Skirmishes, first hand reports.

[Yegolev]

When I did my first one or two, it was hard and I was pretty sure it was that weak-ass soldier.  Now, after making him a protector (for a RK) and getting a few key parameters to three, I'm having a far easier time.  Not so much that I'm ready to do more than just adjust the level a bit, since it seems very touchy and it's easy to go overboard.  Personally, I'd much rather run a solo quickly twice than get a fraction more SM from something that makes me spend 315 silver on repairs.  Of course, the rare marks are harder to get.

[Tannhauser]

At lower levels skirmishes bring good xp and good gear.  But at 60 the gear blows.  I'm really enjoying them, but yes, they need some tweaking. 

[Yegolev]

I'm 43 and I don't see anything that looks incredibly better than my combination of quest and crafted gear.

[Lianka]

I really enjoyed skirmishes with my GRD. Much less so with a RK.  Who is the best pet for a RK?  My logic says protector, but mine, even after I've leveled him, still dies about 5 times per skirmish! 

[Ingmar]

I finally got someone to skirmish level, and I <3 these things a lot. Playing as a champion with a (an?) herbalist for a minion is a joy, I really get to hammer those AE skills.

The gear is pretty great for the level I'm at (although I just hit 40 and accidentally dumped all my marks into a full suit of level 43 armor /facepalm).

[Cheddar]

I finally got someone to skirmish level, and I <3 these things a lot. Playing as a champion with a (an?) herbalist for a minion is a joy, I really get to hammer those AE skills.

The gear is pretty great for the level I'm at (although I just hit 40 and accidentally dumped all my marks into a full suit of level 43 armor /facepalm).

I mostly skirmish.  I dunno why, but I love it.

edit.  Also Skirmish is one of the most efficient ways to level legendary items.  260ish marks for 60k xp?  SIGN ME UP! (at level 62 I get 250ish marks per)

[Zetor]

My guild switched back to lotro from wow for a while, and we're looking at doing skirmishes for our ~1h of daily play-together-time... the problem is that there are 4 of us playing right now. As I understand it, skirmish group sizes are 1-2-3-6; is it possible to do a 6man skirmish with 4 people (by underleveling etc) and is it worth it? Other option is just to split up into 3+1 or 2+2, but we want to avoid that.

[Zetor]

Ok, so we tried it today. 4-man team with 52 minstrel / 49 minstrel / 49 burglar / 50 loremaster (me); only tank was the 52 minstrel's protector pet. We were doing a level 49 tier 1 full-fellowship (6man) skirmish [mischief and mayhem, iirc?].

Verdict:

It actually didn't go too bad until the end. 'Trash mobs' were easy, and with the sheer healing throughput + kiting we could deal with single bosses (even nemesis-level) no problem. The biggest problem was only 1 tank, which manifested in a few wipes to a tag-team of two elite master-level wraith bosses; we had the protector pet occupy one while we burned/debuffed/kited the other, but a single slipup meant someone was going to die.

We got to the last encounter which was three [!] nemesis-level [!] bosses, at least one of which had heals, and the entire fight taking place in a tiny space in front of a town hall with no kiting possible. Yeahhhh. No chance.

We've been thinking of lowering the level enough so that the 52 minstrel would still get xp/marks... not sure if that'd do it by itself, though. Having a single pet tank for three nemesis-level mobs is not a very pretty thing; looks like I'll have to level my warden after all.

[Mrbloodworth]

Don't forget soldiers also have levels and ranks and such.

[Ingmar]

Yeah if you're just starting out your soldiers are the equivalent of level 29 dudes. Spend a bunch of marks on getting them up to snuff and things will be a lot better.

[Draegan]

For lack of a better thread, is anyone playing right now?  I just resubbed and I'm playing around with a runekeeper right now which I don't think I like.  To many abilities spamming back and forth it seems.  Anyone playing a Warden?  How do they seem?

Edit:
My level 9 Warden is pretty fun to play.  If there is a Kinship still "active" who should I talk too?

[Mrbloodworth]

For lack of a better thread, is anyone playing right now?  I just resubbed and I'm playing around with a runekeeper right now which I don't think I like.  To many abilities spamming back and forth it seems.  Anyone playing a Warden?  How do they seem?

Edit:
My level 9 Warden is pretty fun to play.  If there is a Kinship still "active" who should I talk too?

I can hop on and get you in.

[Cheddar]

For lack of a better thread, is anyone playing right now?  I just resubbed and I'm playing around with a runekeeper right now which I don't think I like.  To many abilities spamming back and forth it seems.  Anyone playing a Warden?  How do they seem?

Edit:
My level 9 Warden is pretty fun to play.  If there is a Kinship still "active" who should I talk too?

Yup, still active, still has most the same people.  Feel free to /tell Arzogar (thats my main dude right now).

[rattran]

Two and a half weeks and I'll be back playing again. Months without decent intarweb are makin' me stabby.

[Zetor]

My kinship ran through a variety of skirmishes (mostly tuckborough and gondamon since those are the only two available at 30ish). Feedback has been a bit "mixed". This is from the POV of a level 32-ish group with quest gear and very low level soldiers.

Solo t1 skirmishes seem easy (which is at should be imo, it's tier1 after all), never really had any problems with them.

Small group t1 skirmishes were mostly fine and a good challenge, except for one gondamon where we got a priestess of flame and tempest of flame in quick sequence while we were killing an encounter boss... they killed the defenders in about two seconds, and since our group had exactly one melee-range-only interrupt, trying to interrupt the aoe fire spell of the tempest of flame who was standing in a fire patch that kills you in about 3 seconds [created by the priestess of flame] was... yeah. Finally when we were at the end, Mathi [the guy you're supposed to keep alive] made it his #1 priority to break all CC on the dragon, resulting in the entire team getting firebreathed and him dying. We'll just chalk that one up to the RNG. :p

However, duo skirmish balance seems way, way out of whack. Both gondamon and tuckborough are basically identical to the 3-man versions [same mob types + numbers] with only marginally lower stats on the mobs. Two of my kinmates ran tuck-2 and thievery-2 quite a few times*, but only managed to win when they downleveled it by 4 or 5. Then I joined them on my same level captain and we burned through the small fellowship version effortlessly (on same-level, even).


* I know there's a bug that resets duos to small fellowships, but they triple-checked before joining the skirmish so that can't have been it

[Soln]

duo's are indeed bugged.  No idea how to avoid it.  GLFF unhappy.

[Zetor]

Some more first-hand reports, now with a whole lotta skirmishing experience at 35-ish (alts) and 52-ish (mains). This is mostly from the pov of 3-man [small fellowship] skirms at tier 1 (we actually did a tier 2 prancing pony the other day as lm/guard/burg, wasn't bad at all... just had more mobs and some more hp on the bosses).

Siege of Gondamon: A bit too long; there are what, 32 waves altogether? I think it'd be fine with just 20 or so. Sometimes Mathi behaves, other times he makes it his #1 priority to break any and all CC.
Trouble in Tuckborough: This skirmish forced my warden alt to 'l2p' and now I can aoe tank (sorta). The last boss can be nasty, I think having a CCer for the lieutenant adds is crucial, along with saving all big-damage abilities until the end.
Thievery and Mischief: Pretty straightforward. I think the end encounter of this one is more intense than the others, we frequently win with everyone on low morale/power and all cooldowns used.
Defense of the Prancing Pony: One of the easier ones I think. Never really had a problem (on our tier 2 run a torch-bearer got to the inn once, but that's because someone facepulled an encounter boss while we were fighting a lt).
Stand at Amon Sul: Something must be bugged with this... candaith practically soloes the entire skirmish as long as the torches are lit (especially on solo). The only trouble seems to be keeping him alive when he draws all aggro on the cargul (I had to spec my captain for healing and it was still a very close call).
Survival - Barrow-downs: oh god. I think we survived for 12 mins once, but we were just completely overwhelmed; everyone ran out of power (including me as the LM with power drain, potions, etc) and they just kept coming. Is there a trick to this? Or do we just need more dps (our makeup was ancient master traited lm / guardian / burglar)... I've heard of people surviving the entire thing solo with a herbalist soldier, so there must be something.

Specific LTs we had trouble with (but dealt with them... mostly):
Enraged uruk-hai dude: I think the key thing is to pull him with a CC before he reaches the group; his first move is to pop his 'CC immunity and hit like a truck' skill. Needs Benny Hill music when that happens.
Priestess of Flame: this boss used to be hell, but we've adapted... just gotta keep running around like crazy (kiting her around the map if possible), and most of the fire patches will be harmless.
Tempest of Flame: now THIS dude is pain city. In one of our alt groups [lm/cap/hnt] we have no interrupts (captains get one at 40+) and few stuns / mezes to interrupt the fire thing. It does a ridiculous amount of damage and outranging it doesn't seem to work (I think?).
Frozen Squall: we still haven't figured out what makes him blow up the group when he gets low... we just have the tank kite him far away (if possible) and have everyone else range it. Is the big-splosion interruptable?

We might start doing full-fellowship skirms soon, though only with 4-5 people... will be 'interesting' for sure. 

[Hutch]

I've been running solo skirmishes from level 30-35 with my Hunter alt.

My soldier is a Protector. I did find, as has been noted already here, that my protector started out really squishy and died often. Now that I've leveled her up a couple of times, and slotted out her skills and training, she only dies if something goes wonky. (For example, in my Tuckborough mission yesterday, one pull somehow consisted of two louies, and all their attendant trash mobs. We both died o.O)

The protector has idiot AI. Maybe they all do, but I've only really run with a protector so far. She only aggroes if I direct her to (one time per minute), or if something comes into melee range. Even if I'm dueling it out with a Hale ranged opponent, she'll just stand there unless I move closer.

That's another thing. Once my protector thinks a fight is over, she'll try to stay in the same relative position to me, if I start moving around. This can come in handy, but it just as often ends up with her running into walls and such. Or worse, aggroing something. Is she trying to stay "in formation"?

Gear: At level 33, I upgraded every piece of armor with the skirmish set. Melee weapons too, and by spending a First Mark I was able to slightly upgrade my bow. IIRC the next skirmish set is for level 37 toons.

[Ingmar]

The herbalist acts exactly the same in terms of trying to stand in the same relative position. Of course it doesn't really matter where she stands as long as she can heal you.

[Mrbloodworth]

If its an issue, just re-summon, this will rest the distance and position as well as refresh the moral and power.

[Sir T]

What level so you have to be to do skirmishes and how to you do it?

[Mrbloodworth]

What level so you have to be to do skirmishes and how to you do it?

30 + and you will get pointed to a skirmish camp to start around that time.

[Sir T]

Thanks

[Mrbloodworth]

Just as reference, I think this is still current for the most part even with the recent changes: Getting started with the LotRO Skirmish system I think the things that really only differ are locations,the new skirmishes, and the addition of the two man and such.

[Yegolev]

The button which opens the skirmish screen, I had to put that into my toolbar.  The game told me exactly one time which keypress to use to open it and I forgot it sometime during the tutorial skirmishes.  I spent way too long asking the Skirmish Captain to open the window, thinking he worked like other questy NPCs.  Eventually I figured it out, possibly by visiting the keybinding options page or by customizing my lefthand toolbar.

[Ingmar]

Ctrl-J!

[Yegolev]

Somehow, CTRL-J does not say "Skirmish!" to me.

[Ingmar]

The J is silent.

[Sir T]

Surely you have heard the great barbarian war cry "CTRLJ!!!"

[Tarami]

Somehow, CTRL-J does not say "Skirmish!" to me.

Think of jambalaya, it's like a skirmish in the frying pan.

Good God I should be sleeping.

[Xeyi]

I just click that small up-arrow to the far left of the toolbar, everything seems to be in there.

I've just started having a go at a few skirmishes and the protector AI is indeed complete garbage.  Already I've been clobbered brutally to death a few times while my "protector" was stood 5 yards away twiddling his thumbs. 

I also tried a warrior and his AI seemed a good deal better.  He did have a tendency to charge off head first into anything in the vicinity, but I prefer that to the protector's gandhi-esque approach to violence.

It also seems that every soldier possesses the complete inability to scale hills.  This happens all the time in the Tuckborough skirmish where I have to frequently resummon them.  It's a minor annoyance really but it's puzzling how my herald skips along at my side with no problems at all, while my soldier can't even scale a mild rise.

Overall skirmishes are fun so far, but they'd be far less frustrating if they could somehow copy/paste the herald pathfinding and lower the cooldown on the direct soldier action a tad.