|
You also get something called a "Khorad-Nur Warsteed"... I'm unsure what the
equivalent of this is but it seems to be a mid-range horse. They're also
referred to as Orcish Warsteeds.
Will my horse level up with me?
I'm currently researching horse leveling. I've had the same Heavy Warhorse now
from Bronze (we're now in Platinum). As the horse levels he will gain a higher
hp bonus (seems to go up 1% every 2 levels). However I'm not yet sure just how
much exp the horse needs to level. The leveling process occurs independently of
the character, but it would seem you do need to fight on your horse in order for
it to get experience. Currently my horse gives 4% more hp bonus than the best
horse to buy in Platinum.
How can I heal my mount?
There are two ways to heal your mount. One is to drink a potion whilst you are
mounted on it. This will heal you both (note that if somehow your horse is
damaged but you aren't, the potion will have no effect). You can cure your horse
of poison in this way as well by drinking an antidote potion.
The other way is to visit the horse trader. Click on the trader while your horse
is near, and a window will pop up. At the bottom will be two options: Heal or
Sell. If your horse needs healing then just above these options will be a red
number called the healing cost.
How can I improve my riding skill with items?
If you really don't want to put many skills into riding, try to wear a lot of "+
to all skills" equipment. It can be a very effective way to boost all your
skills and means you can get away with only putting one point into riding if you
wish.
It is also possible to get equipment with a + to riding on it. These seem to be
fairly rare but there are uniques and set items now with it on. One set with
nice riding bonus is the Arhles T'gaws set for the Vampiress.
Miscellaneous and Bugs
What are these Immortal/Dragon/Daemon/Faeries Crossing
horses?
One of the side quests in the game is based at Faeries Crossing and involves
bringing a niece back to her 'uncle'. Upon doing this you find that the horses
nearby are in fact daemons and he is not her uncle. The importance of these two
horses are that they are, in fact, immortal. To get these horses, simply get to
Faeries Crossing, then go into the small clearing at the edge of the forest just
north-west from the town. Then simply get on them! Do not attempt to do the
quest unless you log out and back into the multiplayer server, or start a new
game in single player.
The benefits of these horses... well for any character other than Hardcore, they
are probably of some use. In Bronze the horses have the stats:
Level 72
Speed 140
HP Bonus 13%
0 Riding Required
and, as mentioned, are immortal. This means if you get hit, although you will
take damage, the horse won't. This means that you can die and respawn, and not
have to buy a new horse. These horses are probably less useful in Hardcore
however as you can't respawn there and so you might as well get a horse that has
much higher benefits to your character. They were also far
more useful in Plus, where horses died frequently as they didn't share your
health.
What bugs are there with Riding?
Right now there are two main bugs. One is very easy to reproduce and very
annoying, but only affects Ring of Ice Battle Mages. The other can affect anyone
using a horse but seems to be very rare.
Ring of Ice: Basically this occurs if you cast Ring of Ice on horseback either whilst
petrified/magically entangled or just before becoming petrified/magically
entangled by an enemy priest or shaman. Whilst the Ring of Ice remains, you will
not be able to move on horseback, although you can get off and run around. This
always happened in Plus. However, in Underworld you will find that after the
ring has disappeared, the horse will still not move. You can run away from the
horse, then call it, and it will appear somewhere on the screen but will still
be 100% frozen. The only thing to do is to buy a new horse. If you are lucky
when you call the old horse at the horse trader, it will appear near enough to
be able to sell it, but 9 times out of 10 you can't even do that. Fixed in 2.24
The second bug just seems to occur randomly, and I have no idea what causes it.
Basically if you click the horseshoe to call your horse, sometimes you will find
that nothing happens. Your character will not whistle and the horse will not
appear. I don't know if logging out then back into a game will fix this, but I
think the game basically treats you as no longer having a horse. Again, the only
way to fix this that I've found is to buy a new one.
NEW BUGS IN 2.24
Disappearing saddle: Sometimes if you leave your horse, or even are
riding round, the saddle/bridle will just drop off. Sometimes it will appear on
the ground, other times it just vanishes. To combat this, whenever you log out
or save, ctrl-right click the horseshoe icon to put the saddle/bridle into your
inventory.
Disappearing horse: always save or log out whilst mounted on your horse, or
you may find the horse has disappeared when you load/log back in and will have
to buy a new horse.
Possible bug -Llama8 brought this to my attention which may or may not be
a bug:
You can totally ignore the part of riding that says that you need to level
Riding up to get higher level horses (other than hitting Riding 25 for the
Warhorse), my Sera has 27 Riding & is using a level ~120 horse from Gold (which
gives +66% health).
If you have anything you want to ask, or want me to add into this FAQ, please PM
me or reply to this topic. I will update whenever I research something new, but
also feel free to check out
Pevil's Place
as I have more room for more in-depth findings there (mainly when I get a table
up of what each level of riding will give you). Thanks to Llama8 for
contributions to this guide.
Fighting Tactics
HIT AND RUN (the drive by shooting, mail boxing)
For the curious, by mail boxing I mean two people in a car, one driving, the
other on the passenger side with the window rolled down, a baseball bat, and
random mailboxes as targets. Don't do this! It's property damage and not very
legal or safe!
A horse is fast. A fast horse with a magic saddle can go faster than people on
foot. Even a normal horse (lets take a random nag) and a person with no ride
skill is faster than the VAST majority of enemies in the outdoor areas of the
game.
So you can run faster than they can.
Hit and run uses that. You're literally running up to something, unloading
Combat Arts or melee attacks, and continuing to go past them to loop around and
do it again.
Hard Hit is a good classic, and a staple of my own cavalry tactics. It's a
massive blow, lots of damage, with some recharge time. Recharge time, by the
way, which you get through while running past your opponent and looping around
to hit them again. So effectively, every blow becomes a Hard Hit, with your
opponent not able to hit you back as effectively because you're not staying
around to be hit.
This also works really well with a bow (thus the drive by shooting). And is as
it sounds. Ride up, unload a volley (for a wood elf, imagine multi-shot, and say
explosive arrow or other spread attacks. It's similar to a barrage of explosive
missiles on a clump of enemies), and ride away before they can smack you (if
there's anything left).
THE CHARGE (bum rushing, bull rushing)
We've all seen movies of mounted knights, heavy cavalry running through
opponents and crushing them like a sledgehammer.
That's what this is.
One thing to think about: When you have a combo equipped in a hotkey, or a
Combat Art you can't do mounted, it switches to the Horse Combat Art. A radius
of trample and stun around your steed. This radius has a duration.
Try popping this radius off, then running into a group of two or three opponents
(a small cluster). Sometimes they'll be stunned or dazed, and damaged. All the
better. I don't know if there are Combat Arts usable while mounted with a stun
effect, or items that have them, but that would be useful right about now too.
Essentially, instead of going for a Hit and Run, you're going for a Hit and
pulverize and slaughter in a massive onslaught of pain. If you can stun the
baddies and kill them before they respond, so much the better.
Now, there is a caveat here. Do not get "stuck in." A cavalry person "stuck in"
is worse off then a melee person in the same situation, generally speaking.
What about that Protection Bonus you ask? A good question. It is true that being
mounted gives you more defense than the same person on foot. It is also true
that when you're swarmed by a horde of 10 or 20 monsters and don't have a radius
attack like Multi-hit anymore because you're mounted, it's only a matter of time
until they get lucky and overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Enough six year olds
can tackle and pin most any adult. Might take 5, might take 10, might take 50,
but they can do it by sheer mass and numbers.
Hard Hit works very well here. That's typically one baddie dead instantly. A
good solid melee attack helps a lot too, as a ranged archer typically won't use
this, they'll drive by or kite. Now, having a good deal of Armor (both the items
and the skill), Agility, Parry, and a horse with a lot of physical resistance
will work wonders, as while you're crushing the oncoming blows will tend to
bounce off. My horse has over 300 hp. It takes about 1/10th the damage I do. If
they have a hard enough time hitting and damaging me, let alone my horse, we're
usually pretty good actually I said at the beginning do not stop moving, and you
are not invincible. This tactic is where we gamble with the line of what we can
and cannot take. A charge from a prepared cavalry person, with superior Armor,
protection, and firepower from things like Hard Hit, hits well.. Hard. Just hit
hard enough that you can take them out.. before they take you out. You don't
have combos, often your speed of attacks suffers compared to an infantry-person.
In a prolonged battle, those things are key.
Don't let it become prolonged and be ready to use our next maneuver...
THE BREAKOUT (Oh Crap)
You've all been there... the fight that was supposed to be easy became killer.
You're low on potions, your Combat Arts and spells are all used up, your life is
plummeting slowly but surely, and if you're in Hard Core, you're probably ready
to change into your brown pants.
"If only I could get out of this ring of 20 bad guys!" You say. Well now you
can! (and for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling... ) Seriously though,
horses really really help getting out of a tight spot.
Lets review the Horse Combat Art. It is a radius of trample damage and stun
around your horse. This means anything you move near or next too takes a small
amount of damage and might be stunned for a second. By the way, your speed is
probably between 160-220 or higher with magic saddles and really good horses.
Their speed, is well, not. One second is all you need...
I was able to take on 10 to 20 ice elves at once, plus priestesses, while
staying mounted several times. How? By hitting and killing 1 or 2, then
performing a Break Out, using a potion to recharge my life, waiting for my
Combat Arts to recharge, then repeating the procedure.
It was a bit more tricky when on foot, because I couldn't flee.. I could just
swing and pray. Hitting that horse combat art, riding through slim gaps between
your opponents at a speed greater than they can follow, and it's off to the
races. A race that you will probably win. This lets you recharge, get a plan,
and come back under your terms, in a fight you can win. Yes, they'll get a few
shots at you as you flee.. this is where the protection value and generally high
physical resist of horses and saddles saves your bacon. You can probably last
one or two shots while getting distance between you and them.
And hopefully saves on the brown pants.
CAN YOU CATCH ME NOW? (kiting)
This has worked extremely well for me as a wood elf when I've had to use it (or
chose to for sheer silliness). It would also work for any ranged spell caster or
ranged combatant as well.
This goes back to our primary asset: speed. When you can outrun your opponent,
but they're ran by computer AI and will still chase you not caring about their
own safety, you have a very good situation here.
Because you can by quirks of the keyboard and holding mouse buttons, shoot
behind you as you're running past them Oops.. gosh, too bad for the bad guys
back there. It's a little more tricky for a spell caster, because you may have
to run a ways, get distance, stop the horse, cast your spell, then run and get
your safety bubble space back again. I do recommend the long range far out view
for this. It's still in bowshot range, and lets you see what's going on
adequately. A horse archer really wants that wide angle lens.
Now, it's true enemy archers and spell casters can hit back. That's why they are
your primary target. If you're going to play the range game, you HAVE to
establish range superiority. You have to be the only thing around with range.
That way, you can kill them when they can't hit you. War is not about honor,
it's about survival boys and girls. Duels are about honor. Last I saw, Sacred
wasn't a duel The bad guys certainly don't try to fight fair, why should you?
Kill the archers, kill the spell casters.. quickly, and efficiently. Then,
engage melee opponents at your leisure. They can't hit you before they die or
try feebly to catch you.
Stinks to be them, doesn't it?
THE FIGHT NOT FOUGHT (running)
There are many times you simply don't want to get involved in fights with petty
baddies, are simply traveling from point A to point B and there aren't magic
teleporters around, or are on a quest with limited time, or feeble NPCs to
protect. This is when you really want a horse.
Primary asset again, say it with me: speed. You can simply ride past them, and
by the time they clued in you're there, you're already gone. You can ride around
them, use terrain against them, and ignore them. This works GREAT for those
"escort the feeble idiots to somewhere else" quests. You take off like a rocket,
the NPCs try to follow. The monsters try to follow. They fail of course, but
they try. Now, the game is programmed so the NPCs will periodically
leap-frog-teleport to your location, regardless of where they were or how far
behind you they are. So, you really don't have to wait for them, nor do they
stay in one place long enough for the monsters to kill them.
Makes their survivability go up a lot, really. Although it is disconcerting to
be riding through a forest or something, leave your NPCs in the dust, and
suddenly have them appear in front of you (Why didn't I know about that
shortcut? I would have used it...)
I haven't lost an NPC in an escort quest yet, mostly due to this. I simply
ignore everything else, and concentrate on getting to where I need to be as
quickly as possible. And mounted, that's really darn quick.
Note, avoid anything that "roots" you while doing this. Although even if they
root you, chances are they're far enough behind you that by the time they get in
the same screen as you, you've already gotten the ability to move again and can
outrun them more. Or you have a minor scuffle and kill them, then run some more.
To view Pevil's original post of the Official Forum
CLICK
HERE
Also check out
Pevil's Place... she
created a great site!
|
