LOTRO Minstrel Class Developer Diary

Tim “Raskolnikov” Lang has posted the first of the highly anticipated Developer Diaries for the upcoming content focusing on the Minstrel Class.

Tim starts with his gameplay for tackling this upgrade by looking at the massive feedback thread, coupled with his thoughts playing his minstrel on live, and finally talking with folks in the office.  He also does a real good job of attributing the various planned fixes to the appropriate feedback mechanism.

This is a huge post, so I highly suggest reading it in its entirety if you play a Minstrel.  I’m going to try to summarize, but am not going to go as in depth as Tim does.

Some of the areas of focus were:

• cleaning up some of the sub-par traits
• counter the spam bolster courage mentality in instances
• provide some sort of power return
• provide more benefit for ballad tiering when anthems are on CD
• help out hopeful heart
• do something for soliloquy of spirit (SoS)
• improve tier 3 ballads
• look at long CD skills and see what can be done with them
• look at the war-speech healing debuff
• overall polish on the class

He then goes on in more detail on the actual changes coming:

• General
  • Cleaned up all the skill, trait, and legacy tooltips like was done for the Loremaster
  • Glowy-hands are Back!!
• Skill Improvements
  • Tier 3 ballads from multiple minstrels will overwrite logically
  • Tiering ballads now reduces the power of heals and increases the healing output
    • This tiers to a max rank of 3 and each heal cast reduces the tier by one
  • War-speech skills can be used during the 10 second “tail” while waiting for full healing to commence
• Healing Skills
  • SoS can stack once per caster
  • Fellowship Heart Improvements
    • Can now stack once per caster
    • Part of the skill group “Healing and Motivation”
    • Buffed by the appropriate Legendary Item legacy
  • Chord of Salvation can now be cast on the move!!
• Damaging Skills
  • Piercing Cry now has an interrupt
  • Anthem of the Valar has a corruption clear on it
  • Anthem of the Wizards Cool-down is reduced from 10 minutes to 5 and the proper pretty graphics effects.
• Buffing Skills
  • Ballad of Unshakeable Will is now Ballad of Composure which combines the fear resist with a 5% buff to Ranged Damage
    • and a new legacy which improves this by another 5%
  • Ballad of Flame now provides 5% buff to Tactical Damage
    • and a new legacy which improves this by another 5%
  • Gift of the Hammerhand now blocks all damage not just common
    • Cooldown reduced from 15 minutes to 5!
    • Ratio of Damage –> Power has been changed from 1 to 2 to 2 to1 with the Rift set further boosting this to 3 to 1
  • Lay/Lyric of the Hammerhand now usable on the move
  • Call to the Fellowship Cooldown reduced from 10 minutes to 3 minutes
  • Song of Aid cooldown now 5 minutes down from 10.
• Legendary Skills
  • Song of the Hopeful Heart is now Symphony of the Hopeful Heart
    • Cooldown halved to 5 minutes
    • buff area has been halved to 5 meters
    • 10% incoming healing bonus on top of the +4 hope
    • New mechanic that buffs on exiting the hotspot with a 30 second buff to resistance penetration and avoidance penetration
      • Gets people moving during the fight and not just standing still
• Trait Improvements
  • Tempo of Bravery is now Improved Echoes of Battle which provides +10% damage to Echoes of Battle
  • Glorious Anthem wording changed to +50% anthem duration versus a flat time duration
    • New skill mentioned here described below – Anthem of the 3rd Age
  • Power of Song provides a 10% chance to unlock war-speech skills (at zero cost) when heal is cast
  • Improved Cure Fear is now Improved Raise the Spirit
    • RtS cooldown reduced to zero seconds
    • RtS induction halved to 0.5 seconds
    • previous benefits are now part of the normal cure fear skill
• New Legacies
  • Major legacy on class item to increase Tactical Damage on Ballad of Flame
  • Minor legacy on class item to increase Ranged Damage on Ballad of Composure
  • Major legacy on weapon to decrease War-speech “tail” by 5 seconds
• New Skill
  • Anthem of the Third Age
    • when not in war-speech provides 10 second buff to outgoing healing and induction times
    • when in war-speech provides 10 second buff to war-speech Call skills.
    • Cooldown is 1 minute

Wow, that’s a lot to get through and Tim does admit he didn’t accomplish everything he wanted to (SoS and power return mainly) but just couldn’t figure out an acceptable way to do it.  This certainly isn’t a closed book on the class as there may still be some tweaks coming but so far these look really good for the Minstrel!