an added benefit you get input from all sorts of players, some who have years of experience playing the game.

Hopefully SSG will put the mini on the list to be look at someday in the future with the rest of the classes now that it has moved from a generally liked class that people enjoyed playing to one that needs improvements and changes.

[Bio-Flame]

Do you think anthems would feel less bad if they had a more direct impact on your ‘main’ role? IE: if anthems also pulsed an AoE heal while you were blue-line or in Resonance, or dealt damage while you were in red-line or Dissonance? Are the Invigourating Anthem effects (formerly anthem-coda effects) too insignificant to impact your moment to moment play, or is it just that you feel the anthem cycle is too restrictive for those effects to even enter the equation?

No, they wouldn't feel less bad.
Again, the issue is not that players want even more power creep. We're not complaining just to get even stronger effects slapped onto Anthems.


The core issue is that we have to do a complicated bloat of key presses, during a 90scds period or so, and then keep spaming them every 25scds during the whole fight...instead of simply pressing Cry of Chorus, fire off 3 anthems and only repeat it after 3 minutes.
Faster, cleaner, simpler.


Hm. I think just got an idea of how to explain it to you better:
Anthems now are JUST as boring/fun as before, but post 33.2 we now have an even more boring and longer ramp-up phase and we have to cast the same boring/fun Anthems a LOT more often.
The Antems are the same, you're just making them cast them more often to get the same results. It's a step backwards. Or a bunch of step backwards.

We may have to agree to disagree on this point... I and many other minstrel-players have long felt that anthems were a boring and uninteresting part of the class. Obviously you were not among them, but it seemed counterintuitive to have so many active skills attached to buffs which, in practice, were effectively passive power increases (always-on, expected by group members, and at little to no cost). In the distant past, anthems had greater limitations and shorter durations, so in one respect this change is a return to form. But as I said, we may have to simply agree to disagree on which style of skill is better in this respect.

OnnMacMahl, with all due respect, and I really mean it, but kindly realize that you have it completely backwards.


The problem, and this is the reason why this whole mess started and why we're here in the first place, is that you forget that players have been playing Mini for more than a decade now and they were happy with it. Sure, some tweaks here and there were needed, but overal, players were satisfied.
Mini was strong without being OP, had a spot in instances and raids. All in all people were content with its playstyle. They were used to it.
They liked it.
Sure, some didn't enjoy the way Mini played as much as the majority, but it's clear from the overwhelmingly majority of the replies in this thread that you and whoever advised you on these changes were on the minority.



During the game's life cycle, different kinds of players gravitated to classes that suited they prefered playstyle.
For example, people that don't like the warden playstyle, didn't play it. Conversely, people who did enjoy that kinda playstyle, were happy with it.
Players that prefer a proactive healing style, gravitated more towards RKs, those who prefered reactive healing style went more towards Mini. Etc... you get the point.
And since the game is 15 years old, this is engrained in player's mindset and expectations. Makes sense.



But then, you came along.
You don't like the way Mini played, that much is clear. Fine, it's your opinion. I get that.
So you changed its playstyle to better suit your opinion.
You removed the old way of playing Mini and gave us a new, updated version of it.



Your mistake was that you thought the majority of the players would want that.
The overwhelmingly majority of the players's feedback on this very thread, and some others on the general forum, did NOT enjoy your changes.
I've counted up until page 15 or 16, but you have a whooping 64% negative feedback to your changes and only 13% positive reaction.
(I only counted each player ONLY once before you did some tweaks to Anthems on page 6-7 and then again, each player only once from that page on).


And there have been more and more new players stating their utter dislike for the changes your implemented.
Even between your reply on page 17 and this reply on page 18, there have been more new players coming here and saying they just can't play their minis anymore. Seriously, it's that bad.



It has become crystal clear that your changes to the Mini, especially the whole Anthem spam fest, needless Piercing Cry mega-nerf and removing of Yellow Spec, were very, very poorly received.
So much so, that players are telling you they are retiring their Minis.
Maybe we're all dumb. Maybe we're all backwards. Maybe we have been wrong all these years we have been playing LOTRO.
That all might be true.


Or it just might be that you miscalculated.
You removed one of our "old toys" and gave us a new, better, improved and more modern toy.
But guess what? The majority of the players here want their "old toy". And you took it from us.


An analogy has always some limitations but bear with me here:
You're like a parent or a friend, that sees us playing an old game called LOTRO and puts it on the trash can, and gives us God of War 4. Or, to keep it on the MMO side: GW2, or FFIV... An amazing game, truly spectacular, state of the art, brand new, shiny. In all aspects, a better, superior product.

Things is: we wanted to play LOTRO. We could play the "new shiny thing" but we chose LOTRO. The "old toy".
And you took it from us.
Maybe we're plain stupid, why are we still playing LOTRO after 15 years? Maybe we are...



And that started this whole mess we're in now. You have an 18 page feedback thread, almost unheard of at this era of the game's life cycle. That should tell you something.
You have plenty of people saying they are shelving their Mini, regretfully. That should tell you something.
Orion felt the need to open a thread about comunication. Granted, it might not have been wholly due to these egregious Mini changes, but it probably contributed a lot as to why he felt the need to do it. THat should tell you something.



This can't be good for the health of the game. This was an avoidable situation if only you would have felt the rejection of your changes in these posts.



OnnMacMahal, you might be a very good Dev, design wise and on the technical side. Your proficiency and dedication are not in question here.
The issue here is that you took a beloved class with which most players were happy with and changed it in unpredictable, unwanted way, without need nor desire from the community.



You were given plenty of suggestions too.
Keep anthems as they were.
Don't remove Yellow line.
Put the changes on hold and keep the Mini changes for longer on BR, to gather more feedback.


Or, my favourite: keep ALL the changes you did, but they are only active in Yellow Line spec . That way you'd be ADDING a new playstyle, opening new doors, without closing old ones. Adding playstyles, without removing any.
Wouldn't that be a good compromise ?

[DoRonRon]

I was largely pushed into the healing class role because other's I played with either found it "alien" to their game goals or their failing to deliver in the environment we were playing. However, that was back in AC2 and on dial-up. Roll on a bit to Raid leading WOW's initial multi-boss 40 person dungeon, Molten Core. The era of "Leroy Jenkins" a year before maybe.

The healing "rotation" was an entirely different beast; Caster skills were dependent of the use of mana, our power in essence. At that time, perhaps still, the mechanics for regening mana was to stop casting, wait a few seconds to kick in a more advantageous mana regen. Liken to the in and out of combat power regen we have but not such a large differential. Just vital to understand and manage during the run of the raid. Damage caster had the same concerns but them running out of mana and their damage dropping off didn't wipe the raid as it did for those healing. So, the rotation was having healers rotated in and out of the fight so that all weren't empty before the boss was downed.

Another key of the mechanics in WOW was the availability of an over healing parameter in our "combat analysis" equivalent. It was a concern to me that along with the damage dealers the healers were also striving to be top of the charts to "show" their competence. But, as a group, we were invariably running out of mana towards the end of fights because several weren't disciplined enough to stay in regen. There was also that strong nurture bent of the female players that comprised the bulk of the healing crew to temper. Many were making significant "parses", hurrah! But their over healing numbers were showing unnecessary heals, when the target had already been healed by another. Try as I might to rotate them out and back in they kept giving in to their natural urges to heal. The frustrations of falling at the final hurdle apparent for all the 40.

Now for a brief time the game mechanics allowed for a script/macro to target and heal the most in need of healing in the raid. No looking at the 40 Hitpoints bars, no clicking on a target and selecting a heal. It wasn't something that all should use as it would have had us all healing the same target. But as a lesson for the healing crew, it provided a great tool in one raid to teach them the fallacy of being lead by their parses. Employing the macro had every one of my heals landing before anyone else's. Each getting their HP's topped off immediately and none left out to later require a concerted effort. My over-healing was next to zero and all others astronomic, very little actually being effective. My mana wasn't over-taxed either because although I was healing the whole raid, I wasn't wasting any heals or the mana to deliver them. I came clean before the final fight as I asked for all the healers to post their numbers. From then on, they rotated out when asked and came back in on max mana and became adept at it and more vocal with who they were taking over from to the point we were all involved and engaged working together rather than feel we had to outdo another, trusting the team had your back. The raiding got a whole lot more rewarding.

[Anyen]

The minstrel’s one of the first classes I played in the second year of Lotro. Despite dying to a harvest fly near Celondim, I re-rolled and survived the changes to armour, trait trees etc It was my main on several servers.

I support several accounts and gladly handed over RL gold for the ultimate expansions and for the third tree thinking the extra anthem and fellowship heal would compensate for my slow pc (tl;dr dead graphics card and EU lag); the inability to properly heal the hunter who’s usually way behind or off in the distance, or the champ behind a pillar under a pile of orcs he’s pulled, or the burglar who’s dying quietly and disappeared.

Do I want the extra stress of figuring out anthems when I just want to strum a theorbo and heal? Especially in a chaotic raid when we’re blinded by lightning flashes, pet lurkers, bear butts (I love you Beornings but can you stand in front of someone else please?) Will I continue to buy the ultimate expansions or points or mc now that all my minis are only playing the festivals and teaching the bagpipe and pibgorn to younglings?

Yes, I pre-buffed a handful of times. Most were wasted because someone inevitably was ‘not ready’ because their cat had jumped on the keyboard or their dog wanted cuddles or they were having partner aggro.

As for Red mini, yep, great for soloing. I found it powerful in fellowships too until the group started dying so I’d swap to the mediocre melody for a few lacklustre but lifesaving heals. I was stuck with damage equipped LI and book because you can’t change them now during combat.

For me, there’s no fun in playing the blue line minstrel any more. It was a worthy challenge trying to keep up despite the pc problems and lag. Now, it’s just tedious. It looks like you only listened to a few vocal “pro” players who specialise in the Moors. In the words of Opalessa, the dancing hobbit, “YOU’RE MEAN!”

[DoRonRon]

It's the "cart before the horse" thinking that's been in evidence for some time; in order to buff you are being forced to either do damage or to heal something. Was bad enough for Minstrels having raid-wide Hots active for the next "pull" if the Tank was not so considerate. Similar to many stun/fear effects on a number of classes receiving significant damage adjustments a while ago that turned those CC effects into more finishing moves than the means to control a fight. I guess none have done a Rift skirm in a raid since weapon swaps stopped (but frankly who would now?). It was fine that other classes ramped up their powers while the Minstrels took point, judging the moment to engage for a given encounter, outliers outside the tank's sphere of influence or LOS opportunities to explore so you could risk entering earlier. But up to you to choose when, given your confidence in the tank.

Adding yet another heal component to an Anthem to draw more on-side would entirely miss the point. Heal threat is encounter wide, damage threat requires damage on target. Threat "copy" taunts available the copout from having any working threat system.

This current tier of raiders seem to be happy though, my raiding friends mostly left at 85 and finished off with HD's Threat write-off. Can only guess it's now an unsustainable arms race, more is "gooder"? Or more "worser"? The players and staff who would get this have all but gone though. The Pros left long ago!

[Neinda]

18 pages and counting of less than stellar reviews of the new mini class. The most positive reviews are not about heals and buffs but about being able to one shot things on landscape. Great improvements for a healer class.

[Bio-Flame]

18 pages and counting of less than stellar reviews of the new mini class. The most positive reviews are not about heals and buffs but about being able to one shot things on landscape. Great improvements for a healer class.

I know right?
Minstrel's main role is now so clunky and unfun that players are shelving their Minis...but hey, at least now Red Mini is better. ^^



@OnnMacMahal:

+15 scds of Anthem duration, although half a step in the right direction, it's still half a step.
Sure, instead of needing to spam them every 20-25 scds, we now spam them every 35-40 scds. Still a poor boring change from the previous 3 minutes duration.


But worse, that does nothing to change the "ramp up phase". A Mini still needs, like before, fire 1 ballad, fire 1st anthem of pair I, fire cry of the chorus, fire 1st anthem of pair II, wait 20 scds in order to fire 2nd anthem of pair I, wait another 20scds for fire the 2nd Anthem of pair II, fire cry of the chorus and fire the Non-paired anthem that is left (prolly Anthem of Free Peoples).
That didn't change.
That's roughly 1 minute or so just to get everything up and running, when before it would be Cry of the Chorus, 3 anthems, go.
I really don't understand how anyone feels like needing to spend a minute to do something we did in 6 scds is an improvement or more engaging.
Maybe Mini is just not for you. That would be fine, Hunter is not for me nor some of the other classes.
But maybe you should have tried improving a class you enjoy instead of changing a class players enjoyed.


And why do you insist on Mellody stance and stance dancing?
I fail to see any consistency there. If you removed yellow spec as you did, contrary to our desires, but since you did, why do you keep Melody stance for? Since you decided to remove Yellow, then go all the way. Melody is anachronistic and pointless now.


I still say removing Yellow is a mistake. Removing options is a mistake. Removing playstyles or severely altering them is a mistake for a 15 year old game.
Of all things, you decided to Keep the Yellow-aligned stance Melody. ´


Remove Yellow spec? "Good idea".
Removing Yellow-stance spec? "Gotta keep it at all costs, let's buff it."


Maybe it's me, but I am failing to see some consistency there.

[Leakie]

This thread is worth every joke the two posters get and them some.

Learn to play.

[Neinda]

Question for SSG: I guess you did all of this to prevent yellow minis from pre buffing a group before a fight because that less than 3 minutes of buffs was making a major difference somehow. What are you doing about the new exploit you created where all you have to do is bug something out and keep the mini in combat for now buffs that last the entire fight? Was this your intent with the changes?

[AprilDawn]

Ok where to start:

Anthems: I like the new anthem set up to a point. The choice to increase healing output or decrease party members incoming damage is nice. I would honestly like to see both these on 1 anthem rather than having to choose.

As a healing mini in groups, I find the 25 second cd (20 second if you spend 10 points dedicated in the yellow tree to anthems) to be a bit harsh. It is not uncommon for my anthems to come off cd just in time for combat to end and then instantly the ballads I built up for them are invalidated. So in order to start back up the rotation, I have 2 choices build back up the anthems or burn a cool down to use the call that gives my 3 anthems (which by the way on live still requires me to use a ballad to activate the 3 ballads after I use Cry of the Chorus) and hope I can get that 3rd anthem on before they kill the guys we are fighting.

This thing with Melody stance and the buffs to healing/dps lines. The fact is there is a 5 second cd to go with that swap on top of the cast time to swap. So you swap spend a second to put on an anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal for 15 seconds swap anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal for 15 seconds swap anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal 15 seconds. Do you see all the heals that are being lost in this trade off? In order to get 3 anthems up on group mates as the only mini in a 3 or 6 man group, you are sacrificing 20 seconds between cds and swaps even if you are being gracious in giving us a reduced time in the actual swap. Melody stance gives half the healing and dps boost of either Dissonance or Resonance stance so it is not in our best interest to use this stance as a main stance even if it means getting a couple perks that we otherwise forego. Those perks have to be epic and meaningful in order to make the reduction to our main role in the group worth it. At this point, they are not even close.

How is it equitable to spend 20 seconds between swaps cds and the actual swap only to get an extra 15 seconds on the anthem especially when you consider a dps mini has a 7 minute cd (with Rally tracery in place) and a healing mini has a 2 minute cd on rally to get 1 team mate up if they are killed in combat. The gain is far less than the possible pain for the healing/dps mini in this set up. My tank and one of my dpers just told me on discord while posting this: If I have to choose between the buffs and the heals, give me the heals please. I have my marching orders. I can not justify the swapping back and forth when I consider the risk to my team mates. As a healer I count on the dps to keep the stuff that gets away from the tank off me, that means keeping them alive. I also count on the tank to taunt that stuff off me and the dps, which my tank does a much better job of if he is alive as well. Swapping stances becomes much less viable when you consider the ramifications of any of us falling in battle. I would suggest figuring out a way to make these buffs available in the main stance for each build and get rid of the melody stance all together or Boost melody stance to make it more of a relevant and viable option for either of the other 2 trees.

Piercing Cry:

Piercing cry is a very useful skill as it sits. However, it was once a much more useful skill for any tree when it also stunned foes on crit regardless of stance. Again as a healer, it is inevitable that I am going to get that once in a month shot that will pull something off the tank. If it is during one of those periods that the tank doesn't have a ranged taunt, I could be toast. I don't have time to swap to melody stance and scream at the baddie only to have it not crit and then run to the tank. IF I take that time, we could have a major issue. Again, we are back to the melody stance thing. Melody stance is not a viable stance due to the reduction in either heals or dps that comes with it.

Invocation of Elbereth:

At one time I could use this skill and fear any creature that was an enemy combatant. However, I noticed with the last patch in T4 Den that the crab adds did not respond to my fear. As such, a scion add cruised from one side of the room to the other and 1 shot me with a 1.3 million point hit. Had my fear worked like it had before this last patch, the fear would have taken hold and the tank could have taunted it and we may have been able to complete that fight without the death. There are some things that are better left alone. This would have been considered one of them. Please revert this skill so that enemy combatants can be feared by this skill. The current reading is something to the effect of fear evil. However, most of what we face in instances (other than houses of rest) does not count as evil. This puts healing mini's at a distinct disadvantage.

[Fadil]

Ok where to start:

Anthems: I like the new anthem set up to a point. The choice to increase healing output or decrease party members incoming damage is nice. I would honestly like to see both these on 1 anthem rather than having to choose.

As someone who always felt playing yellow mini was deadly boring, and really an abonimation
to the class to begin with, I think the idea behind a lot of these changes is that you are now
a healer first and that if you choose to apply certain buffs you actually have to do something for it/ make choices.
It shouldnt be something easy/ automated, you'd actually have to choose/ apply them at choice.
Which is probably why buffs are seperate, and you can choose when to apply which.
Certain parts of fights may ask for damage reduction first, where others ask for +damage output
and so on.
I feel perfectly fine with the changes, but again, that is from the perspective
of someone who hated yellow mini with a passion.

Like another poster in this thread, I aways played healers in other mmorpgs as well,
including Resto druid, Priest and Paladin in Wow, and you actually had to think about which spells and when to use them
and mana was always a defining factor.
Compare that to the mindnumbing, boring state of yellow mini's before the update and you
will probably understand why I far prefer mini's as they play now.

The fact that buff duration is buffed on bullroarer now, should make the casting of anthems even easier.

This thing with Melody stance and the buffs to healing/dps lines. The fact is there is a 5 second cd to go with that swap on top of the cast time to swap. So you swap spend a second to put on an anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal for 15 seconds swap anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal for 15 seconds swap anthem wait 3 seconds swap heal 15 seconds. Do you see all the heals that are being lost in this trade off? In order to get 3 anthems up on group mates as the only mini in a 3 or 6 man group, you are sacrificing 20 seconds between cds and swaps even if you are being gracious in giving us a reduced time in the actual swap. Melody stance gives half the healing and dps boost of either Dissonance or Resonance stance so it is not in our best interest to use this stance as a main stance even if it means getting a couple perks that we otherwise forego. Those perks have to be epic and meaningful in order to make the reduction to our main role in the group worth it. At this point, they are not even close.

Agreed.
I dont think its realistic to start stance swapping during an intense boss fight, in the first place.
You'd lose too much healing.
Since the update Ive healed many raids/ instances and tbh I dont see stance swapping
as needed anyway.

[Daec]

Hear me out here, how about we turn the main bonuses from anthems into a tale that you toggle on. As you put traint points into the various anthems the effects are added to that tail. Then the anthems can simply be used for their secondary effect on coda that the mini can choose when they want to hit.

[Aurayael]

First and foremost, my respect to OnnMacMahal that he not only continues to read this thread, but is also willing to continue to respond. Because over the many pages also some feedbacks came together, which have clearly misbehaved in the tone from my point of view (even if the feedbacks may be to be taken otherwise quite first).

I myself came to terms with the changes surprisingly quickly. The authems should - if I'm not greatly mistaken - give significantly higher defensive support for all companions. The 3% damage reduction for the entire companion group is outstanding. My healing has also increased - certainly via the increased weapon levels - by 30-50k. I loved the Mini as my main character for many years before the update, and I certainly won't give him up after this major change.

Since another adjustment to the authems is also planned in addition to the tool tip changes, I see this as a sign that the overhaul of the Mini is not yet complete. I find this very positive and would like to address OnnMacMahal with two ideas. Perhaps they can find their way into further adjustments (or even a later reply).

1) First, I would be very interested in your vision for Melody. I myself stopped using this stance when it was no longer possible to have three of the same authems active at the same time. At that time Melody brought a real alternative for me, with three third age authems the CD was close to 0. Currently, like many others here in the thread, I am also not quite clear where Melody should lead. I have the impression we are missing something? I would like to contradict some of the previous speakers and make Melody a strong alternative. Currently, however, I don't see the disadvantage in healing and damage being compensated for by higher support. Maybe all players her in the thread loving the Mini can help together to get the vision become reality. But for my feeling it needs a little more insight into your vision first.

2) I suspect that the expansion to 45s Anthem duration is due to feedback from many players who wish they had the old 3m. However, for me the basic problem with the new anthems is not the shorter duration. To be honest, it's no problem for me to keep my 5 anthems active in a longer fight besides healing. (I renounce the hymn in red as a healer, because it costs me too many points) A problem arises in my experience only when a companion must be revived. Or even if he just runs too far away at the wrong moment. Because then the game from the beginning of a fight starts again and it takes just over 1m until all hymns are active again. An awfully long time, especially at the climaxes of battles. Therefore I would like to renew my consideration from page 16: "An ability to distribute all authems running on the mini to nearby companions (e.g. wind lore for fire lore and frost lore debuff for the lore-master) would be outstanding." Is that technically, game flow and balancing possible?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[DoRonRon]

I just watched a Ghyn minstrel video from a month ago, before the last of the changes.

Just a target-dummy instructional. Lots of the changes explained in simple terms but very much from a raiding and healing viewpoint. He seemed satisfied with taking time over applying the anthems each 20 seconds. But additionally shelving two anthems that he didn't feel able to keep up. He chose War and Dissonance, not sure that the damage dealers in the group will be so happy. Perhaps that will change once in an actual raid.

What was apparent was the narrowing window to refresh them with the more you choose to cast. Literally juggling Anthems; the more you have in the air the harder it becomes. Perhaps it was this feedback that has led to the coming increase to base duration? And more yet in Melody, why?

But of course, all in an environment you are not going out of combat every couple of seconds. That feedback hasn't garnered any obvious change.

For us Red soloers: We can use the lag to one shot with a ballad and fire off Dissonance, hit ICotC lining up another victim and another ballad followed by a War. If you have a third then coda for 50% reset ICotC and apply a Free Peoples with the next target. With a fair bit of practice I've got that down to three Anthems up in 11 seconds and maybe a minute 10 to repeat that process, a minute 25 with the expansion. We still seem to be operating with that internal "out of combat for 9 seconds" thing that breaks predictable behaviour.

But all a bit of a waste time because you can nuke all you face with the cries and calls unbuffed at cap with full teals and key stats capped.

Now solo we are only buffing ourselves, in the raid there are 11 others wanting their buffs and some won't be please theirs is last on the list or worse, off the list. So, after the duration changes you won't be pulling your weight if you aren't juggling seven. Don't want to ruin their parses, do you?

[DoRonRon]

The pre-fight buff?

Have the LM or Burglar tasked with locking down the last of the trash - Notwithstanding some pre-encounter drama which would negate such a tactic.

Give the Minstrel the 2 minutes to cycle up all the Anthems in Melody and give the signal to finish off that mob when ready. Just hold back any nonsense skill that starts you with raid wide heal aggro. That brief sabbatical from all aggro lists the flop gave, long since negated and leaking soon beyond these group settings.

But for the coming extension to the durations, it is actually at present better to switch over to your old ILIs and their increased durations to more easily buff those Anthems, you did keep them, didn't you? You'll suck but the other 11 will be better provided for as you'll be stuck with them for the duration, we can take that inconvenience for the vastly better performance now, can't we?

Perhaps a combination of the two will become the Standard, providing you remember to slot ILIs for the last trash pull and switch back to LIs before the start proper? Maybe get on the suggestions forum and add weight to the drama skip calls... sighting other reasons ofc.

/mockery off

In tribute to the end of "Mock The Week" on the BBC, RIP

[Neinda]

The pre-fight buff?

Have the LM or Burglar tasked with locking down the last of the trash - Notwithstanding some pre-encounter drama which would negate such a tactic.

Give the Minstrel the 2 minutes to cycle up all the Anthems in Melody and give the signal to finish off that mob when ready. Just hold back any nonsense skill that starts you with raid wide heal aggro. That brief sabbatical from all aggro lists the flop gave, long since negated and leaking soon beyond these group settings.

But for the coming extension to the durations, it is actually at present better to switch over to your old ILIs and their increased durations to more easily buff those Anthems, you did keep them, didn't you? You'll suck but the other 11 will be better provided for as you'll be stuck with them for the duration, we can take that inconvenience for the vastly better performance now, can't we?

Perhaps a combination of the two will become the Standard, providing you remember to slot ILIs for the last trash pull and switch back to LIs before the start proper? Maybe get on the suggestions forum and add weight to the drama skip calls... sighting other reasons ofc

/mockery off

In tribute to the end of "Mock The Week" on the BBC, RIP

From what I have been told it is standard procedure and required for T3 and above now to do this. Much better than those silly little 3 minute buffs from the yellow minis abusing the system. I also heard that defilers' totems work great for keeping minis in combat to keep buffs at full strength for the start of a fight. With the new longer buffs with the latest update the stay in combat system should work even better.

[DoRonRon]

And yet I am still being surprised by my (miss) understanding: I have been attempting to buff each separate anthem and as a result all have different elapse times. What I didn't appreciated was the part in the Anthem Pairs description that mentions refreshing that paired Anthem. Perhaps the folk on the Discord had it drummed in better.

So I was firing off Dissonance followed by a War and seeing separate elapse times, when if I just reapplied a second Dissonance it would sometimes invoke the other paired War Anthem without actually needing me to cast it and in doing so "refresh" them both to have the same longer elapse time (rare though). It does seem that this pair isn't being concatenated into a single combined buff to track, showing still two separate buffs but the same elapse, only if "refreshed" by Dissonance. However, if I attempt the same with Composure and Compassion, the things irl I'm struggling hold onto with this change, it required me to cast Composure and Compassion in any order to have them "combined" into a paired buff. The combined resources on that Discord channel perhaps not up to spotting that, blinded by the parses perhaps. The upshot of this bug is that War doesn't refresh Dissonance. We'd be better off getting War up followed by Dissonance to have two buffs with the same elapse.



I wasn't spotting it because it was a) bugged and b) the stipulated behaviour was only showing up in the raid defensive buffs and c) going out of combat screws up the flow no end. And Free Peoples was my next best choice.

Not going to bug it, you have your discord echo chamber for the feedback.

UPDATE: Well further study, it's War not refreshing our own Dissonance. They are combing but just not the 20% Cry and call which needs us to use Dissonance to refresh all.