Thread: Visual Guide To Minstrels in Rise of Isengard

Originally Posted by Teldra

27 days til release and you cant fix this?

4+ years of playing, and you can't wait a couple of weeks or so for the hot fix?

The man's at home with his family on personal leave; we're blessed that he took the time to even acknowledge our trivialities here. It's been acknowledged as incorrect, and will be fixed.

thanks Orion for clearing these things up. Your doing amazing work as the minstrel Dev.. keep it up

Thank you for your post-must have taken a lot of time, extremely helpful to us. We've many changes to our skills. It sounds great as it will freshen up our class, make us re-think everything, and perhaps change how we play.

One thing I don't think you've mentioned is our legendary legacies.

Did you discover what will happen in Isengard to our existing minstrel books that have legacies EG Ballad of War, Ballad of Composure and Ballad of Flame.

Also are there new legacies to replace these legacies?

Originally Posted by Teldra

27 days til release and you cant fix this?

Teldra

Its likely one of those situations where systems are cross-wired and they have to make sure they don't break a larger portion of the code by changing things. A similar bit happened to Champs back in Update 2 or 3 (can't recall which off the top of my head) where a key skill was bugged but it took a few weeks to make sure fixing it didn't break anything else in the process.

I'd suspect this would be either in a hotfix right after Update 4/RoI or in a patch half a month later since most of the last big updates usually have seen a quick hotfix for anything beta testing missed and then a patch for the bigger bugs that crept in.

Thanks for the great write up! It is greatly appreciated. Being our play-styles seem to be very similar I share your excitement regarding the WS changes. For me it all comes down to how my Mini will preform in the moors and I can't wait to try it out.

/salute


P.S.

Thanks Orion for the little notes and congrats!

Originally Posted by Orion

A note or two on Armour of Song:

1) All armour sources are increased by 20% including skill buffs.

2) Wearing medium armour when RoI goes live will turn that armour into light armour and bind it to you.

So, was my tentative explanation of it in the write up essentially correct? It adds 1/5th more mitigation from armour to the Minstrel than if they didn't have it traited, all else being equal?

Originally Posted by Orion

I'm not actually in the office. (Out on paternity, but I will be lurking to answer questions over the next few days.)

You too? :-)

sorry for off topic....

Thank you for this amazing summary. Plus one rep to you

and thanks Orion for all your hard work and especially for answering our questions while on leave.
still loving my minnie

Originally Posted by Wilkens

Its likely one of those situations where systems are cross-wired and they have to make sure they don't break a larger portion of the code by changing things. A similar bit happened to Champs back in Update 2 or 3 (can't recall which off the top of my head) where a key skill was bugged but it took a few weeks to make sure fixing it didn't break anything else in the process.

I'd suspect this would be either in a hotfix right after Update 4/RoI or in a patch half a month later since most of the last big updates usually have seen a quick hotfix for anything beta testing missed and then a patch for the bigger bugs that crept in.

Remember LM debuffs? and how changing it broke DN eyes? trust me no matter how much I try to follow object oriented programming changing something is generally going to break something in my program... I just need to find it

Originally Posted by Orion

I'm not actually in the office. (Out on paternity, but I will be lurking to answer questions over the next few days.) The steep power cost is an issue that we will continue to monitor. Minstrels have a unique ability to overcome this in many ways and I think that the changes to instruments will help immensely.

Dev Diary should drop tomorrow...and explain more. Rotations for endurance fights will require the minstrel to sacrifice top end DPS for longer sustained DPS by running the power reduction ballads.

Hope the diary explains all. I'm sorry but I don't understand. Start by saying, couldn't care less about DPS. I'm a healer and I heal. So power costs are doubled? But I don't see yet anything that will make up for a 100% increase.

Isn't the very definition of broken the inability to do your job? If healers can't heal how can anyone do their job? A 10% increase, no problem I'll go get the legacy. A 20% increase, I frown but I can live. 30% and that new coda looks nice, but 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. OVERKILL? I don't understand how to overcome that, for healing, couldn't care less about DPS.

Has the damage in game been cut in half? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.

Thanks for taking the time to post, will be glad to see that diary.

Jaw-droppingly amazing. You have me excited about playing my Minnie again!

+1 rep. I'd give you more if I could.

Originally Posted by Orion

I'm not actually in the office. (Out on paternity, but I will be lurking to answer questions over the next few days.) The steep power cost is an issue that we will continue to monitor. Minstrels have a unique ability to overcome this in many ways and I think that the changes to instruments will help immensely.

Dev Diary should drop tomorrow...and explain more. Rotations for endurance fights will require the minstrel to sacrifice top end DPS for longer sustained DPS by running the power reduction ballads.

We appreciate the fact that there's feedback though the answer regarding the power issue is not very promising.

As for the power reduction ballads mentioned please let me do some quick calculations:

Pre Isen:
- 10% Life Singer
- 5% 2 Trait set bonus for watcher of Resolve
- 15% for 5 piece DN set

Post Isen (assuming 4 deep into Protector of Song for arguments sake and ignoring the fact that heal output will probably be quite a lot less than today then):
-18 % for 3 power reduction ballads
-10% 3 piece bonus of new raid set

So by using the power reduction ballads and fully traiting for it (thus punishing healing output) we get just short of the power conservation potential of before Isen. How is this supposed to offset the 100% increase in power cost for the heals?

The fact that there is a coda to give back power does not really count, since it will remove all your ballads and anthems - in a healing intensive fight (that's where power problems tend to occur) you just will not have the time to reapply them.

For people who remind us that stats caps have been removed - the Fate to ICPR function has always been (will be after Isen) governed by a square root function so stacking fate to have a dramatically higher ICPR will just not work out. As we all know power pool size is mostly irrelevant in raid fights, so I will not comment on higher power pool from unlimited will.

As for monitoring power consumption - if you don't believe the beta minis who tried to heal an instance and could not even with an LM doing nothing than feeding 'em power - you'd better get this sorted launch out before launch.

Because for now the beta minstrel is a sad deja-vu of a captain during Shadows of Angmar - nice buffs, wait for people to die to rez but don't do anything else or you'lll be out of power. Btw. Captain at that time was the least played class for a reason because it was boring as hell.

So maybe it's just time to play some other game...

Originally Posted by Cize

So maybe it's just time to play some other game...

Or at least another class if it does become a real issue.

I'm willing to give Orion the benefit of the doubt. Beta play doesn't always reflect the way things will work out in Live play, so I'm waiting to see how all this pans out. If it does become something of a problem, it will likely be addressed in a post-launch update.

I fully intend to play around with the new system and voice my opinion on what is good and what needs to be fixed.

The power issues aren't limited to minstrel. All classes seem to suffer from power issues with RoI. I'm hoping these are addressed before launch, or at the very least soon afterwards.

-Bel

Originally Posted by Cize

The fact that there is a coda to give back power does not really count, since it will remove all your ballads and anthems - in a healing intensive fight (that's where power problems tend to occur) you just will not have the time to reapply them.

Believe me this is not the case its not spamming ballads to get the desired effect that you would like. The new set up makes it much easier to heal and use ballads at the same time. And you don't need too use the conventional heals either. I would honestly wait until RoI launches and have a shot at playing minstrel if I where you before you go off to another game. I am speaking as someone who has took part in the beta, wait!

Originally Posted by firehawk316

Hope the diary explains all. I'm sorry but I don't understand. Start by saying, couldn't care less about DPS. I'm a healer and I heal. So power costs are doubled? But I don't see yet anything that will make up for a 100% increase.

Isn't the very definition of broken the inability to do your job? If healers can't heal how can anyone do their job? A 10% increase, no problem I'll go get the legacy. A 20% increase, I frown but I can live. 30% and that new coda looks nice, but 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. OVERKILL? I don't understand how to overcome that, for healing, couldn't care less about DPS.

Has the damage in game been cut in half? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.

Thanks for taking the time to post, will be glad to see that diary.

As is made clear in the Diary (and honestly is pretty clear in the Guide), it is Max DPS/HPS that is sacrificed for power-recovery depending on which 3 Ballads you have active.

It definitely looks like this system is much more nuanced than our current one.

Originally Posted by Fenaril

It definitely looks like this system is much more nuanced than our current one.

It is, quite plainly, as simple or as complicated as one chooses to make it. I find that amount of influence over the role by the player to be exciting.

Great writeup! It was a fascinating read despite the fact that I was able to figure a lot of this out for myself while playing in beta.


Now, I just hope I (and others I'm sure) can convince our fellowships to let me come along without healing. I can see myself enjoying an "anthem-twisting" role quite well, with off-heals, but until I get the rotations down I doubt I'd be able to main heal in PoS. However I'm hesitant to join groups of anyone other than kin, because they would say "we have a mini, no need for another healer" and I'd be stuck healing instead of putting up buffs.

But hey, with kin, that shouldn't really be a problem.

In 6-man fs it will maybe be possible for a capt to be main healer, with mincy as buffer and secondary healer

This is such a great thread! Thank you very much Narlinde! <3

About the changes though..Am I correct in thinking that even though if you trait 3 blue and you get x% more healing for each major ballad this only applies if you're in Melody? I really hope this is not the case because, in my opinion, this would greatly reduce the attraction to actually change ballads in the middle of the fight to conserve power or heal/damage more.

Let's say, hypothetically of course, you're in Melody and everything is going well but you used a lot of power before in a scary moment, now if you'd change to Perfect Ballads your power reduction would only go up with 6% while losing 21%? (not completly sure about this number) and that is if you had only major ballads before and change all of them to perfect ones.
If you had a 1-2-1 choice before and change to 2-1-2 (with 1 being major and 2 being perfect ballads) you only gain a 2% power decrease for a 6% healing decrease! This is obviously just not worth it. You could say that it's easy to switch stances, in which I have to agree if you'd go from Harmony to Melody but I believe, I might be incorrect, that there is an induction on changing the other way around. Now..even if there isn't I still think this gives for unnecesary anthem changes, ballad total buffs, etc. Thus this would really be awkard to do.
edit: I just realised I'm a bit wrong about the numbers since you can only trait as far as 4-3 into two lines but I believe the point still stands since it would still be a 2 or 3% big change for each ballad.

Again, I'm not sure this is the case but from what I understood so far it seems to be so.
I'd really appriciate if someone could inform me if this is correct or not and if Orion could pleaaaase pleaaaase change it if it is indeed like this.
I understand that it won't be possible to change before Isen but even if it will be months later, as long as it happens, I'd be happy.

Now that that concern is out of the way, I also have a suggestion for the 'boring' Echoes of battle skill in Harmony stance.

When I first read that it would just be the normal non-war-speech one I was quite dissapointed, especially after seeing the other great stance changes. I did however not find an immidiat possible change for it.
Reading the newest Dev-diary today though an idea popped in my mind. Why not change the skill in Harmony so that if you'd put it on an ally it would give them some power reduction on skills or a power give back (as with the hunter legendary trait) or even put it on a mob and attacking it gives power back like with Morskor (This has to be lower then Morkskors one of course!). The basic damage skill is just so low that I don't think anyone will ever use it and the power reduction/give back seems to fit in just perfectly with Harmony! (This is all my personal opinion of course ^_^).

Constructive critism highly welcome!

All the other changes so far seem just great to me and I'm soooo exited to try them out! I just can't wait! Thank you for putting this much time and thought into our class Orion and a big congratulations with the new family member <3

So the base cooldown is 20 seconds and the duration is 10? How big of an increase is the legacy?

What is the minimum investment in traits and legacies to get 100% uptime on one anthem? Not counting traitline permanent anthems. Can it be done just with the legacy or is it a minimum legacy + 1Y?

Originally Posted by Dedfyre

So the base cooldown is 20 seconds and the duration is 10? How big of an increase is the legacy?

What is the minimum investment in traits and legacies to get 100% uptime on one anthem? Not counting traitline permanent anthems. Can it be done just with the legacy or is it a minimum legacy + 1Y?

The legacy gives a +10 second duration I believe. So with that alone you'll be fine to keep one/two (with the traitline) up permanently.

AMAZING post! thank you so much!

for all GILRAIN minis, i've started a chatchannel where all us minis can discuss the new changes and help each other out
type /joinchannel minstrels and join the chat

For running as support the difference between 3Y and 4Y is pretty huge. At 3Y you can maintain 2 anthems 100% with some wiggle room assuming you have maxed the legacy. 4Y is a jump to being able to fit in six.

Seems like that might be a stronger choice in small fellowships or even regular fellowships where you don't really need the throughput of full blue traiting.

Given we can't reduce tale power cost anymore, do the improved tales feel worth it on beta? If not, Assuming chord and RtS get power reductions to put them inline with BC now would that help to improve it's functionality?

Can someone comment on the size of the Hammerhand bubble and what it costs to cast? I'm not sure if it is worth using, but need real numbers please.

Originally Posted by bastiat1

Can someone comment on the size of the Hammerhand bubble and what it costs to cast? I'm not sure if it is worth using, but need real numbers please.

I would advice to actually read the great post Narlinde made...*sigh*
It's all in it and very, very easy to find even without using ctrl + F.

But anyway:
- Song of the Hammerhand: 1980 morale for 30 seconds and it costs 306 power, if it expires it gives 5% power back.
- Gift of the Hammerhand: 1697 for 10 seconds and it costs 188 power.

+rep indeed. These changes will finally make me want to play my Minnie again. I came from DAOC a long time ago and rolled one up, hoping that things might run in a similar fashion to the Skald I had there which I dearly miss to this day. With the proposed introduction of the war speech changes AND the harmony stance maybe I can get my groove back...

As of the current build on Bullroarer, the skill icons for Minor Ballad and Perfect Ballad have changed. This is a welcome change, for me, because now they are much more distinctly different. The buff icon for the Melody of Battle has also changed. I've updated the guide with new screenshots!

Originally Posted by Tingilinde

About the changes though..Am I correct in thinking that even though if you trait 3 blue and you get x% more healing for each major ballad this only applies if you're in Melody? I really hope this is not the case because, in my opinion, this would greatly reduce the attraction to actually change ballads in the middle of the fight to conserve power or heal/damage more.

The 2-equipped bonus for +5% and the 4-equipped bonus for +10% outgoing healing on the Watcher of Resolve line are base, passive modifiers. No matter what stance you are in, if you have 2 equipped WoR traits you will receive 5% outgoing healing and if you have 4 equipped you will get 15% outgoing healing. Part of the 3-equipped WoR bonus is +1% healing to each Major Ballad buff. Therefore, if you have 3-WoR traits equipped, no matter what stance you are in, and you put up 3 Major Ballad buffs on yourself, you will have an extra +3% outgoing healing. With 4-WoR equipped, that goes up to 9%.

Originally Posted by Dedfyre

So the base cooldown is 20 seconds and the duration is 10? How big of an increase is the legacy?

What is the minimum investment in traits and legacies to get 100% uptime on one anthem? Not counting traitline permanent anthems. Can it be done just with the legacy or is it a minimum legacy + 1Y?

Traited and legacied for maximum anthem buffage, the shared cooldown on the Anthem buffs is 5 seconds and the duration for each buff is 30 seconds. To get there, you have to trait 4-deep into Protector of Song (and you MUST trait Glorious Anthem and Smooth Voice) and have a maxed out legacy for Anthem Duration on your weapon.

For keeping up just one Anthem, you can do it with just the legacy alone (note that if you trait 4-deep into any of the lines, you get a "free" anthem that becomes combat-permanent). Here's an example: For DPS, I've been traiting 5 Warrior-skald + Capstone, of course, plus the PoS trait Smooth Voice (and something else). I also have the legacy for Anthem Duration on my weapon and have ranked it up to 8, giving me +8.9 seconds to my Anthems. Thus, I have an Anthem cooldown of 15 seconds with a duration of 18.9 seconds to give me a little wiggle room. If you don't want to trait any PoS to get there, it is possible with a maxed out legacy to have a 20 second Anthem duration on a 20 second cooldown, but personally I like a little wiggle room. Usually, when I am in DPS mode, I will put up my combat-permanent Anthem of War first and then Anthem of Prowess, as those are the two Anthems that give offensive buffs. Barring mobs that stun at extremely bad times, I can keep Anthem of Prowess up by hitting it every 15 to 18 seconds.

Originally Posted by Dedfyre

For running as support the difference between 3Y and 4Y is pretty huge. At 3Y you can maintain 2 anthems 100% with some wiggle room assuming you have maxed the legacy. 4Y is a jump to being able to fit in six.

Seems like that might be a stronger choice in small fellowships or even regular fellowships where you don't really need the throughput of full blue traiting.

Given we can't reduce tale power cost anymore, do the improved tales feel worth it on beta? If not, Assuming chord and RtS get power reductions to put them inline with BC now would that help to improve it's functionality?

I agree that 4 Protector of Song and 3 Watcher of Resolve will be my default trait set for most groups. I can't really imagine having to trait 4 Watcher of Resolve except for the hardest of content, or possibly if I am healing a Continuous Blood Rage Champion.

I haven't tested out the dual tales capstone on beta mostly for the reason that on paper, it just doesn't seem worth it. I will miss my Improved Tale of Warding for equipping 4-PoS traits, yes, but with stats uncapped and Tale of Heroism giving us more of our primary stat, and thus more outgoing healing (less than 2% more, sure, but still), I doubt the trade offs for using the capstone are worth it. ON THE OTHER HAND, the power costs for the dual tales have been reduced. Tale of Warding and Heroism only costs 3 power per second and Tale of Frost and Flame's Battle only costs 4 power per second... so it's not as bad as it was, even without the old Flow of Harmony.

Originally Posted by bastiat1

Can someone comment on the size of the Hammerhand bubble and what it costs to cast? I'm not sure if it is worth using, but need real numbers please.

At level 75, the Song of the Hammerhand appears to give exactly 1,980 morale shield. The only variable is how much it will cost to cast. If your power pool is bigger, it will cost more to cast. It will ALWAYS cost 5% of your power pool to cast and, if the bubble has a full duration and expires naturally instead of falling off from being hit, it will give you back exactly as much power as it cost you to cast it.

Can we get a sticky for this thread? It's an excellent guide and deserves one!

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

At level 75, the Song of the Hammerhand appears to give exactly 1,980 morale shield

So we get the shield value that was initially planned (~30% of Max Power), 2k bubble gone in a handful of seconds.

As a note, the Minstrel Developer Diary has been released... y'all should go read that.

We're getting new instruments! Orion talks about them here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...diary-?start=6

Here is a screenshot of the level 60 version of the clarinet. I've been told that there is also a level 70 version, but I haven't located the level 70 ones yet. This is very, very shiny!

Why can't the options for the bonuses to the instruments be all the same? Not overly happy about running around in PvMP with a cowbell and with threat reduction.

Think maybe like jewelry and weapons, crafters have the panel to customize which buffs on instruments to put depending on the interest of the minstrel.

Wow, thanks so much for the awesome write up! Can't wait to get in there after launch and get the feel of how stuff is going to work now

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

As of the current build on Bullroarer, the skill icons for Minor Ballad and Perfect Ballad have changed. This is a welcome change, for me, because now they are much more distinctly different. The buff icon for the Melody of Battle has also changed. I've updated the guide with new screenshots!

That's great! I noticed they looked the same in Harmony or War-speech, so I'm very happy with that.

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

The 2-equipped bonus for +5% and the 4-equipped bonus for +10% outgoing healing on the Watcher of Resolve line are base, passive modifiers. No matter what stance you are in, if you have 2 equipped WoR traits you will receive 5% outgoing healing and if you have 4 equipped you will get 15% outgoing healing. Part of the 3-equipped WoR bonus is +1% healing to each Major Ballad buff. Therefore, if you have 3-WoR traits equipped, no matter what stance you are in, and you put up 3 Major Ballad buffs on yourself, you will have an extra +3% outgoing healing. With 4-WoR equipped, that goes up to 9%.

Omg, so so happy to hear that I was totally wrong! Thank you for clearing this up, it makes it lots better! \o/

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

I agree that 4 Protector of Song and 3 Watcher of Resolve will be my default trait set for most groups. I can't really imagine having to trait 4 Watcher of Resolve except for the hardest of content, or possibly if I am healing a Continuous Blood Rage Champion.

I was thinking in the same direction here, it seems to be a clear path unless you really, really need the heals.

P.s. Love the instruments, although I'll need at least 2 or 3 just to heal now.....eeek, bagspaaace :'( <3

Originally Posted by Familiarity

Why can't the options for the bonuses to the instruments be all the same? Not overly happy about running around in PvMP with a cowbell and with threat reduction.

Think maybe like jewelry and weapons, crafters have the panel to customize which buffs on instruments to put depending on the interest of the minstrel.

Best case scenario we'd have multi-output recipes for each "build", such as "main healer" or "dps" with appropriate stats. Then each output could be the instruments. Or, the other way around, of course -- multi-out instruments with different builds. I don't know what would be more efficient but it sure would make the class more customizable.

TLDR!

j/k nice thread

I did some more healing on the beta server today. Whew, if you're trying to keep up your buffs, it's a pretty different experience (for me, at least). I could BARELY get away with traiting 4y/3r. Eventually I just gave up on that and traited 4y/3b, which made it much easier.

Also, our ability to kite while self-healing is AWESOME. Start in Melody, put up the Melody of Battle skill on yourself if you wish for more parry, then Major Ballad > Major Ballad > Major Ballad > Chord of Salvation > Soliloquy of Spirit > Anthems at your discretion > Anthem of the Third Age > Coda of Vigour > free inductionless Bolster Courage > Song of the Hammerhand if things get nasty > Improved Cry of the Valar for that HoT....

Basically, as long as you have power and aren't getting repeatedly crit for massive amounts of damage or stunned, you can kite and heal yourself forever and a day. The power issue is easily solved by putting up Anthem of Composure before you hit Coda of Vigour, too. We have so many on-the-move heals now, several of which are AoE so we can even heal our groups while moving, too. Frankly, I felt like a rather squishy Captain while heal/kite tanking various adds and bosses in various instances.

Oh, and here is another screenshot, this time of gear that may be relevant to our interests.

Originally Posted by Tingilinde

But anyway:
- Song of the Hammerhand: 1980 morale for 30 seconds and it costs 306 power, if it expires it gives 5% power back.
- Gift of the Hammerhand: 1697 for 10 seconds and it costs 188 power.

I will miss the old Gift of Hammerhand. I've taken such a huge liking in using it to punish people who insist on sitting in puddles and not potting out removable dots. It was such a fantastic gift of love.

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

Basically, as long as you have power and aren't getting repeatedly crit for massive amounts of damage or stunned, you can kite and heal yourself forever and a day.

hehe, just from going off your guide with +100% power costs and Healing Crit Modifiers on gear I would think not having power to blast massive self heals on yourself and getting hit hard, which is what the healing crit modifier is for, will be all too common.

Originally Posted by ZirasAminstrel

hehe, just from going off your guide with +100% power costs....

... has been significantly altered.