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Be you a Druid, Shaman, Blood Mage, Priest, Cleric, you may be familiar with the normal healing class. You're going to recognize some things, but there are some new things Turbine threw in to make the healing experience feel fresh.
Since there is no death in Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine had to come up with a novel alternative for the standard Hit Points and morale is the answer. Instead of dying, you get so overcome that you cease to function. Your morale can be reduced by dread and improved in times of hope. Consequently, you technically do not heal, you encourage and inspire. This, like in Tolkien's works, can be done in songs and tales and it is why you are a minstrel rather than one who heals with bandages and disinfectant. But just like healing in all other games, the main role you will have is making that green bar fill up.
Aside from healing you have a variety of buffs in your arsenal, both group and personal buffs, toggles and timed skills. You can rez, remove dread, give hope and also do a nice bit of damage.
As a Minstrel, there is one of the more interesting new things you're going to learn to deal with is the idea of Ballad Tiers, and Anthems. Most of your attack songs and buffs are assigned to a tier, for example, a Tier 1 ballad is the Ballad of Vigour.
Once you play a Tier 1 ballad, you will be able to play Tier 2 ballads for a short window of time before you lose access to that tier. Once you play a Tier 2 Ballad such as Ballad of Swiftness, you will then unlock Tier 3. Tier 3 is different, as the ballads you can play here are buffs for your entire fellowship. For example a crowd favorite is the Ballad of War, a 10% melee damage buff. This buff only last 15 seconds but it is quite powerful. After a third tier ballad you unlock the ability to play an Anthem. Anthems are generally rather powerful. The catch with Anthems is once you play one, all your Tiers are reset and you're stuck with only Tier 1 ballads again.
What this means for a Minstrel is that not only do you have to heal your party, but in order to keep them happy and buffed you need to also think offensively. The following are a few little tricks to help you get started.
Minstrels have four basic heal skills on short cooldown timers: a quick little heal called Raise the Spirit, a much larger one called Bolster Courage, a group heal called Inspire Fellows, which also gives a minor 1% reduction in damage and finally you have Chord of Salvation, an instant heal with a longer animation time.
In addition, we have a few other heals at our disposal and following this little introduction. We are going to go over the experience with each of these heals and hopefully include the experiences of the other people as well. It's worthwhile to note that many of heals unlike our attacks, have a short animation after the cast. This disables movement, which is something that you will probably notice early on and will be the bane of your career. Likewise, while we are talented enough to play our attack ballads while we are moving, our healing skills require us to remain stationary for their inducted duration.
Since there is no death in Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine had to come up with a novel alternative for the standard Hit Points and morale is the answer. Instead of dying, you get so overcome that you cease to function. Your morale can be reduced by dread and improved in times of hope. Consequently, you technically do not heal, you encourage and inspire. This, like in Tolkien's works, can be done in songs and tales and it is why you are a minstrel rather than one who heals with bandages and disinfectant. But just like healing in all other games, the main role you will have is making that green bar fill up.
Aside from healing you have a variety of buffs in your arsenal, both group and personal buffs, toggles and timed skills. You can rez, remove dread, give hope and also do a nice bit of damage.
As a Minstrel, there is one of the more interesting new things you're going to learn to deal with is the idea of Ballad Tiers, and Anthems. Most of your attack songs and buffs are assigned to a tier, for example, a Tier 1 ballad is the Ballad of Vigour.
Once you play a Tier 1 ballad, you will be able to play Tier 2 ballads for a short window of time before you lose access to that tier. Once you play a Tier 2 Ballad such as Ballad of Swiftness, you will then unlock Tier 3. Tier 3 is different, as the ballads you can play here are buffs for your entire fellowship. For example a crowd favorite is the Ballad of War, a 10% melee damage buff. This buff only last 15 seconds but it is quite powerful. After a third tier ballad you unlock the ability to play an Anthem. Anthems are generally rather powerful. The catch with Anthems is once you play one, all your Tiers are reset and you're stuck with only Tier 1 ballads again.
What this means for a Minstrel is that not only do you have to heal your party, but in order to keep them happy and buffed you need to also think offensively. The following are a few little tricks to help you get started.
Minstrels have four basic heal skills on short cooldown timers: a quick little heal called Raise the Spirit, a much larger one called Bolster Courage, a group heal called Inspire Fellows, which also gives a minor 1% reduction in damage and finally you have Chord of Salvation, an instant heal with a longer animation time.
In addition, we have a few other heals at our disposal and following this little introduction. We are going to go over the experience with each of these heals and hopefully include the experiences of the other people as well. It's worthwhile to note that many of heals unlike our attacks, have a short animation after the cast. This disables movement, which is something that you will probably notice early on and will be the bane of your career. Likewise, while we are talented enough to play our attack ballads while we are moving, our healing skills require us to remain stationary for their inducted duration.
