Another Developer Diary comes to us from the hands of Jonathan “RockX” Steady , this time about the Minstrel changes coming in Riders of Rohan.
Skills in Riders of Rohan
- Tale of the Elements (Improved Tale of Frost and Flame)
- Replaces the Frost and Fire mitigation buff with Tactical Mitigation
- Call of Eärendil
- Improved Gift of the Hammerhand
- Level 83
- Adds a “potent” Heal over Time to the target
The upgraded skills are a decent change. Gift of the Hammerhand getting a HoT will help since most times when it’s being cast the target needs to be healed too. Also updating Tale of Frost and Flame is good because it boosts all mitigations instead of just two. As for the new skill, it’s an interesting one for sure. While I can see it being useful in solo and possibly small-fellowships, its being a melee-ranged, frontal attack means that its use in more strategic fights might be fairly limited.
Skill Adjustments
- All minstrel attacks with a buff now trigger the buff; whether the attack hits or not.
- Tales now stay active when silenced
- Tale of Battle’s Vitality buff has been brought up to the same strength as the Will buff from Tale of Heroism.
- Song of the Dead has been renamed to Song of Subdual and now affects Dead, Ancient Evil, and Unseen.
- Anthem of Prowess has had its strength increased
The improvements to existing skills seem to be in the positive. The minstrels obtaining a buff from attacks that miss and Tales staying active while silenced are definitely a nice touch. The only change that might be a bit disappointing is Song of Subdual, but only if you were hoping that it would undergo the same change as the Lore-master’s Bane Flare.
Legendary Item Legacies
- Call of Oromé Damage Legacy will affect Call of Eärendil as well.
- Song of the Dead Cooldown Legacy has been renamed to Song of Subdual Legacy.
- Anthem of War (melee damage) Legacy will increase both melee and ranged damage now.
- Anthem of War (ranged damage) Legacy is replaced with Minstrel Skill Bubble Strength Legacy.
No surprises here, really. Most of these are just changes are to accommodate the new skills.
Legendary Traits
- Master of Tales now gives Tale of the Elements’ Battle (+Tactical Mitigation, Vitality, Resistance.)
This also follows in-line with the changes to the skills.
Closing
I’m not an expert on the Minstrel class, but the changes that I’m seeing are pretty good. Like most of the class changes they don’t knock me off my chair, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not appreciated. What do you think?
August 16, 2012 at 2:51 pm
… Having Tale of Earendil as a melee skill seems to fall in-line with Harmony’s affection for Noble Strike. I doubt this will bring me over to Harmony from War-speech.
…Now where’s the frippin’ class mount?
August 16, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Then again, this would give Harmony… Six? Aoe skills
August 16, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Sigh. Call of Earendil, not Tale. Too much sun today, obviously.
August 16, 2012 at 3:48 pm
You’re really that eager for a class mount now, considering how they butchered the last couple? The Burglar and LM mounts are awful. Here’s hoping they up their game on the rest of them.
August 16, 2012 at 8:04 pm
Yes, well, I remain hopeful! … even in the face of pure, abject fugliness that has haunted the last few class mounts. When they keep swinging for the fence, perhaps they might hit one out of the park.
August 16, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Good, solid changes.. nothing that gets me bouncing with glee, but not really disappointing either. I’ll probably be using that bubble strength legacy (depending on how strong it is and whether it’s a major or not–can’t remember if the leg it’s replacing is a major).
August 19, 2012 at 8:25 pm
The current Anthem of War (ranged damage) legacy is a minor and so it is very likely that the new bubble strength legacy will also be minor.
August 16, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Considering that the fundamentals of the class were changed in RoI, I’m not surprised to see only minor changes in this go around. Maybe the new skill will prompt me to run in Harmony stance for a change.
August 16, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Just going to be honest here. After reading all of this, all I can say is ..meh.
Don’t get me wrong I know they are always trying to make things better and more streamlined but after rereading this Mini dev diary a few times I honestly am wondering if the changes were made by someone who plays a Mini? Let me explain that statement. Tale of the Elements- taking a skill that couldn’t be more unused and turning it into a Tactical mitigation buff? Why would they expect a mini to use this? Are they trying to stop the use of Anthem of Composure? Most people, toward endgame, slot a few virtues for Tact. Mit and defense. And I know I am using Composure fairly regularly for the coda power return effect. Plus there is a legacy to increase the Composure’s Tact. mit buff. As for Call of Earendil, it seems like its Call of Orome for melee range but you need to be in Harmony stance to use it. Again, here we are taking something that most people don’t use- Harmony stance, and adding stuff to it. I’ve spent the last month or so bring up 2 toons, one of which is a Mini, and I can say that after hitting 75 and playing in all sorts of scenarios I just can’t understand Harmony. To be clear I understand the mechanics of Harmony and what it does, but I don’t see why its there. Lastly adding a potent HOT to Gift of the Hammerhand. Now, on the surface I really like this. I throw out gift in an instance on a squishy Hunter or RK to give, both them and I, some breathing room to recover some health and with this change it may be like a set it and forget it skill. I would’ve of liked to see them get a bubble, then a hot, then if the bubble breaks before the duration they get healed for a set amount (maybe the toatl amount of health the HOT would have healed them for if it went the whole duration). But once again I got to point out its a 5 minute cooldown skill. This makes the skill extremely situational. So to kind of pull everything together it seems the theme of the new and improves skills was to take some of the least used abilities and make them marginally better or redundant. Please don’t take this post as me raging at Turbine, I love them and I’m also a lifer. I’m just being honest and the truth just happens to be a bit underwhelming. On a side note after this wall of text I just wrote, I believe that because our changes were kinda bleh that we must have some pretty awesome mounted skills(fingers crossed).
August 16, 2012 at 4:51 pm
I use Harmony pretty frequently, and I’ve been surprised to learn that others don’t. I generally use it in 3 mans, easier 6 mans, and heck, Dragoich. It keeps me from getting bored.
I like the AOE heal on the coda.
August 16, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I use Harmony in Draigoch from time to time. Other than that I rarely use it, if it didn’t have an induction I’d use it more, there are situations when the AOE heal coda could be useful, but I’m not going to use it incase I’m out of range and the coda misses. Increase the range and it would get more use IMO.
August 16, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Yep… I’ve used it in Draig and 3-mans. It’s the melee range requirement that really decreases it’s utility, but in Draig the fellow group’s damage is distributed equally and you spend the entire time meleeing the claws… Might as well go Harmony there to make things faster. I’d consider it in other situations if they’d give at least a slightly longer range for the primary damaging abilities.
August 17, 2012 at 5:44 am
To be honest, I think the issue is the difference between peoples expectations and Turbines intent.
Each of our 3 unmounted skills (and 1 of our QoL improvements – song of subdual) seems to have been implemented to directly effect underused skills either directly or with the case of CoE to help improve the DPS of Harmony stance. This seems to be a case for all classes, unmounted skills seem designed to help bring up underused area of the class. Mischief line for burgs, DPS for guards etc.
However it seems people expect an expansion to radically alter how they play their class on the ground. But I think Turbine are looking (rightly or wrongly) for Mounted combat to be the breath of fresh air.
August 17, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Turbine has been trying to give Minstrels more variety in the last few patches. Harmony is supposed to be the “me too” minstrel, second minstrel in a fellow who does decent AoE damage and can AoE heal or spot ST heal. More of the captain role. Personally, I love the concept and I’m glad to see them expand on it. As far as ST healing goes, there’s not much that needs to be improved. I’m happy they aren’t touching it.
August 16, 2012 at 5:06 pm
adding a new skill to Harmony will get more people to try it out (think it’s group healing/group buffing/’AoE’ (even though War-speech has superior AoE))
the Tales-immune-to-silence bit = GOOD
often when I’m silenced, there are heals I’ve missed or Anthem-Coda timing. not having to re-tale is like having In Defence of Middle-Earth a toggle
August 16, 2012 at 6:46 pm
I’M EXCITED HONESTLY!
Minstrel is my life on that game. I’ve considered making a second minstrel so I have a minstrel when my minstrel’s on cooldown. I do everything from 3mans, to t2 end game raids to moors, and here’s what I think… Tale of elements – nice step in the right direction, but I doubt I’ll use it. Vitality is too useful and also gives mits, and composure gives a tac mit debuff, so unless it’s a massive buff I can’t see myself using it.
Call of Earendil seems cool. I’ve embraced harmony stance, and I would urge other minstrels to give it a good go in 3-6 man instances in particular, and some less intense raids. I do more damage in 6 mans spamming my coda than I probably would in WS, AND i’m healing, so it’s win win. Another AOE is just adding to the awesome.
BUBBLE! I mean it was great for a situation where you had nothing else, but really it’s pretty crap currently. I’m so happy they’re making it better, and I hope that ‘potent’ heal is as decent as it sounds. If it is I’ll definitely be getting that legacy.
Also so glad tales stay up while silenced. I swear I spend 90% of Saruman without a tale.
August 16, 2012 at 6:50 pm
I meant tactical mit buff, not de-buff
August 17, 2012 at 4:23 am
Harmony AoE damage is quite usefull while farming trivial mobs. You can ballad, tab, ballad, tab, ballad, coda on the run for a really fast -stylish- grinding.
Other than that, as said above, some 3-man and Draigoch.
August 17, 2012 at 7:48 am
3 new skill in 10 levels and nothing all that interesting. Going to say that mount stuff is very obviously going to be the focus for us come RoR.
Ranged and melee getting the same AoW buff gets the same reaction from me as the tale not being removed by silence. About time! Other than that nothing to really look forward to as a WS loving mini.
Cant recall which bubble is which but adding a HoT to it sounds good as I’ve found the bubble to be a bit weak compared to whats hitting the bubbled person. Does seem to have the potential for moors based nerf cries though.
August 17, 2012 at 5:08 pm
I like the changes in existing skills a lot, but not sure about the new skill…
I would have preferred something that helps the minstrels stay alive better than a melee AoE.
August 18, 2012 at 10:31 am
All of these changes (or most) were aimed to help the mini in PvP. That is the point for the change to a tact mit buff (all creeps do tact damage). And since these are all buffs, the mini shall continue to reign supreme in the moors and be the most OP class that I’ve ever seen.