Frequently one of the most asked questions, Does Race Matter? Each race has built in "strength" and "weaknesses" and each race comes with traits that can be equipped for use. Here they are as follows:
Hobbit – Has access to a second flop, a skill which allows you to lose aggro from mobs, so they can either return to their spawn location, or back to the tank. This can be convenient if you are a solo player, which most that play this game are until they reach end-cap. This skill was previously very useful in instances however they have been disabled in newer instances, so there is less impact. Here are your available passives:
Here are the traits and skills you can get such as the play dead skill:
Men – Have a nice 5% incoming healing self-buff which makes healing yourself a bit easier. They also have the skill Duty Bound which increases the morale of you fellowship by 5% (significant amount at level cap) for 10 minutes, you can use this every 30 minutes.
Elf – Their skill that is useful is Eldar’s Grace, which allows them to parry 75% of attacks for 10s, which can be nice defensive tool. The downside is that it has a significant cooldown of 30 minutes before you can use it again. Here are the passives available:
The same with every race there is a set of traits you can choose to equip.
Dwarf – They have a similar defensive tool like the elves with Endurance of Stone which provides negates 50% incoming damage for 10s. This is a decent buff in instances and groups as some bosses often can’t be parried or do significant damage. This skill also has a cooldown of 30 minutes. They have these passives built in:
Then there is some traitable skills/abilities that become available to you:
High Elf – This is a new race introduced to lotro and great for soloing as a minstrel. They have a bonus of 5% light damage, and light damage is almost all of minstrel’s attacks, and a skill that gives the fellowship a bonus 5% damage for 10 seconds. Here are the passive's that are part of the high-elf race.
They also have a 10% out of combat run speed and some bonus Will. It isn't important for a minstrel, but they also have a resurrect skill that can be used every 30 minutes. Here are the traitable skills and bonuses available to the race.
Stout-Axe - The latest dwarf race introduced into lotro and they have drawbacks to being a minstrel class, but they also have some in their favor. I would say with their abilities these guys would make great Rune-Keepers or Guardians.
The mitigations and resistance might be helpful throughout your play, but the bonus could be negligible in the grand scheme of things. You do have the following skills/traits that you can equip that could be helpful.
All in all, which class you pick really comes down to personal preference. Pick what you will enjoy most aesthetically rather than trying to pick the very best as no one judges you for your race usually.