One of the challenges I sometimes have in mounted combat is maintaining contact with my opponent.
This video demonstrates my attempts to counter this with the /follow command.
While this was recorded with a minstrel, I presume that it will work even better with my warden.
May your shield protect you and your spear never break,
Pineleaf Needles
Now that we have taken an overview of legendary bridles, let’s take a deeper look at the legacies. As stated in the previous article in this series, bridles have the same three types of legacies as other legendary items: an inherent legacy, three major legacies (revealed on identification), and three minor legacies (one revealed at each of the three first reforgings).
During the first three reforgings, you always receive a minor legacy. This is probably for the best, seeing how the greatest challenge with minor legacies is getting just the ones you want (since an item only has three out of a pool of 15).
For bridles, the inherent legacy is Fury Bonus Contribution Rating. This is the only legacy that appears to improve with the bridle’s equip level. The table below lists the Fury Bonus Contribution Rating by equip level and rank. The numbers in bold are the numbers I have confirmed, while the lighter ones are inferred from the pattern of the known data.
|
Level |
Rank 1 |
Rank 2 |
Rank 3 |
Rank 4 |
Rank 5 |
Rank 6 |
Rank 7 |
|
75 |
169 |
338 |
507 |
676 |
845 |
1014 |
1183 |
|
76 |
1690 |
2028 |
2197 |
2366 |
2535 |
2704 |
2873 |
|
77 |
2028 |
2197 |
2366 |
2535 |
2704 |
2873 |
3042 |
|
78 |
2197 |
2366 |
2535 |
2704 |
2873 |
3042 |
3211 |
|
79 |
2366 |
2535 |
2704 |
2873 |
3042 |
3211 |
3380 |
|
80 |
2535 |
2704 |
2873 |
3042 |
3211 |
3380 |
3549 |
|
81 |
2704 |
2873 |
3042 |
3211 |
3380 |
3549 |
3718 |
|
82 |
2873 |
3042 |
3211 |
3380 |
3549 |
3718 |
3887 |
|
83 |
3042 |
3211 |
3380 |
3549 |
3718 |
3887 |
4056 |
|
84 |
3211 |
3380 |
3549 |
3718 |
3887 |
4056 |
4225 |
|
85 |
3380 |
3549 |
3718 |
3887 |
4056 |
4225 |
4394 |
|
85 SA |
4056 |
4225 |
4394 |
4563 |
4732 |
4901 |
5070 |
This table includes entries for each equip level for Third Age bridles and level 85 for Second Age bridles. It does not take into account adding Star-lit Crystals. The most striking point is at level 75. The Fury Bonus Contribution Rating is trivial at level 75 and only becomes significant with level-76 bridles.
The real question is what do these numbers mean? While fighting on your war-steed, you receive a bonus to your damage and healing based on your Fury. The amount of this bonus is based on your Fury Bonus Rating, which is shown on your mount character panel. The only input I have seen to this so far is from the bridle’s Fury Bonus Contribution Rating (the Fury Bonus Rating is 0 when I have no bridle and equal to my bridle’s Fury Bonus Contribution Rating when I do have one). If your rating is 0, then you receive a 5% bonus per 100 Fury (your Fury is given on a scale of 0 to 1000).
Let’s look at the bonuses for a level-85 bridle (table includes both 3rd and 2nd Age values):
|
Rating |
Bonus / 100 Fury |
Bonus at Full Fury |
|
0 |
5% |
50% |
|
3380 |
6.4% |
64% |
|
3549 |
6.5% |
65% |
|
3718 |
6.5% |
65% |
|
3887 |
6.6% |
66% |
|
4056 |
6.7% |
67% |
|
4225 |
6.8% |
68% |
|
4394 |
6.9% |
69% |
|
4563 |
7.0% |
70% |
|
4732 |
7.1% |
71% |
|
4901 |
7.1% |
71% |
|
5070 |
7.2% |
72% |
Each rank thus improves the damage/healing bonus by just under 1% when at full Fury. Except with the starter bridle, the greatest bonus is received just by equipping the bridle.
If you just sit on your mount and whack the enemy from a standstill (and thus rarely build fury), then this rating means little to you and you can pretty much ignore the bridle’s equip level. If you charge in with full Fury then fight the rest of the battle at a standstill (or at a slow speed), then you will likely want to equip a bridle at or near your level but not place any points into improving the rating. If you prefer fighting at full Fury, though, then you will most likely want to get this legacy as high as possible to maximize your damage and healing potential.
The main advantage of the inherent legacy is that it affects all damage and healing skills. The disadvantage is that you need to build Fury to gain the most benefit. We will see that a 1% increment is quite common in other legacies also. Those other legacies won’t require Fury but they will have some other limitation imposed upon them.
Major legacies are tied to the type of bridle you are using. If you are using the wrong type of bridle on your war-steed (a heavy bridle on your light war-steed, for example), your major legacies will have no effect.
Each bridle type has a pool of six major legacies. As usual with legendary items, three of these legacies are revealed when you identify the bridle. You will not reveal any additional major legacies during reforgings. With such a small pool, you have a decent chance of getting a bridle with the major legacies you want (and if you don’t get the desired combination, you shouldn’t need too many attempts to get a usable legacy scroll). As expected, you cannot place a light major legacy on a medium or heavy bridle.
Three of the major legacies for each bridle are associated with the associated steed’s capstone traits. Look at the medium mounted combat skill tree below.
Note: A revamp of the mounted combat trees was implemented since the original publication of this article.
The three traits at the bottom (one for each color) are the capstones. These traits affect certain several class skills while you are in the discipline associated with that branch. These capstone traits read differently depending on your class. For example, if you are playing a warden, Shields Will Be Splintered reads as follows:
While utilizing the discipline, Red Dawn, the following skills will greatly reduce enemy armour and inflict heavy bleed damage when a critical hit is landed: Assault of the Eorlingas, Strike with Power, Clash of Steel and Will, Skill of the Eorlingas.
The legacy adds to the bleed damage generated by a critical hit.
How useful the trait is depends on how much time you spend in the associated discipline. If you are always using the Riddermark discipline, then the Shields Will Be Splintered trait isn’t going to do you much good.
Since we have looked at the medium tree, we will look at the medium major legacies first. First, there are the three capstone legacies:
As you can see, these add direct percentages rather than ratings that later get converted into percentages. This is true for all of the legacies that affect either your damage or healing.
The tables referenced in the legacy descriptions are given at the end of this article.
The next legacy adds to your chance to parry while fighting on the associated war-steed. Each of the three bridle types has a major legacy that improves one of the three basic defenses.
The final two legacies affect given effects of your class skills. How useful they are will depend on how many class skills you have that generate these effects. The damage over time pulses legacy will only be useful if you have and use skills that inflict damage over time.
For a warden, the only damage-over-time class skill available while in Red Dawn is Assault of the Eorlingas.
As you can see, most major legacies tend to be highly specialized. The most general of them is the parry chance.
The light bridle major legacies work in just the same way. In this case, the defense improved is evade rather than parry.
The heavy bridle only includes one legacy that affects class skills. The remaining legacy instead improves the rider’s armour value. The defense bonus legacy for the heavy bridle is block chance, which naturally requires that you have a shield equipped.
Table A: Nine steps (1 to 10)
| Rank | Full | Modified | Integer |
| Rank 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Rank 2 | 2.125 | 2.1 | 2 |
| Rank 3 | 3.25 | 3.2 | 3 |
| Rank 4 | 4.375 | 4.3 | 4 |
| Rank 5 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5 |
| Rank 6 | 6.625 | 6.6 | 6 |
| Rank 7 | 7.75 | 7.7 | 7 |
| Rank 8 | 8.875 | 8.8 | 8 |
| Rank 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Table B: Five steps (1 to 5)
| Rank 1 | 1 |
| Rank 2 | 2 |
| Rank 3 | 3 |
| Rank 4 | 4 |
| Rank 5 | 5 |
Table C: Nine steps (112-1000)
| Rank | 112 | 133 | 8 |
| Rank 1 | 112 | 133 | 8 |
| Rank 2 | 223 | 266 | 16 |
| Rank 3 | 334 | 399 | 24 |
| Rank 4 | 445 | 532 | 32 |
| Rank 5 | 556 | 666 | 41 |
| Rank 6 | 667 | 799 | 49 |
| Rank 7 | 778 | 932 | 57 |
| Rank 8 | 889 | 1066 | 66 |
| Rank 9 | 1000 | 1199 | 74 |
Minor legacies are divided into two groups: those that affect class skills while you are in the associated discipline and those that affect your steed’s stats.
For the traits that affect class skills, each stance has one that improves healing, one that improves direct damage, and one that reduces power costs. These do not affect side effects (such as bleeds, slows, and forced movement), as those are affected instead by the major legacies.
The final six minor legacies affect the stats for the war-steed. These stats can also be improved through spending trait points.
Too bad you get only three minor slots, right? Naturally, if there is a major that you expect to never use, you could always replace it with a minor legacy if desired. Just remember that once you replace a major with a minor, you cannot go back and place a major there later on.
So, where should you concentrate your item advancement points? That will most likely depend on your class and play style. For now, I tend to place my points in the minor legacies, especially if I have the Red Dawn damage bonus and additional war-steed power legacies. We will see if I change this stance as I become more familiar with the mounted combat system.
I should note that at the end of Book 9 in the epic story, you receive a Second Age bridle of your choice. I therefore recommend that you have some sort of idea of your favorite type of war-steed before you finish Book 9. While you can survive with the wrong bridle, especially while you are leveling, you will have more options available if your bridle matches the war-steed you ride most often.
Next time, we will take a look at the other way you can enhance your legendary item: relics.
May your shield protect you and your spear never break,
Pineleaf Needles
With the release of the Riders of Rohan expansion, we get not only war-steeds but also a new legendary item: bridles. As the name implies, these new legendary items are intended for your war-steed.
Where do you get a bridle? You get your first one when you complete the mounted combat tutorial. You will most likely get several more as loot drops from humanoids (typical LI drop rate). If you have bad luck with your drops, you could always either arrange for a Grand Master of the Tailors’ Guild to make one for you or spend a copious amount of shards at a relic master (they cost the same as melding any other legendary item of the same level, which is more than I am generally willing to pay for an LI). You can also check the auction house.
There are three types of bridles: Light, Medium, and Heavy. These types are associated with the three types of war-steeds.
Which type should you choose? If you did not purchase the expansion and you have no plans to purchase the other war-steed types, then you should obviously pick the medium bridle (since you will only have access to medium war-steeds). If you plan to use only one type of war-steed, then you will naturally want to use the associated bridle. But what if you have not yet made up your mind or plan to switch between the various war-steed types? What if you decide on a particular type and later change your mind?
Fortunately, your choice for a first bridle isn’t really all that important. Why? First, it is a legendary item. In other words, it’s disposable. You will inevitably replace it, especially after you reach the level cap. Therefore, if you make the wrong decision at the end of the tutorial, you could always change your mind later.
Second, the bridle type only affects the major legacies you get on the bridle. Nothing prevents you from using a light bridle on a medium war-steed. The major legacies will be rendered useless when you equip a bridle on the wrong war-steed but the bridle otherwise operates normally. How serious of a matter is this? That will depend on which legacies you consider to be more important.
Just like existing legendary weapons and class items, legendary bridles have several legacies. As usual, you receive one inherent legacy, three major legacies, and three minor legacies. The difference is that the major legacies are associated with the bridle type while the minor legacies are the same through all bridle types. Unlike previous legendary items, you will always receive minor legacies during your first three reforgings. I have never seen a case where I gained a new major as a result of reforging a bridle.
I will briefly cover the three types of legacies below but will save an in-depth treatment for Part 2 of this series.
All bridles have the same inherent legacy: Fury Bonus Contribution Rating. As with other legendary items, the inherent legacy improves as you increase the equip level of the bridle. This is the only significant difference I have seen in a bridle’s equip level.
Generally, this progression of the fury contribution bonus is steady. You get the same amount of benefit from increasing the equip level by one or by increasing the rank by one. There is one major exception: a bridle with an equip level of 75 is well below this curve. In fact, a level 76 bridle’s Fury Bonus Contribution Rating at rank 1 is well above that of a level 75’s at rank 7. Therefore, if you are moving in mounted combat (and thus building fury to improve you performance), you will want to ditch that 75 bridle for a higher-level one as quickly as possible.
For bridles, major legacies are tied to the bridle type. Each bridle type has a pool of six major legacies, three of which you will uncover when you identify the bridle.
Below are the six legacies associated with light bridles.
The first three are associated with the capstone traits on the light war-steed tree (one trait for each branch). You therefore would only care about these legacies if you have unlocked the associated trait.
A fourth legacy improves your evade chance while riding a light war-steed. This sounds nice and useful.
The last two legacies affect your class skills. Since bridles are generic (rather than specific for each class), it is possible for a given legacy to not be of much use for your class. For example, if you have no damage-over-time skills, then a bonus for such skills is of no real use.
Medium and heavy bridles follow a similar pattern. For medium bridles, we get:
This time, the defense bonus is for parry instead of evade.
For the heavy bridle, we have two that affect defenses (block and armor) rather than two that affect class skills.
Minor legacies work on a different line. They work over all bridles, so if you plan to switch between war-steeds and only want to use one legendary item slot, they make a good destination for your rank points. There are a total of 15 minor legacies for your bridle. With such a large variety, your greatest challenge is to get the minor legacies that you want (at least until you get a decent supply of legacy scrolls).
The first six of these legacies improve your mount’s abilities: agility, strength, power, endurance, armor, and evade.
The remaining nine improve your skills while you are in a specific stance: three for Red Dawn, three for Riddermark, and three for Rohirrim. Some of these are more useful than others (I cannot think of many Red Dawn healing skills).
Since the inherent and minor legacies are the same throughout all bridle types, a bridle with most of its points allocated to those legacies will still be useful when equipped on the wrong war-steed type. If you plan on switching steeds often and you only wish to allocate one legendary slot to your bridle, then you may consider doing this.
Bridles use a different set of relics than weapons and class items (we will refer to the weapon/class relics as “general” relics). Bridle relics are harder to get and I have not yet actually acquired one. Deconstructing a bridle yields general relics, so you won’t get them that way.
The only reliable method I have found to obtain bridle relics is to meld them at a relic master. A basic relic (minimum level 75) requires 192 shards and three Tier 4 general relics. There are more powerful bridle relics but they are much more expensive to construct. Yes, I know you can get them from the Lotro store but I would rather spend nine T4 relics (six to refine into the necessary shards and three for the melding process) than use Turbine points.
What about the skirmish camp? You can get the T4 relics you need for the melding process but you cannot get the bridle relics directly. You can also get T4 relics off of lieutenants while running skirmishes at level 76 or higher.
Currently, I plan to wait until I reach level cap before worrying about bridle relics and will probably stick to the basic relics once I do. I will leave the high-end relics to those who take their relics seriously.
I will look deeper into relics in Part 3 of this series. By then, I should have seen some of these in action.
As you can see in the above, choosing the wrong bridle after the tutorial will not be any major loss. You are likely to trade in your starter bridle as soon as you get a decent bridle of a higher level. Even if you do stick with your starter for a while, it will serve well enough on the wrong steed as long as you haven’t invested heavily into the major legacies.
Some players may prefer to keep three bridles: one for each steed type. That would consume three legendary item slots so I only recommend this if you plan on using all three steed types equally, you want to use the major legacies, and you generally have empty item slots. As for myself, I rarely keep more than one legendary item of a given type, so it is unlikely that I will maintain more than one active bridle at a time.
One more thing: if you are considering using a medium or heavy war-steed for combat and a light war-steed for travel, then you needn’t worry about having a light bridle for your light war-steed. Yes, the agility legacy would be nice on a travel mount, but that is a minor legacy that would prove equally useful on the battlefield.
In the next part, we will take a deeper look into the bridle legacies.
May your steed protect you and your bridle never break.
Pineleaf Needles
The release of the Rohan expansion is rapidly approaching. The most important feature that is being added in this expansion is mounted combat. This includes a new class of mounts: the war-steed. While we will be looking into all aspects of the mounted combat system here at WARSTEEDS, the first question we must answer is where you can use your war-steeds and fight from horseback?
The simple answer is “In Rohan.” Sig gives slightly more information here. Below, I will discuss this question a bit more in depth.
I will look at six types of areas in how they relate to war-steeds and mounted combat.
The strictest areas are those locations where no mounts are allowed at all. This includes most indoor locations and skirmishes. When you are in one of those areas, all of your mounts are grayed out, thus making them unavailable. If you somehow arrive at such a location mounted, you will be immediately dismounted. This is true even if the location is within Rohan.
You war-steed is no different from any other mount in this regards. If you are not able to mount one of the traditional riding mounts due to location, you would not be allowed to mount your war-steed either. If you cannot mount your war-steed, you obviously cannot participate in mounted combat.
In the next class of locations, you are only allowed to ride goats. War-steeds are either horses or ponies (there are no war-goats). Therefore, you will not be able to summon your war-steed while within the confines of Moria. If you arrive in Moria on a non-goat mount (such as via a port to the 21st Hall), you will be immediately dismounted.
Let’s face it: would you really want to ride your war-steed in Moria? I don’t know about you, but I would rather be able to stop on a dime while in Moria. The last thing I want to do is plunge down one of the cracks that decorate the floors of Moria.
Once again, if you cannot mount your war-steed, you obviously cannot participate in mounted combat.
I only know of one area where you can summon a standard horse or pony but not a war-steed: the Ettenmoors. This was obviously done for the sake of balance. Could you imagine what would happen if the freeps could run around the moors on their war-steeds (even if they weren’t allowed to fight on them)?
In the next class of locations, you can summon any mount you wish, including your war-steed. You can travel through such areas as much as you wish on your war-steed but all of your mounted combat commands will be unavailable. You can use the Quick-stop command, as it only affects the movement of your war-steed.
This class includes most PVE locations in the game. Any PVE location outside of Rohan that allows you to mount a horse or pony will fall in this group. Therefore, you can travel to The Shire and ride your war-steed but you cannot attack anything there until you dismount. You will likely move around much more quickly on your war-steed once you get used to the controls.
This class also includes towns within Rohan. Towns are confined areas that are not suitable for mounted combat and it is likely the local thane wouldn’t appreciate fighting in the streets.
In the fifth class, you can mount, ride, and fight on your war-steed. The question is if you really want to? These are parts of Rohan that are outside the town limits but that include circumstances that may make fighting on horseback more challenging. This type of area generally includes at least one of these conditions:
Fighting in areas with closely-packed opponents is likely to result in your fighting every monster in the area. You could avoid this by just standing still while you fight from your mount. That would give up speed and fury but at least you will be in a position to make a quick getaway if things go sour. Since your mount will take some of your incoming damage, things are less likely to go sour in the first place. Another reason you may prefer to fight this way because you gain more mounted experience for kills you make from your war-steed than you do while fighting on foot.
On the other hand, you will be giving up all of those skills you’ve been earning for the last 75 levels. You have a much wider variety of skills from foot than while mounted and such skill may prove useful under some circumstances.
Finally, we have those areas that are well suited for mounted combat. These are the open plains of Rohan where mounted enemies abound. Here, you will likely be at a disadvantage if you don’t fight on your war-steed. You have room to move and fight. These are the areas for which mounted combat was designed.
What if you become dismounted? Fortunately, you can summon your war-steed while in combat. Of course, if there are several orcs slicing at you with swords, there is little chance that you’ll be able to successfully do so.
Welcome to Rohan and be ready to mount and fight.
May your steed protect you and your reins never break,
Pineleaf Needles
The release of the Rohan expansion is rapidly approaching. The most important feature that is being added in this expansion is mounted combat. This includes a new class of mounts: the war-steed. While we will be looking into all aspects of the mounted combat system here at WARSTEEDS, the first question we must answer is where you can use your war-steeds and fight from horseback?
The simple answer is “In Rohan.” Sig gives slightly more information here. Below, I will discuss this question a bit more in depth.
I will look at six types of areas in how they relate to war-steeds and mounted combat.
The strictest areas are those locations where no mounts are allowed at all. This includes most indoor locations and skirmishes. When you are in one of those areas, all of your mounts are grayed out, thus making them unavailable. If you somehow arrive at such a location mounted, you will be immediately dismounted. This is true even if the location is within Rohan.
You war-steed is no different from any other mount in this regards. If you are not able to mount one of the traditional riding mounts due to location, you would not be allowed to mount your war-steed either. If you cannot mount your war-steed, you obviously cannot participate in mounted combat.
In the next class of locations, you are only allowed to ride goats. War-steeds are either horses or ponies (there are no war-goats). Therefore, you will not be able to summon your war-steed while within the confines of Moria. If you arrive in Moria on a non-goat mount (such as via a port to the 21st Hall), you will be immediately dismounted.
Let’s face it: would you really want to ride your war-steed in Moria? I don’t know about you, but I would rather be able to stop on a dime while in Moria. The last thing I want to do is plunge down one of the cracks that decorate the floors of Moria.
Once again, if you cannot mount your war-steed, you obviously cannot participate in mounted combat.
I only know of one area where you can summon a standard horse or pony but not a war-steed: the Ettenmoors. This was obviously done for the sake of balance. Could you imagine what would happen if the freeps could run around the moors on their war-steeds (even if they weren’t allowed to fight on them)?
In the next class of locations, you can summon any mount you wish, including your war-steed. You can travel through such areas as much as you wish on your war-steed but all of your mounted combat commands will be unavailable. You can use the Quick-stop command, as it only affects the movement of your war-steed.
This class includes most PVE locations in the game. Any PVE location outside of Rohan that allows you to mount a horse or pony will fall in this group. Therefore, you can travel to The Shire and ride your war-steed but you cannot attack anything there until you dismount. You will likely move around much more quickly on your war-steed once you get used to the controls.
This class also includes towns within Rohan. Towns are confined areas that are not suitable for mounted combat and it is likely the local thane wouldn’t appreciate fighting in the streets.
In the fifth class, you can mount, ride, and fight on your war-steed. The question is if you really want to? These are parts of Rohan that are outside the town limits but that include circumstances that may make fighting on horseback more challenging. This type of area generally includes at least one of these conditions:
Fighting in areas with closely-packed opponents is likely to result in your fighting every monster in the area. You could avoid this by just standing still while you fight from your mount. That would give up speed and fury but at least you will be in a position to make a quick getaway if things go sour. Since your mount will take some of your incoming damage, things are less likely to go sour in the first place. Another reason you may prefer to fight this way because you gain more mounted experience for kills you make from your war-steed than you do while fighting on foot.
On the other hand, you will be giving up all of those skills you’ve been earning for the last 75 levels. You have a much wider variety of skills from foot than while mounted and such skill may prove useful under some circumstances.
Finally, we have those areas that are well suited for mounted combat. These are the open plains of Rohan where mounted enemies abound. Here, you will likely be at a disadvantage if you don’t fight on your war-steed. You have room to move and fight. These are the areas for which mounted combat was designed.
What if you become dismounted? Fortunately, you can summon your war-steed while in combat. Of course, if there are several orcs slicing at you with swords, there is little chance that you’ll be able to successfully do so.
Welcome to Rohan and be ready to mount and fight.
May your steed protect you and your reins never break,
Pineleaf Needles