horse/drogmar info, please

[Rewde]

At this point in time, I am seriously considering getting a horse, or a drogmar (from what I have read, they seem to be better). At level 29, just hit last night, my current wisdom is 237, and it just seems to take forever to med back up to FM. So, basically, I am after the mana regen that you get from just sitting there. Unfortunately, in everything I have read, no one really discusses how to use your mount. I understand that you have to click on your bridle or drum to summon it, but how do you get off of it, or get rid of it? I am going to presume that they can only be used in the outdoors, just like casting SoW. What about meleeing? Is it difficult to do from on top of your horse/drogmar?

Thamks in advance for any info.

[Ilona]

To dismount, you either click off the buff icon, or type /dism

I'm not sure how well you mellee when riding - my cleric doesn't do that much any more.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Click the item to summon. Click off the buff or /dism (/dismount) to get off... or zone to an "indor" zone.

speed order for horses is the quality of the bridle (rope, leather, silk, chain, fine chain(mob drop only))
For Drogmar it is the "size" of the drum... the bigger the faster.

Drogmor are better for casters (the horses head gets in the way)... horses for mele (you can shrink better to be more normal sized). Hybrids you have to choose.

Unfortunatley... I play a pure caster and have never once atempted mele on a horse... BUT as soon as you are engaged in combat... you no longer have the sitting meditation... so you can just drop the horse... do combat, then bring it back when resting between phases.

[Eumerin]

Half of the hybrids don't choose -

They get the best horses in the game for free!

[Lacries]

I have both a horse and a drogmar. The bigger the race, the further it is to the ground....the horses head definetly does get in the way when trying to loot, forcing one to go into a different camera angles.....and for druids, mounts are great, but if you like to forage in your down time, mounts will not allow you to forage. Otherwise, I love them both. I have the faster horse for travel and I recently purchased a drogmar for grouping and med purposes. If you are short of money and only want the horse/drogmar for med purposes, then go with the cheaper model. If you will end up with being the master looter in your group more often than not, the drogmar is definetly recommended.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

The complaint I heard early on about the Drogmor was that they "walk funny", bobbing the view around significantly while walking. While Drogmor sound much better than horses (no head!), motion like that's describing would get annoying and could get problematic.

Do the drogmor really have viewbob, or was that just some brief bug?

[Eowenna Celerdain]

Hmm. Everything that I hear is that, for medding purposes, the type of mount doesn't matter. If you're mounted, you med standing and avoid "sitting aggro." If not mounted, you don't.

Spendier mounts run faster, or have a more popular color; that's the only difference.

I keep hearing folks grumble about the horse's head. I never use first-person PoV camera, I use the "chase" view. So a mount doesn't make that much difference, as far as how much screen space isn't visible for me.

On melee, I either /assist groupmate or F8 to target the enemy, and proceed as normally. Advantage to being mounted is that you start medding again immediately after battle, you don't have to sit / summon to get that going again.

Oh - and no matter what your mount, it gets hungry / thirsty. Your food and water supply will diminish at an accelerated rate if you're mounted.

Vicaress summons all her food, so it's no biggie with her. She rides Goldnugget anytime she's camped outdoors. Illusionist, however, pays more attention to when she *needs* to be mounted from when she doesn't. So you won't see her astride Russet as often as Vicaress rides.

(I happen to use tan / brown horses, since they are 1 K cheaper than the equivalent in black/white horses or any lizard mounts. It still took me *forever* to save up enough to buy my first rope bridle ... the second one was financed purely from combining 125 *stacks* of celestial essence for a generous buddy who is also a tradeskill junkie ... and got sick of that particular sub-combine. Now I'm sick of it too ... but my enchantress has her horse!! )

My Cavalier isn't old enough for the AA horse yet ... but that is something I'm definitely looking forward to!

[Rewde]

AA horse? Free mounts? Am I missing something?

[Nimphe Wildwood]

Aye Rewde.

Shadow Knights and Paladins get a Steed AA ability. Lucky them.

There is also a quest outta Befallen that you can do for a one charge horse:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/q...tml?quest=2172

[Eumerin]

Not only do paladins and shadowknights get horses as an AA ability, but the horses they get are faster than any other mounts in the game.

The only drawback imo is that the horse graphics are tied to the new elemental graphics, and I'm going to have to turn them back on when I get the AA. I do ever so much HATE the new elementals.

[Verdandi]

As for head bobbing, I've also heard that drogmors are worse for this, but only while you're running. I've never ridden a drogmor, but on horseback you don't bob at all until the horse goes from walking to running. While walking things stay perfectly level, like when moving without a mount. While running there's a little bit of a bob but it's not that bad on horses. It's pretty much like what there would be on an actual horse, and doesn't bother me at all. If you've ever watched a drogmor that someone else is riding, they have a very cool sort of slither while walking but bounce all over the place while running. Have you ever watched a child playing with a four-legged toy and running it across the table? Hind legs touch the ground, then it rolls forward to front legs, and then does a little sort of forward hop to hind legs again. It looks a lot like that and not like the way any real animals actually move hehe.

So from what I gather, on a drogmor you won't notice any bobbing while walking but while running will have a significant bob. I'm thinking of buying one of the slowest drogmor just for fighting in groups and whatnot, so it's easier to see and loot, and keeping my speedier horse for travel and quick escapes. I don't want to become the laughingstock of Halas, running around in the snow on a bucking lizard.

Again, I don't have any first-hand experience. This is just what I've gathered from reading other people's comments and watching the buggers move.

[Zeralenn]

I have owned a horse (the Leather Bridle one). I sold it because it is not that useful to me as a shadowknight. I bought two drogmar with the proceeds, one for my druid and one for my cleric. Having owned both, I will tell you the "bobbing" truth.

The motion when you are riding the horse or the drogmar is absolutely identical. Although the observer would see the rider of the drogmar looking like she's having her back broken with every step and she's a candidate for lifelong chiropractic care, on horseback or on drogmarback the sensation is the same: a slight bobbing as you move (less than you get with a levitate spell). There is also a speed-up and slow-down period; my cleric complains of her drogmar having bad brakes.

The differences in price in colors only applies to horses (black and white are more expensive than brown and tan). Drogmar are all the same price within their speed category regardless of color.

The major reason to get a drogmar over a horse, IMHO, is targeting. When you are sitting on a horse, the head just gets in the way and you keep selecting your mount instead of the mob, the person you are trying to heal, the corpse you are trying to loot or rez, etc. The head of the drogmar is not in your field of view so it does not get in the way.

I have also heard people say that this problem can be avoided by shrinking -- that shrinking eliminates the horse's head-in-the-way problem. This may work for some races, but my gnome is already as small as she can get (gnomes cannot in fact be shrunk; they are already size 1). I am not sure whether this is true with halflings (my druid is a halfling).

Horses and drogmar, IMHO, are not for riding and travelling -- they are for sitting, medding, switching spells midfight, and avoiding sit aggro. Horses have something that can get in the way of that and drogmars do not. The choice, for me, is an easy one.

...Zera

[Ilona]

Horses are pretty, lizards are ugly!

So my cleric has a pretty pony with a pink saddleblanket
I tend to use the F-keys to target group members for heals anyway, so the head doesn't matter for that, and I prefer to let others loot.

However, I now have to consider getting a mount for my enchanter to relieve sit-aggro, and am thinking of getting a drogmor for her. Still not sure I like lizards yet, so I'm putting it off a bit *chuckle*

[Eowenna Celerdain]

Lizards cost the same as the equivalent black or white horse.

Tan or Brown horses are about 1 K pp cheaper than the equivalent in lizards or black or white horses. To me, 1 K isn't so easily obtained that I'm willing to blow it on a different graphic. But that's me. To each his / her own.

I checked the first person PoV camera, and saw that the horse head takes up considerably less screen space than my usual 'chase' view image of my character on foot. So it's really not *that* big of a deal. I get seasick if I use the "first person" view for normal movement, so I'll probably never try riding with it!

I tend to like the way horses look better anyhow ... so ... between that and my tight budget, the choices for me were brown or tan horse.

Since I ended up with 2 mounted characters, they each have a different color. Now I'll really have to puzzle, whenever my next caster gets old enough that a mount isn't a twink ... and after I scrape together enough pp to buy one.

[Pojodan]

I'm a beastlord and I have a droggy.

Why might you ask?


Uhm... I wanted one!

I don't use Droggy too often except after getting rezed and during times of high mana usage (Like when I'm grouped and there's no Shaman or enchanters around so I'm on buffs/slows which actually happens quite a lot)

I most certainly do not use him for travel (In fact I turn running off so that I don't go into bucking bronco mode when I do need to move) and generally avoid any movment at all when using him.

Just wish I'd chosen a different color since 80% of drogmores Is ee are black