Bridle – LOTRO Players

A Look at Legendary Bridles, Part 3: Relics

We have already taken a general overview of bridles, as well as a look at legacies. Now it is time to look at relics. Just as with other legendary items, you may enhance your bridle with up to four relics: a setting, a gem, a rune, and a crafted relic. The catch is that bridles do not use the same relics as other items.

You create crafted bridle relics in a similar fashion as you create crafted relics for other items.

For bridle settings, gems, and runes, you have a smaller set of options than you have for general relics. The most reliable means I have seen for obtaining non-crafted bridle relics is through melding them at a Relic Master. Some do occasionally drop from war band boxes but I have yet to personally see this. Alas, they do not drop as loot in instances or when you deconstruct a legendary item (not even when you deconstruct a bridle).

I must admit that I haven’t used the melding system all that much. As such, my minstrel reached level cap even before I gave serious thought to adding relics to a bridle. If I’m going to spend resources making a relic, it might as well be for an item that I’ll be keeping for more than the next two days (and no, I don’t make it a habit to use relic removal scrolls).

Crafted Relics

There are two types of crafted relics associated with bridles: Insignias and Emblems. While there are also Emblems for other legendary items, only bridles have Insignias at this time.

Crafted bridle relic recipes are only available through your crafting guild. As usual, you make an item for the guild and you barter that for the actual relic you want. You can also get Insignias through trade while Emblems are bound to the character that makes them. All guilds have the same bridle relics available.

Bridle Emblems

Bridle Emblems may only be equipped on a bridle with an equip level of at least 85 (the level cap as of this writing). You must place the emblem in the Crafted Relic slot of the bridle.

Crafting these relics requires a Compendium of Middle-earth Volume IV, which is available through the Prospector Resource Instance in Hytbold. The recipe has a seven-day cooldown and the relic is bound on acquisition.

There are a total of six bridle emblems. Each has the following bonuses:

+600 Maximum War-steed Endurance
+495 Maximum War-steed Power

In addition, each emblem has a third bonus depending on its type:

Emblem of Acceleration +10 War-steed Acceleration Rate
Emblem of Agility +50 War-steed Agility
Emblem of Armour +300 War-steed Armour
Emblem of Strength +50 War-steed Strength
Emblem of the Rider -25% Attack Duration
Emblem of Turning +10 War-steed Turn Rate

Insignias

Bridles have a second crafted relic type (called Insignias) that works differently than other crafted relics. First, they are class-specific. Each class has a total of three insignias, thus giving us 27 insignias in all. Second, you can equip your insignia in any relic slot rather than just in the crated relic slot. This means you can have both an Emblem and an Insignia on the same legendary bridle (though you cannot have more than a single Insignia on a given bridle).

Below is a list of the Insignias currently available. Insignias may be placed on a bridle with an equip level of 80 or higher. Unlike Emblems, Insignias are tradable. The recipes to create them (or technically, to create the item you trade for them) have a three-day cool down.

Burglar

Insignia of Strategic Force: +25% Strategic Strike Damage.
Insignia of the Quick Wrist: 25% chance that using the Ride By skill will reset All in the Wrist.
Insignia of Trickery: +10% Mounded Speed while using Trick: Strategem.

Captain

Insignia of Free Speech: +25% chance that Oppressive Blow will reset your cries.
Insignia of Resurgence: +25% Rally the Riders Healing.
Insignia of Wrath: +10% Critical Hit Chance for Cry Wrath.

Champion

Insignia of Boundless Fervour: 25% chance that Recuperate, Destabilizing Strike, and Horn Blast will not remove Fervour when used.
Insignia of Mounted Precision: +10% critical chance for Sundering Strike.
Insignia of Zealousness: Increases the duration of effects from Recuperate, Horn Blast, and Destabilizing Strikes by 1s for each Fervour that is removed.

Guardian

Insignia of Driven Recovery: 25% chance that using the Driving Slash skill will reset Clash of Arms.
Insignia of Maining: Increase the effects of Staggering Slash by 20%.
Insignia of the Fighting Edge: +10% Critical Hit Chance for Rohan’s Edge.

Hunter

Insignia of Deadly Precision: +10% critical chance for Noble Arrow.
Insignia of Impact: +15% chance for Kill Shot to dismount of a critical hit.
Insignia of Marksmanship: 25% chance that the bonuses provided by Establishing Shot will not be removed on a critical hit.

Lore Master

Insignia of Nature: Meara- Lore will now affect two additional targets.
Insignia of the Enduring Flame: +25% Enduing Embers Damage.
Insignia of the Inspired: +15 chance for effects to proc while Sign of Power: Inspiration is active on a target.

Minstrel

Insignia of Free Verse: -50% Ballad Cost.
Insignia or Melodic Strikes: 25% chance for Hammer of Rohan to open access to Anthems and Codas.
Insignia of Unchained Melody: 25% chance that codas will not consume ballads on use.

Rune-keeper

Insignia of Ending: Performing Fixation will increase the critical chance of your next Resolution by 25%.
Insignia of Inspiration: +2 Inspirational Verse pulses.
Insignia of the Elements: Invoke the Elements will place a debuff on enemies that will increase all incoming damage by 3% for 10s.

Warden

Insignia of the Eorlingas: +10% Player buff magnitude when using Assault of the Eorlingas, Roar of the Eorlingas, or Defence of the Eorlingas.
Insignia of Persistence: +10s Skill of the Eorlingas buff duration.
Insignia of the Steeled Mind: +10% critical chance for Clash of Steel and Will.

Settings, Gems, and Runes

For other bridle relics, we have three different tiers with three settings, three gems, and three runes at each tier. The three tiers are Basic, Unique, and Singular.

The most reliable way to get these relics is through melding. The basic relics are fairly inexpensive to make but they are likewise relatively weak. The unique relics are much more expensive but are also significantly more powerful. The singular relics are even more expensive and a little more powerful (but not enough so to tempt me to make them). The table below shows the costs for each relic type.

Tier	Equip Level	Shards	Relics
Basic	75	194	Any three T4
Unique	75	2496	Three specific T8
Singular	80	4992	Three specific T9

The Basic Relics have a minimum level of 75 and are relatively easy to make as they only cost 194 shards and any three T4 relics. The Unique Relics are significantly more powerful and likewise significantly more expensive. I only recommend the Singular relics for those who need the top-of-the line relics, as they cost twice as much as the Unique relics without being twice as powerful.

You can also get these relics from war band loot boxes. The third way to get them is through the Lotro Store. Unlike general relics, bridle relics do not drop as loot in skirmishes and are not generated when you deconstruct legendary items. I also have yet to see one as a quest reward.

Basic

Basic bridle relics are equivalent to Tier 4 general relics.

Bridle Setting of Fortitude +5 War-steed Strength
Bridle Setting of Renewal +84 in-Combat War-steed Endurance Regen
Bridle Setting of Persistence +200 Maximum War-steed Endurance
Bridle Gem of Dexterity +10 War-steed Agility
Bridle Gem of Restoration +72 in-Combat Power Regen
Bridle Gem of Capacity +150 Maximum War-steed Power
Bridle Rune of Avoidance +125 War-steed Evade Rating
Bridle Rune of Defence +100 War-steed Armour
Bridle Rune of Momentum +1 War-steed Acceleration Rate

Unique

In my first article, I didn’t have much of an appreciation for these relics. Now that I take a closer look, the do look really sweet in comparison to the basic relics. For example, the Bridle Setting of Aggression doubles the strength bonus over that for the Bridle Setting of Fortitude, adds an attack duration bonus, and also adds a physical/tactical mastery bonus. This is a major upgrade (expensive, but now I see why).

Bridle Setting of Aggression:

+606 Physical and Tactical Mastery
+10 War-steed strength
-15% Attack Duration

Bridle Setting of Savvy

+606 Physical & Tactical Mastery
+168 in-Combat War-steed Endurance Regen
+5 meter max distance of ranged skills

Bridle Setting of Clout

+606 Physical & Tactical Mastery
+400 Maximum War-steed Endurance
+10 War-steed strength

Bridle Gem of Acumen

+606 Critical Rating
+25% Critical Multiplier
-15% War-steed Power Cost

Bridle Gem of Haste

+606 Critical Rating
+10 War-steed Agility
+141 in-combat War-steed Power Regen

Bridle Gem of Alacrity

+606 Critical Rating
+330 Maximum War-steed Power
+10 War-steed Agility

Bridle Rune of Tenacity

+303 Block, Parry, and Evade
+360 Resistance Rating
+455 Physical and Tactical Mitigation

Bridle Rune of Perseverance

+303 Block, Parry, and Evade
+250 War-steed Evade Rating
+2 War-steed Acceleration Rate

Bridle Rune of Protection

+303 Block, Parry, and Evade
+200 War-steed Armour
+2 War-steed Turn Rate

Singular

These relics are upgrades over the unique relics. They cost twice as many shards to construct and require Tier 9 relics.

Bridle Eastemnet Setting of Aggression

+646 Physical and Tactical Mastery
+20 War-steed strength
-15% Attack Duration

Bridle Eastemnet Setting of Savvy

+646 Physical and Tactical Mastery
+184.5 in-Combat War-steed Endurance Regen
+5m Max distance of ranged skills

Bridle Eastemnet Setting of Clout

+646 Physical and Tactical Mastery
+20 War-steed strength
+600 Maximum War-steed Endurance

Bridle Eastemnet Gem of Acumen

+646 Critical Rating
+25% Critical Multiplier
-15% War-steed Power Cost

Bridle Eastemnet Gem of Haste

+646 Critical Rating
+20 War-steed Agility
+154.5 in-Combat War-steed Endurance Regen

Bridle Eastemnet Gem of Alacrity

+646 Critical Rating
+20 War-steed Agility
+495 Maximum War-steed Power

Bridle Eastemnet Rune of Tenacity

+323 Block, Parry, and Evade
+384 Resistance Rating
+485 Physical and Tactical Mitigation

Bridle Eastemnet Rune of Perseverance

+323 Block, Parry, and Evade
+375 War-steed Evade Rating
+4 War-steed Acceleration Rate

Bridle Eastemnet Rune of Protection

+323 Block, Parry, and Evade
+300 War-steed Armour
+4 War-steed Turn Rate

Star-Lit Crystals

While not a relic, there is still one item we did not discuss: Star-Lit Crystals. For each crystal that you add to a bridle, the attributes of the bridle are increased as if the equip level were increased by one (if does not affect the actual level required to equip it, though). Therefore, the only two effects I expect are an increase in the Fury Bonus Contribution Rating as well as the Benevolence Healing Rating Bonus (a major legacy). Since I am not heavy into Fury and I am not using a heavy steed, I have little incentive to place any crystals I get onto a bridle.

May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles

A Look at Legendary Bridles, Part 2: Legacies

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).

Inherent (Fury Bonus Contribution Rating)

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 3^rd and 2^nd 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

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.

Medium

Since we have looked at the medium tree, we will look at the medium major legacies first. First, there are the three capstone legacies:

Shields Will Be Splintered damage (+1% to +10% on Table A – Full)
Survivability Damage Shield Chance (+1% to +5% on Table B)
Strong Willed skill duration (+1 to +5 on Table B)

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.

Rider Parry Change increase (+1% to 5% on Table B)

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.

Class skill damage over time pulses ( +1 to +9 in 9 ranks)
Class skill slow duration (+1 to +5 on Table B)

As you can see, most major legacies tend to be highly specialized. The most general of them is the parry chance.

Light

The light bridle major legacies work in just the same way. In this case, the defense improved is evade rather than parry.

Disengaging Strikes dismount chance (+1% to 5% on Table B)
Motivation through Aggression Heal Chance (+1% to 5% on Table B)
Wrath Critical Chance (+1% to 10% on Table A)
Rider Evade Chance increase (+1% to 5% on Table B)
Class skill dismount chance (+1% to 5% on Table B)
Class skill damage over time (+1% to +10% on Table A)

Heavy

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.

Spears will be Shaken Slow Duration (+1 to +10 on Table A – Integer)
Benevolence healing rating (+600 and up)
Conservative Combatant power cost (+1% to +10% on Table A – Full)
Rider block chance (+1% to 5% on Table B)
Rider Armour Value (+133 to +1199 on Table D)
Class skill forced movement duration (+1 to +5 from Table B)

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

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.

Red Dawn skill healing (+1% to +10% on Table A – Full)
Red Dawn skill power cost (-1% to -10% on Table A – Full)
Red Dawn skill direct damage (+1% to +10% on Table A – Modified)
Rohirrim skill healing (+1% to +10% on Table A – Full)
Rohirrim skill power cost (-1% to -10% on Table A – Full)
Rohirrim skill direct damage (+1% to +10% on Table A – Modified)
Riddermark skill healing (+1% to +10% on Table A – Full)
Riddermark skill power cost (-1% to -10% on Table A – Full)
Riddermark skill direct damage (+1% to +10% on Table A – Modified)

The final six minor legacies affect the stats for the war-steed. These stats can also be improved through spending trait points.

War-steed agility (+8 to +74 on Table C – 8)
War-steed strength (+8 to +74 on Table C – 8)
War-steed Armour
Maximum War-steed Power (+112 to +1000 on Table C – 112)
Maximum War-steed Endurance (+112 to +1000 on Table C – 112)
War-steed evade rating (+117 to +1050)

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.

Conclusions

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

A Look at Legendary Bridles, Part 1: Overview

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.

Obtaining a Bridle

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.

Bridle Types

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.

Legacies

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.

Inherent Legacy

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.

Major Legacies

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.

Light Bridle Major Legacies

Below are the six legacies associated with light bridles.

Disengaging Strikes dismount chance
Motivation through Aggression Heal Chance
Wrath Critical Chance
Rider Evade Chance increase
Class skill dismount chance
Class skill damage over time

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 Bridle Major Legacies

Medium and heavy bridles follow a similar pattern. For medium bridles, we get:

Shields will be Splintered damage
Survivability Damage Shield Chance
Strong Willed skill duration
Rider Parry Change increase
Class skill slow duration
Class skill damage over time pulses

This time, the defense bonus is for parry instead of evade.

Heavy Bridle Major Legacies

Spears will be Shaken Slow Duration
Benevolence healing rating
Conservative Combatant power cost
Rider block chance
Rider Armour Value
Class skill forced movement duration

For the heavy bridle, we have two that affect defenses (block and armor) rather than two that affect class skills.

Minor Legacies

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).

War-steed agility
War-steed strength
War-steed Armour
War-steed evade rating
War-steed Maximum Power
War-steed Maximum Endurance
Red Dawn skill direct damage bonus
Red Dawn skill healing bonus
Red Dawn skill power cost reduction
Rohirrim skill direct damage bonus
Rohirrim skill healing bonus
Rohirrim skill power cost reduction
Riddermark skill direct damage bonus
Riddermark skill healing bonus
Riddermark skill power cost reduction

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.

Relics

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.

Conclusions

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