We’ll be taking a short hiatus from the class cooperation series to take a look at what changes I’d love to see for the primary healing class. I know it’s a little late for the Tell the Community thread and that no significant changes were made after all the input that was provided. This isn’t meant to be critical of Turbine, just an opinion article based on some of the best ideas I have seen over the past few months. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m perfectly fine with the status quo, but it’s nice to dream of what some small changes could do for the class.

Developers got on the good side of a few minstrels with the new Annuminas Medium Armor set, though its still pretty much a toss up about which way the division will lay once radiance is re-worked/removed. In the mean time, a new shiny set of armor with +150 radiance is great to have. Sure, the Will and Fate bonuses are deficient to say the least… but the extra 100 points of morale makes up for it. This set doesn’t seem like it was designed with the Minstrel in mind, for a solo player it may be a better choice than other existing sets. Keeping that in mind, the radiance becomes a useless modifier and the set continues to be a non-viable option for a grouped Minstrel.

Thinking of how to continue the column and still maintain at least a modicum of productivity to it, I was drawn to a few topics. Mostly how to interact with a group having 2 minstrels or any combination with the other traditionally supportive classes in LOTRO. So to kick things off we’ll start with the most basic scenario and work out some strategies that can be easily implemented. The first scenario is of course if you find yourself in a party with another Minstrel.

Offensive & Healing – The simplest thing is to decide which one of you should do DPS while the other covers healing for the party. Which certainly is the easiest route to go, during simple instances like Grand Stair or a basic fellowship. It can be slightly hectic for the Healing player, but it’s no different than if you were healing a group with any other class configuration.