One year Danaversary!

Here it is. Throw the confetti. Danania.net came online just over one year ago! Woohoo!

Some data review (because that is what I do…):

As of February 28, 2013, According to Blogger, the site had received,

• 101 posts,
• 92,000 visitors,
• 580 comments,
• 34 "followers".

Because of you early readers, I was blessed to have a great following before I even made the jump from guild-site-forum-writer to an actual blogger, so I had an amazing start. Then, the Riders of Rohan expansion happened in October, and the site blossomed and started to grow! The number of visitors more than doubled in October-2012 drawn to the pictures of the warsteeds and the Warsteed Traiting Guide and the other various guides and "All the Steeds" Gallery! You visitors are just awesome! I am excited that you show up, get something out of the visit, and comment! I would like to think that my writing and pictures have gotten better over the past year. :D

Visitor tally by month:

Some specific links from which the site received the most hits included,

Ketani’s Warsteed discussion… CSTM: the-price-of-a-well-dressed-war-steed 

referencing the many class warsteed cosmetics @ rohan-warsteed-cosmetic-looks 

Warsteed traiting discussions on the forums, including…

Forum: Light-Medium-Heavy-Warsteed 

referencing the Warsteed Traiting Guide @ rohan-warsteed-traiting-part-1

Goldenstar’s seal of approval… CSTM: recommended-reading-danania-net

I have more fun links on the page, Danania's Links.

Thank you to all the people who put links to this site on their pages and forums as well. You know who you are and I know who you are when you tell me, and I try to keep my Links page up to date. :)  

The most popular Google searches that hit this site included “danania”, “danania.net”, “supergirl hunt”, “lotro riders of rohan”, “rk legacies”, and numerous steeds that show up throughout the blog and gallery.

Some of your most visited pages (according to Blogger) include,

1. The original stat math post (lotro-stat-math-rk-gear)
2. The Warsteed Cosmetic post (rohan-warsteed-cosmetic-looks)
3. Fastest Skirmishes (fastest-skirmishes-marks-per-minute)
4. Steed of Victory and Steed of Dol Baran (steed-of-victory-and-steed-of-dol-baran)
5. The Herbalist build (Herbalist)
6. Warsteed Traiting, all five sections (rohan-warsteed-traiting)
7. Legacies for RK LIs (legacies-for-rk-stones)
8. Relics and Virtues (U6-relics-and-virtues)

I need to do some new posts revising some of these as Update 10 tweaked some of the digits.

And thankfully, you liked my Guide to All the Steeds, which I keep up-to-date. With my enjoyment of the Steeds, I try to make sure you will always find it full of the most comprehensive set of steeds lotro has to offer! (All the Steeds)

Thank you so much for visiting Danania.net!

Rohan: Now at 85 more fun begins

Now I am level 85. Ok, technically, I turned to level 85 on the 19th day after RoR release. I am not the fastest leveler that is for certain. There were plenty of XP opportunities to get to 85. From the picture, I was in Entwash Vale when the moment happened. I had never seen Fangorn, and had very briefly visited Sutcroft-Hytbold for the first time earlier that day since I had mail telling me to go there.

Initially, I was inclined to just continue on my merry path doing the quests in the order they came and leave Hytbold alone. However, a friend convinced me to work Hytbold as a parallel path, which was a good move.

Now, it is time to get serious. Items on the agenda include: new LI, new relics, new Bridle, new Armor, &/or new Moors Armor, and new jewelry.  I will dissect and write about all of those as I move along; right now I have done the LI and the relics and the bridle and will write about those soon.

Along the way, my warsteed hit max level 50! Go steed. It took longer than it took me to get from 75 to 85, but not much longer. I think it happened in the fourth week after RoR. He does indeed have 77 points to spend.

With that happening, I could finally verify the Traiting action plan I pursued in rohan-warsteed-traiting-part-5.

Graphically, the trait pages that I showed numbers for look like these:

Light Trait set choice:

Medium Trait set choice:

Heavy Trait set choice:

With my new LI, I am feeling much more comfortable as a RK with Lightning dominant Warsteed, meaning I stay in Riddermark discipline more than I did while leveling. I haven’t diagnosed whether it has a better DPS output than Red Dawn, but I am more at ease with the decimating effects of a lightning slinger. 

Up next… talk about mebbe relics, mebbe the new LI, mebbe story-time… my head is full and my photo gallery over-floweth. J

Rohan: Warsteed Traiting, part 5

The first four Parts of Warsteed traiting had a lot of information. Now, I want to take it apart and making some comparisons.

Part 1: Trait line Overview (Part 1)

Part 2: Light Traits (Part 2)

Part 3: Medium Traits (Part 3)

Part 4: Heavy Traits (Part 4)
Part 5: Comparisons (you are here)

It is important to not only understand where you are but where you are trying to go and how to get there. When optimizing any of these systems (relics, legacies, traits, etc), make some decisions on where you would like to be and that will help drive your decisions.

A very important piece of information is that when your Warsteed is at maximum level of 50, he will have 77 points worth of traits to spend. As we saw in Parts 2, 3, and 4, all the Light traits will cost 94 points, the Medium will cost 95 points (corrected 11/19/12), and the Heavy will cost 95 points. That means you will have to make choices.

Rider buffs: Hmm… which traits to choose… Many of the warsteed traits are “rider buffs”. Read through them… they enhance YOUR Evade, Block, Finesse, Critical, etc. So really, “who are you” will determine what traits you will likely want to choose.

Class helpful: Not all traits are equally beneficial to you. Let’s take a good example of me as a Runekeeper. I deal in “Tactical” skills. LMs and Minis are the same, and you weapon slingers are Physical types. Traits that buff Tactical are good… traits that buff Physical have no real benefit for me. Similarly, traits that offer bonuses to Block would have no value for me since I have no shield.

Discipline oriented: Notice that all the capstone traits start with the text, “While in xxxx Discipline…”. Here is something you will have to understand about the way you play while on your Warsteed. What do these capstones do? Do you change Disciplines often? How do these Disciplines affect your SKILLS?

This last part is important. For RK, Red is great for general damage, but Blue switches all skills to healing. Yellow will shock, and stun, and dismount enemies. As you learn to ride, learn how to use your Disciplines to your advantage. That said, look at the capstone traits and decide what is important for you. My trait sets use at least 2 capstone traits; I will go into detail below.

Stat modifier traits: There are 5 warsteed traits for stat modifiers: Agility, Strength, Power, Endurance/morale, and Armor.

This table shows what Warsteed Agility and Strength are doing to your character and your horse. Power, Endurance, and Armor are modified by traits, skills, and LIs only; there are no dependent relationships such as you see in Table 5A.

Table 5A: How Warsteed Agility and Strength affect secondary stats

	Stat	Calculated…
Personal	Physical Mastery	Strength * 1.0
	Tactical Mastery	Agility * 1.0
	Block	Strength * 1.5 Note that if you don't have a shield, you cannot block
Warsteed	Turn rate	Agility / 20
	WS Evade	Agility * 1.5
	WS ICMR	Agility * 0.54
	WS nCMR	Strength * 0.60 + Agility * 1.20
	WS ICPR	Strength * 0.54
	WS nCPR	Strength * 1.20 + Agility * 0.60
	Acceleration	Modified by traits, skills, and LIs only
	Fury Bonus Rating	Modified by traits, skills, and LIs only

I rarely ever run out of Power, however, my Warsteed will. I traited for bonus WS Power on all three warsteeds. Second, since WS Agility modifies Tactical mastery and steed control, this one is an obvious choice for tactical classes. Third, if an enemy does manage to track me down (usually ranged attackers) having spare Endurance is a good thing so I chose Endurance as well.

Because I am a RK, I preferentially do not choose Warsteed Strength or Warsteed Armor as stat improvements. WS Strength improves my Block (I have no shield), my Physical Mastery (I am Tactical), Warsteed ICPR, Warsteed nCMR, and Warsteed nCPR. The regens are nice but what would I give up?

Warsteed Armor is for damage reduction to the warsteed. It is an interesting question. As a RK, I have little interest in getting hit so I stay out of harm’s way. With any of the horses, I play with similar tactics. I cannot stay in front of a wall of enemies taking shots even with the horse absorbing part of the hits. So, I will trade Armor for getting-the-heck-outta-the-way with faster steed hooves. There are some good protections for Medium and Heavy also and I will go into those throughout this article.

Light Warsteed Traiting: Please keep in mind that these are some decisions I am making for myself and what works for me may not work for you very well. You know who you are. I will explain what traits I would take or leave while Light Warsteed traiting.

Ok, at max warsteed, I have 77 points available and there are 94 points worth of Light traits. To make things easier to explain, I will list the traits I did NOT chose. I will find 17 points to leave off.

Look at all the tables on Part 2 for Light traiting. I took every trait except:

• Strength. Saved 5 pts.
• Armor. Saved 5 pts.
• Deceptive Appearance 3rd pt – Red line. To continue with the chain I had to take 2 points worth. It is for threat reduction. Saved 1 pt.
• Feign Injury – Red line. It is a skill that causes the enemy to stop attacking you. Saved 2 pts.
• Defensive Riding – Blue line. It is a buff to your B/P/E. No shield equals no Block, and RK’s are not built to Parry or Evade much. Saved 3 pts.
• Invigorating Presence – Blue line. To continue with the chain I had to take 2 points worth. It is a bonus to incoming and outgoing healing rating. Saved 1 pt.

Medium Warsteed Traiting: Same caveats as light, these are some decisions I would make for RK, a tactical class. If you are a hunter, you would clearly need to adjust to a Physical mastery build.

Again, at max warsteed, I have 77 points available and now there are 95 points (corrected 11/19/12) worth of Medium traits. Here are the traits shown in Part 3 that I did NOT chose. I need to cut off 18 points from the total.

• Strength. Saved 5 pts.
• Armor. Saved 5 pts.
• Physical Specimen – Red line. Physical mastery. Fortunately, the tree is setup to choose either Physical Mastery or Tactical Mastery making choices easy (you physical types will probably want to drop Tactical Genius instead). Saved 3 pts.
• Keen Instincts – Blue line. Block and Parry. Saved 3 pts.
• Patience - Blue line. -10% character power cost, took rank 1, not rank 2. Saved 2 pts.

Heavy Warsteed Traiting: You know the drill… applies to me as a RK. I expect a tank to care more about things like Block and Strength and increasing threat so this build will not fit everyone, but is well suited for me.

The Heavy Blue set is really fascinating. Whereas, the Light Blue had a morale and power healing theme, and the Medium Blue had a power conservation and Sacrificial tank theme, the Heavy Blue focuses more on Armor and Morale regen. Its build does not think like a RK, but that does not condemn it as a RK horse. It is just a different approach.

In the Yellow set, had I been able to drop Coax (forces an enemy to ride in melee) I would have. However, it was part of the chain, and the Trample skill (further down the chain) is fun.

Max warsteed has 77 points available and there are 95 points worth of Heavy traits. Here are the traits from Part 4 that I did NOT chose. I need to cut off 18 points from the total. (corrected 11/19/12).

• Strength. Saved 5 pts.
• Armor. Saved 5 pts. Even on a Heavy horse, I am not wearing enough armor to “stand and tank”. The horse might not fall as quickly, but I would get pummeled.
• Instigate – Red line. Increases threat over time. Saved 2 pts.
• Flexibility – Blue line. Evade and Block. To continue with the chain I had to take 2 points worth. Saved 1 pt.
• Positive Thinking – Blue line. Skill toggle for personal morale regen. Saved 2 pts.
• Benevolence – Blue line. RK specific capstone: Boosts incoming and outgoing healing. Saved 3 pts.

Comparisons of my trait choices:

Do note that these are MY choices for how best to make a Warsteed for me, a Runekeeper. As a RK, I must stay in motion; no armor + stationary RK = flattened RK. Thus, even my Heavy WS is as mobile as possible.

Stats – observations:

• Endurance of a Heavy steed is much better than a Light.
• Light steed turns much sharper with quick Acceleration and generates Fury quicker.
• Light steed is going to have better WS Evade; the heavy has much better Armor (if I had taken armor).

Note1: These stat numbers were taken from my level 44 Warsteed; I will need to check to see if WS Power and Endurance are variable up to level 50. (I believe the Endurance changes slightly and the WS Power does not.)

Note2: The WS Turn rate information does not match the character sheet; it appears there might be an error in the addition of the “Agile Movement” trait to the character sheet.

Note3: Caveat emptor. These data were taken from RK on warsteed, and I haven’t cross checked it for other classes. I will change it or flag it if errors are found.

Table 5B: Warsteed Stats as modified by my Trait choices

	Light	Medium	Heavy
WS Agility	690 (300 base + 390 mod)	550 (200 base + 350 mod)	420 (100 base + 320 mod)
WS Strength	100 (100 base + 0 mod)	200 (200 base + 0 mod)	300 (300 base + 0 mod)
WS Endurance (morale)	2125 (1450 base + 675 mod)	2780 (2030 base + 750 mod)	3435 (2610 base + 825 mod)
WS Power	3256 (2176 base+1080 mod)	3365 (2176 base+1200 mod)	3496 (2176 base+1320 mod)
WS Armor	100 (100 base + 0 mod)	130 (130 base + 0 mod)	160 (160 base + 0 mod)
Steel Skin skill	X	X	Skill toggle: +600 Armor
WS Acceleration Rate	39 (17 base + 22 mod)	35 (15 base + 20 mod)	33 (15 base + 18 mod)
WS Turn rate	205 (155 base + 35 from agi +15 mod)	185 (145 base + 28 from agi +12 mod)	165 (135 base + 21 from agi +9 mod)
WS Evade	1650 (450 base + 1200 mod)	1300 (300 base + 1000 mod)	950 (150 base + 800 mod)
Regens modified as shown in Table 5A which I won’t bother to calc:
WS ICPR	+324	+270	+243
WS nCPR	+756	+648	+594
WS ICMR	+243	+270	+324
WS nCMR	+486	+594	+702
WS Max Speed	15.0	14.5	14.0
Dash skill (speed)	+3	+3	+3
Dash as Toggle	Toggle dash	no	No

Offense – observations:

• Light is more conducive for Tactical Mastery and Critical.
• All three cut through armor well: Finesse, reduce enemy armor, reduce Evade and Block.
• Light has trait for dismounting enemy.
• Heavy has the Trample skill.
• Heavy, and to a lesser extent Medium, have a lot of stacking bonus damage possibilities. Check out turning on skill toggle +25% critical chance, hitting an unmounted enemy (+30% damage), from behind (+45% damage), with full Fury. Owch.

Table 5C: Warsteed Offense dictated by my Trait choices

	Light	Medium	Heavy
OFFENSE
Max range	+10 distance	+10 distance	+10 distance
Tactical Mastery	+2100	+1800	+1500
Physical Mastery	+1500	X	+1800
Finesse	+1200	X	X
Enemy armor	-2400	Red only: greatly reduce enemy armor while using skills	X
Enemy Evade chance	X	X	-30%
Enemy Block chance	X	X	-30%
	Skill: Enemy forced to ride at range off flank (30s CD, 10s duration)	X	Skill: Enemy forced to ride in melee off flank (30s CD, 10s duration)
Critical	+1200	+1200	+500
Critical chance	Red only: +25%	X	Skill toggle: +25% (20s CD, power cost)
Critical multiplier	X	+15%
	Yellow only: 50% chance to dismount target on critical	X	Red only: slows enemy movement speed on critical hit
Bonus damage:
vs Mounted	X	+15%	X
vs Unmounted	X	X	+30%
attacking from behind	X	Moderate DoT to skills	+45%
Misc offense	Moderate DoT to skills	Red only: Inflict heavy bleed damage while using skills	Trample: knockback and damage enemies (20s CD, 10s duration)
Misc offense	X	Yellow only: +7s duration for attack skills	X
Misc offense	-6s CD reduction for 2 skills	-10s CD reduction for 5 skills	X

Fellowship skill:

• There is just the one Fellowship trait and skill for each horse type. They are all great. Even if you are travelling alone, it is useful. The duration is 1 hour, so each time you mount up, turn it on. 

Table 5D: Warsteed Fellowships

	Light	Medium	Heavy
Fellowship skill (1 hr Duration, 30s CD = always on)	+500 WS power, -10% attack duration, +3% evade	+500 WS morale, -1s skill CD, +3% parry	+500 WS Armor, -20% WS power cost, +3% Block

Defense – observations:

• There is no denying that the Heavy warsteed is much better of a defender than the Light. It improves your mitigations, evade, parry, resistance, and of course, the WS has better armor and more morale.
• The Medium is a beast of a tank though. At least for the way I ride, the Skill “Sacrifice” where the WS takes no damage while the skill is toggled is just amazing. Tank down in Blue skills allowing the trait Survivability to put up protection bubbles and the Medium is well suited to tank. 

Table 5E: Warsteed Defense dictated by my Trait choices

	Light	Medium	Heavy
DEFENSE
Physical mitigation	+750	+1050	+1350
Tactical mitigation	+750	+1050	+1350
Evade	X	+320	+200
Parry	X	X	+500
Resistance	X	+600	+600
Critical defense	X	X	+60
Misc defense	-20% Threat (damage and healing)	RK: Blue only: 25% chance to apply damage preventing bubble for skills	X
Misc defense	Skill: Enemy stops attacking (5 min CD, 5s dur)	Skill toggle: WS takes no damage. (power cost)	X
Misc defense	X	Skill: Enemy forced to flee for a short time (30s CD, 10s duration)	X

Healing – observations:

• The Light steed is the healer’s steed, at least for traiting. Skills in Blue set are made for healing so I am sure that any of them could be fine. Light provides a Heal skill that heals more Endurance than my WS actually has. 

Table 5F: Healing dictated by my Trait choices

	Light	Medium	Heavy
HEALING
ICMR	+270	+270	Skill toggle: +210
nCMR	+540	+540	Skill toggle: +420
Incoming healing rating	+1000	X	X
Outgoing healing rating	+1000	X	X
WS Healing	Skill: WS morale restore (3 min CD)	X	X

Power management – observations:

• As seen in Table 5B, the power of each Warsteed type is approximately the same; the Heavy has slightly more. The Light might have the best ability to handle WS power consumption. The Medium is the best at protecting rider power (though that should not be an issue for a RK). 

Table 5G: Power Management dictated by my Trait choices

	Light	Medium	Heavy
POWER Management
ICPR	+270	+270	+270
nCPR	+540	+540	+540
Power reduction	X	RK: -30% power cost	Yellow only: -25% power cost for skills.
WS power save	Skill: -100% WS power cost (3 min CD, 10s dur)	RK: only -20% power cost for most WS skills	X
WS power restore	Skill: WS Power restore (3 min CD)	Skill: WS 10% Power restore (update 8.1 on 11/14)	X

Summarize It Dana!

(1) Light – Maximum maneuvering and fastest, best Tactical Mastery, best Warsteed Evade, good at dismounting enemy, good damage, best for healing and power restore.

(2) Medium – Good middle ground between Light and Heavy, good damage, Excellent tanking defense while in Sacrifice.

(3) Heavy – Best defense, best Physical Mastery, most Endurance, Excellent situational damage + Trample.

UPDATE 11/27: Ok, it is not a "Part 6", but I got some graphical shots of what the Trait screens look like once all these decisions have been made for Light, Medium, and Heavy (rohan-now-at-85-more-fun-begins). 

Overall, I think they are all great and you could definitely win with any of them. The Light warsteed is built like a Runekeeper (not as much defense, made to run while attacking from a distance, and can heal endurance and power well). I am drawn to the Light warsteed but could justify any of them as good choices. Choose your traits correctly for your class and I am sure you will have a great time!