Blue Minstrel

Blue Minstrel ‘Resolve’ Build

By Araphorn – Updated for Yondershire, U33

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome, here you will find a good build for Healing Minstrel. It’s built specifically around having low inductions, a high morale pool, while also having capped Critical Rating and Outgoing Healing.

Minstrels are a must have class for higher size instances, such as 6-mans and raids. They bring great burst/focused healing, great damage buffs for the group through their Anthems and provide reliable in-combat rezes (revives) on a short cooldown.

Minstrels do not have great mobility (unlike Beorning Healers), as most of their skills require them them to be pinned in one place, but recent changes to Major Ballad healing output have been nice and it heals for a decent amount, and can be used while running. Minstrel is probably the safest choice to take as a reliable healer, with all things considered.

Stat Goals

The best stat to have as a healer in general is Critical Rating, along with Outgoing Healing. Vitality is pretty important as well as a healer, so you don’t waste valuable time healing yourself instead of your group members.

These goals are kept with Essence & Gear planning in mind, as to which Essences are to be prioritized over others. These goals can also be used when picking Virtues.

Critical Rating > Outgoing Healing > Tactical Mitigation > Vitality

After Critical Rating and Outgoing Healing are capped or near capped, save some room for Trigger essences, and then you can use some Vitality essences to fill in the remaining slots. At the beginning of expansion, Essence slots are really limited, this gets easier as better items become available later down the line.

* Before planning Essences, slot the right Virtues (more on that down below). This way you can plan your setup better, and utilize Essences perfectly, and you can dump the remaining Essence slots in Vitality, Finesse, or other Stat of your choice after meeting Stat goals mentioned above.

Gear

With new Raid released, new gear for Blue Minstrel is published in the tables down below. They will use new 4-pieces of the Blue Line set, along with 3-pieces of the Yellow Line set for additional stats.

There are 2 published Builds, one for Endgame and one for Starters.

End-game Build

Armour Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Helm Minstrel’s Helmimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Chest Minstrel’s Chestimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Shoulders Minstrel’s Shouldersimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Gloves Minstrel’s Glovesimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Legs Minstrel’s Legsimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Boots Minstrel’s Bootsimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Cloak Minstrel’s Cloakimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Off-hand Healing Shieldimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Class Item Minstrel’s Instrumentimage Crafted, Woodworker

Jewelry Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Earring 1 Earringimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Earring 2 Earringimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Necklace Necklaceimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Pocket Pocketimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Bracelet 1 Braceletimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Bracelet 2 Braceletimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Ring 1 Ringimage Hiddenhoard Raid
Ring 2 Ringimage Hiddenhoard Raid

Starter Build

The 140 Level Gear from this Build can be acquired by playing the 3 and 6 man instances, higher difficulty will award better loot. Having this gear will allow to progress level capped Raids. As for Essences, you can use the ones you get from Questing or Crafting (whichever Tier is fine), and try to follow the Stat Goals above and Slot the ones which are needed by your Class.

Armour Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Helm Minstrel’s Helmimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Chest Minstrel’s Chestimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Shoulders Minstrel’s Shouldersimage Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Gloves Minstrel’s Glovesimage Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Legs Minstrel’s Legsimage Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Boots Minstrel’s Bootsimage Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Cloak Minstrel’s Cloakimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Off-hand Healing Shieldimage Embers Box
Barter
Class Item Minstrel’s Instrumentimage Crafted, Woodworker

Jewelry Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Earring 1 Earringimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Earring 2 Earringimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Necklace Necklaceimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Pocket Pocketimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Bracelet 1 Braceletimage Storvagun Winter Festival
Bracelet 2 Braceletimage Storvagun Winter Festival
Ring 1 Ringimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Ring 2 Ringimage Gundabad 6-Man Instance

Essences

Essence Name Essence Note
Critical Rating Critical Ratingimage Use these to reach
near Critical Rating cap.
Outgoing Healing Outgoing Healingimage Use these to reach
near Outgoing Healing cap.

Check tooltip under
Tactical Mastery.
Crit Trigger Crit Triggerimage Use 1 of these.
Heal Trigger 1 Heal Trigger 1image Use 1 of these.
Heal Trigger 2 Heal Trigger 2image Use 1 of these.
Vitality Vitalityimage Use these to fill
slots after above
Essences are met.

Trait Trees

There’s generally just one good way of traiting a Blue Minstrel, in which you get everything you need just from one tree. However, you will need a swap Yellow tree to put Anthems before the fight starts, and then swap back to Blue tree.

Here is the build for Blue tree:

blue healing
Blue tree for healing.

You get everything important here, the damage reduction from Inspire Fellows, Composure Anthem and extra 5% Tactical Mitigation from Yellow Line. The 5% critical chance and Anthem of War from Red Line. The remaining all important traits you also get from Blue line.

Next, here is my tree for Yellow line swap for Anthems. I also use Call to Greatness skill before switching back to Blue line.

anthems ctg
Yellow tree for Anthems swap.

This Tree has everything you need for Max Anthems, along with Call to Greatness. It also has some healing potential in case you get stuck in Yellow.

35 Trait Points Build for Legendary Servers

minstrel blue 35
35 Points Build

60 Trait Points Build for Beginners

minstrel blue 60
60 Points Build

EXTRA: A Red-line Trait Build for Landscape, since LotroHQ does not have a dedicated Red-line Build page yet.

Red-Line 35 Trait Points Build for Legendary Servers

minstrel red 35
35 Points Build

Red-Line 60 Trait Points Build for Beginners

minstrel red 60
60 Points Build

Virtues

These are the virtues I use to reach the Stat Goals. I use mostly Mastery/Outgoing Healing, Critical Rating and Finesse options, but if need be, some of them can be switched to more Defensive options as well, depending on the type of fight. More explained down below.

virtues heals
Virtues for Minstrel.

Here are the Virtues which go along with the Stat Goals:

  1. Honesty (Great for Outgoing Healing and Critical Rating)
  2. Confidence (Great for Critical Rating and Finesse)
  3. Wit (Great for Finesse, Mastery and Critical Rating)
  4. Fidelity (Great for Vitality + Tactical Mit)
  5. Loyalty (Great for Vitality and survival)

If you don’t have these virtues, here are some alternatives:

  • Wisdom (Good for extra Mastery and Finesse)
  • Tolerance (Gives great amount of Tactical Mit, decent Physical Mit and Resistance)
  • Innocence (Gives great amount of Physical Mit, decent Tactical Mit Mit and Resistance)

Legendary Items

With U30.3 Legendary Item revamp, not much has changed for Healing Minstrel, they have pretty much the same legacies as before. One thing to note is that Weapon swapping is disabled in combat now, and Minstrels cannot swap books to refresh Anthems during the fight, and should just refresh them from Main LI itself.

1-Hander Weapon

TypeSockets
Heraldic TraceryHeraldry of the Owl
Word of PowerArea Effect Healing
Word of PowerArea Effect Healing Criticals
Word of MasteryAnthem of Composure Resistance
& Tactical Mitigation
Word of MasteryAnthem Duration
Word of MasteryAnthem of War Damage Buffs
Word of MasteryCall to Ioreth Cooldown
& Critical Multiplier Bonus
Word of MasteryCry of the Chorus Cooldown
Word of MasteryRally Cooldown
Word of CraftHeroic Precision
Word of CraftHeroic Precision

Minstrel’s Songbook (Class Item)

TypeSockets
Heraldic TraceryHeraldry of the Owl
Word of PowerHealing Over Time Criticals
Word of PowerSingle Target Healing Criticals
Word of PowerSkill Induction Speed
Word of MasteryBolster Courage Healing
Word of MasteryHealing Skills Induction Time
& Critical Chance
Word of MasteryInspire Fellows Healing
Word of MasteryRaise the Spirit Healing
Word of MasterySoliloquy of Spirit Healing
Word of MasteryTriumphant Spirit Cooldown
& Critical Magnitude
Word of CraftPerfect Healing
Word of CraftPerfect Healing

Rotation

Here is what I do on Minstrel, but before I proceed I will give a little bit of important information which is required to know in order to be a good and effective healer.

Following a strict rotation will not make you an effective healer, but what will is your capacity and timing to react, to heal the person which needs the heal. For that, you need to be on the constant lookout (knowing mechanics helps you predict who will take the next big hit also), you need to be able to select that person which needs attention fast enough. So, to conclude, being able to react fast enough to who’s taking damage and following a good rotation to counter that damage, makes an effective healer.

Pre-combat buffs:

  1. Swap to Yellow-line and give all Anthems to your group:
    • Use Anthem of War.
    • Use Anthem of Prowess
    • Use Anthem of Composure
    • Now use Anthem of Melody
    • Lastly, use Call to Greatness
  2. Swap back to Blue.
  3. Do Soliloquy of Spirit (SoS) x3 times on Tank (if you have time).
  4. Then do Major Ballad x3 times and put Coda of Resonance (Coda) on Tank, this also gives a +incoming heal boost to your fellowship.
  5. After you use Coda, you have roughly 1 second of time to do another Anthem before it times out, so use Anthem of Third Age now. (If you didn’t get it, that’s fine, do it on next step).
  6. Now use Cry of Chorus (Chorus) – Raise the Spirit (RtS) – Inspire Fellows. This concludes your pre-buffing (If you missed Anthem of Third Age earlier, use it now).

In-fight Rotation:

  1. If the fight is going smooth, and no one needs healing, identify people in group which are likely to take the most damage. These usually are:
    • The tank
    • Champs
    • Wardens
    • Burgs
  2. After you have identified, keep stacks of SoS on them as much as you can. SoS – Major Ballad – SoS – Major Ballad. I always try to keep 3 Stacks of SoS on tank and champs.
  3. If someone needs focused/emergency healing, this could be your tank or some DPS class, I use a Single-target bubble (Gift of Hammerhand) if I have it available. Next I use Coda – Chorus – RtS – Bolster – Chord – Perfect Ending (if available). This usually brings them up back to a safe level.
  4. For emergency group heals, where everyone needs a top up, I use Call to Ioreth – Chorus (if available) – Triumphant Spirit – Chord – Inspire Fellows. Group-wide bubble (Legend of Hammerhand) if required also. Use Fellowship’s Heart if you still cannot keep up with group damage.
  5. Refresh Anthem of War and Composure every 2 minutes. And, keep your Anthem of Third Age active also.
  6. Don’t use induction skills such as Bolster Courage over and over again if there’s no need, instead try to keep SoS stacks on people who take the most damage. SoS – Major Ballad.
  7. Use Inspire Fellows often to keep the -incoming damage buff on group going.
  8. Use Chords and Perfect Ending on people when they require the heals.
  9. Use Cry of Chorus to cut animation of skills, ideally it should be used after Codas, to quickly bring Ballads back up again.
  10. If you yourself need healing, use Self bubble first (Song of Hammerhand), and then Bolster – Chord.

Consumables

There are the consumables to use on Minstrel:

food regen

food will

Updated as of U33.

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