Trouble in Tuckborough Duo ... Did I miss something?

[CinnaB]

Let me first say, Ho-lee jesus, that was a nightmare.

Okay, now that that's out of my system... NORMALLY I love skirmishes, espeically ToT. I love soloing the place and just destroying everything that comes my way, but tonight I tried to duo it, and couldn't get past the first flag cap response waves. There were just way too many enemies for us to handle, and this was as a champ/mini duo with decently over-leveled soldiers on tier 1.

Are we just doomed to forever solo and never, ever try duoing skirmishes, or are the other ones not as ridiculously nightmarish?

I vaguely recall there being discussion prior to F2P about rebalancing duo skirmishes. Did that just not ever happen, or did we just have a bad night?

Either way I think I'm just going to stick to soloing when I want to do skirmishes from now on. I don't mind a challenge, but that was an unsurvivable zerg-fest.

Edit: I just wanted to add that we went back and double-checked our soldier traits, and my mini friend discovered she forgot to trait her (new) Sage's skills. Don't know if that affected things, but we'll try again tomorrow evening and see what happens. Solo I'm still steamrolling the place ridiculously quickly, at least.

[Raran]

The easiest skirmishes to solo can be the biggest pains to do duo or fellow with. Tuckborough is just one of them. The thing with skirmishes is that in solo you don't get the biggest meanies thrown at you. When you go duo or up this changes so you'll have to adapt your tactics. You can check in the skirmish compendium what mobs be thrown at you and adapt you're tactics accordingly.

Happy hunting. .

[Grimbran]

I'm betting that your mini-friend was running in warspeech mode. (severely nerfed healing ability in order to do a lot more DPS) They really need to be not running in warspeech mode to get you through a large-wave-size skirmish like Tuck in duo.(even if you have an herbalist soldier in the mix, there is too much damage in a duo skirm for an herbalist soldier to heal alone.)

What exactly killed you? Did the incoming damage overwhelm the heals you were getting? Was the mini healing you at all?(might have just been DPS'ing the whole time) Or was the mini doing fine healing until they ran out of power? What level are you, and what kind of soldier do you have?

The answer on what might help would be easier to give if we had a little more detail. Champ+mini for duo skirmishes is a great pair.

EDIT: And yeah, duo or higher skirms get access to the more difficult lieutenants. (And the lieutenants in general will be tougher. So the lieutenants you were facerolling in solo might actually require tactics to beat in the group modes. Blood Rook, Defender of the Vile, Zealot of Pain, and Shepherd of Filth are just a few that can be exceptionally nasty with the larger wave sizes in Duo if you don't use the right tactics.)

[Jarnos]

I also used to Duo skirmishes with a Guardian.
In the beginning everything went fine, but at higer levels it did became a nightmare.
My Guardian buddy didn't really understand his class back then. ( no idea how threat worked)
The obvious still hold: make sure your soldier is on level, or scale the skirmish a few levels back.
The problem with duo skirmishes is they are scaled down small fellowship, and the lieutenants can be a much bigger problem.

I stopped doing skirmishes as a duo, and just solo them.

[Evebel]

Tuckborough is known for its high mob count. And while you do have to adjust your strategies to get through it, it should still be doable. My LM buddy and I have duo'd it a couple dozen times while leveling up, and we have never wiped on it. I'm sure his CC helped though.

If you like offensive skirms with a lower mob count, just hang on until you get Thievery and Mischief. Once I got that, I never went back to Tuck.

[Ayrolen]

I'm betting that your mini-friend was running in warspeech mode. (severely nerfed healing ability in order to do a lot more DPS)

Even so, I still think a Champ and a Minstrel ought to be able to slaughter things in there, if the Champ is making liberal use of their horns, healing himself, using defeat response skills, etc, even with a weak War-Speech-specced heal thrown in.

My husband and I (him on his Champ, me on a Hunter), duo skirmishes A LOT with no trouble. He uses a Bannerguard and I use a Protector. That's no heals for me, and a weak heal for him. We rarely have any issues at all.

[Mysterion]

I have always found duos to be much higher in difficulty. Once I read that when skirmishes were released there wasn't the duo option. People wanted a duo option so the devs just turned it on so that duo was basically the same as small fellowship and never scaled it for duo. That might just be an urban legend though.

[Evebel]

I have always found duos to be much higher in difficulty. Once I read that when skirmishes were released there wasn't the duo option. People wanted a duo option so the devs just turned it on so that duo was basically the same as small fellowship and never scaled it for duo. That might just be an urban legend though.

I have heard this too, but it's not the same. I have run both, and the small fellowship is definitely harder.

[zagreb000]

I run ToT with a Loremaster like i do all skirmishes. We never had any trouble (in IC maybe a bit of trouble the first time). Ill take a wild guess here but i think you ran into a Priest of Vengeance. If you never seen one of those liutenants before you probably wont know what to do before its too late. It is the most common reason players wipe in duos at the start. (from what i have heard)

[Evebel]

I run ToT with a Loremaster like i do all skirmishes. We never had any trouble (in IC maybe a bit of trouble the first time). Ill take a wild guess here but i think you ran into a Priest of Vengeance. If you never seen one of those liutenants before you probably wont know what to do before its too late. It is the most common reason players wipe in duos at the start. (from what i have heard)

For that matter, it might have been any leiutenant with a mechanic that you Must Respect. If you weren't already familiar with him and knew the routine, AND you get the standard 6-8 mobs Tuck loves to throw at you, it's pretty much a dirt nap.

[zagreb000]

For that matter, it might have been any leiutenant with a mechanic that you Must Respect. If you weren't already familiar with him and knew the routine, AND you get the standard 6-8 mobs Tuck loves to throw at you, it's pretty much a dirt nap.

Well PoV lieutenant seems the most nastiest of any of the most common duo skirmish lieutenants. I chose him especially because the OP is a champ and they just love to jump in the fight between numerous foes and start their schwing schwing routine.
I assume it took 2 or 3 hits for the champ to go down if he hit the mob with the buff.

[jwbarry]

For RoI, the monsters in duo skirmishes will be seeing a ~25% reduction in their stats.
Numbers, composition and which Lieutenants spawn will be unchanged.
This is purely a drop in hp, armour, damage, etc.

[Ayrolen]

For RoI, the monsters in duo skirmishes will be seeing a ~25% reduction in their stats.
Numbers, composition and which Lieutenants spawn will be unchanged.
This is purely a drop in hp, armour, damage, etc.

Boooooooo. Guess G and I will have to run 3-mans now, for a challenge.

[zagreb000]

Boooooooo.

Well at least we have a bit more information to complain about

[Ayrolen]

Well at least we have a bit more information to complain about

Enh. You won't find me complaining too much around here. I just like to give JWB a hard time.

[nelar]

Note that not only are there LTs in duo skirmishes that you don't see in solo skirmishes, but some of the LTs you were familiar with in solo behave a bit differently in a duo. For example, the Keg-master you've seen in solo will toss a keg at you in duo -- and if it explodes while you're are nearby you will be stunned allowing the entire wave to beat on you to their heart's content.

Personally, I find the easiest duo skirmish to be Prancing Pony. Just be sure to have one person delegated to killing the torch bearer, and the rest is straightforward (but DO be aware of the tougher LTs you get in duo).

Also, just to save you from getting killed by the final boss in Tuckborough -- it is very important to switch from the boss to the first LT he spawns, and kill that LT first. If you don't, you will end up with a boss and two LTs -- which can be rather difficult... :-)

[Laetitia]

i remember duo'ing Tuckborough when i was leveling an alt... both had a herbalist with like 1 skill each... it seemed tough at first... then one the first wave after capturing the outpost came it turned to impossible. priestess of flame just lit the place up while the goblins finished us off... the herbalists didnt stand a chance... its fine at level cap when you have all your skills, traits and a gear but at level 30 OMG! ended up swapping 1 herbalist for a protector and they were doable but soemtiems the last boss was insane with like 3 LT's similtaneously coming out... make one of them priestess of flame and its crazy town indeed. they are certainly no walk in the park for a newbie thats for sure.

[Ayrolen]

My husband and I blew up Tuckborough on duo RKs at level 30 with poorly leveled soldiers. The only time it got tough was on the boss because we got a Priestess for one of the LTs. RKs are pretty bad-### from the get go, though.

[zagreb000]

i remember duo'ing Tuckborough when i was leveling an alt... both had a herbalist with like 1 skill each... it seemed tough at first... then one the first wave after capturing the outpost came it turned to impossible. priestess of flame just lit the place up while the goblins finished us off... the herbalists didnt stand a chance... its fine at level cap when you have all your skills, traits and a gear but at level 30 OMG! ended up swapping 1 herbalist for a protector and they were doable but soemtiems the last boss was insane with like 3 LT's similtaneously coming out... make one of them priestess of flame and its crazy town indeed. they are certainly no walk in the park for a newbie thats for sure.

If it gets too rough out there you can just skip figting the waves of mobs. Free an outpost, claim it then just run like hell. You will only lose around 20 skirmish marks at lvl 65 and it goes much faster that way, meaning more marks per hour. (at least it works for me that way)

[RaleyD]

I have always found duos to be much higher in difficulty. Once I read that when skirmishes were released there wasn't the duo option. People wanted a duo option so the devs just turned it on so that duo was basically the same as small fellowship and never scaled it for duo. That might just be an urban legend though.

Sort of. When skirmishes were released, there was no duo mode. Turbine created a duo mode by modifying small fellowship skirmishes. Both modes use the same template. There are only two differences between small fellowship and duo skirmishes: the mobs in duo runs receive a debuff that reduces their stats and a new wave or counterattack will never be generated while you are still fighting the previous one.

They have since made a few adjustments to the small fellowship / duo modes of some skirmishes but since they use the same template, changing one means changing the other. I am not aware of any changes that have affected only duo skirmishes since they were introduced.

For RoI, the monsters in duo skirmishes will be seeing a ~25% reduction in their stats.
Numbers, composition and which Lieutenants spawn will be unchanged.
This is purely a drop in hp, armour, damage, etc.

Though it appears that one is coming. This seems to be nothing major - just a larger reduction in the stats than that currently exists.

[nelar]

i remember duo'ing Tuckborough when i was leveling an alt... both had a herbalist with like 1 skill each... it seemed tough at first... then one the first wave after capturing the outpost came it turned to impossible. priestess of flame just lit the place up while the goblins finished us off... the herbalists didnt stand a chance...

Priestess of Flame is pretty tough the first time you meet her if you don't know what to expect. Once you get used to her, it's fairly straightforward -- if you can't stun/mez/fear her while she's casting -- then the moment she starts her animation ran straight towards her and through her. The flames land where you were and you can go back to beating on her.

... but soemtiems the last boss was insane with like 3 LT's similtaneously coming out... make one of them priestess of flame and its crazy town indeed. they are certainly no walk in the park for a newbie thats for sure.

The ONLY reason you have more then one LT with the boss is if you didn't switch to the first LT summoned. If you stay on the boss, then you will indeed end up with two LTs. The boss only summons LTs when he reaches a certain health percentage -- by not hurting him while killing the first LT, you ensure his health doesn't drop so low as to cause him to summon a second LT until after you've had a chance to kill the first LT.

This is not a matter of needing to get to 65 to run duo's, it's merely a matter of learning what the new LTs do as well as learning what the bosses and LTs do when you switch from solo to a group Skirmish. The current high health of the mobs makes it a steep learning curve so it will be definitely easier to learn these after ROI and the health drops.

[Vilost]

Priestess of Flame is pretty tough the first time you meet her if you don't know what to expect. Once you get used to her, it's fairly straightforward -- if you can't stun/mez/fear her while she's casting -- then the moment she starts her animation ran straight towards her and through her. The flames land where you were and you can go back to beating on her.



The ONLY reason you have more then one LT with the boss is if you didn't switch to the first LT summoned. If you stay on the boss, then you will indeed end up with two LTs. The boss only summons LTs when he reaches a certain health percentage -- by not hurting him while killing the first LT, you ensure his health doesn't drop so low as to cause him to summon a second LT until after you've had a chance to kill the first LT.

This is not a matter of needing to get to 65 to run duo's, it's merely a matter of learning what the new LTs do as well as learning what the bosses and LTs do when you switch from solo to a group Skirmish. The current high health of the mobs makes it a steep learning curve so it will be definitely easier to learn these after ROI and the health drops.

This just reminds me, the last lower level attempt my son and I did at this skirmish, we had 2 two lieutenants spawn and both were Priestess of Flames... it was pretty much over by then :P

Anyway, very good advice!

Duos can be a lot of fun, but yes take the time to figure out how the Lieutenants (and bosses) work, once you get that down, the mechanics are a lot easier and it's a lot more fun than soloing the same skirmishes imo.

[Aloro]

For RoI, the monsters in duo skirmishes will be seeing a ~25% reduction in their stats.
Numbers, composition and which Lieutenants spawn will be unchanged.
This is purely a drop in hp, armour, damage, etc.

I think that's appropriate. Thanks for balancing them.

For those of us who already do ok on duo settings, we can just turn the difficulty up a bit. This will help the average and less skilled players considerably.

Right now it's absolutely true that solo is easier, for skirms. It shouldn't be.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Duos skirmishes are generally the hardest size model. Some skirmishes are a lot harder groups than others. Trouble in Tuckborough and Thievery and Mischief are both quite a jump up in difficulty when you switch to a Duo or even larger size model. Others like Defense of the Prancing Pony, do not become a lot more difficult.

[Aloro]

Duos skirmishes are generally the hardest size model. Some skirmishes are a lot harder groups than others. Trouble in Tuckborough and Thievery and Mischief are both quite a jump up in difficulty when you switch to a Duo or even larger size model. Others like Defense of the Prancing Pony, do not become a lot more difficult.

Yeah, it's the counterattacks that can be nasty. On solo, they're never very hard, but on duo they can be surprisingly painful.