By the time I got to the Champion I was just about fed-up with the questing process of 30-40; which was not a good thing considering that I had a few more characters to level. Previously I had gone from Garth Agarwen, to Oatbarten, to the Eastern part of The North Downs, and then to Evendim. But it felt slow; in fact it felt very slow. So to move things along I removed several steps including Garth Agarwen and Oatbarten. Instead I travelled straight to Esteldín and worked on the West side and then the East; moving onto Rivendell and then the Eastern side of the Trollshaws; augmenting them with Skirmishes when need be.
I also still found that the Champion is still quite gear dependent; more-so than any of the other classes. In fact, this character is one that I usually intentionally upgrade midway through the leveling process. Firstly, I will upgrade his weapons. This alone usually resolves 95% of the issues that he has surviving encounters. If this is not enough, I will go ahead and upgrade his armor as well. This goes a long ways into describing my playstyle with the Champion, which is to “burn them down” before I get defeated. Although I usually start distributing armor, weapons, class items and food to my alts when they reach 31, after reaching level 35 or 36 I headed over to a skirmish camp and purchased a couple of axes; and boy was I surprised. While it may not be news to some, but the art for the weapons you can purchase from skirmish vendors is pretty amazing! This resolved my issues and I went ahead and just replaced my armor as needed with quest rewards instead of going out of my way to obtain upgrades.
Despite still trying to determine my path of leveling, this character seemed to go fairly quickly. The character was a ton of fun and actually excelled so much at Skirmshes that it was the character that made me realize that grinding out class quests might not only be possible, but might not be a huge pain in the rear. I’m really looking forward to picking him up in the future and seeing where the Champion class takes me.
Champion Skills level 30 – 38
| Skill | Skill Effect | Opinion | Level Obtained |
Glory |
A stance that adds in-Combat Power Regen (ICPR), increases your threat generation, , reduces melee damage, and adds to all Critical Defense ratings. | This is the “tanking stance” for those Champions who find themselves either wanting to tank or required to tank. I personally don’t plan to use it that often as I have a Guardian or a Warden that can fulfill these roles. | 30 |
Dire Need |
Drains you of 50% of your power and adds 200% of the amount drained to your Morale. | This is a fairly good “oh poop” button as long as you make sure you have a decent amount of Power available to drain. I’ve used it several times and it’s worked fairly well when I’ve had the Power and didn’t do much when I had only a bit. | 30 |
Clobber |
An Immediate skill that does common damage as well as interrupts a target. | This is often touted as the interrupt skill for the game. If you want to interrupt any mob then Champions using Clobber is usually the “go to” setup. I personally need to work this into a more accessible position in my quickslots; most likely on my main bar. This skill doesn’t do any good if you can’t figure out where the button is, does it? | |
Sound the Attack |
Aan AoE attack that does common damage and stuns up to 5 targets for 3 seconds. | This is another good interrupt or “take a quick moment” skill. Although it’s not useful for constant interruptions due to its cooldown it does allow a player and/or fellowship to gather themselves for a few seconds. | 34 |
Hamstring |
A direct damage attack that debuffs the target with a -30% Run Speed for 20 seconds. | A snare is useful in certain situations, but I didn’t have much use for this skill. | 36 |
Hedge |
A melee attack that becomes available when there is a “Disarm” debuff placed on the Champion.
Strikes for a set amount of Common Damage, removes the Disarmed effect, allows parry and prevents disarm, and adds a bonus to your Wound Resist and Parry ratings. |
This isn’t a bad skill, but it’s not a great skill. Although there may be legacies or traits to reduce the 3 minute cooldown, I’m not sure if this is what I’d want to allot those spaces to or not. Most disarms are wounds and can be removed with a wound potion, but they don’t add to your resistance like this one does. However, removing disarm is never a bad things, so I can’t complain too much. | 38 |
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November 18, 2010 at 8:29 am
Glad you enjoying him Merric… definately your weapons always need to be the best you can get, the sooner you burn them down the less they are gonna hurt!
I did a little page on Champion quickslot layouts on our blog: http://thekhazadguard.wordpress.com/tips/champion-quickslot-layout/ some time back which may be vaguely usefull. You are dead right, I like clobber right there close to my main fervour building centre, to cut reaction times right down.
Emma found that about the mid 40′s with the class traits and her experience playing him, that her champ came alive and she absolutely loves him now, so I think you are gonna enjoy the next levelling stage!
November 19, 2010 at 10:54 am
Thanks Adam! I’m clipping that to evernote and going to study that. lol. There’s a lot of information there and I might re-organize my bars similar to yours. I don’t know if I’m happy with his bar setup so this works out well.
November 18, 2010 at 9:34 am
Yeah, just wait until you can slot Raging Blades.
November 18, 2010 at 11:16 am
Sching sching!
November 18, 2010 at 11:37 am
My Champ (Thinhith) is almost at 50 and working the Forochel/MM regions. My biggest problem was keeping Frenzy up enough to keep most of my skills available. I started playing around with this and noticed that if I used Wild Attacks and Hamstring more, it seemed to boost my Frenzy enough to keep most of my skills open.
Champ horn (woodworker crafted) and Sound the Attack are almost useless and rarely get used because they A – have a huge cooldown time and B – they rarely ever work when clicked on.
November 18, 2010 at 1:36 pm
I’m a little confused Isilwren, typically you build fervour pips up using one of three fervour building attacks (wild attack, blade wall, swift strke) to use one of your bigger attacks (usually brutal/feral or relentless/remorseless). Most people find a sequence they like to build fervour and a big attack they prefer and stick to that rotation while sometimes having to throw in some other skills (e.g., clobber, flurry, defeat responses, etc.). For instance, I use a wild attack/bladewall/remorseless rotation. So, I use wild attack and bladewall to build fervour then use all the fervour with remorseless, rinse and repeat. Also, once you earn the trait for sound the attack you can slot it to change the resist check, this can help with the resists on the stun.
@Merric, I always use my champ for skirmishes when I am trying to acquire something via SM’s that is not BOA. Hands down the fastest run I can do!
November 18, 2010 at 5:20 pm
The trick to keep fervour really high is to trait 4 berserker traits. This gives you a pip every 4 seconds, rather than every 5.
Also, Sound the Attack and the resulting traited Horn of Gondor is the champion’s most powerful ability. It does decent AOE Damage, it’s an AOE interrupt, and it AOE stuns for several seconds. I have converted several of my Kin Champions who would never use this ability, into using it as often as possible.
The Champion’s Horn ability is great also as an “Oh Crap” ability that can be used on the spot to save your behind. When you start getting Legendary Champion’s Runes, you can get a legacy that increases the stun time for this horn by 0.5 seconds per level. That 10 second AOE stun I now have is incredibly useful for getting sphincter puckering situations under control.
November 18, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I wouldn’t say that Hamstring is a skill to be used constantly, but I have found one particular scenario where I find it completely useful…when fighting men or goblins.
When I’m soloing, and I’m fighting 3-5 men, typically, when they are almost defeated, they will try to run and aggro nearby mobs, which could result in me starting a fresh fight with not as much morale as I’d like.
Typically, I’ll hamstring a little past half-way of their morale bar, and when they try and run, they can’t ever run away fast enough to get to the mobs in time before their toast.
November 18, 2010 at 4:13 pm
LOL…*they’re* toast.
November 19, 2010 at 5:47 am
I put clobber on my middle mouse button, if you need it you usually need it Right Now.
Just wish i had more bindable buttons on my mouse!