Rise of Isengard: Minstrel Dev Diary Feedback

[Fenaril]

This was my best and highest char, BTW I am a Lifer VIP, and do not like the Nerf of my Minstrel. Now i have to put my best char on the shelf till they get there heads out and fix it.

Nerfed?

You're going to have to go into a bit more detail than that (whether it's because you want sympathy from others or to give the Devs some clue as to where you are coming from).

Looking over all the different Traits and Skills my Mini has available, I feel like a God now in WS, I really want to give the Melee/Herald's Strke-based Mini a try, and in Melody I have a very clean and manageable rotation that allows me to do what I want to most - Heal.

It definitely takes a bit of time to get into the groove of the new mechanics, but there's a lot of power and flexibility there if you look for it.

[KitsuneGirl]

Originally Posted by NPDefender
This was my best and highest char, BTW I am a Lifer VIP, and do not like the Nerf of my Minstrel. Now i have to put my best char on the shelf till they get there heads out and fix it.

Things are different! Food costs more! Girls wear pants! Why is my food mushy!? GET OFF MY LAWN YOU DAMN GOBLINS!!!

Grandpa! Those are Hobbits, not goblins... you forgot your glasses again.

BAH HUMBUG!! Wheres my prune juice?!


Seriously though, Ive been waiting to level up Ginny because I wanted to play with the new mechanics.

[dreamshadows11]

While this may be a knee-jerk reaction, and my views may change after more extensive playing, I'm finding it very hard to reconcile the changes made here. My minstrel is my main and is the only character I've levelled past 35. I fell in love with the versatility of the class the moment I started playing it, and in reality, it's the main reason I've played LotRO.

To me, a large part of that versatility has been removed in favour of making you have to choose exactly what you want to do. You can DPS *or* you can heal. One of the reasons I was excited about doing a hybrid healer class was because I've been tired of playing healing classes that are purely full-support. But now it appears that this rebuild is going that trend, which is very disheartening. Everything "fun" about the character has been removed, and the end result is that you still do less than what you did before, regardless of which "path" you choose.

I suppose, ultimately, that I resent having to entirely re-learn, re-trait, and re-build something that was not broken to begin with. I knew the limitations and liabilities of this class. I knew what it could do, how it could do it, and the most effective use of getting what I wanted done. Now? I haven't the foggiest idea what this character can do, where its limits are, much less the best way to utilize said character. And at level 43, that's a rather sad place to be in. Also, as some other posters have mentioned, I have not seen the reasoning behind the changes--just what they were and how they were implemented.

This all being said, the diary was very well written, and gave a very good, detailed idea of what was changed. Of the majority of the diaries I read, it was one of the most comprehensive.

[Boobjobber]

I totally agree with the comments regarding medium armor. Why on earth would they make that major a shift in a class? More than ANY other change to minstrels, this one pisses me off the most. I have medium armors that I shifted between based on my locale (ice resistance for forochel, etc) that now I can't equip. In addition, I'm a tailor and now any medium armor I make I can't wear. It's the whole reason I chose the explorer class for my minstrel, which is my main character. Change it back now. I'm considering dropping my VIP payments solely on account of this.

[KitsuneGirl]

Wow thats some entitlement attitude you got there. "Change it back now." O.o

It's not that big of a deal... and tailors can make light armour, so its not like you chose armourer and suddenly you cant wear heavy armour.

[Thornpaw]

While this may be a knee-jerk reaction, and my views may change after more extensive playing, I'm finding it very hard to reconcile the changes made here. My minstrel is my main and is the only character I've levelled past 35. I fell in love with the versatility of the class the moment I started playing it, and in reality, it's the main reason I've played LotRO.

To me, a large part of that versatility has been removed in favour of making you have to choose exactly what you want to do. You can DPS *or* you can heal. One of the reasons I was excited about doing a hybrid healer class was because I've been tired of playing healing classes that are purely full-support. But now it appears that this rebuild is going that trend, which is very disheartening. Everything "fun" about the character has been removed, and the end result is that you still do less than what you did before, regardless of which "path" you choose.

I suppose, ultimately, that I resent having to entirely re-learn, re-trait, and re-build something that was not broken to begin with. I knew the limitations and liabilities of this class. I knew what it could do, how it could do it, and the most effective use of getting what I wanted done. Now? I haven't the foggiest idea what this character can do, where its limits are, much less the best way to utilize said character. And at level 43, that's a rather sad place to be in. Also, as some other posters have mentioned, I have not seen the reasoning behind the changes--just what they were and how they were implemented.

This all being said, the diary was very well written, and gave a very good, detailed idea of what was changed. Of the majority of the diaries I read, it was one of the most comprehensive.

Are we playing the same class? BEFORE the class was either dps or heal. Now it's dps, dps and heal, heal. If you are main healer, you aren't in a stance. If the tank sometimes needs a top up but otherwise the group is ok without constant chainhealing, you are in harmony. If you are solo or you have dedicated healers you are in war speech. There's MORE flexibility than ever before. The thought that went into this class is incredible. It's so flexible, so incredibly flexible, because you can choose your power use, your tactical damage, or healing output and also tag anthems on and discharge them with your coda... I just don't see what video game you are playing when you say that they made minstrel rigid. It's anything but.

[Irnaetha]

I think the new minstrel is a very clever design. Kudos to the people that came up with it.

You can chose to play a Minstrel that mostly repeat-uses Bolster Courage, and this expansion has not changed much for you. You probably had to re-trait a bit, but it is easy to understand which class traits make better on the simplest way to play a minstrel.

Using War Speech is mostly the same. Slightly higher learning curve to understand the new features. The soloing minstrel shouldn't be hurting too much his first time out into the new RoI world, although ballad buffs moving to Anthems will take some getting used to.

Personally, I find that anthems specifics can mostly be ignored other than a temporary requirement to fire off the large damage Coda. The monsters die very fast.


I am beginning to see the greater depth involved in chosing which Ballad buffs I want to have operating, and how I can switch it around. Some class traits improve certain portions of these ballad buffs. The Harmony stance has some very interesting effects on the specific Anthem, and Coda. Heal in an area while doing damage in an area, at the same time !? I can see the value of that. Thanks.


For people that want to look deeper into the minstrel system of ballads, anthems, stances, and coda variations, there is a lot to learn and experiment with. The people that learn this new system should become excellent minstrels.

I am seeing new possibility with Herald Strike + Noble Cause use too. Look deeper into the class traits system and Coda-ending system and you should see some potential for "melee healing" your fellowship a lot faster than was previously possible.

[Farothhen]

Just two things:

- The changes are so GREAT! Thanks for all that - it makes so much fun.
- The german tooltips are completely wrong and most of the functions are missing. Please correct that with the next patch. I made a bug report, too.

[Doomsie]

I agree that the changes are amazing! Minstrels have more burst options while soloing in WS, but even then they can choose their buffs in a way that supports sustainability if need be also. I love my re-worked minstrel. What do you need medium armor for frost buffs now anyway when you have GENERAL resistances now lol? My kin has seen coda devs ranging from 4k-7.8k, its freaking awesome to have a finisher now! - I mean, before we tiered up only to not have an exceptionally outstanding skill to reward the efforts to buff and raise tiers. Healing and buffing is so much more streamlined now also, is wonderful.

Minis are so much more versatile, I can't believe people are saying they aren't lol.

[auximenes]

In addition, I'm a tailor and now any medium armor I make I can't wear.

Tailors also make light armour, and the stats for light armour are often better overall for a Minstrel anyways.

[Farothhen]

I don't know the benefits of medium armor compared to light armor for a minstrel, even if I did wear some medium armor until level 30.

[Thornpaw]

All the medium gear has might and agility and lacks in the way of will and fate. Furthermore most of the medium armors don't have stats like tactical critical, tactical offense. Now if they had made armor that had the armor of medium and the same stats as light, that would have been a big loss. But it wasn't worth giving up 2-8% tactical critical, etc. to get 500 additional armor and you know it.

[Aianmeiden]

I still remain nervous about the changes to Ballads/Anthems.

At the moment, my ballad buffs last for about 30 - 50 seconds, giving me abit of leeway to heal between buffs early in. And even with those durations I can't keep them up constantly in long fights since I need to A) conserve power and B) keep the party healed from the harder hits that start getting dished out.

Problem A arises in the increased cost power - which Im hoping will be recalculated once RoI goes live.

Problem B is that with a 20 second (from what I've heard, shared) cooldown, no tier 3 ballads to pop off quickly [now I have to hit 3 ballads then do an anthem for any group buffs - which will only last 10 seconds anyway], my capability to fulfill my secondary role of buffing the party seems to be going down the toilet. - I'm curious as to how this improves the minstrel exactly.

Also - is it true that base healing has been reduced? Or was that just a test issue in the RoI beta?

I too am concerned with the overall buffing of my Kin-mates. You have given us 5 of 6 useless buttons as there is no way we can use more than one in normal battle situations. I've been playing Minstrel every day for the last couple of months to get him to lvl 65 for this new upgrade and I have to tell you I am very disappointed with the new Minstel skills.

Before I had 4 crys, 3x tier 1 ballads and 3x tier 2 ballads to roll through for my damage and 6 basic buffs that kept me happy in war speech mode. Now I still have the 4 crys, but 6 damage skills has been cut to 4 and the buff quality on my party is ####. Now once I have hit my 4 damage tunes and am lucky enough to hit the three ballads effectively, I get a choice of one skill out of 6 to buff the party with on the top of my skill pattern with a cool down on these 6 skills so long the rest become ineffective because I don't have the time to roll through a second time.

I am definitely not impressed and will seriously consider ever playing the Minstrel again and with that in mind, don't see any reason to continue playing this MMO as that was the only toon I was absolutely in love with. My last 5 levels to 65 do not seem worth it any more

[Aianmeiden]

The changes to the Minstrel class has completely changed my outlook on the direction I wanted to take my Minstrel. With the new changes you should have taken away the Class Trait sets of Warrior Skald and Protector of Song and thrown them in the bin. You have taken away all the attack skills of the original by half and then followed this up with giving us a choice from 6 skills making the others obsolete while they cool down. Meanwhile, unless you are in a major battle, the skills that you did not choose to use are never used. I now have a task bar of absolute #### that I can't use. I thought the idea was to give us skills we could use. Choosing one buff out of 7 is ridiculous.

Before the upgrade, we could roll through 4 cries, 3x tier 1 and 3x tier 2 for an excellent row of buffs while giving assistance with the damage. In a group situation we could roll through the 3x tier 3 skills and then have the option of one in 4 Anthems giving either low threat, damage or buffs. After running through the tier 2 ballads, the soloist could just roll through the first 2 tiers again to maintain good overall damage and, more times than not, a victory.

Now, we still have the first 4 cries with the Cry of the Valar added and then the 3 ballads, Minor, Perfect and Major. Let's hope they all stick because you get jack #### after that if they don't. This is when we get a choice of one skill out of 7 and then have to wait for another 4 rolls through the ballads picking up the cries as they become available before we can have another choice of one from the 7 useless skills.

The Minstrel is now forced to stand up the back and be a zombie spamming heals instead of getting well and trully involved in the fun of the battle. I am now making a huge decision whether to continue on the LotRO journey or not as I am a 24/7 Minstrel operator and you have taken the greatest joy of this game from me. The last 3 months spent in racing this toon through to level 60 trying to hit 65 for the upgrade to Isengard has now become the biggest disappointment. I agree whole-heartedly with a previous forum poster, "WHY FIX THAT WHICH IS NOT BROKEN"

[Orion]

The changes to the Minstrel class has completely changed my outlook on the direction I wanted to take my Minstrel. With the new changes you should have taken away the Class Trait sets of Warrior Skald and Protector of Song and thrown them in the bin. You have taken away all the attack skills of the original by half and then followed this up with giving us a choice from 6 skills making the others obsolete while they cool down. Meanwhile, unless you are in a major battle, the skills that you did not choose to use are never used. I now have a task bar of absolute #### that I can't use. I thought the idea was to give us skills we could use. Choosing one buff out of 7 is ridiculous.

Before the upgrade, we could roll through 4 cries, 3x tier 1 and 3x tier 2 for an excellent row of buffs while giving assistance with the damage. In a group situation we could roll through the 3x tier 3 skills and then have the option of one in 4 Anthems giving either low threat, damage or buffs. After running through the tier 2 ballads, the soloist could just roll through the first 2 tiers again to maintain good overall damage and, more times than not, a victory.

Now, we still have the first 4 cries with the Cry of the Valar added and then the 3 ballads, Minor, Perfect and Major. Let's hope they all stick because you get jack #### after that if they don't. This is when we get a choice of one skill out of 7 and then have to wait for another 4 rolls through the ballads picking up the cries as they become available before we can have another choice of one from the 7 useless skills.

The Minstrel is now forced to stand up the back and be a zombie spamming heals instead of getting well and trully involved in the fun of the battle. I am now making a huge decision whether to continue on the LotRO journey or not as I am a 24/7 Minstrel operator and you have taken the greatest joy of this game from me. The last 3 months spent in racing this toon through to level 60 trying to hit 65 for the upgrade to Isengard has now become the biggest disappointment. I agree whole-heartedly with a previous forum poster, "WHY FIX THAT WHICH IS NOT BROKEN"

If you are a minstrel who enjoys being in the thick of things, supporting your fellow members through buffs, damage and healing, then I suggest that you look at the Protector of Song line. With the cooldown on ballads being dropped as significantly, the increased number of cries available, and the power of the Protector of Song trait line - you will have the ability to be on the front line of battle - buffing with your anthems, healing with your melee ability and dealing damage with ballads, cries and coda. There is no reason to sit back and watch.

[Mostovskiy]

If you are a minstrel who enjoys being in the thick of things, supporting your fellow members through buffs, damage and healing, then I suggest that you look at the Protector of Song line. With the cool down on ballads being dropped as significantly, the increased number of cries available, and the power of the Protector of Song trait line - you will have the ability to be on the front line of battle - buffing with your anthems, healing with your melee ability and dealing damage with ballads, cries and coda. There is no reason to sit back and watch.

I can agree with Orion in some aspects of these changes. Whilst most people generally believe healing to be lessened, I find this to be false. Because anthems are open the entire time the three ballads are up, I am capable of healing my fellows, maintaining anthems in intervals, switching ballads as needing for power/healing output/etc, and using my HoTs to advantage in group healing situations. I find the minstrel to have a much more active role in buffing/healing at the same time, rather than just straight forward healing and going through a buff rotation that would eventually go away, as with Pre-RoI. I find slight power problems in certain situations, however if you're healing and in a group setting, your group should be capable of getting you power.

The only department I find my minstrel to be lacking thus far would be DPS. Pre-RoI I was something reckoned with when my attacks would crit, especially in a row, now it just seems like it takes several dps rotations to bring something down. I have yet to acquire 75 jewellery and partial raid set (Wish it had finesse :P), or complete my 75 legendaries, so I can't fully complain on that alone.

The changes in themselves are different, but the minstrel is still by far very effective in group situations. I for one appreciate the changes. Wish my gift of the hammerhand was twice as effective though, would be a nice panic skill when someone is dying. Thank you for your work Orion.

[Offskeys]

The only department I find my minstrel to be lacking thus far would be DPS. Pre-RoI I was something reckoned with when my attacks would crit, especially in a row, now it just seems like it takes several dps rotations to bring something down. I have yet to acquire 75 jewellery and partial raid set (Wish it had finesse :P), or complete my 75 legendaries, so I can't fully complain on that alone.

Lacking in DPS? Really? I assume you're in War-speech of course but are you using your Coda of Fury properly? That skill can be used once every 5 seconds or so (the amount of time taken to put up 3 ballads) and with my level 60 minstrel it deals around 800-1000 damage on a non-critical (and that's without using Anthem of War to increase the damage/crit chance, and not even using any Warrior-skald traits). Sure, my Minstrel isn't level-capped but I can't imagine how anyone can think that Minstrel DPS has not been drastically boosted based on what I've seen.

I'm loving the Minstrel changes so far, and intend to use mine a lot before the surely inevitable DPS nerf comes. Great work Orion!

[Belegwe]

Agree with Orion on the whole Protector of Song line. If I was grouping more I would likely be in that line. It is particularly useful with the new changes, so we have three strong lines, now more than ever.

In War Speech, DPS is different and it is taking some adjusting to. In some ways I feel squishier... could be the shadow damage... but then again, I can take on elites better than before. I love the trait to eliminate setbacks on bolster courage. On the other hand, I often find I am taking about a full BC worth of damage while I am using BC, especially with the longer induction they gave us recently. Love the anthem effects on Codas though... still trying to see how best to utilize the different capabilities. All in all, I like it.

[Offskeys]

In War Speech, DPS is different and it is taking some adjusting to. In some ways I feel squishier...

I find it massively less squishy than before thanks to full strength self-healing in War-speech.

[SatinKnight]

Is it just the way I have my screen setup of does anyone else have a difficult time seeing what ballads they have up? Stuck down there with the rest of the buffs I find it difficult to see them. Also they aren't always in the same place depending on what other buffs you have up. I find the current ballad buff display to be pretty useless.

[Perk--]

If you are a minstrel who enjoys being in the thick of things, supporting your fellow members through buffs, damage and healing, then I suggest that you look at the Protector of Song line. With the cooldown on ballads being dropped as significantly, the increased number of cries available, and the power of the Protector of Song trait line - you will have the ability to be on the front line of battle - buffing with your anthems, healing with your melee ability and dealing damage with ballads, cries and coda. There is no reason to sit back and watch.

You're forgetting that we used to be able to buff WITHOUT having to compromise healing. I could raid fully blue traited, and assuming I had time, could keep ALL the buffs up. This was a real boon during ebbs in combat when I didn't need to spam heal, but I also didn't want to burn my power bar up by nuking.

Now, if I want to keep all the buffs going, I HAVE to trait four yellows. Instead of buffing being time dependent and something I could switch to during combat, you've forced me to head back to a bard any time I want to change rolls. We've been used to the bipolar nature of a mini - either raid capable heal/buff, or solo DPS and that was fine, but now you've made us TRIpolar, and it's getting a little fidgety.

I honestly think you should take another look at the Harmony stance. Instead of having the anthem duration and CD reductions in the Yellow line, they should be inherent to running in Harmony. At the same time, there should be a reduction in outgoing healing (say 25%) while in Harmony, and the existing Anthem +duration traits should be changed to increase buff magnitude. This would allow us to employ all of the anthem buffs in the field simply by changing stance, and not require us to head back to a bard six times a night. More to the point, it would allow us to compromise better for three and six man instances.

[Ingaras]

Whilst most people generally believe healing to be lessened, I find this to be false. Because anthems are open the entire time the three ballads are up, I am capable of healing my fellows, maintaining anthems in intervals, switching ballads as needing for power/healing output/etc, and using my HoTs to advantage in group healing situations.

Either our healing is lessened (because of the baseline healing reduction that requires 4-blue to be offset), or you're not able to maintain the anthems (you practically need 4 yellow to have a comparable amount of buffs up as before ROI)... that's the new trade-off with these changes in our traiting that we didn't use to have. Before ROI the trade-off was simply made by the time it took to execute the skills (the tier-up of the ballads).

You're forgetting that we used to be able to buff WITHOUT having to compromise healing. I could raid fully blue traited, and assuming I had time, could keep ALL the buffs up. This was a real boon during ebbs in combat when I didn't need to spam heal, but I also didn't want to burn my power bar up by nuking.
... and more good stuff ...

Fully agree!

[Melanuial]

I think i'm going to have to jump on the band wagon of not being very happy with these changes. My main is my minstrel and she's the only one I got to lvl 65 before RoI. There are several things either I do not understand or simply am not happy with and would like tips and such. The minstrel was my most favorite class because we were so versital and because of that it made the class fun and complicated. Now I feel like I either have to heal, buff, or dps and to do either one well I have to trait green, yellow, or red line. I've always traited all my greenline traits I have available with two yellow and rarely went to redline to dps or anything. There was no point in spending the silver to re-trait every time. I am also one of my kin's primary healers so my main concern is healing. All i see in the forums or in searches are about DPS minstrels. I could care less how much damage I do. Minstrels, as I've seen it, ARE the healers. RK are great but minstrels were the healing class - which was why i rolled one. I like being the healer. Love it, actually. Now...i dunno. I really don't want to play anything else.

My first concern is power, morale and stats. I've tried switching out my current jewellery for the drops and found that I lost about 1k of my morale and power. For what? Or is that what the aim for the class was meant to be? Bigger attacks, bigger heals (at a much higher power cost that i can't keep up with with power pots) in sacrifice to morale? What about the raid where there is a 5k hit? Healer dies and, well, things usually don't go good from there. I liked my nearly 5k morale and 6k power. I felt invicable as a healer and fighting solo. Perhaps someone has some tips as to what I should be doing in terms of stats now?

My other concern is power while healing. I ran a Carn Dum run and fought the octopus (sorry can't remember/spell the name) and spent most of my time standing there unable to do a single thing. I can't keep up with the demands of healing if I'm running out of power. It's very, very frustrating after finally getting to the point where I would rarley run out of power in large boss fights. Now I was useless as a healer in 2 minutes. Is there something I'm doing wrong here? Of course, I need to get my hands on a different instrument (was using flute, haven't got the instrument I want yet). Does a different instrument make that much of a difference?

I also agree with some people that there isn't enough to do. I spend sooooo much time waiting for cooldown timers. And the new ballad buffs are nice but what do you do when you have everything on CD and don't want to change your buffs? Stand there looking like you're afk? THe reason i loved my mini is gone...i'm no longer able to constantly do anything. I have to wait...wait for cool downs. Im finding this class boring now.

I miss my old mini. I don't feel these changes were needed. I feel like these changes were made to satisfy the DPS minis...you want DPS? Roll an RK. Mini's should have been given the power to be the best healers ever, not DPS gods. Give us enough DPS to stay alive in a fight solo, but give us healing powers and buffs. Yes, I was annoyed with Tierd ballads but not enough to remove them.

Perhaps i'll figure something else out and this class will improve once I get her to lvl 75 but as it stands right now, It's going to be a long, frustrating ride. I can only pray that updates will fix the minstrel otherwise I may have to go back to my old past-times and play only to keep in touch with the cool people I've met in this game. I don't want to sound vindictive but after several days of trying this, I'm still not happy. I'm confused about what I should be doing to reach the same healing/versatile potential I had before RoI. Perhaps 66 is to early to complain but I was just falling in love with Raids and big instances for the challenge, running instances and skirms as a kick ### healer who knew what she was doing and loved it. RK don't like healing - that's the minstrel's job. Now I can't even do that without loosing all my power and looking like a noob.

If anyone has any suggestions, tips, or anything that will make me still want to play this character (much less the game), please let me know. I have 6 other toons but I don't want to play them because they never seemed to be as much fun as the mini.

[Thornpaw]

It's like people aren't even trying to play the minstrel and complaining about the changes. Your ballads let you lower your power usage and increase your healing output. You have an anthem that returns a tremendous amount of power to you, insuring that you never run out. You don't even need to heal that often because of your healing ballad and your heal attuned coda. I had a guard that I put the parry buff on, put Soliloquy on, and just stood near him and used my healing ballad and occasionally coda'd when he got low. No Bolster Courage. What's a power issue? If your power somehow gets low you use your anthem of composure and execute your coda. Done deal.

As far as your morale and power pool goes, do you really think at level 66 you have the most ideal equipment? The whole point of lifting the stat cap was to give people the chance to customize their experience. If you like having more morale DON'T WEAR ALL THE WILL/FATE ONLY GEAR. Equip some morale rings. Instead of there being one "topshelf" set of gear you have to pick and choose and decide what you will be. Yes if you pick the gear that has 100 will on it and nothing else you will have 8000 power and be an untappable healing machine. You will also have no morale. Make better equipment choices.

[stoffi]

Minstrels seem completely unbeatable in pvp, I hope this will get some attention soon.