Thread: Starting over

So I tried stripping my toolbars and class traits and re-learning the class on one of my 65 Minstrels. No good, it was too hard to match up mobs so that I would be challenged and have to max the rotation to live.

So I rolled my, um, fifth Minstrel. (65,65,28,17, and now 14). Despite my complete confidence that previously, when push came to shove, race of man Minstrels had the best survivability (Easily Inspired and man-heal) I went for Elf, because Elves were cool back when men were triumphantly coming back from the Big Hunt with, like, a rat, or maybe a sloth-rat thing you couldn't even tell what it was and the guy that knocked it out of the tree was made Plurd, or whatever they called kings back then.

Anyway, it's Elf/Explorer time again.I even started on a server where I couldn't twink and being slow to un-dubiousness, I am still f2p.

At the grand old age of fourteen I can say this: The change is significant enough that leveling a new Minstrel is being as interesting as it was to level my first one in SoA beta. It really feels like a new class, and ya, they totally ripped off the LoTRO Minstrel with the whole Tommy-lute thing, but it's different enough to not feel like a clone. Also, Coda of Fury -> woot!

I am thinking all the outgoing healing buffs will pretty much wash over the Easily Inspired advantage, though it is going to be pretty hard to smooth man-heal into the background.

I can't really foresee playing my 65 Minstrels until I get this one pretty far along, I would be all 'doi doi doi' and smashing keys until something good happened or I died, which is what I did before, but now I would probably realize it.

Caelevin, Elf Minstrel, 14

I hadn't "maxed" my minstrel, but rather I had been stuck few levels before 65 prior to RoI. I hadn't been playing much so coming back with new and improved (?) skills wasn't that big of a deal. But boy, the change sure is significant. One of the biggest if not the biggest change of all the classes I've played. Maybe it just seemed that way...

I'm liking Harmony stance and the way I can keep anthems up while blasting enemies without any real danger of power or morale loss. And War-speech traited nothing lives long and I still got power left after the battle, something that seems new and amazing.

Champion change I hear is a big one too, but my current one's at level 30ish and last one I retired at the level of 44 some year back so can't say anything about the changes.

Lastly, here's to fixing the classes they broke while improving ours! I miss you my warden brothers...

I would recommend getting your 65 to 75 and expereince the new stuff. But to each thier own.

I dont think I could handle rerolling the same class over and over lol..

I rolled a elf mini as well, I base it on the line in the books about elf bards that were so eloquent that they brought thier stories to life out of the fire.

But it makes no diffrence at all, especially to the one class in game that gives the most amount of survivablity. Man heal.. one a hour 3k heal.. I can heal once every 10 seconds do a 1k heal, a 2k heal with no induction if coda is up, a 1.5k heal every 2 seconds and my traited Triumph of Spirit a 3k heal every 8 mins. Not sure what another heal would do in there, or the reason we would need one. While i can put 3 hots on myself while doing all that. Add a bubble!

I think if I would start any toon over vs maxing out a diffrent class, right now it would be a champ, to see if I could get to 75 in less then 5 days /played time.

The champ changes were insane as well, they made a powerful dps class, into a even more powerful dps class and gave them survival skills, that they lacked pre roi.

The View From 22

I turned 22 in my first Gondomon skirmish tonight.

Ya know, I understand that it is important to get your priorities in line before everything else and accept that there are folks who believe revisiting those priorities is a waste of time, because it all works out, life is all about natural consequences.

Take the Gondomon Minstrel Trainer for instance, that lil' tyke's top priority, above all else, is identifying every mob I fear and smacking it with his little hammy fist. Which is why it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see his glowy change from green to yellow, it's like a signal light that says 'in a moment I will turn red and the madness will stop.' I don't really lose marks by letting him die, I choose to pay in marks for pain relief. I am good with that.

Part way into the skirmish I realized being in Warspeech now meant I could not heal my Sage except by Free Peeps and Fury. I admit to thinking, "oh for goodness sake, please tell me this is not an 'extremes lead to balance!' design"...but when I finished the skirmish I traited my Sage for morale regen and figured it would work out. Then I went to the qualified Minstrel Trainer in the Pony and bought my new skill: Harmony.

Awesome, just awesome.

Now, I am not the only one I know who has leveled two of the same class, not close. The thing is it can be really fun because you avoid all the stoopid mistakes you made the first time and having so few skills to manage feels like a holiday.

But this time it really is different, the Anthem/Coda mechanic moves the class away from the "SoA Minstrel minus Runekeeper" feel* to something that feels like a new class positioned all by itself between the RK and the Warden.

I am only 'twinked' by what I can find on the AH and tailor for myself but when I hit the Lonelands around 17, I was popping off reds left and right. So I am thinking that part of the combat curve will get some smoothing out, the reds probably should have resisted a lot more, in the long run it isn't as fun to be over powered relative to the content.

Also, as much as it sounds like complaining about too much of a good thing, on my Warden, RK and Minstrel, it really is very frustrating when there is goodness at the end that you can't get to because everything dies too fast. Okay with the RK it is just that you can't get to Epic Conclusion, but blowing things to meat chunks is a core competency, You end up feeling like you just got your degree and can only find work bussing tables.

I have only solo'd so far and I almost always set up my coda with Free Peeps. I guess I used Anthem of War on some boss types, but while I am thrilled about the concept behind Anthem of Prowess/Noble Cause , I have yet to find a situation where the bang for the buck is even close to that of Free Peeps. I am not wanting my Herald's Strike to be Coda of Fury x 3 (yes, of course I am lying, I totally want that) but using Prowess at 22 is like a dollop of 'meh'.

Can anyone tell me if this changes at higher levels?

Lastly, I can't believe how much stuff I can do as f2p (even if I don't have my Founder title now), criminy this is a lot of content for kinda free, I mean, I bought SoA and MoM, and I understand f2p fundamentally changes the game design, but still...it is pretty nice.


Caelevin


*I am not talking about the redesign just before RoI, that was awesome change in this general direction.