Level 65 2nd age Songbook

[doug01]

I understand why people have made BoW a top legacy. My idea of what great book would be is H&M, BC, IF, and -power. BoW is great for speeding up fights, and as we all know, there are plenty of DPS race fights. From my experience though, any fight that is exceptionally hard, you're a heal bot, no time to tier up. A fight where you have time, you're just making an easy fight, easier. In other words, you tiering up to BoW only AFTER you have caught up in healing, therefore, healing is always trumping BoW.

Healing legacies are the way to handle the hardest fights in this game. BoW is away to make moderate/easy content easier.

[Reillan]

I've gotten 2 symbols out of SG and spent them both on Champ weapons - both of which have sucked. I am not about to waste one on a Minnie book or a Captain emblem until there is a higher certainty that I will get symbol in the first place and it doesn't feel like I'm wasting 100g every time I ID.

If it makes you feel better (it won't), my kin leader got a 2nd age songbook with both H&M legs, BoW, and BC (I think RtS too, for what it's worth). Best songbook I've seen in the game so far, and she only heals BC for a few more points than Gilriam can hit on his 3rd age book.

[Shmoopie]

I understand why people have made BoW a top legacy. My idea of what great book would be is H&M, BC, IF, and -power. BoW is great for speeding up fights, and as we all know, there are plenty of DPS race fights. From my experience though, any fight that is exceptionally hard, you're a heal bot, no time to tier up. A fight where you have time, you're just making an easy fight, easier. In other words, you tiering up to BoW only AFTER you have caught up in healing, therefore, healing is always trumping BoW.

Healing legacies are the way to handle the hardest fights in this game. BoW is away to make moderate/easy content easier.

I think it very much depends on the make up of the group and playstyle.

[Euthanazia]

So to balance the benefit of having empowerment scrolls, they made it so that we are required to have empowerment scrolls.

Is Turbine run by the government?

No, but this goes right along with them nerfing our SKILLS because of possible LI LEGACIES...f-ing re****ed. But I'm not bitter.

Have a great day all!

.02

[doug01]

I think it very much depends on the make up of the group and playstyle.

Maybe, but I have never tiered up to BoW when people are dieing. I'm tiering up BoW when the the group is stable. But, I do understand not every minstrel may do that. I can only speak for myself and what Ive seen, but fights that are exceptionally hard (Durchest, twins, and the LTp2) the mini are struggling to just keep everyone up, BoW is a completely useless legacy. If the fight isn't so hard, then BoW is icing on the cake.

All the DPS in the world is useless if the group is dead.

[Reillan]

I understand why people have made BoW a top legacy. My idea of what great book would be is H&M, BC, IF, and -power. BoW is great for speeding up fights, and as we all know, there are plenty of DPS race fights. From my experience though, any fight that is exceptionally hard, you're a heal bot, no time to tier up. A fight where you have time, you're just making an easy fight, easier. In other words, you tiering up to BoW only AFTER you have caught up in healing, therefore, healing is always trumping BoW.

Healing legacies are the way to handle the hardest fights in this game. BoW is away to make moderate/easy content easier.

20% more melee dps means that the fight ends much quicker, especially if you have a lot of melee classes (admittedly, if the guard is the only melee in the group, it's probably not worth it, but your champ will thank you tremendously).

If the fight is ending quicker, it means there's less total damage for you to heal through, which is important. If you're doing Gorothul with a burg, a capt, and a minnie with 20% BoW, you're doing 40% more damage to him, which means he dies 40% quicker and you have probably 80% fewer skeletons (since time is a big factor there).

It's possible to tier-up quickly, btw, without having to use your lengthy-induction songs. Though it is best to keep vitality and evade buffs up if you can handle it, even if you can't, you can simply fire off some tier 1 and tier 2 ballads and fire off BoW. Furthermore, your Anthem of Compassion (which you can turn into Ballad of compassion fairly easily) can and should be up all the time. I have a 1 minute cooldown on Compassion, and with my yellow traits have it lasting for 50s, so I have -45% healing threat for 50 out of every 60 seconds of combat. I can also quickly fire off my +1500 ICMR skill quickly if I'm keeping my tiers up, which will allow me to keep everyone up easier. Last, but not least, with enough traits in the blue line, your tiers give you +5% buffs. When I hit a heal after I hit BoW, I've got +15% total healing to it. A BC that normally hits for 1800 max now maxes out at 2070.

[doug01]

20% more melee dps means that the fight ends much quicker, especially if you have a lot of melee classes (admittedly, if the guard is the only melee in the group, it's probably not worth it, but your champ will thank you tremendously).

If the fight is ending quicker, it means there's less total damage for you to heal through, which is important. If you're doing Gorothul with a burg, a capt, and a minnie with 20% BoW, you're doing 40% more damage to him, which means he dies 40% quicker and you have probably 80% fewer skeletons (since time is a big factor there).

It's possible to tier-up quickly, btw, without having to use your lengthy-induction songs. Though it is best to keep vitality and evade buffs up if you can handle it, even if you can't, you can simply fire off some tier 1 and tier 2 ballads and fire off BoW. Furthermore, your Anthem of Compassion (which you can turn into Ballad of compassion fairly easily) can and should be up all the time. I have a 1 minute cooldown on Compassion, and with my yellow traits have it lasting for 50s, so I have -45% healing threat for 50 out of every 60 seconds of combat. I can also quickly fire off my +1500 ICMR skill quickly if I'm keeping my tiers up, which will allow me to keep everyone up easier. Last, but not least, with enough traits in the blue line, your tiers give you +5% buffs. When I hit a heal after I hit BoW, I've got +15% total healing to it. A BC that normally hits for 1800 max now maxes out at 2070.

Its 10% MORE dps from the Legacy

And Gorothul has been healed by cappys. Its not a difficult fight, unlike the fights I noted.

Heres an almost sure win to Gorothul, makes the fight easy mode for any group with a main healer and Cappy. On Phase 2 (after he does his fear emote), have the cappy just spam WoC on the main healer, less than 2 minutes later fights over no kitng, no bubble, no FH, no FD, ez-mode.

[Anier]

I understand why people have made BoW a top legacy. My idea of what great book would be is H&M, BC, IF, and -power. BoW is great for speeding up fights, and as we all know, there are plenty of DPS race fights. From my experience though, any fight that is exceptionally hard, you're a heal bot, no time to tier up. A fight where you have time, you're just making an easy fight, easier. In other words, you tiering up to BoW only AFTER you have caught up in healing, therefore, healing is always trumping BoW.

Healing legacies are the way to handle the hardest fights in this game. BoW is away to make moderate/easy content easier.

I totally agree here. I do BoW if and only if time permits... I don't make it a priority, but if I have time to tier up, I will totally include the 20% melee damage. I also try to tier up as often as I can to get the anthem of people for the 1545 ICMR.

[Anamatronix]

Amat are you able to switch to your off-book, do all your buffs, and then switch back to your healing book all in one button click?
I tried to orchestrate this, and could get as far as switching to a book and executing ballad of war, but I could never get it to switch back to my healing book in the same sequence. My macro skills are nubbish, seems like it should be able to be done but I haven't figured it out yet.
I resorted to just assigning a key on my keypad to each legendary and I'm switching between legendaries using my keypad as I'm clicking through skills on my mouse.

Kind of, I have 3 macro buttons for each t3 ballad, which hit buff book -> ballad-> heal book. It's only one buff at a time still. I use a logitech keyboard, so I can assign one of my G buttons to act like I've hit the buttons on my hotbars. It's the keyboard, not the game macros. Also, as a side note, mine has the little LCD display on the keyboard so I can keep track of who's talking in vent and stuff Invaluable, seeing as all you americans sounds the same

[Gillianrial]

Maybe, but I have never tiered up to BoW when people are dieing. I'm tiering up BoW when the the group is stable. But, I do understand not every minstrel may do that. I can only speak for myself and what Ive seen, but fights that are exceptionally hard (Durchest, twins, and the LTp2) the mini are struggling to just keep everyone up, BoW is a completely useless legacy. If the fight isn't so hard, then BoW is icing on the cake.

All the DPS in the world is useless if the group is dead.

Agree x10. BoW is definitely not something I have any time to use when healing gets strained in BG during boss fights.

[Zychus]

I agree with you guys for the most part, but lucky for me I have not had this problem myself.

I have only won 1 symbol, and it got 4 legacies to start with, and by level 30 it had EVERY SINGLE healing legacy.

So if you get lucky, the symbol is definitely nice to get, it's just a matter of luck like anything in the legendary system.

I also have to agree that Ballad of War is a huge waste of points on a healing book, especially in BG where you are just as likely to have only 1 melee class in your whole fellowship benefiting from the buff. Just level up a separate Ballad of War book and swap it in for times when you are melee-heavy and/or actually have time to keep BoW up. It is easy enough to keep up BoW by swapping in a separate book for it, especially if you have traited for the 45 second ballads. Turbine obviously is OK with this strategy, many classes do it, especially captains with separate buffing legendaries...

[zachhope]

I have a Lv60 2A sword, crafted by a kinsman, that really turned out quite well. Has some good legacies, and the ones that I didn't like so much have been covered up with +will and +fate (and I think I have a +Vit on either my sword or book).

While running HoC, a 2A Songbook, level 60-something dropped. It looked promising, so I brought it up to ~lv30 just using stones, and It's pretty excellent. I ran the quest from DV to get the +5% to all light damage skills, and it works well for me.

But I have to agree that this is a ridiculous lottery they have. I'd probably sell the symbol before I used it to craft.

[Mark_J]

Symbols are not worth the effort, the LI Lottery nullifies any hope that your work will be rewarded. I got a couple of Symbols and managed to get a decent (not great) Bow for my Hunter, the first two 2nd Agers were Relic Fodder. You're much better off grinding Scrolls of Empowerment and leveling up your 3rd Age Book then you are spending time Symbol/LI farming.

On a slight derail, for all those that are saying they only run Ballad of War when they have time to tier it up, do you not run Anthem of the Free People all the time?

[Reillan]

Agree x10. BoW is definitely not something I have any time to use when healing gets strained in BG during boss fights.

I'm able to keep BoW up during boss fights, and generally vitality and evade, too

I used to not be able to, until a much better minstrel than I will ever be taught me a better way...

[Gillianrial]

On a slight derail, for all those that are saying they only run Ballad of War when they have time to tier it up, do you not run Anthem of the Free People all the time?

At end game, I slot Smooth Voice, so I use AotFP every time possible. I'm just being realistic that if things get crazy, I don't sometimes have time. There are times I do, but if we're light on healing (because we need to take more range for example *sigh*), then yes, sometimes there's little I can do at the end of challenge mode fights other than spam heal.

I'm able to keep BoW up during boss fights, and generally vitality and evade, too

I used to not be able to, until a much better minstrel than I will ever be taught me a better way...

Share? Again, when I can, I'm using all my buffs - including fire, fear, and BoW. But, it's not always possible for me in pinches.

[Fortinobrand]

Finally got a symbol. Crafted book -- doesn't suck, but not legendary either.

Has --

+ Bolster Courage
+ Inspire Fellows
- Healing Power Cost
3 stat legacies added to replace ones I don't use (I only heal on this alt)

Does not have --

+ H&M bonus


Without H&M it looks like BC will be a little lower than my 3rd age, IF a bit higher, and the healing power savings is nice. I guess it's an improvement but not the "wow" that should have come after spending so much time in SG.

[doug01]

On a slight derail, for all those that are saying they only run Ballad of War when they have time to tier it up, do you not run Anthem of the Free People all the time?

AotFP give about 750 moral (IIRC) over thirty seconds, One IF beats it, so for healing puposes sololy AotFP isn't worth the time since IF is faster to execute.

I used to not be able to, until a much better minstrel than I will ever be taught me a better way...

No insult intended. From looking at both of your lotro pages I can't tell if you ever healed in the the end game raid (singlular). If you have, you've managed to exceeded the healing output of the some of the best raiding minstrels in the game. There are several threads lately especailly, on how the best raiding kinship in the game are not being able to beat the boss fights in BG. Why? Becuase the damage being dealt to the group/individuals just can't be healed by a typical raid set-up.

IF you haven't healed for hardmode runs in BG, then again no insult, you have not idea what your saying. If your using Gorothul, Watcher, or DN as your standard for a Boss fight, you're in for a rude awaking in BG.

Put simply...when the fights get tough, you're a heal bot, your dont have 3-4 seconds to tier up. Tier up=people dead, people dieing = group wipe

For any minstrels in the game who plans on healing for the hardest content in the game, healing/power legacies are going to be the most usefull. If your experience puts you in 6-mans or lv60 raids then BoW might have more benifits over some healing legacies.

[Corienne]

BoW is very situationally useful in BG. It is a mistake to count it out or to think that there isn't time tiering up for boss fights.

Some obvious situations where the BoW legacy is effective:
1. The gauntlet and the other adds to speed things up. Yes, I understand they aren't the boss fights but they are the most annoying part of the zone and anything that moves the group through this timesuck aspect of the zone faster is a good thing.

2. The first 3/4 of Durchest's fight. Healing is easy at the start of the fight, during the first 5 adds, and through the push to get Durchest down before you start working on the last adds. At the end, healing gets harder but it's manageable and situations at the end where hitting fellow's or TS give you a multiple-second cushion is exactly the time to use BoW.

Many of the kins who are having problems with that fight are the kins who were kiting him before the changes. If you weren't kiting him (like us), then it's pretty much the same fight.

3. The Twins - Since the fight favors range dps so much, it's unlikely both groups will have enough melees to make BoW worthwhile. However, if you are the minstrel grouped with the melees fighting the fire boss, BoW is great. That fight is all about speed, the faster it's done, the more likely you are to win HM. Not using BoW there is a mistake imo. And like Durchest, healing in that fight is easy for the first half, it's not until the puddles and dread start that it starts to get hectic.

4. The first phase of the LT fight. There should be little to no healing in this phase. We keep one mins in WS and the other set to heal "just in case" someone gets sloppy and gets hit. I'm usually the "just in case" mins and then I am definitely doing things like tiering up ballads/bow to get power back and to help get through that phase as quickly as possible, along with song of aid to open up skills and CTG when its up. If you are a mins in the LT fight and not using BoW during the first phase, then I wonder what you are doing that you think is more productive during that phase.

So much of BG is a time suck that it's a mistake to discount BoW as a skill. BoW is one of the few reasons to prefer a minstrel over an RK healer in that zone.

[Gillianrial]

So much of BG is a time suck that it's a mistake to discount BoW as a skill. BoW is one of the few reasons to prefer a minstrel over an RK healer in that zone.

Yes of course. But that's not what anyone here is saying.

BoW is easy to keep up in the Gauntlet...and easy to keep up during at least 1/2 of Durchest HM (although not as useful imo, because we have limited people up with him), but at the END of Durchest HM or Twins HM, I cannot imagine having time to play my evade/vitality buffs and then tier. I'm spam healing - and using cooldowns...I wish I had time to do something else, so maybe I just suck - but with only 2 healers and 2 captains, yeah, I'm spam healing and that's it at the end of those fights HM.

[Corienne]

BoW during the Durchest fight isn't so much for killing Durchest as it is getting his adds down as quickly as possible.

Of course healing is more intensive at the end of HM fights rather than at the beginning, but to focus solely on those as a reason for why BoW isn't that useful, I think, misses the mark. In DPS races, particularly twins HM and LT, there are phases where minstrels don't have to heal much and they should absolutely be doing whatever they can to get the targets dead asap. If these fights drag on too long, it really doesn't matter how great your spam healing is later, the chances are you're going to wipe.

I've healed every boss fight in BG with a book without BC and one with the BoW legacy. It's not preventing us from beating these bosses.

[Gillianrial]

BoW during the Durchest fight isn't so much for killing Durchest as it is getting his adds down as quickly as possible.

Of course healing is more intensive at the end of HM fights rather than at the beginning, but to focus solely on those as a reason for why BoW isn't that useful, I think, misses the mark. In DPS races, particularly twins HM and LT, there are phases where minstrels don't have to heal much and they should absolutely be doing whatever they can to get the targets dead asap. If these fights drag on too long, it really doesn't matter how great your spam healing is later, the chances are you're going to wipe.

I've healed every boss fight in BG with a book without BC and one with the BoW legacy. It's not preventing us from beating these bosses.

Again, that's not what I am saying and of course BoW is important if you read my posts at all. But, if you're telling me that at the END of Twins HM that you're still tiering to BoW and having no problem healing, then OK, you're either an inherently better minstrel - or you run with more than 2 main healers. That is my point...keeping BoW and other buffs CONSISTENTLY up without CoTC when you're at larger dread levels, are spam healing the tanks, and group healing the splash from the puddles/fears, then wow, I'm impressed because sorry, those are tough fights to heal at the tail end in my opinion

So please, don't misunderstand what I am saying.

[Corienne]

My original post wasn't a response to you and is not dependent upon anything you posted. I don't believe I am misunderstanding what you typed but your responses have been consistently defensive with your suggestions that you 'suck' sarcastically. Maybe you should chill out.

But I'll clarify so you don't keep misunderstanding me. My first post was a response to this claim: "fights that are exceptionally hard (Durchest, twins, and the LTp2) the mini are struggling to just keep everyone up, BoW is a completely useless legacy." That is a comment that you apparently agreed "10x" with. As my first post pointed out, there are plenty of instances within the three boss fights where BoW is useful and not at all a "completely useless legacy."

And yes, at the end of our twins HM win Thursday night, everyone was full health, no one was close to dying, puddle placement was pristine, I hit fellow's for insurance only and I did tier up BoW (Cry of Chorus + BOW ) and then nuked to try to get the kill (sadly didn't), so it can and does happen.

[Anier]

Finally got a symbol. Crafted book -- doesn't suck, but not legendary either.

Has --

+ Bolster Courage
+ Inspire Fellows
- Healing Power Cost
3 stat legacies added to replace ones I don't use (I only heal on this alt)

Does not have --

+ H&M bonus


Without H&M it looks like BC will be a little lower than my 3rd age, IF a bit higher, and the healing power savings is nice. I guess it's an improvement but not the "wow" that should have come after spending so much time in SG.

That is exactly what my 2nd age book looked like. It had every single healing legacy with the exception of the H&M. Well my 3rd age was healing for more since it does have H&M, so I decon'd my 2nd ager. A songbook without H&M is Useless IMHO. H&M increase ALL heals so it is 1 legacy you can't go without.

[doug01]

My original post wasn't a response to you and is not dependent upon anything you posted. I don't believe I am misunderstanding what you typed but your responses have been consistently defensive with your suggestions that you 'suck' sarcastically. Maybe you should chill out.

But I'll clarify so you don't keep misunderstanding me. My first post was a response to this claim: "fights that are exceptionally hard (Durchest, twins, and the LTp2) the mini are struggling to just keep everyone up, BoW is a completely useless legacy." That is a comment that you apparently agreed "10x" with. As my first post pointed out, there are plenty of instances within the three boss fights where BoW is useful and not at all a "completely useless legacy."

And yes, at the end of our twins HM win Thursday night, everyone was full health, no one was close to dying, puddle placement was pristine, I hit fellow's for insurance only and I did tier up BoW (Cry of Chorus + BOW ) and then nuked to try to get the kill (sadly didn't), so it can and does happen.

I guess "completely useless" was a bad phrase to use, "not much use" would have been more accurate. The extra 10% DPS over a few seconds going to have some impact. What I should have said, is in the hardest fights in the game, the impact healing legacies have is going to be greater than the 10% extra DPS for 20 seconds applied sporadically, at best, is going to have. Even by your own admission you're finding a few second to maybe tier up once or twice in the crucial parts of boss fights, and you're burning CDs to do it. IMO, it's just not worth the effort. I completely agree, BoW will make trash mobs, medium/easier content go faster, IE It's nice to have after you have stabilized the group, after you have done the healing needed, after you have taken advantage of healing legacies. So, IMO, BoW is something the comes after healing (and legacy-wise, after healing legacies). If the boss fights in BG became more melee DPS oriented, then BoW might become more relevant, but that just not the case.

My book for everything except BG is: H&M, BC, BoW, ballad resist

My book for BG: H&M, BC, RS, -Power cost (wanted IF, but no luck)

Outside of the hardest fights, BoW has uses, but when the going gets rough, BoW takes a back seat. In the end, what separates a good minstrel from a bad one is not how good they do when things are easy, its how good they do when things aren't easy.

Imagine telling your raid leader "Well, I just couldn't keep the tank up, but I did mange to keep BoW going.." Id imagine the response would be along the lines of "Heal you noob, I don't want 10% extra DPS for a few seconds, I want people alive"

[Corienne]

Even by your own admission you're finding a few second to maybe tier up once or twice in the crucial parts of boss fights, and you're burning CDs to do it. IMO, it's just not worth the effort.

I don't consider substantial parts of Durchest, the Twins and the LT to be non-crucial parts of those fights. Both phase 1 LT and Twins are dps races from start to end and it's a bad call to not use BoW during them. What are you doing in phase 1 of the LT fight if not using BoW/CTG/Song of Aid/WS?

Last night in the LT we were consistently getting 3 puddles (almost 2) in phase 1 despite taking several melee dps classes. I grouped the champs/burg with me and kept 20% BoW up and it made a huge difference in phase 1 time. That directly impacts good positioning in phase 2 and enables us to fight the LT without stacking ranged classes.

And using ballads during phase 2 of the LT is vital. If you're just heal-botting during phase 2, you're going to run out of power. The room is a great size in that one can hit Morskor just about anywhere with ballads to get the power buff. Ballads are far more power efficient to use than something like piercing cry, which costs more power, AND they contribute to heals + give the BoW option.

I think you're assuming that folks who use BoW are just tiering up and not healing. That couldn't be further from the case. Heal, Ballad 1, heal if needed, ballad 2, heal if needed, heal again if needed, BoW, heal, rinse and repeat as needed to keep ballads tiered and heal people. Space out the ballads, get and refresh the power buff from Morskor, heal between as needed.

Imagine telling your raid leader "Well, I just couldn't keep the tank up, but I did mange to keep BoW going.." Id imagine the response would be along the lines of "Heal you noob, I don't want 10% extra DPS for a few seconds, I want people alive"

I'm speaking as my kin's raid leader and i'm far harder on myself than anyone else would be. The extra hundred fifty or so morale from a BC legacy isn't going to save anyone the vast majority of the time and since i'm constantly tiering up between heals, I'm healing about as well as someone with a maxed BC leg (10% v. 9%). And BC isn't the spell that is going to save people; Chord or RtS or TS or Gift (if things are really bad) are more likely to "save" someone than BC anyway.

And as a raid leader, if I see that a mins is trying to only be a healbot in tough fights, I talk to them, b/c that's far from what a good minstrel should be doing during these fights. Just b/c other people who don't know the class want to pigeonhole us into healing-botting doesn't mean that is the right or best way to play the class.

My book is HnM, RtS, BoW, IF, -power cost and +Will. Works well. People don't die b/c I don't have a BC leg.