The Starting Minstrel Guide

The Minstrel:

Minstrels are the best Morale boosting (Healer) class in all of Eriador. It is capable of melee combat, ranged damage via songs, and fellowship buffs. You can solo easily, and you're always in demand for fellowships.





The Stats:

Every song, ballad, anthem, ect. requires power to sing and how much power you have is based upon your Will. Vitality will give you a higher morale, which will help keep you up longer if things get out of hand. Fate can be good to have at later levels when power regen in combat becomes more important because of longer and harder fights. Your melee damage and chance to evade and parry attacks are based upon your might skill. If you plan on soloing the majority of the time I would suggest a good balance between Will and Might. If fellowships are your thing you'll want to go more will heavy.





The Races:

All races can be a Minstrel, and no race is really better than the other. Look over each for its strengths and weaknesses and pick your race based on your play style. I have been playing as a Man Minstrel which seems to be sort of middle of the road (ie. Solos well, and groups well).

Dwarf:	Dwarves gain +15 to might as well as +10 to vitality, which will increase your melee damage and your overall health. On the downside they lose -8 to agility and fate, making it a little harder to dodge and evade attacks and regen morale out of combat. Dwarves also recieve a small bonus (+0.5) to in-combat morale and power regen along with a +1% to common resistance.
Elf:	Elves bring a +15 to agility, while losing -8 from fate and some moral regen out of combat. The Elves are more resistant to poisons and diseases (+1% to both).
Man:	The Man Minstrel gets a +15 to might and fate boost along with the easily inspired characteristic (gain more morale when healed). The negative is the -8 to will which reduces your overall power, so you have to pay more attention when singing.
Hobbit:	The merry-making shire folk have a nice +15 to vitality and a +1 to morale regen (out of combat)to make up for the -8 to might. Hobbits come equipped with an additional +1% bonus to fear and shadow.

The Weapons:

Minstrels can use the following Single-Handed weapons:

• Daggers
  
• Swords
  
• Maces
  
• Clubs

The Armour:

Light armour is your only choice until level 15, you'll then be able to earn a trait for completing a quest from your trainer that will allow you to equip medium armour. At level 20 Minstrels finally gain the ability to equip shields.





The Early Levels:

When you log on to your brand new Minstrel you'll notice that you have three abilities. Herald's Strike - You make a melee attack that does extra damage.

Ballad of Vigour - Tier 1 ballad: A short song that gives you vitality and harms your foes.

Raise the Spirits - Words of encouragement that renew the morale of a companion or yourself.



The best approach to play at this point goes like this:

Pull the mob with your Ballad of Vigour. This is Ranged damage, so nows a good time to learn what range you have to work with.

If you get a chance hit it with Ballad of Vigour again otherwise use Herald's Strike.

Continue with the auto-attacks and using Ballad of Vigour and Herald's Strike as they become available. Don't forget about Raise the Spirits if your morale starts to get too low.



At level two you gain the Piercing Cry ability.

Piercing Cry - Your shout does light damage to your enemies.

This ability is rather powerful, but it has a cooldown of 30 seconds. I generally reserve this ability, it can come in handy if things get ugly.



Level four brings two Ballads to the table.

Ballad of Steel - Tier 1 Ballad: A short song that gives you an armour bonus and harms your foes.

Ballad of Swiftness - Tier 2 Ballad: A short song that gives a bonus to your attack speed and harms your foe. This requires a tier one ballad effect to activate.



With the addition of these two new Ballads things change a little bit.

Pull with your Ballad of Steel, followed up with a Ballad of Vigour. Smack the mob with Herald's Strike, and followup with more Ballads of Steel and Vigour as they become available.



So which instrument do you want to play? At level 5 you can train the passive skills required for /music.



Your first tier three ballad is granted at level 6.

Ballad of War - Tier 3 Ballad: A short song that gives your fellowship a bonus to their melee damage. This requires tier 2 ballad effects to activate.

You won't be using this one much at first, as you can generally take down your mobs pretty quickly.



Soon you'll be out of the newbie instance and into the open world. As you continue to level up the combat only gets more interesting, I'll leave this for you to discover.



The Class Quest:



A Song for the Company (Level 15):



Your minstrel trainer will send you to Piper Prescott who is located in the Prancing Pony. Piper sends you to speak to Leland Underhill who is right outside the Bree west gate. Leland tells you that some brigands have stolen a few of his belongings and he would like you to teach them a lesson, while writing a song about the whole thing. You enter an instance with Leland that has a few brigands and their leader.



After defeating the lot head back to Piper, who hands you a copy of the song you have written. Jump up on the nearest table and use the song to perform for the Prancing Ponys patrons.



Your rewards:

• 1 silver and 80 copper
  
• Medium Armor class trait
  
• a couple celebrant salves
  
• and a really nice purple club called "Minstrel's Friend"