I am loving my MINI on live right now but don't remember them back in the day, are they still going to be good at 1v1s and with groups?

I doubt anything is going to be very good solo while the population is very high. Soloing was possible at the end of 2013 during NA times of only 300-400 pop.

If you try to stealth as Mins, you will just got popped by sins and archers before you even know they're there because Mins stealth is so bad.

SOS is the best Alb RA and second best overall behind Group Purge. It will also come down to how good you are at microing your DDs/stun/confuse/mez/pet for interrupts. Keep in mind though this is harder in 1.65 because the instas only have 700 range, but 1000 on live. 700 vs 1500 makes it hard to do much unless your group is a hard pushing tank+theurg group. Also no FZ makes it significantly worse against tank groups.

Old RAs make it harder for groups to come back in fights, so if you get a great INC with a half decent mez, theurg pets, lots of interrupts, and your tanks get on their back line, it pretty much becomes a guaranteed win, so that's what you would be hoping for as a Mins.

If you play in an uncoordinated caster pug, I will say a Minstrel is not a very good class even with SOS. With a well played tank group, it's possible to succeed.

One more thing is going 50 Inst / 44 Thrust could work out in this patch with having Wyvernfang for peels as a more passive pull type of group player, however this requires autotraining Instruments until 36.

Other notes is you can only play 1 song at a time and there's no harps so you have to switch instruments.

As long as you don't call it MINI minstrel will be pretty good. Learn how to handle red/purple pets.

Ensley03 wrote:I doubt anything is going to be very good solo while the population is very high. Soloing was possible at the end of 2013 during NA times of only 300-400 pop.

Eh well thats new ^^. Tbh it just gonna be harder to solo and you might wanna team up with a inf or two for stealth wars because of see hidden. But because of keep raids you should be able to get some good 1v1 fight by running around uppland/forest sauvage.

Quick question regarding minstrel. I ve never played minstrel back then, is it possible to run a song and charm for pet simultaneously? Probably not, right?

Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm -
Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm -
Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm - Song - Charm...

^

You have to twist it manually since you can only have 1 active pulse at a time. To run with speed and a pet you have to keep playing the speed chant and turn on the charm again. If your drum condition is low then it will drastically reduce your twist durations so keep it repaired.

The "level" of the instrument only matters for the stats it offers and how fast it degrades. A grey con drum will go a lot longer without needing repaired, and generally the stats on instruments sub-50 are pretty terrible, so using an orange con drum with +4 con is not worth it over a grey con drum that does nothing. At 50 you will obviously want a high-end drop or crafted one.

If i remember that right, it is only the Bonus of the Instrument that lets pulses last longer and thus helps with twisting. And only high level Instruments get the best Bonus, so you really want them. Durability has nothing to do with that - or so i remember it.

But my Minstrel days are over for so many years, maybe i am wrong.

The condition, not durability, is what will lessen your pulses. I don't think bonus actually does anything for instruments since it has no to-hit or focus modifiers. I believe in classic DAoC if the condition reaches 70% you can't actually play a song.

Quality!

This is something I spent a bunch of time researching and testing on live.

As mentioned, lower Condition will lower your pulse durations.
After that, bonus does nothing, and quality does nothing (qua used to on Uthgard 1) - the main factor in the length of your pulses is the level of the instrument.

Knaller wrote:Quick question regarding minstrel. I ve never played minstrel back then, is it possible to run a song and charm for pet simultaneously? Probably not, right?

Yes, twist.

Nezix wrote:This is something I spent a bunch of time researching and testing on live.

As mentioned, lower Condition will lower your pulse durations.
After that, bonus does nothing, and quality does nothing (qua used to on Uthgard 1) - the main factor in the length of your pulses is the level of the instrument.

Not true. Quality effects the amount of spellcrafting that can be done to the item.

DearyoDrum wrote:

Nezix wrote:This is something I spent a bunch of time researching and testing on live.

As mentioned, lower Condition will lower your pulse durations.
After that, bonus does nothing, and quality does nothing (qua used to on Uthgard 1) - the main factor in the length of your pulses is the level of the instrument.

Not true. Quality effects the amount of spellcrafting that can be done to the item.

Right, but nothing to do with pulse duration.

On Uth 1.0 I do not know about Minstrel instruments, but for Bard you needed a mp drum so the pulse wouldn't drop when you twisted speed and end. This was tested by the alliance using 99 quality and mp instruments. The pulse was much shorter when using a 99 drum.

Its the only reason I leveled up my Fletcher just so I could make my own mp drum for my Bard.

I played a stealther Minstrel on live pre NF and New RA's. They had MoS during the NF beta then didnt have it when New RA's went live. I died more to stealthers when archers had MoS than before. Even if i grouped with Infs and Scouts I got popped first and was the slowest while moving in stealth. Better off just being a visible Mins w/pet and having enough stealth for climb wall and disappearing quickly from visibles.

Uth 1 had some very good solo Minstrels, and then there was Baman.