Summary[]
What is a skirmish?
A skirmish is a type of ring war event that lasts 45 minutes. You get waves of mobs, the more mobs you kill, the more names show up. The more names you kill, the more rewards you earn.
What is an assault?
An assault is a short mission with a specific target, similar to a LDoN adventure. Typically this involves killing X number of mobs, X number of named targets, or a combination of the 2.
What is the difference between Quartermaster Ash and Bad Ash?
Both npcs give similar LDoN style adventures and the same rewards. Quartermaster Ash is the "good side" and you run missions against Raistlin and his minions of darkness. Bad Ash is the "evil side" and you lead assaults against cities for Raistlin. Each npc has a separate aug that can be earned. Both npc's stores use orum.
When can I run skirmishes and assaults?
You are able to participate in them upon reaching level 75. In order to solo either event, it is recommended to have a minimum of full abyss infused gear, although you can participate in them with friends with a much lower quality of gear.
What are the rewards for running skirmishes and assaults?
Each mission you earn orum (an alternate currency), imperium's intensification items (also called iii), AA xp chips worth 5 AA each, and credit towards your army aug.
For each successfully completed assault, you earn 5 orum, 5 iii, and 5 AA xp chips, and half a point* towards your army aug.
For each successfully completed skirmish, you earn 1 orum, 1 iii, 1 AA xp chip, per named killed and 1 full point* towards your army aug.
(*I know the above point values probably do not match the dev side point values, I just know you need 40 assaults OR 20 skirmishes, OR some combination that equals 20 points,)
What is orum and how do I use it?
Orum is an alternate currency that can be spent with Quartermaster Ash at his S-Mart. With orum in your inventory, open your character sheet, select the alternate currency tab at the top, highlight orum, and click reclaim. All orum in your inventory will be added to your alternate currency wallet.
The primary items you can buy with orum are items that allow you to upgrade any aug that is sold by Greedy Goblin, and armor ornaments that add +250 hp and mana. There are other items such as mounts, dire charm clickies, a scroll that allows you to instantly resurrect after dying, and the Skirmish Champion's Belt.
How do I upgrade an aug using orum?
You will need 3 items.
1) An aug you purchased from Greedy Goblin
2) The item that matches the name of the aug you want to upgrade, purchased from Quartermaster Ash
3) The Enhancing Doodad, a 2 slot container purchased from Quartermaster Ash
Next, place the aug from Greedy Goblin and the matching aug from Quatermaster Ash in the Enhancing Doodad and combine to create version 2 of your aug.
Example: Buy Acorn of Doom from Greedy. Buy Acorn of Doom from Ash, put both in the Enhancing Doodad from Ash, click combine to make Acorn of Doom v2. Every aug upgraded to v2 has a different set of stats that are improved, but generally speaking, your raw stats are improved and the proc rates on lifetap augs are improved. Results vary from aug to aug. Certain restrictions apply. See devs for full details.
1,000 orum for a mount?? 10,000 orum for a belt??? HOLY COW!
Yup, those items are a lot of work! In order to get the Skirmish Champion's Belt, you would need to run 1,000 assaults, with 2 toons, and buy nothing else. Also consider this: if you run 1,000 assaults, that will give you enough points to rank up to 25 on the army aug! I have no idea how high the aug goes (I am at rank 20 at the time of writing this guide). As with all best items in any game, you are required to put in an extreme amount
Tips, tricks, related thoughts.
Original Skirmish Release Changelog
Original Assault Release Changlog
Additional Assaults Released Changelog
Original Bad Ash Release Changelog
Spend some time experimenting with pull paths, there are lots of tricks that will make pulling assaults extremely efficient. Umbral Plains and Crushbone for example can be completed in a single pull in less than 4 minutes each, and I suspect that Velketor, and Gorge of King Xorb can be pulled in the same way.
You cannot charm in a skirmish, but you can in an assault!
List of Known v2 Augs:
Grimy Stone of the Slothlord v2
AC 75
HP, Mana 750
Base dmg 20
Heroic STR, INT, WIS 10
Atk 100
Effect Vampric Strike 5
Get Out of the Way v2
AC 100
HP 1000
Mana 2
Base dmg 10
Atk 150
Heal Amount, Spell dmg 250
Parry 12%
Effect Fighter Bite
Double the Fun v2
AC 65
HP, Mana, Heal Amount, Spell dmg 450
Heroic STA 6
Effect Twincast Aura
Frozen Acorn v2
HP, Mana 500
Heal amount, Spell dmg 450
Heroic INT, WIS 5
Effect Sympathetic Burst of Ice 1
Frature, Temporal Fragment v2
AC 35HP 250
Mana 300
Mana Regen 2
Heal amount, Spell dmg 600
Heroic INT, WIS, MR, FR, CR 10
Effect Twincast Effect
Vampire Fang v2
HP, Mana, Heal amount, Spell dmg 250
Heroic INT, WIS 5
Effect Sympathetic Sap 4
The information in this page was taken from this post.