Thread: How late can you do skirmish encounters?

Like many people, I'm winding up doing solo skirmishes I used to avoid, thanks to Turbine's contemptible instance finder strategy.

In particular, I'm doing "defensive" skirmishes I previously didn't do except in raids. And so I'm wondering when to do the encounters. So far, my experiences include:

1. In Rescue at NG, you have to do the encounters before entering the back room. Other than that, you can do them as it pleases you. Also, Rescue doesn't REALLY seem to be a defensive skirmish; if you're not around when the mobs show up, they wait politely for you to get there rather than really attacking Coronir.

2. In Amon Sul, I did encounters after beating the boss. I think I did NOT get rewards for doing so, but I'm not sure.

3. In Deep-Way I did encounters after the final fight. I think I got rewards for doing so, but I'm not sure.

4. In Protectors of Thang, I looked for the encounters before activating the final fight. I couldn't find them.

Does anybody have more complete and accurate information?

Well I can say for sure that the Amon Sul one does indeed NOT give you any rewards or deed completion when you kill them after the boss Don't know for sure about the others though

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

4. In Protectors of Thang, I looked for the encounters before activating the final fight. I couldn't find them.

Amazing, makes me feel better. I've gotten Protectors something like 3 out of the 6 times I've done solo IF, and couldn't find the darned encounters. You don't have lots of time to find them either, before you need to be up at the catapults.

In general, I think you need to do encounters before the final boss, and I think at least in some places the encounters have a limited period to start them up. e.g. in Thangulhad I know there is one where a guy comes and sits on a catapult target for a while and then wanders away...

I was doing some after midnight the other night.

I'm 99,99% sure that you do get the marks + medallions from Stand at Amon Sul encounters even if you do them after the final boss. But I don't know about the deeds.

Protectors of Thangulhad is one of the trickier skirmishes for finding the encounters. I'll defer to Pineleaf's guide here.

I'll quote from the guide to give you the gist of it:

Originally Posted by Pineleaf

There were nine of these special encounters in all. I like to think of them as being in three groups.


Three of them can be handled at your leisure, after the end of the final assault. Those are Golugthrug, Lapus, and Ruithroval.


Three of them are challenges which you must answer right away (by firing the same ballista you needed to fire during that wave) or else the challenger walks away. When do fire, the challenger walks towards the keep along the same path a wave from that direction would take.


The final three are the most time sensitive encounters of all. They spawn when you see the message and they disappear within a couple waves. These encounters can easily take you out of your natural position and I am more likely to skip them than not.

Thanks, everybody!

I'm just going to bail out of defensive skirmishes in the future when the Instance Finder brings them up for me, just as I do Icy Crevasse.

I'd consider practicing them on a lower tier than offensive ones and learning how to be better at them, but Turbine doesn't give us that option.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

I'd consider practicing them on a lower tier than offensive ones and learning how to be better at them, but Turbine doesn't give us that option.

Just to contradict the above, but the old skirmish-join facility still works (ctrl-j), and lets you choose a skirmish, set the level and tier, and specify whether you want to run it solo or in 3/6/12/24-man version (where applicable). You don't get the "bonuses" from using the instance-finder, but if you want to get some repeated practice in on a specific skirmish, that will let you...

I just did Amon Sul and can confirm that if you wait until after the skirmish to complete an encounter you will still get the full marks and medallions. You will not get any deed credit if you are still working on the deed but that means little if you've already finished it.

There are some skirmishes, such as Gondamon, where the encounters will depawn after you kill the boss. Someone has already posted the situation with Thangulhad.

Therefore, the answer to the OP is "it depends on the skirmish."

Originally Posted by Ezekremiah

Just to contradict the above, but the old skirmish-join facility still works (ctrl-j), and lets you choose a skirmish, set the level and tier, and specify whether you want to run it solo or in 3/6/12/24-man version (where applicable). You don't get the "bonuses" from using the instance-finder, but if you want to get some repeated practice in on a specific skirmish, that will let you...

Fair enough. One can scale way down even to learn a skirmish.

But if I'm to use a random instance chooser, I'd like it to choose things of similar difficulty. And right now, it simply doesn't do that.

I find Tier 2 solo skirmishes challenging even when they're the offensive ones. But they're fun challenges, at which I generally succeed, not "It would be imprudent to try" ones. (Of course, there WAS the recent time I was in Attack at Dawn, and had real trouble finding the encounter despite a lot of running around, and also couldn't find a living mob when a challenge flag wasn't lighting up, and also happened to have one peace of gear totally destroyed despite not having died in that instance. That time I did bail ...)