Minstrel Issues - RoI Update

[Equendil]

The RoI expansion has brought a lot of changes to the minstrel class, and inevitably, some things may not work as intended. I'm starting this thread to centralize and track issues, and I'll start with a number of known issues and some of my own. Feel free to add to it.

Adressed

- The 'raid' set has no finesse. It has been argued in various threads whether or not it should. While there is no consensus on the matter, it restricts its use. Issue acknowledged by Orion.

- Long skill delay following a coda. Acknowledged by Orion, seemingly unintended.

- Deed for the trait Strength of Voice not advancing. Acknowledged by Orion, bug.

- Anthems break stealth. Acknowledged by Orion, bug.

- Instrument stats limiting the choice of instrument types (and otherwise inconsistent across recipes). Acknowledged by Orion, multi-ouput crafting recipes are on the way.

- The tooltip of Anthem of War does not reflect the bonus from legacies. Might be true of Anthem of Composure as well. Acknowledged, bug.

- Raise the spirit power cost. The power cost of raise the spirit was increased to cost more power than bolster courage. However, Raise the Spirit heals for about half the value of Bolster Courage, which makes it a *lot* more power consuming for the same amount of healing hence fairly undesirable to use. I believe that's a step back from the last update. Intended, potential alteration

- Gift of the Hammerhand. Effect altered similar to Song/Story of the Hammerhand, but while a lower cooldown makes up for the change to the latter, Gift of the Hammerhand remains on a 5 minutes cooldown. Intended.

- Long animation delay on the healing version of the Major Ballad (seemingly the same as chord of salvation), making it slower to use than other ballads. Unintended.

- Little incentive to use different ballads for a given trait set due to their bonus being largely linked to traits Intended.

- Cooldown on ballads. There is a short cooldown on ballads, which makes it impossible to repeatedly use the same ballad as fast as you can interlace different ballads, which has the undesirable side effect of altering the ballad set buff. Intended.

- The cooldown of Call to Greatness is too long. Acknowledged by Orion.

Pending

- The costs of certain legacies seem to double (or triple) at certain ranks. (eg SoS costs). Issue not limited to minstrels, seems to occur on lvl 69+ LIs, on 9-ranks legacies whose value increase with level (for instance, thread up/down legacies, see Warden legacies).

- Improved Tale of Warding bonus removed from Protector of Song 4-set bonus. This was originally removed because it was supposed to be moved into direct post-66 enhancement, but that never happened, so now the only way to get improved tale of warding again is to trait 5-deep.

- 6-set bonus on the PvMP gear gives Still as Death a bonus removing poisons, fears, wounds, and disease with a maximum value of **70** instead of 75 or 80. Tooltip bug.

- localization problems with the german game client, where all of the ballads and several of the hymns still have the tooltips of the old tier 1, 2 or 3 ballads that were replaced by the new skills.



On a side note, Noble Cause is now a 'fast' skill, which is fairly nice, but was not documented in release notes.

[Orion]

- The tooltip of Anthem of War does not reflect the bonus from legacies. Might be true of Anthem of Composure as well.

Bug, not fixed until Update 5.

- Raise the spirit power cost. The power cost of raise the spirit was increased to cost more power than bolster courage. However, Raise the Spirit heals for about half the value of Bolster Courage, which makes it a *lot* more power consuming for the same amount of healing hence fairly undesirable to use. I believe that's not intended and a step back from the last update.

By design, might need a little massaging. Potential alteration.

- Gift of the Hammerhand. Effect altered similar to Song/Story of the Hammerhand, but while a lower cooldown makes up for the change to the latter, Gift of the Hammerhand remains on a 5 minutes cooldown. May be an oversight, or may be intended.

By design. One helps you, the other helps a fellow. The fellow version is on a longer cooldown.

- Long animation delay on the healing version of the Major Ballad (seemingly the same as chord of salvation), making it slower to use than other ballads. Likely unintended.

Unintended - looking into it, no time frame for a fix, yet.

- Little incentive to use different ballads for a given trait set due to their bonus being largely linked to traits.

Intended.

- Cooldown on ballads. There is a short cooldown on ballads, which makes it impossible to repeatedly use the same ballad as fast as you can interlace different ballads, which has the undesirable side effect of altering the ballad set buff. Might be strictly intended that way.

Intended.

On a side note, Noble Cause is now a 'fast' skill, which is fairly nice, but was not documented in release notes.

Missed that one.

[Equendil]

That was a swift reply, thanks ! Updated the original post (I'll keep 'intended' items up for reference and should others want to discuss them), and added the following item:

- The costs of certain legacies seem to double (or triple) at certain ranks. (eg SoS costs). Issue not limited to minstrels, seems to occur on lvl 69+ LIs, on 9-ranks legacies whose value increase with level (for instance, thread up/down legacies, see Warden legacies).

[Tamiya]

Call to Greatness cooldown is too long (confirmed by Orion in one of his posts in Cloudie's picture thread).

There are supposedly some issues with CtG not resetting cooldowns on some skills like Blinding Flash or something, but I haven't tested that myself.

Improved Tale of Warding bonus removed from Protector of Song 4-set bonus. This was originally removed because it was supposed to be moved into direct post-66 enhancement, but that never happened, so now the only way to get improved tale of warding again is to trait 5-deep. Not sure if WAI.

[Viriel]

From what i know all other classes got finesse on both pvp rings. We have only on 1. I would like to know if its a bug or intended.

[Apache140]

6-set bonus on the PvMP gear gives Still as Death a bonus removing poisons, fears, wounds, and disease with a maximum value of **70** instead of 75 or 80.

EDIT: Tested it out and it works fine. So it's just a tool-tip issue.

[Bramor]

In addition, there are severe localization problems with the german game client, where all of the ballads and several of the hymns still have the tooltips of the old tier 1, 2 or 3 ballads that were replaced by the new skills. Unfortunately this makes the new minstrel pretty much unplayable by anybody not fluent enough in english to switch client languages. There have been localization issues before, but none as bad as this.

[Hekatherina]

Song of the Hammerhand does not prevent damage setbacks of inductions.

[hucklebarry]

Before RoI went live there were a few comments about Rally. While I can't seem to find them, I know there were mentions of a 5 minute CD if traited/legacied. Was this community error in understanding, did that change, or is mine bugged? I'm still at 10 minutes if I both trait and legacy for it. I now have all "improved skills" and none of them were Rally.

Also, I can confirm that CtG is still 10 minutes and the traiting only takes off 20 seconds.

Finally, I'm a little concerned that there are no minnie issues on the "known" issues list.

Finally, also, I've noticed that if I trait deep in yellows and try to keep up my anthems I have 20 second durations and 5 second CDs. I should be able to keep 4 anthems up.

Cast Anthem (20 seconds remaining)
Cast Anthem (15 seconds remaining from 1st anthem)
Cast Anthem (10 seconds remaining from 1st anthem) (when this anthem expires, we should be at 5 seconds remaining for the first anthem).
Cast anthem.... this one overwrites the first expiring anthem.

I've tried literally spamming and doing nothing else, even queuing the anthem so it casts exactly as soon as it possibly can. I'm not able to ever have more than 3 anthems and even those 3 act as though I'm up against the edge of the timer.

[Equendil]

Finally, also, I've noticed that if I trait deep in yellows and try to keep up my anthems I have 20 second durations and 5 second CDs. I should be able to keep 4 anthems up.

Cast Anthem (20 seconds remaining)
Cast Anthem (15 seconds remaining from 1st anthem)
Cast Anthem (10 seconds remaining from 1st anthem) (when this anthem expires, we should be at 5 seconds remaining for the first anthem).
Cast anthem.... this one overwrites the first expiring anthem.

I've tried literally spamming and doing nothing else, even queuing the anthem so it casts exactly as soon as it possibly can. I'm not able to ever have more than 3 anthems and even those 3 act as though I'm up against the edge of the timer.

The discrepancy is the time it takes to fire off an anthem before the cooldown is activated again, which is a little over 1 second and not taken into account here. It goes more like
Anthem (20s remaining)
CD off (15s remaining)
Anthem (13.5s remaining)
CD off (8.5s remaining)
Anthem (7s remaining)
CD off (2s remaining)
Anthem (0.5s remaining)

Note that you can increase the duration of anthems further, with the Anthem Duration legacy (+10s), and with the 'raid' set (+5s), for a maximum of 35s (should be long enough to keep 5 anthems up).

Also keep in mind that traiting 4 deep into any of the trait lines, and using the matching stance turns one of the anthem 'permanent'. Anthem of War for Warrior-skald in War-speech, Anthem of the Third Age (Harmony) for Protector of Song in Harmony, and Anthem of Compassion for Watcher of Resolve in healing 'stance'

[hucklebarry]

The discrepancy is the time it takes to fire off an anthem before the cooldown is activated again, which is a little over 1 second and not taken into account here.

I'll have to look again, I seem to recall them being instant, but that would explain it. Being able to gear better to modify numbers is great, I'm only concerned that the timers are working correctly for whatever your traited/geared time is supposed to be. Untraited, I would claim that the anthems duration does not equate to this 1+ second before casting issue. (in other words, they are far too short to not be instant-cast if they aren't).

I'll add a new one for dev consideration... I'm using the +20% armor trait. Last solo quest mob I fought had the following consecutive 3 attacks:

The Executioner of Isengard scored a hit with a moderate melee attack for 803 Common damage to Morale.
The Executioner of Isengard scored a hit with a minor melee attack for 710 Common damage to Morale.
The Executioner of Isengard scored a hit with a mighty melee attack for 1,564 Common damage

While its not earth shattering, those attacks came very quickly in succession. In game it looked like he hit me for over 3k. (its why I checked the log). And this is common for the many solo mobs that have about 12k morale. I can appreciate that we get to heal ourselves, but the high power costs can drain our power pool as much as the mobs can drain our measly light armor and health. I enjoy a challenge, but landscape mobs might still need some tweaking. the 500 power cost heal I cast was immediately eaten up by the next two attacks.

[Viriel]

One more possibly bug. While improved chord of salvation main heal changes with the book and the legacies ranked in it, the hot stays always the same.

[Leonardan]

My anthem of compassion is not lasting for the battle when traited deep into blue line... (im not using Coda to remove the buff). is anyone having this issue as well?

[Thornpaw]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this but placing Melody of Battle on a player that is not oneself always causes the message "Cannot harm target."

[fallat]

Also keep in mind that traiting 4 deep into any of the trait lines, and using the matching stance turns one of the anthem 'permanent'. Anthem of War for Warrior-skald in War-speech, Anthem of the Third Age (Harmony) for Protector of Song in Harmony, and Anthem of Compassion for Watcher of Resolve in healing 'stance'

I believe the only stance requirement is for the PoS line. You have to be in Harmony stance in order to use Anthem of the Third Age (Harmony). The other two Anthems will stay up if you are at least four traits deep regardless of your stance. For example, I'm 6 deep in Skald, running in Harmony stance, and when I play Anthem of War it is combat permanent until I use Coda.

[angryhands]

Possible addition: Ballad buffs disappearing prematurely out of combat? (see other post earlier today)

[hucklebarry]

To add to what I've posted earlier... I now have about a dozen entries where I have been combat logging and seen 1k+ hits on my minnie from solo landscape mobs. While its more frequent from the elites, I'm seeing it from the white-conned normal mobs as well. (I don't log often, so this is just the number I've seen while logging).

In an instance, if the tank gets stunned with no LM in the group... its insta-death for me. I've seen many, many 4 and 5k hits from school, library, annuminas, etc.

I'm gonna bug the logs, but just posting here as I'm thinking this may not be working as intended, especially after gear itemization where caster classes have to decide on sacrificing morale and vit to get will/fate.

[Tamiya]

I believe the only stance requirement is for the PoS line. You have to be in Harmony stance in order to use Anthem of the Third Age (Harmony). The other two Anthems will stay up if you are at least four traits deep regardless of your stance. For example, I'm 6 deep in Skald, running in Harmony stance, and when I play Anthem of War it is combat permanent until I use Coda.

Ok so I went back to do more testing (retraiting costs money :P) and apparently the permanent Anthem of War is tied to the War-speech stance as well. If you're traited at least 4-reds but not in War-speech, you don't get the permanent Anthem of War.

There are two issues here:-
i. (Edit: Actually it does say so in the tooltip ) You do need to be in War-speech to get Anthem of War to stick permanently, and
ii. The Anthem of War is permanent only for the Minstrel. It still expires normally on fellowship members, so you will have to recast the Anthem every cooldown anyway.

Can't be bothered retraiting to blue to test the Anthem for that line, but I suspect it has similar issues.



I'm also having a problem with the "Improved" Song of Distraction.

The old version was single-target, so we only had to win the roll against Resists on one target. In a group with multiple mobs, we could Distract one target and pull the remainder without aggroing the first.

The new version is AOE and we have to win the rolls against Resists on all targets, and if any one of the rolls fail, the whole group aggros. This is actually worse because the chance to fail is increased for every additional target within range.

This is an issue discussed during early "dev diary" phase, and I'm pretty sure Orion's proposed solution was to make the improved version non-aggro even upon failure, but that isn't happening right now.

[Cize]

ii. The Anthem of War is permanent only for the Minstrel. It still expires normally on fellowship members, so you will have to recast the Anthem every cooldown anyway.

That would be not according to description but I could imagine it to be working as intended. Otherwise a WS Mini would be a must-have addition to every DPS group.

Can't be bothered retraiting to blue to test the Anthem for that line, but I suspect it has similar issues.

Since in blue (and yellow) the effects of the permanent anthem are mini only, this is a non issue there...

[Viriel]

Minstrel

Upon entering Harmony stance your instrument is now properly tucked away.
Anthems will no longer break Burglars from stealth.
A tooltip issue with Anthem of War has been addressed. A four trait Warrior-skald will now correctly see the tooltip when looking at the skill.
The Deed: Strength of Voice will now advance correctly.


There it is. We are now fixed, or??

[Calta]

I'm also having a problem with the "Improved" Song of Distraction.

The old version was single-target, so we only had to win the roll against Resists on one target. In a group with multiple mobs, we could Distract one target and pull the remainder without aggroing the first.

The new version is AOE and we have to win the rolls against Resists on all targets, and if any one of the rolls fail, the whole group aggros. This is actually worse because the chance to fail is increased for every additional target within range.

This is an issue discussed during early "dev diary" phase, and I'm pretty sure Orion's proposed solution was to make the improved version non-aggro even upon failure, but that isn't happening right now.

While on a practice run against (grey to me) elite orcs I noticed this and was very confused. I tried song of distraction-pulled all four. Tried again -same thing all resisted and aggro'd all. Whimpered to myself from rez circle 'what happened?'. Checked -had all threat minimisers on. I know i make excellent bait but hey! That was weird.

Turns out I had missed noticing that it had become AOE. So, thanks for the explanation. One skill that won't be high on my hit parade.

The rest of the changes I lurve to bits!

[Tamiya]

While on a practice run against (grey to me) elite orcs I noticed this and was very confused. I tried song of distraction-pulled all four. Tried again -same thing all resisted and aggro'd all. Whimpered to myself from rez circle 'what happened?'. Checked -had all threat minimisers on. I know i make excellent bait but hey! That was weird.

Turns out I had missed noticing that it had become AOE. So, thanks for the explanation. One skill that won't be high on my hit parade.

The rest of the changes I lurve to bits!

Actually, since that post, I've been getting mixed results from the skill. It's just hard to test because it's on such a long cooldown, so I only have anecdotal evidences to go by.

It does seem to not aggro sometimes, so I'm not sure what's going on there. There's probably some bug in there somewhere.

I wonder what results other mini players are getting from that skill.

[hucklebarry]

I'm also having a problem with the "Improved" Song of Distraction.

The old version was single-target, so we only had to win the roll against Resists on one target. In a group with multiple mobs, we could Distract one target and pull the remainder without aggroing the first.

The new version is AOE and we have to win the rolls against Resists on all targets, and if any one of the rolls fail, the whole group aggros. This is actually worse because the chance to fail is increased for every additional target within range.

This is an issue discussed during early "dev diary" phase, and I'm pretty sure Orion's proposed solution was to make the improved version non-aggro even upon failure, but that isn't happening right now.

I haven't seen Orion's notes, but this is working the same for me as it did before. The area of effect is a very small range. In the past, if you failed on a mob, that mob and all in its aggro range came to attack. So, it makes sense that if you fail on an AoE, regardless of which mob it fails on, everything in that group will come to attack.

[Tamiya]

I haven't seen Orion's notes, but this is working the same for me as it did before. The area of effect is a very small range. In the past, if you failed on a mob, that mob and all in its aggro range came to attack. So, it makes sense that if you fail on an AoE, regardless of which mob it fails on, everything in that group will come to attack.

You see, it doesn't make sense if it was WAI.

Let's say you have two mobs guarding an entrance to a camp. Each of them has a hypothetical 0.25 chance to resist distraction, i.e. you have 0.75 chance to perform distraction successfully on any one of them.

Old Distraction: 0.75 chance to succeed on distracting one mob, then the other mob can be pulled safely. (You have only 0.25 chance to fail in this case.)
New Distraction: 0.75*0.75 = 0.5625 chance to succeed on distracting both mobs, then either mob can be pulled safely. (You have 0.0625 chance to fail on both and 0.375 chance to succeed on one and fail on the other for a total of 0.4375 chance to fail in this case, since any failure aggros the entire group.)

It doesn't make sense for an "improved" skill to have higher chances of failure, especially since Distraction is a permanent debuff anyway, so there isn't a lot of benefit to upgrade to AOE with worse chances.


I wish I could locate Orion's forum post on this exact issue, but it's a lot of forum posts to wade through.

[Viriel]

AoE distraction is one of the best skill we were given in RoI (along with other great skills ). Pump yourself with some finesse and you wont see many resists on it. Im running with 3,9k atm and it hits like 85% of time. Also no. When 1 resist you will pull just him not the whole group. Witnessed that few times already.