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.