Thread: Feedback: New Player Tips for Minstrels

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Minstrel class, what would it be?

Once you get the concept of Ballad Spam and kiting down, nothing can stop you while soloing.

Using Ballad of Resonance before Echoes of Battle will increase your damage over time (these two skills are a great way to start almost any battle).

If you are in a long battle and nobody in your group is below 80% health, it may be better to save your power than to top off their morale.

Select "Enable Skill Target Forwarding" and "Show the Vitals of your Selection's Target" in the combat section of your options menu. The former will allow you to heal your ally and damage your enemy without changing targets. Showing vitals of selection's target will show you which target the enemy mobs have selected (so if you are being attacked you can inform the group which mob they need to get off of you--always look out for those archers).

If you're in trouble, learn to kite by strifing sideways or running backwards while still dealing out your damage skills. Using Cry of the Valar combined with an Unrelenting-traited Piercing Cry can keep the mob off of you while you drop warspeech and heal.

I'm sure someone will say this soon, but here goes:

Prioritize healing in groups. The tank (and yourself) always comes first. Don't forget that F1 is your friend- as soon as you see your bar dip, you have to switch and take care of yourself.. then figure out what's hitting you and either Fear it or get someone on it. Hunters and champs can probably tell you- it stings a little less to die, if the group doesn't wipe, and there's a healer alive to rez them. But try to heal everyone, and you might wipe.

Also, under Combat Options, always turn on Enable Skill Target Forwarding and Show the Vitals of your Selection's Target. Invaluable- you can target the boss, mob, whatever, and know who is getting hit/who needs heals.

Above all, be patient. I know there are some uber-minstrels out there who are feared in the Moors and can solo anything that moves, but sometimes it's best to learn the virtue of taking on what you can handle and taking your time. Ultimately, this is a lot less frustrating than dying a lot because you're trying to be a tank/dps/aoe death machine.

Originally Posted by Elyske

Once you get the concept of Ballad Spam and kiting down, nothing can stop you while soloing.

I have a question. Could you or someone explain to me how to kite. I have a level 28 mini that I do pretty good with. I can kill level 29 elite trolls in Lone Lands and end up with about a third to a quarter of my health. Level 30 trolls I have to run from.

I hear people talking about kiting but haven't seen it explained. I tried a search of the boards but no help there. If someone has a link to something explaining it I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Ok, you basically move in a direction(obviously away from aggroing other mobs) and hit ballads, echoes of battle and piercing cry/other WS skills on the mob as you run backwards. If you need to, fear the mob(if applicable) and turn around to run 15-20 meters away and then engage again.

Will>Fate>Vitality are your best stats to focus on. Will for your power pool and outgoing healing. Fate for power regeneration. Vitality to help take hits if things get away from the tank in the group.

In many (group) situations, it is better to stand next to the Guardian and Champ rather than as far away as possible... It makes it a lot easier for the tanks to re-gain aggro on mobs that may have turned there attention to you.

Standing with the tanks also gives you the ability to remove corruptions, which can be a great help.

Be careful however, you will often need to make sure the Guardian has the mob(s) facing the other way, and that the rest of the fellowship is attacking the mob's backs. This is often because some mobs do AOE attacks - attacks that damage in an arc in front of them.

There ARE a few situations where you are better off positioned as far away from the melee combat as possible though, but you group leader will probably tell you when this situation arises.

It gets easier and faster to solo once you have Warspeech.

Prioritize healing. Tank is most important in fellows.

Don't forget to heal yourself! (I still do from time to time *headdesk*)

Don't be afraid to ask a more experienced minstrel for guidelines.

My tip for healing groups is whenever possible, at mid-higher levels, avoid the use of any expensive heals except Bolster Courage, as it's the most power efficient. Not that you shouldn't use any of the other heals, as they all are important and have their roles, but the point is that if you don't NEED to use an Inspire Fellows, or a Chord of Salvation, because those injured people are no longer taking damage, then don't, because they'll chew up your blue bar quick. You can often substitute Anthem of the Free Peoples or Song of Soliloquy or just let their natural in-combat regen take over and heal them up, and part of being power-efficient is being able to trust your group and hold back the expensive heals because you know they're going to be fine.

This doesn't really apply at lower levels where a Raise the Spirit will fill up a player's bar from near dead anyway. If so substitute Raise the Spirit for Bolster Courage. But you don't really have any other heals for the first 20 levels or so anyway. But Bolster is your bread and butter once you get it and people's morale pools start to hit double or more than the size of your RtS, and RtS becomes more of a bridging panic heal.

My tip for soloing is that if a tough-looking elite mob is alone, fearable, and reasonably levelled (yellow-orange elites, orange-red sigs, or red normals) you can likely solo it. Takes a long time if the mob is huge, or there are two of them, but for kiting there are several ways of doing it, one is being out of warspeech and putting Echoes on them and fearing them everytime is up (Echoes of Battle placed on a mob before the fear will not break the fear), Piercing Cry everytime it is not feared, and just autoattacking/self healing or kiting the monster and spamming ballads between fears. Another is being in war speech (and doing the same thing) and unloading with your war-speech skills in between, but understand that this is more power-intensive and you may have to drop WS for heals or power conservation at some point. Warspeech skills can speed things up but is most decidedly NOT power efficient in terms of damage per power point, so it's a sacrifice you'll have to make for a fight. Not to mention you don't get a warspeech skill for a few levels after actually getting warspeech. You can always warspeech up near the end of those turtling fights though. But find the combination along those lines that works for you. And make the call if you need to heal yourself out of warspeech, or if you can survive with heals while in warspeech (less possible if you trait warrior-skald, which is why I nearly never trait it outside of the Moors).

Even levelling up, you can solo yellow/orange special mobs that can be feared (like the ghost that has Idalene in the North Downs, or named orcs south of Gatson's, or various shard/flake rare signatures) and it continues all the way into endgame - you can solo a Chief Guard or Lieutenant in Fil Gashan on level, or solo the entire West and North wings in the Dungeons of Dol Guldur (but it took me several hours to do that so I didn't bother trying it with the East Wing), which involves taking on two 20k mobs at once several times. You need to understand the fear mechanic and how it pulls mobs if the fear breaks too near to another group, and thus when you HAVE to manually break the fear to save your life, and also be aware that if a feared mob wanders too far away from you, Echoes of Battle drops off. And that fear can resist, have a backup plan (kite for 30 seconds around a tree).

The best way to keep your Fellowship alive is to keep yourself alive FIRST. Don't just build for more Power and healing output, be sure to balance your stats towards survivability as well, including Morale, -incoming damage, and b/p/e. The best tanks and the best strats in the game won't save you from being one-shot by a raid mob unless you personally take responsibility for keeping yourself up. You are not a helpless healer, you do not have to scream and cry if a mob gets on you. If you build your character right, you can take a few hits while also saving your group.

To keep yourself alive, prioritize yourself for healing. You don't have to spam yourself, but always be aware of where you are at in terms of morale. If you have to spam your tanks just to keep them up in a bad situation, remember that is what Athelas Potions are for. Also remember that you have some abilities that can save you, like Lay/Lyric of the Hammerhand (or your racial traits like Eldar's Grace, Endurance of Stone, Strength of Morale). If you're going down, use things like Triumphant Spirit to save yourself, even if it will only benefit you. Sure, it sounds selfish, but if you, the HEALER, gets defeated, then everyone else will die, too.

To be a true asset for your Fellowship, you have to be alive. A defeated Minstrel is no help at all.

Don't be afraid to communicate YOUR needs. You can't do your job if there are ranged mobs shooting you or melee mobs whacking on you -- if you have developed healing aggro, let your fellowship know so they can protect you.

You may often here players say, "so and so need heals" -- yes, that happens -- but watch your prioritization: tanks, then healers, then dps classes, then support classess. Communicate that priority list, and if you have troubles, let your fellowship know.

Communication also goes the opposite direction: if you're in a big fight and you are about to pop fellowships heart -- let the group know! That gives them information that they can use (very similar to cappies saying, inharms way, last stand).

Finally, don't overlook YOUR support skills: call to greatness (in particular) is amazing. But it takes a good partner to utilize it appropriately...take some time to understand what call to greatness does for each class. And communicate it in advance when you are about to use it: example, cappies often get GREAT benefit from it (it triggers their on defeat skills) -- so I'll let that player know when i'm about to use it so they can be prepared. Song of Aid is another very very good support skill -- but it is of no good if the fellowship isn't ready for it.

If you haven't noticed my theme: communication! you are there to heal your party...so:
a. let them know what you need to effectively do your job
b. communicate when you are doing big heals
c. communicate when you need help getting things disrupting you off!

Finally -- be patient. You can't heal stupid. You'll try! thats the minis way....but don't be frustrated or concerned when it happens. a champ may die from time to time. Shrug it off, keep going, and keep spreading good cheer and hope in middle earth!

As far as soloing goes, the best strategy I've developed is this: While in WS, throw up the better echoes of battle, then use Herald's Strike and other big attacks. Next use Ballad of War and then Anthem of the Free Peoples. Finally use Noble Cause.
Now your ICMR will keep you healed (even better if you throw up SoS, too) while you spam a buffed Herald's Strike. And better yet, you're healing yourslef more with Noble Cause Helps a bunch with signatures or the pesky yellow/orange mob.

Otherwise, have fun with the class. You are needed. The group will have a harder time without you, so being pushed around is riduculous.
Also, finish your deeds early. Haha I have yet to finish the "Revive people" deed ':/

The skill of a minstrel in inversely proportional to the number of times they cast bolster courage and inspire fellows. The better minstrel you are, the less often you will use these.

Do not be a boster bot. You burn through power and draw LOTS of aggro. tier up for AOTFP. Everyone will be happier.

The 'F' keys are your friend... F1 selects yourself, then from the top of the list, F2 the second person in your fellowship list, etc.

Also, don't be afraid to ask a fellowship leader, or raid leader, to set up fellowship assists, so that you can keep a closer eye on the tanks.

And don't be afraid to yell in a group, when an FM comes up, ALL BLUE!!!

For Group healing levels 20 plus
As has been mentioned before, remember your ballads! Love your ballads! They buff, they increase healing, increase the chance for your fellows to kill faster and they tier you up to important anthems and they even damage the enemy.

Don't forget your anthems - 1 always gives icmr (anthem of free peoples) and you can trait for another (anthem of valor) to do the same. And, if you trait watcher of resolve line, your anthem of compassion can become a ballad (available much later).

Threat Reduction - this is huge and so many minstrels ignore it to their grief. We have threat reduction tools, learn them and use them. Never start a group fight with a big heal w/o either first using song of soothing (level 28 skill) or ballad/anthem of compassion (level 24 skill). And hit these every time you can. And never leave home w/o your lute strings .

As someone said earlier, communication is key. While it is your job to heal, it is the groups job to help you do that and that includes protecting you, for them not to pull a mob away from the tank, and to carry and use, wound potions, fear potions, poison potions, disease potions, etc. And tell them when they have these debuffs so they can remove them rather than lose morale. You should not be wasting your power healing a hunter who is too cheap to buy potions or too lazy to use his cure Poison skill.

For solo minstrel
Use your piercing cry over and over so you can get the trait unrelenting - huge help when soloing.
Finally - don't panic!! Panic wipes a group

So far, I've seen "Must Use Ballads!" and "Math proves BC spam best" as Notions in this thread. Both are a wash for me in the 20s and 30s, so I'm good with either (I'm a newbie, obviously). I was wondering if mayhap y'all couldn't Hold Forth on decent Virtues for a group-healing traiting. The class traits seem pretty straightforward for this (Warrior Skald is Right Out), but the virtues have been trickier to figure. Any help?

Many thanks in advance.

Don't over heal. No need to keep people at 100%. Power is your friend.

Try and learn how much damage your tank can take. This will allow you more time to heal the fellowship.

As long as you don't go Red line (trait set) in raids, Blue or yellow is YOUR choice.. most other people don't understand why you play the way you do or what benefits it has.

You will be abused, "Its your fault for the wipe" .. "HEAL ME" " HEALZ PLEASE" .. just smile and be happy.. these people are just insecure.

RK's are evil.

Watch the burgs when sparring.. traited WS can take most everyone down, but them burgs are tricksy


Most of the time you want to find a nice cosey space to heal from. Positioning IS important. Line of sight stops you getting pinged by archers, and if you are clever you can drag them to the group. If you can't get the archer off you and the group isn't helping and SOS isn't helping, ask the Hunter ,politely, to ping the archer for you....

If you get melee aggro stand on the Champs toes ( or guards) .. but watch the AOE of the mob.. most is frontal AOE .. so go as close but behind the mob that is the main focus of the group.

Roll a hobbit.. 2 x fiegn death saves lots of 10 min run backs in BG :P

Hobbits don't wear shoes btw !!

Use the bagpipes or the moors bell.. this will infuriate your fellowship

Virtue wise, I rarely change them and can't rightly remember what I'm actually using atm but...

These are what I have used overtime.

Empathy: Armour, Fate, and Fear Resist.

Honesty: Power, armour, and Fate

Idealism: Fate, Fear Resist, Will

Loyalty: Vitality, Power, and armour

Compassion: Ranged Damage reduction, Tactical reduction.

Justice: Morale and ICMR.

Valour: Morale.

Fidelity: Shadow Damage reduction, Vitality and Power.

Wisdom: Will Wound Resist

Originally Posted by WynneCat

So far, I've seen "Must Use Ballads!" and "Math proves BC spam best" as Notions in this thread. Both are a wash for me in the 20s and 30s, so I'm good with either (I'm a newbie, obviously). I was wondering if mayhap y'all couldn't Hold Forth on decent Virtues for a group-healing traiting. The class traits seem pretty straightforward for this (Warrior Skald is Right Out), but the virtues have been trickier to figure. Any help?

Many thanks in advance.

Haven't really grouped in more than a duo with my lvl 54 mini (two minis in a duo, neither needs to ever drop out of WS, we can both heal, we can both DPS. It works incredibly well!)... So I'm still traited WS line. It's not much help for you, but you can always check out Sharrael:

http://my.lotro.com/character/elendilmir/sharrael/

This is more of a healer tip in general than a minstrel tip. Invariably, when a new healer gets a MoB's aggro he or she runs away. Never, ever run away from the tank. If you pick up aggro and a MoB is beating on you, run to the tank so he or she can pull the MoB off you.

If you think about it, isn't it dumb to run away from the one thing that can save you?

I only have a lvl 15 mini, and I mostly just use him as my farmer/cook for my toons, but speaking as a warden I do have an important tip for minis:

If your warden asks you to stop healing him, he means it.

When wardens dip below 50% morale we can bet back about 1,200 power in a few seconds. This can help with a wardens power issues immensely and will let the LM focus on other things, namely you and the enemy. There are times when this just isnt feasable, and if thats the case say so. Many wardens (and gaurds/champs for that matter) have a highly inflated sense of their own survivability and of your ability to save their butts. If thats the case say so. However understand that Wardens ARENT kidding when we ask you to let our health drop.

And speaking as a general tank now, I would like to say this: Let the hunter/champ die if they pull aggro again.

Learn your key mapping:
Selection is the key: fellow members, assist, previous attacker

Previous attacker is very useful if combined with alias for /point
That way you can tell the tank who is attacking you and that you have them targeted.

To create and use alias:
/alias add ;<name> /point
/alias shortcut ;<name> <number in your quick slot bars> (you can then treat it like normal skill)

Another useful alias:
/alias add ;<name> /follow

select the tank and then just follow him (watch out for holes in the floor or bridges though)

This should be required reading for anyone who wants to properly fulfill their role in a group:
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/A_Bas...or_Fellowships

tanks are a minstrel's friend, it's true - but when forming groups, a reasonably skilled lore master can also be invaluable. LM can look out for the mini to send the mini a heal if their vitals are low and share power if their power is low. LMs are often left out of groups, but minis should encourage their inclusion.

Originally Posted by Uthboth

Will>Fate>Vitality are your best stats to focus on. Will for your power pool and outgoing healing. Fate for power regeneration. Vitality to help take hits if things get away from the tank in the group.

Your right i know becuase im a healer

great thread ! i would like to add:
don't be shy, and ask the group leader to get a LM , they are awesome and most people doesn't realize how helpful they are for minstrels and the entire group. Get a captain too, if a group is too lazy to get these two, just leave or ask for a good reason.
Captains are our friends, nice buffers, and they can revive if we are busy healing or we die (i almost never rez people, always ask the captain so i can keep helping with heals and buffs without dropping battle state,which takes time we don't have) .
Never waste your power healing a bad hunter who gets too much agro (and ask them to use endurance stance, coz if they get aggro we can get in trouble too sometimes).If u have to choose between squishies (other than tank, of course LOL ) keep the lore-master alive since he/she can save the group by using the transfer-power skill on you if u need to heal and power is low.
Use -% agro cords, please! at least vendor cords, since even 5% less agro is useful.
If you die because the group doesn't take care of you, ask them to do what you need them to do, and if they don't listen just leave. Dying is normal, but not a lot of times.

Keep em buffed,and use anthems. Anthems are awesome, buffs make things easier. We have nice mini buffs, most people doesn't realize when we throw em but the thing is that everything is better if we use everything we have. If the group kills faster and take less dmg, that makes our job easier. I know its hard in the first lvls, at least for me since i panic and forget to tier up but they are great. Anthem of the free peoples, and the cute -40% agro one, are awesome. Im just lvl 24, but i have been healer in other games and sometimes its frustrating grouping here, since most of the people i group with "just kill" (with exceptions, of course) , today some guy told me "i dont even know what aggro is"... and he was the TANK! LOL.

If you have doubts about how some skill works, practice with friends , or small fellowships . It's a good way to try your new skills and get used to the skill rotations you want to try in a real situation. If you change your keyboard settings, do the same thing, you don't want to be in a emergency confused about your new configuration.

Don't waste your time unless you see people is trying to make things right.
These are just general tips, since im new here in lotro, but not with healers. Its a hard role, you will always have things to do. If you feel bored, its just that you're not doing enough for the group :P spam nice buffs, and never over-heal.

I'd like to point to the community guide I attempted to put together for Leveling The Solo Minstrel. I noticed that many guides are about grouping on the high end, but not on getting there. It could probably use some more tips in it, but I think it's a good starting place for people trying to learn the class on the solo end.

"Keep em buffed,and use anthems. Anthems are awesome, buffs make things easier. We have nice mini buffs, most people doesn't realize when we throw em but the thing is that everything is better if we use everything we have. If the group kills faster and take less dmg, that makes our job easier. "


Ronuble, great post and right on! I work my buffs hard and ever so often someone DOES notice, and it's really nice. I was grouping and a hunter noticed and someone said "there's no captain here"...not realizing I have somew nice buffs.

- You have very little armor
- You have very little (to no, when you start) crowd-control
- You have very little health
- You have very little damage evasion/parry/block when you start

What do you have?
- Range
Long range is the next best thing to being there. Always pull at max distance whenever possible

- Self-healing
You get your 1st healing spell early on, and for a while, it will be your only healing spell. It can heal nearly your entire health bar in a shot, however as you get hit you lose time on your cast bar, making it take longer. Be sure to cast your heal sooner rather than later so that you can lose some time due to enemies hitting you and still come out okay. By the time half your health bar is gone you should definitely be casting.

- Immediate attacks
Your normal ballads are instant. Not only do they take no cast time, but they hit immediately (unlike a Ranger's arrows). This also means you can cast them on the move. This is a tremendous advantage. Open up at max range and move to the side while casting your ballads. It's likely your target will be close to dead, if not dead, by the time it reaches you. You can use line-of-sight to great effect. Put a solid object like a tree or rock between you and a monster, and it will stop attacking and have to get you in view before it can attack again. Hit and run tactics can work against tougher opponents.


In Summary:
1. always be moving - you can cast on the move, make use of it
2. always be casting - you can regenerate power all day if you survive, keep casting, keep your buffs up
3. heal early - if you heal too early you waste some power, oh well, if you heal too late, you succumb
(your heal is the only thing that requires a cast time and for you to stand in one place early on... try to duck behind a tree or rock to break line of sight and heal while you're not being attacked)

My response to the minstrel 101 guide

The Minstrel 101 guide was disappointingly all about Warspeech and soloing and DPS, so I went ahead and wrote up Minstrel 102: How to drop Warspeech in groups and heal yourself.

Early on, use caution when main healing in instances that are beyond your character level.

Monsters will hit harder, so you have to throw out more heals.

To throw out more heals, you either have to raise ICMR through Anthem of the Free Peoples or use skills like Raise the Spirit and Bolster Courage. The latter generates aggro, so you have to cast Anthem of Compassion ahead of time.

To unlock your Anthems (and your Tier 3 buffs), you have to SUCCESSFULLY land Ballads on monsters. But higher level monsters have higher resist ratings, so you might have to repeat a tier until it sticks.

Either you have to start spamming heal skills more often (and draw the ire of every nearby monster) or waste more power trying to get to your Anthems so you have more breathing room to heal.

Song of Soothing will help, but the self AoE means archers will still be firing at you. Cry of the Valar is single-target, plus you have to make sure no one breaks the fear. Song of the Dead has a long induction time, so don't plan on getting that one off once monsters start pounding on you.

Basically, if you start getting mobbed, don't expect to live long. Monsters hit harder, remember?

Cry of the Chorus is great for instant access to an Anthem, but the 10 min cooldown means you won't be using it on trash mobs.

Long story short - don't take healing jobs that are beyond your capabilities, because there's a lot working against you.

Edit: fixed info on Song of Soothing

hi ^^
i am newbie. Can u answer me ? how are us pvmp and spar ?? Who us win )

Sorry if there are any repeats. I am still on the healer learning curve and here are a few things I had to learn pretty quick.

As someone already said. Running away won't usually help. Run past the Tank and pray he grabs the aggro. If a boss is hitting you don't panic, run through it so the Tank doesn't have to chase it.

Don't forget to watch your own health bar. I still forget to look sometimes which has caused some deaths of me and my party.

Before you start mention a few things to the group. I tend to include stuff like "If I start jumping a lot it means I need help, something is hitting me hard". "If you die do not retreat unless you have to, my res won't give you a death penalty". "I can restore your death penalty but only one player every 20 minutes so ... who is first?". "Who is the Tank?", sounds silly and sometimes gets a laugh but I have played with one group which had two Champions, one tanking the other DPS, if they had told me who was who I would have known which Champion to give priority (the tank). "If I say STOP then STOP, sometimes I need to eat, drink, restore, whatever" then if they don't stop for a few seconds it becomes their problem not yours.

Cooked stuff. Always eat regen food, Rack of Lamb etc. Especially in a long, hard battle you will need to regen your Power pretty quick or slow down on healing, Potions are not an alternative you will need them sometimes but the cooldown is too long. Use Lute Strings they reduce your threat generation by a lot, they can be made by a T2 Cook so if you don't know a Cook make an Alt and use that T2 doesn't take long to learn and Lute Strings are cheap to make.

I find groups around 45 (I am 59) are good to learn with, I know some will have been group healing a long-time before level 55 or so but if you spent a lot of your time in solo play, as I did, that's a good way to learn. My experience has been they need more attention/healing than a higher level group. That means lots to do so you will learn faster. For me I find Annuminas Groups a good choice, it's open space so not hard to keep line-of-sight.

Play some other character types. I don't like being a Hunter, for example, but sometimes I do which helps me understand how they work. I also have a Guardian, Champion and Captain. All of my Alts are low level except for the Champion who is level 45. You will learn some of their skills which will help you to better meet their needs. You will also learn their strengths and weaknesses. Along the same lines talk to other classes and ask questions, you must understand what they are doing. If you don't want to do that spend a few minutes reading about them from time-to-time.

Talk, talk, talk and talk. If you are in a Fellowship talk in or least read Fellowship Chat. Not only will you learn from other Minstrels but different characters will learn what you can and cannot do. If your group understands more of how your character type works it sometimes makes your job easier, from simple stuff like line-of-sight to things like the order you heal in .. me then tank then secondary healer then ... or whatever it is you do, the hunter might even thank you for letting him die if he knows it is because you need to concentrate on the Tank instead ie why he is not top of your list in order of healing. Yesterday I was talking to Skumrok, Guardian, asking what "Gains a Block Response and a Parry Reponse" (Song of Aid) did for him, when he heard from me I was doing that at OD the other day I swear I was afraid he was going to kiss me ^^

I don't know how it is done but it is possible, in a Raid, for the Leader to put a symbol floating above your head which can help the rest of the group to know where you are. I believe it is important for the rest of the group to know where you are, helps them keep line-of-sight for example. I was talking to my Fellowship the other day saying I might wear an all yellow cosmetic outfit sometimes, we all had a good laugh but they agreed it would help them sometimes.

I have a noobish question.
How useful is the target resistance rating reduction on the legendary items? I find the small extra healing and 2% extra dmg useless compared to what the rating reduction means if it means what I think it means.

Originally Posted by sjmson

hi ^^
i am newbie. Can u answer me ? how are us pvmp and spar ?? Who us win )

Depends on how you play your class and how the opponent plays theirs.

Classes I never have any trouble with: Guardians, Champions, Hunters and Rune Keepers.
Tricky classes: Burglars, Captains, Lore Masters.
Class I almost never beat: a good Warden.

I have a 41 minstrel...it's fun and all, but does it get easier? Soloing can be hard at time, even when i'm in warspeech.

Originally Posted by ShotgunStalker

I have a 41 minstrel...it's fun and all, but does it get easier? Soloing can be hard at time, even when i'm in warspeech.

At 75 i can dispatch 7-8 on level npcs at once with no real problem.

Originally Posted by Daec

At 75 i can dispatch 7-8 on level npcs at once with no real problem.

I have a 74 minstrel and I can't (I'm generally healing (blue/yellow) traited these days, so that maybe the reason -but it's more likely that I'm a slow and reactive player.)

Suggestions: Aim at managing 2-3 mobs at a time. Fear away others. Drop when you are out-numbered. Learn which mobs silence you- devastating for a mini-and how to remove silence. Eat a lot to keep power and morale up. Use lute strings to reduce threat from your heals while you pick them off. I'm slow but I get it done. I just have to be a bit more patient and strategic than a DPS/warrior skald, uber-geared minstrel with quick reflexes has to be.

hi, I have a minstrel lvl 47 now. highest lvl minstrel so far. I hear people say alot they are in need of power, but when you trait (only a little) in the yellow you can get less anthem cooldown. Having only 10 seconds or so to wait, you can use the altered coda - power over time move - alot (anthem of ... can't remember). When it's active you don't consume power, whatever high cost moves you use =) . Works very well in small fellowships and a good buff for champs to, so they have more fear resistance.

Originally Posted by archaeoptrix

hi, I have a minstrel lvl 47 now. highest lvl minstrel so far. I hear people say alot they are in need of power, but when you trait (only a little) in the yellow you can get less anthem cooldown. Having only 10 seconds or so to wait, you can use the altered coda - power over time move - alot (anthem of ... can't remember). When it's active you don't consume power, whatever high cost moves you use =) . Works very well in small fellowships and a good buff for champs to, so they have more fear resistance.

Hi....you'll find it's quite easy to build huge power into your minnie at 75, through legendary item relics, traits and so on---in addition to using various techniques as well as food. Power is never an issue for me except in the most prolonged end-game encounters and even then it is manageable because of the way I have built my minnie, with over 8,000 power. It works for me. Good luck.

VeryBeary