Thread: Too much DPS?

I'm leveling my Minstrel with my wife's Champion. Currently, we're both at 46 and this will be our 5th set of characters we're leveling to 75. We both have comparable gear and Mastery of around 4100. However, for her being a supposed DPS class, I am blowing her out of the water, and it's making her disgruntled. She'll see Devastating hits for around 200-300, but I'll end up hitting for around 2000!

As far as aggro is concerned, we're not too bad off because I can use Song of Soothing and she usually leads with Champion's Challenge anyways. I'm just concerned that my class is seeming to be OP compared to hers at the moment. Is this going to diminish as we get closer to level cap?

For a second, noob, question, what is the difference to healing between Harmony and Melody? It seems like Harmony is good when I want to heal and do damage both, and the Coda is awesome. However, I didn't see an obvious advantage to healing in Melody, other than that's the default when dropping out of Warspeech. What am I missing?

there's an diffenrence between burst dps and continous dps. While minstrels burst out a lot of damage in few seconds, champs can continue to dps much longer and then higher than minstrels.
Minstrels have to wait for their cooldowns way to long to be an effective Raid-DDler.

In a 2-person group, Harmony will be a more effective healing stance, because of the added AOE damage. Melody's coda is only healing, and thus has a greater magnitude. This is helpful for 6-man groups, where the coda can be used to prevent wipes (just like chord of salvation.) Essentially, Melody is only advantageous when you need another panic-button group heal.

Personally, I run my minstrel in Harmony 90% of the time. This allows me to fight above-level against multiple mobs due to the constant coda heals. As an example, my mini took out the Ancient Ironscale turtle elite in Malenhad (lvl 45? and 17k hp) all by his lonesome. It took about 5 minutes, but he did it.

When I'm in a 6-man, I usually start off in Harmony and toggle it off to enter Melody if things hit the fan. But solo, or duo, Harmony (or War Speech, but less so) is the way to go in my own humble opinion.



Concerning DPS: yes, mini's can seem OP. Critical hits are incredible. But it's difficult to keep that DPS high for very long, and all the good attacks have significant cooldowns and power costs. Anthem of composure + coda gives a power-over-time buff that helps, but even then you lose DPS because of the time needed to set up the coda. I'd be interested to see battle stats, because I'm willing to bet that your wife's champion is still beating you DPS-wise. Maybe not so much against one or two mobs, but against a group or an elite, she'll pull away for sure.

Hope this helps, good luck and have fun!

As for healing, some healing skills are only available in meldoy. In my pre coffee state this morning, I cannot remember their exact names or at what level you get them, but there are some. In PvE I like to run WS if I am solo, WS or Harmony if I am duo (depending on the situation), and I save melody for bigger groups or situations where there is a lot of damage being inflicted on people. In PvP I never use harmony, I stick to WS if I am by myself, or I go for all heals if I am grouped up.

Edit to add, I looked it up, the heal I was talking about was duh the coda LOL. I should have known that even in a pre coffee state. I will stop talking now until the caffeine kick in LOL!

Anthem of the 3rd age (melody) is considerably better than the Harmony version for raw healing output.

Burst vs sustained DPS

Champions are designed to continuously pump out damage, though they can get some pretty huge spikes with a two-handed weapon and critical hit enhancements, while a Minstrel's damage is based largely on slower, cooldown-oriented skills. Indeed, I'll charge a group of mobs on my Minstrel, burn all of my cries and calls, and find myself thinking, "Now what...?" when there's still some damage needing to be done; a Champion can dish out damage basically forever.

Also, I didn't really like my Champion from about his mid-30s to his mid-50s and traited for Glory at one point because I couldn't kill stuff fast enough (yes, full Fervor) to stay at a reasonable level of morale, even with solid gear (crit-crafted). 60s and on were nothing short of awesome.

As owner of a 75 Minstrel, and a 75 Champ, it is quiet fun to start this argument on either side with my kinmates. The only difference is my approach. On mini, something like this: "Ha, that little champ, I can use 3 attacks and get more damage then your entire rotation!" but, on Champ: "I get 2.2k-2.5k DPS, what you got buddy? A pointy hat?" Point being, the minstrel has what they call spike damage, and the champ, overall sustained DPS.

2nd topic. Hmm, are you having issues keeping her healed? If so, trait blue and run melody all you wish, BUT if you have no issues with that: Trait 5/y, 2/r and keep her buffed beyond belief! While duo'ing, I trait this way and have a few different buff running simultaneously (I.E. a +melee buff, with a AD/parry buff, and a icmr buff!) The champs love that stuff! (At least I do ;P )

I have no problems keeping her healed in a duo, honestly. She's actually really good about keeping herself healed even in Fervour with Sudden Defense, Bolstering Strike and Dire Need. Only in rare situations do I have to drop out of WS and heal her. For the bigger enemies where I know there will be an issue, I usually just switch to Harmony before the fight. I'm more just concerned about knowing how to heal properly when it comes to 6-manning it.

Thanks for all of the replies, btw.

Originally Posted by Rothmarte

I have no problems keeping her healed in a duo, honestly. She's actually really good about keeping herself healed even in Fervour with Sudden Defense, Bolstering Strike and Dire Need. Only in rare situations do I have to drop out of WS and heal her. For the bigger enemies where I know there will be an issue, I usually just switch to Harmony before the fight. I'm more just concerned about knowing how to heal properly when it comes to 6-manning it.

Thanks for all of the replies, btw.

When you're ready to start healing in groups, I recommend beginning with some under-leveled dungeons or skirmishes to help boost your confidence and hone your skills. It also helps if you're with a patient and forgiving fellowship, possibly of kinmates.

After a while, you'll start to get an intuitive feel of who needs healed, when, and for how much. You'll learn when to use which anthems and how to control your power usage. And if things go bad, don't beat yourself up. Even experienced healers run across bumps in the road the first time they come across new content.

Originally Posted by Rothmarte

I have no problems keeping her healed in a duo, honestly. She's actually really good about keeping herself healed even in Fervour with Sudden Defense, Bolstering Strike and Dire Need. Only in rare situations do I have to drop out of WS and heal her. For the bigger enemies where I know there will be an issue, I usually just switch to Harmony before the fight. I'm more just concerned about knowing how to heal properly when it comes to 6-manning it.

Thanks for all of the replies, btw.

Ugh, Bolstering Strike? I'm mixing my D&D with my Lotro. I meant Bracing Attack.

Do it along the way, I realize you are 46 so already in Moria, but when I was doing what you are, I made sure we did Great Barrows so I could learn group healing skills in my 20s, when there were fewer and it was simpler.

Although we didn't need the items, running through Uru and CD now, as well as doing things like Fornost or Annuminas runs helps too.

However the lessens learned at 20 in GB Maze REALLY made the difference in my group healing now. It taught me how much ICMR matters, how to be power efficient, etc.

Now, I'd suggest joining any CD or Uru groups and practice, they are easy instances for experienced players, so no biggy as you experiment (heck, I was in Warspeech half the time and we were all 45 or 46). Another good one coming up is Forgotten Treasury in Moria, if folks accidentally pull one of the mini-bosses along with trash, it's a good challenge for tanks to gain threat and good challenge for healers to handle attacks on others who take more damage.

You won't learn as much in Grand Stair, as that's a more controlled environment (and tends to be more binary, either folks wipe or make it through, not much healing it back from the brink).

Essentially, practice! ;-)

PS: I have found Harmony useless for me, I know it was designed as a buffing stance, but I find it does too little of anything, heals are anemic, and limited attack skills are available. I tend to start fights in Warspeech, hit my attacks so they are on CD, by then folks start to need healing, so drop out to Melody and heal them. As they start to drop the MOBs so less damage is coming in, I'll switch back to Warspeech to finish off the fight (and my CDs might be back). That way you get max damage, max heals, and max damage, instead of a fraction of any of those.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave