Guide to Mounted Combat, Part 2

title="Guide to Mounted Combat, Part 2" />

Part
1
Part
2
Part
3

color="#ffffcc">Fighting
from Horseback
| The
Build

Fighting From Horseback

Now you can head out into the Wold and find some stuff to practice on.
You're going to need it - fighting from horseback is very different from
fighting on foot.

Obviously, the biggest difference is movement - even if you have a very
dynamic fighting style, you will be covering a lot more ground when
fighting from horseback. Attacks backed by speed do more damage, and
standing still while fighting means your horse is getting hit. If you feel
the battle is better fought from a standstill, you're better off on foot
than mounted.

LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - jousting in the wild

title="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - jousting in the wild" />

There are a couple of drawbacks to this style of fighting, and they will
be the determining factors for whether you want to fight on horseback or
on foot. Firstly, in areas with dense mob populations, it's likely that
you will end up pulling additional enemies during long charge attacks.
Blasting past your initial target can carry you right into another warband
or past many single mobs clustered nearby. Situational awareness is more
important than ever in mounted combat.

Second is the tendency of melee enemy mobs to pursue their attackers.
This requires some fine-tuning in combat strategy - you have to increase
to top speed during the charge to blast past after the initial rush, then
reduce speed drastically to turn, then increase it again for the return
charge. Otherwise you just end up running around in circles getting
attacked a lot, because the enemy mobs are not worrying about
momentum-versus-speed and tight cornering. They just stay right on your
ass and keep hitting.

This tendency for melee mobs to pursue their targets also leads to a lot
of "resets." Since you need to run farther to open up distance for the
return charge, you may accidentally move beyond the "tether" distance,
where the pursuing mob reaches the end of the tether and then rushes back
to its original position at full health. This can happen with any kind of
mob, and it does not seem to be limited solely to distance - if the enemy
chases but doesn't hit its target for several seconds, even if it hasn't
gone more than a few linear meters, it will break off and reset. Again,
this stresses the importance of situational awareness - know where you are
and what limitations you are facing.

There are situations where mounted combat is the best option, and others
where it makes more sense to fight on foot. Here's a little chart to help
you make that distinction:

Enemy
is:
Best
Method:
Mounted Mounted
Normal mob in high-density area Foot
Warband Mounted
Ranged, singly or in a group Foot
Near deep water Foot
In a valley, forest or other
obstacle-filled area that restricts maneuverability
Foot
One strong mob ("Alpha") with a group of normals following Mounted
Single melee mob of any sort in
wide-open area
Mounted
In the middle of an enemy camp Foot
On any map other than Rohan Foot
Encountered in a Mounted Combat instance Mounted

Your war-steed's morale works the same way as it does for regular mounts
- once it hits zero, the rider is dismounted. There's just a lot more of
it. When the mounted player is attacked and damage is done, the damage is
split roughly 70/30 between the rider and the mount. Some enemies have
special attacks that deal damage differently or have varied effects (such
as dismounting attacks), but the general split is 70% for the rider and
30% for the mount.

There are three mounted combat stances, which echo the themes of the
rider's three class trait sets. The red one, Red Dawn, typically
emphasizes DPS the same as red class trait lines. The blue stance,
Riddermark, typically emphasizes the same things as the blue class trait
lines - for example, on Hunters it emphasizes speed, on Lore-masters it
emphasizes healing and on Guardians it emphasizes tanking. The yellow
stance, Rohirrim, emphasizes yellow trait line stuff - CC for Hunters and
Lore-masters, and threat generation for Guardians.

LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - comparison of stances for a Hunter

title="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - comparison of stances for a Hunter" />

Mounted attacks can be queued up during the charge, and these queued
attacks will automatically fire when you enter attack range. This has
slightly more importance for melee attackers than for ranged attackers,
who can circle wide and keep the enemy at a distance while peppering it
with ranged attacks.

Ranged attackers can use the fleet hooves of their mount to keep a steady
distance from their targets, steering wide circles around the enemy and
firing in. Melee attackers will need to take a different approach -
tighter circles at slower speed or long, straight charges at high speed.
There is, however, a technical issue with the long, straight
jousting-style charges - the mobs will pursue the attacker, but will reset
past a certain range. For melee fights against multiple mobs, small, slow,
tight circles seem to work best.

Power management can also be an issue in larger fights - the war-steed's
initial power pool is rather small, and most attacks use the mount's power
in addition to or instead of the rider's power. Mounted attacks also use a
new combat "currency" called Fury, which is essentially the war-steed's
version of the Hunter's Focus or the Champion's Rage. Fury is built up
over time by maintained bursts of speed, and very powerful attacks will
require large amounts of Fury.

LotRO Mounted Combat Guide, Part 2

title="Guide to Mounted Combat, Part 2" />

Part
1
Part
2
Part
3

color="#ffffcc">Fighting
from Horseback
| The
Build

The Build

After getting into a few fights in the Wold, you'll have the basics of
mounted combat. But the system is deceptively large and complex, and if
you want to make the most out of it, you'll want to focus on the details
of your war-steed's build.

War-steeds level up pretty much the same way as LI's do - they gain
partial experience from each kill, and some quests reward mount
experience. However, unlike LIs, war-steeds do not have crapshoot random
legacies to level up. They have skill trees, separated into three distinct
roles - Heavy, Medium and Light.

LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - skill tree comparison

title="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - skill tree comparison" />

Skill trees are fairly straightforward. Pick one tree and spend a point
in it, and the other two trees become unavailable. Skills are tiered -
you must spend points on lower-tier skills to unlock higher-tier skills.
In each tree, there are three "branches," which accentuate the mounted
stance of the same color: the red DPS branch (Red Dawn), the blue support
branch (Rohirrim), and the yellow "flow-of-battle" branch (Riddermark).
Dumping points into one branch makes the rider more effective with that
related stance. At the top is a row of upgrades - Agility, Strength,
Power, Endurance, Armor - which increase the base stats, but do not affect
the tiered skills in the branches below.

The role of your horse is not dictated by your class. There's no reason,
for example, that a Rune-keeper can't use a Heavy horse to bulldoze his
enemies under hoof, or that a Guardian can't use a Light horse to evade
his enemies for swift control of the battlefield. There will be situations
where, say, a Guardian wants his mount to be more fleet of foot, or where
a Hunter wants his horse to be sturdier and more heavily-armored for
increased survivability. This is where trait specs come in.

LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - light tree with yellow branch filled out

title="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - light tree with yellow branch filled out" />

Each spec contains all three trees - Light, Medium and Heavy. Pick a role
and spend a point, and that trait spec gets locked to that tree. Players
will start with two trait specs, and can unlock up to five more through
the LotRO Store. Each of the trait specs can be renamed to make selection
easier, and renaming a spec is free. Re-allocating points in a trait spec
costs a bit of silver, but doing so allows you to completely change that
spec - you can move all the points from Light to Heavy, for example,
rather than being limited to just the Light tree again.

What this essentially means is, you can have a spec for every
situation. You can have a fast, agile Light horse that accentuates your
DPS, and a second Light spec that has all its points in the yellow branch
for improved crowd-control, and a heavily-armoured Heavy spec that allows
you to do some front-line fighting. Swapping specs is as easy as clicking
one button, meaning it is easier to do for your character's horse than for
your character.

War-steeds earn one trait point per level, plus an additional 2 every 5th
level and a handful of bonus points along the way, and have a maximum
level of 50; by the time your war-steed reaches level-cap, you will end up
with 77 points for each trait spec. It would cost 84 points to buy every
skill in one tree, so each trait spec will be somewhat "focused."
Essentially, 77/84 points means you don't buy the high-tier and capstone
skills you won't be using from the off-spec branches.

alt="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - Light tree, yellow branch capstone skill"

title="LotRO Mounted Combat Guide - Light tree, yellow branch capstone skill" />

Of course, switching from one tree to another means you will likely also have
to swap your Legendary Bridle.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Lord of the Rings Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

Comments