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Map Characters Quests Deeds Crafting Community Guides Recent Changes Calendar Leaderboards Get Points Home Lorebook A guide to good Minstreling Article Discussion OptionsView sourceHistoryWhat links hereRelated changesSpecial pagesPermanent li nk Player Entry Original content created by community member: Tyar A guide to good Minstreling By Tyar of Landroval Hobbitual This guide was originally created by Tyar of Landroval, but it seems he ogged into the forums for many months. When this guide was put onto the it started to bug me (Figgy) that it hadn't been updated and it looked one could be bothered to do so. I read through the guide, I chuckled at s and I fell in love with it, and thus I embarked upon the long journey ing it. hasn't l Lorebook like no the joke of updat

The guide to good minstreling has changed a lot in the past couple of months. I think it's more helpful if all this wonderful information comes from more people so I'm afraid I have been pestering minstrels I know for a while, asking for th eir opinions and such. I have tried to be as unbiased as I can on what has been written and changed, as well as adding new information and different sections ba sed on my months of following and reading the minstrel boards. There are still a reas that need improvment and additions, but this is it! If you see information you feel is incorrect or missing then please edit away. T his guide belongs to no one, yet is a part of us all! Your knowledge can help ot hers make many of the tough decisions we face as a class, and I'm sure those who can find something useful in this guide will be greatly appreciative. Thank you, Tyar, for such an superb guide, and a wonderful foundation to work up on. Your fellow minstrels salute you!

/Salute Contents [hide] 1 1.0 Introduction - What is a Minstrel? (short and sweet) 2 2.0 General Specifics 2.1 2.1 Ballads, Anthem, and Coda 2.2 2.2 Heals! 2.2.1 Raise the Spirit lvl 1 2.2.2 Inspire Fellows lvl 10 2.2.3 Noble Cause lvl 16 2.2.4 Bolster Courage lvl 18 2.2.5 Anthem of the Free Peoples lvl 20 2.2.6 Triumphant Spirit lvl 30 2.2.7 Chord of Salvation lvl 38 2.3 2.3 Buffs! 2.3.1 Ballad of War lvl 6 2.3.2 Ballad of Composure lvl 8 2.3.3 Tale of Heroism lvl 22 2.3.4 Anthem of Compassion lvl 24 2.3.5 Song of Soothing lvl 28 2.3.6 Ballad of Flame lvl 32 2.3.7 Tale of Battle lvl 32 2.3.8 Lay of the Hammerhand lvl 42 2.3.9 Tale of Warding lvl 44 2.3.10 Call to the Fellowship lvl 46 2.3.11 Gift of the Hammerhand lvl 48 2.3.12 Call to Greatness lvl 50 2.4 2.4 War-speech 2.4.1 Echoes of Battle lvl 14 2.4.2 War-speech lvl 20 2.4.3 Call of Orom lvl 22 2.4.4 Call of the Second Age lvl 34 2.5 2.5 Resurrection 2.5.1 Enlivening Grace lvl 20 2.5.2 Rally! lvl 41 2.6 2.6 Utility Skills 2.6.1 Cry of the Valar lvl 12 2.6.2 Song of the Dead lvl 18 2.6.3 Song of Restoration lvl 18 2.6.4 Cure Fear lvl 26 2.6.5 Cry of the Chorus lvl 26 2.6.6 Song of Aid lvl 30 2.6.7 Song of Distraction lvl 34 2.6.8 Still as Death lvl 38 3 3.0 Traits And Virtues 3.1 3.1 Class Trait Sets 3.2 3.2 Class Trait List and Explanation 3.2.1 Battle-Hymn 3.2.2 Focused Performance 3.2.3 Glorious Anthem 3.2.4 Graceful Demeanor 3.2.5 Harmonious Melody 3.2.6 Heralded Saviour 3.2.7 Herald's Hammer 3.2.8 Life-singer 3.2.9 Light in the Dark 3.2.10 Medium Armour-use 3.2.11 Powerful Voice 3.2.12 Silver Tongue 3.2.13 Smooth Voice

3.2.14 Strength of Voice 3.2.15 Subtle Movements 3.2.16 Unrelenting 3.3 3.3 Legendary Traits 3.3.1 Rally! 3.3.2 Song of the Hopeful Heart 3.3.3 Anthem of the Wizards 3.3.4 Fellowship's Heart 3.4 3.4 Virtue Stat Explanations 3.4.1 Melee Resistance 3.4.2 Ranged Resistance 3.4.3 Tactical Resistance 3.4.4 Disease Resistance 3.4.5 Wound Resistance 3.4.6 Poison Resistance 3.4.7 Shadow Resistance 3.4.8 Fear Resistance 3.4.9 In-Combat Power Regen 3.4.10 Out of Combat Power Regen 3.4.11 In-Combat morale Regen 3.4.12 Out of Combat morale Regen 3.4.13 Morale Bonus 3.4.14 Power Bonus 3.4.15 Armour Bonus 3.4.16 Will Bonus 3.4.17 Fate Bonus 3.4.18 Agility Bonus 3.4.19 Might Bonus 3.4.20 Vitality Bonus 3.5 3.5 Virtue List 3.5.1 Charity 3.5.2 Confidence 3.5.3 Compassion 3.5.4 Determination 3.5.5 Discipline 3.5.6 Empathy 3.5.7 Fidelity 3.5.8 Fortitude 3.5.9 Honesty 3.5.10 Honour 3.5.11 Idealism 3.5.12 Innocence 3.5.13 Justice 3.5.14 Loyalty 3.5.15 Mercy 3.5.16 Patience 3.5.17 Tolerance 3.5.18 Valour 3.5.19 Wisdom 3.5.20 Zeal 4 4.0 Minstrel Builds 4.1 4.1 Healing/Grouping Minstrel 4.1.1 Important Stats 4.1.2 Class Traits 4.1.3 Virtues 4.2 4.2 BEP Minstrel 4.2.1 Important Stats 4.2.2 Traits 4.2.3 Virtues 4.3 4.3 Tactical Crit Minstrel

4.3.1 Important Stats 4.3.2 Traits 4.3.3 Virtues 4.4 4.4 Hybrid Minstrel 4.4.1 Important Stats 4.4.2 Traits 4.4.3 Virtues 4.5 4.5 Medium Armour vs. Light Armour 5 5.0 Equipment 5.1 5.1 Instruments 5.1.1 Theorbo 5.1.2 Harp 5.1.3 Drums 5.1.4 Lute 5.1.5 Flute 5.1.6 The Rest 5.2 5.2 Quest Items & Drops 6 6.0 Consumables 6.1 6.1 Food 6.2 6.2 Potions 6.3 6.3 Strings 7 7.0 Be one with the Group 7.1 7.1 Healing 7.2 7.2 Buffing 7.3 7.3 Crowd Control 7.4 7.4 Conjunction Junction 7.5 7.5 Other Grouping Tips 8 8.0 Minstrels in the Moors 8.1 8.1 Healing vs Killing 8.2 8.2 Traits and Virtues 1.0 Introduction - What is a Minstrel? (short and sweet) That's a good question. If you're familiar with the normal healing class, be it a Druid, Shaman, Blood Mage, Priest or Cleric you're going to recognize some thi ngs, but there are also some new twists that Turbine threw in to make the healin g experience feel fresh. Morale vs. Hit Points Since there is no death in LotRO (at least for you), Turbine had to come up with a novel alternative for the standard hit points and morale is the answer. Inste ad of dying, you get so overcome that you cease to function. Your morale can be reduced by dread and improved in times of hope. Consequently, you technically do not heal, you encourage and inspire. This, like in Tolkien's works, can be done in songs and tales and it is why you are a minstrel rather than one who heals w ith bandages and disinfectant. But just like healing in all other games, the mai n role you will have is making that green bar fill up. Aside from healing you have a variety of buffs in your arsenal, both group and p ersonal buffs, toggles and timed skills. You can rez, remove dread, give hope an d also do a nice bit of damage. 2.0 General Specifics Throughout this guide you may see a few common terms new players might not be fa miliar with. Adds - Monsters that attack you after you've begun combat with a different monst er. Unintentional/unexpected adds can be deadly. Aggro - (aggravation) Is the threat a monster perceives that you are. In order t o determine who the monster attacks each player has a level of aggro. Whoever ha s the most gets the monsters attention. This is important to understand as a hea

ler since you want to make sure that you're the target as rarely as possible. AoE - Area of Effect - Basically means something that works within a specific ar ea, usually against multiple targets. Conjunction - (CJ) Now a days these are called Fellowship Manoeuvers. Back in be ta they were called Conjunctions and the name has stuck. Crit - Refers to a Critical hit or cast. Your character has a crit rate and ever y spell or swing has a certain % chance to be much larger. The idea is that your attack, out of luck, struck a sensitive/unprotected part of the monster (like t he neck, or the crotch). DoT - Stands for Damage over Time. Pretty self-explanatory. DPS - Stands for 'damage per second', but is often used in place of the word dam age. This term also refers to a player whose job is to deal damage. (I do 5dps, my dps is insane, I'll do dps) Freep - This is what you are! unless you're playing your monster character. It s tands for Free Peoples. ICMR - In-combat morale regen. How fast you regenerate morale during combat. ICPR - In-combat power regen. How fast you regenerate power during combat. Mez - A skill that freezes a mob, usually broken if the target gets damaged. Stun - A skill that freezes a mob, preventing it from attacking or moving. This is NOT broken when the monster takes damage. Root - A skill that prevents a mob from moving, but does not prevent it from att acking. Mob - Non-player characters (monsters) you attack and kill, eg Orcs, Goblins etc NPC - Non-player character; it is a game character not played by a person. Not a ggresive, traders, quest givers etc Tank - Generally a guardian or warden, although champions can perform this task in a pinch. This is the person who is designated to take the damage for the grou p. This person keeps all of the mobs from attacking other, softer people in the group by drawing their attention. 2.1 Ballads, Anthem, and Coda The reorganization of the Ballad/Anthem tier system is the crucial difference wi th the minstrel after Rise of Isengard. This section and others throughout this guide are still pending an update. Stay tuned! As a minstrel, you will need to become familiar with the Ballad system. This is a system that is unique to the minstrel and consists of an organization of attac ks and buffs. The majority of your attacks and buffs will fall into the category of either a Ballad or an Anthem. There are four tiers to this system: three tie rs of Ballads and one tier of Anthems. Tier 1 and 2 Ballads consist of attack mo ves that not only deal Light Damage to the enemy, but they also buff you and pla y music (you are a minstrel, afterall). Tier 3 Ballads are buffs that affect the entire party. Anthems come in a variety of flavors, and can either increase incombat morale regen, reduce your aggro, or deal damage. Initially, the minstrel has access to only Tier 1 Ballads. Successfully playing (hitting the enemy) a Ti er 1 Ballad unlocks all of Tier 2. If you land a Tier 2 Ballad, you unlock Tier 3. Tier 3 (which should be noted cannot miss) unlocks your Anthems. Playing an A nthem will reset your Tier back to Tier 1, and lock access to non-Tier 1 Ballads and Anthems until you work back through them with successful attacks/buffs. Eac h Tier is available for 5 seconds (this can be modified with Class Traits) after playing a Ballad of a lower Tier. Playing a Ballad of one Tier below resets thi s timer for the Tier above (for example, if you play a Tier 2 Ballad, it will re set the 5 second counter for Tier 3 each time you play a Tier 2). As a minstrel progresses through the game, he or she will get access to new Ballad and Anthem skills which can greatly enhance gameplay by incorporating the various self and group buffs into your skill rotation.

Of course, the main purpose of the minstrel is not to be a damage-dealing or buf fing class, but to raise the spirits and morale of their friends and allies. Eve n though the main purpose of Ballads is to attack or provide buffs, a secondary function is to increase healing output. For each Ballad Tier you play, you get a 3% buff to your healing. This buff will last for 15 seconds, even if you reset your Ballad Tiers. Each Ballad Tier has its own buff, which maxes out at three b uffs (9%). As you play, you will have to find a balance between healing and work ing up through the Tiers to increase your healing output, apply buffs, and help with damage. To make life easier, there are a few settings in the game you can turn on to ass ist you with both healing and dealing damage, and also to reduce the amount of c licking you have to do. Show Target's Target In the Combat section of your main Options menu, you will find a tick box called "Show Target's Target". This does what it says on the tin. You get a very small set of vitals pop up on your screen which will show you the target of your targ et. Target Forwarding Again, this is found in Combat Options. When enabled, if you are targeting, say, a guardian, and you select an attack move, instead of getting an invalid target message you can choose to use them to forward your skills. ie you will attack w hat they are attacking. As aggro is very important for a squishy such as yoursel f, it helps to know you are twisting your ballads on a mob that won't get upset by it. Probably the two best choices for target forwarding are the Tank (Guardia n, Warden) and the DPS (Champion, Hunter). The flip side of this is that you can target off of mobs to heal their target! T his can be very handy in the Ettenmoors for healing outside of your group, as we ll as incredibly satisfying because it feels like you are directly thwarting the ir plans. Smooth Voice (class trait) Slotting this Class Trait will turn your Ballad of Vi gour and Balance into Songs that buff the whole party (T1 and T2 Ballads, respec tively), but do no damage. This trait can be good for several reasons. Taking aw ay the damage component to the skills allows you to buff all the way up to your anthems before you even enter combat. If you do this just before engaging you wi ll give everyone a buff to their vitality, evade chance, whichever Tier 3 ballad you choose and your choice of Anthem. What a great start to a hard fight! If th e encounter will have lots of adds you can go for Anthem of Compassion, which wi ll give you -40% threat generation from healing. This makes it less likely that something is going to bother you, enabling you to heal without interruption. If there are mobs which like to do AoE damage but you're not too worried about gett ing aggro then you can go for Anthem of the Free People instead to give everyone a nice buff to their morale regeneration. Just beware the Smooth Voice Addictio n which claims many minstrels a year. Our skills are somewhat noisy, and please, there's nothing to say that just because you can buff out of combat, that every time you drop combat you should be buffing. Overuse and improper use may drive your fellows insane. This skill is described more in detail later on. Harmonious Melody (class trait) The Harmonious Melody Class Trait will extend th e window of time that a Tier is available by five seconds. Strength of Voice (class trait) This Class Trait adds an extra 10 seconds of dur ation to the buffing effects of your ballads.

2.2 Heals! Minstrels have four basic heal skills on short cooldown timers: a quick little h eal called Raise the Spirit, a much larger one called Bolster Courage, a group h eal called Inspire Fellows, (which also gives a minor 1% reduction in damage), a nd finally you have Chord of Salvation, an instant heal with a longer animation time. Additionally, we have a few other heals at our disposal and following this littl e introduction, I am going to go over my experience with each of these heals and hopefully include the experiences of other people, as well. It's worthwhile to note that many of our heals, unlike our attacks, have a short animation after th e cast. This disables movement, which is something that you will probably notice early on and will be the bane of your career. Likewise, while we are talented e nough to play our attack ballads while we are moving, our healing skills require us to remain stationary for their inducted duration. Raise the Spirit lvl 1 "I'm cheap and fun!" (Wii joke #1) In terms of power cost, Raise the Spirit is your cheapest option, but not by muc h. This is not your most power-efficient heal and should only be used if you don 't actually have bolster courage yet, or the player is particularly squishy with very little morale (think lore-master), if you need to get a quick heal off bef ore somebody dies and Chord of Salvation is on cooldown, or perhaps most appropr iately when you are topping off someone's morale and Bolster Courage is too big. This heal also has a short 1 second cooldown between its uses. This means you ca n't just chain these heals one after another. If you are relying on this heal, y ou can usually fit an offensive song in quickly between heals for that little ad ded DPS. BAM. At higher levels once you have Bolster Courage you will use this h eal much less, but until then, this is your 'bread and butter'. Inspire Fellows lvl 10 "aka Taunt!" This skill is notorious for attracting large amounts of aggro. It doesn't heal f or that much and it consumes a large amount of your power. Many players avoid th is like its a 50dkp minus, and truthfully, I think many people should. Although it's a tough tool to use, because it has limited uses, that doesn't make it usel ess. Throughout the game you can sometimes run into mobs with an AoE fire DoT. T his is when this skill truly shines. Assuming you are confident in your tanks ab ility to keep aggro you can generally knock off a group heal to top everyone in the group up. Play around with it a bit and try to get a feel for how long in a fight you have wait before it's safe to use this skill. A lot of healing is gett ing the feel for your aggro level, which is something you just have to learn thr ough experience. Keep in mind that your aggro level will be different with diffe rent tanks. Noble Cause lvl 16 "The (illegitimate) child of DPS and healing with corruption removal." Often underused and forgotten about, Noble Cause can give a nice group heal in s ome situations as well as provide a little DPS. Soloing, this skill can be used as often as it is up, as it provides you with 5 quick Herald's Strikes, and with a 2.5min cooldown, it's nothing to be stingy about. In a nutshell, Noble Cause resets your Herald's Strike timer, then lets you unleash 3 strikes on the mobs, without any cooldown. As an added bonus, each hit heals everyone in your group. To get 5 smacks out of this skill, first use Herald's Strike, then use Noble Cau

se, lay down your 3 fwacks of fury, then finally end with a 5th Herald's Strike. This is a nice little chunk of damage, and can also give a little healing to th e entire group, or yourself if soloing. USE THIS SKILL! So many people completel y ignore it, which is silly given how powerful it really is. Since the inception of corruptions on mobs this has become a very handy skill to have. Nothing better then having 5 instant corruption removals , one after the other... Bolster Courage lvl 18 "I'm large and in charge." (2nd Wii joke) Once you hit 18, you've received your new 'bread and butter' heal. The casting t ime is slightly longer, but the amount of morale it recovers is much larger. The power cost is also very close to that of Raise the Spirit. A good habit to get into is to know how long your heal takes to cast. It sounds silly but sometimes your tank is going to be low on morale, but you won't have time to pull off a lo nger heal. At those times, it's generally a good idea to pop a smaller heal or C hord of Salvation than to risk your tank dying mid-heal. A good tactic is to kno w how much health your tank has and never let him drop past a certain threshold. Keeping a tank at full health is often inefficient, for example if he is only m issing 600 morale and you heal him for 710 that's 110 morale lost...that will st ill draw aggro. Generally it's safe to keep your tank around 50-70% of their max morale, but everyone will develop their own comfort zone. Knowing the encounter you are up against will help immensely because sometimes you just don't have th e wiggle room to do anything aside from keep your group at full health. Oftentimes some tanks will get anxious if they are constantly low on morale and might start using cooldowns in fear of dying. If this is the case try to reassur e your little canned chicken that he will be just fine. Anthem of the Free Peoples lvl 20 "Cruise control for healers." This is an anthem that increases in-combat morale regen by 20.1 (at level 50), w hich equates to a lot of morale per minute! This wondrous skill makes healing fo r its 30 (45 traited) second duration rather easy. Aside from laziness, it also has some practical uses. In boss fights where there are lots of adds, this skill is your saviour. When you use this skill, the aggro gain is minimal because you aren't actually healing the players, you are simply increasing their regen. In fights with aggro problems putting this up for the first 30 seconds allows you t o really skimp on the heals, thus permitting you to not only sit back and have a snack, but also prevents you from drawing aggro from one of the mobs early on. In fights such as Ivar in Agamaur, this is really useful for helping the tank se t up the initial aggro. Triumphant Spirit lvl 30 "Larger and in charger!" (3rd?) Sitting in the right corner with a 15 minute cooldown is Triumphant Spirit. Thos e from FFXI might remember something called Benediction, it's basically the same idea, with less aggro generated. Using this skill isn't a guarantee of getting aggro, but it does give a massive amount. Generally in controlled fights only us e it if somebody is really close to dying and needs a large heal quick. This ski ll has no casting time and is your largest heal, healing the entire group for a massive amount. This skill can be a lifesaver. Another use for this skill is whe n you're training (running in a big group through an area, not stopping to fight , and hoping you get to a point where aggro is dropped, in order to save time). Usually a higher armour class will run through first to get aggro, but if they'r e low on HP you can pop this skill to heal them fully. Be aware though, you will

now be the target of all the train's passengers, so it's best saved if you know that you can run away from them all. You can also use this if you're being lazy and forget to heal yourself while soloing. Apparently it happens! This skill will be in your arsenal of "Oh Crap!" weapons. Some people prefer to save it and only use it in an emergency because there are probably going to be t imes when you are going to wish it wasn't on cooldown. Whether you cast it to sa ve one person about to die as an emergency save is up to you and dependent on th e situation. Perhaps you're near the end of a battle but are closer than 15 minu tes to a boss fight where the opportunity of a full wipe is more likely? As an added note, Milarien pointed out that because of the lack of casting time, this spell can be used while you're running. Useful, trust me. This skill has NO power cost. If you find yourself out of (or drained of) power this skill can avert the dreaded wipe. Chord of Salvation lvl 38 Uh ohs! Can't afford inductions! It's not great, but it's better than a kick in the teeth. This skill is instant cast but we pay for it with a longer animation time, which acts as a pause betwe en striking Chord of Salvation and using your next skill. This heal can buy you enough time to get off a larger heal with an induction, depending on how fast yo ur target is taking damage. It generates less aggro than using Triumphant Spirit, but the heal is much small er and the power ratio isn't that clever. This skill goes on a 30s cooldown, so it's not something you can hit repeatedly, nor would you want to if you value yo ur power! 2.3 Buffs! One of our secondary class roles is buffing and as a Minstrel you are given a ni ce selection of them for your party, including our Ballads, Anthems, and Tales. A good Minstrel heals his group and keeps everyone alive. A great Minstrel keeps his group buffed and ready for the fight ahead. Ballad of War lvl 6 Melee made easy. This is the first buff you get and the one you will use if your group has a heav y amount of melee damage in it. This is a Tier 3 Ballad and lasts 15 seconds. Th e 10% melee damage increase is quite hefty but requires tier 3 Ballads to be unl ocked, so there are at least two ballads you need to play before this one. This buff is often a safe bet, and champions will love you long time for this one. Th is also helps the tank as more damage means more aggro, not that much, but every bit does help. Ballad of Composure lvl 8 Seasons don't fear the reaper... nor should you This Ballad has two functions. The first, and original, is Fear Resistance. If y ou are fighting mobs that cast fear debuffs on you, it is a good idea to keep th is Ballad up as much as possible. The minstrel should keep an eye out for the li ttle purple icon and note which mobs are putting it on your party and plan accor dingly. If you are fighting wights and bears, for instance, there is a good idea they will be dropping Fears on your party. Fears vary in their effects, but ten d to reveal themselves as DoTs or Will/Fate penalties. Some of the timed ones wi ll Silence you upon expiration. If you have a lot of casters in your group, you can imagine that they will have sad faces if their Will/Fate drops because of th

e penalty to their tacticle outputs. You can also imagine that they/you will not appreciate being Silenced, as the minstrel is just about useless when this occu rs. Bottom line: keep your eyes peeled and react to your surroundings. The second effect from this Ballad is a bonus to Ranged damage to the tune of 5% . If you have hunter(s) in your group, they will appreciate you keeping this buf f up. Of course, use your head when doing so. If you notice your hunters are pul ling stuff off your tank, scold them and cease using this skill. As stated befor e, the good minstrel heals their party. The great minstrel keeps the party buffe d accordingly. Remember, this skill has two functions and use it when appropriate. Obviously do not waste power on this skill if there is no threat of Fear, or simply to buff your champs ranged auto attacks. But it is a handy tool in your bag of minstrel tricks. Tale of Heroism lvl 22 Bravery in a Box This is the first of the 3 tales you'll receive. You may only have one acitve ta le at a time. With two Minstrels in the fellowship, two different tales may be a ctive on the group members. Doubling up on the same Tale does not allow it to st ack. The Tale works as an AoE around you. If your members stay relatively close to you, they will receive your buff. If they wander off they can come back and r eacquire it. Tale of Heroism gives you a buff to your fate and your will but it costs 2 power a second at level 50. So it actually costs more power to use than you gain as i n-combat power regen from the fate it grants. What it does do is buff everyone e lse in your fellowship, as well as give you a slightly larger power pool and a l ittle higher tactical crit chance. This stat is in charge of how often you land a critical hit on tactical based skills, including heals and damage. It can be n ice if you have players that tend to drain their power in your group, but if you don't want the power drain on yourself, don't run around with any tales up. It's worth noting that the cost of maintaining the Tale of Heroism is 120 power per minute at level 50. However, the cost of this maintenance is largely offset by the Will buff, which adds to your Power pool. For battles lasting under two m inutes, you'll usually see a net gain to power by using ToH. Maintaining it thro ugh fights longer than that will result in a net loss. Anthem of Compassion lvl 24 Makes healing less aggravating. Not to you, but it sure does to the mob. If you're worried about attracting aggr o on a mob, this is a good skill to pop up. 30 seconds of 40% less heal aggo is nothing to scoff at and if you're in a fight where you know you're going to have issues with aggro, playing this Anthem can give you a little more wiggle room. I like to use this if I know I'm going to have to be spamming heals, if it's a b oss that does loads of damage, or if we've got an off-tank situation and I need to be a little more careful with my healing aggro. Song of Soothing lvl 28 Aggro reduction for the rest of us. (Ha, a Dummy book quote, how appropriate) Being a healer sometimes mean getting aggro. Believe it or not, even Minstrel Me ssiahs such as myself pull aggro from time to time. This ability is better used unprovoked.. or rather pre-emptive(thanks Bush) as it has a casting time that ca n be setback by getting smacked around. I try to use this skill as much as I can , its a good habit if you're not in a rush, better safe than sorry. But mostly I

do this because it unlocks a trait that lowers your overall aggro gain. Which w ill most likely come in handy with endgame PvE especially Raiding, where its les s you want no aggro, but just need to make sure you got less than the other heal ers ;D You can usually get off the induction of this song with one or maybe two mobs hi tting you, but it will take a while. Be wary using it in raids if you have picke d up loose aggro because once you soothe the mobs will likely go to the next hig hest person on the aggro list, which is usually another minstrel, especially if they've been healing you. Ballad of Flame lvl 32 Only you can stop forest fires. If not forest fires, then at least this Tier 3 ballad help prevent those maniaca l fire dots that lag my computer. Early in the game, not much does fire damage, but as you get into the higher levels you'll start to have encounters with drake s and other fire hurling menaces. Also, in Monster Play, the Reaver at later ran ks can make all his skill attacks do fire damage and the Uruk Blackarrow has a n asty fire attack. This probably will help in that respect. The times when you sh ould use this buff are rather self evident. If it spits fire, breaths fire, or i s generally on fire, its a safe bet this buff can help deal with some of the dam age. Tale of Battle lvl 32 Gotta fight for the right to buff! This is the second of the three tales, which gives you a buff to both your vital ity and wound resistance. Vitality will grant you morale and a whole load of res istances and mitigations such as shadow, fire, poison, wound etc. The extra mora le can be fantastic if you're in a situation where the mobs hit hard and fast bu t you've got regen time coming soon. However, it will place a small power drain to keep this skill active (3 power/sec at Level 50), so if you're struggling for power feel free to turn it off, or scold your nearest Lore Master. If you have two Minstrels in a group one usually does Tale of Heroism and the other Tale of Battle, giving a nice round up of buffs to the group. Lay of the Hammerhand lvl 42 Choo choo! This skill makes you a training machine. Essentially, it converts your damage in to a power drain at a ratio of .5 loss of power for each point of morale lost. L ow Power doesn't kill you, low morale does. Power also comes back to you out of combat at a relatively generous rate. Use this when you know you're gonna take d amage, the power drain isn't that bad, and this skill will probably save your li fe many many times. Tale of Warding lvl 44 Hope: the last resort. I Build a castle with a iron door. This is the last and most pointless Tale. It has a very situational use, and the refore doesn't see much daylight. This grants a buff of +1 hope as well as an in crease in armour value, which in turn is responsible for common damage mitigatio n. The hope can be handy sometimes if using it can take someone out of the state where they cower from dread. This doesn't happen often. I can also be useful if you die when there's no one to remove your dread and you don't want to wait to get rid of it the natural way. Because dread affects not only your morale but al so the damage you take and the amount you heal for, it can be a useful buff. It doesn't stack with anything, which reduces its use greatly, and just like the ot her tales it will give you a little power drain.

Call to the Fellowship lvl 46 Conjunction junction! This was another new skill from the Month of the Minstrel. Again, it is very sit uational and not something you can use while Soloing. This skill grants a +10% i ncrease to damage and healing from Fellowship Manoeuvres (aka conjunctions). Sin ce these are something you can only achieve while you're grouped, it gets forgot ten in day to day use. So here you have a buff that lasts for 15 seconds, giving plenty of time to get a Conjunction in before it fades. The problem is either Conjunctions are random and/or you get no warning meaning the small delays on the skill can really hurt, making it a tight squeeze to get yourself into a conjunction unless you're goin g last in the order. Probably the best way to use it is to have a burglar call o ut when he's going to use a conjunction and hit it ASAP so you've got time to en ter the Manoeuvre. The problem with this is if he fails his Conjunction, you've just wasted a skill on a 15 minute cooldown. The conjunctions you see which are random, ie "Clover has broken the defences of the Onburz archer!" often don't last as long as the planned conjunctions starte d by a burglar. If you have a burglar that isn't afraid of saying when he's goin g to use a conjunction, you should take advantage of that. Gift of the Hammerhand lvl 48 I bubble, you bubble, we all bubble! This is just like your own Lay of the Hammerhand, except the rate at which it tu rns damage to morale into damage to power isn't as good as yours. This is a grea t skill to use on Champions who are aggro'ing a little too much. If you use it f ast enough it can prevent them from dying and gives them a massive power drain t hey'll regen back pretty quickly. If you don't have a lore master, you should be careful when you use this skill because of that hefty power drain. The last thi ng you want to do is get rid of a Tank's power when all their cooldowns are blow n and they have no way of getting it back with their often horrible in-combat po wer regen. Most of the time it's better to heal than to use this skill. But some times you can't heal enough, in which case, this skill gives you about 15 second s to get their morale up before they start taking damage again. One of the bad things about this skill is until you have 6/6 Rift gear, Gift of the Hammerhand will only convert common damage into damage to power. So anything which is doing fire damage, shadow damage, poison, wound, fear damage etc, will continue to sap at your friend's morale. It is in no way a guarantee. Healing i s better. What it can be useful for is helping a fellowship member train through inhabited areas, just as you can use Lay of the Hammerhand. Call to Greatness lvl 50 Forth and Fear no darkness! Arise, arise riders of Theoden. Swords shall be shak en! Spears shall be splintered! This can be an excellent toy to play with! But it requires knowledge of other cl asses, good situational awareness and communication to be used most efficiently. You can use this skill on any member of your fellowship including yourself, and for each class it does something different. You can really decide how, when and who you use this on. Whether it be to help t hose hunters get as much DPS into something as possible, or for Lore Masters to

get a mez every 5 seconds, if things are hairy you can use this on a tank to hel p him get aggro, bigger heals from captains, so on. The best way to find out exa ctly what this means to a class is find a friend to put it on, and ask them what they can do with this skill that they couldn't before, and when would they like it if it's available. With a 5 minute cooldown, obviously you can't use it on everyone, so your decisi ons might be important. Sometimes if you're unsure of your group you may want to save it until you think it has the possibility to make a real difference (aka, an "Oh Crap!" button). Not many other classes are aware this buff exists or what it does to them, so you may want to tell them it's coming if you're going to us e it to help them make the best of it. 2.4 War-speech One of the early complaints about the Minstrel class was that while we were very difficult to kill, it seemed to take ages to kill anything else in return. In r esponse to this, a very specific subset of skills was added in Book 11. These sk ills are gated by activating the War-speech skill and they collectively provide a rather large boost to our DPS, at the cost of increased power consumption and a 50% to 80% reduction in our healing output, depending on how you're traited. Echoes of Battle lvl 14 Glowy ghost swords! At level 14, this skill isn't very useful. Echoes of Battle creates a glowy ghos t-sword which does damage over time (DoT) to your foe, as well as decreasing res istance to cries. This can be handy for yourself and any class with cry based ch allenge skills, (i.e. Guardians and Champions). At level 20 when you get War-spe ech, this skill becomes Timeless Echoes of Battle while War-speech is enabled, g reatly increasing its damage output. Additionally, high-level crafted instrument s will allow you to change the damage type of the EoB/tEoB attacks. Beleriand, W esternesse, Ancient-dwarf Make, and Common Damage varieties of all instrument ty pes are available. This skill is a toggle, but also has power consumption per second, so if you're getting low don't forget to turn it off. War-speech lvl 20 Outside, the storms of war may blow and the lands may be lashed with the fury of its gales, but in our own hearts this Sunday morning there is peace. This is a brilliant skill! It's a toggle which requires power to cast, but not t o sustain. War-speech activates two other skills which can only be used while yo u have it toggled on: Call of Orom and Call of the Second Age. It also turns your skill Echoes of Battle into Timeless Echoes of Battle. On top of all these love ly things, it increases the chance of a critical hit on Piercing cry by 25%. "Wow!" you must be thinking, "Why don't I use War-speech all the time?!" Well, t hat would be because while this toggle is activated you can only heal at 50%. Ye ah, it cuts your healing in half. This means have to get proficient at fighting for as long as you can before turning it off to heal yourself and others. Healin g while you're in War-speech is a waste of power. So what can you do to maximise your time in War-speech and keep yourself alive? Part of this can be done with traits, the other with experience. The two traits than can help you are Glorious Anthem and Battle-hymn. Glorious Anthem makes you r Anthems last for 45 seconds instead of the regular 30. Battle-hymn adds the sa me amount of in-combat morale regen to your Anthem of the Valar that you usually receive for Anthem of the Free People (providing it isn't resisted). This means that you will be able to keep a ridiculous amount of regen up for at least 90 s

econds without interruption. This will mean you can go longer in War-speech with out having to drop the toggle to heal yourself. You need to learn what you can get away with. If you're solo and taking on a han dful of mobs at once you can let your morale get really low, but drop out in tim e to hit Triumphant Spirit and top up with a bolster courage. You will find your own comfort zone with how low you will let your morale go before you feel the b urning desire to heal. As a footnote, War-speech has an induction when you activate it, but turning it off is instantaneous. This means that it can often be beneficial to enable it be fore a fight, do some solid DPS, and then drop it when you need to start healing . The 50% healing penalty is only applied when the heal induction finishes, mean ing that you can start up Bolster Courage and then still have time to turn off W ar-speech before BC is finished casting, Call of Orom lvl 22 mmmmm cake...I mean AoE This skill can get up to 3 mobs within a 5m radius of each other. It provides a nice little -10% Light mitigation debuff to the mobs, which makes it super yummy for Minstrels as your ballads do Light damage and many crafted weapons do Light damage. If the skill is resisted, no debuff is applied. The cooldown is short a nd the damage is nice. If you're in War-speech this should be one of your first attacks. Call of the Second Age lvl 34 mmmm...something. When you hit critically on this skill you will end up double checking your comba t log to see if it was just a hallucination. At level 50 you can get crits up to 850 Light damage. Just like Call of Orom it's a 3 target AoE, but you can't use this one at range: it's a melee skill only. Whether it hits anything or not, it' ll give you a 15 second in-combat run speed buff to your whole fellowship. The c ooldown is longer and the damage is very nice, but with the nature of AoE comes the power consumption of AoE. These two AoE skills can munch through your power quite rapidly, so keep an eye on your blue bar. 2.5 Resurrection Ask and ye shall receive! When one of your group members is defeated they get a window pop up saying they've been incapacitated and do they want to retreat? If there's a Minstrel handy, the answer is usually no. As a Minstrel you are given the ability relatively early on to revive them. If they don't click to release t hen you've got a job to do! Click on the person (either on their vitals or selec t their "corpse") and use one of your rez skills. They'll jump up where you're s tanding after a loading screen and your group will be ready to move out. One of the advantages of a rez over retreating is that rezzing means they don't get the usual 10 minute dread. This can be handy if you're being pushed to the l imit and don't want to hang around waiting for everyone's dread to fade away. Another is a lower repair bill than retreating. Enlivening Grace lvl 20 Wake up! There's work to do! At level 20 you will get your first rez. You will rejoice for a whole five minut es when you get this little beauty. This is an out of combat rez, so you will ha ve to battle on if one of your group goes down until much later (lvl 41) when yo u get an in-combat rez. You will still use Enlivening Grace a lot once, even aft

er that. Enlivening Grace revives your target with 50% morale and 0% power, but since you're out of combat this will return to them quickly provided you don't g et attacked by something right away. Rally! lvl 41 This skill is described in more detail later on, but considering this is the Rez section I thought it deserved a mention here. This is a legendary skill. In Lot RO these are obtained by collecting books and pages once you hit level 39. Howev er, even if you have collected the necessary Legendary Book and its eight Pages, your first legendary trait slot doesn't become available until level 41. Rally! is your first and last in-combat rez. It's on a 25 minute cooldown so it's not something you can use whenever you please. If you can manage it you're better of f leaving your comrade dead until you drop combat so you can use Enlivening Grac e. If leaving someone defeated is likely to kill the rest of you then you'll wan t to use it anyway. Both skills have a 25m range so you don't have to stand right next of them to re z. Sometimes there's a mob in the way and this distance allows you to safely rez someone without putting yourself in combat. Hobbit and Elf Minstrels get an add ed bonus when it comes to resurrecting; they can do it from stealth. There will be times when a fellow is defeated in an area to which you cannot enter without picking up unwanted aggro. The solution to this problem is to drop into stealth, get within range undetected, and then cast Enlivening Grace. You won't be revea led from Stealth until the induction annimation completes, allowing you to resur rect your friend and then high-tail it out of there. 2.6 Utility Skills Minstrels have a bunch of odds and ends in their toy box. Hopefully here I can d emystify any skills that you were unsure of possible uses or if you wanted to se e what I had to say about them. Cry of the Valar lvl 12 The nasty Minstrel is skeery! This skill was updated with the Month of the Minstrel so if you haven't played y our minstrel for a long time, be prepared for some changes. First, the basics - It's a fear. It will send a mob running away from you, meani ng they will be in a state where they will not attack until the fear is either b roken, or it runs out. The skill description says you can use this against evil mobs. This is a loose description! Anything that will attack you without provoca tion is classed as evil. So that's wolves and wargs (even though they're slated as beasts), spiders, evil men, orcs, goblins, the undead, so on and so forth. It can be used against all classes of monster players in the Ettenmoors (the PvP z one). This 15 second fear will now break on new damage (existing DOTs, like Timeless E choes of Battle, carry only a slight chance to break the Fear). The recipient MO B of the Fear will attempt to run in a straight line away from you if they fail to resist the skill. If the Fear is not broken by damage, then when the effect e nds, the MOB will make a call for help and bring back one extra ally if there is one within range of its call. This means that you have to use a measure of stra tegy and position yourself before using the skill. Make certain that you re not se nding the MOB over to his friends, or you will pick up the extra aggro. This is a good skill to use if you're being attacked by multiple mobs. There's n o induction, so if you're getting your heals interrupted you can fear a mob to h elp you. I like to use this against the undead if I'm trying to mez one in melee range. Too often are they broken by AoEs so I like to fear them away and mez th em safely before that becomes a problem. Also if you're having trouble keeping s

omeone alive when they have too much aggro you can fear one away to lighten your load for a little while. Finally, one of the best (and least it breaks inductions. Similar to a the Valar will break inductions on skill to use against MOBs that heal Song of the Dead lvl 18 Rest for the Restless dead This song is a mez that ends before the recast timer. When you're fighting wads of undead, this is how you can help the burglar and lore-master with CC. I tend to use it with soloing or duoing undead with a non-mezzing class. Usually the Lo re-Master or the Burglar have things under control, but if they need help, you c an. It is worth noting that Lore-Masters can't mez the undead, so you may need t o take over for the undead mobs. A good time to use this skill is when you are f aced with multiple ranged undead MOBs. Mez one until you can get around to it. F inally, casting this skill on a MOB will cause it to aggro you when the mez ends . Song of Restoration lvl 18 Have no Fear! Your Minstrel is here! This song is on a rather stupid recast timer, so each defeat you're only going t o get it off on one person. Generally, if your group wipes, it is good to get th e dread off your tank. If that s not an issue, I m partial to putting it on another squishy, such as a Lore-master. Or trade off with another Minstrel as it can't b e cast on yourself. Cure Fear lvl 26 Seasons don't fea... did that one already >.< The reasons this skill isn't good is because it only cures one fear affect on a single target, it has a long induction so everyone has to be pretty healthy for you to want to use it (defeat the point, much?) and a longer cooldown (1m). It a lso has an incredibly short range of use, so you want to make sure your target i s standing still or they'll be impossible to catch. Also at level 50 you can onl y cure a fear up to level 52. So there's no point in trying to cure any Thorog f ears. Be mindful of the debuff level before you waste your time and power on thi s skill. When to use it: Usually when you're out of combat, or when you or an ally has on e of those nasty will and fate fear debuffs that lasts a few minutes and it's sa fe for you to stop healing. When fear removal potions fail, it can be useful, or when no other classes can cure a debuff. Knowing other classes: Captains have a skill called muster courage that is way m ore useful than this cure fear. Their skill acts more like the other cure skills floating around - It's instant cast, gives a 20% buff to fear resistance and cu res 3 fears to our pathetic one. At level 50, this will be the standard in group ing content (provided you have a captain). But since it's a group skill with a 3 0s cooldown, it may not always be possible to use. This is where you come in. Cry of the Chorus lvl 26 Your 10min fast-forward button This skill is going to be your friend. Don't be surprised if one night you screa m for Cry of Chorus. But fear not, just like in the Cheerios commercials, it's o kay to love it that much. This skill enables you to play any tier Ballad or Anth appreciated) things about this skill is that Champion s Clobber or a Guardian s Stamp, Cry of both MOBs and Monster Players. It s a perfect and those that summon allies.

em. If you don't have time to work up to Anthem of the Free Peoples, or Compassi on, use this then throw it up fast. A common mistake is to just go right to the Anthem of the Free Peoples. Instead play a Tier 3 Ballad, which will unlock the Anthem, but also give you the much loved 10% damage or fire/fear resist. You can also use all three in the same tier time if your fast enough for that big group buff. Not only does this give you access to all your Ballads/Anthems very fast, it als o removes silence (you know, that thing that greys out most of your skills). Usi ng an appropriate level fear potion will cure silence too, but this skill can ce rtainly be handy if you potions are on cooldown. Song of Aid lvl 30 Unleash the beast! This song is actually pretty interesting. It lasts 10 seconds, and during the le ngth you can't do anything else. What it does is it triggers all reaction abilit ies; this effect is refreshed about every 5 seconds (e.g. triggers another openi ng of the Burglar crit chain or Champion defeat response). If there is another M instrel in the group for example, all his tiers are unlocked. For Guardians, the y are free to spam their AoE taunts or their stuns. As a bonus, it removes the r ecast timer for Lore-masters and reduces the morale cost for them to use their h eal, so if there is one in the group, they can cover for you with heals while yo u do this. The Lore-master heal takes morale and power and it has a rather long cooldown - 20 seconds if traited, 30 if not. If the tank is getting low in healt h and needs a quick burst of hp, I can pop this song and the Lore-master will be able to heal the tank at an insane rate. The insane hate the Lore-master genera tes can often be offset by the tank's ability to use all of his reactive abiliti es. I've seen some pretty cool things pulled off this with skill, it's really fu n to toy around with. Song of Distraction lvl 34 Look, over there, look, right there! If it is resisted the mob will aggro you. If successful this will let your group sneak past mobs or split pull a group of mobs. It has a rather long cooldown so you can't always use it, but try using it when you can. It has been noted that this can be helpful when harvesting to reduce the mobs aggro, there's an example of something simple that never even crossed my mind! Use it often, it s one of ou r best skills. Scripted mobs in instances will be immune to distraction. Still as Death lvl 38 "Playing Possum is what we do. We die, so we live." -if you don't know who this is, you need to spend more time with kids. Being a character that can resurrect other players, it makes sense that if we ca n live, everyone's happy. If you're wiping, run then die. Not literally, just pl ay dead, wait till everything is done, then resurrect everyone and rejoice. Be w ary, it's not a 100% deal. It helps if you're a hobbit to have the backup, but d on't be surprised if they both fail. That being said, it's saved me many times, and it's much, much more reliable than Song of Distraction. This skill will not reset your aggro, it just means all mobs will ignore you for the time that you're feigning death. If anyone else in your group is still aliv e, any attention you have when you feign will transfer to whoever is highest on the aggro list. If by the time you jump up no one has successfully generated eno ugh threat on the mobs, they will ping back to you. People can be notoriously sl oppy about this because there's no way to know if there's been enough aggro gene

rated to get you in the clear. It can be nice, however, if you are soloing and just want to reset a mob. Just m ake sure you're out of its aggro range where you feign or it'll be a waste! In Monster Play this can be a lifesaver. However, a few things to keep in mind. You cannot receive heals while feigned. Conversely, you cannot be attacked while feigned. You CAN, however, toggle off War-Speech. This allows you to pop up and cast an instant heal on yourself. 3.0 Traits And Virtues 3.1 Class Trait Sets With the Mines of Moria expansion came a whole new process to building your mins trel. The class traits will still be acquired in the same way, but the bonuses f or slotting traits are different. For a start the passive morale/power/ICMR bonu ses etc have been removed from class traits. Bubbye! 3.2 Class Trait List and Explanation Battle-Hymn Deed:Battle-hymn Use Anthem of the Valar 250 times "When using Anthem of the Valar, your regeneration in combat is increased." This is a very under-rated skill because the tooltip isn't particularly clear. Actual results of landing an AotV attack while Battle Hymm is traited gives you an In-combat Morale Regen (ICMR) the same as Anthem of the Free Peoples [(AotFP) 20.1 bonus to ICMR]. With Glorious Anthem also traited, between AotV and AotFP. ..you can keep your morale regen up for 1.5 minutes (45sec each).

So what does this really mean? Crunch me some numbers! The character Figgy (lvl 50) starts off with 766 ICMR. Using traited Anthem of t he Valar (or Anthem of the Free Peoples), she gets a buff to a whopping 1974 ICM R, a difference of 1208. So in the 30s AotV lasts for, she is going to get 987 m orale regen. Increase the Anthem length by 15s with the trait Glorious Anthem an d that's increased to 1480 morale for the duration. Without glorious anthem, but back to back with Anthem of the Free Peoples, she gets the whole 1974 morale re gen, but with Glorious Anthem and Battle hymn she gets 2961 morale regen, all in a minute and a half. Those numbers look nice, don't they? Of course, you do have to remember that you can get those kind of numbers in a few heals. The benefit of this is that the l ess time you have to spend healing yourself, the more time you can heal others o r lay some War-speech smack down. Focused Performance Deed:Focused Performance Evade 300 attacks "Your inductions skills execute quicker, making you harder to disrupt." Induction = casting time. Who can say no to a 10% reduction in casting time? Tya r did some tests using Bolster Courage, starting the timer when he clicked and s topping when the bar is full. 10 tests with, 10 tests without the trait. The ave

rage time for bolster courage without the trait was 3.03 seconds, with Focused P erformance it was 2.74 seconds. This leads us to believe that it is indeed casti ng time that is reduced by 10% (for the 3 second Bolster Courage induction this works out to be 0.3 seconds), which is what appears to happen. This trait also it makes your heals feel smoother. For example, if you have 2 mo bs on you while you're trying to heal (especially at the lower levels) that blue bar is punted all the way back to the beginning on one or two hits. If you slot Focused performance it feels as though hits don't disrupt the blue bar progress ion as much. This is something which has never been confirmed as official, but m any minstrels believe. It's up to you to decide if it's worth using a trait slot on it. Most healing sp ecced minstrels do. Glorious Anthem Quest:A Minstrel's Hope lvl 30 quest "The duration of your Anthems is increased by 15 seconds." Useful. 15 more seconds of reduced aggro, and 15 more seconds of easy mode heali ng. If you slot Battle-hymn along with Glorious Anthem you can get some great re gen for a substantial amount of time. Graceful Demeanor Deed:Graceful Demeanour Use Enlivening Grace 100 times "Enlivening Grace and Rally grant more morale and power on revive. Rally's cast time is reduced by 2 seconds and it's recovery time is reduced by 5 minutes." Adds 20.0% to Revive morale Total. Adds 30.0% to Revive Power Total. This is far more useful with Rally! and rezzing in combat, but when you're out o f combat the 20 more morale and 30 power this gives is just a few seconds of out of combat regen. As a note, Rally isn't available until your first Legendary tr ait slot opens up at 41. Milarien the Defensive Minstrel would also like to poin t out that this skill does become useful at later levels when you will be using Rally. Harmonious Melody Deed:Harmonious Melody Use 1500 Ballads "Gain a 5 second longer window of opportunity in which to perform tiered Ballads ." This trait can be useful if you're having to heal heavily in between tierring yo ur ballads. Providing you don't get resists, when the pace is fast this can help your multi-tasking. Heralded Saviour Deed:Heralded Saviour Use Song of Aid 400 times "You use your Song of Aid to greater effect. This song is especially effective a

t lightening the hearts of your fellows." Doubles the duration of song of aid from 10s to 20s Shortens the recovery time f rom 10m to 9m Thanks to TheSidhe for this information. If you've read the skill description yo u will know that Song of Aid activates all the fellowship's reactive skills - pa rry, block, critical hits, ballad tiers. If you have a 20s duration for Song of Aid it means the classes have more time to use their reaction skills, and this f unctionality is refreshed periodically during the Song of Aid for at least some classes (see http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=155637 for discussion). Probably the best thing about this skill is it removes the cooldown of the lore master heal (Beacon of Hope). This means they can spam the heal for 20 seconds. During tough healing times this can really help, but not many people know of it. Herald's Hammer Deed:Herald's Hammer Use Herald's Strike 700 times "Your Herald's Strike deals double damage." This trait has some good solo uses. The added damage is nice, especially used in conjunction with Noble Cause. The DPS is always welcome when it comes to soloin g or small groups. This trait does not affect how much Noble Cause heals for, it is only the damage output which increases. Life-singer Deed:Life-singer Use 1000 Healing Songs. "The Power costs of your morale-renewing skills are reduced." -10.0% Power Cost. If you're healing a lot and end up with Power issues, then this trait may be a g ood choice for you. You may find that in most cases you won't need it. But there are some times such as when a mob is power draining you, or the encounters are long enough that you have to rely on ICPR, where if you don't have this trait yo u will miss it. It can be especially handy if you're trying to solo something yo u shouldn't be able to kill and you need every point of power you can get. If you are noticing you have to cut back on buffs or give up on other parts of y our job to have enough power to heal. Grab little beauty, it should help with yo ur power problems! Light in the Dark Deed:Light in the Dark Use Ballad of Resonance 1000 times "Your Tier 1 and Tier 2 Ballads inflict more damage to your enemies." +10% Ballad damage. 10% damage is 10% damage. If you're needed for DPS, you cant go wrong. If your s ong does 100 damage you now do 110. Not life changing, but useful. Medium Armour-use A Song for the Company Level 15 class quest reward. "You are able to wear Medium Armour."

Perhaps the most annoying trait to give to minstrels for their first class slot, perhaps the best. This trait does what it says on the tin. It allows you to use medium armour. What's so great about this? Well Medium armour gives you slightl y higher common damage mitigation, which for lower levels can be useful. It also allows you more variety in armour so you can pick for stats. What's bad about t his? Once you have Medium Armour-use slotted, it's difficult to get rid of it. M any minstrels will decide the benefits of Medium Armour-use are out-weighed by t he cost - mainly the price of a valuable class slot. The Light Vs Medium Armour debate continues later in the guide. Powerful Voice Deed:Powerful Voice Use 300 cries "The Power costs of all your Cries are reduced." -5.0% Cries Cost. -5.0% Calls Cost. This trait is on the lower scale of usefulness and there seem to be few who slot it. Most of your skills are cries in the resistance category, but this trait on ly works for skills with "cry" or "call" in the title, so: Piercing Cry Cry of the Chorus Cry of the Valar Call of Orome Call of Fate Call of the Second Age It also only provides a 5% power cost reduction, so nothing significant anyway. Most minstrels can find a trait with more benefits than this. Silver Tongue Deed:Silver Tongue Use Cry of the Chorus 125 times "All of your songs recover 20% faster." That 20% can be very nice. It works for: Song of Soothing Song of Aid Song of Restoration Song of the Dead Song of Distraction Lay of the Hammerhand Song of the Hopeful Heart (Legendary AoE Hope) Fellowships Heart (Legendary HoT) Smooth Voice Deed:Smooth Voice Use Piercing Cry 600 times "This skill transforms your Ballad of Vigour and Ballad of Swiftness to become s lower songs that no longer deal damage, but act upon your fellowship for a longe r duration." This is not really a soloing trait. This is best used in end-game or group conte nt later in the levels when you have all your Anthems available. Earlier in the levels there are probably more useful traits you can slot instead.

Smooth Voice changes the Tier 1 Ballad of Vigour into the Song of Vigour, and th e Tier 2 Ballad of Swiftness into the Song of Swiftness. In effect. this creates a blue bar induction on these two skills, as well as removing the damage compon ent to both, meaning they're usable out of combat. You will not want the interru pts on these skills so don't try to use them if you're getting hit. Try to stand out of AoE range of any mobs. As stated in the Buffing section above, this can be used for tiering up to your anthems before entering combat. Your fellows will get a buff to their vitality, evade chance, any one of the Tier 3 ballads you w ish (+melee damage, fear and fire resistance) and then which ever Anthem your he art desires. Here's a general rule to stick by: If there are lots of mobs, tier up to Anthem of Compassion (-40% threat generati on), then use your damage ballads to tier up to Anthem of the Free People (+ ICM R for fellowship) in combat. Less threat generation means less aggro, and theref ore less healing interruption. If there are few mobs but especially if they like to AoE, tier up to Anthem of t he Free People. Depending on the amount of damage, this can top up your fellow's morale without you having to heal them as much. In a few cases, such as when fighting Fumeroles in the Rift, using Smooth Voice is the only way to consistently get past Tier 1. If you want to focus on buffing and not be a healbot all the time, then this tra it may be for you. Strength of Voice Strength of Voice Use Ballad of War 500 times "The duration of your Ballads is increased by 10 seconds." Many people choose this trait because in day to day life and grouping, the buffs produced by your ballads are quite desirable. This trait works quite well with smooth voice and the increased duration means you have more wiggle-room if you h ave to heal heavily, giving you a better chance to keep yourself and your fellow s buffed up. Subtle Movements Deed:Subtle Movements Use Song of Soothing 300 times "The use of your skills draws less attention from your enemies." Some people swear by this trait, although the description is rather vague. Basic ally it gives you an overall decrease in threat generation. This can be incredib ly useful in group content but Solo it is completely useless, of course. If ther e are a lot of mobs and you're throwing down all the tricks of the trade to redu ce your aggro, then this trait can be wonderful. Even if it's a small decrease i n aggro generation, that can be the difference between being hit by one mob or b eing hit by 2+. Minstrels can function perfectly well without it, but in a situa tion where your build is not designed to withstand a beating you might want to b e safe rather than sorry. Unrelenting Deed:Unrelenting Land 100 Piercing Cry critical "When you land a Critical Hit with your Piercing Cry, your enemy is stunned. Pie rcing Cry also gains 25% to its critical chance. This trait also causes your Pie rcing Cry to recover faster."

I don't think there are many minstrels that don't fall in love with this trait. The Stun can be very handy in PvP and in PvE against, well, anything. Whether th e 5 second stun gives you enough time to finish a well needed induction, or whet her it's just to stop a mob from damaging you for 5 seconds, you can find someth ing you like about it. Of course the increased critical chance doesn't just give you a stun, it also gi ves you the higher damage too; something which can be pretty impressive from Pie rcing Cry. This could be recommended to a minstrel of any level as you will find a use for it throughout most of the game. Couple this trait with the bonuses to Piercing cry in War-speech (reduced recovery time and increased critical chance ) and you are certainly onto a winner! The one thing to consider with this trait is that your 5 second stun will put 10 s worth of stun immunity on the mob. If you have a burglar in a group you might want to cool it on more difficult foes because that leaves your sneaky friend ab le to pop a conjunction on him whenever he feels. 3.3 Legendary Traits You can start collecting Books and Pages for Legendary Traits at level 39, but t he first trait slot opens at level 41. Once you reach level 39, your minstrel trainer will give you a quest to visit Li ndir, Bilbo's Riddle friend in the Hall of Fire, just inside the Last Homely Hou se in Rivendell. He will give you 3 quests to complete. To obtain the first 3 le gendary skills you have to collect books and pages. The books drop from any leve l 39+ humanoid mob across Middle-earth, but the easiest place to get them may be the Auction Hall. Only once you have collected the book may you open up the dee d to start acquiring the pages. Only you can collect the pages for two of these legendary traits, Rally! and Son g of the Hopeful Heart. The pages are like quest items, they will drop only for you if you have started the deed. Half of each book may be found together and ar e easily obtainable as you quest. One half is found amongst the Angmarim of Western-Angmar. Good places to quest o r farm include Donnvail and Dun Covad (Fortress west of Donnvail). The second half is found on Goblins in the Misty Mountains. There are various Go blin camps up there, but the most profitable place to get them is Goblin Town in the High Pass, as there are many quests you can complete for XP along the way. The third legendary, Anthem of the Wizards, is slightly different. Both the book and pages can be dropped from level 39+ mobs. Meaning anyone can collect and tr ade them. If you're levelling up you might want to keep an eye our for cheap pag es on the Auction House as you level. The fourth and final legendary trait, Fellowship's Heart is obtained by the comp letion of your level 45 class quests. These will take you on a trip into Urugart h and Carn Dm. Both of these places are fellowship instances, so it will likely t ake you a while to collect what you need to obtain this final legendary trait. Rally! Trait: Rally! Deed: Melodies of the Valar Grants the ability to revive someone in-combat. "The ways of the elder ages are not lost to all races yet. You may bring new ins

piration to those whose Morale has been entirely depleted, reviving a defeated a lly in combat." Target revives with 80% Morale Target revives with 50% Power This legendary is one that few minstrels ignore, including those who spend most of their time Solo. If you're grouped and don't have a captain then you will be the only class that can rez in-combat. If things start going slightly pear-shape d, Rally! can help. A lot. But you have to be careful when you use it. If someon e dies just before you get the healing situation under control then there may be no need to rez them yet. Instead you can wait for your fight to finish and rez afterwards, saving the 25 minute cooldown for when it really counts. It costs qu ite a considerable amount of power to use, so be mindful of your consumption bef ore you automatically hit this skill. A minstrel with no power and no way to get more is useless to a group and potentially a greater hazard than leaving someon e down. Obviously the aim is to keep people alive so you don't have to use this skill, b ut sometimes aggro mistakes and bad pulls happen. This is a legendary most minst rels feel naked without. Song of the Hopeful Heart Trait: Song of the Hopeful Heart Deed: The Rising Chord "This song enables you to temporarily reduce the Dread of an area for a short ti me." This is not a skill to be under-estimated at level 50. Song of the Hopeful Heart is an AoE hope +4 hope buff, lasting 5 minutes. Since Turbine has an obsession with using dread in most end-game encounters, you may find it incredibly useful, either because it can be used instead of the costly Tokens of Edhelharn or beca use it is so easily beneficial if something decides to strip your token buff awa y. If you find this happens, all you have to do is back away from the Area of Ef fect and run back in. I think the real reason people like this skill is the blue twinkly animation it gives. The animation is not as large as the Area of Effect, but at least it give s you an idea of placement so it's less confusing if people are moving around. Anthem of the Wizards Trait: Anthem of the Wizards Deed: Valour's Marches This skill calls upon song to blast your enemies with an area-of-effect of light that will slow the creatures who are hit by it, you have a short window after p laying a tier 3 song to play one of these, and it will reset your ballad counter back to start. This legendary trait grants you another Anthem. It's essentially the same as Ant hem of the Valar, except it provides a debuff to the mobs if it successfully hit s. This debuff is decreased attack speed and decreased movement speed. It's a ve ry popular solo and PvP trait. The disappointing aspect of this trait is the Coo l down. 10 minutes is extremely long considering we have a similar skill already (minus the debuffs). Fellowship's Heart Trait: Fellowship's Heart From the level 45 Class Quests:

Quest: Implements of Song Quest: Articles of Harmony Quest: A Lesson from Lindir This skill instantly cures any fear effects you have, and also makes the entire fellowship immune to fear for a short period of time, as well as acting as a hea l over time. Fellowships Heart will probably be the last Legendary trait you get. To acquire this trait you need to finish your level 45 class quests, which will send you ac ross Eriador to collect a variety of items to make you a legendary weapon and je wellery. The most difficult part of this quest is collecting the last items you need from Carn Dum. Highly sought after items make for a difficult acquisition. So, onto the skill itself. Fellowship's Heart is the only Heal over Time (HoT) w e receive. It only lasts for 30 seconds but heals your entire fellowship for app roximately 464 every two seconds for 30s. This equates to around 7400 morale for every single member of your fellowship. As one of the minstrel's panic buttons, when things go wrong you essentially have 30 seconds of immunity to death to ge t things back on track. Just be warned that it generates a fair amount of aggro for you, something which is often offset by the amount you are being healed for. Just be wary. It also has the ability to cure and protect against fear effects, but that is li ttle more than a bonus. I can't think of any situation where you would want to u se it for the cure rather than the heal, except maybe when killing the dragon, T horog, in Helegrod. This is a very popular legendary for those who solo as well as PvP, and for grou p content which won't require Song of the Hopeful Heart. 3.4 Virtue Stat Explanations First off, throughout your level career you will gain access to 5 Virtue slots. Each Virtue has between 4 to 7 ranks and they are obtained by completing deeds. For an excellent guide to getting your virtues, I'd recommend Fizen's Online Tra its Compendium. Each Virtue has 3 stats, the first stat is a major boost, the second in a lesser and the third is a rather minor. Here is a list of all the stats you can obtain from various traits and how they apply to you as a minstrel. Melee Resistance You will get beaten on, its a fact of life. Especially when soloing or duoing wi th another squishy. This can be quite useful to minimize the damage you receive. It's not something most would put a lot of emphasis on, but it definitely is so mething you may consider a plus on a trait. Ranged Resistance You probably won't take much ranged damage, even on a bad day. When soloing, you will want to be in melee range for the added DPS from what ever melee skills yo u can use, including auto-attack. There are times when ignored adds will hammer on you from a distance, but its not common, especially if you have a lore master in your group. This means Ranged resistance is of little value to you, unless y ou PVMP. Minstrels are favorite targets of Black Arrows. Tactical Resistance This resistance is a bit of a grey area. For all the bosses and mobs that can hi t you from range for damage without using a bow, it's probably tactical (magic) damage they're doing. This probably isn't a resistance you would trait for. Disease Resistance

Disease debuffs tend to be of the -vitality/-power nature. Disease debuffs are n ot a minstrel's best friend. Taking away your vitality is going to reduce your m orale and various other resistances. Not good. Power drains are likely to leave you quite helpless. Not good. Most of the power debuffs come in the form or a de crease over time, but some will take away all of your power in one hit. Plus the roots and occasionally stuns...diseases aren't nice. However, there are probabl y better stats for you to focus your traits on. Wound Resistance Wound is generally a DoT or a -might debuff, as well as a common runspeed debuff used my animals. For a healer a dot really isn't much. Over the course of 1 min or however long it lasts, we might have to pop a small heal. The run speed debu ffs aren't frequent enough or annoying enough to justify must Wound resistance. These are more painful to melee classes such as Champions or Guardians. Adding V itality will increase your wound resistance. Poison Resistance Poison debuffs usually take away your agility, as well as the occasional DoT. Th is stat is more important to Battle or hybrid minstrels, but poison resistance i s not something any minstrel would generally trait for. Poison resistance can al so be increased by increasing your Vitality. Shadow Resistance Shadow damage rears its ugly head often while fighting evil. Ghost may have it, wights, almost all end-game content bosses have it, and the dots that usually pa ir up with dread debuffs are often shadow damage. This is nice, as you will noti ce some AoE shadow attacks from time to time, but again its not that common, esp ecially if you're killing in friendly non-evil places. Vitality will increase yo ur Shadow resistance/mitigation. Fear Resistance Fear debuffs are the ones that minstrels hate the most. They can place 3 minute debuffs to your will and fate, which as a healer can really hurt as they affect your in-combat power regeneration and your total power pool. If have full power, that just took a chunk of your pool. Again, not all mobs do this, but bears are also known for fear dots, making this resistance semi-relevant. Because of the actually annoying debuffs associated with fear as well as the fact that many dif ferent kind of mobs use fear based dots, I would recommend trying to get some Fe ar resist into your virtues. This can be especially important if you ever attemp t Thorog in Helegrod. In-Combat Power Regen Some minstrels make this the focus of their build with the idea as long as you c an heal you can keep yourself and your group alive. If you're looking to increas e your ICPR, look for items with fate or direct ICPR on them (bracelets, shield and weapon items will sometimes have ICPR). This is a very important stat for a healer. You will find you develop your own comfort zone for ICPR as you improve your gear at level 50. Sometimes it may be wise to swap out some of your ICPR to address your vitality/morale/power as those can be incredibly important. You ca nnot heal if you are dead. Out of Combat Power Regen Glorious amounts of will and fate will keep your power pool, in-combat and out o f combat regen looking very healthy. So will eating food when you drop combat. T his isn't a stat that anyone really focuses on for a trait, because your stats a nd consumables will have this covered. It is, however, very nice to decrease you r downtime. In-Combat morale Regen Some love it, some ignore it. In-combat morale can be great for some play styles

. The more you regen in combat, the less likely you are to have to heal yourself . This can be great if you're soloing, in War-speech, or keeping yourself relati vely out of harms way and focusing on healing your fellows. Remember you do have Anthem of the Free Peoples and the trait Battle-hymn to aid your ICMR, so don't fret too much about it as a virtue. Out of Combat morale Regen Why have out of combat morale regeneration when you can heal yourself? Ignore th is stat. If you're out of combat, there's a pretty good chance of your power reg enerating enough to get your morale completely topped up. Morale Bonus Who doesn't want more morale? People can argue till they're blue in the face tha t they are a more efficient healer than you cause they have this much more power . But In group situations high-ICPR minstrels seldom find themselves running out of Power. More often an add you weren't expecting shows up, or something happen s to the aggro and you take damage. If you die, the group is gonna be in for a r ough ride, and you might have a long walk back. Playing dead is one solution in these cases, but there is something to be said about being able to take a few hi ts while the tank takes the mob back. Most would rather have some morale and no power left at the end of a fight than some power and no morale. Power Bonus Power = good. You can never have enough power. Regen is more important in the lo nger fights, but at large, full pool of power gives you a healthy reserve for th e fight ahead. Some people tend to go overboard with power and just try to get a s much as they can at the detriment to other stats. Finding the balance comes fr om spending a lot of time tweaking your build. Armour Bonus Armour prevents damage. Most of the Armour bonuses that come with traits are so minor I wouldn't even factor them in. How often does 3 Armour save your life? Will Bonus The benefits of Will are many-fold. Not only do you get some power, but you get a bonus to fear resistances as well as your out of combat power regen. If you're given a choice of pure power on an item or the equivalent in Will, go for the W ill. Fate Bonus Fate increases in-combat morale and power regen as well as increase the crit rat e of heals. This is a stat that the healing variety of minstrel like to focus on for the obvious reason. It's available on most items and on some virtues. If yo u want to heal, please consider looking at virtues for their Fate bonus. Agility Bonus Agility governs the rate at which you evade and parry incoming blows. Many minst rels value BEP and agility very highly as the ability to mitigate blows will sto p your heals from being interrupted if you do pull aggro or prevent you from nee ding to heal yourself. Currently minstrels can get 40-50% BEP if they try. It's mainly a stat for soloing but some hybrid minstrels like to take a good agility build into group content. Might Bonus This provides the B to your EP - ie, blocking with your shield, as well as incre asing your Melee efficiency. The higher your might, the harder you'll hit with y our sword (including auto-attack). This may not be so relevant if you're standin g back and healing, but if you like to get into the thick of it, or you're soloi ng then every bit of damage can help.

Vitality Bonus Vitality primarily gives more morale - something which far too many minstrels un derestimate. When you reach level 50 you will likely be at around 2000 morale. Y ou can get your morale up to above 3000 without losing anything on your other st ats. If you're interested in the end-game content then you might need the morale . Some creatures do AoE damage that can hit for a lot. at 2k morale you'll be de ad in 2 hits and be left wondering where the truck went that just hit you. You h ave more wiggle room with more morale. That being said Vitality also gives a bon us to out of combat morale regen, and resistance to poison, wound and disease. N ot only that but it increases your Shadow and Fire mitigation, which is always n ice, mostly at higher levels. This is why Vitality is certainly more desirable t han straight morale. Many minstrels will build their traits to have as much Vita lity as possible. 3.5 Virtue List Here is the list, first is the major stat, second the lesser, third is the very minor bonus. Charity - Wound Resistance - Ranged Resistance - Out of Combat morale Regen Confidence - Fear Resistance - Will Bonus - Out of Combat Power Regen Compassion - Ranged Resistance - Out of Combat Power Regen - Magic Resistance Determination - Agility Bonus - In-Combat morale Regen - Morale Bonus Discipline - Might Bonus - Disease Resistance - Melee Resistance Empathy - Armor Bonus - Fate Bonus - Fear Resistance Fidelity - Shadow Resistance - Vitality Bonus - Power Bonus Fortitude - Out of Combat morale Regen - Might Bonus - Disease Resistance Honesty - Power - Armour - Fate Honour - Poison Resistance - Shadow Resistance - Vitality Bonus Idealism - Fate Bonus

- Fear Resistance - Will Bonus Innocence - Melee Resistance - Poison Resistance - Shadow Resistance Justice - In-Combat morale Regen - morale Bonus - Out of Combat morale Regen Loyalty - Vitality Bonus - Power Bonus - AC Bonus Mercy - Out of Combat Power Regen - Magic Vulnerability - Agility Bonus Patience - Out of Combat Power Regen - Wound resistance - Ranged Resistance Tolerance - Tatical Resistance - Agility Bonus - In-Combat moralee Regen Valour - Morale Bonus - Out of Combat morale Regen - Might Bonus Wisdom - Will Bonus - Out of Combat Power Regen - Wound Resistance Zeal - Disease Resistance - Melee Resistance - Poison Resistance 4.0 Minstrel Builds The wonderful thing about the minstrel class is that you can build it many ways and still be successful. The build you choose will likely be determined by your play-style. This section is dedicated to a brief description of different specif ications, class trait and virtue combinations that can suit a variety of minstre ls. Just remember: there is no right and wrong when building a minstrel, so go o ut and have some fun! 4.1 Healing/Grouping Minstrel This variety of minstrel is often called the "cookie-cutter build" or "cookies", which sounds like an insult until you realise cookies are amazing and most peop le love them (nom nom). These minstrels shine in fellowships and raids, and you can find these tasty treats at almost any level. At 50 their survivability can b e matched by very few. Healing minstrels will make group healing their priority and since the soling ro les of tanking and DPS are often removed from them, it allows them to build upon their strengths of healing and regeneration, while essentially ignoring any sta ts that don't help them do that. This is called Min/Maxing. You will often find these minstrels have high ICPR, fate, will, vitality, morale and power, while ha ving low agility, might, block, evade and parry. Along with healing, the groupin g minstrel can provide some lovely buffs for their group.

This breed of Minstrel will usually be found wearing light armour. This is becau se that trait slot can be too useful to waste and if you're designing your build around ICPR, fate and will then you'll find these stats more frequently on ligh t armour. Being geared for healing in groups really doesn't mean you can't solo. You may w ant to swap out a few traits which provide little benefit to the soloer, but asi de from that you can be ready to go. Having the highest possible ICPR makes it l ikely for you to do some unbelievable things, such as soloing above level Nemesi s mobs like the Carn Dum gate-keeper and various beryl-shard mobs. The minstrels who accomplish such feats will each have a distinctive way of soloing them. The key to soloing such critters is to ensure you always have enough power to heal yourself. The damage to power ratio on most skills aren't too clever when you ge t that damage for free in a couple of auto-attacks; this is especially true for War-speech. Fights may take a very long time, but if you can keep your power up, and don't get interrupted by adds you will have a good chance of success. Important Stats In-combat Power Regeneration Most healing minstrels will make this their focus, considering how often it is t ried and tested. A minstrel is no use to the group if they do not have the power to heal. The longer and fiercer the fight, the more this stat is going to be te sted. ICPR can be obtained by pure ICPR on items (you'll find these on ear, wris t, shield and weapon slots) as well as Fate, which indirectly increases your ICP R. Fate is something easy to acquire as it's available in varying amounts on mos t equipment, but pure ICPR give you more fizz for your bucks. For fellowships yo u will probably want over 700 ICPR per minute; higher if you're raiding since yo u have many more targets to heal and the damage they take can be quite considera ble. Power Whether it be by pure power stats on items and traits or by increasing your will , you will want a good power pool. Once you go into combat this will gradually t ick down, even if you have the highest ICPR possible. You want it to have furthe r to tick before you run out. Morale Lore-masters. They are wonderful minstrel batteries, and grouping with them allo ws you to worry much less about your power because good lore-masters will never let you run out. This can let you to spread your stats about a little to get som e morale. The end-game content can be a lot of fun, but things often hit really hard. If you're sitting at 2K morale, you're going to have a lot less room for e rror than if you have 3K. Class Traits As with all the traits, it's all about personal preference. There are specific t raits designed to aid healing and some which will help you buff. He's a selectio n of people's favourites. Subtle Movements - reduces aggro Life Singer - decreases power cost of heals Focused Performance - decreases skill induction interruption Smooth Voice - turns 2 ballads into songs to buff group and allow you to tier yo ur anthems Glorious Anthems - increases duration of anthems Strength of Voice - increases ballad durations Graceful Demeanour - Improves the morale and power levels when you rez someone. Rally! - This is a no-brainer for grouping minstrels. You will want your in-comb

at rez. Song of the Hopeful Heart - Considering how much dread the grouping content has, this skill can be so very handy. Virtues With so much will and fate available on items at all levels, some prefer to use their traits to increase their vitality and morale. The traits available for Will and Fate aren't that good anyway. You get one that will have a decent amount of fate (Idealism) or will (Wisdom), then the rest ha ve practically nothing - you could count it on your hands. When choosing your tr aits you may realise that some just aren't worth it, you get too little when you could get more from traiting for something else. Valour - A HUGE amount of morale. You'd be a fool not to slot this trait, for an y class. Few traits give as large a benefit as this. This one is really a no bra iner, even if you want to use the rest to increase your fate and will. Justice - Morale again. Loyalty - Vitality Fidelity - Vitality Idealism - Fate Wisdom - Will 4.2 BEP Minstrel The title says it all. This breed of minstrel focuses on their ability to mitiga te and resist damage. This can be used either to heal uninterrupted, or in some situations just to prevent having to heal yourself. Having high Block/Evade/Parr y often comes at a cost of other stats. These minstrels usually exhibit low mora le and power and/or low power regeneration, with the idea that you can accomplis h all you need to without burning your power by healing, and not having your mor ale touched that much. These minstrels are usually concerned more with damage and are set up to solo ra ther than play a sustained part in a group. Important Stats Blocking, parrying or evading all means the same thing defensively; you've avoid ed an incoming attack. BEP works until you are either disarmed or stunned. This is one reason the pure BEP build can struggle a lot in high pressure situations, because building exclusively for BEP only to have that taken away can leave you left with nothing but low morale and power. Block You don't start blocking until level 20 when you get your shield. If you want hi gh block, then you should aim to increase your might. Might will also increase y our melee efficacy which means your auto attacks and your heralds hammer will hi t for more damage. Block only works in a frontal arc, so if you have something h itting you from behind you aren't going to block any of their attacks. Get them in front of you! Sometimes you will find items which have pure block stats on th em. Keep your eye out for these as quest rewards. Evade This is governed by your agility. High agility will not do much for a minstrel a side from give you higher evade and parry percentages. It's responsible for your ranged efficacy and although you can attack at range, your skills are classed a s tactical so it's a whole different ball game to what agility changes. Pure eva de stats seem slightly more difficult to come across (unless it's on burglar spe cific items). Evade works over 360 degrees, so you can evade mobs behind you. Parry Agility and might are responsible for increasing parry. Parry works in a frontal

arc, but is only effective against melee attacks -- you can't parry ranged atta cks. Traits Class traits for BEP are usually designed to maximise damage. The kill something the less you will need to heal yourself. The pure esigned for soloing and small group content at most. This isn't a want to raid with as the priorities of this build doesn't match. oing pure BEP, you may want to spec for soloing/damage. faster you can BEP build is d build you will So if you're g

Medium Armour - allows you to have more choice of gear, higher common damage mit igation, and usually more agility and might for your BEP stats. Light in the Dark - increases the damage of your ballads Unrelenting - increases the crit chance of piercing cry, decreases cooldown and provides a 5s stun on crit. Battle-hymn - provides a huge ICMR boost for anthem of the valar Herald's Hammer - doubles the damage from Herald's Strike. Focused Performance - After all, this build is supposed to prevent your heals be ing interrupted. Legendary traits are often very situational. If you're soloing you do not need R ally! So you could go for: Fellowship's Heart - Heal over time Anthem of the Wizard - An anthem with a debuff. If you're taking you BEP minstrel for a spin in a group you'll want to have eith er Rally! and Song of the Hopeful Heart or Fellowship's Heart, depending on the situation. These can be pretty expensive to retrait. Virtues You can either use these to bump up your agility/might even higher, or spread a little love to morale, vitality, fate or will. Valour - Morale too good to waste. Justice - more morale Determination - Agility Discipline - Might Empathy - Armour and fate Loyalty - Vitality Idealism - Fate 4.3 Tactical Crit Minstrel These minstrels tend to co-exist peacefully with most of Middle-earth. They're u sually a breed of healing minstrel, but they can also be hybrid. The reason thes e minstrels bridge the borders between healing and hybrid is they only really ne ed to focus on one basic idea, and the rest they can make up as they go along. Why do people focus on tactical crit? Two reasons, really. First of all, tactica l crit chance will help you heal. The more you crit on heals the easier it is to keep people alive. Instead of 900 points of healing you'll find that turned int o 1500 points. Not to shabby! The other reason is that most of your damage skill s are tactical based, so a higher crit rate means you can get some really nasty damage out, especially if you're in war-speech. This, plus good power regenerati on can make the tactical crit both a good soloer/DPSer as well as a good healer. Important Stats Fate Fate increases your tactical critical chance. The more fate you have, the better chance you have to crit on heals and tactical based damage. The high fate means the tactical crit minstrels can function very well as healing minstrels.

Tactical Critical Chance This governs the rate at which you hit critical numbers on damage or heals. You will find some items across Middle-earth which will have Tactical Critical chase as a pure stat. This is most commonly found on jewellery. Tactical Critical Damage This governs the amount of damage you can do when you hit a critical. This is no t a stat which is shown in the character journal. I believe this just acts as a multiplier for the damage range. If you class your ordinary damage with no modif ier on it at 100%, jewellery which adds 4% to tactical damage will mean your cri tical damage will be at 104%. I believe the tactical damage modifier will affect every attack which is critical, but it will not effect heals, because they are not classed as damage. This information has not been confirmed. Traits Because these Tactical crit minstrels can be played many different ways, it's re ally up to you what traits you choose. You can either go down the healing line, or the DPS line, or even change the traits as you switch between the two. Just l ike the Hybrid minstrel there's no set rules, and therefore no set advice, but b elow is listed some popular traits. Subtle Movements - decreases threat generation Smooth Voice - turns 2 ballads into group buffs and allows you to tier your anth ems Life singer - decreases power cost of heals Battle-hymn - Gives Anthem of the Valar the same ICMR buff as Anthem of the Free Peoples Focused Performance - decreases skill induction interruption Unrelenting - increases the crit chance of piercing cry, decreases cooldown and provides a 5s stun on crit. Herald's Hammer - doubles the damage from Herald's Strike. Light in the Dark - increases the damage of your ballads Strength of Voice - Increases Ballad duration Legendaries: Any! Depending on what you're doing or how you want to build yourself. Rally! Song of the Hopeful Heart Fellowship's Heart Anthem of the Wizards Virtues These can take many directions. If you want to be a hybrid then you can use thes e traits in any way to improve upon all of your base stats, or you can go specif ically down a path to increase fate and will or morale and power. There are too many to list. 4.4 Hybrid Minstrel This breed of minstrel is open to much interpretation. It's essentially the misf its build for those minstrels who don't want to min/max their stats, or have som ething slightly different in mind. Usually you'll find these minstrels with a go od distribution of stats which allows them to quite competently deal with almost anything the game throws at them. They retain the ability to heal, as well as D PS successfully and their BEP can be relatively high. Important Stats This is a slightly grey area. Some Hybrid minstrels want all of their stats ad equally and so have decent amounts of Might, Agility, Vitality, Fate and . Some prefer entirely different set ups which allow them to switch between main two builds with relative ease. This will be especially handy for those trels who prefer to dip in and out of PvP. spre Will the mins

Spreading the stats evenly will give you pretty good numbers in all areas, but t here's no way you can have everything. Min/maxing allows you to heavily build up on one area while essentially getting nothing in others. Spreading you stats all ows you to put your eggs in different nests rather than in just one. Good amounts of Might and Agility will give you Block/Evade/Parry. Vitality will bump up your morale and resistances, Will and fate govern your power pool and t he rate at which it regenerates. The area that hybrid minstrels need to be mindful of is their Morale and Power l evels. Often they are neither BEP nor Healing minstrels and do not have the full advantage that either offers. For a great guide about the Hybrid or Moors minstrel, see Ophelia Darkfell's Min stankion : The Ettenmoors Minstrel. This guide is fantastic for Hybrid moors minst rels, and the rest of the thread contains an informative and rather geeky conver sation about Medium armour vs. Light Armour and also BEP vs. Morale. Traits As with the tactical crit minstrel, this is entirely open to interpretation. Sol oing or going into the moors? Trait for damage. Putting your healing suit on? Go for healing traits. Don't know what you're going to be doing? Mix and Match. Virtues My only advice would be to use your virtues to work upon your weakest areas. If you have focused your gear on getting all your might/agility/will/fate stats up, then use these to increase your morale. If you've spread them evenly on your ge ar then you can use these to develop which ever area you feel so inclined. You'r e a hybrid, there are no rules! Just keep in mind what you want your build to ac hieve. 4.5 Medium Armour vs. Light Armour This is a much debated and frequently asked question, so I thought it needed to be addressed here. Your level 15 class quest will reward you with the medium armour trait. At the l ower levels it can be great because it increased your choice of quest rewards an d allows you to build your stats to how you wish. Once you have leveled a bit an d discovered more about your play style it may be time to reconsider this trait. If you are a grouping/healing Minstrel or just someone who likes to have high I CPR, fate, vitality, and will, then this trait may not be for you. You will find at level 50 that most clothes high in these stats are light armour anyway. Hybrid and BEP minstrels like this trait, not only because it feels as though allows you to take less damage (which in the case of common damage is true), t it will give you the opportunity to go outside the will/fate stats found on st light armour and to start focusing on Agility and Might which are uncommon light pieces. There has am highly ortant or ease edit it bu mo on

been so much talk, comparison and debate on this subject, and since I biased I will say no more about it. If you feel you have something imp useful to say to guide other minstrels in making the decision, then pl this section.

Woodwise s Opinion: Until LvL 50 I wore medium armor, when I started getting piece s of Epic armor which, for a Minstrel, means light armor pieces I stuck with the Medium Armor trait until I had about half Medium and half Light armor. Then I h ad to make a choice; do I take the Medium trait out, and replace with something more useful? Or do I stick with the medium trait just incase I find a piece that

I like better later on? This is the moment of truth where you have to decide we ather you are a Battle Bard or, a Healer ? Now I alternate; when I m soloing I go mediu m, and when I m in a group, straight up healing machine. This way everyone is happ y. 5.0 Equipment 5.1 Instruments The instruments aren't all that expensive. While you're levelling I wouldn't spe nd an arm and a leg getting the crit versions of these, but when you hit level 4 0+ these instruments will stay with you for a long time, so it's worth getting t he one that will have the most use for you. The only instruments that I value and often switch between are the Theorbo, Harp and Drums. The others either provide no in-combat bonus or it's pointless in co mparison to the three mentioned above. Theorbo Exquisite Superior Theorbo This is your bread and butter instrument for grouping. Anything that gives you a bonus for aggro management is a big deal. Harp Exquisite Superior Harp This is a good soloing instrument. The decreased power consumption from ballads is nice, especially if it's going to be a long and difficult fight for which you can't stay in War-speech. Drums Exquisite Superior Drum Drums in the Deep! Favourite of soloers and PvPers. The extra damage is nice but I wouldn't use this one for a sustained fight as I value the ability to heal ov er those few points of extra damage. Lute Exquisite Superior Lute Decreases the power cost of your anthems...you have three of those. Not worth an instrument slot really. Flute Exquisite Superior Flute Decreases the power cost of your songs. Most of these are on cooldowns too long to justify using this in combat. I Song of Soothing Song of Aid Song of Restoration Song of the Dead Song of Distraction Lay of the Hammerhand Song of Vigour (with Smooth Voice) Song of Balance (with Smooth Voice) Song of the Hopeful Heart (Legendary AoE Hope) Fellowships Heart (Legendary HoT) have come to realize all of the healing skills are songs so if your healing in

a fellowship a flute is prolly a great instrument to use. It dont tell you any where that they are songs but ever since i started using my flute for healing my power has been so much better than usual. i barely ever run out of power at al l now and when i do it really isnt needed because the fight is about over. The Rest Bagpipes, Clarinet, Cowbell, Moor Cowbell. Whee! Let's make a band! Those who aren't interested in the music system can ign ore these as they provide no bonus when you use them in combat. They do, however , make pretty (or horrible) noises. It can add some fun to you job healing as yo u swap around instruments, and it can be a good indication for your group to pic k up the pace when they notice every heal is being played with a different instr ument. 5.2 Quest Items & Drops This section is going to take a while to finish, so please excuse the random lin ks below. Shields Armour:Arastan Armour:Amarthan Armour:Bronwethan Armour:Calenglad's Shield Armour:Dwalin's Shield Armour:Exquisite Elven Soldier's Light Shield Armour:Filigothan Armour:Harthathan Armour:Healer's Buckler Armour:Luthskold Armour:Ulkrank Ward Weapons Weapon:Aeglr Weapon:Amarthdram Weapon:Blade of Keri Weapon:Club of Song Weapon:Dagger of Keri Weapon:Dirk of Aughaire Weapon:Goldram Weapon:Mace of Song Weapon:Minstrel's Friend Weapon:Mirrored Ancient Steel Mace Weapon:Mirrored Ancient Steel Dagger Weapon:Romegil Weapon:Sharptooth Weapon:Star Mace Jewelery Wrist Item:Angechor Item:Elechor Item:Gaelon Item:Gilechor Item:Gillinn Item:Healer's Bracelet Item:Ithilr Item:Polished Beryl Bracelet Item:Tinugor Item:Twisted Golden Bracelet Ears Item:Brilliant Ancient Silver Earring

Item:Earring of the Dragon Item:Etched Beryl Earring Item:Gillos Item:Healer's Earring Item:Obsidian Earring Neck Item:Ashrz's Adornment Item:Edhelharlos Item:Eimyr's Choker Item:Elrond's Gift Item:Forochel's Glory Item:Healer's Locket Item:Necklace of Harmony Rings Item:Ancient Wedding Band Item:Etched Beryl Ring Item:Glorfindel s Band Item:Healer's Ring Item:Haematite Band Item:Manadgam Item:Polished Adamant Ring Item:Polished Beryl Ring Item:Polished Ruby Ring Item:Ora's Braid Item:Ring of Harmony Item:Ruby Ring Item:Soot-covered Ring Item:Yrjn's Braid Pocket Item:Black Arrow-head Item:Dragon-bone Splinter Item:Mark of the Fellowship Item:Minstrel's Badge Item:Phial of the Swirling Waters Armour Light Sets Item:Armour of the Wandering Bard Item:Silver-voice Armour Item:Anganskld Armour Item:Raiment of the Seven Stars Item:Limdr Armour Medium Sets Item:Nenuial s Vestments Item:Arthdr Armour 6.0 Consumables 6.1 Food I'm sure most of you have your favourite tasty treats already set out, but for t hose who say "pfft I don't need food" - this is for you. There's quite a variety of food available for the 40+ range. In fact, every tier has a similar amount. You may find the earlier you start munching it, the more addictive it becomes. Obesity will never be a problem because you'll run it off ;D So, why use food? Well...Why wouldn't you use something that gives you an incred ibly cheap advantage? Sometimes in this game you'll end up with a bad pull, too much aggro or people going link dead during fights and all sorts. The more time you spend in a group the more opportunity you have for the unexpected to happen. It really helps to know that you've got some free lovin' coming your way in the shape of a blackberry tart. Over 300 seconds, these little babies will give you

approximately 1,100 power and 1,460 morale. This means while you have these foo d buffs you'll be laughing. You really can feel the difference. Blackberry tarts are a personal favourite because they're very cheap to make in comparison to le mbas so all they really cost you are a couple of silver and a bit of inventory s pace. The other bonus is a huge boost to out of combat power and morale regen, m eaning it takes only a few seconds to regenerate completely so you can move on; this is something especially useful in War-speech because it's very power intens ive and you don't heal yourself as much as usual, so food allows you to move ont o the next and not have to worry about hanging around waiting for your bars to f ill up. Blackberry Tart Lembas Superior Lembas The other type of food we have gives a direct bonus to one of your core stats: V itality, might, agility and will (no fate yet). For the healers, you might want to go for the Vitality as this is likely to be more important than that bit of e xtra power. A dead minstrel cannot heal, and this grants you morale and mitigati ons. But then saying that, if you know you're going to struggle for power but su rvive then the Will stuff can be nice. Agility and might are usually a waste of time unless you're going for a BEP build, in which case these +might or +agility foods will help to build your core stats. They last for 15 minutes so you don't have to worry about munching them so often. Bass with Carrots and Onions (+24 Will) Superior Bass with Carrots and Onions (+41 Will) Delicious Steak (+24 Agility) Superior Delicious Steak (+41 Agility) Masterful Mash (+24 Vitality) Superior Masterful Mash (+41 Vitality) Feast of Rohan (+24 Might) Superior Feast of Rohan (+41 Might) I never step out of the Shire without enough food to keep me going for a while. It's a good habit to start. 6.2 Potions Morale You're going to want to carry these in case of emergencies. As a minstrel you wi ll find you rarely need to use the morale potions - perhaps if you're trying to save power. IF you don't have them and you need them, you're screwed. You will p robably use them so rarely that it seems like a waste of inventory, but they can sometimes give you that extra edge if your heals are being interrupted, or you' re silenced, or stunned. Pots never grey out. Power The blue power ones can become an addiction though, especially if you're warspee ching or using your lay of the hammerhand bubble. It's probably a complete waste of money to use morale and power potions in the moors, but the ones that you ca n get in the delving are definitely worth having. For a start they're free provi ding you can get in there. They heal for less than the player-crafted potions, b ut the cooldown is only 1 minute, compared to the 2 of crafted ones, so in those 2 minutes you actually get more if you use Delving pots. You should try to get into the habit of carrying a full stack each of the fear, disease, poison and wound pots around with you. The best place to buy these is t he housing instance where your or your kinship's house is. It makes them much ch eaper. Never buy them from Glan Vraig. Fear Never leave home without a full stack of these! Most often the fear debuffs you

will come across are either DoTs or -will/-fate, lasting up to 3 minutes - the l atter you will certainly want to avoid. Not only are they handy for removing tho se nasty debuffs, they can also be used on silence. Silence greys out everything on your skill bar aside from pots, cry of the chorus, noble cause and herald's strike. So you will want to be able to get rid of silence! Disease As stated before, these are responsible for -Vitality and -power debuffs, neithe r of which you want. Just be mindful if you're fighting something that likes to give you more dangerous debuffs that using any of the vendor-bought pots will pu t you on cooldown. Poison These usually give -agility debuffs or poison DoTs. You can essentially ignore t hese if someone else is there to tank, but if you're solo and you're doing somet hing ambitious then you might want the evade and parry the agility gives you. Wound The slows from wounds suck for all kinds of minstrel. The other common might which controls your block % as well as your melee efficacy. Not he list of importance unless you're soloing. It might be worth using a he longer debuffs as long as you aren't expecting anything worse to be you. debuff is high on t pot for t thrown at

6.3 Strings These are a weapon in the aggro-management arsenal that many minstrels seem to f orget or shrug off as useless or unnecessary. Granted, they are a royal pain in the backside to get - Killing boars in the Lone-Lands is NEVER fun. But they sho uldn't be underestimated. At level 50 the best two strings available for you are as follows: Lute Strings of Greater Subtlety (-10% threat generation) Improved Lute Srings of Greater Subtlety (-12% threat generation) These aren't the kind of thing you'll want to use when you pull aggro in a battl e, because they serve best as a prevention rather than a cure. Use some before y ou start an encounter and you'll find it takes more to give you aggro. Use this in conjunction with Subtle movements, Anthem of compassion and Song of soothing and there is no way you should ever be getting aggro. The danger comes when you' re spamming your little heart out and don't have time to build anthems or get th rough the induction of Song of Soothing. This is where Strings can be helpful, a s that 10% gives you a little longer of spamming before you HAVE to do something . By then you'll see one or two mobs ping to you (depending on the situation and number of mobs) and you have to lay down song of soothing on as many as you can or they'll all run at you. That's one of the good things about strings: You may find that if you've got str ings off before you start healing then you're more likely to peel one or two mob s rather than ALL of them if you get a little too happy with the heals. I think it's because most damage becomes relatively more threatening than your heals so you the first who will run at you have had no damage done to them. You'll know t hat those caught in AoE range but who aren't being tanked will be next if you do n't drop song of soothing. So it allows you to get a bit of warning before an en tire room runs at you. Aside for the 2% in threat generation, the difference between these two is the d uration. The normal lute strings last for 5 minutes, where as the improved strin gs last for 10 minutes.

Personally I won't use the purple ones unless I'm going into an unfamiliar or ex tremely hazardous place like Thrang's room in the Rift. Otherwise, if I'm worrie d about aggro I'll use the yellow ones. As for the availability of them - yeah it sucks. Either you spend your time out in the Lone Lands helping people out on their boar quests while you hunt for int estines (wash your hands afterwards, k thx.) or you browse the Auction Hall for strings or intestines, even when you have a stack hidden away somewhere. There's nothing worse than wanting them only to find none on the AH so your only option is to go hunt. I'm lazy enough to get them from the AH. Just takes a few second s to search for them. 7.0 Be one with the Group So you've been getting tells non-stop. Every man and his dog wants you to join t hem on their adventures. People break into chorus when you're invited into the f ellowship and the ground you stand on is declared sacred. Welcome to the lucrati ve life of a healer. The facts are you can suck, and you will still always get i nvites. But who wants to suck. A minstrel helps, a good minstrel is like the cro wn Jewels. They are highly prized and beloved. In this section I'm going to try to not sound like an ego-maniacal healer with a severe god complex. Which is hard since that's what I am. 7.1 Healing First you're a healer. You keep people alive, an in return they shower you with love and praise. If people die, at first they will all get frustrated and smile to your face in fear of you leaving. But if they continue to die, they will snap and say you're just like all the other healers. Don't worry if they swear they will soil your name for ever, it is impossible to soil the name of a healer. Tru st me. Anywho, back to your job. You heal, and make sure people don't die. Lets go through a typical fight: There are 4 mobs, 2 will be dealt with the CC, which means you will be engaging 2 mobs. This makes aggro a little trickier as your tank will have to make sure h e has aggro on both the mobs rather than just one. The tank can mostly just atta ck one mob at a time, while your heals build up aggro on every mob. In this figh t you will want to be very aggro cautious. If you have a good tank, you will qui ckly notice you have more wiggle room, if he's not so good, you will have less. But remember we have a few tools for this situation. Firstly, you can pop a Song of Soothing on the secondary mob, this is the one that the group isn't attackin g. The mob the group is attacking will have aggro from many other players and th us is less of a threat. The secondary mob will only have aggro from you, the tan k, and possible from the DPS if they are using AoE attacks. Secondly you have An them of Compassion. This reduces your heal aggro by a nice amount, this could be an option if the skill is available. Thirdly if it is a tough group of two mobs , you may want to use Anthem of the Free Peoples that way you can be much lighte r with the heals for the start of the fight. For aggro sake you will want to avo id the group heals, as they are notorious of large amounts of aggro. Also try fo r Bolster Courage as the large heal deals less aggro than spamming the lower Rai se the Spirit, as well it is more power efficient. One really good important tip is to stand on, or near the tank or Champion becua se if you're far behind him, he may have to turn around to get aggro or chase af ter the mob. If you stand on him, even if the mob attacks you, his cone taunts w ill still effect the mob. This is a good rule of thumb, but there are some situa tions where this isn't possible or advisable. One example is mobs with AoE. In t

his case stand outside of the AoE, Behind the mob. The reason being it is much e asier for a tank to move forward, grab the mob, run through it then turn around, than to turn around right away and look for it. In some cases the cone attacks reach further than the mobs AoE, and if you pull, the tank can simple use one at tack to pull it back since it is still in his range. Another example is if the M ob has a cone attack of its own, or and AoE that is only 180 degrees in front of the mob. Some trolls for example knockback or stun everyone in front of it. In this case you can easily just stand behind the mob. If you get aggro the tank do esn't have to do any running in this case either and you're safe from the knockb ack/stun. I will go more into this in the next section when we discuss what the tank can do for you. Once the first mob is down and the tank can focus his/her attention on the singl e mob, feel free to be much more extravagant with your heals. The tank should be able to keep aggro from you. If there is more than that, say 4 mobs you need to let your tank gain aggro befo re healing. Often times they will get a bit of aggro on the enemies, then step b ackwards to move them into the cone and then use their cone aggro building abili ties. As a Healer, using too many heals while they do this could cause some enem ies to go towards you screwing up the Guardians manoeuvre. Two ways to avoid thi s, is to A, not heal, or B, stand in front of the guardian for this initial aggr o building step so that even if something does aggro you, he can still taunt it easily. One method for managing the initial aggro for when he's dealing with multiple mo bs is this: The plan is to send in the Guardian first let them soak up as much d amage as they possible can (teehee, can, that wasn't even intentional), Be sure to assure your tank that you will be giving him a big heal at the last possible opportunity, perhaps even tell him to use some mitigation spells to help him las t longer. Once your tank is sweating bullets and doubting your very sanity, hit your Anthem of Compassion then pop a Triumphant Spirit healing him and everyone else for a rather obscene amount. If you have the trait Smooth Voice slotted you can tier up to Anthem of the Free Peoples before you enter combat to give the t ank a little helping hand. If the Tank is doing a good job, you shouldn't have a ny aggro. If you get any mobs, try to get your song of soothing off and the tank should challenge them off you. This is 15 seconds of forced aggro which will gi ve you opportunity to get the situation under control again. Okay, now that we've talked about healing, let's talk about 7.2 Buffing First you have your tales. It's your choice of which one you think would benefit the group most. If you're in a group without a lore master and with power hungr y classes like hunters, and captains you should seriously consider Tale of Heroi sm for the will/fate buff. If you're in a group of reckless or aggressive melee types you might want to go for the extra morale. You can essentially ignore Tale of Warding for now, as it doesn't do much good at all. For the most part, your buffs will require you to strum up a little trouble and work your way up the tiers. I went over this whole process earlier but here's a quick summary for those who skipped to my grouping guide. At first, the only songs in your repertoire are tier 1 ballads. Once you play on e, you then gain access to tier 2 ballads. Again, fire off one of the tier 2 bal lads and finally, the glorious 3rd tier is revealed. You now have the options of using tier 3 ballad buffs, such as +fire mitigation, +fear resistance or the ev er loved +10% melee damage. Keep in mind, you only have a short window of time t o play these tier 3 ballads, if your fast you can get all 3 in. Please notice th at they are short buffs, so you have to start thinking about getting them back u

p again in 15 seconds. That aside, after tier 3 ballads you are allowed one anth em. These Anthems are generally your most potent songs, and you can only use one before all your tiers are reset and your locked back down at tier 1 again. My personal favourite is Anthem of the Free Peoples. It is a mostly aggro free, HoT (heal over time). This can be used when soloing if you just need to focus on killing the mob and don't want to spend every third attack throwing a heal. In small groups it frees you up for more DPS'ing, and we all know how much you secr etly want to DPS... don't lie to yourself. In larger groups its useful when many members of the fellowship are taking damage but the fight is too aggro sensitiv e to use Inspire Fellows. Above, I mentioned that in some fights like the Great Barrows where there is adds spawning around the boss. It can difficult for your guardian to tank and gather all the adds, or your hunter DPS's a single target. This is when you can pop an Anthem of the Free Peoples and not have to worry abo ut getting heal aggro on all the adds spawning. If your low on power and just so happen to be sitting in the third tier, an Anthem of the Free Peoples is probab ly your best bet as a last ditch heal (aside from triumphant spirit) as it lasts 30-45 seconds, and may be able to keep your party up for the duration if they a re careful. If you're not in the 3rd tier with anthems unlocked, consider using your Cry of Chorus. I'm sure you thought of this already but a quick jump to you r anthem could be just what the group needs. Anthem of Compassion isn't as highly revered in my books, but it still gets soli d mileage. I use it mostly on longer fights, when I will be healing a lot and I am worried that heal aggro from a second mob might be an issue. If its a single target, you would have to be a pretty amazing person to pull it off your guardia n. Either that or your guardians let his dippy-bird play for him while he's out for a smoke. I'd recommend this anthem mostly in fights where there is a second or third elite or boss that is being off-tanked. The other mobs wont have as muc h aggro built up and can make you the target for their jail house rocking. Finally Anthem of Valar is an AoE (area of effect). Use it when you want to hurt the nearest 3 mobs to you, simple as that. Something I didn't deal with as of yet is Smooth Voice. First off, this turns yo ur Ballad of Vigour and Ballad of Balance into group buffs usable out of combat. With this in mind, you can now unlock all tiers before the fight. If your reall y scared you can cast an anthem just as the fight starts. The buff durations of the ballads is increased to allow room for more heals before putting all the buf fs back on. With Smooth voice you can effectively keep a vitality buff up, an ev asion bonus and any Tier 3 ballads you wish, as well as heal without having to w orry about damage aggro. Slotting this trade is pretty much trading the damage o f your 2 spells you use to progress the tiers for minor group buffs. If your gro uping in large groups with lots of DPS, this is something you might want to cons ider. If your still contributing DPS to your group, you might not get much milea ge out of this particular trait. Finally, there are things in a group you should know that don't necessarily invo lve healing and buffing believe it or not. 7.3 Crowd Control As the name suggests, this section is controlling the crowds. Unlike Turbine we can't create queues, so instead we have to be crafty instead. Most of the crowd control will be dealt with by the Burglar or the Lore-Master. But there are some situations when you will be called upon to handle some CC. Undead is one example. Wights and other undead are immune to the magic of the lo re-master. The burglar can still mez but that leaves you one mez short. Lucky fo r all those little peons in your group their healer can mez undead! Song of the Dead if you hadn't already guessed is the culprit. It can provide the group with

that little added CC it may need when battling the walking dead. It should be n oted although your mez is effective against undead, you will be unable to keep a constant mez up as the cool-down on the skill is longer than the effect. Make s ure the group knows this. For the most part, you will mez at the start and you s hould be fine, but in longer fights with more undead mobs you may be called upon to mez again. While were on the topic of mesmerizing mobs lets deal with breaking a mez. If a mob has a little swirly above its head, that could mean its mesmerized or its st unned - you will learn how to tell which is which by the animation as well as th e debuff icon under the vitals bar. This can be confusing so pay attention to wh ich mobs the lore-master fires the initial mez at. Usually it's thrown at the st art of a fight, but you can tell it is a mez as it looks like a big ball of air. Learn to recognise this, as it is something you have to pay attention to. Burgl ars simply do something with their hands and one of the mobs gets a swirly above his/her head. Try to make a mental note. Usually the guardian will pull the rem aining mobs away from the mezzed mobs so that your DPS can AoE. The reason this all matters is that a mez can be broken prematurely by any damag e. So you have to be careful not to hit a mesmerized mob or else that ones gonna be back in the fight and everyone will be upset. Lucky for us, we have no arrow s or visual attacks linking us to the attack, so if you do hit it, they probably wont suspect you =D. Unfortunately since book 14 there's an option in your soci al panel to get an alert when someone breaks a mez, so you'll be spotted. Long g one are the days of breaking mezzes for fun, then blaming the hunters! Be careful with other peoples mezzed mobs. Some people get very angry and resort to profanity and angry words if they are broken. It can get ugly pretty quick w ith some people so this is something you've got to learn pretty quick and always be aware of. If there is a problem and nobody can figure it out, often you can just blame anybody who has an AoE attack. 9 times out of 10 your champion is jus t so used to bashing his head against the keyboard to attack he doesn't understa nd the subtle differences between them yet. Hopefully that was a sufficient primer to Crowd Control as a minstrel, but I sti ll have one skill to deal with. Cry of the Valar can be used as a type of Crowd Control. Although it d broken by damage, it can still be useful...especially in the lower while soloing. If your heals are getting interrupted, you can fear a your heals in. Just be mindful of where he's wandering because if he ds he brings them back. is short an levels and mob to get finds frien

7.4 Conjunction Junction Whats your function, hooking up words and phrases and clauses. For those in the know, your probably teary eyed right now and singing along with me. For those wh o aren't, your either to old or too young, your loss. You've no doubt heard about Conjunctions or Fellowship manoeuvres. There are bas ically group combos. There are two ways to start one. One is that randomly the e lite mob will be knocked down and you will start one. The other way if for a Bur glar to use one of his many knockdowns, or the guardian to use on of his. Once t hey knockdown the mob, a window with 4 coloured buttons will pop up in the middl e of your screen. This is of course assuming you didn't move it behind something when arranging your UI (cough). Above this window you should see a line of blac ked out circles. Assuming you have a full group of 6, there should be 6. What ha ppens now is you each have one click and you have to create a pattern. The more complicated the pattern, the better the attack. As a note, if you click the wron g colour, to cancel your selection and choose again, simply move. These days, th e conjunction wheel is greyed out when you are too far away for a specific colou

r, or after you have made your contribution. Lets start with the basics. Red is direct damage, and is an aoe attack generally. Yellow is a dot, which does more damage overall than red, but is usually a singl e target and takes time for it to finish. Green is a heal, most combos give you a hot, not just one heal. Blue is power, and gives you a lump of power. I have yet to get a power over tim e buff (pot?). From these four you will be making patterns that do different things. There are pretty much 2 types of combinations you will use in groups. If its a r eally good group you might try some better ones, but these ones are simple and g enerally what people like to use in pugs. 5-1 and 3-2 5-1 is the most common. For most mobs the group will all do red, except for the minstrel, who will select the last colour depending on the situation. This is a big responsibility, you generally have to be quick after the last guy as there i s always some slow poke. RRRRRB - Hew the stone - This does nice damage, as well gives everyone in the gr oup power. As an added bonus you get an oathebreaker summon. This summon at high er levels actually does decent dps, as well he says things to amuse your group. I use this one on most randoms unless the mob is hard. Guardians usually take a while to regen power as do some others so I usually select this for the sake of chain pulling. Plus I just like the summon. If a ranged character contributes th e part that summons the oathbreaker, that person will need to move closer to mob s to have the oathbreaker aggro them. Usually, the oathbreaker will stay out of range with the minstrel that caused it to be summoned and won't actually be atta cking anything unless you move a little closer. Once it starts attacking, you ca n back up again if you wish. RRRRRY - Break the Door - This is your most damaging option. This does a pretty amazing aoe and puts a hefty dot on the boss. One glorious example of this was a lso the first time I completed this manoeuvre. It was on weathertop at the warg boss. The warg seemed to have an army of non-elites everywhere and this gave us problems the time before. The next time we tried a fellowship maneuver, in parti cular, break the door. Not only did it take a huge chunk out of the bosses HP, b ut every warg add was dead in a huge circle around the guardian. I don't know ho w we managed to kill the boss, we were all hysterical and unable to communicate properly on vent. After about 5 min of hearing the word "awesome" and "amazing" about a hundred times on vent, we all decided we love this game. True story. Thi s is powerful and I like to us it when there is lots of adds in a fight. RRRRRG - Roll the Drums - This deals hefty direct damage as well as a Heal over Time. As a minstrel this one can be used if everyone is ok on power but more tha n one person could use a top up of healing or you know you're about to get hit w ith lots of adds. It's a good conjunction to use if your group is standing in th e war-path of mobs with AoEs. GGGBB - Pure of Heart - This is the last ditch heal. This is a Heal with a HoT, as well as a nice power bonus. This is most used when your all low on power, the lore-master cant suck any more power cause the boss has none. Everyones health is low and potions timers are up. Your burglar uses that fluky little bag of mar bles and it pops up. You scramble as the 3 melee you designated ahead of time to be green click green then the remained hammer blue. Next thing you know, your b ack in the game.

GRRRRB - March of the Ents - This little beauty is a nice of if you have a Loremaster or another minstrel in the group. It gives an initial heal, a heal over t ime, returns some power and does some immediate damage. It also summons a little helper guy - a Greater noble spirit, who will gleefully whack anything in it's path. This conjunction is lovely! GYYYYB - Chill of Bone - This is the same as the above March of the Ents except instead of direct damage it gives a DoT and a debilitating wound. Not quite done with Conjunctions though. One tip that really helps me is to bind the keys for the fellowship manoeuvre. In the Options under keybindings you can assign red green yellow and blue to keys. What I actually did was assign them t o shift-w/a/s/d. For those who don't see the pattern, these are the movement key s, which also line up the same as the circles on the screen. This makes it so yo u don't have to fumble with your mouse. A good tip for keyboard players like me who hate mouse clicking for anything but targeting. The problem with conjunctions for minstrels is that we're often healing, so when it comes down to missing the conjunction or finishing that heal, most minstrels will choose the heal over the CJ. If the conjunction wheel pops up just after y ou've started a heal, you might be able to get into it on time, but you certainl y do not want people waiting for you before they make their contribution. So if you are early on in a set conjunction you need to consider how willing you will be to cancel your heal and contribute to the CJ instead. If you are last with yo ur contribution then you can take the risk to finish your heal or not. It's up t o you to determine the situation. Usually it's already decided that the minstrel will go last. That's just how thi ng are done in most PuGs or small groups. But if you're in a group with a lore m aster then you will find them in roughly the same situation as you. These are pe ople who attack at range, yet have to be in melee distance to hit a Red or Yello w CJ. The only difference is it's much easier for them to enter a blue or green contribution earlier than you can. So the last two conjunctions on the list abov e can really come in handy. Get a Lore-master (or perhaps another minstrel) to d o the initial green, then you can follow it up with a blue. This ensures that yo u have power as well as it being a named CJ, which will give you the most benefi ts. Sometimes it can be a complete waste of time and pretty frustrating to desig nate a RRRRRB and have your Lore-master continuously miss and ruin the entire co njunction. 7.5 Other Grouping Tips There are a few other misc tips I'd like to add here, as well I'm sure many peop le have some things they'd like to add to this section so I'm going to add them all on point for format for expansion sake. - Ranged mobs can only attack what they see. You might hear somebody talk about LoS or line of sighting a ranged mob. To do this, you have to make sure the mob doesn't have a line of sight to you. In LotRO this causes the mob to run towards you until he can see you. Often times this will pull him into melee combat and the guardian can grab him. As a healer you may have to do this from time to time if a ranged mob aggro's you. A good example of going los is to go around the co rner in a cave. Going behind a person won't work and running behind something sm all like a tree usually doesn't work. -If you're going on an instance, make sure the loot rules are laid out first. Ma ny people lose out on good drops because loot rules aren't agreed upon ahead of time and that club with all that in-combat power regen goes to that champion cau se its DPS is kinda nice. Or that shield with caster stats goes to the guardian cause they do not understand its not heavy and has stats that would get more mil

eage with you. -If the group dynamics are not working out, say I'm sorry, this isn't working ou t and leave. Some groups just need some time to get into the rhythm, but sometim es you get a bad group. Too many people are scared to leave. Don't be. There are lots of groups out there, don't be afraid to leave a bad one. It's a waste of y our time and your silver wiping over and over again. Some people might want to l eave but again they are scared of angering you. Often times if the minstrel brin gs it up, there are no hard feelings as everyone wants to be your friend and gro up with you again... lol. 8.0 Minstrels in the Moors Minstrels are fun to play. They can be even more fun to play when aggro manageme nt matters little, but it can also be frustrating. This section talks briefly ab out the moors, what to expect and what decisions you will have to make. Let me get personal here for a moment. The first minstrel I ever made was back in closed beta where we could auto-level to 50...and then I bounced straight into the Moors with little more than a coup le of spars in the freep home-base to let me organise my quickslot bars. Even th ough I was really quite bad at first, you get used to what's required of you and it'll benefit you probably more than you know. Ever been in those situations where you're in a group and all of a sudden everyt hing seem to go wrong, you've got to heal so many people that you just start roc king in the corner confused at who to heal first? The moors will iron this kind of behaviour out of you. There are usually very fast paced fights going on, and you will be targeted, harassed and generally on everyone's hitlist. But whether you're just trying to keep yourself alive or one of your raid members up and run ning, this experience can really help you sort out in your head when the best ti me is to use your "Oh crap!" skills. Without good practice people often waste th em, forget they're there or try to use them too late. Some good moors experience will help you know when things are futile, when to bubble yourself, when to com e out of the bubble, when to hit large heals, or play dead etc. I'm sure in time you can learn all this in PvE land, but this is like the crash course to emerge ncy healing. There's usually so much going on that you have to be so on the ball or people die before you can blink. Not only does this help you to be situation ally aware, it also makes you very focused with your trigger finger ready to fir e a heal as soon as someone's morale starts dropping. I took a very long break from the moors on my minstrel and focused on creepside and PvE. When I went back I saw that I had lost my touch. People were dying befo re I even noticed and I got very frustrated with myself, because I wasn't always like that. The Moors can be an assault course for minstrels. It may make you pa nt and puff, but ultimately it will turn you into something stronger than you we re before. So you're tempted to play in the moors. Well, there are a few things you will ne ed to know. You WILL be focus fired Those creepies love minstrels. After having played as creep you will see why the y always say minstrels are the tastiest. There's nothing more satisfying than ki lling something which is supposed to have a red carpet rolled out where ever the y go, and rose petals strewn at their feet. Plus you know that it's going to be a hit to the freep's morale. After a while you'll learn to keep yourself as prot ected as you can but there are some things which will aid your success: - Lore masters! These guys are so lazy in the moors. They have the ability to st un protect and YOU should be their first priority. You might have to send gentle

(read: harsh) reminders to your lore master to get them to protect you. If you' re stunned you can't heal, block, evade, parry or even move, which makes you the biggest sitting duck out there. If you aren't protected then you are vulnerable : wargs will gang up and stun you, taking great delight in taking you down a few pegs. Their power-drains and power sharing can be lovely, as are their roots an d mez/stuns. Anything that buys you time is good. - Champions! They have these things called Horns. When they blow them, they can stun a few creeps then start laying on some heavy AoE damage. If you get a champ to act as you bodyguard then if anything comes near you they can blast a horn a nd get everyone's attention. This'll leave you to scuttle off still alive, and t he creeps so panicked at being in the middle of a bunch of freeps unstealthed an d very visible that they're likely to turn tail and flee for their lives. These few seconds can be very valuable. - Hunters! (seeing the trend here?) These guys have a lot to bring to the PvP ta ble. Traps and snares, tracking, two fears, and some sexy single target DPS. If there's a trap or snare, stand on it. Ask for tracks regularly. You want to know where the creeps are. Ask the hunters to fear anything if it starts to attack y ou. You can do this too. - Burglars! The Gods of the moors. Mostly these guys do their own thing, but eve ry black arrow they enrage makes a minstrel smile. Conjunctions have the same ef fect, as does dust. Often you'll find that you're out of reach of the melee clas ses but the BA's are able to plink away at you, in which case their slows and DP S can be deadly for you. It's like in PvE when you get a couple of ignored arche rs on you. It hurts, it's not nice, and often it's not necessary. - Captains! These guys can buff you, bubble you, take all your damage and surviv e, and also throw a bit of healing love your way. I like the focus buff for the moors just because I end up in combat a lot and would rather not have to break t o regen. - Guardians! They can shield wall you if you get into trouble. That's about all they're good for. :p Eat Food. Sometimes it can be hard to drop combat when you need to regen, so food can help you here. Also the 15 minute vitality food can be your friend. You're probably going to want every point of morale you can get. Pots Never come into the moors without your vendor bought pots. The creeps will throw a whole bunch of nasty debuffs on you, so pretty much any pot can be used in th e moors. I either save my cooldowns for the silences from wargs or the diseases from defilers. Those are going to hit the hardest. I wouldn't worry too much abo ut crafted morale and power pots. That's an expensive habit for something that r eally won't make much difference. If you need to use them, the chances are someo ne has already seen your weakness and will take full advantage of it. You Will be loved and cherished It's one of those things about being a minstrel. People rejoice when you join a group and plead or beg if you don't or want to leave it. You're good to have aro und and they know it. You will be scorned and blamed If things go wrong and a group can't keep it together, they'll moan about not ge tting heals, even if it's their fault for standing out in the middle of nowhere with no cover and no place to retreat to. That's your fault, didn't you know? Yo u've got to develop a tough skin in PvP. Sometimes people do have to die. Either you can't heal them enough to keep them alive or you prioritise someone else so they don't actually get heals if you're in the middle of something. They also s eem to be able to turn a blind eye when you're getting attacked by 4 wargs, a tr oll and a defiler and complain that you aren't doing your job. If people treat y ou like this, don't heal them. They have no right to give you grief about it. Le ave the group and find another, solo and focus on DPS instead of healing or leav

e the moors and come back later. Don't let people get into the habit of treating you badly. 8.1 Healing vs Killing You're a minstrel: You can heal and do some great DPS, but not at the same time. Many minstrels who go into the moors seem to be permanently in War-speech, whic h will most likely annoy people if you're just killing away while your fellows a re dying. So I suppose this section is about deciding what you want to do and le tting others know, as well as when to war-speech. If people invite you to a group they're going to expect a healer. In fact they'l l get giddy at the idea. Even if you're in war-speech they'll expect you to drop out if people start getting into trouble. If you don't that's fine, but it's po lite to warn people if you're just there to DPS instead of heal. Whatever you wa nt to do is fine, as long as you set out from the start with your intentions cle ar. War-speech can be a bit tough to deal with. Most people run around without it so that if the worst happens suddenly they're prepared for it and are ready to hea l. I'd rather prepare myself for battle and have to drop out rather than let som eone get away because I'm trying to put war-speech on too late. Make sure your W ar-speech skill is accessible on your hotbar so it's easy to get out of as fast as you can. If things are getting crazy, don't bother to put it on. Healing is g oing to be needed and no one can do it better! If you're travelling from A to B on your pony, you might want to war-speech firs t, so if a wargy pounces you you're ready to throw him some DPS smackdown. There 's really no need to be allergic to War-speech, but knowing where your prioritie s lie will help you decide when enough is enough. So what about healing? Want some tips? You don't have to be grouped with someone to heal them. What you have to do is t ab through creep targets and see who they have selected. If they're low on moral e you don't even need to target who they're attacking, just heal through them, a nd then lay some smackdown on your victim. This is fun because it feels like you 're directly thwarting their attempts. Not only that but if you see a bunch of c reeps rushing in, it'll help you see who they're aiming for and start healing th em before they're engaged. Protect yourself! You will be focused fired, so learning where you can stand to minimise your damage becomes a task. Try to stay out of line of sight of the ran ged guys, and close enough to everyone that it'll put the wargs off and you can still heal your group...this means not standing at the back where you become eas y prey for the wargs. Keep an eye on your fellow's vitals. As soon as they start to drop you should be ready to heal. Keep an eye on as many people as you can on the Radar. If they g o too far away you cannot heal them and they cannot protect you. It's dangerous to go wandering off unless you're a burglar or a hunter with Desperate Flight. FACT: The last to leave is the first to die. Don't go to heal those who are over -extending. If they're going to be impetuous, that's their problem. Go to heal t hem and it becomes your problem, because you're automatically the next target an d you've just overextended yourself enough to allow them to kill you. It's sad t o watch someone die, but they have to learn to be carefule, and you have to lear n that you're more useful alive to heal everyone else rather than running back f rom the rez circle because you've done a silly.

8.2 Traits and Virtues There are a few class traits that many Minstrels don't go to the moors without: Unrelenting - This is amazing for PvPers. Faster cooldown, 5 second stun? Yummy! Battle-hymn - the ICMR for yourself is too tasty to pass up, especially because you get to use that skill so often out in the moors. Focused Performance - Less interruption means more successful healing. Something you will value because you're almost constantly being attacked out there. Herald's Hammer - added damage to Herald's Strike. Medium Armour - It's a favourite of the moors but don't feel like you have to ge t a whole new set of medium armour to be successful out there. Many minstrels ro ll with what they have. for legendary traits, skip out Song of the hopeful heart and go for Rally! plus Fellowship's Heart. If you're soloing you can go for anthem of the wizards but i n a group you're better off with the heal. For Virtues you'd probably be wise to go with whatever morale and shadow damage you can get, so: Valour Fidelity Justice Loyalty Of course, if you're just messing about in the moors there's no real need to wor k on traits that you don't want for your PvE build. More morale is good though. Well that's about all I can think of for now. It's short and sweet because this guide is making me want to tear out my hair. If you have gotten this far, then congratulations! You're on your way to being a great minstrel. Willingness to learn from mistakes will take you very far in th is game. /FLEE 1 comment [hide]Options Moejo(10 months ago) Oftentimes some tanks will get anxious if they are constantly low on morale and might start using cooldowns in fear of dying. If this is the case try to reassur e your little canned chicken that he will be just fine. Canned chicken. Epic. 2 thumbs up. Recent comments Category: Minstrel Guides Game Information > Community > Community Created Guides > Class Guides > Minstre l Guides [ Legal Info | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service ] THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE interactive video game 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainme nt Inc and patents pending. All rights reserved. Middle-earth Poster Map 2007 Th e Saul Zaentz Company, d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises (SZC), under license to Wa rner Bros. Entertainment Inc.. All rights reserved. "The Lord of the Rings Onlin e", Middle-earth Enterprises logo, "The Lord of the Rings" and the names of the characters, events, items and places therein are trademarks or registered tradem arks of SZC under license to Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Turbine and the Tur bine logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.