Thread: A short guide to PVE endgame minstrel healing

1. Introduction

This guide is intended to show the basics of endgame minstrel healing after the Rise of Isengard expansion and changes. I dare to venture into such a labor because I have cleared most of the lvl 75 instances, raids and skirmishes both at tier 1 and tier 2, sometimes with my kin mates, and sometimes in PUGs.

I am a middle-aged noob who hasn’t so far excelled in any game. I am surprised to find myself in the position of a successful raider since I have at least two big weaknesses – my reactions are slow and I tend to panic. If an average player like me is capable of doing Fangorn t2, Draigoch t2, Orthanc cluster, etc. everyone else is capable. The question then is how to do it.

Hereafter I will give you my experience. Please note, I will not write about my opinions or preferences but mainly about what works based on trial/error learning method, that is, based on experience. Talking about experience, mine is acquired with a casual non raiding kinship which likes to raid or in PUGs. More often than not our groups include undergeared characters and/or inexperienced players (and even wardens who pretend to tank ).

In short, this guide is based on a successful albeit mainstream experience and hence should be useful for merely every healing PVE minstrel. This is not a starting guide (see here and here for such) but an endgame one. Therefore, it is expected that the reader is acquainted with the basics of the class and the Lotro terminology. This guide is not in any sense PVP-oriented.

Thank you in advance for your time, dear reader, and let me express my sincere gratitude to my kinnies from Radix Lecti kinship on Laurelin server who helped me so much to become a useful minstrel.


2. The three roles of the healing minstrel

After the awesome changes to our class in the latest expansion - which we owe to our much beloved developer Orion – minstrels can do three things in a fellowship simultaneously. These are buffing, healing and DPSing. The accomplished minstrel does all the three most of the time (an opinion shared by Cloudie-Wan to whose minstrel wisdom this guide is more or less based). In order to do that:

- We heal in harmony stance – more dps from ballads and coda is very powerful group heal. Draigoch upstairs and the final phases against Saruman being the major exceptions;
- We stay in Melee Range. Apart from Draigoch upstairs and the places with severe AOEs (e.g. Necromancer gates skirmish last boss) we should use our weapons;
- Our skills auto targeting is switched off (combat prefs, 4th option). Spamming ballads does not include messing with crowd control or pulling distant groups;
- We use Noble cause as much as possible. Not only that it does some decent damage, it also heals and, if traited accordingly, even restores power.


3. Healing strategy: better safe than sorry

We should try to be proactive not reactive healers. We can greatly diminish the damage our fellowship is suffering and increase its DPS output. Every sane minstrel will have at least the four fellowship-oriented anthems active all the time. The two that buff just us are not to be neglected as well. In short, anthems use is half of the healing. The better half.

Why the better? For buffing affects many not just one. An ancient minstrel proverb says the more the listeners, the better the show.

Second, we have 3 HOTs (heals over time) and they are often enough to keep things going smoothly. They are:

- Chord of salvation. This is our most important and useful heal. It is an instant cast, heals a decent amount and applies a HOT to the fellowship members within 12m to its original target. We should use it on the main tank every now and then, and thus keep all melee classes healed;
- Cry of the Valar. This AOE DPS skill has a very nice group-HOT component. We should use it on rat every time it is active. Note, that it removes corruptions from target. We must not annoy our debuffers and for sure we don’t break CCs with careless use of AOEs;
- Soliloquy the spirit. This HOT is very useful to cast on the tank, on yourself or on fellows that suffer AOE damage now and then. It has a really long duration. I tend to cast it on champs when everything else is under control.

That’s not all. We have some more buff/debuff instruments in our arsenal which we should use to prevent damage and increase group DPS. They are:

- Cry of the wizards (Legendary trait). This one practically diminishes the target DMG with 20% for 15 seconds. This is 20% less healing. We should use it every time it is active while, of course, paying attention not to break CCs;
- Song of aid. A nice group buff;
- Call for greatness. Single target buff which works differently on each calls. On some classes it is even useful;
- Tales. Not to be mentioned;
- We can also clear fear effects which is handy.


4. What about our inventory?

Healing minstrels and their groups should be buffed with battle and warding scrolls, and hope tokens. We are always hungry for Vitality food, we love to eat cooked food (for regens) and hot soup or stew (for resistance). We also carry pots for morale, power, and of course the four types for corruption removal. We use lute strings to diminish our agro generation and we have music sheets which lower our power consumption and make the next skill uninterruptible (very handy to use before casting Inspire fellows which skill power cost is insane).

We urge others to eat. Our music is best enjoyed on full stomach.


5. Virtues and traits

Virtues choice does not make so much difference at lvl 75. Probably zeal is the only one every minstrel should equip. Fidelity is handy for Orthanc since it gives tactical mitigation. I tend to use virtues that boost my resistance since minstrels are rarely hit but we frequently suffer from corruptions. Anyway, this is a question of taste. Just level and equip zeal for the moral. We are squishy.

Race traits are self evident. If you are a minstrel from the race of man never use the urgent heal – its power cost/morale restoration ratio is ridiculous. I suppose that this skill is so useless that the devs have completely forgotten about it and hence it is not revised.

Class traits. We must go with 4 yellow and 3 blue while healing. The 5 yellow cap stone is not good enough to be considered for serious fights since the 3 blue bonus is huge - +10% Chord of salvation healing. Considering the HOT component of this skill and its use every 10 seconds (with a legacy) it equals to thousands of morale healed in a typical run. The cap stone gives +2000 armor buff to the FS from the warding tale which is not relatively so great. Here, I take for granted that every minstrel knows that we must use the will/fate tale.

Class traits should be chosen according to the fight. Do we need more tactical mitigation? Do we need second instant cast (Raise the spirit cast time trait)? Do we expect to use Rally (our in-combat rez) a lot so we need to decrease its cooldown time? Traits that should be always equipped are those which affect anthems duration and cooldown (yellow), and critical heals, casting time (blue).

Legendary traits. No room for change here if we go 4 yellow/3 blue which is highly recommended. We equip then Rally, Fellowship Heart, and Cry of the wizards. The latter somehow compensates nicely the loss of the warding tale for 5 yellow.


6. Armor and jewelry

The best healing armor is the raid set. It is by far superior to all other options with its -10% power consumption bonus. As a fifth piece I recommend the helm over the shoulders.

Now, minstrels should aim for about 6.6k morale unbuffed and 44% outgoing healing (in general, for significantly more than that orthanc t2 loot is required). We are squishy and a defeated minstrel is a very bad thing. We can achieve that goal in various ways. We just have to remember to concentrate on equipping items with tactical mastery. Will is not so important – my outgoing healing is 44 percent with slightly more than 1500 will.

Back to armor. Apart from Draigoch set 5 pieces we should equip a cloak for morale, ideally the wyrmscale protector one. Since it is not easily obtainable we can use the crafted tankish cloak (Warriors cloak of Theodred). There are crafted shoulders with some vitality/morale on them which are highly recommended as well (Vibrant assault shoulders of Theodred).

Jewelry. Buy the vitally bracelet from the Rohirrim vendor in Galtrev (Bracelet of strength remembered). It is awesome. There is an excellent crafted earring with loads of morale/vitality which I highly recommend (Resolute earring of Theodred). Everything else should be will/tactical mastery oriented but as a general rule we must try to equip things that have also some vitality/morale on them like, say, the Derudh medicinal pouch from Draigoch t2 (+92 will and fate, +162 morale).

Fate is more or less useless stat for healing. One more crit once or twice in a fight changes nothing. To lower will or vitality in order to boost ICMR with a negligible amount is just stupid.

Tip: Obtain a piece of jewelry with high tactical mitigation and use it when going to Saruman itself or to his minions. There is, for example, a necklace dropping from Dargnákh at t2 that gives 1500 tactical mitigation. This is more than 3 times Fidelity leveled to its maximum.


7. Legendary Items

First of all, do wait for second agers, do not waste resources on a third ager.

There are four relics we should consider having on both our legendary items. They are:

- Platinium setting of mettle – 250 Moral, 544 Tactical Mastery Rating;
- Remarkable gem of charity – +158 Tactical Mitigation, +700 Tactical Mastery Rating, +243 Maximum Power. Since its cost is insane, we can go for the tier 6 version, the difference is not that great;
- True rune of the two trees – +180 Maximum Morale, +160 Maximum Power, +96 in-Combat Morale Regen, +90 in-Combat Power Regen;
- And, of course, the tactical-oriented crafted relic.

To the best of my knowledge, these four are better than anything else for healing LIs.

Songbook legacies. The choice here is pretty much self-evident:

- Healing and motivation skills morale healing;
- Healing skill power cost;
- Bolster courage healing;
- Anthem of war – melee damage. This buff is so overpowered that it will be nerfed with the next update. It’s a shame not to take advantage of it. Just imagine a Draigoch CJ group consisting of 2 burgs, 2 champs, a minstrel with this legacy, and a captain. Poor dragon (and almost no time to finish CJs before killing it);
- Chord of salvation cooldown. This legacy in a sense increases the skill healing with 33%. Awesome!
- No points left to level up another legacy even if we spent a small fortune on scrolls of greater empowerment. So, the last slot is best reserved for vitality or will legendary item scroll.

Weapon legacies. Here is tricky. Only the first three legacies are really must-haves for healing. Now, I tend to DPS so my choice for the others three is DPS oriented. This is solely my preference, however, not the best build in any way, shape or form.

- Anthem duration;
- Healing threat reduction;
- Soliloquy of Spirit pulses increase;
- I use also Minor ballad damage;
- And Perfect ballad damage to increase my DPS;
- As usual the sixth slot is for a vitality/will scroll.

Other useful weapon legacies for healers are at least Rally! cooldown and Still as death cooldown.


8. How we play?

Healing order. Our responsibility is to keep people undefeated and in good morale. However, some classes are more important than other classes. You know – the tank. Our first aim is to ensure his well-being (sorry, crazy champs out there!). Next class to keep alive depends on the situation. In general it’s the off-healer (Cappy), the CC (Lore-masters, Burglars) and finally the DPS-ers. Sorry guys, I know it is not fair.

Oh, you ask who do we love? We love 20k morale tanks, healing captains and power-generous lore-masters. We feel strong compassion to burglars who are the only squishy class which needs to stay close to the big bad guys out there. Hence, we cast a HOT on them now and again.

Tip: We, minstrels, are pro-life. We don’t like seeing other people being defeated. Hence, we tend to heal others in expense of ourselves. And we die. Then everybody die. Ouch. Heal yourself first. The group has some chance to finish its job even without a tank but not without a healer.

Skill order. In general, we start by opening our anthems while casting some HOTs if necessary. Then we go in melee and start DPSing if possible while continuously renewing anthems and HOTs. Here and there we cast bolster courage and inspire fellows. In emergency situation we use emergency skills (includes the coda in harmony stance).

Skill rotation. To simplify things greatly, our rotation is two skills – anthem – two skills – anthem, etc. Every time one of Soliloquy the spirit, Cry of the Valar, Cry of the wizards, and Noble cause is active we use it, if appropriate.

Instruments. We should consider for healing only the Clarinet or the Preservation version of any instrument. Be nice and do not use the pigborn (pardon, the pibgorn) or the pipe.


Tips and in-kinhouse rules:

- Raise the spirit use should be avoided due to its high power cost but low effect. Same goes for Inspire fellows. The latter should be regarded like kind of an urgent heal. Using a music sheet before it helps;

- The small short-lasting bubble that we can cast on a fellow does not generate aggro. We can use it then at the start of the fight without risk of creating aggro-management issues;

- Our self-bubble should not be understood as a precaution. It is much better used as a self-heal;

- In raids it is our duty to heal immediately our brethren healer when needed;

- In long and intensive fights like Orthanc Lore-masters are our best friends. Flatter them. We can ask captains for some power as well. Or we can use our power-restoring coda. This, however, clears from us all anthem effects, which is not so good;

- Minstrels are generous. We do not save our urgent heals for the time when everyone is almost defeated. This creates panic and panic kills;

- We use our pots although we think it’s a waste to drink a pot while having skills that do the job better. Alas, to use skills one must be alive and have power. A stingy minstrel is not a minstrel at all – we give our music for free.

- Sometimes the damage is more than the amount we can heal. We must indicate that to the group. Such situations are manageable by kiting, CC, off-tanking, etc;

- The complaining role in raids is reserved for DPS classes Healers along with tanks should not complain – this makes all the rest very nervous. With that in mind we should never say “I can’t tank”. People really know that;

- We are not afraid to shout in teamspeak “Move out of there you crazy champ”. We know that this champ main character is a minstrel and that’s why he is so much crazy. We are not afraid to ask politely for power, buffs or liberation from a hostile attention;

- Finally, we should never ever wait to finish casting before moving while taking damage. This is the most common reason for defeated minstrels.


9. Conclusion

Thanks for reaching the end, dear reader.

This guide, as stated in the beginning, is based on experiments. The advices given work at least most of the time but this does not imply in any way, shape or form that they are the only way to do things properly.

To be honest, I don’t know what a great minstrel is. I have no tips for greatness only for usefulness. If we prepare ourselves before the fight and stay focused and disciplined during it we should be able to enjoy the current Lotro endgame content. Just remember to buff more than heal. Buffs benefit the whole group not just one individual and hence are better.

Let me finish by *thanking Orion heartily for his help* since he is who made our class “more awesome than Mordor” as goes the poetic name of a kinship on the server I play. As a sincere admirer of the Tolkien Professor I would like to

Thank you for reading and Godspeed!

From either experience or arithmetic I disagree with a great deal of this, although I'll confess to never having beaten the fifth phase of the Saruman fight or anything T2 in Orthanc.

Tale of Heroism is pretty questionable by the numbers in a longish fight, adding a small amount of healing while costing considerable power.

Tale of Battle boosts everybody's tactical mitigation and morale. This is a good thing.

Resistance is sadly useless in Orthanc. It also doesn't help against the common damage part of Dragioch or the one-shot kills from, say, Frigid Squalls.

There are considerable differences of opinion about relics. I push ICPR, for example, to avoid the need for power return.

I won't debate 4 yellow vs. 4 blue. That's a matter of style.

There's no need to confine yourself to a single book. Learn to swap. That lets you have a healing book with H&M and Healing Power Cost and Bolster Courage and Chord of Salvation cooldown and your choice of Inspire Fellows or Raise the Spirit (assuming you have 4 majors), while also having a buff book with all three parts of Anthem of War and also Cry of the Chorus cooldown.

I actually have a second buff book with both parts of Anthem of Composure and Cry of the Chorus cooldown, but that may be excessive.

Good point about dying because you were too busy casting.

Yeah, don't agree in every part but anyway: Thanks a lot, an awesome written guide! And your main topic was transported very well throughout the lines, hopefully it will give us some more focused healers.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

From either experience or arithmetic I disagree with a great deal of this, although I'll confess to never having beaten the fifth phase of the Saruman fight or anything T2 in Orthanc.

Tale of Heroism is pretty questionable by the numbers in a longish fight, adding a small amount of healing while costing considerable power.

Tale of Battle boosts everybody's tactical mitigation and morale. This is a good thing.

Resistance is sadly useless in Orthanc. It also doesn't help against the common damage part of Dragioch or the one-shot kills from, say, Frigid Squalls.

There are considerable differences of opinion about relics. I push ICPR, for example, to avoid the need for power return.

I won't debate 4 yellow vs. 4 blue. That's a matter of style.

There's no need to confine yourself to a single book. Learn to swap. That lets you have a healing book with H&M and Healing Power Cost and Bolster Courage and Chord of Salvation cooldown and your choice of Inspire Fellows or Raise the Spirit (assuming you have 4 majors), while also having a buff book with all three parts of Anthem of War and also Cry of the Chorus cooldown.

I actually have a second buff book with both parts of Anthem of Composure and Cry of the Chorus cooldown, but that may be excessive.

Good point about dying because you were too busy casting.

Dear Curt,

When using arithmetic as an argument, do some calculations first. Please. You confuse people.

Put your cursor on will and write down its effects. Same for fate. Count them and make the sum. Now, subtract the vitality effects from this sum. The equal is positive.

This arithmetic is not good enough since math is always about quanity. The effects of will and fate bonus on your FS are very much qualitatively better than vitality alone. If you do not understand this, I am sorry.

Next, if you have any problems with power, you are doing something wrong. I have never experienced power problems. Even in the places you are yet to be. I can list here the possible mistakes you are making but I feel you are too inclined in the "all opinion have same validity" thing, so I will leave the matter unanswered.

4y/3b. Again, do your math. 4 yellow traits is the only way you can have all 6 anthems active at the same time. If you do not understand why this is better than the healing bonus for 4 blue traits, I am again sorry.

Book swap is a fashion thing, not really something a minstrel should do. I do have two books, tbh. The truth, however, is that if we have time to swap the books, it doesnt matter. When it really should make a diff, you do not have time to do it. Even with a programmable keyboard like mine it is a problem.

Finally, tactigal mitigation is the most important preparation for Orthanc. I cant see any decent raid leader who will not insist on Fidelity trait equipped. I made some experiments there with the Iulin necklace (1513 tact mit) and the difference is huge, to say the least.

What the arithmetic says is that even a relatively small amount of mitigation in a long fight equals for thousends of moral. You know 20 moral per hit is nothing but if you are hitted 1000 times...

Cheers,
Yassa

Well, when I do the arithmetic, having 71 more vitality does more to keep people alive than does giving their minstrel 85 will + 85 fate and giving them 85 ICMR.

However, I will confess that in comparing the tales, I have not tried to account for the DPS benefits of giving them more power and critical rating.

Beyond that, I don't understand why you feel the need to insult those who disagree with your advice.

It is particularly odd that you disagree with book swapping, considering how much is lost by confining your group to the benefits that can be achieved from a single book. There are at least 11 useful songbook healing and buffing legacies, so there is no way to have access to them all without using 2 or more books. Maybe you don't care about providing your groups with Anthem of War/Tactical and Anthem of War/Ranged; but many other minstrels try to do that, on the theory that doing more damage is usually better than doing less. Maybe you think having Chord of Salvation come around once every 15 seconds is always enough, but I like the chance to use it more often, for extra HoTs if nothing else. Maybe you never use Inspire Fellows or Raise the Spirit, but most minstrels would prefer legacies in at least one of them. And if you're going to have Anthem of Composure up much of the time, then why not have at least the Anthem of Composure/Tactical Mitigation legacy?

Originally Posted by Yassa

Dear Curt,

When using arithmetic as an argument, do some calculations first. Please. You confuse people.

Put your cursor on will and write down its effects. Same for fate. Count them and make the sum. Now, subtract the vitality effects from this sum. The equal is positive.

This arithmetic is not good enough since math is always about quanity. The effects of will and fate bonus on your FS are very much qualitatively better than vitality alone. If you do not understand this, I am sorry.

Next, if you have any problems with power, you are doing something wrong. I have never experienced power problems. Even in the places you are yet to be. I can list here the possible mistakes you are making but I feel you are too inclined in the "all opinion have same validity" thing, so I will leave the matter unanswered.

4y/3b. Again, do your math. 4 yellow traits is the only way you can have all 6 anthems active at the same time. If you do not understand why this is better than the healing bonus for 4 blue traits, I am again sorry.

Book swap is a fashion thing, not really something a minstrel should do. I do have two books, tbh. The truth, however, is that if we have time to swap the books, it doesnt matter. When it really should make a diff, you do not have time to do it. Even with a programmable keyboard like mine it is a problem.

Finally, tactigal mitigation is the most important preparation for Orthanc. I cant see any decent raid leader who will not insist on Fidelity trait equipped. I made some experiments there with the Iulin necklace (1513 tact mit) and the difference is huge, to say the least.

What the arithmetic says is that even a relatively small amount of mitigation in a long fight equals for thousends of moral. You know 20 moral per hit is nothing but if you are hitted 1000 times...

Cheers,
Yassa

Many useful tips, very well written and divided into paragraphs, yeay!

Can you just explain me this part?

''Fate is more or less useless stat for healing. One more crit once or twice in a fight changes nothing. To lower will or vitality in order to boost ICMR with a negligible amount is just stupid. ''

Did you mean ICPR or am I missing something?


And I do agree on the part with the buffing book from the 2nd poster, it is very useful in all kind of situations, +10% melee and 5% tactical & ranged damage + even more tactical mitigation is not smth. to neglect.


+rep from me ^^.

All I want to know is how much of T2 Orthanc you have cleared with this style of healing? Sure this will work for T1 but considering T1 was cleared in the first or second day of the patch...yeah. Having healed 3/5 challenges on T2, I can't even begin to talk about how much of this guide I disagree with other than the need to stack tactical mit.

I agree with the disagreements above.

4Y has its uses. Farm runs, stuff like Foundry in which little healing is needed for trash. But try to learn a ToO wing on T2, well, good luck! (Unless you are the third mini, but my group does not take 3 healers, and 2 mini + rk is usually better anyways.) Harmony is very cute and all in skirm raids, but that's about it.

There are too many "we do this" and "must" that in the guide. And a lot of them are contrary to established minstrel practices which I happen to consider correct. (Example: book legacies.) A lot more are debatable and situation-dependent. (Example: tale, heal order, weapon legacies.)

And then factual errors. Cry of the wizards's -AD debuff does not apply if the target cannot be slowed. Bubbles of any kind are not the equivalent of heals. Mitigation is easy to cap without resorting to the Unleashed necklace or ToO tact mit pocket (besides there's a better one with will, vit, and morale). Etc.

I'm sure the OP wrote his/her guide in good will, but as swordmonkey posted before me, anything except ToO T2 is trivial at this point, and is therefore not the sort of "endgame" usually associated with the phrase.

Originally Posted by W0lfg0d

''Fate is more or less useless stat for healing. One more crit once or twice in a fight changes nothing. To lower will or vitality in order to boost ICMR with a negligible amount is just stupid. ''

Did you mean ICPR or am I missing something?

Fate gives ICPR, ICMR, and crit chance, all in small amounts.

Crit chance, point for point, may well be better than tactical mastery at the levels of each a geared-out mini has. But Will gives a lot more tactical mastery than Fate gives crit chance, and hence would seem (without me having memorized the numbers) to contribute more to healing (or DPS, as the case may be).

Note that the Fate --> ICPR translation has diminishing returns, while Fate ---> ICMR does not.

Basically, Fate is a small benefit to every class, but a significant benefit to none of them.

On the subject of buff books, I should add that only your healing book has any strong reason to be elite -- Level 75, 2nd Age (or better), 4 majors (or more), etc.

My Anthem of War swap book is a Level 65 Second Age, with imperfect relics and a Light Damage scroll rather than a Tactical Mastery one. (It doubles as my DPS book.) My Anthem of Composure swap book is pretty much a joke, with just three legacies maxed out and little in the way of relics.

Both the swap books are a lot lower on healing output than the healing book -- but I don't heal when they're swapped in.

First, the premise of this post is flawed. There is no end-all, be-all guide to PvE endgame minstrel healing.

Next,
So many things I disagree with in this article.

Originally Posted by Yassa

We heal in harmony stance – more dps from ballads and coda is very powerful group heal. Draigoch upstairs and the final phases against Saruman being the major exceptions;

First of all, mini dps in harmony is negligible and really not time should be wasted spamming ballads when there are people to heal. Second, unless your goal is to break every cc on trash which in T2 Orthanc will result in wipes you will not ever be using your coda.

Originally Posted by Yassa

We use Noble cause as much as possible. Not only that it does some decent damage, it also heals and, if traited accordingly, even restores power.

Rather not be wasting time using herald's strike 3 times providing a meager group heal while the tank is getting wasted.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Class traits. We must go with 4 yellow and 3 blue while healing.

We must? Personally I run with 4b/3y for the significantly increased healing, I'm fine with keeping 3 anthems up instead of all of them. I won't say that's more or less superior than other trait setups, just what I'm comfortable with.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Skill rotation. To simplify things greatly, our rotation is two skills – anthem – two skills – anthem, etc. Every time one of Soliloquy the spirit, Cry of the Valar, Cry of the wizards, and Noble cause is active we use it, if appropriate.

There is no set skill rotation. Our rotation can vary wildly depending on the situation at hand. Ex. heal-intensive situations I'm using BC, CoS, IF, RtS + anthems exclusively, there is simply no time for extra skills.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Raise the spirit use should be avoided due to its high power cost but low effect. Same goes for Inspire fellows. The latter should be regarded like kind of an urgent heal.

Terrible advice. Improved raise the spirit is very helpful in situations when induction time is lengthened (Orthanc Shadow, Lightning T2 trash etc.) Inspire fellows, while it shouldn't be spammed, is extremely helpful when groups are getting hit with big AoEs (Fire/frost T2, Lightning wing trolls). Perhaps the reason you're not running into power problems is because you haven't faced healing intensive situations.

tl;dr version = OP's guide is fine for raid skirmishes and possibly Isengard instances. Should NOT be considered when healing something with a higher difficulty than that. I would suggest if you're planning on healing endgame instances you figure out your own rotations, trait sets, and virtues that suit you.

Bill S,

Which three anthems do you typically use?

Since your kin is working its way through T2 Orthanc, I'd guess War and Prowess are two of them, for the DPS. I suspect Freeps would work better by the numbers than Composure for everything except perhaps one-shot-kill prevention.

I suspect Third Age beats Freeps on the numbers, but I have the bad habit of going with Freeps instead.

Originally Posted by CorporateMannequins

First, the premise of this post is flawed. There is no end-all, be-all guide to PvE endgame minstrel healing.

Next,
So many things I disagree with in this article.


First of all, mini dps in harmony is negligible and really not time should be wasted spamming ballads when there are people to heal. Second, unless your goal is to break every cc on trash which in T2 Orthanc will result in wipes you will not ever be using your coda.


Rather not be wasting time using herald's strike 3 times providing a meager group heal while the tank is getting wasted.


We must? Personally I run with 4b/3y for the significantly increased healing, I'm fine with keeping 3 anthems up instead of all of them. I won't say that's more or less superior than other trait setups, just what I'm comfortable with.


There is no set skill rotation. Our rotation can vary wildly depending on the situation at hand. Ex. heal-intensive situations I'm using BC, CoS, IF, RtS + anthems exclusively, there is simply no time for extra skills.


Terrible advice. Improved raise the spirit is very helpful in situations when induction time is lengthened (Orthanc Shadow, Lightning T2 trash etc.) Inspire fellows, while it shouldn't be spammed, is extremely helpful when groups are getting hit with big AoEs (Fire/frost T2, Lightning wing trolls). Perhaps the reason you're not running into power problems is because you haven't faced healing intensive situations.

tl;dr version = OP's guide is fine for raid skirmishes and possibly Isengard instances. Should NOT be considered when healing something with a higher difficulty than that. I would suggest if you're planning on healing endgame instances you figure out your own rotations, trait sets, and virtues that suit you.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. It is the first one that states why one thinks this or that. Great!

Now, it is overconfident of you to think I havent met intensive situations. If I haven't, there are no intensive situations in this game, incl. Orthanc t2. I havent experienced power problems because I am traited and geared properly, I drink potions and use power ballad, and LMs and even captains love me I also suspect that I use less heals than most minstrels since my fellows are well protected by buffs and HOTs.

I am sorry that you have not understand that this guide is about basics in general . This is not the elitist guide for Orthanc t2. I will be most happy to read the latter.

Don't you think that mentioning raise the spirit trait means that I actually have used it in specific conditions?

I am curious which anthem do you drop? I heal with five anthems (out of harmony stance) in intensive fights and since you use the green for +10% healing which 2 of the other four are you neglecting? And why I should do this for the +10 percent healing for 4 blue?

You last advice is priceless. Ergo.


Cheers,
Yassa

Originally Posted by Yassa

I am sorry that you have not understand that this guide is about basics in general . This is not the elitist guide for Orthanc t2. I will be most happy to read the latter.

Perhaps some of the confusion arises because you are not a native English speaker.

Your English is excellent -- far better than the second language of most native English speakers, me included, even though my parents were both immigrants. The small errors you made did not, in my opinion, hurt with understanding what you wrote.

HOWEVER, I think you have missed on a nuance of how the term "endgame" is usually used around here. It usually refers to hard content. If there are 6 good ways to heal something, or 60, a guide telling me what "the" way is to heal can cause more confusion than understanding. Also, that's not what a majority of people would call "endgame". Rather, "endgame" is whatever they struggle with -- T2 Orthanc, T1 Orthanc, whatever.

Frankly, if one's healing a skirmish raid, one can trait 4 red and still get bored with how easy healing is. I've done it. Skirmish raids are not hard, except in specific situations when things go bad (for example, if the tanks and off-tanks don't pick up the adds fast enough in the Amon Sul or Tuckborough boss fights, or if somebody stands in the wrong place in Attack at Dawn). Yes, people often die if the burglar misses his CJ on the Frigid Squall, and certain other pulls can be tough as well -- but those aren't situations where your style of healing is going to be better than or even as good as another.

Dragioch is a special case because of the extreme bunching together -- and you didn't really write your guide for Dragioch. If you had, you could have said "Everybody is going to be standing together anyway" as a core assumption.

So that leaves us with Foundry and Orthanc. I actually think this is a good approach for the first and third bosses in Foundry (the second boss is a tank-and-spank that can be healed with any strategy), because movement can be so tricky that buffs and HoTs can have an advantage over straight healing. As for Orthanc -- which wings have you cleared this way on T2, and how was the other main healer playing?

Originally Posted by Yassa

I also suspect that I use less heals than most minstrels since my fellows are well protected by buffs and HOTs.

Really?! I wish I rolled in the fully geared, toon-conscious crew that you do. I have personally spent
alot of time in ToO T2 and can't say that I would find the time to keep up 4 anthems through all the healing. so now I'm jealous of your pitbull crew. Gratz! For now i find it best to keep 3Y/4B and 10 second anthem CD, 3 anthems is what I have time for between all the healing. not to mention, there's just too much good healing from 4 blues.

Originally Posted by Yassa

I am sorry that you have not understand that this guide is about basics in general . This is not the elitist guide for Orthanc t2. I will be most happy to read the latter.

Sorry about all the flack you are getting, but, your Title is clearly stating "A short guide to PVE endgame minstrel healing", which is a much loftier statement than "Basics in General". So everyone that opened this page was expecting
a healthy read.

I see u praise the "Dirge-Singers" armour bonus of 10% less power cost; nice enough to be sure. Just in case you haven't seen the awesome benefits of the OT sets, here is a link to the 5 major raid sets in comparison. Compliments of Sons of Gondor on Elendilmir...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...SjVVYlE#gid=17

With "Thelins" set bonus of IF giving-3% damage and +50% SoS healing, it does really have potential. "Thelin" also gives 140 more vitality and 549 more morale as a 6 peice set (switching out the shoulders for "Hadollin"/"Glibberion" shoulders, will also give an added 183 morale at a loss of 27 fate).

If I start ranting, It wont stop, so I'll leave it at RtS+CoS+SoS+RtS FTW! I love using this rotation between two targets
for that feel good healing, or on the tank if needed. I love raise the spirit traited, and is usually the second
blue trait that hits my board, for serious healing. IF, at the 25% crit healing cap It's critting at around 2K+, can't think of a place in ToO that wouldn't benefit from its use. if i could trait to affect a whole raid group with just that one skill, i would.

Curt,
On most trash pulls I'm usually running with anthem of compassion (have a bad habit of pulling aggro with trash pulls), third age, and free peoples. In my opinion, more things tend to go wrong during a trash pull (ie. hunters pulling aggro, cc breaks, cc misses) than an actual boss fight so I make healing a priority.

On boss fights I'll be running with prowess and war for the most part (composure comes in handy for the lightning boss though) and healing anthems when things get a little more hectic.

Originally Posted by Yassa

And why I should do this for the +10 percent healing for 4 blue?

Actually it is +16% healing in addition to whatever blue trait you're missing out on. 4 set bonus in watcher of resolve gives additional 2% healing for each major ballad buff. I feel raw healing is much more useful than trying to keep up all anthems. In all honesty, I doubt that a minstrel will be able to keep up 5-6 anthems constantly in harder situations. And yes, 4b/3y is a bit stereotypical as most minstrels I see running around use it but maybe there's a reason it's so common?

I ran with 5 yellow 2 blue all the time and never had any issues with healing. One of the key thing about anthem build is you should always try to pop an anthem of the 3rd age at the beginning of your anthem rotation, the -25% healing induction is HUGE.

I always coda at the end of the 5th anthem(usually less on ToO tier2), since my own Common/Tactical mitigation is maxed with scrolls, anthem removal from myself is not a problem at all and I get both a HoT and PoT. Most importantly, u also get a free instant cast BoC from 3rd age anthem, which makes "no stance" shines comparing to the harmony stance in many situations.(The superior coda range is also another reason) In ToO tier 2 fights, there're alot of situations which you really don't have time to pop multiple anthems at once, but if you have the time for 3rd Age anthem, go for it, once it's cast the free BoC stays forever till you coda(even after the 30s anthem duration)

My mini is not my main, so all his trait stays at 10's range with no zeal or fidelity traited, however I'm using the Pit tier2 mitigation cloak(which in my opinion, is one of the best defense cloak in the game for any class) which allow me to max mitigation after scroll use. Also I'm still using a 3rd age weapons with tier4 relic(only 5.8k morale unbuffed), but I was able to heal through Saruman t1 without any issues when my equipment was even crappier back then.(about 5.3k morale with 5k power, but maxed mitigation)

I also disagree with OP about inspired fellows, it's a great skill to use and power consumption is NOT an issue if u running with yellow lines, which gives you frequent PoT when you coda. The 3 draigoch set bonus give you -10% power consumption, plus the -power legacy it can drop the power cost to something like 470. If you get the ToO set, it also give you -3% damage reduction which is nice. You do loose the -power with ToO set, however my mini healed through Saruman when he only had 2 pieces of draigoch gear and 5k power.

I personally didn't trait raise the spirit because with only 2 slots available for blue lines, the other traits are just more useful. However I did see some great use of it during raid. With Anthem of the 3rd age + Focused Performance, BoC's induction time is fast enough which means I don't really have to use RTS

The wonderful thing about the minstrel is there is more than one way to play it. In fact, I've seen the following working very well for healing:

5b/2y: Pure healing build does great in the classical sense. This is the most reactive build, good for when you are facing the unknown or working with a PUG.
4b/3y: Works a little more proactively with longer anthems, but still mostly healing focused.
4y/3b: The classic "Hybrid" healing build that works best in Harmony. It encourages the minstrel to get into melee to take advantage of Herald's Strike and does better for AoE healing and proactive anthems.
5y/2b: The master of Tales build is a proactive healing build that relies on awesome tales and long anthems to prevent damage.

In addition to healing specs, we have a number of Hybrid DPS set ups:
4y/3r: Hybrid DPS/buffing build maximizes anthems and Cries (wizards and valar). Good for 3-6 man instances where DPS and utility may outweigh healing volume.
4r/3y: Hybrid DPS/buffing with less emphasis on anthems
5r/2y: DPS build with some slight buffing to the fellowship
7r: DPS-only role for the minstrel. No real fellowship buffing, just make things go boom.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the 4y/3r build. But I will retrait for 4y/3b when raiding.

--Harper

Originally Posted by CorporateMannequins

Curt,
On most trash pulls I'm usually running with anthem of compassion (have a bad habit of pulling aggro with trash pulls), third age, and free peoples. In my opinion, more things tend to go wrong during a trash pull (ie. hunters pulling aggro, cc breaks, cc misses) than an actual boss fight so I make healing a priority.

On boss fights I'll be running with prowess and war for the most part (composure comes in handy for the lightning boss though) and healing anthems when things get a little more hectic.

Bill,

Makes sense. Once thing I want to try after the recent round of threads is putting Third Age as a higher priority than I have been.

Originally Posted by swellrif

I see u praise the "Dirge-Singers" armour bonus of 10% less power cost; nice enough to be sure. Just in case you haven't seen the awesome benefits of the OT sets, here is a link to the 5 major raid sets in comparison. Compliments of Sons of Gondor on Elendilmir...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...SjVVYlE#gid=17

With "Thelins" set bonus of IF giving-3% damage and +50% SoS healing, it does really have potential. "Thelin" also gives 140 more vitality and 549 more morale as a 6 peice set (switching out the shoulders for "Hadollin"/"Glibberion" shoulders, will also give an added 183 morale at a loss of 27 fate).

Hello!

Thanks for the reply. I would like to explain my opinion why 50% SoS healing is not that great although the vitality/moral gain is awesome. The calculations below are made with maxed SoS legacy and out of combat.

The +50% gives you at average approx. 40 morale more per pulse. That equals to slightly less than 1000k morale for the 72 seconds of the SoS duration. This is approx. 60% of a single boulster courage or less than 1 second of casting (1.6 casting time used).

In that sense by changing half of the set we lose 600 tactical mastery for a gain of 1 second per minute (or 1000 single target morale for 72 s). In my opinion, this is not good enough although I understand tha due to the lower than its effect cooldown SoS actually gives 1500 morale per 72s. Still less than a single BC.

On the other side of the argument we have 600 tactical mastery which has a great effect on the amount we heal.

Now, let me say again that this is solely my evidence based opinion and not the official minstrel dogma. As the guide itself.

***

Apart from this if we make a poll "Do you prefer to be buffed with all misntrels anthems or not?" I suppose that everyone will answer "Yes, I do." This straight forward logic makes me trying to figure out how to do it if it is possible. I found that more or less it is possible to buff, DPS and heal almost everywhere in the current lvl 75 content both at tier 1 and tier 2. Note, I say almost everywhere, there are exceptions, of course!

So, why not? It's funnier

Originally Posted by Yassa

Apart from this if we make a poll "Do you prefer to be buffed with all misntrels anthems or not?" I suppose that everyone will answer "Yes, I do."

If I made a poll called "Would you like to be kept alive by a minstrel or not?" I would suspect even more people would reply yes to it. For me personally its more important to try and figure out how to do that first instead of keeping 5 anthems up at once.

Originally Posted by Yassa

I found that more or less it is possible to buff, DPS and heal almost everywhere in the current lvl 75 content both at tier 1 and tier 2. Note, I say almost everywhere, there are exceptions, of course!

Except Orthanc T2 and parts of Orthanc T1. Which is a large part of the current endgame.

Maybe we can rename this thread into "A short guide to minstrel healing for non-raiders that can be fun"?

Originally Posted by CorporateMannequins

Maybe we can rename this thread into "A short guide to minstrel healing for non-raiders that can be fun"?

Why should we? While there are some things in the OP that I do different, still the core of that strategy works very well for me in endgame content (including Orthanc), especially the 4y/3b traits. It's a very different style of play than 4b/3y, but it fits my playstyle better and makes it much easier for me to keep my fellowship up. Just because it's not your playstyle doesn't mean it's not a viable strategy for endgame.

You can and you should buff and heal in Orthanc T2 if you trait yellow. If you do not buff, why not simply trait blue? To DPS is not high on my priority list, if someone can and be efficient as a healer/buffer more power to him. Last night we wiped on Lightning T2 with 983 Morale left on the boss, so every little bit might help in the end .

I think the SoS Bonus might be very handy if you go 5 blue. If I remember correctly it would heal about 200 per tick (24) which would equal to 4-5k unbuffed. If you consider incoming healing from the tank and other buffs, maybe 7k? And let's not forget you can keep it up on 2 and it stacks (if you have another minstrel in the raid).
I'm not running this build, but there might be situations where it could be handy.

If one build would be vastly superior to the others we would not have this discussion. We should not forget that not every minstrel playstyle is suited for every player. If skill rotations with anthems and heals (and possibly dps) are not your cup of tea, maybe you are better off just running 5b/2y. Or any other style you are comfortable with.

I run 4y/3b for the anthems, in melody. With all the mezzing in T2 I don't think the harmony coda is a very good idea.

Originally Posted by Harperelle

Heals
4y/3b: The classic "Hybrid" healing build that works best in Harmony. It encourages the minstrel to get into melee to take advantage of Herald's Strike and does better for AoE healing and proactive anthems.
DPS
4y/3r: Hybrid DPS/buffing build maximizes anthems and Cries (wizards and valar). Good for 3-6 man instances where DPS and utility may outweigh healing volume.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the 4y/3r build. But I will retrait for 4y/3b when raiding.

Harper,

Could you tell what are the yellow/blue and yellow/red traits you are using on both hybrid build?

Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by Yassa

Hereafter I will give you my experience. Please note, I will not write about my opinions or preferences but mainly about what works based on trial/error learning method, that is, based on experience. Talking about experience, mine is acquired with a casual non raiding kinship which likes to raid or in PUGs. More often than not our groups include undergeared characters and/or inexperienced players (and even wardens who pretend to tank ).

Great that means your not going to mention anything about traits to take into a run or stances to heal in or which skills should be used because the moment you do you start dipping into your opinion and preferences. I can tell you for a fact I dont heal the same instances with the the same traits. It depends on the class make up and the people. If I am pugging the orthanic instance cluster I tend to run 4 yellow 3 blue. If i am healing a kin run through the instance cluster i tend to run 4blue and 3 yellow however this is also dependent on who/what is tanking and off-tanking and what the other classes are in the run.

Originally Posted by Yassa

These are buffing, healing and DPSing.

While I simi agree with this, if your dpsing though you might want to check your buffs and make sure you have hit them and that the tank or someone else does not need a heal. If you dont need to do one of these things I would ask you to check the tier of the run make sure it is t2 and then check where it is. IF your doing anything but ToO then your fine continue on. If your doing ToO then you might want to hit a heal just to make sure your game isnt bugged out.

[QOUTE]

- We heal in harmony stance – more dps from ballads and coda is very powerful group heal. Draigoch upstairs and the final phases against Saruman being the major exceptions;
- We stay in Melee Range. Apart from Draigoch upstairs and the places with severe AOEs (e.g. Necromancer gates skirmish last boss) we should use our weapons;
- Our skills auto targeting is switched off (combat prefs, 4th option). Spamming ballads does not include messing with crowd control or pulling distant groups;
- We use Noble cause as much as possible. Not only that it does some decent damage, it also heals and, if traited accordingly, even restores power.

[/qoute]

A couple of things are wrong here. One if there is any CC going on then Harmony coda is horrible to use. Also if you need more healing abilities with out losing any of your buffing abilities just go to the null stance and put up anthem of the third age. 10% more outgoing healing and -25% induction is extremely powerful.

Melee range in any aoe that your not stacking your group to distribute is generally a bad idea it just gives you more to heal. If your relying on noble cause in conjunction with herald strike for dps you might want to check that your dps is using lvl 75 weapons and not lvl 65 ones by accident or they equip there legendary weapons and get rid of there non legendary item weapons (epidemic ish on my server as 1/10 pug runs there is someone using a non li for some reason that is beyond me)

Originally Posted by Yassa

We should try to be proactive not reactive healers. We can greatly diminish the damage our fellowship is suffering and increase its DPS output. Every sane minstrel will have at least the four fellowship-oriented anthems active all the time. The two that buff just us are not to be neglected as well. In short, anthems use is half of the healing. The better half.

You just called every mini insane that does not heal 4+ in the yellow line. I am glad to know that there are many insane minis out there including me depending on the run and the group.

Originally Posted by Yassa

- Cry of the Valar. This AOE DPS skill has a very nice group-HOT component. We should use it on rat every time it is active. Note, that it removes corruptions from target. We must not annoy our debuffers and for sure we don’t break CCs with careless use of AOEs;

How does cry of the valar affect debuffs? How do you define careless use of aoe's and how do you judge the exact distance that this aoe is because its always fun to release 1 or more cced mobs when there generally cced for a reason. As a side note your finesse plays a part in the hot of this as if the skill is resisted the hot does not activate.

Originally Posted by Yassa

- We can also clear fear effects which is handy.

Please tell me your not actually clearing fears in a raid. It is the captains (fellowship wide) and the person it is on responsibility to clear this skill MAY be useful in 3 man or fellowship instance but still it should be the person who has it that pulls it with a pot first and only if that pot is on a cooldown should you be using this skill and only if the damage being taken is significant. Also this skill has a smaller range then

Originally Posted by Yassa

Healing minstrels and their groups should be buffed with battle and warding scrolls, and hope tokens. We are always hungry for Vitality food, we love to eat cooked food (for regens) and hot soup or stew (for resistance). We also carry pots for morale, power, and of course the four types for corruption removal. We use lute strings to diminish our agro generation and we have music sheets which lower our power consumption and make the next skill uninterruptible (very handy to use before casting Inspire fellows which skill power cost is insane).

The music sheets have there uses. EVERYONE should be eating and it is not just the minis responsibility to bring scrolls and tokens to a run. It is the responsibility of everyone in the run to have them in case something goes horribly wrong and you somehow manage to wipe 6 times in 10 minutes. Also they are useful to everyone not just the mini so everyone should want them.

Originally Posted by Yassa

5. Virtues and traits

Great now were doing what you said you wouldnt be doing at the beginning of this guide and going into the realm of opinion.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Virtues choice does not make so much difference at lvl 75. Probably zeal is the only one every minstrel should equip. Fidelity is handy for Orthanc since it gives tactical mitigation. I tend to use virtues that boost my resistance since minstrels are rarely hit but we frequently suffer from corruptions. Anyway, this is a question of taste. Just level and equip zeal for the moral. We are squishy.

I see what your doing. Your using taste as a synonym to Opinion.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Race traits are self evident. If you are a minstrel from the race of man never use the urgent heal – its power cost/morale restoration ratio is ridiculous. I suppose that this skill is so useless that the devs have completely forgotten about it and hence it is not revised.

While the man heal might be expensive (1 power for 2 morale at maximum morale received) it can still be very useful granted it shouldnt be used if you have other less costly skills on cooldown but if you dont then it can be a useful self heal albeit expensive so you just have to make sure you have the power to spend on it.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Class traits. We must go with 4 yellow and 3 blue while healing. The 5 yellow cap stone is not good enough to be considered for serious fights since the 3 blue bonus is huge - +10% Chord of salvation healing. Considering the HOT component of this skill and its use every 10 seconds (with a legacy) it equals to thousands of morale healed in a typical run. The cap stone gives +2000 armor buff to the FS from the warding tale which is not relatively so great. Here, I take for granted that every minstrel knows that we must use the will/fate tale.

Class traits should be chosen according to the fight. Do we need more tactical mitigation? Do we need second instant cast (Raise the spirit cast time trait)? Do we expect to use Rally (our in-combat rez) a lot so we need to decrease its cooldown time? Traits that should be always equipped are those which affect anthems duration and cooldown (yellow), and critical heals, casting time (blue).

Um I can use any combination of blue and yellow traits that i want to thank you very much. Some times 4 blue is better then 4 yellow.

Um the tales can be used to buff tactical mitigations by using the vitality tale again this is simi in debate on which is better to use. Some believe the will/fate is better others believe the vitality one is better. It is best to use which ever tale is most needed by your group and not just you yourself.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Legendary traits. No room for change here if we go 4 yellow/3 blue which is highly recommended. We equip then Rally, Fellowship Heart, and Cry of the wizards. The latter somehow compensates nicely the loss of the warding tale for 5 yellow.

Your forgetting a very useful legendary trait. Symphony of the hopeful heart which while standing in grants 10% incoming healing and after about 6 seconds of standing gets another buff of +3300 resistance avoidance and +1300 of penetration avoidance.

Depending on your opinion this skill is considered better then cry of the wizards.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Jewelry. Buy the vitally bracelet from the Rohirrim vendor in Galtrev (Bracelet of strength remembered). It is awesome. There is an excellent crafted earring with loads of morale/vitality which I highly recommend (Resolute earring of Theodred). Everything else should be will/tactical mastery oriented but as a general rule we must try to equip things that have also some vitality/morale on them like, say, the Derudh medicinal pouch from Draigoch t2 (+92 will and fate, +162 morale).

Fate is more or less useless stat for healing. One more crit once or twice in a fight changes nothing. To lower will or vitality in order to boost ICMR with a negligible amount is just stupid.

Ouch i dont use half this jewelry i better go lose some morale, outgoing healing, vitality, and will in order to be ready to go.

Jewelry is used as buffing gear. So if you need more of something find a way to get it with the jewelry.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Tip: Obtain a piece of jewelry with high tactical mitigation and use it when going to Saruman itself or to his minions. There is, for example, a necklace dropping from Dargnákh at t2 that gives 1500 tactical mitigation. This is more than 3 times Fidelity leveled to its maximum.

As i am currently geared. I can with the use of scrolls the captain's motivation food and anthem of composure be about 1% below tactical mitigation cap. So 1500 tactical mit jewelery is way over kill just gear and trait accordingly.

Originally Posted by Yassa

First of all, do wait for second agers, do not waste resources on a third ager.

There are four relics we should consider having on both our legendary items. They are:

- Platinium setting of mettle – 250 Moral, 544 Tactical Mastery Rating;
- Remarkable gem of charity – +158 Tactical Mitigation, +700 Tactical Mastery Rating, +243 Maximum Power. Since its cost is insane, we can go for the tier 6 version, the difference is not that great;
- True rune of the two trees – +180 Maximum Morale, +160 Maximum Power, +96 in-Combat Morale Regen, +90 in-Combat Power Regen;
- And, of course, the tactical-oriented crafted relic.

Finally something that we agree upon but specific relics are a gear choice and come down to an opinion again.

Originally Posted by Yassa

To the best of my knowledge, these four are better than anything else for healing LIs.

Songbook legacies. The choice here is pretty much self-evident:

- Healing and motivation skills morale healing;
- Healing skill power cost;
- Bolster courage healing;
- Anthem of war – melee damage. This buff is so overpowered that it will be nerfed with the next update. It’s a shame not to take advantage of it. Just imagine a Draigoch CJ group consisting of 2 burgs, 2 champs, a minstrel with this legacy, and a captain. Poor dragon (and almost no time to finish CJs before killing it);
- Chord of salvation cooldown. This legacy in a sense increases the skill healing with 33%. Awesome!
- No points left to level up another legacy even if we spent a small fortune on scrolls of greater empowerment. So, the last slot is best reserved for vitality or will legendary item scroll.

Um you know you can place an anthem of composure (tactical mitigation) Legacy on it and solve some of your mitigation problem and not need the 1.5k tactical mit jewelry. (the rank 1 mitigation is 544 while the maxed out rank 9 mitigation is 600 *on a second age book*)

Originally Posted by Yassa

Healing order. Our responsibility is to keep people undefeated and in good morale. However, some classes are more important than other classes. You know – the tank. Our first aim is to ensure his well-being (sorry, crazy champs out there!). Next class to keep alive depends on the situation. In general it’s the off-healer (Cappy), the CC (Lore-masters, Burglars) and finally the DPS-ers. Sorry guys, I know it is not fair.

The heal order is decided on usefulness to the group. I have run with tanks that refuse to leave overpower post roi while attempting to main tank runs. Needless to say they are less important then say a burg who is tanking things or a hunter who is tanking things at this point.

Originally Posted by Yassa

Skill order. In general, we start by opening our anthems while casting some HOTs if necessary. Then we go in melee and start DPSing if possible while continuously renewing anthems and HOTs. Here and there we cast bolster courage and inspire fellows. In emergency situation we use emergency skills (includes the coda in harmony stance).

Skill rotation. To simplify things greatly, our rotation is two skills – anthem – two skills – anthem, etc. Every time one of Soliloquy the spirit, Cry of the Valar, Cry of the wizards, and Noble cause is active we use it, if appropriate.

What endgame content are you running again? a BC here and there? Really? please go heal ToO t2... everything else should be considered a farm run if your end-gaming it.

Also a skill rotation... I am going to use two bolsters then i shall hit this anthem then go use noble cause and herald stike then anthem. DO you know how ridiculous this sounds to me? It is saying you know the exact amount of damage that is to be dealt and when it is going to be dealt. If your dpsing you can have a skill rotation. but if your healing it is damage dependent..........

Originally Posted by Yassa

- Raise the spirit use should be avoided due to its high power cost but low effect. Same goes for Inspire fellows. The latter should be regarded like kind of an urgent heal. Using a music sheet before it helps;

- The small short-lasting bubble that we can cast on a fellow does not generate aggro. We can use it then at the start of the fight without risk of creating aggro-management issues;

- Our self-bubble should not be understood as a precaution. It is much better used as a self-heal;

- In raids it is our duty to heal immediately our brethren healer when needed;

- In long and intensive fights like Orthanc Lore-masters are our best friends. Flatter them. We can ask captains for some power as well. Or we can use our power-restoring coda. This, however, clears from us all anthem effects, which is not so good;

- Minstrels are generous. We do not save our urgent heals for the time when everyone is almost defeated. This creates panic and panic kills;

- We use our pots although we think it’s a waste to drink a pot while having skills that do the job better. Alas, to use skills one must be alive and have power. A stingy minstrel is not a minstrel at all – we give our music for free.

- Sometimes the damage is more than the amount we can heal. We must indicate that to the group. Such situations are manageable by kiting, CC, off-tanking, etc;

- The complaining role in raids is reserved for DPS classes Healers along with tanks should not complain – this makes all the rest very nervous. With that in mind we should never say “I can’t tank”. People really know that;

- We are not afraid to shout in teamspeak “Move out of there you crazy champ”. We know that this champ main character is a minstrel and that’s why he is so much crazy. We are not afraid to ask politely for power, buffs or liberation from a hostile attention;

- Finally, we should never ever wait to finish casting before moving while taking damage. This is the most common reason for defeated minstrels.

some of these are good but I dont think I would consider them any more then a rule of thumb and rules of thumb are meant to be broken. You just have to judge each situation by itself to decide if that rule should be broken or not.

Originally Posted by ofast

EVERYONE should be eating and it is not just the minis responsibility to bring scrolls and tokens to a run. It is the responsibility of everyone in the run to have them in case something goes horribly wrong and you somehow manage to wipe 6 times in 10 minutes. Also they are useful to everyone not just the mini so everyone should want them.

I have to say, we are never so efficient as to wipe 6 times in 10 minutes!

Originally Posted by Bramor

While there are some things in the OP that I do different, still the core of that strategy works very well for me in endgame content (including Orthanc)

Please read OP's first post before commenting, I did not say 4y/3b was a bad trait set. What I did say however is that specific things that OP mentions (ie. Noble cause-ing as much as possible, running Harmony for dps, specific skill rotation, avoiding RtS and IF, keeping up 5-6 anthems, wasting induction time clearing fears) is not going to be helpful in situations in Orthanc T2 and parts of Orthanc T1. Never did I say you can't heal and buff at the same time, I do believe that you can't heal, buff, AND dps at the same time in healing-intensive situations without losing loads of healing efficiency.

The guide is cast in a very large shadow of ego's arguing over who's songbook is right. Thanks for the guide. In the future it's always best to state your opinions in the guide and ignore the trolls trying to incite you. Regardless I found myself reading more of the bickering then the guide and now I can't get my time back.

Happy Minstreling!

Originally Posted by Yassa

Hello!

Thanks for the reply. I would like to explain my opinion why 50% SoS healing is not that great although the vitality/moral gain is awesome. The calculations below are made with maxed SoS legacy and out of combat.

The +50% gives you at average approx. 40 morale more per pulse. That equals to slightly less than 1000k morale for the 72 seconds of the SoS duration. This is approx. 60% of a single boulster courage or less than 1 second of casting (1.6 casting time used).

In that sense by changing half of the set we lose 600 tactical mastery for a gain of 1 second per minute (or 1000 single target morale for 72 s). In my opinion, this is not good enough although I understand tha due to the lower than its effect cooldown SoS actually gives 1500 morale per 72s. Still less than a single BC.

On the other side of the argument we have 600 tactical mastery which has a great effect on the amount we heal.

Now, let me say again that this is solely my evidence based opinion and not the official minstrel dogma. As the guide itself.

So the 1% or increase to healing from 600 Tactical Mastery is much better in your opinion than the numbers you gave for SoS?

Not that I run 5 blue, but why does that particular part of your reasoning even begin to make sense?

Originally Posted by Tityla

I have to say, we are never so efficient as to wipe 6 times in 10 minutes!

You dont pug as much as do. I have to say in some of the more unfortunate pugs it has happened :/.

ofast,

You say you'd go 4 yellow in a PUG but 4 blue with a kin group. Why?

Pressure of keeping suicidal dps alive, clearly!

Originally Posted by mordredrs

Harper,

Could you tell what are the yellow/blue and yellow/red traits you are using on both hybrid build?

Thanks in advance!

My favorite 2 yellows are:

Glorious Anthem +5 seconds Anthem Duration.
Smooth Voice Anthem cooldowns reduced by 5 seconds

The other traits depend on whether I want to be more healer or DPS. For the DPS/healing role, I use these:
Heralded Saviour +25% healing to Noble Cause enhanced Herald's Strikes
Heralded Resolve This trait enables the minstrel to heal himself a small amount of power when he uses his normal, non-Noble Cause Herald's Strike.
Unrelenting When you land a Critical Hit with your Piercing Cry, your enemy is stunned. Piercing Cry also gains 30% to its critical chance.
Herald's Hammer Your Herald's Strike deals double damage.
Light in the dark Ballads and Codas inflict more damage to your enemies.

For more of a healing hybrid, I use the following:
Absolute Pitch -1% reduction in Power cost by all Ballad buffs
Flow of Harmony Reduces the cost of Anthems.
Silver Tongue Increases the critical magnitude of all your healing skills
Focused Performance Your induction skills execute quicker, making you harder to disrupt.
Power of Song When you use any healing skill there's a small chance your War-Speech calls are temporarily unlocked for a single use with no power cost. (Note: This benefit is not applicable while in War-Speech). This trait also increases your power.

--Harper

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

ofast,

You say you'd go 4 yellow in a PUG but 4 blue with a kin group. Why?

I find pug dps tends to play things a bit safer then kin dps. I find my kin dps willing to take 2-3k more damage just get and extra hit in on a target or hit an extra target rather then backing off for a second or moving when they start taking damage from puddles they are dropping. Entering frontal AOE's just because they dont move when the mob moves so on and so forth.

Originally Posted by Tityla

Pressure of keeping suicidal dps alive, clearly!

If it was just one dps it would not matter as we can complete just about anything we are doing down one dps and suicidal dps are just fine to let die imho. If it was two dps it might not matter as with the right group we can 4 man just about any instance. The problem is it is just about every dps and I dont feel like healing the tanks and captains for hours while we kill something with just the three of us up or just a tank if there is no captain in the group.

So for survivability and the sake of speed 4 blue is better in my kin runs and since for some reason the dps in most pugs does not like to take damage (wish they would teach this to most of my kin dps) 4 yellow makes things go faster with them.

Originally Posted by ofast

I find pug dps tends to play things a bit safer then kin dps. I find my kin dps willing to take 2-3k more damage just get and extra hit in on a target or hit an extra target rather then backing off for a second or moving when they start taking damage from puddles they are dropping. Entering frontal AOE's just because they dont move when the mob moves so on and so forth.

So the reason you go 4 yellow with a PUG is because they're better players than your kinnies?

(You don't have to answer that.)

Seriously, that does fit my mental model -- 4 blues for when there's going to be a particularly large amount of damage, 4 yellows for when you're more confident things will go smoothly.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

So the reason you go 4 yellow with a PUG is because they're better players than your kinnies?

(You don't have to answer that.)

Seriously, that does fit my mental model -- 4 blues for when there's going to be a particularly large amount of damage, 4 yellows for when you're more confident things will go smoothly.

Nope the pug dps generally is not better. They just dont rely on the healers and the tanks as much to keep them alive. The kind dps output is way better then most pugs dps. The Speed of a pug run is about 45 minutes in foundry while the Speed of a kin run is just over 20 minutes which is mostly because of there being way more damage out put from the kin runs especially taking into account that only 1 fellowship dps buff is up on kin runs and all fellowship buffs are up in many pug runs.

The pug dps just learns faster to move and is more willing to use there threat dumping skills.

Originally Posted by ofast

Nope they generally are not better. They just dont rely on the healers and the tanks as much. The dps is way better then most pugs dps. Speed of a pug run is about 45 minutes in foundry. Speed of a kin run is just over 20 minutes which is mostly because of there being way more damage out put from the kin runs especially taking into account that only 1 fellowship dps buff is up on kin runs and all fellowship buffs are up in many pug runs.

The pug dps just learns fast to move is all.

Fair enough.

Good players do often want to push the speed of a run until healing is non-trivial.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

So the reason you go 4 yellow with a PUG is because they're better players than your kinnies?

I would take it as a compliment! Your kin DPS have come to expect you'll save them anyway, no matter how silly they are.

Hi Im only just lvl 75 and havent healed a lot in isengard but still im reading this thread to learn something and was wondering.

I dont read anything about stacking 3 major ballads to open up the anthems. Is that so common practice that is not worth mentioning or doesn't the 7% (3x=21%) healing modifier stack like i believed it did? Also on top of that i place a cry of the chorus sometimes for yet another 7% or i open with one. When i got power isssues i would stack the perfect ballad, but from healing perspective i would think stacking major is important to get you heals more powerfull.

Also a bit off topic. I made a group for foundry t1 (first time for me there) and the group convinced me to go t2 saying it was so easy. Well i couldnt make it at the first boss, i died 3 times due to the fire and group leaves saying theres no point in going when healer cant keep alive. I felt very insecure after that going in again.

I had about 4.5k health at that point and upon entering i felt i didnt have the time to keep everyone up (they all lost half morale in first few secs) and find the time to get myself out of the fire (+time to figure out what was going on ). I know its off topic but i wonder what your thoughts are, is that part indeed so easy that i shouldnt have had any problems? I went in again with my kin (t1 this time) and managed it then.

Originally Posted by pescoe

I had about 4.5k health at that point ....

My Minstrel had 4.5k morale somewhere between Moria and Mirkwood... at 75 you should have a minimal 5-6k just to prevent being one-shotted in T2 situations (you'll find raiding Minstrels having anywhere between 6-8k morale). Same goes for your group, if people don't have enough morale there's just no time for a healer to react.

Major ballads are too obvious to mention I think, in heavy healing situations. And the buffs do stack indeed.