The title says it all: I want to start a groupminstrel and want to use the lvl 44 snare style in the piercing line and get into the RvR as fast as possible.
If I am correct this means not putting any point into instruments until 36 or higher (which is better if you consider respeccing to stealth later if you get bored with your old spec some day).

What would you recommend? Is it worth using AT up to lvl 48 just to have 50inst/44pierc/8stealth or for the sake of being able to use 33 Stealth/30 Weapon instead of 32 Stealth/30 Weapon if I ever respec?

At the moment I am planning to start speccing instruments with 36 because I imagine the later levels to take years without instruments.
But I ask myself if even this is an viable option for someone who neither has a guild nor friends who help him level his pve gimpstrel and only plays casually(=not every day). Why should any group invite me if Iall I can do is low melee damage? Will I have to solo all my way up to level 36?

It would be great if anyone could share their experience with their autotrain leveled minstrel.

Plus I would like to know if a minstrel without AT would perform significantly worse and if there is any difference between 50instru/43 pierce nad 50instr/43 slash.


thanks in advance Torgen

Heres the thing with the 44 thrust style on a minstrel. you arent a peel tank.

while its nice to throw out a peel when you can, your job is interupts, demez, and maybe the occaisional flute emz of someoe the sorc missed. your position in a fight doesnt usually make itself that condusive to peelig. plus you yourself are semi squishy. you arent an armsman or pally. leave the primary peel tank duties to them.

IF you did have to peel, the lvl 18 slash style side slicer is more than sufficient. yes, its side instead of rear, but with a little anticipation of the direction they are runnign in its easy to get off.

have you ever tried landing the 2 part snare chain on someone with the craptastic weaponskill that misntrels have? if you dont whiff the first style, you whiff the second, or they 360 evade it. the 44 thrust style sounds awesome, but in actual use it is mediocre at best.

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IMO (assuming its not nerfed here) if you really want to be an epic peel tank... level an envenom bot (which if you never dual log and just swagp prepoisoned weapons via vaults is completely legit). carry 20 prepoisoned crafted weapons (sced to match your nomral weapon as close as possible) with snare poisons on them. assassin snare poison lasts like 2 minutes, doesnt break on dmg, and is a far supperior peel than any style you could ever spec for. so if your intent was to be leet, try harder.
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so to summarize:
1) you dont need to go 44 thrust.
2) even for visi 8man id suggest keepign 25 stealth and the rest in slash. climb walls is just too damned good.
3) if you really want a snare, either side style, or envenom bot.

as for how to level. umm it sucks. on live i did task dungeons with full weapon spec and rest in stealth. and would stealth to the mobs i needed to kill.

here, you are just a sub par melee tank. so the best i can say is buy a bunch of tinderboxes and buff pots, and hope for the best.

sorry for OT but you are Netchel from Dark Auspices?

yes that would be me

Thanks for the answers!
First of all I wanna ask what a peel tank is, because I only know the word to peel for clearing a fruit of its skin. (I am german)

I wanted to have the 44thrust style mainly for doing solo runs and being able to kite others. Or arent solo minstrels effective on Uthgard due to the lack of MLs?
I once played as a 50instru,29slash,33 stealth Minstrel on some i50 shard and while it was fun to kite and kill enemies who didnt consider fighting minstrels any challenge, it was annoying to see so many of your hits miss and other stealthers detect you. And then I met a solo Minstrel who didnt use stealth and he performed considerably better than I did in melee.
Does anyone know how solo Minstrels perform without masterlevels (zephyr etc.)

Additionaly I thought it would be quiet nice to be able to snare enemies who are chasing your casters/healers if they have mezz and stun immu.

Since I am not into torturing myself to level 50 I think I wont go autotrain.
But I am not sure if I should use a spec with 25 stealth or pure melee because I read in another thread that somebody said you should have 44 Weapon and the snare style for group RvR because it gives you many benefits like hitting your enemies more often while you rupt them and makes it harder for them to create a distance if you let off them for a few seconds. Would be nice to hear some more opinions on that.

1) you dont need to go 44 thrust.
2) even for visi 8man id suggest keepign 25 stealth and the rest in slash. climb walls is just too damned good.
3) if you really want a snare, either side style, or envenom bot

1)+3) Ignoring the slightly better snarestyle in thrust which advantages do thrust and slash have? Is thrust better because dex is your secondary and str your third attribute? Does one of them have resist advantages or simply better styles (more to hit, more damage, etc.)
2) What is 25 Stealth good for?
For stealth groups I consider it too low because any assassin would see you on a mile and you would reveal your whole group to them.
In a visi 8man I dont see much of a benefit either. Sure I can climb walls, but assassins will probably PA me off the wall instantly.
And for a non-siege fight I only see the benefit of being able to stealth in the beginning to avoid a mezz and then demezz your groupmates. Now that I think about it this sounds really good but is it doable in practice? Won't AE mezzes still hit you most of the time?

So it all comes down to wether I use 50instru/43weapon or 50instru/34weapon/25stealth and which kind of weapon to chose.



I am sorry for my poor style of writing but I am german and have fever at the moment, so it might sound a bit awkward

I am certain I am not alone in the belief that If yuo solo, you will want at least 25 stealth.

Whether you chose 25 stealth 34 slash, or 31 stealth/29 slash (or 30/30) is entirely up to you, but 25 stealth is pretty much manditory for solo. Heres why...

CLIMB WALLS!
1) Action is often slow on uthgard due to population and playstyles. You will have slgihtly better action due to being in europe, but climb walls gives you the unique option of beign able to do gaurd missions very quickly. 1.2k rps for 15 minutes work is not bad during slow times.

2) Climb walls will help you get more kills. on players inside keeps, on people doing guard missions.

3) Climb walls is an amazing escape tool. being able to lose a tank by climbing into a keep (even if the enemy owns it) is very funny. they have to run all the way to the front gate just to get in, while you just scramble up the wall and restealth. this is of the most use in the bgs, but will still come in handy in the end game.

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STEALTH:

1) as a visi solo, you will get zerged down. keep in mind that any hib group has speed 6 by default (bard), and 99% of mid groups have it as well (skald is standard, and nobody will leave the pk withotu a shammy). so you will get run down and killed a lot if you cant hide occaisionally.

2) the element of surprise is great. yes, 25 stealth wont keep you from being seen up close, but it will easily let you into the 500-1000 range you need to be in to be effective. and very often it will get you into melee range before they see you.

These two reasons combine let you pick your fights. hide from the ones you cant win, and surprise those who would try to run from you. this is why stealthers dominate this server.

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Other reasons:
safe fall can be handy when fighting around mile gates and keeps. if you can get tougher tanks to jump off a wall a couple times durign a fight it can make the difference in extra dmg done to them. with safe fall 3 (30 stealth) I take 1-2% dmg jumping out of a keep. if a tank follows me they will take 20%. that is a big deal. then if im losing i can just turn around and climb right back up the wall and leave them outside

Netchel wrote:I am certain I am not alone in the belief that If yuo solo, you will want at least 25 stealth.

Whether you chose 25 stealth 34 slash, or 31 stealth/29 slash (or 30/30) is entirely up to you, but 25 stealth is pretty much manditory for solo. Heres why...

CLIMB WALLS!
1) Action is often slow on uthgard due to population and playstyles. You will have slgihtly better action due to being in europe, but climb walls gives you the unique option of beign able to do gaurd missions very quickly. 1.2k rps for 15 minutes work is not bad during slow times.

2) Climb walls will help you get more kills. on players inside keeps, on people doing guard missions.

3) Climb walls is an amazing escape tool. being able to lose a tank by climbing into a keep (even if the enemy owns it) is very funny. they have to run all the way to the front gate just to get in, while you just scramble up the wall and restealth. this is of the most use in the bgs, but will still come in handy in the end game.

Sounds all very logical and practicable. Is stealth also useful for grp fights? Is it really practicable to stealth as soon as your grp is in range to mezz the enemie, fall behind a bit and then quickly demezz your mates if the others land their mezz first?

STEALTH:

1) as a visi solo, you will get zerged down. keep in mind that any hib group has speed 6 by default (bard), and 99% of mid groups have it as well (skald is standard, and nobody will leave the pk withotu a shammy). so you will get run down and killed a lot if you cant hide occaisionally.

I absolutely did not consider this because the last time I played was on some i50 with buffbots. Hence everybody had endureg.

2) the element of surprise is great. yes, 25 stealth wont keep you from being seen up close, but it will easily let you into the 500-1000 range you need to be in to be effective. and very often it will get you into melee range before they see you.

Any idea how much 25 vs 31 differs against an assassin that has a spec of 35? Can one somehow calculate on how much units he would see me? I think I remember that years ago I read a formula for this.

Other reasons:
safe fall can be handy when fighting around mile gates and keeps. if you can get tougher tanks to jump off a wall a couple times durign a fight it can make the difference in extra dmg done to them. with safe fall 3 (30 stealth) I take 1-2% dmg jumping out of a keep. if a tank follows me they will take 20%. that is a big deal. then if im losing i can just turn around and climb right back up the wall and leave them outside

sounds quite funny for the minst and very annoying for the tank

Against assassins it isn't a big deal if you have 25 or capped, they will find you anyways. It does help alot against other stealthers (when archers loose MOS) and to remain hidden from that fg that try to find you just as you stealth after finishing of that pesky lurikeen.

1) minstrel stealth is not like assassin or archer stealth because we have no access to MOS (mastery of stealth). even if you had 50+21 stealth, they would still see you from damned far away and you wouldnt see them. its stupid. but thats how it works.

2) general rule of thumb for composite stealth spec vs visis.

48-50= perfect stealth. they can run through you and may or may not see you blick for a second, but odds of them beign able to find you and pop you are very slim. odds are if somethign is popping you, its an enemy stealth adn not a visi.

46-47= good enough for general use. you can get into melee range of anyone easily, and they stil will likely run past you and not pop you. if a full group runs though you, you need to move because out of 8 people, one of them probably will be able to see you. and with 8 looking they have an ok chance of popping you. still this is more than enough stealth for a minstrel.

42-45 = ok stealth. in melee range pretty much anyone will be able to see your "shaddow" and if you stand there for mroe than a few second they will pop you. however, it is more than enough to get the job done. if you have a decent head start for when you stealth, you can lose a solo or group reasonably easily. but if you get unlucky they can find you.

~40 = positional stealth. its best to hang back a little off the path with this. but standing off to the side in the trees, you can safely wait until a good target comes by. still, even with stealth this low, you can get within 500-1000 units just fine. you will know when they see you when the standing caster suddenly starts running or tries to swing at you. as soon as you see them flinch, use your instas and go to town.
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so really the differences between 31 and 25 stealth are:

1) safe fall 3 vs safe fall 2: imo not important. I like having 3, but I wouldnt spec for it.
2) the difference of beign able to get into melee range more often, and a slightly higher chance of escaping full groups.

I'd suggest going 25 stealth 34 slash. The reason I went higher stealth was because I intended to group with other stealthers often.

What a great thread.

Been looking around for something like this to help decide on final spec and stealth options.

I agree stealth must be minimum 25 for all BUT 100% grouping minstrels. And even then, there will be times for whatever reason you you will want to enter a keep or play the stealth game. Not having that option would really suck.

I just hit 43 and have not AT at all. Would be way too grindy getting to Thid and beyond for my playstyle and the fact I'm in NA EST. At 43.5 in Wilton will have 25 stealth, 43 instruments and *cough* 21 slash.

Again, great thread / replies.