Healing During Mounted Combat, Part 1: Skills and Discipline
by Zetarond of Gladden, Leader of Ars Erthad
In my kinship we were scratching our heads about how to heal during mounted combat. None of our mounted skills seemed to be for healing such as Words of Courage for a captain. After some investigation I determined that healing is a secondary effect for a few skills. The healing effects are influenced by your current discipline: Red Dawn, Rohirrim, or Riddermark. Think of discipline as a “mounted stance.”
For example, my main is a Lore-Master. While not primarily a healer my LM can always drop a Beacon of Hope or the new skill Water-Lore to keep someone up while the main healer is busy. While mounted I had all kinds of attack skills but no dedicated healing skills. I had been running mounted combat mostly solo so I was in Red Dawn discipline all of the time. One LM attack skill is Bond of the Rider. I had thought of it as the mounted equivalent of Light of the Rising Dawn but noticed a secondary effect after the light damage:
That is a nice self-heal that I can use every 18 seconds! Note that the heal applies to rider and mount.
The Rohirrim discipline is shown as blue, often the “healing color” in LOTRO. Out of curiosity I switched to Rohirrim then checked Bond of the Rider again:
The damage from the attack is slightly lower but the heal is larger and applies to the entire fellowship. So that’s where healing has been hiding! Note that the cooldown changed because I had made other changes to mounted traits. While still in Rohirrim I checked another skill:
In this case, Sign of Power: Inspiration acts like a captain’s Revealing Mark in that a fellowship member who lands a blow on the target has a chance for a heal (rider and mount). I checked these skills in the Riddermark discipline to find that they had power restore secondary effects instead of morale/endurance healing.
I finally thought to check the tool tip for Rohirrim discipline. Sure enough, it increases outgoing and incoming healing by 10%. The increase in mount armor is helpful as well.
I have a captain in Rohan so I tried his mounted skills. Sure enough, when in Rohirrim some of his attacks had group healing secondary effects. I would advise everyone to look at all your mounted skills in each of the three disciplines. Comments from Minstrels and Rune-Keepers about their healing skills would be most welcome.
Editor’s note: This post is a submission from a WARSTEEDS reader. It addresses some of the questions related to group healing from horseback. Note that the specific skills shown in this post are for the Loremaster class and that healing skills for the other healer classes will be different. It is important that you examine the tool-tips for your character’s mounted combat skills to see how they work.