Minstrel respec

[hotrat]

I saw one of these posts on hib board for a ranger so thought i would try a minstrel one here

What are ppl gonna respec to now that see hidden is in the game, and the new ae mezz.

Personally im gonna have to test lvl 5 dodger (15% chance more to evade - requires rr4l8) and 50 thrust.
It seems to me if you go thrust you have to spec for dragonfang because the only other good styles require position (pierce) or a pre-req tranquilize(no to hit bonus) -> wyvernfang (damn nice).

Puncture -> lunge is ok, so is sting but compared to amethyst slash they suck.

So if 50 thrust doesn't work im prolly gonna try going slash. Now i read that someone with 30 slash compared to someone with 40 slash will only do about 15 more dmg per hit (for a minstrel) because your still using the same style (amethyst slash). Speccing to 50 slash is an option and might vastly improve weapon dmg but im not gonna test that (hopefully someone else will ).

Other options are 50 instruments, become a full support minstrel giving a better chance to charm high lvl pets and get mana song 5

The other build i might test is the classic 44 inst//39 stealth//29 slash. Mostly because in my view there is very little gain from going above 29 slash, and also very little gain from going high instruments (especially once you get some + items and +skills from realm rank). and because stealth can still be useful even if it just gives you enough of an edge to insta stun or flute mezz the enemy healer//bard before they mezz your group. Also we get cure mezz, if we stay stealthed hopefully before any assasin can PA us we can at least cure mezz on the sorc or cleric.

Conclusion: (possible specs)
50 thrust, 43 inst
High slash, 44//45 inst, rest stealth
44 thrust, 44//45 inst, rest stealth
50 inst

Opinions please

Im especially interested in your view Alpha as you play a lot and know the minstrel really well. Although i suspect you will keep your spec roughly the same as you like to solo.

 

[Danya]

I'll respec to 44i/44w/21s I think, and go slash (I'm 44i/39w/29s and thrust atm). Puncture->lunge is ok, but sucks all your end in about 4 hits. I tend to use sting mostly, but that has a defensive penalty. IMO unless you get DF, thrust isn't worth it.

 

[belth]

If you can spare the 2 slots for Tranquilize/Wyvernfang, it's great - the CS anytime style Garrote does about the same damage as Wyvernfang, which is a lot. Suprisingly Tranquilize connects more often than Wyvernfang for me, to my dismay

 

[Purefun]

50 thrust 43inst
Do tranq/wyvern till you get an evade, then dragonfang dragonfang (another df depending on weaponspd) ratfang woltooth liontooth.

 

[old.Anarki]

I'll respec to 45 Inst 44 Thrust (no more saracen slash gimp on the server ) and 19 stl wich will be 30+ with RR's and Items. Should be balanced enough...
45 Inst cause yes i know our AE mez SUX bigtime, but i just LOVE mezzing people....and we can AE mez people that flee, should br fun.
Dragonfang.......hmmm we got a 6 sec stun, 3 more secs that depend on evade isnt worth it imho, cause its quite rare to do even 2 hit combo....
And onother problem with combos that bother me.....i just DONT HAVE DAEMN SPACE on my combat quick bar

 

[Alpha Male]

mm

Anarki, Not sure how your gonna mez fleeing people with our 5 second stationary cast wonderfull AE Mez, but good luck to you in trying =)

I wont be changing my spec at all...it works for me and ive made as much if not more rps since see hidden patch - yes it screws me up occasionally, but we have ra's to help us out of it...ie SOS.

Moto of the day "If it aint broke dont fix it"

 

[Northstarr]

wots your spec alpha?

 

[hotrat]

More meat for the table

quote from vn boards

my clone is 49 slash with +2 from realm rank. another minstrel and I did a small amount of testing on pendragon and we found the difference between 35 slash and 49 slash (with 18% slash resistance, edit here to remove the bit about chain having 15% slash resist - I'm thinking about 3 months in the past for some reason, and 99% qual jibiyas) to be 11 damage on average with 164 str (not 100% sure on that str amount, but we swapped out items until we both had the exact same slash resist to make sure our results were not different) using amy slash as our style. we did not compaire unstyled average damage between 35 slash and 49 slash.

Having said that, I am much hapier with my spec on Tristan (44/35/34) than I am with my clones' 44/49/4.

We also stood around DD shouting each other for about half an hour with different amounts of charisma items on and found that, at least with the 44 spec DD shout, losing 20 charisma lowers your damage by just about 20. There was a little variation and we did not average it out, but it was very close to 20 damage per 20 points of charisma as a casual observation.

Dragonfang is not reduced by high body resists, like insta stun soon will be

50 slash minstrels do quite well as well.

GIVZ Gorre, i need to TEST!!

 

[medowind]

I personally am a 50 instruments support mistral, and tbh I feel quite gimped, every patch they seem to release makes less and less point in specking interments past the last insta stun or run song,


power song 5 is hardly noticeable and apparently serenity 3 does more than it per tick, as for pet charming its buggy and decreases rvr effectiveness because of the whole “pulsing” system,


I am strongly considering one of the 50 weaponskills templates because after the direct damage shout nurf I fear I wont be able to do any noticeable damage,


shure I can still mes and hopefully find a use for the pathetic ae mes but because I am a grouping minstrel wont there normally be a sorc for that?


Then I am left dealing 300 damage every 20 seconds and volleying off a stun that might not work thx to the stun timer while I /stick to a caster to stop tanks hitting them,


Admittedly I am still a bit of an rvr newbie, maybe I am playing all wrong perhaps I need to change accessories, I don’t know but I am slowly losing the will to bother finding out

 

[Belomar]

This is an interesting issue, and it bears some pondering. I am currently 44inst/39slash/29stealth, and reasonably happy about it.

As a Highlander minstrel, I am right off the bat practically excluded from the 50 thrust template, since my main attribute is strength and not dexterity. Pity, since it would be nice to have Dragonfang. However, I am not sure I'd want to go 50 slash either, as it would lose me my last DD and thus affect my damage output badly anyway. Still, I'd be very interested to see how Diamond Slash works out, so I might have to go through all the hassle to try it on Gorre.

The only other alternative open to me is going 50 instruments (with 39 slash and 18 stealth) to full out become a group minstrel. For me, this change is already happening, haven't gone solo into Uppland or Gorge for a long time now, and have already turned in all my +stealth items in favor of attributes and resists. I am not sure, however, whether 50 instruments is the right choice, or whether I should just sacrifice one stealth point to get 45 instruments and the last AoE mezz.

Another issue worth considering is whether I should dump IP in favor of Purge now that we'll get Cure Mezz and AoE Mezz spells; you won't find a single bard without Purge, for instance.

Hmm... Decisions, decisions, decisions!

 

[hotrat]

Indeed RA's are another thing to ponder, what with purge, IP and speed of sound all being great skills but requiring 640k rp to get all 3, lets also not forget about MCL. I currently have IP and sos and 3 rsp's remain, i could get mcl, but then i will need rr6 to get purge. If i dont get mcl i wil only need rr5l7, decisions decisions ...

Read a bit more on the american boards, trouble with DF is you gotta evade and even if minstrel had evade 5 or something in large fights you don't get hit that often so you can't evade. This makes diamond slash more appealing for huge weapon damage, apaprently only 5% less than a paladin.
Its a sad state that even with 50 thrust the best anytime style is sting
On the other hand a lot of ppl had said that sting only does about 5 less dmg than amethyst slash and the only prob with it is the defense penalty.

Had some nice little fights yesterday and realised again how good a minstrel can be, sos is a really good skill in the right situation, i mean imagine trying to fight a group that moves at mach 5 for 30 secs
Also almost everytime i see enemies i stealth and try and find their main mezzer and move toward them to prepare to mezz, or preferablly stun then mezz them. Now this is where a low stealth spec would hurt because of slow run speed. If what they say about higher weapon spec not doing that much dmg than lower spec unless you go to 50 spec i may be tempted to leave my stealth quite high.

On the other hand I cannot wait to test 50 thrust and dodger 5, just hope we get gorre for more than one day :/

 

[K0nah]

What a highlander loses in dex he gains in str and since thrust dmg is 50/50 str/dex there is no reason dmg-wise to not choose thrust. The problem is u will evade/block less with -30dex compared to a saracen.

 

[hotrat]

More info, this time from grab bag

Q: What is the formula for how dex affects parry, block, and evade?

A: I can’t give you the exact formula, because there are just too many variables. Dex is the only stat that matters as far as stats go in the formulas for parry and block, so buff the heck out of dexterity to get the maximum benefit (again, the maximum benefit as far as personal stats go).

Evade is not a skill, and it works very differently from parry and block. Primarily, the effectiveness of evade is related to your level of evade (and of course, your level versus the level of your target). There are many minor factors, of course, but that is the big one. The stats that affect evade are dex and qui in equal proportions, just not in as large a proportion as they are in parry or block.

 

[old.Anarki]

Stationary cast SUX bightime ;( Anyway it also should be useful when u pop from behind enemys and start mezzing, 2-3 secs b4 they realise whats going on, 1 sec to target me, so 1-2 secs left to interrupt is not THAT much.....hope it will work....

 

[old.Filip]

nm

 

[old.BJ|Bored]

you can always use ra's to buy the stat increases for the str/dex you want,

personally i'll respec to slash as i started paying attention about a month ago and have evaded an attack once in RvR since then, just once .. and tbh dont think dodger will make any noticable difference so im not speccing 50 in thrust to get an attack i can use once a month

+ I dont see the point in high spec'ing inst above the ae mes, dont really see the point in going 45 really but all you lose is a few useless stealth points as pet'ing doesnt really seem viable as twisting the songs while running about trying to free cam and getting the pet resist every 10 mins or so, on orange, is just too annoying plus the lack of decent pets in RvR really, maybe if there was better mobs like ellyl sages that were freely available at the apk

so i'll respec slash and use mu flute buffs to get my str up, maybe +aug str 1/2 but its been my experience that if i get into any form of melee fight, i'll lose

 

[Rawkir]

Hmmm, well i have xphyral at 44instru, 40 thrust and the rest in stealth and i didn't like it

Even with see hidden i find stealth highly useful, so i've rolled another minstrel currently at 45.5 which is 44 instru, 29 slash and 24 stealth or something..
I like slash a lot better anyway, even against chain i'll outdamage xphy, and i'm 5 levels lower..
My final spec will be 44 instru, 34 slash and 35 stealth (i think this is right, might be +1 or 2 points either way on stealth)

When gorre comes i'll test out 50 thrust, but with the minstrel insta stun i dont think having dragonfang is really worth it, especially since he's a highlander thrust can't count on evade so much..

What i'd like is for some enemy guy to meet me somewhere so i can test out the exact differences between slash and thrust and having high slash instead of stealth or low thrust instead of low stealth in the case of Xphyral..

In the case of damage not based on the non-opening styles (sting and amethyst slash) but by how high the spec is itself i think its pretty much irrelavent, can always get equipment and realm ranks to take the modified spec high..

 

[medowind]

I would like to remind you,

You only get 1 /respec skill when 1.52 comes out, hence no testing (unless you got a test server char) and there will be no other chances for this, its all in the email

use it wisely or have a possibly gimped char forever

 

[Purefun]

He clearly said he'd test it out on gorre. Pity for the pryd ppl