Confusion about mounts. Can anyone please confirm?Follow

Hmm... I'm hardly the expert on mounts, but here's my understanding.

The "cheapest" mounts are not significantly faster then normal movement speed. Also, if you are on a mount, the speed of the mount overrides whatever movement spells/effects you have. So, if you have a sow going and you get on your mount, you will actually move slower then if you weren't on the mount. I don't recall if this happens to the run AA abilities as well, but I'd imagine it does.

The pupose of a mount is generally not for movement speed. Mounts allow you to med while moving/standing. This means that you don't have to worry about getting agro when sitting after casting a spell. In general, the movement characteristics of mounts is not great enough to be worth trying to use them just for runspeed increase (unless you have one of the most expensive ones and you are simply moving in a straight line across a zone).

Turning on mounts is slow, starting and stopping is slow. You don't use mounts for movement really (aforementioned straightline runs with high cost mounts excepted). You use them for the med benefit.

The cheapest mount is slower than Run3. I think it may be near Run1 but not sure. The acceleration/deceleration affects the movement speed a great deal. The Magecompendium info seems more correct than EQstratics, though I've never had JBoots/TBoots myself.

I think the best way to look at it is that it you're buying the cheapest mount, you aren't buying it for speed. If you want speed, use SoW potions. Trying to escape on a 9k mount(and even the more expensive ones) is pretty futile and you'll most likely end up dead. Those stuns will get you every time.

There is one other beneficial side-effect of riding instead of running - you don't take damage from minor falls.

Crossing North Ro on foot is a constant string of "You take 23 damage from falling". On horseback it never gets a single hit.

I just wish they would come up with a way of interrupting spells on a horse equivalent to ducking.

OK here are a few observations from my little drogmor.

1) The cheapest mounts do move slightly faster than running without SoW or AA's but it is so slight a difference it's not really worth mentioning.

2) Mounts do override any other movement effects but they don't block them so you can have SoW precast on you ready for an escape. All you need to do to use it is click off the munt and drop to your feet.

3) Mounts negate movement loss due to overburden. I've been loaded to the gunwhales with ore blocks and had an AGI of 1 but still moved at full speed while mounted.

4) Mounts can only be cast outdoors.

5) Mounts can't swim - if you fall into water fully loaded you are in serious trouble as the mount will dissolve and you will be left at the bottom of the water unable to move. Take heed of that if you ever go fishing in AS and fell like running up the gangway with a full load of fish.

6) For a tank the smallest mount is probably a waste of money except for the kudos. For a pure caster a mount, even the smallest, is an absolute essential for working outdoor zones. The auto-meditate ability of mounts is a real lifesaver and makes sure you rarely run out of mana except in the rarest of occasions. In dungeons and LDoN my chanter has to be very careful of mana and rarely has enough to spare for nuking, in outdoor zones I am swimming in mana and can happily nuke away as soon as I reckon its safe to do so and avoid stealling agro from the tanks. In LDoN my buffing runs will use my entire mana pool but outside I find I'm usually left with 40m and that rapidly rises so I my group doesn't have to wait for me to regen mana befroe I can get back to my CC duties.

In essence - if you are a pure caster who works outdoor zones frequently then a small mount is well worth the money. But if you are a melee class or mainly work in dungeons then the small mount is not for you and you should save your money.

Edited, Thu Apr 8 08:21:34 2004 by FanDancer

Depending upon your cashflow I would probably wait and try to get the one upgrade up from the slowest. Mounts are summoned via a No Drop item. If you decide later on that your mount is waaaay to slow for you, the only recourse is to sell it back to the vendor at a fairly hefty loss. We're talking about a considerable amount of cash here. Make sure you really, really, really want this and won't be upgrading it for quite some time.

Mounts are great for soloing spell casting tanks (paladins/rangers/shadowknights), for you can be in combat and basically slowly meditating at the same time. As a hybrid class mounted combat is very useful, especially for a quick get-a-way if things get hairy. This really is only effective in outdoor zones with tons of wide open spaces. If you like grouping or doing dungeon crawls, then a mount really isn't the most cost effective choice of transportation. In this case it becomes more of a status symbol.

You also need to take into consideration the cost of the mount v.s. the cost for a small mountain of SOW potions. SOW wears off eventually, where a mount is summoned until you dismiss it. A mount has a 2-4 second lag before getting up to full run, where SOW is immidiate. After you've owned your mount for a while you begin to grow accustomed to this and know how to work around it. The F9 key soon becomes your best friend.

For casters mounts are useful in that you meditate at the level as if you were sitting down, and aggro is at the same level as if you were standing up. Again you have the benefit of a quick get-a-way when the pet dies...assuming a soloing situation. The mount not being able to swim is not as big of an issue, if you can cast some form of levitation. When you cast invisibility both you and the mount disappear.

Man, I got to start proofreading my postings before hitting the enter button or stop typing this stuff at work. What I meant to say was "Mounts are great for soloing spell casting tanks, for you can be in between combats and basically slowly meditating at the same time." While you are waiting for the next mob to pop you can meditate without sitting down. The downside is mounts also consume food and water. -Thanks Pat.



Extremely true...why pay thousands of plat when you can increase your running speed with AA, or in respect to a pally eventually summon one with AA. It doesn't make financial sense when there are other ways of increasing your movement speed. We as humans beings of course do all sorts of things that don't make financial sense, especially when we want something now. Although I don't want to look like I'm waffeling on the issue, I thought it worthy to point out that if you really really want a horse (for either a look or roleplaying perspecitve) for a hybrid tank it does have some use (albeit not the smartest move in the book).



Partialy true..although I will not disagree with Patrician that insta-cast SOW is much better for instantly running out of a dangerous situation, the trick with a mount is knowing when to flee and retaining enough hp to take a few hits. When facing an opponent alone where you just can't get a spell off (i.e. no mana, interruptions, resists) and fleeing is your only option, it's nice being on top of that already summoned mount. Run straight forward into the mob (without turning your back or side to him), take a hit or two and get the heck out of there. [Note: this comparision is being made from the perspective of mount vs. nothing and not mount vs. Jboots]

Edited, Thu Apr 8 15:03:53 2004 by Valzarius

In addition to what's already been said, I get around the whole "I can't click anything because my horse's head is in the way" problem by using the keyboard commands for target nearest NPC and target nearest PC. As mentioned earlier using the F keys in group play is a huge help as well and if you create a hotkey for looting corpses as I have you completly eliminate the need to use the mouse at all. :) The only time I ever touch the mouse now is after I have opened the loot window and need to click on items/done.

In my opinion, the continual mana regen combined with the fact that you no longer need to worry about encumberance is well worth the price of the cheapest horse/drog.

Btw... the hotkey command I used for looting was First line: /target a every line after that I typed in /loot

The Drogmors are sold inside the Lighthouse in Gunthak, near zone to Stonebrunt. I think it's one of the Gnomes in there, but not sure.

The main drawback to a drog is that you look like a total geek bouncing around on it's back as it runs.

Glad I could help.