Horses (not dead horses, ones in the game)

[Draggar]

OK, whats the purpose of a horse?

They run faster, but I can't backstab or pick pockets form horseback...

[EnragedFilia]

almost everyone i talk to says theyre only useful for hp/mp regen now. so as a rogue, it's just a status symbol.
thank VI for that one.

[Draggar]

almost everyone i talk to says theyre only useful for hp/mp regen now. so as a rogue, it's just a status symbol.
thank VI for that one.

And I thought my Stone Blade Stiletto and Jagged Blade of Mourning were a status symbol..

Thanx for the info. It is like a perm. SOW, but I can buy 100-1000 SOW potions for the price of a horse...

[Bennan]

And by the time you used those SOW potions, you would of gotten Run 3 in your AA....

They are just status symbols to me.

[Nhin Impious]

Making the plat for the horsie: about three weeks in the bazaar selling baked goodies.

Deciding on the tan horsie or the brown horsie: about 20 minutes.

Taking the horsie to PoK, to OT, to Nek forest, and to Feerott to show off: About half an hour.

Realizing, AFTER I gated out of bazaar to PoK, that I had all my trader satchels and 350 pounds of stuff, that casting the horsie let me take it to the bank at normal speed: the best ten seconds of the entire experience so far.

Nhin

[Cigarskunk]

A horse lets you regen HP and Mana as though you are sitting down if you aren't moving on the horse.

This means that casters can regen thier mana pools without having to worry about getting aggro because they are sitting down.

That would appear to be the biggest gain from having a horse.

[Pojodan]

It's getting to the point in some places where having a horse is almost a necessity. Why? Sitting aggro.

I came into the PoJ trials for the first time yesturday after finally dinging 60 (woo hoo!) and one of the first things that was mentioned is 'casters need to be on horses'

Why? You have 30 seconds to kill each monster, so there's no time for the tank to build aggro, everyone just starts killing it. There's hardly a minute between each set of 4 spawns, and when you do reach the boss dude he can kill a robed caster is one round of combat easy.
So having lots of mana is vital while also avoiding aggro as much as possible, things that are made a lot easier by having a horse/lizard as you can meditate the entire time. Anyone that has done the trials can tell you that any slight edge you can get is vital to winning.

Some PoP groups I've been in have struggled due to a caster not having a horse as their sitting would aggro incoming MoBs and cause a waste of mana as the healers try to keep them alive.

As a beastlord a horse is almsot worthless to me.. I got the freebie horse out of Befallen once and disliked just about every aspect of it.. however if I where a caster I'd definatly save up for one.

[Quesci]

Also, to go along with the mana regen is the ability to memorize new spells without getting sit aggro. On horseback you can mem new spells without sitting (and getting the above mentioned sit aggro).

[Ngreth Thergn]

and (this will likely change at some point) you can scribe spells to your book WHILE MOVING on the horse

[Delfontes]

Woot, Ngreth I was half way through typing that question but thought it was too Newb to ask

You read my mind.

So you can scribe spells on the fly?

This doesn't really apply... but the other day I fell in SolA into the lava....

By the luck of the blarny stone I somehow swam up a wall, and was able to get above the Lava. If I sat or stopped running I'd fall back in...

For 10 minutes I was hovering trying to figure out what to do, healed myself and tried to sit quickly to mem Gate (didn't have it up because group was near zoneline and I needed all my spell slots)... but the lava damage made me stand again .

Anyhow, I found a mage in the zone, and was asking for a COH, luckily I had a group mate at the zone in that could invite him.... when somehow I fell in and couldn't make it back up the wall.

It was sad, very sad . After alll that.

Moral is if this was outside in the same situation, with a horse I could have switched spells and gated out.

Strangely enough even though I was "running" I wasn't moving, so the heal spells went off and so would have gate if anyone was wondering.

[Arishia]

*blink*

Are you sure you can scribe on the fly? While on my mount it wont let me open my book while moving, it tells me I have to be completely still to perform that action. It's been like that for a long time.

It DOES, however, allow me to scribe while casting a spell. So if I'm casting something that takes a long time, I can open my book, mem something else, and hope out before the spell goes off.

[Llwyd]

Horses melt if you're in water for more than a few seconds. I would assume they react similarly to lava. Plus, they're not usable indoors. As a cleric playing mainly in PoP first tier planes, I love my bottom of the line horse. It makes a huge difference in mana regen and agro.

[Verdandi]

You can't open your spellbook while you're moving but you can start moving while your spellbook is open. And just for clarification, you can only scribe spells while moving, not mem them.

I also love my horse to help me see over everyone at raids. This is only feasible when I'm not the slowing shaman, since the slowing shaman needs to be up front, but otherwise it's great. I can hang out in the back of the crowd, out of the way, and still easily see everything going on.

[Laureana]

My main (gnome enchanter) hasa black horse with a rope bridle (the lowest end bridal) it runs at about the speed of Jboots, I can med without sitting and I can be a bit taller without the use of illusions, plus the tiny horse is so darn cute! As far as water and lava go horses cant swim so if you do more than take a couple of steps in your horse poofs

[Ngreth Thergn]

Verdandi is correct

I had gotten a new level 64 spell... these take forever to scribe.

I got on my horse to med while I was scribing... then the group told me where to go, so I started running without thinking about it... and what do you know... I finished scribing while getting to the location