Thread: Dev Diary Feedback: Update 2 - Minstrel Changes

"When I started working on updates for the Minstrel, I began by reading through the giant community feedback thread on the forums and recording all of the feedback I found there."

Read more about what Tim “Raskolnikov” Lang has to say in his latest developer diary!

I've noticed that the next update is being referred to as "Update 2" now, rather than the "Q1 Update". Does this mean Turbine is shying away from a March release for the update? (The previous update is referred to in official patch notes as the "November 2010 Update".)

Edit: I'm finding the actual developer diary extremely difficult to read. Perhaps the formatting didn't come across as it was originally intended. It looks like a long list of bullet points interspersed with commentary, but I'm having a hard time following it. Perhaps some more white space could be added to help show which parts are related.

yay! glowy hands!

Originally Posted by Fredelas

I've noticed that the next update is being referred to as "Update 2" now, rather than the "Q1 Update". Does this mean Turbine is shying away from a March release for the update? (The previous update is referred to in official patch notes as the "November 2010 Update".)

I imagine that even if it's supposed to launch in March, they're holding back from calling it the March Update until they're absolutely certain that it is ready for launch in March. Nothing worse than promising us an update in March that gets delayed and arrives in April.

EDIT: Nevermind, Sapience cleared it up.

Originally Posted by Fredelas

I've noticed that the next update is being referred to as "Update 2" now, rather than the "Q1 Update". Does this mean Turbine is shying away from a March release for the update? (The previous update is referred to in official patch notes as the "November 2010 Update".)

We actually had a meeting after the last bug fix patch and agreed that "November update 2010 Patch 2" was a bit wordy and, as a number of players commented, it was a bit confusing to see patch notes that said November but were published in January. We simply decided that a numerical reference was a lot easier for everyone to deal with in the long run (and Q1 Update sounded way too corporate don't you think?). So, with November being the first update since the addition of Free to Play, it follows that the next update would be... Update 2.

First impressions: I don't play a minstrel, but this was one of the worst-formatted, least clear Dev Diaries I've seen in a long time. For instance, he goes from talking about the ballad tiering to a sub-bullet that is about War-speech, because someone forgot to hit "enter" when the topic changed. Both of these bulleted paragraphs (why have bullets if you're using paragraphs?) are italicized for no particular reason. The first one makes sense as an explanation of the bullet point above it, but it's not put in as a sub-bullet, but on the same level as the one explaining how ballads will work. Then page 2 loses the bullet points altogether. Seriously, this was just difficult to read. Try something like this:

Healing Skills
Soliloquy of Spirit can now stack once per caster.
This was basically a maintenance fix (and a minor attempt to impose order). SoS probably should have been stacking per caster from the beginning, but it’s an easy mistake to make. As a general rule, I would rather see buffs from multiple players stack. Granted that can’t always be the case, but it’s the simpler solution, both from the player’s and implementer’s perspective.
Fellowship's Heart now stacks once per caster, and is part of the Healing & Motivation skill group, which means it's buffed by the H&M legacy!
Same as SoS above with some more of me forcing my version of order on things. i.e.; All healing skills should be under the same skill group.

See how that A.) breaks up the headings more clearly and B.) doesn't have arbitrarily italicized paragraphs?

Seriously, why does Turbine wants us to think that they take a looong time revisiting those dev diaries for like a zillion times, when the formatting is this bad?

The content of it is good. I like Tim's writing, it delivers. And ofcourse, there are some nice updates in there.

Originally Posted by Sapience

We actually had a meeting after the last bug fix patch and agreed that "November update 2010 Patch 2" was a bit wordy and, as a number of players commented, it was a bit confusing to see patch notes that said November but were published in January. We simply decided that a numerical reference was a lot easier for everyone to deal with in the long run (and Q1 Update sounded way too corporate don't you think?). So, with November being the first update since the addition of Free to Play, it follows that the next update would be... Update 2.

I assume part of this is so Codemasters can have the same kinds of naming consistency. (After all, the November 2010 update certainly wasn't November for them). Is "Update 2" still on schedule for a 'Quarter 1' release?

Some real nice changes there and good, frank discussion about the class. I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for Hunter.

The formatting is harsh though.

The problem is not due to Dev format but to the way my.lotro handle formatage.

I did a copy past on my computer of all the text and i found it very well done and easier to read

If you want the diary in a better readable format, here it is:
http://community.lotro-europe.com/ne...=Dev%20Diaries

Sorry guys, the page breaks are making the formatting go a bit screwy. We're pulling them out. It might take a few minutes for the cache to catch up.

Stack hunters ftw with the 5% Ballad of Composure Ranged Bonus... More pew pew... hunters were already top tier ST dps with champs and RKs. With 5% bonus with a minie in the group, no need to bring champs to a raid is it?

Tank, 2 Healers (Minies/RKs), 2 Cappies, a LM, a Burg and 5 Hunters. Yep. Champs have to be in melee and BoW helped champs making up for the fact they need to be in close range of mobs. With a similar bonus being given to Ranged Damage, champs will be (yet again) left out. In a raid situation, why not? It's Watcher 1.0 and LT again. Epic...

Edit: And 5% more for RKs as well with Balad of Flame. Champion class, RIP.

I'm encouraged with the scope of what Mr. Lang is attempting to fix. Minstrels got led down a really bad path and is one of the reasons I left LotRO a year ago. Great to see a Dev actually detailing the thought process on potential changes.

Originally Posted by Dutchie86

If you want the diary in a better readable format, here it is:
http://community.lotro-europe.com/ne...=Dev%20Diaries

Wow, yeah, much much better.

BTW I kinda wish Tim had worked on the RK changes. There are, AFAIK, no significant changes to existing skills designed to force players into a given playstyle, just changes to make other playstyles viable. The way he handled the Minstrel's BC reliance is exactly how they should've approached the RK's fire/lightning imbalance: You like EC crits and Scribe's Spark? Fine, go for it. But over here is the more power-efficient, less flashy Fire line...

Rask, everything you touch becomes amazing. Please keep touching everything in the game.

I have not been this excited for an update in a long time. My Minstrel is beyond excited for these changes!

I do agree that it would be nice in the future to keep thinking about the power return/SoS issues, but given everything else you have covered I will be quite satisfied for now.

Amazing update. The changes are really off the wall. Raise with zero cooldown and .5s induction O.o

I'm not going to go over every change, just know that for PvE these changes are amazing. I love your philosophy with low cooldowns, your bang on when saying longer cooldowns doesn't encourage usage of those skills.

The PvP side of these changes are harsh, to say the least. You could potentially:

-Blow things out of the water while in WS
-Get in trouble
-Toggle off WS
-Continue to do top tier burst dps for 5s
-Throw down the #1 most OP snare in the moors every 2.5m
-While on the run give yourself Call to Greatness
-While on the run heal yourself for 1200'ish via Chord Of Salvation
-Proc a WS Call skill while your getting yourself back to full health-while your on the run-while Creeps have a slow that cant be removed-For 45s..


Honest question, that I honestly dont expect to see an answer for, but you could surprise me
When making these changes did you think about the effect these changes would have in the Moors?


Great amazing PvE stuff, nice work. Really scary demoralizing changes for PvP end.
Great Diary man, I really felt like you were talking to us. You were being real. I love that! Keep it up man.

Seriously? Formatting? How about the changes to the class?

For me it seems that Protector of Song got even bigger boost, compared to WoR. I applaud the decreased cooldowns on several skills. I'll have to play with the ballads to get a grip on how it will execute, but I'm sure it'll be an upgrade from what we've got.

I have a couple questions the ballad healing bonus: Expiration?- Is it linked to the ballad duration, or is is altogether a separate entity? Will each buff appear individually, or will there be a tiered icon? (I'd prefer to see a tiered icon myself)

Did you alter the tooltip on heralded resolve? The tooltip is unclear as to what the trait actually does.

I'll also weigh in on the ranged damage buff on the T3 Ballad - I think it should match Ballad of War. Melee classes already get more buffs from more classes than ranged DPS does, and it's something contributing to current favoring of melee or tactical over ranged. There is no reason that hunters shouldn't be clearly the best single target damage dealer.

Symphony of spirit sounds interesting, but sounds like it might be complicated to execute - or maybe not. Glowing place - stand here to get healed, go out to DPS, I suppose.

I'm excited about re-adding raise the spirit to my skillbar, It's been missing for a long time.

OK one more edit: Why oh why put those awesome and tasty T3 ballad buff legacies on a book. A good mini book has got to now have H&M, BC, power cost, 3 ballad buffs.... Our weapon's legacies are geared more towards DPS, so why not put those legacies there? There is no way I'll be able to legacy all of these.

From someone who has played LotRO in some form since beta, and post beta has only played a Minstrel, and is a VIP, I am really loving the update(s) and can't thank you enough for them. Some are much needed, as you have seen. Some are much welcomed!!
Truely, thank you!

Originally Posted by ANewMachine

Wow, yeah, much much better.

BTW I kinda wish Tim had worked on the RK changes. There are, AFAIK, no significant changes to existing skills designed to force players into a given playstyle, just changes to make other playstyles viable. The way he handled the Minstrel's BC reliance is exactly how they should've approached the RK's fire/lightning imbalance: You like EC crits and Scribe's Spark? Fine, go for it. But over here is the more power-efficient, less flashy Fire line...

I couldn't agree more. Reading his reasoning behind the changes made me even more disappointed with the RK "update"

Rask, your seriously a MVP for this company man. From Moria mob skills to now, everything you do is top notch inspiring amazing bar raising stuff.

I liked pretty much all the proposed changes coming down the line and I thought I'd give some of my feedback. I'm just a casual player so I don't have a ton of experience but here we go!

Some more Trait improvement on a sub-par trait. The benefit this trait provides attempts to address the complaint Minstrel’s have about their Healing rotation, that it’s the same thing over and over again. While this trait doesn’t help you heal any better, it does let you kick out some free damage every once in a while. When designing this trait I went back and forth on a bunch of ideas: maybe it would unlock Tier 3 Ballads (or even Anthems), maybe it would make it so the next casting of “Inspire Fellows” didn’t have an induction, or maybe I should implement all three as set-bonuses for each Trait line? In the end I wasn’t sure how this type of mechanic would be received, so I decided to start simple and see what players thought. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you want to see this idea expanded? Let me know.

This isn't a horrible thing but I actually liked the sound of the "instant inspire fellows" thing a little better. While it's nice to have a free damage spell availible, it seems to me that having a fast heal would be a little more important, especially if you don't have the time to waste on doing something that isn't a heal. Adding something that improves my healing in some way seems like a much better use.

“Raise the Spirit” has its Cooldown reduced from 1.5s to zero seconds.
“Raise the Spirit” has its Induction Time reduced from 1s to 0.5s.

I like this. I'll have to test it out, but I think it'll be interesting to work with in combat.

Sub-par Traits: “Enduring Morale”, “Harmonious Melody”, “Silver Tongue”, “Subtle Movements”.
Should these stay, should they go? Let me know!

Personally, I've always put in Subtle Movements. I thought it was helping with my agro. Is it not? I guess it's hard to say as I haven't healed both with it out and with it in. I always assumed anything that lowered my threat was a good thing as I don't like being knocked out in combat any more than the next person.

I feel like harmonious melody might be the most useful of the other traits but I'd agree that Enduring Moral and Silver Tongue seem kind of 'meh' to me. With Harmonious Melody, I'm sure people who play a tighter game and I probably don't worry about ballad tiers going away before they get a chance to cast the next level but I have found that sometimes in the middle of Exciting Things Happening, I can get a little flustered and miss the chance to do the ballad or anthem I was trying to accomplish. So it's nice but not outstanding to have it.

One idea I had that I almost implemented was this: All of the Minstrel’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 Ballads now affect your fellowship. Good idea / bad idea? If you like it, how should you acquire this ability? Armor set-bonus? Legendary? New toggle?

Last bit, I suppose. I do like the idea of the ballads affecting the whole group. I've always thought they should from the very first moment I realized what they did in the beta. Idealy, I'd like it to be worked into the base functionality of the skills but if that makes them too overpowered, I think I'd prefer either a Legendary or Toggle to be used. That way the function isn't limited to how much time you have to get gear. Even a Trait wouldn't be a bad option for this, as trait grinding is often a bit easier than gear grinding.


Anyway, those are my opinions.

And here I thought my Minstrel would just be getting another round of new icons. These changes make me want to dust off my Minstrel and play him again. A great and well reasoned look at the deficits of a class and the efforts to fix them. I cannot wait until my fav (Warden) gets this treatment.

Originally Posted by Grampsaz

I'm not going to go over every change, just know that for PvE these changes are amazing. I love your philosophy with low cooldowns, your bang on when saying longer cooldowns doesn't encourage usage of those skills.

The PvP side of these changes are harsh, to say the least. You could potentially:

-Blow things out of the water while in WS
-Get in trouble
-Toggle off WS
-Continue to do top tier burst dps for 5s
-Throw down the #1 most OP snare in the moors every 2.5m
-While on the run give yourself Call to Greatness
-While on the run heal yourself for 1200'ish via Chord Of Salvation
-Proc a WS Call skill while your getting yourself back to full health-while your on the run-while Creeps have a slow that cant be removed-For 45s..


Honest question, that I honestly dont expect to see an answer for, but you could surprise me
When making these changes did you think about the effect these changes would have in the Moors?

gotta agree with Grampz - very radical (relative to other class updates) changes for the Mini, great for PVE, GAME-CHANGING for PvMP.
A moors-tuned dev (is there one?) responding to these concerns would be much appreciated.

And, yes, thanks for writing in a way that feels so honest, and making our local mini excited again.

-- never mind, solved --

Nice looking update. Although this makes me even sadder about the last RK update.

These are awesome changes/fixes to the minstrel class. Thank you so much! I've been playing my RK for the past year, but now I'll have to dust off my minstrel main.

Formatting? Who cares? The dev diary is a terrific explanation of the analysis and work that's gone into improving the minstrel class.

What's this about "Major Legacy" and "Minor Legacy" ... is Rask referring to "Pool A" and "Pool B"?

• Major Legacy on the Minstrel’s Class Item which can increase the Tactical Damage bonus on “Ballad of Flame” (as previously stated above).
• Minor Legacy on the Minstrel’s Class Item which can increase the Ranged Damage bonus on “Ballad of Composure” (as previously stated above).
• Major Legacy on the Minstrel’s Weapon which decreases the duration of the War-speech tail effect by up to 5 seconds.

Even though I don't play a minstrel, I was really impressed by the diary both in how it directly addressed the concerns of the community and how it explained the changes considered and why some were rejected and other accepted. I can easily see how the changes will improve the effectiveness of minstrels and encourage them to use some skills that previously were undesirable. As an RK who does quite a lot of healing, I'm a bit concerned that with all the improvements to what a minstrel will be able to bring to the group in terms of buffs to all damage types now, there won't be much need for RK healers...but i'm sure I'll get over that.

I will say thought, like other people who play RKs who have posted, this wonderful dev diary brings back all the unhappiness and disappointed I felt and still feel with the RK updates. Here the skill changes directly respond to player concerns and seek to diversify play style by strengthening weak skills, not be increasing the power cost and decreasing the healing output of the mainstay skill for most rks, but by actually improving weak skills. And as for inductions and cooldowns......let's just not talk about the omg-so-much-better-3-second-induction if I trait for and spam spam EftA now (hope you caught the sarcasm font RK devs).

Grats to the minstrels, looks to be a great update for you.

Some interesting changes, but respectfully, I think you've missed an opportunity to clearly differentiate a minstrel from a RK apart from their healing output.

RKs are top tier healing or dps, depending on their traits. Minstrels should be a buffing class, at least when traited for it.

Adding Ranged and Tactical dmg buffs to 2 unrelated skills serves only to muddle things. BoW should be the damage buff, whether it's 1%, 5% or 10% for any type; be consistent in its effect. Ballad of Flame should increase resistance to all non-common damage types: flame, acid, frost, etc. Unshakeable Will increases fear resistance now, perhaps it should also increase resistances against stuns, roots, etc.

Give us clear reasons to use each T3 ballad, don't muck things up by making us choose between buffing melee, ranged and tact. In a boss fight any of these ballads would be desirable if they encompassed more than a limited aspect of what goes on.

And since I'm on a roll, the T1 ballad (sorry, I still rarely know many of my skills by name after all these years, only the effect) should be a mini-IDOME, buffing vit/might/agi/fate/will. Its duration is short, and for raiders their primary stats are largely capped, so it's really just buffing the off stats.

The T2 ballad currently buffs evade, it should similarly buff block and parry.

With caps in place, these don't become OP and serve to supplement other players, and if the fight is challenging there is no time to cast these anyway.

Give us a real reason to want to tier up ballads. I'm a strong propoent for doing so, just give us a reason so that everyone wants us to do so too.

edit: since multiple T3 ballads can be played as long as an anthem isn't played, all 3 T3 ballads will get played for the damage buffs anyway. Just keep the damage buffs in one skill, it's easier to keep a skill focused on one aspect of play.

Originally Posted by WitchKingNazgul9

Please keep touching everything in the game.

I'd prefer he didn't touch my hobbit...he still has nightmares about the night the Black Riders came....

ALOT of info there.... trying to get my mind wrapped around all of it. Figured I would try to address one thing and re-read until other things sunk in.

You wrote:



The trait “Power of Song” has been given a new functionality: Each time a Minstrel uses a heal skill, there is a 10% chance to unlock a War-speech Call skill for a single usage with zero Power Cost.

• Some more Trait improvement on a sub-par trait. The benefit this trait provides attempts to address the complaint Minstrel’s have about their Healing rotation, that it’s the same thing over and over again. While this trait doesn’t help you heal any better, it does let you kick out some free damage every once in a while. When designing this trait I went back and forth on a bunch of ideas: maybe it would unlock Tier 3 Ballads (or even Anthems), maybe it would make it so the next casting of “Inspire Fellows” didn’t have an induction, or maybe I should implement all three as set-bonuses for each Trait line? In the end I wasn’t sure how this type of mechanic would be received, so I decided to start simple and see what players thought. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you want to see this idea expanded? Let me know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like this alot! The idea that a Warspeech skill could pop at any time is a great idea. It introduces that surprise or gift element. It addresses the issue with finding a way to make Minstrels more than BC healbots, and gives that instant satisfaction that comes with knowing that you just added to the damage output.


Now, the only thing that I wonder though is if it will be as fun as I think it could be. Part of traiting for Warspeech is knowing that your Call to War skills et al. have a great chance to crit. Will we FEEL that satisfaction that unexpectedly accessing a Warspeech skill promises?

What if you add to Crit chance on the skill that opens? THAT would ensure that it really is worth it to watch for that 10% chance... I would almost rather have the Crit chance than the zero power cost...

Originally Posted by ScrappyTheGreat

What's this about "Major Legacy" and "Minor Legacy" ... is Rask referring to "Pool A" and "Pool B"?

Heheh I don't play a minnie, but I read the Diary and already posted this question in the LI forum... Also notice he mentions the rift set gets a bonus change to go along with the gift of the hammer-hand skill update... scalable Rift anyone?

Originally Posted by aleczander

gotta agree with Grampz - very radical (relative to other class updates) changes for the Mini, great for PVE, GAME-CHANGING for PvMP.
A moors-tuned dev (is there one?) responding to these concerns would be much appreciated.

And, yes, thanks for writing in a way that feels so honest, and making our local mini excited again.

I would tend to agree with the new anthem (traited) we'll get 15 seconds of increased damage (they didn't say how much) also we're getting our fire ballad improved with 5% tactical damage (with trait even more) and I already use that fighting BA's and Reavers, and I use a clicky to get the + fire defence so I will just use a clicky for the plus damage no trouble at all and I'm up at least 15-20% damage... talk about win in the moors where we are already way over powered in dps.

On a side note they made healing in the moors easier too with the .5 induction and no cd, which is good in my opinion lets us have more abilitiy to heal... we can hope minstrels will do it more... (who am I kidding lol)

Also about the anthem of the wizard it doesn't really change anything since before the cool down in the moors trait line you were at 3 minutes now its 2.5 you won't notice it really. Its basically always up now anyways.

With that being said I LOVE the changes Rask, and I loved how you explained it hopefully you get the chance to come back in the fall for isen and do the touch ups

I'll save my comments about the ballad choices and what I think SoS needs for when I have a chance to fiddle with them. I think though you just made raise the spirit the maintence heal and SoS is still going to be meh (excluding I'm thinking in raids where two minstrels stack theirs on the tank should equal and rk HoT... almost)

Goneric

Interesting changes and finally looks like they are giving minis in the support and dynamic healing.
A mini in a group will now be able to buff everyone else, and get good HPS.

Honestly if the buffs to power and power reduction via legacy and traits and tired up ballads minis will not really need a power return skill.

Now the question is, does going in the Watcher of Resolve line also going to increase the tired up ballad outgoing healing and power reduction buff like it does now for healing %?

As for PvP, remember the primary focus of the game is PvE. This is a PvE game and all balancing of classes for PvE takes precedence over PvP.

My mini has been sitting in hyper-sleep for over a year waiting for a revamp. All the changes look great. Thank you for finally taking a look over a class in dire need of a revamp.

As I was going over the changes again (with a more critical eye rather than the "kid-at-Christmas" approach), I felt like addressing a couple of things you mentioned:

The “glowy hands” from War-speech will now remain while you are in War-speech and go away when you are not.

This may be my favorite part of the update. You could take the whole rest of it away (but please don't!) and I would still be happy.

...when a Minstrel plays a Ballad (of any tier) they receive a “Ballad Healing Bonus” buff which increases Outgoing Healing and reduces Power Cost on the next Heal skill used. Each time a Ballad is played, this buff is incremented to the next tier (to a maximum of three). When the Minstrel uses a Heal skill this buff is decremented by one.

I am imagining this as being very similar to the RK's Enflamed Runes buff (but with the healing skills decreasing it). How long does it last? Currently, the ones tied to our ballads are fairly short.

EDIT: Misread the point about FH, understand now.

“Chord of Salvation” is now useable while moving.

What does this mean for the lengthy root associated with CoS? It seems odd to be able to cast it while moving only to be rooted in place anyway.

“Gift of the Hammerhand”:

Now blocks all Damage, not just Common Damage.
Cooldown has been reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.
The ratio of Morale Damage -> Power Damage has been improved from 1 -> 2 to 2 -> 1.

Thank you. I do agree that this moves this lackluster skill into the realm of situational usefulness.

“Song of the Hopeful Heart” is now “Symphony of the Hopeful Heart”:

Cooldown has been reduced from 10m to 5m.
Duration of the Hotspot has been reduced from 5m to 2.5m
Size of the Hotspot has been reduced from 10m to 5m
In addition to the +4 Hope for standing within its bounds, there is now a 10% bonus to Incoming Healing.
Additionally, if a player remains standing within the hotspot for a few seconds and then exits the hotspot, they receive a 30 second buff to Resistance Penetration and Avoidance Penetration for all applicable skills.

I think this is a great idea. It should add some interesting gameplay changes, and make position in combat that much more important. Due to the skill's name change, is it still affected by the -Song CD trait (Silver Tongue)?

The trait “Power of Song” has been given a new functionality: Each time a Minstrel uses a heal skill, there is a 10% chance to unlock a War-speech Call skill for a single usage with zero Power Cost.

I think this is a really neat change. I could see the potential application for turtling situations - it allows us to stay out of Warspeech and still cast the occasional Call.
However, how long does this last? If the window is only a few seconds, and I am clearly busy healing, this may be an opportunity I can't take advantage of very often.
I also think that the inductionless-Inspire Fellows would also be pretty cool, especially since it is a healing bonus that results from casting heals.

The new trait “Improved Raise the Spirit” has the following benefits:

“Raise the Spirit” has its Cooldown reduced from 1.5s to zero seconds.
“Raise the Spirit” has its Induction Time reduced from 1s to 0.5s.

Thank you! I was worried for a moment that in an attempt to diversify our healing rotation, Bolster might get nerfed. Oh me of little faith. I will have to see exactly how much this trait changes my healing style, but I may never be able to leave home without it!

As far as your questions at the end:

Sub-par Traits: “Enduring Morale”, “Harmonious Melody”, “Silver Tongue”, “Subtle Movements”.
Should these stay, should they go? Let me know!

I personally never use Harmonious Melody. I slot Enduring Morale almost always, but only because I don't like enough of the other traits to hit 5 (Harmonious, Med Armour-Use, Tempo of Bravery). However, I will immediately be switching it for the new Improved Echoes of Battle.
I don't use Silver Tongue either, because it affects so few skills (and now you have cut the cooldowns on many of them anyway).
I slot Subtle Movements sometimes. The problem is that it is such a small boost, and we have no easily quantifiable measurements of threat, that it is hard to tell if it is helping.

One idea I had that I almost implemented was this: All of the Minstrel’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 Ballads now affect your fellowship. Good idea / bad idea? If you like it, how should you acquire this ability? Armor set-bonus? Legendary? New toggle?

I personally would like this. The only reason I don't slot for Song of Vigour/Swiftness is the induction. I think it would be great to see them affect the fellowship. I think a Legendary or Toggle might be best, seeing as how that is a pretty significant change (rather than increase) to skill functionality for an armour-set bonus.

EDIT: To add, I think that the major issue (for me at least) with the whole Soliloquy deal is the legendary trait. I mean, look at the Protector line equivalent - Tale of Frost and Flame. Come on, talk about barely situational use. However, the Master of Tales trait makes up for that by giving us the Heroism-and-Warding goodness. All that the legendary for SoS does is increase the healing of that one skill. Overall, this isn't very inspiring. Maybe giving this some sort of different functionality would be the way to go. I don't know if a Power return is the way to go, but something would be appreciated.

Thanks again for all these changes, Rask!

Couple of things..

Very excited by the changes to T3 ballads. Mentioned to kin this morning and there was much woo-hoo'ing.

Not excited by change to Song of the Hopeful Heart.. Smaller circle? Shorter duration? Bigger hassle. Yes, interesting mechanic, but the thing I think most groups, minstrels, anyone involved has hated since day 1 was the stuck in a circle nature of it. Sure, sometimes that's fine (back against the Balrog when he stayed on the tank the whole time, or any other simple tank and spank like that), but with increasingly complex fights and groups split up, I just dunno. Was really hoping to be freed of the shackles of the circle, even if it does have an interesting new mechanic.. Concerned the mechanic is too complex for groups to use in higher end fights.

Not being able to work with SoS because you linked it to the power return.. Well, maybe those two things SHOULDN'T be linked.. Am glad multiple minstrels can stack their SoS's (this will help), but maybe just ditching the need for a Legendary trait and allowing it to be that buffed version.. Then opening up your mind for a new Legendary Trait (maybe this is where the power return could come in? a power version of Fellowship's Heart??) instead. I have become infamous in my kin because in the TTCT thread I called SoS unsexy.. Maybe if we received it as a level 56 or 58 skill that didn't require a Legendary Trait to be useful, and got one of our other skills at 60, that would change the perception. Or then we'd gripe about the other skill and deflect some SoS hate for a while.

Also, I love love love the idea of all ballads being group buffs. Possibly ditch Master of Tales and give us that for the Legendary Capstone on Protector of Song?

A lot to digest, and I like several things (chance to proc a War-Speech skill, yes please, sounds fun!) on the healing side. The new Anthem sounds like a great way to fix things, and I'm glad Cure Fear will get some buffing (even though I still don't know when I'd use it if it's an induction). Will be glad to play with RtS more, even though I'm probably one of the minstrels who DO use it as a quickie when possible. This will be a WELCOME addition to my playstyle, since I already use it.

This is great stuff. I almost gave up on my mini, he's been simply cooking and making bling for the longest.

Suggestion: For power return, a 5% chance to return X power, where X is 5-8% of your power pool, when using Herald's strike. Now I know you could just spam HS and it may seem like a bad idea, but why not make it a trait, or a skill you activate with a 30 sec duration and 2 min cooldown or some such?

"Do you know what I am saying?"-Butters.

I, very much, agree with Grampsaz here.

I think the PvE effect of the Minstrel is very promising, but when you consider the PvP aspect of lotro it becomes clear that these changes are not well thought.

Yes, minstrels are main healers in lotro and I welcome the healing boost aspect of them, but why give them more and more damage dealing overhauls. At the current state Minstrels are doing damage well beyond what they should. Hitting 4!targets with Call of the Second Age for 2-3k is not unusual. Piercing Cry/Call to Fate in Warspeech hitting 4k+ makes my champ wonder if he forgot to sharpen his sword... I really dream of those numbers.

Sure, in solo-play it is necessary if you don't want to spend 10minutes to kill a critter, but this is too much.
Increase in their main role Yes. All other things yes, but with caution.

Last point:
So, talking about the tail-effect of Warspeech. It was debuff that is very well to be put in line with the -30% incoming damage on Fervour Stance of the champion.

My question is:
Where were you, when all champions were furious and complained for monts and threads over threads? Now, another class complains minimal for this small (omg it never played a role, this debuff and I never ever heard a minstrel mourn about this debuff all the way) and zaaack!... it is changed. I see a pattern here.

I am unsure with the line that lotro heads to. Making classes cross-cover other classes and giving them abilities other classes allready cover is a bit disturbing.

i can hear some complain of the creeps already...

awesome update, my mini will be happy but i feel there is too many option to get away from warspeech and still do insane damage.

Especially the part about 10% chance of gathering a warspeech skill out of WS... ill just heal my group and do a call of the second age every 15 to 20 second with the raise the spirit down to 0 second cast time and 0.5 after cast.

Yes my captain will retire from the moors after rank 9 and just let my hobbit glowy hands do all the talking in the octogone.