The Herbalist is my skirmish friend

Skirmishes can be a lot of fun! True, I was older by the time I ever experienced my first skirmish. But, when I got there, I enjoyed this part of the game as much as I did while questing… just different.

The first thing I needed to learn was what a soldier was, what I wanted from a soldier, how do I develop a soldier, etc. I started off with the soldier I was assigned by the Skirmish Captain. It was some man warrior guy. I barely remember him; I think his name was Stud. I tried to recall the story to Danaszar and she sent this shot of her going out with her inept level 1 Soldier. He improved to a level 1 Warrior after their first skirmish, but he isn’t much about which to get excited.

So, there I was at level 65, with my basic warrior and did not know beans about anything until Menelchol taught me about the Skirmish Captain and the Skirmish Trainer. Until then, I had skirmished a half dozen times at Amon Sul. My warrior was always running off getting into trouble and was quick to die (he was, after all, a level 1 warrior with no skills in a level 65 skirmish since I had not figured out how to train him).

First thing, the Trainer allows you to train up your skills, and the Captain lets you slot those skills. You need to visit both to get your soldier to be productive. Good to know. J Here is a picture of the skirmish camp in Galtrev; the other camps should all have people covering these jobs in each camp.

You have the option of training up several different types of soldiers:

·         Warrior – melee, like a Champion,

·         Archer – ranged, like a Hunter,

·         Sage – tactical, like a runekeeper/loremaster,

·         Bannerguard – buffs, like a captain’s herald,

·         Herbalist – heals, a healer, 

·         Protector – aggros, like a Guardian.

After reading about all of the soldiers, I chose the Herbalist. I am sure the others are all nice in their own ways, but Herbalist fits me best. When I play solo, I unleash the Fury and Wrath and am looking to cause the most devastation possible as fast as possible. I do still move and kite some and work to sharpen my skills, but the Herbalist lets me unload the damage with no recourse of needing to worry about my morale bar. Think about that; I am a light armor wearer and am never concerned about getting hit since the Herbalist always has my back. Healing is her job; it is all she does. She heals me, she heals herself, she heals our allies. She never attacks. She never runs off in the wrong direction. She just stands there, sometimes in the middle of the fray if necessary, and heals. Bold. Powerful. Awesome.

I did have to train her though. Once you know about the Trainer and Captain, it isn’t too bad and it isn’t that expensive. The previous post (best-295-tp-ever) gave some insight into soldier training cost. By the time you get the hang of skirmishing, marks wil be rolling in and leveling the soldier feels really cheap. Here is what I chose for my Herbalist traits (That which I was taught, I pass on to anyone who wants to know).

Attribute: Attribute training is easy enough. She is a Herbalist. The other slots under “Attribute” are for changing the way your soldier looks. For example, I have slotted an elf, with long hair, red hair, red dress. (Hint, the skirmish “Cosmetics” barter can sell you all kinds of different looks for your soldier. You can see the Cosmetics guy in the background of the skirmish camp picture above.)

Skills: The Herbalist is skilled to heal me and all allies with the skills: Herbs of Boundless Endurance, Nature’s Cure, Refreshing Herbs, and Ultimate: Words of Healing.

Training: She is trained to heal better (more tactical mastery), have more morale and power, and never run out of power (ICPR) with the training: Boundless Morale, Boundless Resolve, Tactical Potency, and Resurgent Power.

Personal: I don’t just “feel” better by having a wonderful Herbalist, I AM better. The personal trait section is for boosts to the player because “You are more powerful while leading a Soldier in Skirmishes”. I chose Battle-master, Defender’s Bane, and Tactical Artistry. All three improve my ability to unleash Fury and Wrath, which is something I really enjoy while skirmishing.

Please do feel free to copy the skill choices of this Herbalist. I have nearly never lost a Skirmish with her (only Icy Crevasse a few times early on) and we always have a good time!

“It looks like we are having some roast bear tonight Quinn!”

Best 295 TP Ever

I had been trying to amass more skirmish marks recently. I even built a spreadsheet for marks/minute, etc to know which skirmishes were the biggest bang for the time. I’ll share that data table in a future post.

However, I stumbled across a post in the Casual Stroll to Mordor site (casualstrolltomordor.com/) discussing something in the Lotro store called a “Scroll of Skirmish Refund”, available for 295 TP. The discussion centered on how many marks one would get back for using the Refund scroll and then re-leveling your skirmish soldier.

Historically, I haven’t skirmished as much as some people. Because I am a quest-hawk, I didn’t enter a skirmish until I was level 65, then I leveled Dr. Quinn, my Herbalist, up equal to me. Then when Rise of Isengard was released, I quested forward to level 75, then leveled Dr. Quinn again up equal to me. Needless to say, my skirmish mark spending was about as optimized as I could have possibly made it, choosing only the traits to build a great Herbalist. However, all of this happened before one of the 4Q11/1Q12 Updates changed how much leveling a soldier should cost.

I was very skeptical, but I gave it a shot and bought a “Scroll of Skirmish Refund”. The refund gave me 38,729 marks, and turned my equivalent level 75 Herbalist back to the beginning. Now, I had to respend the marks and get her back equal to me, and hopefully it would cost less than 38k marks.

Everywhere I go, I bring my herbalist Dr. Quinn. The only place we have ever been defeated while soloing is The Icy Crevasse (prior to the speculated 2012 changes to Icy Crevasse). I think that we typically underestimate it since it is a step more difficult than any other skirmish.  Proportionally, The Icy Crevasse gives the best marks of any solo skirmish. That said, I have never even considered needing another soldier other than the Herbalist. As the enemy, you would have to hit faster than I can hit and Quinn can heal, and that just does not usually happen. For group skirmishing, the herbalist heals the group and is one of the best soldiers for grouping, so there is no need to switch soldier when grouping either.

Ok, back to the mark reset math. So, I got back the previously-thought frugally spent 38,729 marks and was respending them. I could break down the various costs by level, but I will fast forward to the answer. Final cost = 9,571 marks to reset the herbalist as an equivalent 75 (solider level 31).

Bottom line = 29,158 marks for the price of 295 TP. Now that is a very good deal. I highly recommend this purchase if you leveled your soldier to 31 before January-2012. At a rate of 210 marks per skirmish, that was equivalent to 139 skirmishes to accumulate 29k marks, and at 15 minutes per skirmish, that is about 35 hours of skirmishing (math to be accounted in another post about the excitement of skirmishing marks/minute.... UPDATE skirmish marks/minute link is fastest-skirmishes-marks-per-minute).