First night on Bullroarer

[Caelven]

First off, this is not at all like the first night after Book 10, playing with Warspeech, the beginning of the Minstrel Year Of Pwnage.

Yes, some fights went better, Uruks in Mirkwood for instance went a little quicker. But Ubernez is totally not what this overhaul is about.

What was really different was the sense of cohesiveness I got while playing the class. I stopped and redid my quickslots, because it really felt like that if I didn't have something on there I was missing something good. (I had missed that there is a new Anthem at 28, so make sure to buy that.)

It took a while to find my maps, but I eventually made it to Mirkwood, where I had been doing dailies trying to catch up my main Minst (I had switched to OP Guard since Mirkwood, he had nearly become my main).

A couple of days ago I had solo'd General Tímurzgrat (47.5k)and sure enough my Minst on Bullroarer had the quest, so I went to go try again to get an overall feel for damage/power consumption with the new Minstrel. (He is Protector of Song build, in Golden Host Medium Armour)

Now this was my third time soloing him (the first time was really two times. Right at the end of the first attempt a family member had come in the room intent on having an engaging conversation, seeing his opening, Timmy hit me with Falcon Punch!, it was Super Effective!) so I had a good sense of how the fight would go, which can't be discounted at a factor in it going a little better this time.

On the whole, the fight was about the same, still had to watch power closely, still had to auto-attack sometimes, however there was one notable difference, I critted for over 2000 with Raise the Spirit. :) Now, I do have a maxed legacy for RtS healing, but still, it did make it so I was bouncing around the middle to upper half of my Morale bar rather than the bottom. Overall, I felt much more resilient.

I am actually excited about trying out Keeper of Resolve on my Elf Minst, but as I am something like 5/1000 on my Power of Song trait, I doubt I will really get a feel for the build.
I also plan to try out Skald, I thought the build really needed help with healing toward the end of fights, I want to see how that goes tonight.


Anyway, just wanted to post a general sense of how the new build felt while soloing, for anyone who might not be able to read that out of the number-crunching reports.

I have to get to work, I will post more later.


Caelevin, Elf Minstrel 65, Landroval
Caelavin Couterier, Man Minstrel 65, Landroval
Petya Rostov, Hobbit Minstrel 28, Vilya
Aglet Fraylace, Hobbit Minstrel 17, Landroval

[Cloudie-wan]

I will add my impressions here, too.

After going out to the Ettenmoors and riding around hoping to find a creep (no joy), I retraited into healyness and went off to go heal stuff. Six-manning the new raid did not go very well (although we go surprisingly far into the yellow and red wings), so we went off to try the two new 6-man instances.

The Forochel instance isn't finished yet, so we only got to fight the first boss, but dang was it fun. Also, I found healing to be a bit more dynamic now. I've always tiered up ballads, but seeing how long I could keep up the +15% outgoing healing modifier by ballading between heals was interesting. I also found that massive crit heals can now happen under certain circumstances. Get up that +15% outgoing healing buff, have someone standing inside the +10% incoming healing Symphony of the Hopeful Heart circle, and have the Captain Shield-brother buff for incoming healing on a target and DANG. I believe, that should all the stars align, you will be seeing some Bolster Courages that top the 5k mark from a fully buffed Minstrel on a fully buffed Fellowship member.

HOWEVER, there are some new troubles. The new 6-man instance in the Trollshaws, for example, has some NASTY diseases. And by nasty, I mean that when the disease is applied it gives you +100% power costs... and when it is removed, it takes ALL of your power. So, you make a choice (or run with a LM, which I didn't have last night, but you can complete the instance without one). There are also some entirely FUNKY new threat mechanics. There are mobs that put an eyeball on you that gives you +300% threat from healing (and damage, and taunts) and that is just icky when a room full of wights turn on you and smack you down. There also seems to be a, hmmmm, some weird issue with threat beyond the fight mechanics. At one point, I used Song of Soothing and THE ENTIRE ROOM DOGPILED ME. For the first time in a loooooooooooong time I am actually thinking of using Lute Strings or even, GASP, a threat-reducing instrument (currently, I only have -threat from healing on my weapon, not the trait or an instrument).

Having Call to the Fellowship on a much shorter cooldown was amazing. Having Song of Aid on a much shorter cooldown was also amazing.

One thing: As a Minstrel, you will have to teach your Fellowship how to utilize all of our new tricks. For my group, I had them experiment with the radius and effect duration of Symphony of the Hopeful Heart while out of combat, explaining all that it did, and I still don't feel that they entirely got it. I also needed to explain to them all the effects of Call to Greatness and Song of Aid... well, to some of them, anyway, certain classes already know and request the effects. My Burglar, however, once he heard what Call to Greatness would do for him, was demanding it constantly. LOL I'm going to have to get the new raid set just for the set-bonus of group-wide Call to Greatness.

Overall, I enjoyed these changes a lot. (Oh, and if you play a Hunter, too, you will be ecstatic over the changes, it was really quite awesome. I was less thrilled on my Burglar.)

[Gillianrial]

Thank you both for your feedback so far. I really have no time to mess around in Bullroarer, but I am very interested in the healing "feel" more than the damage one. I'm also interested in hearing about changes with regard to PvP especially!

[Dars183]

Thanks to the both of you please keep it coming and all I can say is I'm looking forward to the new learning curve (and of course explaining it to others.)

Cheers

[Caelven]

Okay, back home...

Thanks for joining me Cloudie-wan!


Anthem of Versatility...one slot on the quickbar with two diferent effects based on Warspeech is a step down a new road of Integrated Minstreling. It isn't just bettered or lessened by Warspeech, it has totally different effects. +Outgoing healing - Inductions / + Call damage. It isn't just that it's nice not to have greyed out skills on a toolbar that is already crammed full, it's that it supports whatever role we are chosing to play at that point in the fight. Meh, it's better than that, I just hit a vein of uninspiring after-work sort of words.

* The Deepway! (2.5.5) or "By the time you finish reading these lengthy instructions you will be dead!"

The above pretty much says it all. Except to add that Deepway has always been a tough fight and it is a little disappointing to have it become a pretty straight foreward, by-the-numbers fight. Okay except for the aubergine speed-reading requirement, but the point is, I wanted it to kick my butt, just maybe not with a story problem.


Tune in as our hero says: "Hi, welcome to the group, as you can see by my hands, I am in Warspeech. Why yes, this is an open invitation to let me know, at length and in detail, your opinion about how I should better play my class to maximize your own game experience to the direct detriment of my own!"

I believe that Bersi Skáldtorfuson would agree.


Tooltip improvements might not seem like a huge class improvement, but they are. For the first year I thought that Silver Tongue made my songs recover faster. Meaning, you know, all those songs I was singing, being a Minstrel and all. Now it's probably common knowlege how wrong that is, that it isn't songs that recover faster, no no no, it's Songs . The new interface that organizes them helps of course, but I haunted the forums at the time and I don't recall that anyone ever posted, certainly not a dev, that Songs meant Song of the Dead, Song of Aid, etc. Seem obvious? Well it wasn't to me, and I am not as dumb as I constantly act.

The new tooltips are awesome with two exceptions. Silver Tongue still could mention that Songs are a class of skill, (allowing me to imagine I am not the only one to ever make the mistake, although these days it is harder to make) and Call to Greatness could really use some back story and character development, at 75 pages, it's just a little bare-bones. Okay seriously, Call to Greatness is the most awesome tooltip ever. :)




I thought I would try out Symphony of the Hopeful heart with my Skald (the Elf ) and this leads me to the only sour note (glowey hands aside) I have hit, and, no surprise, it is not a development of the new design, but a scarred historical relic.

I don't buy the -80% healing hit to full skald. It's just too punitive, it really strikes me as based on something other than than a consideration of balanced play. If I pull a Marauder in Gathburz, and get an add, I have to bail. Symphony of the Hopeful Heart helped not a wit that I could tell.
It's not like the DPS of the full Skald line allows me to burn down the Marauder so fast I can handle the add. I can't handle it, I can't heal through it, I have to bail. That isn't the case on my Protector WS Minst, my Berserker Fervour Champ, my Keen Blade OP Guard and certainly not my Solitary Thunder RK. Full Skald line isn't in the same league.


Caelevin, Elf Minstrel 65, Landroval
Caelavin Couterier, Man Minstrel 65, Landroval
Petya Rostov, Hobbit Minstrel 28, Vilya
Aglet Fraylace, Hobbit Minstrel 17, Landroval

[PhantomPunkk]

First thing I did on live was turn on WS and just look at my hands. Bliss and gorgeousness and utter jubilation. I calmed a little after the first 20 seconds. I think they made our glowy hands less glowy but all the same I retain some of the enthusiasm.

I got a FA and prioritized getting the tact dmg ballad maxed out, sadly my new FA didn't have enough points or the entirely desirable tiers to really test our DPS but I was getting 3k hits at least on Call of the 2nd Age if that is any indication of our DPS. I can't wait to start blowing stuff up for keeps.

Also, I hate our new Anthem. Its short duration coupled with the fact we can't do it on the move ensures I won't use it much outside of trying to cast Rally/HH/FH very quickly.

[Caelven]

First thing I did on live was turn on WS and just look at my hands. Bliss and gorgeousness and utter jubilation. I calmed a little after the first 20 seconds. I think they made our glowy hands less glowy but all the same I retain some of the enthusiasm.

:) I actually am very happy for those folks that like glowy hands and got them back, your persistance paid off!

There are so many things that can be done with command line switches that I bet there are strong rules against heading down that path, that everything has to come through the GUI, which is why I abandoned all hope at ever being free of sparkle-tastic mitts again.

Luckily, there is way to much to be happy about with this overhaul to notice it eating at my soul...

:)

Cael

[fenwe]

It's funny. I haven't logged into my Minstrel, except to craft, in ages. Calimwulf is sitting at ~61 and collecting dust. I just installed the Bullroarer version and I copied him over just to try him out and see if I can start playing him again. The one suggestion that I still have is that they give us a class trait that turns the tail end of dropping out of WS into the ability to heal ourselves without penalty instead of damage, though I applaud the new damage abillity in the previous 'dead' time. I can understand why healing someone else might be considered unbalanced, sort of, but not being able to heal ourselves is just dumb. It is one of the reasons I have nearly made my Warden my new main. He feels very similar to the 'old' minstrel in some odd ways. Thanks for the report. I'll be trying Calimwulf out tomorrow after some sleep.

And yay to glowy hands

[fenwe]

OK, something has changed, and for the better. I'm a 'classicly' trained war skald What that means is that I use a very precise rotation. I also run with WarSkald capstone.

Timeless Echoes, Resonance, Call to Orome, Steel, Vigor, PC, Stout or Swiftness, BoW, Anthem of the Valar, then the two Calls. On my next rotation I do the same, but drop the calls and anthems and do Hammer/Noble. I now subsitute BoW for BoF, and I'm getting +5% tactical damage, not much I agree, but now that AotV strips corruptions, it makes things much more straigt forward. You aren't really doing any more damage per se, but they aren't doing extra damage to you and if their corruption gave them +armor.. You get the picture. I need to take a much closer look at what class traits I actually have traited. That one 'simple' change to Anthem of the Valar definitely makes a difference depending on the critter(s). There is something else going on though because even though I am not getting any significantly higher damage numbers, stuff is dropping quicker. I wonder if resist rates dropped?

Oh, and the glowy hands are really cool, thanks much Devs! They do seem to be dimmer, but they have a much better animated glow effect.

Still need to get the new anthem, find a group to heal for and get to sleep. Not neccesarily in that order

[PhantomPunkk]

I actually am very happy for those folks that like glowy hands and got them back, your persistance paid off!

There are so many things that can be done with command line switches that I bet there are strong rules against heading down that path, that everything has to come through the GUI, which is why I abandoned all hope at ever being free of sparkle-tastic mitts again.

Luckily, there is way to much to be happy about with this overhaul to notice it eating at my soul...



Cael

Would it console you to learn the new HH causes peoples hands to glowy orangy or blue?

[bastiat1]

I was only on for a couple minutes but I wanted to look at the new ballad tiering system. I thought it was supposed to be each Ballad is a +1 buff and each Heal is a -1 buff, with a max buff of 3 and a min buff of 0. Unfortunately, the Buff also has time decay that seems very fast. I was just testing with Songs in 21st, which are obviously slower, but I could only get one heal off while at tier 3 before decay was well onset. It doesnt seem much different at all to the current system. Anyone else seeing the same thing or am I not looking at the right thing?

[Gillianrial]

I was only on for a couple minutes but I wanted to look at the new ballad tiering system. I thought it was supposed to be each Ballad is a +1 buff and each Heal is a -1 buff, with a max buff of 3 and a min buff of 0. Unfortunately, the Buff also has time decay that seems very fast. I was just testing with Songs in 21st, which are obviously slower, but I could only get one heal off while at tier 3 before decay was well onset. It doesnt seem much different at all to the current system. Anyone else seeing the same thing or am I not looking at the right thing?

Yes, same thing here. In a pinch it's still not worth tiering. Just spam BC *yawns*

[Cloudie-wan]

I dunno, I liked the new outgoing healing buff system, especially since it doesn't go away when you use an anthem.

[Raskolnikov]

I was only on for a couple minutes but I wanted to look at the new ballad tiering system. I thought it was supposed to be each Ballad is a +1 buff and each Heal is a -1 buff, with a max buff of 3 and a min buff of 0. Unfortunately, the Buff also has time decay that seems very fast. I was just testing with Songs in 21st, which are obviously slower, but I could only get one heal off while at tier 3 before decay was well onset. It doesnt seem much different at all to the current system. Anyone else seeing the same thing or am I not looking at the right thing?

The buff quickly expires when you're not in combat.

[Caelven]

Just a note on the new armour recipes for lower levels. Each recipe comes as Multi-output as Bree, Dwarf or Elf. The Elf options give you very Minstrel friendly choices.

My 28 Minstrel has 1610 Tactical Damage and 470 Tactical crit (w/o Tales). And that is the Medium Armour set.

These are VERY Minstrel-friendly crafting options.

Remember, there is no spelling W00TY! without "TY"....


Cael

[fallat]

The buff quickly expires when you're not in combat.

*** PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS ***

I was bummed out when testing this out of combat as well. Picked a fight with a shrew and tiered up again while in combat (using songs and tier 3 ballads so I wouldn't kill the little fellow and could drag out the combat as long as I like) and the buff DOES NOT DEGRADE OVER TIME as long as you are in combat!!! You can charge it up and sit around conserving power if you like until you need to pop a heal. I was most pleased by this and I hope it makes in into live like this.

[bastiat1]

The buff quickly expires when you're not in combat.

Glad to know- my disappointment is extinguished. This new system is gonna be sweet. I still need to get used to the changes- I dropped AoValar in Stoneheight and borked hardmode :-)

[fenwe]

Glad to know- my disappointment is extinguished. This new system is gonna be sweet. I still need to get used to the changes- I dropped AoValar in Stoneheight and borked hardmode :-)

I'm not sure how much I will use it. I managed to steal aggro twice from a guard on one of the off mobs from a call crit after I had been doing some serious healing. In both cases I was going to do a Song of Soothing and did the call instead and here comes hungry mister mob. I also almost lost a couple of fellowship members because I was looking to see if I had crit instead of paying attention to morale bars.

Resists definitely seem to be down as compared to Live. It explains why everything seems to be dropping quicker. I ran test against same level mobs. I hope they stay the way they are on Bullroarer, but since they don't seem to be the same then tough to compare the fight experience directly.

I would also really like for them to make the Cracktooth fight soloable. My KIN disentegrated and I haven't been able to find a group willing to do it yet and it has been a while. They are going to have to do it sooner or later as levels increase, the same way they are allowing the books to be solo'ed, I hope.

The healing buff works just fine, though once again it is all about how bad the PUG is. If the PUG is OK, then you can tier up, if not then you are so busy dropping BCs that you can't do much of anything.

I really like the new tool tips and the way that the ballads work is wonderful. One thing I haven't been able to tell is if the new anthem is affected by the trait that lengthens anthem affects. Has anyone noticed if it works or not?

I was being yelled at to play different ballads by different group members, once I explained the way they work now. The damage increase is minimal though and since the majority of folks have tended to be melee then I stuck to BoW.
I wish there was a way we could tell if the resist part actually did anything, without some positive acknowledgement there just doesn't seem a way to measure if spending the power to play them is worth it. Any one have an ideas how to test that?

[Xceptiona1N00b]

When are these updates comming to the live servers?

[Gillianrial]

The buff quickly expires when you're not in combat.

TY for the clarification. That explains it!