Obikin89's Requiem for Neverwinter
MOD 20

Mounts

Mounts are your main vehicules throughout Faerun. But they're not just vehicules. They also help you fight with a Combat Power, and give you stats through an Equip Power, both powers scaling with your Bolster (which improves as you get better mounts). Mounts also give you even more stats and bonuses from insignias and collars you can equip them with.

Mount Powers

Mount Speed

Mount speed is the same for every mount. You have both the Gallop and the Trot. Make sure you equip the Gallop for your every day movements !

It can be improved by up to +20% with the guild boon Mount Speed Bonus.

Bolster

Bolster improves the equip and combat powers of your mounts by up to 100% (double the value). The quality of your 10 best mounts counts toward bolster, for a maximum of +100% bonuses with 10 Mythic mounts. Here are the numbers :

Bolster is not a priority. It is nice to have but very expensive. To make things easier, numbers for mounts on this page will be shown as if your bolster was at 100% and the mount at Mythic quality, but keep in mind that the numbers will probably be lower for you.

Note that the way numbers are displayed in-game for Combat and Equip Powers is a bit messy : your bolster is always accounted for, but the powers are displayed either at the level you have them (if you do have them) or at Mythic (if you do not have them). It can be tricky to compare different powers in-game due to this. Combat and Equip powers can even be displayed at different qualities on the same mount in the Auction House or Collection.

Combat Powers

All of the mounts have a Combat Power. You can pick one of them to use it in combat, to deal damage, or buff your team / debuff your adversaries. They have a 1 minute cooldown. These powers get better with the quality of your mounts and your bolster. Upgrading a mount will upgrade its Combat Power, just like buying a new mount with the same Combat Power at a higher quality.

Your Combat Power gives up to 3000 item level (at Mythic, with 100% Bolster) and reacts as if it gave 100% combined ratings (your percentages won't change with or without it), but it doesn't give any ratings... and it has a very bugged behaviour on your stats when you remove it...

Mounts that start at Epic or lower quality have one of the 3 Combat Powers below (displayed at Mythic Quality with 100% Bolster) :

Legendary and Mythic mounts have unique powers. The same debuffs won't stack multiple times, but different ones will :

Offensive :

Defensive :

Most of the other Legendary mounts have a version of Tunnel Vision or Explosive Equalizer that has an animation. Some of them have Damage over Time or knockback effects.

Tanks are best with Bat Swarm, Piercing Screech or Ferocious Roar, to mitigate damage while the Healer uses their Daily Power and Artifact. They don't stack, so it's good to have different options for Trials. Bat Swarm is the best for Dungeons as it also boosts damage, both for you and Damage Dealers.

Healers are best with Tyrannosaurus Rex'Em to help the group deal more damage, but they can also use a Defensive Combat Power if there's not enough damage mitigation.

Damage Dealers are best with Tunnel Vision, or a Legendary equivalent like Golden Touch or Giant Toad Tongue Lash (which consumes minions on top of the Tunnel Vision damage). They can also use Bat Swarm or Tyrannosaurus Rex'Em in a Trial if no one else has one available for burst phases (it's not worth it compared to Tunnel Vision in a regular dungeon).

Equip Powers

All of the mounts now have an Equip Power. These powers get better with the quality of your mounts and your bolster. Upgrading a mount will upgrade its Equip Power, just like buying a new mount with the same Equip Power at an higher quality. You can slot one of them to benefit from their stats/bonuses. Your Mount Equip Power gives up to 3000 item level at Mythic Quality, with 100% Bolster.

This is mostly a matter of balancing your stats, as the sum of stat percentages given by most of the Mount Equip Powers is null. The stats were nerfed quite a lot, especially for Movement Speed and Stamina Regeneration (from 15% to 6%).

Single stat Equip Powers :

Double Stats :

Utility :

It is very interesting to have one Runic Aura in a group, as it is the only power that will really boost people's stat percentages. Tanks or Healers are the best with it, but anyone can have it. It doesn't stack, so you only need one in the group.

⚠ Apparently, neither Ferocity nor Providence work properly... At least they never proc with the Cleric's Power : Forgemaster's Flame. Providence does heal though, so it can be used for this in group content, but the effect is really marginal considering the 10s cooldown and capping stats would take priority. When they work, they make another hit which is not mitigated (yeay for effects that actually deal the damage they are supposed to), but they may suffer from internal cooldowns. Ferocity would definitely be best in slot if it worked well.

Which means Damage Dealers can pick any bonus that suits their build to balance their stats. Ferocity could still be a good pick, but that would require making sure it works well with your powers first.

Quality

The quality of your mounts impacts the efficiency of their powers. In your list of Equip or Combat powers, the powers are displayed at the highest quality you possess them. You can upgrade their quality by acquiring higher quality mounts with these powers, or by upgrading mounts with these powers (the fact that the powers of your mounts are not displayed in the Stable... nor anywhere at all for a few of them... is extremely dumb and shows that the devs are not playing their own game... but you can check my List of Mounts, or the collection ingame, if they are in the collection...). Here is how efficient the powers will be depending on their quality :

Upgrading Mounts

Upgrading a mount improves its Combat and Equip Powers (if you do not have them already at a better quality), boosts your Bolster (if it's one of your 10 best mounts, until you have 10 Mythic mounts), and, if you have it equipped on your Stable, lets you equip collars of better quality. To upgrade a mount you need Mount Upgrade Tokens, which you can either buy on the Zen Market (500 Zen for 75 tokens), or in the Tarmalune Trade Bar Store (3 Tarmalune Trade Bars per Token, these are generally obtained in lootboxes, for which you need keys you can either buy in the Zen market or obtain daily with VIP). Here is how many tokens you need to upgrade a mount of each quality :

While upgrading mounts for their powers is interesting, if you only want to improve your bolster on multiple characters, it is best to get account-wide Legendary or Mythic Mounts. Note that there is a (tiny) chance to loot account-wide Legendary Mounts in dungeons now. And that more and more account-wide Mythic mounts will be released in the future.

Insignias

Every mount has 3 insignia slots, and you can have 5 mounts in your Stable, so you can benefit from the bonuses of a total of 15 insignias.

You will find many rare (blue) insignias and you won’t need better ones for a long time. Legendary insignias are very expensive. Insignias can only be slotted in mounts that have corresponding slot types (there are mounts with universal slots though). There are 5 different types of slots (barbed, illuminated, regal, crescent, and enlightened) and most of the insignias do not have variants for all of the types. Dominances insignias do not come as crescent or enlightened, for instance.

Insignias themselves are only useful to balance your stats, and will not improve your stat percentages. At legendary, they give 200 item level and these stats :

The best insignias for Tanks are Evasion, followed by Courage.

Dominance insignias are definitely the best ones for Healers. Second best ones are Brutality.

The best insignias for Damage Dealers are Skill, or Dominance (if they have Combat Advantage in their Forte and their Power is not capped), other options are Brutality or Aggression. Gond can be options if you need the HP.

Insignia Bonuses

Depending on the type of insignias you slot in mounts, you will have access to different bonuses. These bonuses were nerfed quite a lot (especially healing ones), but are still good to have. They can stack up to 3 times, but the second one gives half the returns and the third a quarter of the returns.

Self Healing

Utility

Primary Stats

Pick Gladiator’s Guile 2 or 3 times for a good boost to movement speed. It makes it easier to avoid big attacks.

Wanderer’s Fortune is the first thing you should get though. It lets you get plenty of refinement points (RP). You need about 500k refinement points to upgrade an artifact to legendary. Needless to say, you need tons of RP. Wanderer’s Fortune is a very good start.

Traveller’s Treasure is not fantastic but it helps getting daily RAD. Good to have, but not necessarily worth it at first.

Warlord's Inspiration would be nice, but it is completely bugged nowadays : first bonus gives about 2.5% better damage (instead of 20%), second bonus gives 7.5% (+10% total, instead of 30%), third bonus reduces your companion's damage by 5% (+5% total, instead of 35%).

Other bonuses can be nice situationnaly.

Upgrading Insignias

We can now upgrade insignias from Uncommon to Legendary. It requires Insignia Powder, which is obtained by converting Insignias into Powder.

Breaking Insignias gets you an amount of Powder which depends on the quality of the Insignia (it can crit and give you more Powder sometimes) :

Upgrading Insignias costs Refinement Points and Insignia Powder which depend on the quality of the Insignia :

List of Mounts

You can check my List of Mounts to know which mount has which Equip and Combat Powers, and which insignia bonuses you can have with them !

Collars

Collars can be equipped to mounts in the Stable, just like insignias. The main difference is that you can only equip a collar of a quality equal or inferior to your mount : you can equip an Epic collar to a Mythic mount, but you cannot equip a Mythic collar to an Epic mount. Furthermore, there are 5 types of collars, and you can only equip one of each type on your mounts (you cannot equip both a Practical Barbed and a Practical Crescent collar). You can either buy Epic collars from the Zen Market (1000 Zen each), or loot them (quite rarely) in dungeons (leveling dungeons excluded).

Here are the stats for the Mythic quality (1000 item level) :

Practical :

Sturdy :

Supportive :

Unified :

Wayfaring :

Stats are 0% for common, 1% for uncommon, 2% for rare, 3% for epic, 4% for Legendary, 5% for Mythic (double for Practical collars).

Tanks are best with the Supportive Crescent (Stamina Gain) and Unified Regal (Incoming Healing), and would be good with the Sturdy Crescent (Encounter powers damage), Wayfaring Crescent (Recharge Speed) collars, if the game designers and those above did a better job...

Healers are best with Supportive Regal (Outgoing Healing) and the Wayfaring Regal (AP Gain). They would be good with the Unified Crescent (movement speed to avoid aoes) or the Unified Regal (Incoming Healing), and the Sturdy Barbed (At-Will powers damage, if you use them), if the game designers and those above did a better job...

Damage Dealers are best with either the Sturdy Barbed (At-Will powers damage) or the Sturdy Crescent (Encounter powers damage) depending on what they deal the most damage with, and the Wayfaring Barbed (Critical Severity) or the Wayfaring Crescent (Recharge Speed). They would be good with the Suportive Crescent (Stamina Gain) and either the Unified Crescent (movement speed to avoid aoes) or the Unified Regal (Incoming Healing), if the game designers and those above did a better job...

Pick the Practical collar of your choice. Astral Diamonds are certainly the priority of most people. Glory is the resource gained in PvP. Gold is not too useful right now, but will be more valuable when crafting will be updated.

Upgrading Collars

Upgrading collars is actually extremely expensive (and will decrease your stats...). Remember that you can only equip a collar of the same or lower quality than the mount you want to equip it on. So, it's not always a good idea to upgrade them, depending on the mounts you equip for insignia bonuses (you may not be able to equip it anymore if your mount's quality is too low).

While the Marks of Potency and Wards are an investment in themselves, the Insignia Powders represent a huge investment, especially for the Mythic quality upgrade (15 legendary insignias for a single collar ! A full set of Legendary Insignias for a 1% upgrade !). The Shards of Empowerment can be obtained anywhere by defeating monsters, while the Shards of Greater Empowerment can be obtained in dungeon end chests (it's a pretty long farm). But you can obtain collars in dungeons, so do not feel the need to upgrade yours, maybe you'll loot better ones. Legendary and Mythic collars are luxury items.