Minstrel Guide

Musical Instruments - There is currently a great deal of confusion about musical instruments, playing music, and how all this relates to a minstrel, so I thought I would address this right up front.

You need to think of instruments and playing music in LOTRO in two completely different ways in order to make sense of this confusing subject.

There are musical instruments that a minstrel uses to increase the stats to his/her songs that he/she uses in combat. When you start a new minstrel, you start with the lute skill only. You actually don't have a lute equipped right away, but when you sing a song that damages a monster or heals yourself or somebody in your fellow, you quickly pull a lute out and play a little lute riff. This is completely driven by the combat song you just clicked on, and you have absolutely zero control over the riff that is played. In other games, you would get alot of graphical animations when you cast a spell. In LOTRO the minstrel gets a little lute riff instead of a bunch of flaming balls of fire.

You can buy a lute from your minstrel trainer that you can equip that will add a percentage improvement to your songs. You can also find some crafted instruments that provide bigger percentage improvements.

The second, completely separate, way you need to think about music and instruments is in just screwing around with instruments and making music. Any class can do this, but everybody except the minstrel is limited to only one instrument (This changed recently. I think every class can also play a lute too now.) Minstrels can play them all (once they have trained them all at the minstrel trainer at level 20). Type /music and then start hitting the 1 to 8 keys on your keyboard to annoy everybody around you.

In closed beta your "fighting instrument" didn't work for just screwing around playing music. Somebody told me this recently changed and you don't need to swap instruments anymore. I have yet to confirm this though.


Dwarf Specific Race Traits (This is not a comprehensive list, but just the ones I feel interesting enough to talk about.)

Dwarf Endurance - This skill is earned by killing 100 trolls, and it adds 45 vitality to all members of the fellowship for 10 minutes. This equates to an approximate 72 point increase in morale. It costs 343 power to cast, has a one hour recovery time, and must be placed in one of only 5 available race trait slots to be useable. Because of these things, the low morale actually given, and the fact that healers really don't need an extra 72 morale points, this skill is not very useful and should not be slotted unless you find yourself with extra race slots that you don't know what to do with.

Fateful Dwarf - You earn this skill by killing 50 goblins and it adds 20 to Fate. It must be slotted in one of the race trait slots in order work. Due to the current limitations with the return on stats like Fate, I don't find this very useful. It may become more useful as they play with how the stats work.

Return to Thorin's Gate - This skill is earned by killing 200 goblins and it returns the caster to Thorin's Hall (near the stables). In order to be useable it must be slotted in one of only 5 available race trait slots. This skill is very valuable and should be slotted. There is an Auction House here and from the stables you can swift travel all over the world.

Hunker Down - This skill is earned by killing 450 goblins and it mitigates 75% of common, shadow, and fire damage for 10 seconds. It is on a one hour reuse timer and must be slotted in a race trait slot to be used. I find this useful when my fellow has finished fighting their way down to the bottom of an instance dungeon, the whole instance has respawned behind us, and somebody says "Hey why don't we just run out?".

Headbutt - You earn this melee attack skill by killing 50 Dourhand dwarves and it must be slotted in the race trait slot to work. When I tried it out it had a pitifully low damage and a 5 second reuse. I haven't tried it since. The damage probably went up as I levelled, but not enough to make me care about it.

Guile & Might Bonus - You earn this by killing 150 Dourhand dwaves and it gives you a 5 % bonus to your conjunctions. Conjunctions are very powerful fellowship skills so if I can increase their effectiveness by 5% I think it's worth it. Definitely slot this in a race trait slot when you can.

Dwarf Axe Damage - You earn this by killing 300 Dourhand dwarves and it provides a 2% bonus to axe damage. Since I am a dwarven minstrel, I can use 1H axes. If I ever find a good axe, I will appreciate this skill more. I will definintely be slotting this in a race trait as soon as I find an axe.

Minstrel Specific Class Traits (Not comprehensive. There is a minstrel class trait to reduce agro that I don't have listed here that I intend to slot in live. Will try to add the details soon.)

Medium Armor - Gives you the ability to wear medium armor and increases your max power by 65.

Glorious Anthem - Adds 15 seconds to the duration of your anthems and gives you 0.3 morale regeneration in combat. Further down this page I talk about how Anthem of the Free Peoples is the best song we get. Why wouldn't you want it to last 15 seconds longer? (Update as of open beta. I don't love Anthems too much any more since they nerfed AoTFP. I'll probably swap this one for the aggro reducing one.)

Focused Performance - This makes your songs more difficult to disrupt and it adds 2% to fear resistance. So basically this song makes it harder for your heals to be interrupted. Always a plus for a healer. I graciously credit Pneumos for figuring out what this whole fear/fear resistance thing was all about. Unlike most games where fear actually meant your character went running away in terror. In LOTRO fear appears to be a class of spells that are cast on your character that do various bad things to you but don't necessarily make you flee. So a 2 % to fear resistance is not horrible, but it's not why I slotted this trait.

Light in the Dark - Adds 10% to Tier 1 and Tier 2 song damage and adds 50 to your Morale. When you are soloing or duoing you will basically be spamming tier 1 and 2 songs the whole battle. Why not make them hit for 10% more?

Unrelenting - Adds a stun effect to your Piercing Cry song and adds 50 to your Morale. A stunned monster is a monster that is not hitting you.

Smooth Voice - Smooth Voice: Use Piercing Cry 600 times to learn. It causes your Ballads of Vigour and Balance to become fellowship buffs instead of doing damage. The songs have an induction time of about 3-4s and the buffs last for 30s. The positive of this trait is that Ballad of Vigour is a tier 1 and Ballad of Balance is a tier 2. Both can now be used outside of combat, thus allowing you to use tier 3 and Anthems without having to do damage to monsters before hand. (There is a bug in the description to Smooth Voice that says it's supposed to work on Ballad of Swiftness. It doesn't. It actually works for Ballad of Balance. I don't know if this is a bug or intended.) The negative is that you have 2 less ballads that do damage. (Sanz's comment: I attribute this information to Kewlie. I do not currently have this trait equipped, but I can see its usefulness for the raiding minstrel or if you wanted to spec pure healer for fellowship play. I don't currently find this necessary, but for raids it probably is.)

Songs (Level 1)

Ballad of Vigour - A ranged direct damage tier 1 song. The damage this song causes increases as you level. It also buffs vitality for 10 seconds.

Raise the Spirit - Your first single target healing song and one that you will use until "end game". It's not the largest heal we get, but it's fast and the amount it heals increases as you level.

Herald's Strke - A melee attack that does extra damage and provides a 10% buff to your healing modifier for 20 seconds. While it sounds helpful, I don't find myself using it very much. The increase to melee damage seems small (it might increase one swing from 50 damage to 75 damage) and the 10% buff to healing doesn't seem noticable in single group content. However, some minstrels swear by this song. I'll leave it to you to decide.

Songs (Level 2 - 10)

Piercing Cry (Level 2) - A ranged direct damage song, and one that you will use until the end game. This song has the longest range of any of our songs. The damage this song causes increases as you level. At higher levels you can slot a class trait that gives this song a chance to stun the opponent. 30 second recovery time.

Ballad of Steel (Level 4) - A ranged direct damage tier 1 song that also buffs your armor value for 10 seconds. Due to the tiered nature of our songs, it is a good idea to have several of any tier ready to go in case one is resisted. This song does not seem noticeable better or worse than Ballad of Vigour and I use them both interchangeably.

Ballad of Swiftness (Level 4) - A ranged direct damage tier 2 song that also subtracts a % from attack duration. A tier 1 song must be played prior to singing this song. Tier 2 songs appear to do more damage than tier 1 songs (because they crit more often? I am not sure this is a true statement even though I made it. It feels like they more frequently hit for more than tier 1 songs, but I can't prove it.) and I use this song often.

Ballad of War (Level 6) - A 15 second fellowship buff tier 3 song that adds 10% to the fellowship's melee offense. This song does not damage your opponent. Prior to singing this you must first sing a tier 1 and a tier 2 song. This is the tier 3 song I use to get up the chain to the Anthems.

Ballad of Resonance (Level 8) - This is another ranged direct damage song that adds 10% to light damage too. I used to consider all tier 1 songs about the same and I used them interchangeably, but thanks to a little nudging from Wisdomandlore, I now consider this the best song you can lead with. Why you ask? Well it adds 10% to light damage, and every single battle you are in you will be spamming songs that use light damage. So why not increase all damage by 10%? I just tested this out and my normal max crit without using this song on similar level mobs was about 168. After using this song it was closer to 185. This will be my lead in song from now on. (Thanks Wisdomandlore for the tip.)

Ballad of Unshakable Will (Level 8) - The song isn't particulary inspiring. This tier 3 song provides a 15 second fellowship buff that adds a whopping 1% to fear resistance (at this level, it increases to a whopping 9% at level 45). Thanks to Pneumos I have finally discovered that I need to rethink what fear in LOTRO is all about. Unlike other games where fear makes you run away from the mob, fear in this game seems to be a type of spell damage. Just like light damage, common damage, etc. So this spells gives you a 1% chance to stop those kind of spells. Still very underwhelming, but I needed to correct it for the record.

Inspire Fellows (Level 10) - Your first heal song that heals the whole fellowship. It is on a 5 second delay. With a couple of minstrels in the group singing this song it is pretty hard for anybody to die.

Songs (Level 11 - 20)

Cry of Valar (Level 12) - A fear song that can send an opponent fleeing for 10 seconds. It does not work on all mobs though. At this level your fellowships will be lacking crowd control skills, and this song can be useful if you happen to pull too many mobs. At higher levels I rarely use it and when I do it seems to be resisted a good bit of the time.

Ballad of Balance (Level 14) - A ranged direct damage tier 2 song that gives you a bonus to evade chance. This song is similar to Ballad of Steel and I use them interchangeably.

Noble Cause (Level 16) - Singing this song prior to using Herald's Strike will allow you to do three rapid swings of Herald Strike. Each swing provides a SMALL fellowship heal. Due to power consumption, the low heal provided, and the small bonus to damage that Herald's Strike does, I don't find this song very useful. Some minstrels swear by this song. I will leave it to you to decide how helpful it is.

Bolster Courage (Level 18) - A slow but large single target heal. I find myself using this if the guardian is way down in morale because a fast little heal won't help him too much. This is probably the primary heal used on the tank at raids.

Song of the Dead (Level 18) - A short, undead only, single target mezmerize song. Very situational. I don't use it but it might be helpful when you visit the Greater Barrows Downs instance. I haven't really needed it since then.

Song of Restoration (Level 18) - Removes the dread effect from an ally that has been defeated, but has a 30 minute reuse timer. Don't be surprised if the two minstrels in the group use this on each other. This is mostly a novelty the way it is set up now. I suspect that it will eventually be made to restore the whole fellowship once every 30 minutes, but it hasn't been yet.

Enlivening Grace (Level 20) - After combat resurrection song. The person will resurrect where you are standing. This is particulary helpful if a monster is camping their body. Can't be cast in combat.

Anthem of the Free Peoples (Level 20) - This used to be without a doubt the best song a minstrel got. Then the nerfs came. It is very situational now, and I don't use it much at all at the end game. It is a 30 second heal over time for the whole fellowship. It requires a tier 1, tier 2, and a tier 3 to be sung prior to singing this song. Because of this, a minstrel is required to damage the oponent at least twice before singing this anthem (unless you slot that minstrel class trait).

Songs (Level 21 - 30)

Tale of Heroism (Level 22) - A fellowship buff to Fate and Will that is relatively long lasting (it doesn't have a countdown but I assume it's about 30 minutes). Only people in your fellow who are relatively close by are effected by this buff. At level 45 it gives me about 100 extra Power.

Anthem of Compassion (Level 24) - This anthem decreases the threat you generate (40%) from healing songs. However, it requires that you sing a tier 1, tier 2, and tier three song first. If 6 mobs are beating on you are you going to heal yourself or start singing 3 different songs so you can sing this one? I don't find it useful now but it is probably mandatory for raids.

Cry of the Chorus (Level 26) - A very useful song with a 10 minute recovery time. This song lets you jump directly to any tier in the song chain. So you could play this song and jump directly to Anthem of the Free Peoples. Why would you want to do that? Well maybe your group is getting hammered and you want to get it up fast, or maybe the mob is so high your tier 1 and tier 2 songs are being resisted. Or maybe you want to get Anthem of the Free Peoples running before you even enter combat. This song also cancels "silence" spells on you. A silent minstrel is a very dead minstrel.

Cure Fear ( Level 26) - Thanks to Pneumos I now realize that "fear" is actually a class of spells and not the type we are used to where if you get feared you run away in terror. So instead of light damage, some mobs cast spells on you that inflict fear damage. In normal everyday combat, most of these spells last for 10 seconds or less. So curing them, which I assume you could do with this spell, is rather pointless. But I can see the use for this song in raids. It's just a question of how long a fear based spell they drop on you lasts. If you were raiding and a mob dropped a fear based spelld that lasted for 2 minutes, curing it with this song would be a good idea. I still haven't tested this song to see if it actually removes fear based spells, but I plan to soon. (Update 03/02/07 - I have been hit with a few morale reducing spells that are fear based and last for 2 minutes. This song is suddenly looking somewhat worthwhile, albeit in a very situational way. I also didn't run into these spells until I was level 46.)

Song of Soothing (Level 28) - Here we go. A song that decreases your threat to the target and adjacent opponents that doesn't require you to sing 3 prerequisite songs. Very handy.

Triumphant Spirit (Level 30) - Instantly renews the health of your entire fellowship but has a 15 minute recovery time. Very useful as an "Oh ****" heal or in conjunction with Hunker Down when training out of instance dungeons.

Song of Aid (Level 30) - This song allows the minstrel to inspire his fellows to heroic events, enabling most classes to gain combat events. Whatever that means. The last time I tried it the song was very bugged and just filled up my screen with icons. It may be fixed now, but with a 10 minute recovery time it's very situational.

Songs (Level 31 - 42)

Ballad of Flame (Level 32) - A tier 3 song that does not damage your opponent but gives your fellowship a 10% bonus to fire damage mitigation. This buff lasts for 10 seconds. I will start off by saying that there are definitely critters in the game that can seriously hurt you with fire damage. A few worms running around in the swamps of Angmar come to mind and a few fire drakes in the Trollshaws. I also suspect there are some serious fire breathing dragons on raids. However, from an everyday gameplay perspective, I just don't use this song. Even if I was in a group killing fire breathing mobs, my priority is going to be getting Anthem of the Free Peoples running first and making sure the main tank doesn't die. So that's about 5 songs I need to start off the fight with. Then if I wanted to get this one going it would be another 3 songs. By the time I got this up the mob would be dead. Save for raids.

Song of Distraction (Level 34) - What a wonderful song! So wonderful they have been nerfing the heck out of it each patch. If any of you played a ranger in the old days of EQ it is basically just like the lull spell they had. If there are two mobs standing close together, you can cast the lull on one of them and then single pull the other one. It reduces their awareness by 75%. Prior to the nerfs there was no delay on it and a resist didn't draw agro. So you could basically lull the whole camp and then sneak through it opening chests! Ah those were the days. Now it has a long delay (3 minutes?) and a resist will send all the mobs in the area running directly at you. But it's still very useful, and allows me to go places I probably shouldn't be able to go solo.

Ballad of the Stout (Level 36) - A ranged tier 2 direct damage song that also gives several bonuses to resistances. 1% to poison; 1% to wound; 1% to disease. I don't min max the tier 1 and tier 2 songs (except for the 10% buff to light damage tier 1 song which should be sung first) but instead treat them interchangeably. That's not necessarily a good thing but it's how I play. I don't like to overthink 1% bonus to that, 5% bonus to that, etc. I just like to kill the mob. So I have two purposes to singing a tier 1 or 2 song. Damage the mob and get up the chain to Anthem of the Free Peoples or another Anthem. This song isn't noticeably better or worse than any other tier 2 song.

Still as Death (Level 38) - This is a feign death song that lasts for one minute and has a recovery time of 10 minutes. So you aren't going to be the monks of Everquest FD pulling for your fellowship. But it's handy at times to FD when your group is wiping so that maybe you can rez them and get going again. (They finally fixed alot of the bugs with this song and added an animation. I think they might have changed the recovery time to 5 minutes too.)

Anthem of the Valar (Level 40) - This is an Anthem so it requires a tier 1, 2, and 3 to be sung prior to it. It's your first and only AOE spell that you get besides a Legendary Song which I will cover in a separate section. I find this to be a very useful song when I am fighting multiple targets. It packs a serious punch too. My normal single target damage song is usually somewhere between 100-200 when fighting even level oponents. This song blasts all nearby mobs for closer to 400. Just watch out you don't pull a bunch more to add to the fight. (This song got heavily nerfed recently and now can only hit 3 targets. It's damage was also reduced.)

Lay of the Hammerhand (Level 42) - This is probably a very useful song for somebody who really pays alot of attention as to how to beat bleeding edge content. I'm not really in that category so I don't really need this song - at least for now. This song converts damage to morale into damage to power. For every one point of damage taken you instead take a half point damage to power. It has a 10 minute recovery time. Of all the songs I don't use, this is the one I should probably consider using. I just need to remember I have it. (I finally figured out how to use this song. It is yet another running through a train of mobs skill. You get this running and they basically can't damage you while you run like heck. Very handy at times.)

Legendary Traits - You can start working on these at level 38. You need to first find three books that drop that trigger these achievements. These books are also tradeable at the auction house. Once you have one or more books, you need to visit a person in Rivendell who will (let me call it) "acknowledge" that you have the book and that the pages for the book should start to drop for you. There are a bunch of pages you need to collect from various mobs in angmar to get access to these traits. It involves much grinding, and much paying exhoribitant fees at the auction house unless you happen to loot a book.

The Rising Chord - This book apparently results in a song called "Song of the Hopeful Heart". This song lessens the dread of your fellowship. Which actually sounds pretty useful because there are alot of landscape related dread increasing features in this game. It would be great to have a way to reduce the dread, and thus reduce the impact that it has to your morale. But I have no idea if it lasts for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. If it's 10 seconds I will put this in the useless category. (A response in this thread said it was about a 30 second buff, which has me thinking about lumping it in the useless category, but I'll hold off judgement for now.)

Melodies of Valar - This book results in a song called Eldar's Grace which provides you with an "In-combat" rez. This is the best legendary trait I see. Essential for raiding and end game.

Valours Marches - This book results in a song called Anthem of the Istari with provides yet another AoE damage song and also slows the mobs in the area of effect. I am not sure if the "slow" refers to their combat speed or run speed.

Passive Skills - You start off with some of these passive skills, buy others from the minstrel trainer as you level, and quest for some of these skills. It is important to note that these passive skills are different than traits which only have limited "slots" and you must choose which trait to make active. For instance, Light Armor is a skill that your character is born with and it doesn't take up a trait slot. However, if you wish to equip Medium Armor you must complete a quest at level 15 and "slot" that trait in your class traits. There are only 5 open class trait slots at level 45 and much fewer than this at lower levels.

Armor Proficiencies

Light Armor - Allows the use of light armor. Your character starts with this skill. At level 15 you can undertake a quest that will reward you with a Medium Armor "trait". Notice I said trait not skill. That trait, if you want to use medium armor, must be slotted at a bard in one of the limited class trait slots. I think AC is important, so I strongly advise slotting this trait. But you may occasionally run across a minstrel over level 15 wearing light armor because they disagree.

Shields - Allows the use of shields. You buy this from the minstrel trainer at level 20.

Base Dwarf Passive Skills

Lost Dwarf Kingdoms - Subracts 8 from Fate. Your character starts with this skill. One Fate currently gives 0.0083 Morale/Power per second. Completely meaningless don't even sweat the loss of 8 fate.

Stocky - Subracts 8 from Agility. Your character starts with this skill. One Agility currently gives 0.01% Critical Chance. This means you lost .08% of a critical chance. Meaningless.

Sturdiness - Adds 15 to Might; 10 to Vitality; 1% to Common Mitigation. Your character starts with this skill.

Weapon Proficiencies

Daggers - Your character starts with this skill.
One-Handed Axes - Your character starts with this skill. This was recently made an option for dwarven minstrels. Other minstrels cannot wield an axe. Of course I haven't actually found a 1H axe worth wielding, but I'm hoping that will change in the future.
One-Handed Clubs - Your character starts with this skill.
One-Handed Maces - Your character starts with this skill.
One-Handed Swords - Your character starts with this skill.
Instrument Proficiences

Clarinet Use - You can train this skill at the minstrel trainer.
Flute Use - You can train this skill at the minstrel trainer.
Harp Use - You can train this skill at the minstrel trainer.
Horn Use - You can train this skill at the minstrel trainer.
Lute Use - Your character starts with this skill.
Specialized Equipment - Your character starts with this skill but I have no idea what it does.
post by Sanz@http://forums.lotro.com