Yellow mini in Mordor...Solo?

[Humanifesto]

I enjoy playing Minstrel, yellow line. I am a long way from Mordor, but I am wondering: How is yellow for solo play in Mordor? And then, how about for groups?
Thanks.

[Jundokan]

Yellow line is certainly possible all through Mordor, although I found a Blue line base with a tonne of red to be more viable.

[Tatharil]

Yellow should work fine. For harder fights I'd recommend to use resonance stance. You don't lose that much damage (piercing cry still usable) and can heal while moving, major ballad and coda.
Melody coda an be dangerous at times... radius too big ^^

[Thorebane]

Yellow line can work.

Though I preferred just going full red/bit of yellow and blowing up everything once I got my light gear :P!

[Humanifesto]

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful. Good call about the Melody coda radius; didn't think about that. Thanks again.

[siipperi]

These guys are trolling you. You should be in red if you solo. Damage and survivability is simply superior especially if you planning on using coda on yellow line which defeats purpose of yellow line buffs lol (hint coda cashes out anthems, which is purpose of yellow line and only benefit it gives to the line).

You should go red and deep into yellow to get crit ballad resets piercing cry and damage skills guaranteeing healing criticals, this ensures superior damage than yellow ever can and potentially better self healing than yellow can. This way you can potentially use piercing cry every few seconds while getting every solo dps rotational healing skill guaranteed to crit.

Only thing you lose this way compared to yellow line is 2x anthems and few absolutely irrelevant debuffs. But gain ability to use skills more frequently and more dps skills in generally. Yellow line is not solo line and you are just self nerffing yourself by using it while solo.

[Zvim666]

These guys are trolling you. You should be in red if you solo. Damage and survivability is simply superior especially if you planning on using coda on yellow line which defeats purpose of yellow line buffs lol (hint coda cashes out anthems, which is purpose of yellow line and only benefit it gives to the line).

You should go red and deep into yellow to get crit ballad resets piercing cry and damage skills guaranteeing healing criticals, this ensures superior damage than yellow ever can and potentially better self healing than yellow can. This way you can potentially use piercing cry every few seconds while getting every solo dps rotational healing skill guaranteed to crit.

Only thing you lose this way compared to yellow line is 2x anthems and few absolutely irrelevant debuffs. But gain ability to use skills more frequently and more dps skills in generally. Yellow line is not solo line and you are just self nerffing yourself by using it while solo.

Slipperi is correct, it is a terrible idea to go anything other than red for questing in Mordor. Sure, you could do it, but it would be slower and more tedious.

Yellow seems fine pre 106 because you will pretty much one shot anything in the game in disco stance irrespective what spec you are as long you get the red traits, Minstrel dps did not scale well with Mordor and you need every little bit of help you can get. War-Speech gives you 35% extra damage to cries and calls, a further +5% when you use a ballad and 10% reduced resist chance on calls/cries. Most of those benefits are front loaded, there is too much build up with yellow required and when you quest the buffs will be dropping off too frequently.

I did one quest fight where you have to fight 3 signatures in blue spec, because you are basically unkillable in blue within reason, however, it takes ages to kill anything.

[Arabani]

There are no such things as "should" and "the only way" to play any toon. The guys are probably right about Red having more dps and enough survivability then other specs, but that doesn't mean it's the only spec for solo content. Only you can decide on your playstyle. Try and see. I, for instance, have never touched red spec in over 10 years of lotro, and have never used war speach after they made 3 separate stances.

P.S. Class balance is a different story. Unfortunatelly many specs underperfom greatly after Mordor, including Yellow Minstrel line. Though again, it hardly matters for questing and sometimes even group content.

[siipperi]

There are no such things as "should" and "the only way" to play any toon. The guys are probably right about Red having more dps and enough survivability then other specs, but that doesn't mean it's the only spec for solo content. Only you can decide on your playstyle. Try and see. I, for instance, have never touched red spec in over 10 years of lotro, and have never used war speach after they made 3 separate stances.

P.S. Class balance is a different story. Unfortunatelly many specs underperfom greatly after Mordor, including Yellow Minstrel line. Though again, it hardly matters for questing and sometimes even group content.

Yellow minstrel "under performs" since it's not solo line... It's group buffing/healing line. So of course you are going to struggle with such line if you are fully responsible of killing your opponents. Also as I mentioned above people using certain skills totally defeats purpose of yellow line, since you lose your self buffs, at which point there is absolutely no reason not to play in red line. It would be similar if being in yellow line hunter and not to use traps for your advantage, you might as well play DPS line.

[Zvim666]

There are no such things as "should" and "the only way" to play any toon. The guys are probably right about Red having more dps and enough survivability then other specs, but that doesn't mean it's the only spec for solo content. Only you can decide on your playstyle. Try and see. I, for instance, have never touched red spec in over 10 years of lotro, and have never used war speach after they made 3 separate stances.

P.S. Class balance is a different story. Unfortunatelly many specs underperfom greatly after Mordor, including Yellow Minstrel line. Though again, it hardly matters for questing and sometimes even group content.

I didn't say you couldn't do it in yellow, I specifically said you could, just that it would be slower and more tedious.

Warrior-Skald gives you sole access to Call to Fate which is a big damage dealer with a relatively short cooldown, not having access to it further hurts your damage output. Stacking Anthem of War overcomes the damage bonuses that Warrior-Skald gets front-loaded but it takes time to stack them and they will drop off fairly quickly. Yellow is a force multiplier, it doesn't impact the minstrel itself that greatly but if you had another tactical damage dealer there would be a slight improvement, if you had two additional tactical damage dealers then the difference would be noticeable and with three or more the difference would be significant.

The point of people experienced with the class answering people who are relatively new to the class when they ask for advice is to give them good and accurate information. Encouraging someone to use yellow in a solo questing environment is bad advice and you know it no matter how much you want yellow to be better than it is. Telling someone who asks for advice to accumulate years of experience in all sorts of environments is worse than not answering the thread at all.

If you haven't tried red spec in 10 years, you probably don't have a lot to offer the OP. That is not having a go at you, but he has requested the benefit of players with relevant experience playing the class and thus experiencing the intimate differences between the three specs. Sure, my advice to everyone is experiment with everything at your disposal, but that isn't helping someone who wants to take the path of least resistance.

[Humanifesto]

Great replies. Really. Yes, I was asking for the "hard facts", so to speak, from players with experience; the advice was helpful and convincing about the solo disadvantages of playing yellow after a certain level. So, thanks for that. And thanks for the acknowledgements about playing a line just because, for some reason, it is enjoyable. Up to a point. Thanks again.