Patch Notes for June 13

[Khaldun]

Weird. I've had few problems so far except in one group and I knew it was going to be bad and bailed after our first wipe. (The damn group wiped doing the black fire quest. It's blue to me. We wiped because my champ was the only one in the group who would go peel mobs off of the minstrel and in a fight where the friggin' Captain's herald went and grabbed two elites when we were already fighting 3 I was unable to go save her due to being the only champ using my aoes and such to try to burn the mobs down. We had a guardian but the dwarf champ booted him from the group because he and the guy got into a piss fight.)

There's one captain on Gladden who has become so notorious for letting his herald run wild to grab any and all mobs within a thousand yards that when people are LFMing to form up a PUG, they'll often say, "LFM BUT NOT [the spazz Cap'n]" in the message.

[Riggswolfe]

I'm rather ashamed to say I grouped with the cheeseburglr once in Lone Lands.

Those are my own personal rules. No reason to be ashamed. It's not based on elitism but mostly odds. If you fall into one of my rules (like cheeseburgler) then the odds are good that the pug is going to be a failure. So I'm essentially playing the odds with my rules. And I'll be honest, they're not set in stone. If the rest of the group seems good I'll put up with a cheeseburgler if it's a quest I really want.

 "They're more guidelines than rules you see?" - Captain Barbossa

[Xanthippe]

I have had a very busy week, so haven't yet had a chance to log in, but I must say I'm dismayed by the patch notes.

My main is a LM.  I'm a little shocked that Champs got love.  WTF?

Thinking about cancelling due to the direction the game is going. 

[Xanthippe]

Played my LM a little.  Died a few times, grew frustrated and logged.  Wounds on LMs are just deadly.  No more kiting.

I don't know how to play this.  I'm supposed to let my pet tank completely?  Or I'm supposed to not ever get aggro?  I don't know what to do, but my old LM playing style is not working.  Considering it's the weakest class before the patch, and now it's been weakened further - at least my way of playing an LM is weakened.

I read somewhere that the next big patch, hunters and guardians get love.

So um.  Nail in the coffin and all that.

[Phred]

Played my LM a little.  Died a few times, grew frustrated and logged.  Wounds on LMs are just deadly.  No more kiting.

I don't know how to play this.  I'm supposed to let my pet tank completely?  Or I'm supposed to not ever get aggro?  I don't know what to do, but my old LM playing style is not working.  Considering it's the weakest class before the patch, and now it's been weakened further - at least my way of playing an LM is weakened.

I read somewhere that the next big patch, hunters and guardians get love.

So um.  Nail in the coffin and all that.

Dunno what happened for you but all the loremasters in my guild were raving about their increased dmg.

[Riggswolfe]

Played my LM a little.  Died a few times, grew frustrated and logged.  Wounds on LMs are just deadly.  No more kiting.

I don't know how to play this.  I'm supposed to let my pet tank completely?  Or I'm supposed to not ever get aggro?  I don't know what to do, but my old LM playing style is not working.  Considering it's the weakest class before the patch, and now it's been weakened further - at least my way of playing an LM is weakened.

I read somewhere that the next big patch, hunters and guardians get love.

So um.  Nail in the coffin and all that.

LMs I've talked to try to bounce aggro between them and their bear. And with the new bear changes are quite happy with how well they kill now.

[Xanthippe]

I guess I need to play more to adjust.  I only played for about 15 minutes, died 3 times in that 15 minutes due to being stuck in a graveyard surrounded by mobs. 

I assume I'm missing some vital traits.  Will have to readjust and see.

[Johny Cee]

I guess I need to play more to adjust.  I only played for about 15 minutes, died 3 times in that 15 minutes due to being stuck in a graveyard surrounded by mobs. 

I assume I'm missing some vital traits.  Will have to readjust and see.

There are oodles of new quests for your level range in the new zone.  Most didn't seem to be too awful to solo/duo, though I was a little higher level then required for a bunch of them.

Some neat quests, too:  Blue Lady final quest (have to figure out the answer), carry a chest out of a town while dodging some folks, a new set of easy riddle quests on the salamander island....

Even the one group instance quest I tried was pretty neat.  Thief-Takers Bane has you traveling to an instance to defend three camps of rangers from successive waves of bandits (usually a few regular bandits and a couple elites per wave).  You need to split your group,  but that leaves one camp of rangers undefended.

Since failure is 3 rangers dying,  we did it a bunch of times right in a row trying to figure out a good strategy without the standard wipe/med/regroup time.  Made it pretty far in the waves once or twice,  got booted out quickly on another.

More of an interesting/thinking quest in coming up with and trying strategies, since it has a fast turnaround and at most maybe 1 or 2 group members might die.  Good change from some of the group quests that seem to involve grinding through endless numbers of much lower level elite mobs.

[Falconeer]

Book 9, level 50-ish epic multi step-quest and as of now highest epic story-quest available is mostly, if not all, solo. As in forced solo instances.

[Phred]

I guess I need to play more to adjust.  I only played for about 15 minutes, died 3 times in that 15 minutes due to being stuck in a graveyard surrounded by mobs. 

I assume I'm missing some vital traits.  Will have to readjust and see.

There are oodles of new quests for your level range in the new zone.  Most didn't seem to be too awful to solo/duo, though I was a little higher level then required for a bunch of them.

Some neat quests, too:  Blue Lady final quest (have to figure out the answer), carry a chest out of a town while dodging some folks, a new set of easy riddle quests on the salamander island....

Even the one group instance quest I tried was pretty neat.  Thief-Takers Bane has you traveling to an instance to defend three camps of rangers from successive waves of bandits (usually a few regular bandits and a couple elites per wave).  You need to split your group,  but that leaves one camp of rangers undefended.

Since failure is 3 rangers dying,  we did it a bunch of times right in a row trying to figure out a good strategy without the standard wipe/med/regroup time.  Made it pretty far in the waves once or twice,  got booted out quickly on another.

More of an interesting/thinking quest in coming up with and trying strategies, since it has a fast turnaround and at most maybe 1 or 2 group members might die.  Good change from some of the group quests that seem to involve grinding through endless numbers of much lower level elite mobs.

Overall I like the quests in the new zone, though I really was tired of that damn beast man camp after running 5 quests in it.

[Hound]

Played my LM a little.  Died a few times, grew frustrated and logged.  Wounds on LMs are just deadly.  No more kiting.

I don't know how to play this.  I'm supposed to let my pet tank completely?  Or I'm supposed to not ever get aggro?  I don't know what to do, but my old LM playing style is not working.  Considering it's the weakest class before the patch, and now it's been weakened further - at least my way of playing an LM is weakened.

I read somewhere that the next big patch, hunters and guardians get love.

So um.  Nail in the coffin and all that.

Have not played my lvl 22  LM since the patch, but my 38 minstrel was in a trio in a high level instance with a 44 LM and a 42 champ a couple of nights ago. The mobs were all orange and red to me so I assume the were blue and white to them but just the three of us wiped the instance clean a lot easier than I have seen it done with a full group. LMs are the hardest class I have ever played but can be deadly if done right. I remember reading that Turbine is going to give them the love not this next big patch but the one following it.

[Tannhauser]

I hear LM's are uber in MvP, maybe thats a motivating factor to level one up. 

I am really pleased with the Captain changes, it's a really fun, balanced class now.
On the flip side, the Captain sounds suck now and 1 minute buffs are annoying to keep reapplying. 

My Minstrel is a challenge to level up, especially with all the smacktards /telling me.

[gravdiggr]

I hear LM's are uber in MvP, maybe thats a motivating factor to level one up. 

Think of all the stupid broken mecanics of pvp (that happened in previous games) and give them all to the same class. That's pretty much what you have.
Actually, put a LM and a hunter together to really torture monsters

[Johny Cee]

I have fun with my Captain....  my biggest complaint is other players.

 - The guys that jump into fights without giving you time to summon a pet or buff.

 - The guys that have no clue that you just saved their asses with the Last Stand and In Harm's Way combo (take all damage for 20 seconds while you're invincible?  Kinda good.)

 - The guys that ask you why you weren't healing.

 - The guys that keep jumping off cliffs and inclines,  or sneak by mobs by jumping over things, while you have a pet summoned.  Ummm... the pet will path around that and grab aggro.

Blah.  If they'd fix pet pathing,  and buff up the usability of some of the skills (most of the best are only after deathblows or crits,  which means you're useless in boss fights), the class would be perfect.

[Tebonas]

I quit the class in Beta because of the pet. Other than that I loved the class.

[Register]

Got my LM up to 28... my LM doesn't feel weak at all - I can grind yellow cons with barely any down time and single adds are generally trivial. Compare to my hunter at 28, the DPS is just slightly lower, but the ability to survive adds is greatly increased with multiple in combat CCs (single target mez, 2x stuns and a AE root, another AE root coming at 36) and a Oh-shit 1k heal (wisdom of the council) on a 10 min timer that even grants me a stun proc shield buff when used.

I feel that the main 'trick' to note for LMs is to get the Improved Staff Strike(ISS) trait asap and to learn to observe and use Flanked when it occurs. Improved staff strike grants a significant (5sec?) stun on staff strike crits, converts all the staff strike damage to light damage instead of common damage, and grants big extra damage when used with flanked.

Flanked occurs randomly when your pet hits the mob - its a % chance to occur as opposed to a proc per minute chance, so the faster your pet wails on the target - the more flanked procs it will generate (i.e. raven procs alot more flanked than bear). When flanked procs you will see an buff icon similar to the pet attack icon appear on the target. The visual effect is some purple lines appear to converge on the mob.

When the mob is flanked, the LM can either use ISS - which does huge damage if it lands, or the LM can use SOP:Wizardry to proc an insta heal. My 28 LM can heal himself for around 280 a pop when using SOP:W with flanked. A non-crit ISS with flanked gets me around 180+ damage on an even con - ISS crits alot, so when ISS flanked crits its easily 260+ damage.

[Venkman]

It's funny, but I never tried hunting above my level until I ran out of what I thought of as soloable quests in Lone Lands. Turns out a 20-something Minstrel can hunting consistently up to their level +3. It's a long fight to be sure, and run if an add of any form shows up, but it's doable. I prefer to hunt at my level +2 because those go quick and I can handle an add. At my own level, I can easily handle three same levels. Not enough AOEs on the Mins at this level though.

Other classes kill stuff much quicker, but I prefer the self-healing to getting it done quick. I had those jollies with my Fire Mage in WoW so was looking for something different anyway :)

[SnakeCharmer]

I've had much better luck but I have some rules I follow:

1) If you don't even make an attempt to spell I won't join your group. I am not nitpicking about little stuff but if you post in LFF "r ne1 need Black Fire? LFM" I'm not joining your group or inviting you into mine. Period. Even if the reward for the quest is the Uber sword of orc slayage I won't. If you're too dumb to spell you're too dumb to use good tactics. This especially holds if you use r for are, u for you, ne1 for anyone or anything similiar.
2) If you have a name that is retarded I'm not joining your group. This means guys on my server like pdiddy, cheeseburgler, and powderpuff are not for me. And if I'm leading a fellowship I'll lie to you and tell you we're full if you ask to join. Why? because if you're too stupid to use a name that doesn't sound like a rapper or a mascot for a fast food chain or a little girl's doll then again, you're too stupid to use good tactis.
3) If you're spamming the LFF channel then you're desperate and there is usually a reason why. So again, I'm not joining your group or inviting you into mine. This one is sometimes bent a little depending on how the spam is done.

A w e s o m e.

I love you.