Vengeance

MINSTREL CHANGES

- All Minstrels now receive evade III at level 30.

- Minstrels now receive Danger Sense, Distractions, Climb Walls, and Safe Fall I - V by specializing in their Stealth skill. They receive these abilities at the same spec levels that Infiltrators do.

- The Hit Point Buffer song that was added in 1.60b has been changed to a shoutable chant, and reduced the HP values that are absorbed, since offense is no longer sacrificed. This should allow some extra flexibility in the tactics used by Minstrels while chanting this effect.

...
So now minstrels get a melee health buffer usable in combat, chain armor and evade 3. They also get the ability to climb into keeps and mez/stun the people inside.

Can we do archers next?

Woot, finally Minstrels get something worthwhile.  I know I'd never ever turn down a minstrel in an exp group (why the hell would you??)

seriously, I wish I could re-class my infiltrator to a minstrel now...just because he'd be more fun to play.

thats freakin awsome..grats to the minstrels!

...now, about scouts...

"Minstrels now receive Danger Sense, Distractions, Climb Walls, and Safe Fall I" --Ummmm ok...  

The evade and the new shout version are nice though.  Auto-equipable instruments, then move on to scouts. : P

I just read it today.  I'm still scraping my jaw off the floor.  It's exactly what I wanted.  Now I REALLY need a friggin' respec stone.  And so much for Icewind Dale 2, which I just bought.

MP cloaks for sale, 1 plat.  :)

(Edited by Gueuze at 5:16 pm on Feb. 12, 2003)

LOL...Go G man.

Icewind Dale 2 ain't all it's cracked up to be. I really miss the NPC interaction from the Baldur's Gate series, and it still suffers from the fight/die/reload syndrome. And it's way too easy to min-max your party if you're familiar with the D&D 3rd edition rules.

Hey Gueuze, what's your current spec, and what would you respec to?

I'm not sure how the stealth changes will help during a keep raid, because if the post just one assassin at the climb spots, you guys would be in trouble, then again, with SoS, you can avoid their stun effect and run.

The more people you can put on the walls, the better. Besides, climbing walls is fun. Put the minstrel in the back right corner to mezz across the courtyard, climb up a different climb point every time... support him with spreadheal so he doesn't die if he gets slammed... it's doable.

The minstrel doesn't need to unleash his weapons from the primary climb points through melee, so he can afford to change up his entry points. The best part is going to be the standard enemy retreat... where the door is at 10%, people start running upstairs, the minstrels unleash their mezz assault, and the main force pours in. That'll be cool.

I have a feeling we'll be doing tons more dragon raids soon... it's doable with about 45-50, although it takes a long time. 60 is a good target size for a dragon raid.

You have to remember too, that safefall I isn't that great.  Some of the other stealth abilities don't make sense on the minstrel.  Mythic is fond of the cut and paste.  I 'hope' they don't do something similiar when they fix archers.

1.60F:
"Minstrel

- Removed Evade III from the abilities granted in 1.60d (This is a Pendragon only change)"

Here we go... well, it did give you better defense than any other tank in the game, maybe it was a little over the top. But it would have been nice to have that for a month or two.

Can you say "Yoink"?  Doesn't just have the feel of the treat has been pulled away when you jumped for it?

Evade 3 was really the only change to minstrels that I really considered over the top. I don't recall anyone ever asking for it and as axe pointed out, it would give them one of the best defense's in the game when combined with that ablative chant.

Yep, we wouldn't want anyone to be able to stand up to a zerker for more than 3 or 4 swings, would we?

*cough*Zutyouselloutbastage*cough*

:)

Well, considering they lack parry and shield spec, they would never be more defensive than a shield Paladin.

of course, i cant see a shield pally ever catching a minstrel who wanted to get away.

Personally, I think they should have had it, any help to albion is appreciated if it gets more of us out to RvR.

Didn't bother me that they were getting evade III.  Nice? Yes. Overpowered? No.

Scouts have that, and while I played mine, I thought it sucked.  (I maxed dex/qui which are attributes for evade).  

Evade doesn't start to get decent until V+ imo.

I think they should boost archer evades now that I think about it.  Give them all one up at least.  

we have evade 3 now...i definetly dont think evade 3 would be too much on a minz, and i dont think another level of evade would overpower scouts ;)

Man, never even got to check out Evade 3.  I don't think evade 3 on a class with no spec-able defense and s**t for hitpoints was too much.  But, obviously I was wrong.

Isn't wall climbing granted at 26 spec stealth?  Anybody want to guess what my stealth spec is?

I still think See Hidden remains a problem; if there's an assassin in the keep, effectiveness drops.  Still, they wouldn't be able to keep up with every minstrel and infil trying to get in.

BTW, for the curious...if I respec, I'm undecided...if I take stealth to 30, I only get 38 thrust, which leaves out my side positional that I love so much.  If I take 39 thrust for the side positional, I lose the extra level of Safe Fall at 30 stealth.  The positional is really only useful PvE, so I'm leaning towards 30 stealth, which will be 39 with items and rank atm.

Answer to the pop quiz:  I'm 45 instruments, 25 stealth, and 42-ish thrust.  Respec looks to be 44/30/38.  I may take more points out of thrust; melee damage isn't my forte anyway, so maybe something like 45/34/34.  That gives me the 3rd style in the post-evade chain, because I'm sure I'll be able to pull off an evade and 3 styles a lot.  :\

I think climb is 25 natural stealth, but I would confirm that...

Climb walls is 25 natural stealth.

Evade levels get dangerous with some dodger and good buffs, at least that was my experience with my inf level 35 and up, when he got access to dodger 2 from the BGs. You guys might be right about evade 3 not being all that. Boris and Claithe were telling me they were able to tanking two reds on Pendragon with ablative and evade 3 (solo not together). Not that this meant anything particularly, but it's certainly better.

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Well, considering they lack parry and shield spec, they would never be more defensive than a shield Paladin.
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An assassin will cap his evade at 50%. It's possible with high levels of dodger and buffs to get close to that 50% evade mark. With 50 shield and 29 parry -- 100% defensive spec -- I'd have a 30% chance to block and 19.5% chance to parry. However parry/block have some problems in rvr combat that cause them to stop working when your attacker is grouped, whereas evade rates don't seem to suffer quite as much. I've got an AF chant to help and 34% absorb instead of 27%. Anyway, evade 3 and chain and ablative would have been pretty defensive.

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of course, i cant see a shield pally ever catching a minstrel who wanted to get away.
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I do this routinely on enemy stealth and speed classes. Begin chase, sprint and endchant. When they hit speed taunt to break speed. If I still haven't caught them before the speed kicks on again burn a DD charge on my cloak. This is normally enough to catch a speed or stealth class unless they have end 5, in which case they can match my sprint speed.

OK, I tested this build on Pendragon a little:

34 thrust
44 instruments
30 stealth
Lots of leftover points

I also respecc'd RAs.  Real Gueuze has:
SoS
Purge
Aug Dex 2
MoPain
MoBlock

Test Gueuze has:
SoS
Purge
Aug Quick 2
Dodger 1
1 leftover

Test Gueuze solo'd an orange con Ravenclan Giant, an orange con Ellyl Guard, and ALMOST an orange con Padfoot...was very close, and dumbass me didn't turn on ablative for the first two rounds, so I probably would have won.  Real Gueuze would never even bother with the yellow con versions of the above mobs, because he would most likely die.  He'd charm the non-giants and relog.

The new ablative chant seems to be 20 pts less effective than the old ablative song.  The second tier version was absorbing 40 points of damage.

I also climbed the wall at Berk to test that out.  Jumping from the very top of the wall with Safe Fall 3 cost me 5% health; from the 'deck' it cost me NO health--and that was at speed even.

And climb walls IS 25 stealth, so that and Safe Fall 2 should provide Real Gueuze a little entertainment even without a respec.

Looks like the best use of the new stealth toys is to team up with an infil and help him during the siege, or to try to mez a couple of stragglers when they retreat to the lord room as the doors fall.  Even if no enemy assassins are in the keep to uncover a minstrel, minstrels lack the front-end damage punch to take out enemies quickly--not that I think they should.  Duo'd with an infil, however, lots of baddies would be in a world of hurt quickly.  And keeping even ONE AE'er out of the lord room at the end can make a difference.  Now, how well this will work out in reality...dunno.

Bottom line:  I think I like it.

- Removed Evade III from the abilities granted in 1.60d (This is a Pendragon only change)

mythic givith, and mythic taketh away.  i can't wait to see whats next...

- Removed scout's longbow line and added the ability to make balloon animals

WOOT! balloon animals!!!

...finally, ill actually acomplish something

I think hunters did the most screaming and got Evade 3 yanked back out.

I fail to see whether or not hunters have or do not have it, affects whether or not minstrels should or should not have it.  Other patches that look at other classes are still to come.  Hunters might need evade 9 for all I know, but that has nothing to do with any other class's abilities.

Oh well, I didn't have it before either.  I'll survive.

Balloon animals:  fill 'em with helium, and airlift into the keep.

gueuze's on to something...

Yeah, hunters whine a lot about everything.  They should play scouts.  Then they'd really have something valid to complain about.  (Bow skills aside for the moment).