LOTRO: The Problem With Skirmish Soldiers
Skirmishes were added to the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, in 2009 with the release of the Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Skirmishes are a repeatable and scalable combat system that allows players to access various instances for solo or group play from anywhere in the in-game world. Players can choose a Skirmish Soldier from a variety of classes to accompany them and provide healing, tank or additional DPS. On paper it’s a great system which is why many other MMOs offer something similar. I recently decided to tinker with my Skirmish Soldier build on my main character to see if I could optimise their performance. As my primary alt is a Lore-master, for the last few years I have had a Warrior as their Skirmish Soldier, to take some of the aggro from attacking mobs. I used the excellent guide by FibroJedi and swapped over a few Training and Personal Traits.
I do not find playing Skirmishes at the default difficulty setting with my level cap Lore-master to be particularly challenging. Mainly because my primary character is well specified with good gear and an optimised Legendary Weapon. On occasions, I will send my Warrior to attack a specific target, if for example, one of my main attack skills is on cooldown. Most of the time, they simply follow in my wake, providing what support they can. Or so I assumed. Recently, I decided to look at my combat log after playing through Thievery and Mischief Skirmish. Let it suffice to say, there were few entries regarding their contribution and what was there showed minimal damage. The Skirmish Soldier in question had all their skills and abilities maxed out. I subsequently ran several other Skirmishes with other alts, all of which had Skirmish Soldiers of a commensurate rank to the level of the alt. The results were similar.
Hence I did some research via the official LOTRO forums and the subreddit and it would appear that Skirmish Soldiers are generally considered ineffective and often a liability in high-level content due to poor scaling and unintelligent AI. At lower levels, soldiers can be overpowered but still have a tendency to pull aggro and break crowd control. This beneficial over powered state only lasts for a ten levels or so. The main problem after their AI, is that their damage and utility do not scale well at higher levels, making them less useful compared to player-controlled companions like Captain's Heralds or Lore-master pets. A Herbalist Skirmish Soldier is the most recommended and reliable choice because its primary function is healing. A role that tends to keep them adjacent or behind the player. They help keep you alive during difficult fights, which is more important than the negligible damage output from other roles.
Over the years, the level cap increases have further exacerbated this problem. Hence, my fully maxed out Warrior doesn’t contribute that much to any fight. I mainly use them as a decoy. Similarly, when deployed during general PVE questing the Skirmish Soldier (or Landscape Soldier in this circumstances) suffers the same problems with skill scaling and damage output. Therefore, their primary role at present, is one of psychological prop. Making the player feel supported and thus, boosting their confidence. Making Skirmish Soldiers the equivalent of Andrew Ridgeley from Wham. LOTRO developers, Standing Stone Games need to fine tune and rebalance this game mechanic, so that Skirmish/Landscape Soldiers become a more reliable and universal companion within the game. I’d also like more cosmetics options for them. However, knowing SSG, I won’t hold my breath.
Roger Edwards