Thread: Minstrel Trick Combos

I have been finding more and more "trick" combos of skills to use in game. I wanted to share a few of them:

Dynamic Stance Switching:

Start in one stance and switch to another. This can get you the permanent buff in one stance while switching to another. For instance, if I need to do a lot of main healing, but I'm traited 4 or more in Yellow, I can start in harmony and get the Anthem of the Third Age (Harmony) perma-anthem going. I can then drop harmony stance for Melody, but the Anthem persists until I hit a coda or leave combat. Its a nice way to save some power during a heal-heavy fight. You can do the same thing starting in Warspeech or Melody. Your Anthem of the Third age (stance specific) will persist even when you leave that stance.

Preloading anthems:

Before a boss fight, you can preload your anthems up. Just do the following:
Cry the Chorus
Anthem #1
Anthem #2
If you really want to be prepared, you can also drop a Symphony of the Hopeful Heart circle, put a Soliloquoy of Spirit on the Tank, and a bolster courage on anyone. You'll start combat with a number of buffs and HoTs going. Just make sure that combat begins before your 9second OOC timer elapses, then you lose all the buffs and your Cry the Chorus is on CD.

Dumping Aggro:

The classic combo here is Lay of the Hammerhand followed by Song of Soothing. However, your Hammerhand may be on CD. In that case, use some sheet music right before using Song of Soothing. This is the best use of sheet music IMHO and I've moved it to be next to Song of Soothing on my skill bar.

Speed Kiting:

Most are familiar with using fear to kite. However, some mobs are resistant or immune to your fears. You can still kite via speed buffs. Use Anthem of the Wizards for the speed debuff on the mob you want to kite. Some bosses are immune to slows, so this wont work. In that case, use Call of the Second Age for the +10% fellowship run speed. This can even be used out of combat, like when you need to get across the "frogger zone" in Fanghorn's Edge. The key with kiting via speed is to use your strafe. If you strafe away, you run at full run speed (as opposed to backing up). Using strafe with back-up and and turn, you can run in a large circle while keeping the enemy in front of you. This is great for kiting melee bosses.

Healing in Warspeech:

There are several skills that allow us to lightly heal without leaving Warspeech:
1) Put up Soliloquoy of Spirit while out of warspeech, then switch to warspeech while the HoT continues ticking
2) Use Chord of Salvation on yourself to activate the fellowship wide HoT
3) Use Anthem of the Free Peoples for the fellowship wide ICMR
4) Use Cry of the Vallar for the fellowship wide ICMR
5) Use Gift of the Hammerhand to prevent damage

Any cool combinations you've found?

--Harperella

Edit: Anthem of War does NOT stay up for the life of combat after one drops War-Speech. Oh well.

One trick in the spirit of your post is that when soloing, I try to do several self-heals in succession -- and hot-swap my healing book in when I do so.

I'm not as sophisticated a kiter as you are, but a simple backpedal greatly reduces the damage one takes, if there's a lot of room to backpedal (as there commonly is in, for example, offensive skirmishes). Could you please explain your technique a little more?

(And I think you made a typo above, referring to Bolster when you meant CoS. It was in the HoT section.)

I find that, when rolled at the appropriate angle and speed, my face can only ever produce good results.

That aside, in lieu of the CoS change, RtS, CoS, SoS, RtS is the new RtS, CoS, RtS.

Trick combo for me would be in war-speech: Soliloquy of my Spirit, Minor ballad, Timeless echoes of battle, Minor ballad, bright light(target debuff with Call of Orome), minor ballad, Anthem of war. Stuff starts to die with the +31% tactical damage you're now doing, not to mention the high crit chance. Rock on through with Cry of the Valar, Cry of the Wizards and pop off piercing cry whenever the target shows an induction. Herald's strike/noble cause is great when stuff doesn't just drop dead at your feet after the first strike.

I'm now finding it difficult to retrait from 5 red, 2 yellow when a group wants me to heal. Having that red capstone as well as Anthem of war makes a huge difference.
Using the Coda might do a lot of damage...easier just keeping the Anthem of War buff up and exploding stuff with huge crits though.
My 75 2nd age book has legacies to boost both Anthem of war and healing. While soloing, Anthem of war is first priority and I'll chain targets like I used to with the Champion in Ardour stance. Only 9 seconds to next target!
I don't really feel motivated to do new legendary items and go doing instances now. Having to dump all the hard work on the level 65 LIs hurt a lot. Those extraordinary relics took a lot of time to get. If Turbine aren't going to make relic removal scrolls available in game, I'm going to work on lower level characters.

Great thread. One thing I "discovered" the other day is using Cry of the Chorus to open up my Coda in Warspeech. As soon as you discharge a Coda, hit Cry of the Chorus and Coda again. Doubletap! Pre-coda nerf days this was nasty. I mean you could do a 6-8k damage coda depending on your ballads and anthems, and then follow up immediately with a 4-5k coda. Great for exterminating pesky wargs. Even now it's lethal.

I'll admit that I'm bad at is using all the ballads. I feel when I'm dpsing I only want minor ballads up. It's faster to put up a minor ballad and then a perfect or major ballad and then jump back to minor, especially if you are looking to put anthems through as fast as possible, say to regen power.

Here's another trick: when you drop from combat you only have a few seconds to execute an anthem. If you are in harmony and can't find a target, or in warspeech, you can drop and coda on yourself before the buffs expire. I do this to regen power or morale.

One thing I never remember to do is use non-War-Speech heals when soloing. It's perfectly feasible to drop War-Speech, throw Triumphant Spirit to avoid imminent death, bubble, and either put War-Speech back up directly (which will very likely escape setback), or throw Fellowship's Heart first, followed by War-Speech (more setback risk).

And for a simple combo:

Bubble (to avert setback)/Invocation of Elbereth

Of course, sheet music could come into play here, but I never think of using that, and anyway I'd like my solo tactics to not require a lot in the way of consumables.

Originally Posted by Thornpaw

Here's another trick: when you drop from combat you only have a few seconds to execute an anthem. If you are in harmony and can't find a target, or in warspeech, you can drop and coda on yourself before the buffs expire. I do this to regen power or morale.

I've been doing something similar... after combat ends I will hit an anthem or two before the ballads wear off. If you are traited long anthem durations, they very well may persist to the next battle. This is nice when you are clearing multiple trash mobs back to back. Even if you don't quite chain pull, you are likely to have an anthem still up when the next combat begins.

--Harper

Originally Posted by Harperelle

I've been doing something similar... after combat ends I will hit an anthem or two before the ballads wear off. If you are traited long anthem durations, they very well may persist to the next battle. This is nice when you are clearing multiple trash mobs back to back. Even if you don't quite chain pull, you are likely to have an anthem still up when the next combat begins.

--Harper

Works great against Dragioch.

I keep Sheet Music next to Fellowships Heart on my quickslot bar. That simple combo has saved many lives when things got dicey.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

I'm not as sophisticated a kiter as you are, but a simple backpedal greatly reduces the damage one takes, if there's a lot of room to backpedal (as there commonly is in, for example, offensive skirmishes). Could you please explain your technique a little more?

I'm not Harperelle, but I can tell you what works for me. I ignore the "S" key entirely and use Q and E to strafe depending on the direction I need to go to avoid getting cornered. The enemy (or enemies) will eventually fall into exact line behind you, so I use the mouse to alter my facing slightly as I run so that I can still nuke from range while running away. Use Second Age and Wizards to get a speed boost/reduction whenever you can as it is important you stay out of range until you are comfortably ahead and no longer in need of the help. Keep SotS on yourself as it doesn't cost much, assuming you are taking some damage from time to time; if you're full up, spare the power usage. If you are getting cornered, turn around and fear off the mob (assuming there is only one and it is fearable) and run by the other way. If you are getting cornered against one nonfearable mob, I tend to Piercing Cry as I turn and head back towards it in case I get a stun proc and then Second Age right as I get to him so I zoom on by taking at most one hit. If you have multiple mobs on you, whatever you do, don't get cornered. The only places I have any trouble with this is on Attack at Dawn and Icy Crevasse, where you're stuck in one room that is relatively small at the end, and even then I can still usually make it work. Of course, having the dwarf damage reduction cooldown available helps in a pinch.

I started to learn how to do this early on at the Siege of Gondamon. No matter what I did, I would wind up with multiple mobs on me unless I just stood there and healed the npcs and that took too long. So I wound up kiting things up over all of the ramps there in order to stay alive, and unlike in WoW, LOTRO mobs will sometimes cut corners and jump off edges so I had to be careful about it. Now it's second nature. Hope it helps.