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MINSTREL CLASS OVERVIEW
alt="An Elven Minstel"
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Famous
Elven Minstrel, Moria Estefan
With her clever songs and tales that bolster the spirit
against the forces of Shadow, the Minstrel may be seen by some to show
the softer side of
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">the Lord
of the Rings
Online. On the other hand, a Minstrel set on the
destruction of her foes, rallying her allies with ancient battle cries
and demoralizing foes with discordant melodies, is nothing to be
trifled with. The Minstrel is the warrior-poet, and often the
heart of a fellowship.
In a group, the Minstrel is usually the designated healer,
keeping a watchful eye on the green bars of her allies and keeping them
in good fighting form. On her own, the Minstrel turns the
beat around, using her songs and ballads to inflict damage on foes and
piling numerous buffs on herself. Though restricted to light
armor (or medium by traiting for it), the Minstrel can use light
shields to bolster her defenses - which is important, since the
Minstrel's melee skills are quite limited. Minstrel DPS is
primarily Tactical.
The Minstrel class is available
to every race. While no one race is more ideally suited to the class
than any other, Race of Man (higher Fate and Will) and Hobbits (higher
Vitality and a racial aggro-dropping skill attainable at later levels)
make good choices for new players. However, at higher levels, no single
race has a
distinct advantage over any other, and Minstrels of any race are
valuable members of any fellowship.
KEY
ATTRIBUTES
Minstrels are main healers, performing big spot-heals as they are
needed. Typical action in a group usually involves standing in the back
and using (spamming) Bolster Courage over and over on the main tank,
but this is not the only thing Minstrels can offer a fellowship.
Minstrels can also provide great group-wide, temporary buffs,
inspire their fellows to greatness, revive their companions after a
defeat and cure the dread suffered by those they did not (or could not)
revive, and much, much more.
Solo Minstrels will usually want to toggle Warspeech, which unlocks a
number of powerful offensive skills and empowers ballads, but at a
significant cost to healing potential. Battle-Minnies can
trait to wear medium armor, giving them a boost to defense, and can
unleash some powerful area-effect damaging cries. One
interesting feature of the Minstrel's attack skills is that many of
them do damage to the enemies and add a buff to the caster.
Tiered ballads are especially useful for this - they fire
quickly and can be used while moving, and weaken the enemy and
strengthen the Minstrel at the same time. Other
Warspeech-gated skills do not buff the caster, but apply debuffs to the
enemy, making them weaker against further attacks.
Regardless of which role the Minstrel is filling, power is a primary
concern. A Minstrel with no power is about as useful as a
dead battery, so taking steps to increase the Minstrel's power pool,
in-combat power regeneration, and Will and Fate scores will be most
valuable. Will and Fate are the primary stats for
tactical-based classes. Will affects total power score, Fate
affects power regeneration and tactical critical modifiers, so
Minstrels will want high numbers in both of these areas by equipping
gear and slotting traits that boost them.
SECONDARY
CONCERNS
Minstrels often play a central role in fellowships, the
primary healer that keeps all the other guys alive. The
pressure to perform can be rather high, and lousy healers will
adversely affect a group's chances of success more than most other
classes. For example, a lousy Hunter my be playing too
aggressively and draw too much aggro on himself, but this is relatively
easy to handle with concentrated aggro management and good healing.
A lousy Champion may rely too heavily on area-effect damage
during crowd-control situations, breaking mezzes, but again this is
something that can usually be fairly easily contained and overcome.
If a healer is doing a lousy job healing, however, characters
die and the party wipes. The heat is (boom, boom, boom, boom) on.
In general, Minstrels are quite weak when it comes to melee
combat. This is not to say they can't handle themselves when the
situation calls for it - they surely can - but that melee combat is not
the preferred scenario. Minstrels have only one melee attack with a
long cooldown, and must rely on their songs and ballads rather than
their weapons. Also, unless specifically traited, Minstrels are limited
to light armor and light shields. In a fellowship, this is not often a
pressing issue, as the Minstrel stays in the back and lets the heavies
take the bulk of the beatings, but in solo play, this can mean that the
Minstrel needs to be cautious about pulling too many mobs at once.
Power consumption for Minstrels varies depending on build,
gear and stance, though DPS-spec Minstrels will usually burn through
power much faster than heal-spec Minstrels. In general, instruments
that increase damage output (such as drums and bagpipes) also increase
power cost for damage-dealing skills, and instruments that lower threat
from healing (such as flutes and harps) also lower the power cost of
buffing skills.
Healing skills can generate massive amounts of threat, so
aggro can be an issue for heal-spec Minstrels. Usually, a
good tank can handle Minstrel threat - especially when the Minstrel
uses lower-threat instruments and lute strings - but occasionally some
mobs will escape the tank's notice and aggro on the healer.
This is especially true of ranged mobs like orc archers, who
often stand out of melee range and are not affected by short-range
area-effect threat skills.
IN SUMMARY
Though some players will inexorably argue for the superiority
of the Runekeeper as a main healer, the Minstrel remains the
tried-and-true heart of the fellowship. The Minstrel excels at
burst-healing - restoring big chunks of morale all at once rather than
spreading it out over several seconds. The class is open to any race,
and it is not restricted to Premium and VIP players, making it more
accessible than the Runekeeper. And as an added bonus,
playing a Minstrel well will get the player invited into groups more
often than other, more popular classes like Hunter or Champion.
In the war against the forces of Shadow, every group needs a
shining beacon of hope, and the Minstrel provides.
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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/overview">OVERVIEW
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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/solo">SOLO
|
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/group">GROUP
|
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/pvmp">PvMP
|
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/endgame">LEGENDARY
ITEMS |
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/89885/page/2">TRAITS
| VIRTUES
|
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/skills">SKILLS
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