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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/overview">OVERVIEW
| 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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SOLO
PLAY AS A MINSTREL

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alt="A Minstrel soloing"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89882">

Quicker
than a ray of light

At first glance, the Minstrel class might seem like a tough sell as a
soloing class.  They wear only light armor, have an extremely
limited selection of melee attacks (one in total) and run around
playing lutes and flutes rather than swinging big weapons.
 But run with a Minstrel in Warspeech for a while and you'll
quickly see the bigger picture.



Toggling Warspeech stance opens up a sweet suite of big-damage skills
and empowers others.  Piercing Cry hits harder, Echoes of
Battle becomes Timeless Echoes of Battle and does more damage over
time.  The Minstrel gains access to Call to Orome and Call of
the Second Age, which are both fairly powerful area-effect damage
skills, and to Call to Fate, which is a powerful single-target attack
with a high critical chance.  A Warspeech "minnie" is able to
deal out big damage to multiple enemies without ever swinging a sword.
By toggling one skill, the Minstrel goes from wet firecracker to holy
hand grenade.



The primary drawback to Warspeech is the hit the Minstrel takes to her
healing output.  Warspeech cuts base healing in half while it
is active, and this penalty remains in place for 10 seconds after
Warspeech is toggled off, without providing the boost to DPS or the
access to Call to War skills during this "cool-off." This may call for
careful planning of fights - if big heals will be needed at some point
in the fight, the Minstrel will need to de-toggle Warspeech well in
advance and have enough morale to survive that 10-second cool-off
period before she can pull off a big self-heal.



A further word of caution: Warspeech can cause the inexperienced
Minstrel to feel somewhat over-confident and behave in a reckless
manner. The Call to War skills are big and flashy and seductive, but
they do not grant invulnerability. It is quite possible to pull more
mobs than can be realistically managed and be overcome, not leaving
time to run away and heal.  This is a particular issue for
those players accustomed to the mechanics of other classes that don't
have such a dearth of melee skills or the cool-off penalty between DPS
and survivability modes.



Of course, soloing isn't all just about Warspeech. Ballads may be used
even without Warspeech toggled, and they can be rapidly tiered up to
allow access to the big tier 4 buffs. Most ballads can be used while
moving, so the Minstrel can kite mobs and damage them at the same time.
Soloing is also a good time to use Herald's Strike, the lone Minstrel
melee skill. Minstrels also get some potent crowd-control - Cry of the
Valar can be used to thin out the numbers of mobbing attackers for a
few precious seconds, and Song of the Dead can take a troublesome wight
or wraith out of the fight for half a minute (though Song of the Dead
should ideally be used before combat begins, as it has a brief
induction that can be fairly easily interrupted).



For those concerned with defense, Minstrels can be traited to wear
medium armor. This is pretty useful at lower levels when light armor
tends to really suck.  However, at high levels,
Minstrel-specific armor (the Moria radiance set, for example) is all
light.  There are medium radiance armor sets that are not
class-specific, but these sets do not confer bonuses to Minstrel skills
like the class-specific ones. Lots of Minstrels will be perfectly fine
with this trade-off, since the armor increase alone is significant, but
some will prefer the tailored legacies of class-specific gear.



Soloing requires felxibility. The Minstrel must be able to quickly
adapt to changing battle scenarios as they happen, and be able to think
several steps ahead and plan for eventualities. Warspeech is not going
to be your final answer for every fight - some situations will require
readily-available big heals without waiting for the cool-off. Most of
the Minstrel's damage-dealing skills are instant-cast, but healing and
motivation skills generally have inductions that can be set back or
interrupted by attacking mobs.  The smart solo Minstrel will
know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, and
know when to run.



Soloing
is also really the only time when Lay of the Hammerhand/Lyric of the
Hammerhand is really useful. In a group, where power is a constant
issue, bubbling up can leave allies stranded without heals, but when
soloing it provides a good getaway plan.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/minstrel/overview">OVERVIEW
| 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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