Andadrien's Guide to the Minstrel (Post Helm's Deep)

Class	Minstrel
Primary Role	In a group setting, minstrels are typically expected to heal unless otherwise instructed.
Other Roles	Minstrels can do decent DPS now that Helm's Deep has launched and brought with it all the class changes. For example, on my mini, Andadrien, I devastated for 30k the other day. Minstrels can also go yellow line and buff and stuff, but I've never seen a minstrel go full yellow. It just isn't practical.
Nature of the Class	The minstrel is a powerful healer that is responsible for keeping it's group or raid alive. According the LOTRO wiki, the minstrel is the heart of the fellowship, a herald of hope and renewal. He (or she) uses his knowledge of ancient songs and lore to ward against the forces of darkness and bring relief to his companions. The minstrel can also deal out damage in certain situations. The minstrel has great survivability as it can both dps and self heal when solo.
Trait Trees	Red: When you trait red, you will have greater access to damaging skills allowing you to be a powerful damage dealer. This traitline is called the Warrior-Skald. Usually you are in Dissonance stance while you are traited red in order to do the most damage. I typically invest most of my points into the red tree. I don't put points into Echoing Anthem of War as the increased anthem duration is not as worth it to me. I put one point in the yellow tree to get Anthem of Composure in case I need to regenerate power. Any remaining points, I put towards the blue tree to get increased heals if I need to heal myself while DPSing. You gain Call to Fate. Cry of Orome, and Cry of the Valar from traiting red, and the capstone skill for this traitline is Cry of the Wizards. As you put more points into the Warrior-Skald tree, you get more bonuses that aid you in your dealing of damage. They are as follows: •Discordant Ballads - All ballads now will grant you a 5% Tactical Damage buff to yourself. •Piercing Calls - The chance to resist your cries and calls is reduced by 10%. •Concentration - You gain immunity to interruption and induction setback for 5 seconds after scoring a Critical hit. •Haste - Ballads reduce active cooldowns of cries and calls by one second. This is nice for some of your shorter cooldown skills; however, it doesn't make a huge difference with some of your longer cooldowns. •Freedom - Calls have a chance to trigger the ability to use a single healing skill from another stance. There is a 10% chance for Dissonance Calls and Cry of the wizards to allow the use of Raise the Spirit, Chord of Salvation or the improved versions of these skills for 10 seconds. •Fierce Cries - Critical Magnitude on healing skills is increased by 25% and adds 15% to Cry and Call Critical Damage. •Encore - There is a small chance that a coda will not consume your ballads (-30% chance for Codas to cashout Ballad Buffs). Blue: This traitline is called the Watcher of Resolve. It is your healing traitline, and you will typically be in Resonance stance when traited blue. I invest all my points into the blue tree with the exception of the Pause for Breath as I rarely have a power issue. Skills gained by traiting blue are Soliloquy of Spirit, Improved Chord of Salvation, Triumphant Spirit, Perfect Ending, Resonant Piercing Cry, Call to Ioreth, and Rally. The capstone skill for this traitline is Legend of Hammerhand. I typically put one point into the red tree to gain the stun chance on Piercing Cry. This is useful if something is attacking you while you are healing. You can stun something while you take that time to run away or for someone else to gain agro on that mob. It’s also useful for the Ettenmoors. You stun them so you can get a little further away. The rest of my points I put in the yellow tree to get Anthem of Composure again, and I put points towards Improved Inspire Fellows. You get several benefits from traiting blue, and they are as follows: •Open Ears - Coda of Resonance has a 10% chance to grant a +10% Incoming Healing Buff to nearby fellows for ten seconds. Open Ears - Coda of Resonance has a 10% chance to grant a +10% Incoming Healing Buff to nearby fellows for ten seconds. •Resonant Ballads - All Ballads increase Outgoing Healing by an extra 3%. •Snowball - Healing skills build a stacking buff. At maximum stack, you can use a powerful heal. At 7 stacks, the potent healing skill Perfect Ending will be made available for use for a short time. I like this skill. It gives a pretty decent heal and is quite handy when you need another quick heal. •Bolster Our Courage - A portion of Bolster Courage's heal is also applied to nearby fellows. I really like this one. As Bolster Courage is a single target heal, it is nice for a little AoE heal to be applied when you are focus healing a particular person but the group could use a little bit of heals. •Call to Ioreth - I think this one is a fantastic bonus. You invoke the name of the expert Gondorian Healer. Remembrances of her techniques guarantee your next heal to be a Critical Heal. •Rally - Revives a defeated ally in combat, with their Health and Power mostly intact. This is a great skill to have when healing a group. Also, have the legacy on your LI to reduce the cooldown. This is super important. •Chord of Legend - This adds +100% Chord of Salvation Healing. That's really beneficial when you need that quick healing boost. Yellow: The yellow trait tree allows you to access more anthems and become someone who is able to better buff the group that they are in. Personally, I've not traited fully yellow, so I cannot describe the perks of this traitline in great detail. I do, however, like to put a few points into the yellow traitline no matter what I'm traited to access the Anthem of Composure. This anthem is handy when you are low on power. Use that anthem and then your coda - you will then gain power over time. A minstrel should never run out of power.
Key Skills	Key Skills for Healing: •Regular Rotation - Before using any of these skills, I always use 3 Major Ballads for the outgoing healing modifier (or you can pop Cry of the Chorus to apply 3 ballads quickly). Once you have your ballads up, make sure you always have an anthem going - I like to use Resonant Anthem of the Third Age while healing for the +10% outgoing healing and the -25% inductions for all skills. Also, if you use your coda (which is a large heal), your next Bolster Courage has no induction, but I don't do this unless I absolutely have to and need the heal (or to regenerate power) as I would have to re-apply all ballads and the anthem. •Bolster Courage: This is a good strong single target heal. This is probably your most used and most standard heal. It is good for getting your ally or yourself back to full moral. •Raise the Spirit: Need a quick heal with a short induction? Use this. The heals is not as strong as Bolster Courage, but it has a quicker induction. •Inspire Fellows: This is your basic fellowship-wide heal. This will do a moderate heal to everyone in your group. Use this when your allies all could use a bit of a boost. •Chord of Salvation: I use this in my regular rotation as something to boost my target's morale while I then take the time to do an induction heal such as Bolster Courage. •Emergency Skills: In times of dire need, these skills can be very helpful. •Fellowship's Heart: This is a great skill to use when your entire fellowship is taking significant damage. This provides a decent initial heal when you use the skill and then you have a powerful heal over time. Everyone in the group is healed a bit every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. •Triumphant Spirit: If your group is going down and you don't have time to induct your Fellowship's Heart, use this. It is a massive fellowship-wide instant heal. I've had heals of up to 17k when this does a critical heal. It's beastly. •Chord of Salvation: I list this again as it is an instantaneous heal. When someone's morale is dropping quickly, throw this heal on them. This is also nice if you are fighting something that is causing you to kite - it is able to be used on the move (SUPER useful) •Call to Ioreth: This skill ensures that the next heal you do will be a critical heal. This is super useful if you need to make sure you get a really big heal in. Key Skills for DPSing: As with Healing, you will want to apply 3 Minor Ballads for the outgoing damage buff. I then use either Anthem of War or Dissonant Anthem of the Third Age. Anthem of War give you increased damage, and you can also put legacies on your LIs to increase the damage that this anthem does. Dissonant Anthem of the Third Age boosts your call damage by 10%. •Area of Effect Skills: Minis are decent AoE DPSers - obviously not a blender like Champions, but decent, nonetheless. •Cry of the Wizard: This is a powerful AoE attack. It can hit up to 8 targets! It slows your target and increases their attack duration which causes your enemy to not be able to attack as fast. This skill also has a 10% chance to unlock heals to a friendly target. •Call of Orome: Not as powerful as Cry of the Wizards, this skills can still hit up to 7 targets, and has the same 10% chance to unlock heals to a friendly target. •Call of the Second Age: This hits up to 3 targets. I believe there is a LI legacy to increase the number of targets for this skill. It temporarily gives nearby allies a run speed boost. •Cry of the Valar: This hits up to 3 targets as well; additionally, it can remove one corruption from your target. It is useful as it also increases your in-combat morale regeneration for 30 seconds. •Single Target Skills: •Ballads:Your ballads are also single target damage skills. •Call to Fate: This is going to be your most powerful skill. This hits even harder than your Coda of Fury (which, once again, I don't use if possible as then I would have to rebuild anthems unless I'm trying to regenerate power). I've seen it hit as high as 30k. •Timeless Echoes of Battle: This skill is fun. It is a toggle skill which does damage over time to the enemy that you have applied this skill to. •Piercing Cry: I love this skill. Even when I'm traited heals, I have a point in the red tree to unlock a chance to stun when using this skill. It does decent damage, can stun mobs (if traited), and can remove one corruption. •Dissonant Strike: I don't use this as much as it is a melee skill; however, it is nice as it increases your incoming healing and also has a chance to drain your enemy of morale and give it to you. Other useful skills are - •Bubbles - Bubbles of temporary morale allow you to protect yourself or an ally while you take the time to heal. •Song of the Hammerhand - Grants you a bubble of temporary morale. •Gift of the Hammerhand - Grants one fellowship member a bubble of temporary morale. •Improved Gift of the Hammerhand - Grants two fellowship members bubbles of temporary morale. •Legend of the Hammerhand - Heals traited only - Applies bubble to all fellowship members within 20 meters. If the bubble expires rather than being broke, it will also grant a small heal to your fellowship members. •Invocation of Elbereth - This will fear an enemy and send them running away for a short period of time. This is useful when you are fighting several mobs. •Story of Courage - Removes fears, wounds, poisons, and diseases from you and your fellowship. It also provides a short time of increased fear resistance.
Key Stats & Virtues	Primary Stat: •Your main stat as a minstrel is going to be Will. You want to focus on building up your Will. Will increases your melee offence rating, tactical offence rating, outgoing healing rating, resistance rating, and tactical mitigation. This means it contributes to the following: •Tactical Mastery: This is important. Will give you lots of tactical mastery which you want lots of! It not only increases the damage of your tactical attacks (most of your skills), it greatly increases your outgoing healing. As a minstrel, you want your outgoing healing to be as great as possible to ensure you can heal much more powerfully and efficiently. •Physical Mastery: This increases the damage done by any melee or ranged attacks. •Tactical Mitigation: If you have enough will, you wont have to worry about this category - you'll most likely cap it without even trying. For minstrels, this caps out at 40%. This reduces the damage taken from tactical attacks. •Resistance Rating: This is pretty self explanatory. Having more resistances means you have a greater chance of avoiding effects. Secondary Stats: •Your next stat that you'll want a bit of is Vitality. This gives you morale (health). You'll want to have some morale as you're a light armour class. You are vulnerable. Vitality not only contributes to morale, but it also contributes to: •Physical Mitigation: Reduces the damage taken from physical attacks. This, like tactical mitigation, caps at 40%. •Tactical Mitigation: Discussed above. •Resistance Rating: Discussed above. •Non-combat Morale Regeneration: More of this means you are able to regenerate your health more quickly when you are out of combat. •You'll also want to make sure you have some Fate. Fate is crucial to your critical rating. Fate gives: •Critical Rating: •Increases the critical hit chance and magnitude of your melee, ranged, and tactical attacks. •Increases the devastating hit chance and magnitude of your melee, ranged, and tactical attacks. •Basically, this makes you more likely to hit harder or heal bigger. You want this. •In-combat Morale Regeneration: This is how quickly you regain morale while fighting without any additional heals. •In-combat Power Regeneration: This is how quickly you regain power while fighting. •Non-combat Power Regeneration: This is how quickly you regain your power while you are not in combat. Virtues: •You'll want virtues to give you that last little boost you'll need to round out your character. You've learned how to trait, what your skills do - now to finish off your character. I use skills that boost my Will, Vitality, and mitigations. The ones I have equipped are: •Zeal •Fidelity •Wisdom •Loyalty •Innocence •There is no set list on what you have to choose. You can play around with what you have equipped. Choose virtues that will boost you up in areas that you might need a little help in.
Experience	I've been playing the minstrel for almost a year and a half. I've accomplished a lot that very few other minstrels on the server have accomplished. I raid regularly with some of the top raiders on the server. Soloing or small-group content allows more chances for dpsing, whilst fellowship or raid sized content requires more healing. Each type of content has its perks and its downside, but all can be entertaining and enjoyable. The minstrel really is one of the most versatile classes in the game. It heals, it damages, and it buffs. It is a complex, but it is also a very rewarding class to play. You'll love the class once you learn it and experience the diversity that comes with playing a minstrel. Speaking to diversity - you can also do more than one thing withing a single instance. Let's use School at Tham Mirdain for example. This is a 3-man instance. I might start out traited red and in dissonance stance. The first part you just need lots of DPS to mow down the enemies. When I get to the second boss, I usually stay red traited but switch to resonance stance so I can dps and heal a bit; however, once that second boss is beaten, I will switch to blue traiting as well. This allows me to much more powerfully heal myself (as I usually am tasked with kiting the couple dozen enemies in the final boss room), and it allows me to heal my two companions as they kill the boss.
Legacies	Important Legacies for Healing - you'll want these on your healing weapons and book: •Rally Cooldown - This is important. You'll want to have your in-combat resurrect to be available as often as possible. •Triumphant Spirit Cooldown - This allows you to use Triumphant Spirit as soon as every 45 seconds. You can greatly heal your fellows much more frequently. •Soliloquy of the Spirit Pulses - This makes SoS last longer and send out more healing pulses than it previously did. •Healing and Motivation Skills Morale Healing - This increases the percentage of your heals. •Raise the Spirit Healing - This increases the heals done by Raise the Spirit. •Bolster Courage - This is a good one to have as you use Bolster Courage so much. This will make those heals that much more potent. Important Legacies for DPSing - you'll want this on your DPS weapon and book:  •Call of Orome Damage - Increases the damage done by the Call of Orome. •Piercing Cry Damage - Increases the damage done by Piercing Cry. •Call to Fate Critical Multiplier - I like this one, even though it is a minor legacy. Call to Fate is, as I previously mentioned, on of your hardest hitting skills, and I will take any boost for a chance to make it hit even harder. •Anthem of War Damage (Tactical) - Makes the tactical damage modifier from Anthem of War even greater!