Minstrel Feedback Thread

[Joedangod]

Make Follow up back to 6s and be stackable, it would be so much faster...

I feel like follow up was the biggest problem with Bolster spam though. The fact that spamming heals let us spam heals significantly faster was a pretty stupid loop. As long as follow up remains a trait and power remains a non-issue Minstrels are going to perpetually spam heals. That's just how it is.

[hanxcve]

I feel like follow up was the biggest problem with Bolster spam though. The fact that spamming heals let us spam heals significantly faster was a pretty stupid loop. As long as follow up remains a trait and power remains a non-issue Minstrels are going to perpetually spam heals. That's just how it is.

The problem with bolster spam was that the skill itself was overpowered and you could heal most of the raid pressing nothing else but bolster

[Joedangod]

The problem with bolster spam was that the skill itself was overpowered and you could heal most of the raid pressing nothing else but bolster

And the biggest reason spamming it was good was the fact that spamming it made it go off faster which meant you could respond to incoming damage faster. The trait literally sets you up to spam skills.

[Maryam]

Less skill cap ?
Tell me, how is pressing bolster courage only a higher skill cap than actually having to use all of your healing skills again...

Its not that it was way harder now, but you need to get your rotations sorted out.I found chord of salvation and e frequently used call of ioreth to be a big key here.

Nothing much has changed, CoS was already part of an ideal Bolster spam rotation, as an animation break, as was SoS, RTS still a useless skill especially since, at the moment at least, just overwrites the HoT of CoS, rather than having two separate HoTs, etc, etc.

[siipperi]

Bolster always been minstrels go to healing skills so people who say "minstrel is still just mainly bolster" havent clearly played the class prior lol. What matters is they buff skills I have mentioned prior. So there is the choose right heal for right situation rotation like I have detailed before. Keep inductions like they are and lower duration of anthems and revert locking of them. I like stacking of anthems, reminds me of the ballad minstrel of old more somehow but going past 1.10 min is ridiculous duration. They should also turn heralds strike and such group wide effects with a bit smaller magnitude and increase ballad buffs and their magnitudes, alter echoes of battle give +inc damage, bubble give mastery% increase buff range and magnitude of 2nd age significantly while in yellow etc etc.

But cries and calls of current 30 or 25s is good and no more stacking follow up, thats cancer to the fundamentals of what healer class should be all about and just promotes brainless spam. Also fix bubbles. Group bubble should be good 25-35k and other bubbles at least 20k.

[Maryam]

Bolster always been minstrels go to healing skills so people who say "minstrel is still just mainly bolster" havent clearly played the class prior lol.

I'm so old that I remember when this was considered elite game play for Minstrel:

https://youtu.be/njxKVQxGAbc?t=187

Count the number of RTS compared to Bolsters. I'd like to see RTS drop the HoT but also lose the induction and cooldown completely, but remain a stationary skill and "fast" (not "immediate"). Make Coda "fast." Make "Melody of Battle" not be removed by a Silence (little gameplay value, just pet PvP peeve). I'd like to see RTS become a viable skill again, especially in PvP.

[hanxcve]

But cries and calls of current 30 or 25s is good and no more stacking follow up, thats cancer to the fundamentals of what healer class should be all about and just promotes brainless spam. Also fix bubbles. Group bubble should be good 25-35k and other bubbles at least 20k.

What about pvp healing now? 30s cries was such an unnecessary change that hurt pvp mini too much and now you cant spam bolster so why remove 6s follow up, people will spam heals no matter what because the tanks take damage every second and if they buff skills situationally the class will be 10x as boring as it is now and pointless

[Elexia]

Is Quick Melody (-20%Skill Inductions) totally un-necessary now in blue line trait tree?

Would an experienced Mini mind posting their Blue trait tree panel or a link? I would really appreciate it.

[siipperi]

What about pvp healing now? 30s cries was such an unnecessary change that hurt pvp mini too much and now you cant spam bolster so why remove 6s follow up, people will spam heals no matter what because the tanks take damage every second and if they buff skills situationally the class will be 10x as boring as it is now and pointless

You take more healers. Minstrel was such overpowering healing. Having done stuff like solo healing 6 man and wiping 30 creeps just tells how broken the class been. Minstrel should not have perma immunity to silences.

Minstrel is induction class. 0.2-0s inductions that you had a lot of time with old follow up were total joke. The class is meant to have significant inductions. Raise the spirit is supposed to be your fast heal and bolster your long induction one.

[CaerArianrhod]

Is Quick Melody (-20%Skill Inductions) totally un-necessary now in blue line trait tree?

Would an experienced Mini mind posting their Blue trait tree panel or a link? I would really appreciate it.

No, the trait is still necessary since the very few but extremely loud "i-have-everything-and-everything-is-so-bored" nagger here totally f... up the the Follow Up trait.

In the picture they are some options to skill things different. Many things are depending on your raid.
Thins you may want change or not skill in yellow:
In a constant and fixed raid, you/the raid could decide to skill the Anthem of Composure and the DDs in the raid could skip one tac. mitigation essence.
Raise our Spirits' HoT is a joke (and the legacy don't increase it), so you may want spend one points only for the first rank, just to have one more AoE heal.
Shielding Cry: you may skip it too.
Improved Hero's Strike: depending on your play style you can skill it or not at all.

If you don't skill that far into yellow, you may spend more points in blue for Improved Coda of Resonance and Inspiring Finish.** (for example for boss fights). I have different healing skills-trees for different encounters.





**) I'm not sure if this trait works at all.

[CaerArianrhod]

I make a cross post here:

Hello,

I just did a couple of tests, but i can not see this trait is working as WAI.

First row in the pic with tree ballads and anthem, My outgoing healing is 79.1%

Second row in the pic:
Stacking up to 15% the Inspiring Finish proc, tree ballads and anthem, cast Coda of Resonance, My outgoing Healing in the character panel sows: 94.1%

I could expect a couple of things:
my heals will be increased by 0.9% (saying 80% is hard cap whatever the character panel sows for outgoing healing)
my heals will be increased by the 15%
my heals will be increased by 5% (saying the anthem is removed with the coda, even if the buff is still visible in the buff bar, But that is not the case as you can see on the inductions (BC has it's inductions free version after the code so see the other two skills))

but what i would not expect that my heals getting lower.

Can some one check this too?

[hanxcve]

I make a cross post here:

There is no bug and you are putting trait points into wrong traits

[dselden]

The problem with bolster spam was that the skill itself was overpowered and you could heal most of the raid pressing nothing else but bolster

That video is so painful to watch... I think the main problem was that bolster was so strong that there was never any reason to use any other induction heal. Follow Up exasperated the issue a bit by making bolster have similar induction times to other healing skills meaning that one would never have to worry about the longer bolster induction if you were properly cutting skills with SoS, CoS, and PE. Problem with the current mini on live is that it seems so slow and boring compared to previous iterations when you could stack follow up. I'd have even further reduced heal potency than having mini feeling this slow right now. Minstrel isn't underpowered or anything right now, but it's extremely boring even just compared to bolster spamming and trying to hit max heal parses.

[CaerArianrhod]

There is no bug and you are putting trait points into wrong traits

*sigh* that's not the point.

lol, you don't have any ballads up on you when you use coda so -18% outgoing healing, +15% from inspiring finish which = 3% loss.

Basically you right: the ballads are not running when pressing coda. i'm not sure why it happens, but it was a heavy mistake on my side.

I'm still thinking that the calculation of outgoing healing is bugged.

However, here some math just for Inspire Fellow (for max. heal of tooltip only):

What is up	Healing	diff. to base	diff. healing %
Basic (nothing is running):	5272
Anthem only:	5458	186	3.5%
1 Ballad only:	5384	112	2.1%
2 Ballad only:	5496	224	4.2%
3 Ballads only:	5607	335	6.3%
3 Ballads + Anthem:	5794	522	9.9%
CoC only:	5984	712	13,5%
CoC + 3 Ballads	6319	1047	19.9%
CoC + 3 Ballads + Anthem	6505	1233	23.3%
Inspiring Finish 15% + Coda (no Ballads, but Anthem)	5378	106	2.1%
Inspiring Finish 15% + Coda + CoC (3 Ballads + Anthem)	6785	1513	28.6%
diff. to 3 Ballads + Anthem (5794) and Inspiring Finish 15% + Coda (no Ballads, but Anthem) (5378)	-416		-7,1%

Diff in outgoing healing (again: for Inspire Fellow (for max. heal of tooltip only)):

What	Healing	out. heal %	diff. healing %
base	5231
+5888 tact. mastery (essence)	5244	+0.7%	+0.2%
+9918 out. heal (essence)	5252	+1.1%	+0.4%
2x +9918 out. heal (essence)	5272	+2.2%	+0.78%

If i would calculate the with the -3% loss in outgoing healing - as the diff of 18% (3 ballads) and the 15% of (Inspiring Finish) - it should be only between -1.0 and -1.1% loss in real healing numbers, but not -7.1%.

[mkcraft27]

So with the 22.2.2 update it appears raise the spirit no longer does a HOT and neither does cord of salvation. Is this a known bug?

[NavarreBlood]

[*]Classic Legacy “Discordant Ballads Stance Swap Buff” is now a Light Damage Legacy, which matches its corresponding Imbued legacy.

• Rank 1: +5% Light Damage
• Subsequent Ranks: +2.5% per rank

FriendlyHat: Light damage legacy is bugged based on what it should be according to the release notes. Current lvl 69 light damage is 58.4% (didn't change), when according to the notes above the light damage legacy should give 5% + 2.5% * 68 = 175% at lvl 69. Please fix this bug and allow minstrel dps to rise. Minstrel dps is pathetic right now. Thank you!

[Krindel]

FriendlyHat: Light damage legacy is bugged based on what it should be according to the release notes. Current lvl 69 light damage is 58.4% (didn't change), when according to the notes above the light damage legacy should give 5% + 2.5% * 68 = 175% at lvl 69. Please fix this bug and allow minstrel dps to rise. Minstrel dps is pathetic right now. Thank you!

This change in release notes is only for classic non imbued legacy. +58,4% light damage is already very good, if you take in consideration, that it affect almost every minstrel's damage skill. If there is damage imbalance, damage on skills have to be tweaked, not legacy on legendary item.
Personally, I am fine with minstrel's dps, enough for questing and you can move while damaging, which is very good. Damage is just bad for T2 instances, but who want to see pure healing class doing hunters or champions job?

[NavarreBlood]

This change in release notes is only for classic non imbued legacy. +58,4% light damage is already very good, if you take in consideration, that it affect almost every minstrel's damage skill. If there is damage imbalance, damage on skills have to be tweaked, not legacy on legendary item.
Personally, I am fine with minstrel's dps, enough for questing and you can move while damaging, which is very good. Damage is just bad for T2 instances, but who want to see pure healing class doing hunters or champions job?

Ugh, I missed that the update only applied to non-imbued legacy. So over 9 levels it is 5% to 25%. I have to ask why make this change on non-imbued only when dps pre-lvl 105 is respectable for minstrels while level cap dps is lowest for any class. I posted numbers (confirmed by others) that showed this in this thread.

I'm not asking for minstrels to take the job of the 3 dps classes (hunter, champion, RK). But minstrel dps shouldn't be gimped any more than the other non-dps classes. All of those non-dps classes should have dps within 10-20% and right now it just isn't the case. Minstrel dps could be nearly doubled to just bring it even with Guardian dps - a defence class. A 100% increase on class item legacy would only bring actual dps up like 15-25%.

I agree that devs should be changing the actual dps tables rather than doing this through legacies and relics. I wish they would leave the skills as is, and just adjust the raw damage numbers for the classes. Seems pretty simple to arrive at balance in a single pass that way rather than the long way where we have to relearn rotations and the unintended consequences of skill changes and overall dps.

[mkcraft27]

while level cap dps is lowest for any class.

my cappy respectably disagrees

IMO, for landscape it doesnt matter what a classes DPS is, as long as it can do the quests in a reasonably quick and pain free manor. Who cares if a LM can complete some quests faster then a mini, as long as the mini can still do them without to much trouble. The only time DPS balance should really matters is for instances and the moors. Even then its really more for the DPS classes. When it comes time for a raid nobody cares how much DPS a guard/mini can do because nobody is bringing a guard/mini to the raid to fill a DPS spot.

[NavarreBlood]

my cappy respectably disagrees

What did your cappy parse on the BR training dummy? As I posted previously in this thread, my minstrel was doing 16-17k dps avg with 18k on best runs. I watched a guardian and LM next to me get anywhere from 30-35k dps on training dummy.

IMO, for landscape it doesnt matter what a classes DPS is, as long as it can do the quests in a reasonably quick and pain free manor. Who cares if a LM can complete some quests faster then a mini, as long as the mini can still do them without to much trouble. The only time DPS balance should really matters is for instances and the moors.

This really doesn't make any sense. If classes are balanced then they should be nearly the same in terms of dps. This is comparing apples to apples by excluding dps classes from this comparison of non-dps classes. In practical terms for a low-dps minstrel, it means that quests take longer, dailies take longer, some content is not completable solo, etc. It's all one package - you can't have dps balance in one place and disparity in others.

Even then its really more for the DPS classes. When it comes time for a raid nobody cares how much DPS a guard/mini can do because nobody is bringing a guard/mini to the raid to fill a DPS spot.

There are dps classes and non-dps classes. Within each group there should be balance in terms of dps IMO. Balance could be achieved simply by increasing the base damage of low dps classes and decreasing the base damage of high dps classes. So dps classes: hunter, RK, champion should be +/- 20% dps of each other. Non dps classes should be the same +/- 20% dps of each other to achieve balance.

[mkcraft27]

What did your cappy parse on the BR training dummy? As I posted previously in this thread, my minstrel was doing 16-17k dps avg with 18k on best runs. I watched a guardian and LM next to me get anywhere from 30-35k dps on training dummy.

The key word being 'your' mini, other minnies were doing 10k more DPS then you without trying to hard.

I was doing 25-26k DPS when I tried few times with one DPS relic on weapon, but I haven't really played DPS on minstrel for over a year now so with few tries I can see it being a bit better.

But to your point, I didnt test my cappy or mini on the BR dummies. Mainly because it doesnt matter how much DPS my mini or cappy can do over a 3 min parse. As a mini, if you are in a fight that lasts 2+ min, you are almost certainly healing it so your DPS during a 3 min fight is irrelevant. Normal landscape mobs take, on a mini, 30s at the most to kill. So for DPS that it the time frame that matters. Minis do burst DPS, meaning in the few seconds of a fight they do a lot of DPS followed by a period of low DPS when the heavy hitters are on CD. I havent tested it my self, but i would be willing to bet a mini does more DPS in a 20-30s fight (aka how long landscape mobs take to die) then a guard does. And yes my cappy takes much longer questing on landscape then my mini does.

This really doesn't make any sense. If classes are balanced then they should be nearly the same in terms of dps. This is comparing apples to apples by excluding dps classes from this comparison of non-dps classes. In practical terms for a low-dps minstrel, it means that quests take longer, dailies take longer, some content is not completable solo, etc. It's all one package - you can't have dps balance in one place and disparity in others.

First off there is no solo content in this game that a mini (or any class for that matter) cannot do solo. 2nd its ok that some classes takes a bit longer to complete a quest compared to other classes. As I said long as each class can do landscape content in a relatively quick and pain free manor, it doesnt matter if one class finished the quest in 5 min and another finishes it in 7 min.

[Fraushgrish2]

I'm not asking for minstrels to take the job of the 3 dps classes (hunter, champion, Warden and definitely 100% not rks).

Fixed it for ya

[NavarreBlood]

The key word being 'your' mini, other minnies were doing 10k more DPS then you without trying to hard.

Everything you posted is reasonable.

I hope that you would agree in principle that IF average minstrel dps is significantly lower than average dps for similar dps classes that it should be raised, just as I would agree that if average captain (or any other class) dps is significantly lower, then it should be raised. This is how balance is brought about in terms of dps.

While one did post higher dps, it wasn't clear that it was on the latest build (dps declined each build as runes were gradually nerfed) and there were no others who posted anything near that so it lacks reproducibility. There were two others who posted numbers similar to what I posted so I have more confidence that I was in the ballpark of what is achievable. Though I admit that it could be better gear (particularly more finesse) but not crit or mastery as I had capped mastery and crit, and didn't have the top end dps rune (I had what used to be the 96 dps rune).

But to your point, I didnt test my cappy or mini on the BR dummies.

If the devs are to objectively test dps class balance, they would need to build a simulator that executes the "ideal" skill rotation for each class while wearing the "best" gear against the same target. The "same target" is the easiest part to achieve. The first two parts of that are hard to objectify and the development task and time spent in development and testing wouldn't be trivial. It is possible that devs are relying on players to report dps discrepancies. I would hope they would crowdsource this in alpha or beta and get the players to pitch in and post their parses to make the task much more manageable for the dev team.

While you can argue the meaningfulness of 3 minute BR training dummy parses, in order to zero in on average dps you really need longer measurements because of random variation due to crit chance and other factors. There is still a fairly significant amount of random variation in the 3 minute parses. 10 minutes would be more accurate but I doubt many would be willing to run parses that long.