Introduction

One of the peculiar features of LOTRO skirmishes are the lieutenants. During the course of a skirmish run, you will face a number of lieutenants. Unlike the mini-bosses in other instances, each lieutenant you face will be selected at random from a pool of available lieutenants. The key is that all skirmishes share the same pool of lieutenants (though most skirmishes will only use a subset of this pool due to lore or plausibility reasons).

In this series, we will look at each of the lieutenants you can face while skirmishing in Middle-earth.

Bearer of Blight

Skirmishes:         All

Group Settings:  All

We will start with one of the more common lieutenants. The Bearer of Blight can appear in any skirmish as well as any size of skirmish.

The Bearer of Blight is a rather nasty uruk that likes to deliver potent sweeping attacks that hits all nearby enemies of the uruk. The first such attack is generally made early in the fight (around when the first player character is standing near the lieutenant) while additional ones will be made later in the fight if the Bearer is still alive. For this reason, I often kill this lieutenant first to prevent that second area attack.

The trouble with the sweeping attack is that it places a debuff on anyone that the attack hits. There is one such attack for each of the four debuff types (disease, fear, poison, and wound). Fortunately, these can be cured with the appropriate skills and potions. For those who have trouble seeing their debuff icons, the Bearer will give you a hint by taunting us as he makes his attack (e.g., “Poison will burn you veins” for a poison attack).

Disease Blade

Taunt: “Disease rots your flesh!”

Effect: +50% incoming damage, -50% incoming healing

Duration: 20 seconds

After getting hit with this effect, you will take more damage and have a tougher time healing after you are damaged. This is definitely an anti-tank attack. Who’s the most likely person to be next to the Bearer? The tank, of course. Who takes the bulk of the damage? The tank of course. Who is most likely to spend a pot to remove this effect? The tank of course.

If you have no means to cure this effect, then you could try having one player tank the Bearer of Blight and another player (who is out of range of the Bearer of Blight) tank the trash.

Fear Blade

Taunt: “Fear my power!”

Effect: -50% outgoing damage, -50% outgoing healing

Duration: 20 seconds

This blade makes you too scared to be fully effectual. This effect will most likely hurt the melee fighters (such as champions or burglars) the most. Yes, it does put a crimp on the healers but they should be staying out of range anyway.

One way around this is to allow the tank to get up close and build hate (and take the sweeping arc effect) before everyone else joins in the fight (or have them take out one of the trash mobs until then to reduce the pounding the tank will get if there was a disease blade instead).

Poison Blade

Taunt: “Poison will burn you veins!”

Effect: Common damage every 2 seconds

Duration: 20 seconds

Compared to the other effects, this is the mildest of the bunch. OK, a little poison damage. The class most likely to be affected is the burglar (the squishiest of the melee classes) and they have a poison cure skill.

Wound Blade

Taunt: “Your wounds will be deep!”

Effect: Disarmed of all weapons

Duration: 8 seconds

I consider this to be the worst of the effects. It’s amazing how long eight seconds feels like when you are disarmed.

When I say “disarmed” I don’t mean just of your primary weapons. This guy must have given you a gash in your arm that you are forced to attend to before you can use any of your equipment. Hunters can ignore most disarm effects (as most others do not affect ranged weapons) but not this one.

When this happens, my warden is left with just a couple yells and a pair or fists (see the screen shot at the top).

Conclusion

The bottom line is that if you don’t need to be next to this lieutenant, then stay away from him.

If you are part of a group and have an appropriate curative skill that affects everyone in the fellowship, then please use it.
Next week, we will look at the Blood Rook.

May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles