The problem Tom & I had when we lowered the level difficulty of the skirmish was the sheer number of attacking mobs. We were still killing dudes from the first wave when about 10 more came into the fight. We had each had a melee damage warrior fighting, plus my pet, and we were still overwhelmed.
Voice chat would have helped to make sure we were all assisting on the same targets, and pets don’t help much (a pet won’t tell you in-game “Dude, I’m at 25% health, need a heal”), but still the problem was that we couldn’t kill fast enough to win the fight.
A “Duo” setting in skirmish would be great. Failing that, more of the old Knights Of Quarter To Three need to get on this! Turbine is really doing something interesting and fairly original with this new expansion, and it definitely is the kind of thing worth checking out!
I’ll admit, I haven’t done much with the skirmishes beyond the requisite quests. Nairb is currently a kinless Ronin, having become disillusioned with the Legends of Moria (which, even with 1200-some members, is patently unhelpful), so it’s hard to find a good group.
I’m willing to try, though! Send me a tell – I’m on most evenings – and if the Knights are resurrecting, I’ll gladly accept an invite!
You technically have just one soldier. He’s a collection of empty slots you can fill with Attributes, Skills and Training abilities.
Attributes include a class (Sage, Warrior, etc.) and cosmetic effects like race, hairstyles and clothing. Each class ability can also be assigned a character name. So, in a way, each class you’ve leveled up is a separate entity.
Skills are active abilities a Soldier will employ in battle and they tend to use up Power. They can be leveled up individually, are class dependent, and rare or unique ones can be purchased only from the Skirmish captain for more than the default Skills.
Trained abilities aren’t always class dependent and tend to be passive mods that enhance stats, improve armor or defense and offense, or the effectiveness of skills//healing/etc. A Training ability that improves healing output would only effect the Herbalist, for example, while one that improves Power regeneration could be used for her or any Soldier.
You assemble all of these into a Soldier at the Skirmish Captain. Think of him as a Minstrel where you set character traits up but, instead, this guy lets you put your soldier together.
That’s the one you’ll have with you when you next skirmish.
What’s not so great is that you can’t just lock a bunch of these traits together into a template. You have to assemble your Soldiers from scratch each time you switch classes.
I set up a ;target alias last week to help with this. It helps a lot even when you have voice chat.
From the lotro forums
To create a new alias, type:
/alias add ;aliasname <alias commands>
Now for my mez alias, I want to let my group know what target I’m mezzing, so I type the following:
/alias add ;meztarget /f -=[ Mezzing ;target ]=-
So now I have the alias ;meztarget which when used will output -=[ Mezzing <name of what I have targetted> ]=-to the fellowship channel.
Obviously, typing ;meztarget everytime I want my fellowship to know what I’m mezzing is tedious, so we will want to bind this to a button on our quickslot bars.
There are 6 quickslot bars, numbered 1 - 72, 1 being the first slot on the first bar, 72 being the last slot on bar 4 (12 slots per bar). Now I have alot of skills on my quickslots already, so I’m going to want to put this Mez alias on the first slot of my 4th bar, which would be slot #37.
Using the shortcut command, we type:
/shortcut 37 ;meztarget
This will place the ;meztarget alias into the 37th quickslot. Now, be sure when you place your alias into the quickslot bar using the shortcut command, that you ARE NOT TARGETTING ANYTHING. Otherwise it will automatically take your targetted value and store that in the quickslot instead of the ;target alias.
Now when I run CD, or what have you, it’s just 1 click and my fellowship knows that I’m -=[ Mezzing Gorthog Flayer ]=-
Any low 30’s folks hanging out on Nimrodel these days? I still need to get into the QT3 kinship and that might help me find some. I’m at the early epic quests in book 3(I don’t remember which ones specifically, they are quests to convince the Elves and Humans to join the council) if anyone else happens to be stalled out there. Generally can make it on after 6:30pm EST.
I’ve got a level 61 hunter (Trestolt), a 60 mini (Sesuadra), and a 60 rune-keeper (Obodiah), so if you see any of these logged on (Nimrodel) give me a shout. I don’t think my RK did a lot of the book quests, so be glad to tag along and help get those done and with a 1st age rune stone his dps is pretty solid.
Btw, what exactly are you supposed to be doing with skirmishes after you complete the tutorial stuff in Bree? I’m completely flummoxed as to what comes next with that, and I’d love to do more since it seemed quite fun.
I think I got another letter in the mail to start the next quest, but I believe I acidentally destroyed it.
I’m pretty amazed that Turbine fumbled the next step so badly, but I was in the same boat. “Okay, great, that was fun! Uh, now what?” I ran around visiting the different dudes in the camp a few times over to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
You’d never know this and I had to pore over the online help to figure it out, but you have to hit CTL+J to start a new skirmish. You can do this from anyplace in the world, at any time.
I think it’s either ctrl-I or ctrl-J that gives you the skirmish setup menu. Then you can select which ones to do. Some of the higher level ones are opened by doing epic quests in Mirkwood. Also notice that you get a bonus 100 skirmish marks the first time you do a skirmish each day. This is to encourage people to try different skirmishes rather than grind the same one over and over.
I have a champion, runekeeper, and a warden all at either 30 or 29 right now. Book 3 still requires a full or near full fellowship tho so you will need other help also. What is your character’s name? The three I listed above are Ironbar, Trisaran, and Malibu so if you see them on send a tell. I have an officer alt that can invite you into the kin as well. Last night was the most activity I’ve seen in the kinship in months and it was only 6 people on!
Nodrorin is my 32 Champion. I got the quest done to convince the dwarves to join the council and it did end up taking 4 of us. Just happened to be doing a different quest over there and came across a group trying to do that quest. About the only experience since level 30 that hasn’t come from skirmishes.
I’ll be on almost certainly. Just need to know which books and what level approximate toons you’re looking for, and a rough idea of what times you’ll be on. I’ve got some gift cards to buy for some employees that day, but other than that I should be around a bit.
