Ask Pineleaf: Does defeat affect skirmish rewards?

Skirmish News

Belwynne asks:

Is there any difference in marks and medallions awarded if you die during a skirmish and if you don’t?

What other factors impact # of medallions/marks awarded?

Skirmish Awards

We will start with the broader question: what factors affect your mark/medallion awards in a skirmish?

Marks are awarded each time you complete a goal within a skirmish (e.g., control point, encounter, or keeping defenders alive). Generally, the later the goal is in the skirmish, the higher the award. This award is multiplied by various factors to determine your final award for completing that goal.

  1. The first factor is the level at which you are running the skirmish. This factor doubles approximately every 16 levels. Therefore, you will get many more marks for running a level-85 skirmish than you would for running a level-30 skirmish.
  2. The second is your relative level to the level of the skirmish. Therefore, a level-57 character will receive about 10% more marks for completing a level-60 skirmish than a level-60 character would in running the same skirmish at the same level. Due to the first factor, this would be about 20% more marks than if you had run the skirmish at level 57. This isn’t bad if you wanted to run one specific skirmish, assuming you can run that skirmish at the same tier as you would at your own level. Note that this also doesn’t take into account the possibility that it will take you longer to run the skirmish at three-levels higher. Generally, I only worry about increasing the level in a solo skirmish if it will place me in a higher skirmish award band (for more lucrative bounties and better relics). The award bands start at 20, 30, 50, 60, 66, and 76.
  3. Third, we have the group size. The larger the group size, the greater the adjustment for the rewards.
  4. Fourth, we have the tier at which you are running the skirmish. A Tier 2 run provides a better award bonus than a Tier 1 run. Since you can still use the Advanced tab when increasing the Tier, this is generally a better way to improve your marks reward than increasing the skirmish level. This also increases the frequency of relic drops (though it will not affect the quality as you can if you increase the level to a higher reward band).
  5. Fifth, we have the bonus for using the instance Finder Advanced tab. If you allow the Instance Finder to select any skirmish at random, then you receive a 50% bonus to your rewards. The percentage is prorated depending on the number of skirmishes you have available and the number you include in the selection pool.
  6. Finally, we get to the Shame of Defeat penalty, which is the adjustment that prompted Belwynne’s question.

Shame of Defeat

Whenever you are defeated in a skirmish, you receive a Shame of Defeat debuff. This debuff lasts for one hour, or until you successfully complete s skirmish. If you are defeated again while you have the Shame of Defeat debuff, then the one-hour timer is reset and you receive another tier of the effect. The first 11 tiers are listed in the table below.

Defeats Penalty Defeats Penalty

1

10%

7

25%

2

13%

8

26.5%

3

16%

9

28%

4

19%

10

29%

5

21%

11

30%

6

23%

 

Note that this does not apply to Survival: Barrow Downs. That skirmish has a different set of rules for mark awards and defeat that is outside the scope of this article.

What can you do about the Shame of Defeat penalty?

  1. Your first option involves the LOTRO store (which I presume is a surprise to no one). Under Goods & Services > Skirmish Items, you will find an item called “Remove Skirmish Defeat Penalty” (x1 for 20TP or x5 for 85TP). This will remove your current Shame of Defeat penalty. If you are getting repeatedly defeated in the boss fight for Icy Crevasse, then you can use one of these to remove the penalty after defeating the boss but before taking the flag.
  2. Your second option is to spend 8000 Destiny Points for the same effect, which I find to be a bit over-priced. This will only be available for VIP players.
  3. Under some situations, you can vary when you run encounters to mitigate this effect. For example, if an encounter is particularly tough, you can save it until after the boss fight so that you get full marks from the boss fight before risking defeat during the encounter. There are four problems with this: some skirmishes don’t allow you to run encounters after the boss fight (such as Ford of Bruinen), you only get credit for the deed if you complete the encounter before you end the skirmish (which is relevant only if you don’t have credit for that encounter yet), you won’t get much use of the flags dropped by the encounter boss (of course, many players don’t use these anyway), and you may be stuck with a Shame of Defeat penalty in your next skirmish if you plan on running another one within the next hour.
  4. Finally, you can decide to just live with the debuff. This is the option that I generally choose.

The main thing to remember is that if increasing the tier or level of the skirmish will cause you to be defeated more often, then the bonuses you receive for the run may be negated by the defeats. In addition, in many skirmishes (especially offensive skirmishes) each defeat can mean a long run back to where you were defeated. For some players, the loss of time may be as important as the loss of marks.

May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles

Up Next on the PineleafNeedles Twitch Channel

After last week’s successful run, thePineleafNeedles Twitch channel will get into full swing this week. I have posted a schedule on the site.

I will be broadcasting The Fellowship of the Creeps during each episode I am attending. This show airs on Saturdays at 5:00 PM Server Time (so the next episode will be today).

The next PVE LOTRO event will be the premier of the Stones of Wildermore, which will broadcast on Monday, July 1 at 8:00 PM Server Time. Episodes are scheduled to be broadcasted on Mondays. As the name suggests, I will be venturing into the land of Wildermore with my Rune-keeper. This will be my first time through that land with a lightly-armored character.

At least with Eldaeriel’s map handy, I should have no trouble finding those pesky war bands.

Wildermore Warbands

The next skirmish-related event is set for Thursday, July 4 at 10:00 AM Server time. This will be another skirmish marathon, where I will attempt to complete all of the skirmishes within the session (estimated time is currently eight hours). I have decided to run this session with my guardian, who is currently level 75 (and is thus leveling but still has all of the skirmishes unlocked).

The biggest upcoming event, though, will be on July 20, where I will be broadcasting Weatherstock V. The pre-concert show will begin at Noon (Server Time, of course) while the concert itself is scheduled to start at 1:00 PM Server Time.

weatherstock_5th_annual_01_darkblue_600 - Copy

This broadcast will be perfect for those who either cannot make the concert or who have computers that cannot handle the load. The computer I had during my first two Weatherstocks was certainly unable to handle this event (fortunately, my current system is much more robust and I survived last year’s event with no issues).

Let’s not make the Lonely Mountain Band feel Lonely.

Edit: Stones of Wildermore has moved to Mondays.

May your shield protect you and your connection never break,

Pineleaf Needles

Ask Pineleaf: Do Pages Drop in Skirmishes?

Dourhand in Icy Crevasse

 

Lilikate asks

Do book pages drop in skirmishes?

By “book pages,” I presume she means the ones associated with the legendary class deeds you unlock at level 39.

The short answer is “Yes.”

Naturally, it’s not quite that simple.

First, skirmish mobs follow the same rule concerning page drops as landscape mobs: the mobs must be within specific zones. These zones are Angmar, Eregion, Misty Mountains, Forochel, and Moria. As of this writing, there are only five skirmishes within these zones: The Icy Crevasse, Battle of the Deep-way, Battle of the Way of SmithsBattle of the Twenty-first Hall, and Rescue at Nûrz Ghâshu.

Usually when I take a character through Moria, I manage to complete all of the page deeds before I unlocked any of the Moria skirmishes (and I unlock Rescue even later). Therefore,the vast majority of may skirmish page drops were from The Icy Crevasse (I have only one page drop from a Moria skirmish). Remember that only the pages that normally drop in Forochel will drop while running The Icy Crevasse.

The other point to note is that the pages drop off the trash mobs. While trash mobs generally don’t drop anything in skirmishes, they will drop quest and deed items for which they are eligible. I only know of a few of these cases. First, orcs and goblins in the Moria skirmishes will drop orc plans for the Lothlórien Preparation I daily quest. Second, just about any mob in Protectors on Thangúlhad will drop black badges for Badges of Dishonour. Finally, the wargs in Attack at Dawn will drop the collars for a Fornost quest (a trait that is quite annoying, in my opinion). I cannot think of any other cases at the moment.

While I suspect that pages also drop off the Gauradan encounter and the final boss in Icy Crevasse, I have not yet seen this happen (let’s face it, you will face many more trash mobs than bosses in a skirmish).

Therefore, I see hundreds of players running Icy just to get those pages. Or perhaps not.

May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles

Report of the Pinestaff Skirmish Marathon

Pinestaff vs the Drake

Good day fellow adventurers. Yesterday I picked up my staff to undertake the challenge of running as many skirmishes as possible in six hours. I ran this series on Pinestaff, my Lore-master on Windfola.

There are currently a total of 19 skirmishes available in the game. I predicted that I would get through 15 of them; I actually completed 13. The first 11 were selected at random while the last two were selected by the live viewers.

The first challenge was a technical issue at Twitch which closed the site down the night before the marathon. If those issues had lasted any longer, I would not have been able to broadcast. As it was, start up took a little longer than usual and I was ready to start less than a minute before the scheduled start time. That was cutting it close.

Naturally, there were also a few challenges on my end. First off, it had been a while since I ran my high-level lore-master. Therefore, I was unfamiliar with my setup. In addition, I was still shaky with one of the key high-level lore-master skills (Water-lore). Third, I didn’t have time to perform some much-needed inventory management. Finally, I later learned that I for some reason never bothered to get the Hytbold set on this character (I do have two thanes on Windfola, so I should have been able to do it without too much trouble).

Nevertheless, I entered the fray with my protector and we completed our mission to save Middle-earth.

 

The Skirmishes

Protectors of Thangúlhad

The random number generator proved its evil nature by selecting Thangúlhad as my first skirmish. While this is traditionally a favorite skirmish, it does not work well with a protector due to his tendency to run outside while I am firing the ballistae.

This run featured the warg encounter. This is the toughest encounter to complete during solo runs and I decided that things were too chaotic for me to even attempt it. What I didn’t notice is that a second encounter was triggered at the same time and that I was so busy talking that I missed the announcement (I did see the announcement when I reviewed the video, so it wasn’t a game issue).

Alas, I was defeated once during the run mainly due to my not knowing how to use Water Lore.

Thievery and Mischief

The second skirmish was the most straightforward skirmish in the list: Thievery and Mischief. This should be easier than Thangúlhad, right? Not quite. Once again, my failure to remember Water Lore sent me into retreat.At least I was starting to learn my various skills were on the bar, which is probably why my play improved for the rest of the skirmishes in the series. The good news is that I did manage to complete both encounters.

After being defeated twice in two skirmishes, I decided to visit the trainer and complete my soldier’s training. My traits were reasonable for my level but I decided to bring all my traits up to max.

Breaching the Necromancer’s Gate

After the side trip to Bree, we returned to Mirkwood to break into Dol Guldur. As I was finally getting the hang of my character, I managed to get through the this skirmish unscathed. I did skip one of the encounters, though, in an effort to save some time.

Strike against Dannenglor

Dannenglor was the first skirmish of the day where I managed to get full marks: no defeats and completed both encounters. I suspect that if I had triggered Ruingalad as an encounter, things may have gone differently. Nevertheless, I was finally warmed up and moving.

Rescue at Nûrz Ghâshu

Taken by some madness, I then ventured into the Rift. While running the encounters, I talk about how the worm encounter is easy while the drake encounter is tough. I then barely survive the worm encounter and breeze through the drake encounter (with a little help from the LM drake protection circle). Fortunately, I do survive the entire skirmish with a clean run.

The Icy Crevasse

Nothing can put a chill into a warmed-up skirmisher than the biting winds of Forochel. It would be too much to expect a clean run in Icy.

I ran both encounters here, which in this run included the drake. This drake in Icy proved to be much tougher than the one in Rescue. The challenge with that encounter is that if you are defeated, you now have no way to bypass it unless you have some means of stealth. Yes, technically my lore-master does have Sylvan Shadows, but I suspect trying to sneak by a drake in Forochel at a -3 to stealth level would have been futile (and suicidal unless I had combat summoning available on my soldier). Fortunately, I did defeat the drake on the second attempt.

For the boss fight, I got tangled up in my timing a bit when it was time to face both bosses at the same time. Sigh. At least the second attempt went better and I still received 100 marks when taking the final control point.

The good news is that I had no more defeats after this skirmish.

Defence of the Prancing Pony

This was a nice rest after Icy Crevasse. Perhaps a little chilly but not as bad as the bone-biting chill of Forochel. This was a clean run with no Torch Bearers reaching the Pony. Best of all, the boss dropped a Star-lit Crystal.

Battle of the Way of Smiths

Naturally, I drew the Sadauk encounter during this run. He is an elite troll that is positioned right near where the boss enters. He is the second toughest skirmish encounter and he cannot be reasonably avoided. Fortunately, the Lore-master is well suited for this encounter,as his main weapons are momentum (which can be broken with dazes and stuns) and disease. Therefore, I was able to complete the encounter with a major problem.

The Ford of Bruinen

The challenge in this run came with the final battle, where my protector contrived to keep the troll as far from the horse waves as possible. This meant that I began to wonder if I would ever get rid of the shield protecting that troll. Fortunately, I eventually maneuvered the troll into the water and completed the skirmish.

Battle of the Twenty-first Hall

I completed this skirmish with full marks. despite that, I am only treating this as half a clean run because a couple sappers did get through to the barricades (even though the barricades survived the blast).

Battle of the Deep-way

For this run, one of the encounters was in the southern passage. unfortunately, this was after the second assault from that direction, so I had no opportunity to head that way and grad the encounter mob. I could have done this after the skirmish was over but I would still not have counted that as a clean run.

Attack at Dawn

When starting this skirmish, we were entering the final hour of the series. Rather than continuing random selection, I decided to leave it up to the viewers in the chat room. One viewerwanted to see how to get through the Attack at Dawn boss fight on a lore-master, so this became the penultimate skirmish in the series.

For this run, I decided to take both side control points before entering the courtyard where you face the boulder rainstorm. This can be risky if you are looking for a clean run, as two encounters depend on a counterattack that you can only face if you don’t take one of the side flags. Fortunately, I was lucky with my encounter mix and managed to complete both.

For the boss fight, a liberal use to stuns, dazes, and Water Lore pulled me through the boss fight without nay goblins escaping.

Storm on Methedras

We finished the series with the most recent skirmish added to the game: Storm on Methedras. Despite the best efforts of my protector, we managed to survive the entire run cleanly. Now, why didn’t I use that anti-drake circle during the boss fight?

 

Summary

The final statistics for the series follows.

Total skirmishes: 13

Total Defeats: 4 (Protectors of Thangulhad, Thievery and Mischief, Icy Crevasse drake encounter, Icy Crevasse boss fight).

Clean runs (both encounters and no defeats): 7.5

Marks: 3033

Medallions: 137

Bounties: 36 regular and 14 veteran

Relics: 20

Heritage runes: 2

Start-lit Crystals: 1

Loot Boxes: 1 (Contents: a key, an earring suitable for a warden, and five slayer deed boosts)

 

Lessons Learned

The greatest lesson learned was about Water Lore. I never played my Lore-master enough after getting that skill to learn how to use it properly. I certainly knew by the end of the series.

The next most important lesson was to place my bog guardian’s skills on auto so that my tendency to forget them would not be a major hindrance.

When I review the local video after the session, I see that some parts are choppy compared to those I get in Fraps (it’s possible that the quality would be better if I only did a local copy, which will be the matter of another test).

I also need to set up my sounds better. For example, the chat log notifications need to either be deactivated or redirected to my headphones so that they would not be recorded.Finally, it is important to visit your character ahead of time to empty bags and check that all items are up to date. That was a little more difficult this time since I didn’t know which class I would be playing until late the previous night. As a result, I was running into inventory issues throughout the run.

What’s Up Next?

This was the first major event on the PineleafNeedles Twitch channel. The next major event is the premier of The Wolf of Skyrim (obviously not a Lotro event) next Saturday at 10 AM Server Time. The next skirmish event will be on July 4 (yes, that’s a Thursday) at 10:00 AM Server Time, where I will take my Arkenstone warden through all 19 skirmishes (why Arkenstone? Because that’s where I can use the marks).

Until next time, may your shield protect you and your spear never break

Pineleaf Needles

Pineleaf’s Skirmish Marathon

Battle in Tower Knockback

On Saturday, June 22 @ 10:00 AM Server Time, I will begin a six-hour skirmish marathon on the PineleafNeedles Twitch channel. Here I will play as many skirmishes as I can in the six-hour span. While it is unlikely I will be able to get through all 19, I should at least place a good dent in the total.

The skirmishes will be selected semi-randomly. By that I mean that I will select them through the Instance Finder but that any skirmishes that I have already run during the marathon will be removed from the list (to avoid running the same skirmish twice during the session).

In preparation for this event, I posted a poll in an effort to determine which class I will use during the event. The polls are now closed, so it is time to review the results.

First off, no class received votes from a majority of the voters. While my original post indicated that I could use my discretion if no class received a majority, I will be selecting the class that received the most votes anyway. The winning class is the lore-master, with 31% of the vote.

While I have three lore-masters, only one of them is able to run the majority of the skirmishes. Therefore, I will run this series on Pinestaff, a level-85 lore-master on Windfola.

The lore-master will fit right in with a recent question I received from a reader who wished to know which skirmishes work well with a lore-master and a burglar. After the marathon, I will at least have up-to-date information for the lore-master side of the question.

See you Saturday for the first Pineleaf (or should that be Pinestaff?) Skirmish Marathon at http://www.twitch.tv/pineleafneedles.
May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles