Rohan: Warsteed Traiting, part 1

This week, I am going to do a special multi-part post on Warsteed Traits.

For sure, my best hope to optimize a system is when I understand the variables involved. For my first week on a warsteed, when I wasn’t playing with cosmetic options (rohan-warsteed-cosmetic-looks) or flying (flying-warsteed), I was zipping around button-mashing and randomly picking a horse type and traits that felt good at the time. Now it is time to actually read the trait information and start trying to make some reasonable choices.

Starting out with Traits:

There are several factors that are going to work together to make a very potent warsteed. Those are Horse type, Warsteed traits, Bridle legacies, Bridle Relics, and Warsteed skills. For this set of posts, I will focus on Horse type and Warsteed traits.

As a Runekeeper, I will write what I see. Occasionally, there will be a distinct RK flavor, but I will try to make it useful for non-RKs.

The first obvious thing to see is there are three horse types: Light, Medium, and Heavy. Here is the first screen you see when you get a Warsteed. You have to decide which type you prefer. You can always go back and change it at any time without losing any “work” you put into it. You just reassign points and it costs a little gold.

Those three horse types have available “traits”. The trait sets include (1) Stats buffs, (2) a Red trait tree line called Red Dawn, (3) a Blue trait tree line called Rohirrim, and (4) a Yellow trait tree line called Riddermark.

Do not confuse the fact that there are 3 Trait Discipline trees and 3 Horse Types. These Disciplines are not tied to the horse type directly. Each discipline is just a set of traits that is available for each horse type.

There are some similarities between the three horse type’s trait sets.

Part 1: Trait line Overview (you are here)

Part 2: Light Traits (Part 2)

Part 3: Medium Traits (Part 3)

Part 4: Heavy Traits (Part 4)
Part 5: Comparisons (Part 5)

I will start with an overview comparing similar Traits by Warsteed type. The next parts will go deeper into what all the Traits do.

Red Trait line – Red Dawn:

Red Dawn is set up to do damage to the Enemy. It has mastery, critical, and finesse bonuses, and focuses on ways to make attacking easier. With whatever horse type you use, the effect is the same: DPS. For Runekeepers, this trait line is the Fire traits.

Table 1A: Red Trait lines for Light, Medium, Heavy

RED trait line (Red Dawn)
	LIGHT WARSTEED	MEDIUM WARSTEED	HEAVY WARSTEED
	24 points	25 points	25 points
1	Long reach	Long Reach	Long Reach
2	Forceful Blows	Heavy Hand	Well Rounded
3	Combat Advantage	Physical Specimen	Precision
4	Exceptional Tactics	Tactical Genius	Overwhelming Offense
5	Deceptive Appearance	Savagery	Mounted Advantage
6	Vicious Attacks	Rapport	Opportunist
7	Feign Injury	Deadly Pursuit	Ride for Ruin
8	Adrenaline Rush	Arise	Instigate
9	Wrath	Shields will be Splintered	Spears will be Shaken

Blue Trait line – Rohirrim:

Rohirrim is all about protection. The traits do different things, but the focus is on better mitigations, resistances, block/evade/parry, warsteed morale and power return. For Runekeepers, this trait line is Healing and the class specific traits focus on heals.

Table 1B: Blue Trait lines for Light, Medium, Heavy

BLUE trait line (Rohirrim)
	LIGHT WARSTEED	MEDIUM WARSTEED	HEAVY WARSTEED
	28 points	26 points	28 points
1	Tough Exterior	Hard to Hurt	Determination
2	Fast Maneuvering	Hard to Hit	Flexibility
3	Defensive Riding	Determination	Fearless
4	Invigorating Presence	Keen Instincts	Strategist
5	Band of Power	Deep Reserves	Rehabilitation
6	Invigorating	Sacrifice	Cunning
7	Bond of Morale	Rapid Recovery	Battle tested
8	Bolstering Cry	Patience	Steel Skin
9	Quickness	Understanding	Positive Thinking
10	Motivation through Aggression	Survivability	Benevolence

Yellow line – Riddermark:

Riddermark traits focus on Speed for the first half. The deeper traits work on enemy positioning, pick up a Fellowship trait, and focus on the “pound it” damage. “Pound it” means that the trait line picks up things like “Trample” (which we will get to) and bonus criticals. For Runekeepers, this trait line is the Lightning trait set.

Table 1C: Yellow Trait lines for Light, Medium, Heavy

YELLOW trait line (Rohirrim)
	LIGHT WARSTEED	MEDIUM WARSTEED	HEAVY WARSTEED
	17 points	17 points	17 points
1	Fleet of Hoof	Fleet of Hoof	Fleet of Hoof
2	Born Sprinter	Born Sprinter	Born Sprinter
3	Agile Movement	Agile Movement	Agile Movement
4	Dash	Dash	Dash
5	Hard to Tire	Intensive Training	Coax
6	Caution	Intimidate	Resilience of the Herd
7	Speed of the Herd	Strength of the Herd	Trample
8	Disengaging Strikes	String Willed	Conservative Combatant

There are a lot of potential combinations!

In Parts 2 – 5, I will break the traits down by Warsteed and discuss each trait. Tune in tomorrow-ish for the next installment.

Update 11/05/12: Made a couple of tweaks to the numbers that didn't add up correctly.
Update 05/22/13: Yellow line traits have been completely revamped and are more Class Specific now as of Update 11: Wildemore! Revamped table is forthcoming.

Flying Warsteed: It's a bird! It's a plane!

“Look, up in the sky!"

"It's a bird."

"It's a plane".

"It's Supergirl!"

"Yes, it's Supergirl! Strange visitor from another planet who came to Middle Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.”

Often I have been asked if my steeds also fly. Well, of course! But, they don’t fly by themselves, silly. Only with me at the helm will they achieve flight.

Explaining flight to hobbits

While out with Gandalf in the Shire, I was once asked by a group of hobbits, “How do I do that??”

Hmm… how to explain… do I start with Bernoulli’s principle of fluid dynamics? That still would not explain how Newton’s laws of motion apply or actually explain how lift is affected by power, the cut angle of the horse’s head like a foil through the air, or the downwash of air.

    Dana: “Well, lil hobbits, you need to understand Force equals mass times acceleration. Work that with Newton’s first law of equal and opposite reaction where what the horse’s mass does to the air is actually the action and the result of “lift” is the reaction…”

(Hobbit eyes get wide and glaze over…)

   Gandalf interjects: and whispers to me, just say, “Defies explanation”… and turns to the hobbits and says “She is Magic.”

Hobbits cheer and go back to drinking pints.

    Dana: /sigh. You totally ruined my lecture. I had graphs and charts.

Gandalf smiles a knowing smile and takes another puff of his pipe...

Launching a flying Warsteed

I have posted some flights on occasion.

Me flying to the moon… (fall-festivals-end-new-beginning)

Horse catching some air and taking off… (treasure-hunt-bilbos-birthday-and-cstm)

Here is Elyita taking her pony out for a flight…  (Ponyloversanonymous (i-believe-i-can-fly))

However, this was my first time setting the Traits to launch a Warsteed. I had previously wondered if I had lift power to get a 2000 lb horse off the ground. Challenge accepted.

With his ears back, I cut low to reduce drag and gain some speed. We are not launching one of those lil steeds today; this is not your grandma’s glider.

Sturdy back legs plant feet firmly and launch upward using the steed’s strength. With my own natural lift (I am Supergirl after all) and a tight grip, I pull the warsteed upward amplifying his jump.

Flight is achieved. Simple! (...or as the legend goes, "strong as a freight train").

I guess charts are not required.

On this flight we took off out over the sea. 

Hang on horsey!

Watch it now… 

don’t lose altitude or you will become a SeaHorse.

Alrighty. Hmm… cow jumped over the moon? Challenge accepted.

Let’s take a flight around the moon, because a warsteed will not be beaten by some cow.

The clouds part before me like orcs being Trampled under foot.

Warsteed Traits? Yes… I did mention that…

Tune in next week… I am working on a multi-post for warsteed traits (rohan-warsteed-traiting-part-1).
Charts may be involved. :D