Developer Diary : Minstrel Class Changes in Helm’s Deep

By Deviled_Egg

Greetings! Deviled_Egg here again to talk about changes to everyone’s favourite singer-songwriter: The Minstrel.

The Fundamentals:

The Minstrel is one of the more advanced classes in the game. Combat is hinged upon stacking Ballad Buffs to unlock Anthems, using Anthems to enhance Codas, and using Codas to cash out both the latter and former for powerful effects. Mix in a few Cries, Calls, healing skills, and Stances, and you have a very flexible, powerful class with a distinct play style. It may sound like a lot, but the Minstrel is easy to learn. Mastery, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult, but the power you attain by doing so is well worth it.

The Minstrel has three stances which modify several of their skills. Melody is the Minstrel’s neutral stance. A Minstrel in Melody is decent at dishing out both damage and healing, but excels at neither. Resonance is the Minstrel’s healing stance, and opens up their most potent healing abilities. Dissonance is the Minstrel’s DPS stance, and allows the Minstrel access to their fiercest attacks, but prevents them from healing allies.

The Watcher of Resolve:

The Watcher of resolve is the Minstrel’s healing line. It focuses on strong, single-target heals and benefits greatly from stacking Critical Rating. Players who choose this line can expect to gain bonuses to Outgoing Healing, potency of Critical Heals, Induction reduction, and a slew of traits which modify and enhance their Healing skills. The Trait, “Resonant Piercing Cry”, causes Piercing Cry to trigger a fellowship Heal on crit when the Minstrel is in Resonance. The trait, “Follow Up”, gives you an Induction reduction buff any time you crit with a healing skill, letting you fire off heals more quickly. “Inspiring Finish” layers a new build-up and cash-out mechanic to your Ballads and Codas. With this trait active, Ballads have a chance to build a stacking Outgoing Healing buff which doesn’t activate until you fire your Coda. You can always fire the Coda before you reach maximum stacks, but the buff you get for doing so is quite strong.

The Warrior-Skald:

The Warrior-Skald is a fearsome damage dealer. Specializing in single-target destruction, the Warrior-skald has access to strong passive bonuses to damage, critical rating, finesse, and cooldown resets for some of your more powerful skills. The Set Bonus “Haste” causes Ballads to reduce the active cooldown of your Cries and Calls every time they are used. The skill “Call of Oromë” can also be found in this tree. This skill deals strong Light damage and decreases the enemy’s resistance to future Light damage. This specialization also has a few traits which improve your defence, making this a desirable line for solo-play.

The Protector of Song:

The Protector of Song is the Minstrel’s support line. This specialization shines in group play, giving you the ability to cast powerful buffs to enhance you and your fellows, as well as strong debuffs to hinder your foes. The trait “Exposing Weakness” gives the skill “Echoes of Battle” a Critical Defence debuff. The Trait “Guarding Song of the Hammerhand” ties a Physical and Tactical Mastery buff to the Morale-bubble it normally grants. The Protector of Song’s Legendary skill, “Call to Greatness”, buffs each member of your fellowship based on what class they are. For example, the Captain will gain a Defeat Response and enter a Battle-readied state every few seconds. Hunters will receive a constant drip of extra focus to use. These buffs are far more potent than just a simple stat bonus; they offer transformative enhancements that play on each class’ unique mechanics and roles.

As always, everything mentioned here is subject to change as we continue to re-work, balance, and refine these classes. Please feel free to comment and discuss. Thanks for readin’!