Thread: Healing, DPS, traits and action bars

So I've recently gotten back into LOTRO after a couple-year hiatus, and have been leveling my minstrel. Unless I am missing something major, this game doesn't offer dual specs, nor the option to change action buttons on the hotbars in different stances. This presents a major issue with playing a minstrel to me, because it is very difficult to utilize both of the minstrel's strengths- DPS and healing. I am playing the character because I like to heal, but leveling as a pure healer is miserable. Leveling as DPS, however, is great.

I understand that doing them both at the same time would be way overpowered. However, it would be great to mix up my questing and heal an instance here and there, so I can practice healing and experience all the content this game offers. The problem is, changing from a solo DPSer to a group healer requires, at the very least, totally rearranging my hotbars, and for more difficult situations, a trait overhaul.

It would be amazing if this functionality were added to the game..but in the meantime, how do you guys deal with this? I really don't want to re-evaluate my traits and button layout every time I want to heal a group...any tips?

Bad news - not much you *can* do. Just have your different trait groups lined up, and take a trip to the bard before you burst into the instance. The only time I try to heal at ALL while traited for War-Speech is Phase 5 of Saruman at the group's request, and even then we have two other Minis in the raid (and probably an HoH Captain as well).

Originally Posted by drsmoothsrs

So I've recently gotten back into LOTRO after a couple-year hiatus, and have been leveling my minstrel. Unless I am missing something major, this game doesn't offer dual specs, nor the option to change action buttons on the hotbars in different stances. This presents a major issue with playing a minstrel to me, because it is very difficult to utilize both of the minstrel's strengths- DPS and healing. I am playing the character because I like to heal, but leveling as a pure healer is miserable. Leveling as DPS, however, is great.

I understand that doing them both at the same time would be way overpowered. However, it would be great to mix up my questing and heal an instance here and there, so I can practice healing and experience all the content this game offers. The problem is, changing from a solo DPSer to a group healer requires, at the very least, totally rearranging my hotbars, and for more difficult situations, a trait overhaul.

It would be amazing if this functionality were added to the game..but in the meantime, how do you guys deal with this? I really don't want to re-evaluate my traits and button layout every time I want to heal a group...any tips?

I do it like this -

SotHH and mini flop are on a vertical bar on the right, with all the consumables, all bound to the number pad. Works for me for heals or blastin stuff. As far as traits, yea, you probably want to go yellow or blue to heal anything serious, on-level(I prefer yellow, power lasts longer, more buffs, another group heal). It's a pain, but that's how it is.

Originally Posted by drsmoothsrs

So I've recently gotten back into LOTRO after a couple-year hiatus, and have been leveling my minstrel. Unless I am missing something major, this game doesn't offer dual specs, nor the option to change action buttons on the hotbars in different stances. This presents a major issue with playing a minstrel to me, because it is very difficult to utilize both of the minstrel's strengths- DPS and healing. I am playing the character because I like to heal, but leveling as a pure healer is miserable. Leveling as DPS, however, is great.I understand that doing them both at the same time would be way overpowered. However, it would be great to mix up my questing and heal an instance here and there, so I can practice healing and experience all the content this game offers. The problem is, changing from a solo DPSer to a group healer requires, at the very least, totally rearranging my hotbars, and for more difficult situations, a trait overhaul.It would be amazing if this functionality were added to the game..but in the meantime, how do you guys deal with this? I really don't want to re-evaluate my traits and button layout every time I want to heal a group...any tips?

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I've heard about an addon called Bevy of Bars. Apparently you can size, configure, and save your skill bars different ways and just load/unload the one(s) you want. Sorry I can't offer help from personal experience. Good luck

I obviously gear and retrait completely differently when I go from healing to DPS, not much you can do about changing that, but as far as the actual action bars what I do is:

Since my primary role is that of raid healer, my in game bars are set up to be optimal for how I play my mini in healing situations. I do have some DPS skills in there that I might use (such as corruption removal, AoE slow, etc) in a healing situation, but they are not optimal for how I use them in DPS situations.

When I go to a DPS situation, for myself out to the moors, or small group things like skirmishes. For you leveling.. I load a plugin called tonicbars which I have customized a completely different row of my DPS skills the way I want them. When done with DPS, I just unload that plugin.

Originally Posted by Turlos

I obviously gear and retrait completely differently when I go from healing to DPS, not much you can do about changing that, but as far as the actual action bars what I do is:

Since my primary role is that of raid healer, my in game bars are set up to be optimal for how I play my mini in healing situations. I do have some DPS skills in there that I might use (such as corruption removal, AoE slow, etc) in a healing situation, but they are not optimal for how I use them in DPS situations.

When I go to a DPS situation, for myself out to the moors, or small group things like skirmishes. For you leveling.. I load a plugin called tonicbars which I have customized a completely different row of my DPS skills the way I want them. When done with DPS, I just unload that plugin.

The problem with tonicbars, as I've heard, is that you can't bind them to keys. I am no clicker- in fact, I have extra mouse buttons bound so I can four rows of skills with easy to press keys (1-5)

I think it will be less of a problem at max level, when I have gained all of my skills and am familiar with rotations and setups, and have really settled into a role (healer, likely). The issue is that now, I gain traits and skills often enough that I would have to rethink everything almost every time I decide to switch roles. I just hate to level all that way and 1) miss content and 2) completely suck at group healing because I have no practice.

Originally Posted by drsmoothsrs

I just hate to level all that way and 1) miss content and 2) completely suck at group healing because I have no practice.

I'm afraid there's not much you can do about that other than try your best. I've recently leveled my warden with the purpose of having a second character available for raiding, and tried to gain as much tanking experience as possible on the way, but the instances I was able to run before 72 or so (when I started doing Isengard instances) were few and never with a fully on-level group, so learning to do my job in groups really has only started near/at max level, something I had wanted to avoid at all costs.

On topic: While leveling my minstral, there was a time when I actually did (try to) move skills around on my shortcut bars depending on whether I was healing or tanking, but eventually I gave up and settled on a skill layout for healing that would make it moderately easy to go dps, too, because I found rearranging shortcuts would confuse me more than help me, and I was totally lost in those situations where I expected to be dps and quickly had to drop warspeech and take up healing because of an emergency.

As long as you are levelling you will have to live with the fact that your shortcuts need rearranging every few levels anyway due to the new skills you get. Just try to get a setup that allows you access to both your main offensive and healing skills comfortably and don't hesitate to try a few different ways to figure out what layout works best for you.

I feel your pain, I just returned aswell. Before I left I was a clicker but since then I've started using a razor naga mouse and keybind everything, it worked really well in SWTOR but now in lotro I find that there are just way too many skills especially for the mini, I spent 3 hours the first night just re-reading tool tips, re-aranging my bars and setting up a keybind system that somewhat made sence, it took me another couple days to get it down and actually finish a skirmish without getting killed let alone heal an instance, I use my ballads as 1-3 then my nukes for 4-12 anthems are Ctrl+1-6 and my heals or healing related skills are shift 1-12, hamerhand skills are mouse button or shift + mouse button for the one you use on allies, consumables are on my other mouse buttons, coda is F, fear is C, SoS is shift F, and there is probably alot I have set but don't remember.

As for the retraiting, well there isn't much you can do about that but I remember when I was leveling i could usually heal everything traited for dps but just switch to harmony or melody stance if you have a semi good group, if your pugging you might need to switch. At the current end game healing isn't very hard in anything 3 or 6 man even in tier 2, heck I ran with a warden last night that could solo the 3 mans so I ran in WS and had no trouble, skraids are really easy too most times I'm just a buff bot, not sure about the raids though. My point is, don't worry about not having enough healing experience when you hit 75 because it's easy to pick up once you get there.

Originally Posted by jadjay

I feel your pain, I just returned aswell. Before I left I was a clicker but since then I've started using a razor naga mouse and keybind everything, it worked really well in SWTOR but now in lotro I find that there are just way too many skills especially for the mini, I spent 3 hours the first night just re-reading tool tips, re-aranging my bars and setting up a keybind system that somewhat made sence, it took me another couple days to get it down and actually finish a skirmish without getting killed let alone heal an instance, I use my ballads as 1-3 then my nukes for 4-12 anthems are Ctrl+1-6 and my heals or healing related skills are shift 1-12, hamerhand skills are mouse button or shift + mouse button for the one you use on allies, consumables are on my other mouse buttons, coda is F, fear is C, SoS is shift F, and there is probably alot I have set but don't remember.

As for the retraiting, well there isn't much you can do about that but I remember when I was leveling i could usually heal everything traited for dps but just switch to harmony or melody stance if you have a semi good group, if your pugging you might need to switch. At the current end game healing isn't very hard in anything 3 or 6 man even in tier 2, heck I ran with a warden last night that could solo the 3 mans so I ran in WS and had no trouble, skraids are really easy too most times I'm just a buff bot, not sure about the raids though. My point is, don't worry about not having enough healing experience when you hit 75 because it's easy to pick up once you get there.

Good to hear, thanks. I know this is probably what nobody wants to hear (back when I played LOTRO for the first time it sure wasn't) but in that other game it is so damn convenient to switch roles, plus mouseover healing is a godsend It was really easy to level and practice group healing the whole way through

Originally Posted by drsmoothsrs

So I've recently gotten back into LOTRO after a couple-year hiatus, and have been leveling my minstrel. Unless I am missing something major, this game doesn't offer dual specs, nor the option to change action buttons on the hotbars in different stances. This presents a major issue with playing a minstrel to me, because it is very difficult to utilize both of the minstrel's strengths- DPS and healing. I am playing the character because I like to heal, but leveling as a pure healer is miserable. Leveling as DPS, however, is great.

I understand that doing them both at the same time would be way overpowered. However, it would be great to mix up my questing and heal an instance here and there, so I can practice healing and experience all the content this game offers. The problem is, changing from a solo DPSer to a group healer requires, at the very least, totally rearranging my hotbars, and for more difficult situations, a trait overhaul.

It would be amazing if this functionality were added to the game..but in the meantime, how do you guys deal with this? I really don't want to re-evaluate my traits and button layout every time I want to heal a group...any tips?

Custom shortcuts. Almost all of my skills have a secondary shortcut associated with them. Ctrl+W and stuff like that.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

Custom shortcuts. Almost all of my skills have a secondary shortcut associated with them. Ctrl+W and stuff like that.

Same. I have two hotkeys per skill - which helps for switching from healing to damage roles easily.

But at the same time, it's a shame we can't just flip to different hotkey set-ups. I <3 this feature in TOR. I can load up different hotkey set-ups for my current spec AND flip to different toolbars just for when I need them, to keep my screen tidy. With all Lotro has added, more UI customization would be good. The UI options are pretty dated at this point.