Rohan: 85 RK Hytbold and Moors Armor

Now at level 85, several gear pieces needs to change. I will go through my thought process and explain why I make the choices I do so that you can benefit from it (or decide you do not agree with me).

First on the list to discuss is new armor. It isn’t all about being the shiniest, but I want to give some perspective on what each set looks like statistically.

For review, I have done this type of evaluation before. For level 75 Moors (ettenmoors-75-rk-armor-audacity) and for level 75 raid gear (lotro-stat-math-rk-gear).

To put the data right up front so we can review it, the first table shows the 13 “best” Runekeeper armor sets in the game. There are other non-set armor pieces that are quite good, but for article focus, I am only presenting the data for the full sets. As indicated before (see links), I am only going to present the four most important RK stats: Morale, Tactical Mastery, Critical, and Mitigation. I picked Tactical Mitigation for the table for simplicity though having good Physical Mitigation and Resistance can be equally important (or moreso depending on the foe).

Table 1: Top 13 RK Armor sets as of November-2012 (after RoR release)

		Morale	Tact Mastery	Critical	Tact Mitigation
Clever counselor	Draigoch 75	366	8904	870	1019
Puignor	ToO 75 fire	789	9101	953	1377
Eglerin	ToO 75 heal	1338	9383	1080	1377
Erebraw	ToO 75 lightning	789	8749	1657	1377
Scalding Wit 75	Moors 75 fire	1275	8820	0	1781
Tranquility 75	Moors 75 heal	1458	9546	0	1781
Thunder-struck 75	Moors 75 lightning	1008	7116	1760	1645
Cleanser	Hytbold 85 fire	1298	11432	1552	1386
Peace-caller	Hytbold 85 heal	1412	12596	1164	1082
Thunder-caller	Hytbold 85 lightning	1298	11432	1552	1386
Scalding wit 85	Moors 85 fire	1454	9920	0	1994
Tranquility 85	Moors 85 heal	1668	10704	0	1994
Thunder-struck 85	Moors 85 lightning	1140	8392	1940	1842

This data leaves out one potentially important piece of the puzzle. Set bonuses have features that are not as easily quantified by stat calcs. There is a minor buff at 3 pieces and the cap buff at 5 pieces worn. Here are the non-quantifiable set features. I highlighted some of my personal favorites in Bold.

Table 2: Set bonus features for the 13 RK sets in Table 1

	3 piece buff	5 piece buff
Clever counselor	-15% writs power cost	Fiery Ridicule Reduces Essay of Fire CD by 3s
Puignor	+2 wrath of fire skills pulse count	Writ of fire deals extra damage at max tier
Eglerin	Writ of Health has 25% chance of +563 armor bonus	Improved "Our Fates Entwined" gives group phys & tact mit bonus
Erebraw	100% power restored from Improved Sustaining Bolt	+10% chance to apply Thunderous Words, +10% chance to apply Harsh Debate
Scalding Wit 75	+10% Smoldering Wrath damage	Fiery Ridicule provides induction knockback immunity for 10s upon critical hit
Tranquility 75	Writ of Health has 25% chance of +563 armor bonus	Mending Verse initial heal applies to both target and caster
Thunder-struck 75	+5% Shocking Words stun chance	Essence of storm removes induction from Essence of winter on critical hit
Cleanser	+10% Smoldering Wrath damage	Fiery Ridicule Reduces Essay of Fire CD by 3s
Peace-caller	Writ of Health has 25% chance of +563 armor bonus	+10% healing
Thunder-caller	+5% Shocking Words stun chance	Epic Conclusion recovers Shocking Words
Scalding wit 85	+10% Smoldering Wrath damage	Fiery Ridicule provides induction knockback immunity for 10s upon critical hit
Tranquility 85	Epic for the Ages removes disabling effects	Mending Verse initial heal applies to both target and caster
Thunder-struck 85	+5% Shocking Words stun chance	Essence of storm removes induction from Essence of winter on critical hit

So, the question becomes do any of these set features in Table 2 outweigh the number sense of Table 1? What is your style, and what are you trying to achieve?

I can make Table 1 a bit simpler. First, let me turn it into a pivot table and show deltas from the “worst” of the 13 sets. Second, I am going to convert each of the features into their corresponding % counterparts. Meaning, instead of tactical mastery, I will use % damage increase, and so on. (For reference, I used 305 mastery per 1% Damage as it is representative of the portion of the curve from 27k to 35k tactical mastery. For someone at less than 27k, the curve is linear at 270 mastery per 1% Damage. Checking this...)

“Clever counselor” (the draigoch armor) focused very heavily on max Will (mastery) at the expense of Morale. Early in RoI, I saw too many RKs that were loaded up on Will and had no balance. Sure, they might hit hard, but they were easily one-shotted even out on the landscape because you can’t build a character with such low Morale and truly expect to not get whacked. So, moving on to the comparisons…

Table 3: Stats comparison vs Clever Counselor for 13 RK sets

Pivot vs Clever Counselor	Morale change	% Damage	% Critical hit chance	% Tact damage reduced
Clever counselor	0	0%	0%	0%
Puignor	423	1%	0%	2%
Eglerin	972	2%	1%	2%
Erebraw	423	-1%	2%	2%
Scalding Wit 75	909	0%	-2%	4%
Tranquility 75	1092	2%	-2%	4%
Thunder-struck 75	642	-6%	2%	3%
Cleanser 85	932	8%	2%	2%
Peace-caller 85	1046	12%	1%	0%
Thunder-caller 85	932	8%	2%	2%
Scalding wit 85	1088	3%	-2%	5%
Tranquility 85	1302	6%	-2%	5%
Thunder-struck 85	774	-2%	3%	4%
DanaMoors 85	1516	3%	0%	5%

Translate Table 3 into more words and less numbers…

Hytbold Comparisons: Of the 3 Hytbold armors, for pure statistics, the Cleanser and the Thunder-caller are identical. The Peace-caller has +114 Morale and does +4% more damage (& healing) output, with 1% less critical chance and you are taking 2% more damage from worse tactical mitigation. So, is Peace-caller the answer?

Reflect back to Table 2. Peace-caller’s buffs were “Writ of Health has 25% chance of +563 armor bonus” and “+10% healing”. This set is the ideal set for a Healing RK and a strong choice for a DPS RK.

However, Thunder-caller’s buffs of “+5% Shocking Words stun chance” and “Epic Conclusion recovers Shocking Words” have my attention. When I saw the bonus that had me use my #1 favorite skill to recover my other #1 favorite skill and allow me to use it more often I decided I could not pass that up. Too bad it cannot be effectively used in the Moors due to the strong incentive to get Moors Audacity from the Moors armor (visions of fried wargs were dancing through my head…).

I chose the Thunder-caller, because that is who I am and I really wanted to try the set buff. I can very much appreciate the advantages of the Peace-caller though. I am really enjoying the “Epic Conclusion recovers Shocking Words” and am using it a lot.

Basically, I see no split-set benefits and the set buffs are good enough that making a full set is actually something RKs will “want” to do for a change.

Moors comparisons: Of the 3 Moors sets for level 85, the Tranquility armor has the best stats. From Table 2, the Tranquility buffs are very “meh”. Really, how often are you casting “Epic for the Ages” in a Moors battle? It happens more now that the induction isn’t so very long, but you are not using it often.

For the Moors at 75, I went with a blend of 2/2/2. I am on course to do the same at level 85. The last row on Table 3 shows how this 2/2/2 set compares. Effectively, I put little value in the Moors set buffs. To know, it does matter which 2 you chose from each set. The 2/2/2 I chose optimized against Morale. It was Tranquility Robe and Hat, Scalding Wit Gloves and Legs, & Thunder-struck Boots and Shoulders.