Dev Diary Feedback: Minstrel Advancement Beyond Level 50!

[Clover]

"The Minstrels of Middle-earth continue to write their anthems of the War of the Ring as they descend into the depths of Moria."

Read more about Minstrel 50+ advancement and post your comments here!

[lilrebbitzen]

Will we get any more party heal skills? The current one (inspire Fellows) costs far too much power in regards to the healing output. I run out of power very quickly, and can't heal near quickly enough like that.

Thanks for posting this. Any idea when we will get the Warden notes? I'm dying to try one!

[WitchKingNazgul9]

This sounds really exciting! I was expecting those to be the three trait lines......just what I wanted! I like the sound of a viable HoT in the capstone/legendary healing line.

Song of Restoration is finally getting its cooldown reduced! I think that is my favorite old-skill improvement

[lilrebbitzen]

Song of Restoration is finally getting its cooldown reduced! (snip)

Thank Eru! The fact they added where you could have silence protection for a time afterwards helps too! Nothing more annoying than dispelling silence then getting it again!

[Merciful_Death]

So with an acknowledged, and now supported, desire for some minstrels to stick with medium armor, are we going to see some medium armor sets built for minstrel attribute building?
You know, ones that DON'T emphasise agility and vitality???

[fenwe]

Thank You very much for not forgetting us medium armor wearing Hybrid and BEP Minstrels. It is good to see that the doomsayers of being forced into cookie cutter mealey mouthed light armor wearers were incorrect, from what we can tell.

Sounds really good at this point and I can't wait to take my Minstrel out for a spin in Moria and try things out for myself

*While I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly myself, Merciful Death brings up a really good point, in the generic if not specifics.

*added later

[Belegwe]

So with an acknowledged, and now supported, desire for some minstrels to stick with medium armor, are we going to see some medium armor sets built for minstrel attribute building?
You know, ones that DON'T emphasise agility and vitality???

Vitality? Vitality is a major minstrel attribute favored by many of us. Agility though... Yeah, I second the basic point. How about a nice medium armor set that focuses on Vit, Fate, and Will, (though some might and agility would be a welcome addition, too little might on rift gear) and throw in some tact crit chance with it. (Some will want tactical crit damage bonus too).

[Big_H]

Improved Cry of the Chorus gives you the ability to dispel Silence and then makes you immune to Silence effects for a short period of time.

Now that's interesting! Bye bye Wargs

[Caelven]

This looks great. I can see what you meant by the problem was mostly one of words, this does frame the issues along natural lines and makes a lot of sense I think. *spoiler* I don't see any discussion of the new Minst flying abilities, but maybe you were saving that as a surprise..eep, sorry if I spilled the beans!

First of all, MA Minstrels -> Skald: I looked at that, it took a moment to sink in, and then I actually laughed out loud. No, really, actually did. Let's just swing by the definition of the modern usage, "scold": "A person fond of abusive language". However, after the second half of the definition "in particular a troublesome and angry woman" I am pretty sure you were thinking of Ophie.

But secondly, how cool is it to be named after the Rap artists/beat poets of the 700's? Very cool, "Warrior-Skald" is ferociously full of awesome.

Thank you. Thank you very much. This actually beats out "Pants of Efficacy" as my favorite name in the game.

Now, about the order in which the Trait Sets were listed....since everything I see is all about me, I imagine the discussion went something like this:

"Look, we have to stake out the territory right from the start. Minstrels Heal. It's what they do. And the hard part is...?"

"Okay okay, but you know who we are talking about here, the BEP/MA Minstrels are the most "vocal", and I suspect also have the shortest attention spans, so if we don't list them first they are going to go all Godwin on us before they even GET to page 3. We will be shoveling DTLs* of that stuff off the forums for weeks. But fine, whatever, I actually picked this week in the 'When Will He Cite Us For War Crime Violations?' pool..."

"You didn't!"

"Oh I sure did!"

"How did you know way back then...?"

"Just lucky, but anyway, do what you like, it's all good as far as I am concerned."

"Right, okay. We still lead with the Minstrels Heal bit, but we will put the Warrior-Skald as the first trait set."

"Oh well, I am out some cash, but I think it's worth it... 'Skald'... heh heh"

"heh heh heh"






Caelavin,
Landroval

*Doctoral Thesis-Loads

[Jarel]

Now that's interesting! Bye bye Wargs

Wargs will probably get an "improved silence" ability.

Anyway, my worry is the pidgeon-hole effect. How easy is it for us to re-trait to healing? Will the healing set be almost required to do the harder six-mans and the new raid?

[dmwst30]

From the diary: "enhancing his abilities to deal raw damage at the expense of outbound healing." does that mean the Warrior-Skald path will somehow damage your ability to heal OTHERS even more while still keeping the current -50% to healing to yourself? That is phrased a bit oddly.

Sounds like you'd still open and warspeech and revert to turtle mode when your health gets low, in any case, just hopefully more damage before you turtle.

[fenwe]

From the diary: "enhancing his abilities to deal raw damage at the expense of outbound healing." does that mean the Warrior-Skald path will somehow damage your ability to heal OTHERS even more while still keeping the current -50% to healing to yourself? That is phrased a bit oddly.

Sounds like you'd still open and warspeech and revert to turtle mode when your health gets low, in any case, just hopefully more damage before you turtle.

Actually - War Speech currently reduces all out going heals by 50%, not just the ones to yourself. Just an FYI

[Umelrandir]

Oh fantastic. They give us a little wimpy HOT while the Rune-keeper (a blasphemous class) comes on the scene to push out the Captain out of the HOT realm and with a Rune-keeper and a Capt in the grp, you'll never need a Minstrel... I feel exchanged lol.

And who ever uses Tale of Warding? It better be made into a stack-able +2 hope for me even to touch it...! And frost damage in a realm dominated by fire and shadow? Who'da thunk it? A frost mitigation would've been better in ... oh, geez... I dunno ... FOROCHEL!! It's cool we get a improved Shadow/Silence removal though!

Tale of Heroic Battle would've been more of my liking, too. +60 Vit, Will, Fate ... and it still leaves Might and Agility to the Capt to top off with IDOME. And lilrebbitzen is completely right. We are looking in a world where the Watcher's tentacle is 45k morale ALONE! A nice 1k fellowship morale recovery would be nice! Heck, I'd even settle with a 1200 morale recover single heal! My Guardian friend can max his morale at nearly 5k with Capt, Minstrel, and Guardian buffs ... at lvl 60 he'll be well in the 6,000s, maybe even in the 7,000s ... and I can only crit heal at 1200. I'll have to heal him 7 times just to get him full again, forget the other people in the group I guess. But what do I know? Not like I had a minstrel since closed beta and all.

[Big_H]

... and I can only crit heal at 1200. I'll have to heal him 7 times just to get him full again, forget the other people in the group I guess. But what do I know? Not like I had a minstrel since closed beta and all.

I'm expecting our heals to scale with level some, but I'd also like to see a boost in their size. A +~950 heal barely cuts it at 50 in some situations, let alone with the new content.

[Umelrandir]

I'd also like to see a boost in their size. A +~950 heal barely cuts it at 50 in some situations, let alone with the new content.

Exactly Big H - I agree that they will scale up, they did mention the Improved blah blah blah - but another heal was what I was looking very forward too.

[dmwst30]

Actually - War Speech currently reduces all out going heals by 50%, not just the ones to yourself. Just an FYI

I am WELL AWARE of that thank you. The whole point is the warrior-skald path increases that penalty apparently. Read the quote, its context isn't war-speech.

This means even bigger penalties to healing while in warspeech. Who knows how much.

[IamSpanky]

Looks good so far.. Just hope Turbine fixed the resist factor.

[fenwe]

I am WELL AWARE of that thank you. The whole point is the warrior-skald path increases that penalty apparently. Read the quote, its context isn't war-speech.

This means even bigger penalties to healing while in warspeech. Who knows how much.

There is no reason to yell or get so excited.

"The bonuses of the Warrior-Skald line are heavily focused on the War-speech stance, enhancing his abilities to deal raw damage at the expense of outbound healing."

Now this quote is from the text. Is it possible that it means that there will be increased healing penalties? That is certainly a possibility, but that piece after the comma could just as easily be a description of War-speech itself, which is the way I interpretted it. The fact that you are automatically assuming the worst and crying and screaming about it before you know one way or the other makes me think you're a Hunter, not a Minstrel. Of course, you mighht just be a troll.

[Sporati]

Honestly a little disappointed in this. I don't see the changes really saying hey, we need a minstrel in our group to do this. More along the lines of heck, a cap or rune keeper makes just as decent a healing class. Creeps currently have 2k morale heals types, mass in combat raises. Is cure fear going to have a range of more than 1 inch so I don't have to climb on top of the guy that needs to be cured? I'd have been more impressed if the new war speech reduced the healing penalty by 25 instead of 50%, remove the casting time so war speech can be brought up and down without penalties. Classes overlap a little too much for my tastes currently, and was hoping more to see something to make minstrels a little more useful in PvMP. Only thing I saw I like, is the cure silence/resist silence option. But I'm guessing like the remove dread it will have some insane cool down and can't be cast on self, plus if you're already silenced you won't be able to use it anyway. All in all as a primary minstrel, I feel let down, and I know others might disagree but this is just one minstrels opinion

[tabuk]

Has it been posted that there will not be another heal skill between the levels of 51 and 60? I would expect that there would be since we are the primary healing class.

They wont give everything away before release....and I have not seen a full expansion skill list posted.

[Findulin]

Only thing I saw I like, is the cure silence/resist silence option. But I'm guessing like the remove dread it will have some insane cool down and can't be cast on self, plus if you're already silenced you won't be able to use it anyway. All in all as a primary minstrel, I feel let down, and I know others might disagree but this is just one minstrels opinion

this skill you're talking about is there already...cry of the chorus...and it already removes silence, they only add the immune to silence part...but i guess you already knew this, as a primary minstrel...

[chem_aggie]

Classes overlap a little too much for my tastes currently, and was hoping more to see something to make minstrels a little more useful in PvMP.

How much time have you spent as a Mini in the moors? On BW, we're Target #1 all the time. I'll grant that there needs to be three or four Minis in a raid to make it worthwhile (to heal the one being targeted), but we're far from useless.

I'm hoping that the War-Speech buff will simply encourage more Minis to enter the moors, who otherwise would be put off by always having to spam heal and die.

[dmwst30]

"The bonuses of the Warrior-Skald line are heavily focused on the War-speech stance, enhancing his abilities to deal raw damage at the expense of outbound healing."

Now this quote is from the text. Is it possible that it means that there will be increased healing penalties? That is certainly a possibility, but that piece after the comma could just as easily be a description of War-speech itself, which is the way I interpretted it. The fact that you are automatically assuming the worst and crying and screaming about it before you know one way or the other makes me think you're a Hunter, not a Minstrel. Of course, you mighht just be a troll.

War-speech already exists with it's current increase in DPS and decrease in healing. This quote say, I think, that the bonuses focus on War-speech (perhaps only work when War-speech is up?) and enhance the DPS and decrease the healing further.

It's hard to say from just one line, though.

I was trying to clarify 'outbound' healing vs 'self-healing'; I'd love it if you could still heal at the -50% to self but -90% (random number) to others if your DPS jumped by a good bit. If your self-healing dropped by 90% there'd be no point in healing at all when traited along this path while in warspeech, and you'd just burst DPS followed by turtling.

PS: I'm neither a hunter nor a troll, sorry I love my minnie main.

[romoen]

First of all, MA Minstrels -> Skald: I looked at that, it took a moment to sink in, and then I actually laughed out loud. No, really, actually did. Let's just swing by the definition of the modern usage, "scold": "A person fond of abusive language". However, after the second half of the definition "in particular a troublesome and angry woman" I am pretty sure you were thinking of Ophie.

Oh, ****!

ROFL, Cael, you crack me the **** up.

Note **** to stay fitting to proper character.

[Vronna]

Well.... No matter what, it is GOOD to be a Minstrel!