The Champion has always vexed me a little. When I started the class I was a bit confused as I had thought it to be a whirling deathstorm of blades; hacking its way through orcs, trolls, and any other nasty denizen of Middle-earth that got in my way. I chose a dwarf not only because of their automatic yells, their stout nature, and their rich history; but because I have always imagined them to be one of the more openly hostile and warlike races of Middle-earth (when it has come to facing the “dark forces”). So imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only was a Champion’s response time a bit slow, but that most of my “quick attacks” were those that were due to auto-attacks. And at lower levels, going in to my Fervour stance seemed to be almost a death sentence until I was able to raise up my Morale a bit. I eventually chalked some of it up to inexperience with DPS classes and the rest to it being a low-level character.
Well, it’s been a year and 3 months since I first reported my thoughts on the Champion and I have finally reached the first level cap of 50. And I’m here to tell you, that leveling the Champion has been well worth the toil! He is everything I had hoped he would be. This guy is an unstoppable force to be reckoned with. I absolutely love his play-style and with some really good tips from you all as well as some adjustments to the class on the back-end by Turbine he is everything I want him to be. I really enjoy this character and his form of PvE that I actually spent a couple of levels in his 30’s just playing Skirmishes. He is a hard character to put down and from the looks of the upcoming changes to Champions, he is going to be even more versatile and dangerous than ever before. I personally can’t wait until I have the option of trying a shield-less tank in LOTRO, because as I’ve stated before those have been some of my most favorite classes to play in the past.
For Levels 40-50 I kept him with 3 into The Deadly Storm (Stalwart Blade, Eye of the Storm, and Improved Rend) and 2 of The Beserker (Vicious Strikes and Blood-lust) which seemed to work well for me. I would open with Battle-frenzy, Flurry, Blade-wall, Exchange of Blows, and then proceeded from there. Most things seemed to die very quickly before me, which always makes me a happy Champion. The only downside to my experience is that this was one of my alts that did not have the fortune to complete any of his book traits; so I didn’t get to experience any of the Legendary Skills that their completion brings. I’m hoping that Moria will fill them out, but we’ll see. If not there’s always Icy Crevasse and Attack at Dawn that I can try (although I didn’t fare too well on those with this guy for some reason). Outside of those few issues, again I have to say that playing this character was a lot of fun, but of course any tips you guys want to throw my way are well appreciated. So please feel free to chime in!
| Skill | Skill Effect | Opinion | Level Obtained |
Heroics |
An on-defeat skill that gives 243-270 Power to your fellows. | A good skill that helps out if you can spare the power or if you’re willing to pop a potion. | 40 |
Boast |
This is a forced emote that makes players within 10 meters of you perform a cheer. | I admit it; I tried this several times in Bree, but ultimately I felt like a bit of a jerk so I stopped after several attempts. | 40 |
Rising Ire |
A skill that transfers 15% threat from a fellowship member to the Champion. | A good tank/save-the-healer skill indeed. It can be very beneficial to use this. | 42 |
Ebbing Ire |
A skill that transfers 25% of the threat from the Champion to a fellowship member. | Ah, as a tank I love this, but it’s hard to pull off sometimes due to targeting issues. My suggestion to any Champ who doesn’t want to be tanking would be to try to use it when you can. | 44 |
Fear Nothing! |
This skill removes up to 3 Fear effects from the Champion. | A great utility skill that I know a lot of people are jealous of. Fear is the mind-killer after all. | 46 |
Blocking Blades |
An on-defeat skill that increases your Parry Rating by 400. The buff expires if out of combat for 9 seconds. | A great skill that should be used when you’re AoE-ing, however it also made me aware of an interesting trend of timed out-of-combat expiration buffs that Champs have. I admit that this kind of buff took some getting used to, but hey 400 Parry Rating is great. | 48 |
Ferocious Strikes |
A single-target attack that makes 3 attacks (2 Main-hand, 1 Off-hand) and increases your threat to that target. The attack cannot miss, be parried, or be blocked by an opponent on level; only evaded. | I wish that I had some experience with this skill, but sadly I didn’t earn it. It looks to be really good, though! | 39+ Legendary Class Book |
Fight On |
Only useable at 60% health, you instantly drain power from mobs within 5 meters of you of their power while you regain power; your Melee Damage is increased by 25% for 30 seconds. Afterwards, your ICPR is reduced by 25% until you’re out of combat for 9 seconds. | I wish that I had some experience with this skill, but sadly I didn’t earn it. It looks to be really good, though! | 39+ Legendary Class Book |
Raging Blade |
An AoE attack that makes 3 attacks at once (2 Main-hand, 1 Off-hand) | I wish that I had some experience with this skill, but sadly I didn’t earn it. It looks to be really good, though! | 39+ Legendary Class Book |
Controlled Burn |
A buff that has a 75% chance to reflect 37 damage upon receiving any Common, Fire, or Shadow Damage (Expires if out of combat for 9 seconds); gives you a –20% attack duration (Expires if out of combat for 9 seconds); +1304.6 in-Combat Power Regen; and increases your Melee Damage by 15%. (Both with a duration of 2m 30s) | I did enjoy playing around with this skill and it seems pretty useful. I’m curious to hear about how most champs choose to use it though. | Level 45 Class Quest |
July 22, 2011 at 10:28 am
I like to use the Boast skill in the Pony after saying something like “Cheer if you like Pie!” and then making everyone cheer. Although I often have to run away as some people don’t take kindly to automatic emotes.
The legendary traits are well worth the effort to get, I use them often. And Fear Nothing is wonderful, especially when used strategically in a fight as it gives a fervor boost as well as removing fear effects.
I find that playing my Champ is a bit like dancing, it’s all about timing and rhythm. If you keep the beat you are unstoppable but if you make the wrong step things can go pear shaped pretty quickly.
July 22, 2011 at 12:47 pm
haha, nice use of Boast, though.
I plan on getting the traits, but it just seemed like this character was doomed to not have them drop. Ah well, I’ll get them! And if you have any tips on how to get that rhythm down, please let me know!
July 22, 2011 at 10:29 am
I chose a Elven maiden for my Champion. I too struggled with this class for a long time, seeking out whatever advice I could grab. The turning point came when I listened to your Champion roundtable.
I fight mostly in Ardour but will swtich in and out of Fervour or Glory when the situation seems right. I’ve also learned to move around a lot when I am fighting so as to set up who gets the most of bladewall which seems to be the easiest of the AoE skills to pop frequently.
When I first started out I fought with a 2H greatsword. The animation for that seemed to be horrid and choppy which drove me nuts. Now that she’s about lvl cap I switched to two 1H daggers, which has not hindered her playing style at all. I’m traited three in Berserker and four in Deadly Storm
Where you get the random dwarf yells, I get random swirling jumps in the air – daggers fully extended. Elven Ninja!
July 22, 2011 at 10:31 am
Oh – and I highly recommend getting Fight On. It has saved my little Ninja self more than once when I’ve started running out of power. It completely fills your power bar back up again.
July 22, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Nice! Thanks for the tips Isilwren; I appreciate it! Man, swirling jumps in the air sounds really cool!
July 22, 2011 at 10:51 am
Champion is my first character in lotro, and I really loved my rohan maiden until I made lore-master and fell in love. Recently I revisited my champ girl who was collecting dust, and lvled her from 50 to 65 in a few weeks – and I enjoy her dps and aoe a lot. I went all the way with her – did all the books to get all the legendary traits, etc, and am really pleased – so would deffo say you should go for them. I love controlled burn, continuous blood-rage and raging blades
Usually, I run around in 5 berserker traits and 2 from deadly storm – my damage output is awesome, and the continuous blood-rage legendary makes it even better. It takes a lot of ‘dancing’ to stay alive sometimes if I pull too much, but its awesome! I am almost always in fervour, be it in solo or group play – unless the healer cant keep up, and switch to glory only if I need to tank. I never use ardour as to me it is useless – the whole point to be a champion is to do damage, in large quantities and fast – and if possible, without taking aggro from tank
Fervour is to me the way to go to do that.
July 22, 2011 at 4:02 pm
No shing-shing makes a sad, sad champion. Controlled Burn is awesome though. You can use it to dps-tank, or for dps in any fights when the boss does AoE damage.
July 25, 2011 at 9:39 pm
controlled burn is also awesome for instance/raid bosses. melee damage is a little lower than in fervour, but having flurry up for the whole fight without needing to waste pips/time refreshing the buff is awesome.
July 22, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Hey, Ferocious Strikes earned my living as a veteran Champion! One of the most devastating attacks, difficult to evade or block and a Critical magnet too! A Must for most, and the Jewel in the Crown of a Berserek Champion.
July 22, 2011 at 10:35 pm
personally i have used Haakon’s 2H Champ guide ( http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/2011/01/2-handed-champion-guide/ ) and have been pretty happy with it. originally i was all about the dual-weild, as 2H just seemed painfully slow, but now i rarely switch from my 2H sword (human). what Buckyball said about the rhythm is completely true due to them pesky pips! but once you have that dance down… well… it’s just plain fun!
July 23, 2011 at 5:05 am
Once you get your legacy for brutal strikes maxed it will actually do more damage per hit compared to ferocious with a 2h’er. Hopefully that will change with the upcoming champ-revamp.
July 23, 2011 at 6:21 pm
A champ being my main I find it more fun and DPS-y if you slot 4 in red and then the rest in yellow, making sure the first yellow trait you use is the one that allows you to get 5 pips from battle frenzy. 4 in red gives you a pip every “3″ seconds instead of “4″ seconds in fervour. You’ll become a crazy DPS master this way. Try it.
July 23, 2011 at 9:41 pm
or you could try 5 red when you get cbr 1 yellow stalwort blade and 1 blue being braced against defeat
July 24, 2011 at 12:08 am
Have to agree that my feelings as well were always iffy on the Champion class. A love/hate relationship really. So much so that years ago I decided to make him a storage character and part time gatherer character. That said I found myself in need of mats in Moria and didn’t want to advance my current “active” toons through there getting that mats that I started to play my champion.
I kept thinking that Turbine must have improved the class because this isn’t the frustrating class I recall playing! Having so much fun trying things while gathering mats that I end up trying out various trait schemes, currently doing the 2 swords and sword and shield tank route for kicks.
Thing is, I’m having so much fun playing him that he might end up going to the cap! LOL. I wanted to try a more tank like build since he tends to be my solo roam around the realm gathering things character and I wanted him to be able to handle anything he came into. Currently he’s 54th in Moria and he’s traited 4 in Martial Champion and 2 into Deadly Storm. He’ll get the 5th in MA to open the legendary trait Invincible, just because I want to try it out. Plus I want to try tanking him to see how that goes.
July 24, 2011 at 12:10 am
Oh btw I’ve enjoyed using both Raging Blades and Ferocious Strikes. Though currently I only have RB traited. Pondering putting RB back in though since I’m frequently fighting 3 to 5 critters at once in Moria.
July 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm
I’d use Raging Blades in your setup, since it’s (in addition to being awesome in general) one of the champion’s best threat generating skills.
July 25, 2011 at 2:54 pm
I changed out Ferocious Strikes for Raging Blades btw, I’m really liking the aoe with it while farming mats and clearing areas. Thanks for the nudge Maedhric.
July 26, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Someday when I can afford another character slot, I’m going to add a champion. It’s the only class my altaholic self does not have.