The Nimminas Rough Guide to Champions

[Raedwulf]

Champions
The Champion, along with the Guardian & Hunter, is one of what I call the three four (or is it five?) "no-brain" classes. Number Four is the over-powered Runekeeper. Number Five would be the even more overpowered Warden; but you do have to remember your gambits with him. Anyway, by "no-brain" I mean that you can play right through to the level cap without ever displaying any noticeable intelligence or competence. You might get away with the same attitude with a Captain (heavy armour is a wonderful thing), but if you play that way with the other 3 classes then you'll die a lot early on & walk away from the class claiming it's unplayable. Having said that, if you do achieve the level cap that way, you'll do it without appearing on too many friends lists & no half-decent player will want you anywhere near their party.

So you're here now reading this because, good or bad, you're bright enough to realise that you don't know everything there is to know about the Art of Championing (& yes, it is an art - we're not mud-heads like Guardians... ;)). I'm bright enough to realise that this guide won't have all the answers either, because I don't know everything there is to know (despite occasionally giving the impression that I think I do! ;)). Hopefully having read it, though, you'll go away with a few new thoughts about different approaches to the gameplay.

It's no longer as true as it was, but for a long time, we were the most undervalued & misunderstood class in the game. Give the party half a chance & they would replace you with something else. After all, you're only good for breaking stuns, right?

Whilst this is obviously targetted primarily at CHM's or those thinking of playing one, I hope it will also be useful to anyone else to read it in detail. If you understand what the class can do, you will understand better how what you do will help or hinder them and yourselves!

And finally the post-Mirkwood edition! A lot of significant changes have happened to the class since the original guide was written, and also when SoM came out. Everything that follows is more-or-less presuming you're at the current level cap (65). If you're not at the cap any given figures will be relatively lower, but subjectively just as good (or bad)!

I Am The Walrus...
Everyone regards the Hunter as being the nuker. Everyone is wrong. The Hunter is the sniper; we are the nukers; we are the ones who deal mass high level damage; it is our speciality; not even an LM gets close. Hold on to this thought, because it is important all the way through here...

Weapons & Armour
Everyone (that man again!) knows that Turbine are idiots. Actually, that's not fair. They are very good programmers, even if they do often seem to lack something in the imagination department (& QA!). What they also seem to lack is anyone who has taken any practical interest in medieval combat. I'm both a re-enactor & a medieval martial artist, so I know what I'm talking about. I can understand & happily accept the distinction in armour types. Hunters & Burglars are supposed to be people that can move quickly & quietly - you certainly can't do that in heavy armour. Traditionally in Fantasy, lots of metal worn about the person interferes with magical ability, & anyway spellcasters are supposed to develop their minds, generally at the expense of their physique. So Loremasters, Runekeepers and, to a lesser extent, Minstrels are stuck with light armour.

But a shield is a shield is a shield! {Parenthesis: Actually, that's not strictly true, but the distinction is with very small & light - bucklers - so not relevant here...} Unfortunately, Turbine don't understand this, so to use a heavy shield you have to have a trait slotted. Waste of a slot, basically. You are the Walr... Nuke, remember! You should bother to pick up & hang on to a decent heavy shield. There may be occasions when you are going into a quest as main-tank, that’s when you equip that trait, equip that shield, get the job done. Alas, they are very rare - since people got Wardens to the level cap and everyone started to understand what they could do, the need for an MT CHM has more or less disappeared. Nevertheless, if you haven't got a heavy shield, you can't do the job. So get one. You never know...

Otherwise, I say, don't bother with shields. Your job is hitting things, not saving yourself. A heavy shield is worthwhile – 1,500+ AV at high levels; a light shield isn't. You'll get 500 or so AV & sacrifice a large proportion of your dmg output. It isn't worth it. If you do have to tank impromptu, that shield is doing nothing to draw attention to yourself, you do that in other ways. Moreover, it won’t save you either; it'll be taking the mob down before he downs you! You are not a Guardian, so don't try to imitate one. Not without the heavy shield & tanking trait line equipped, anyway!

Having said that, I did go back to carrying an ordinary shield in Moria. Partly this is because I never got around to finishing the Shield use deed, partly because of “suicide runs”. Moria is, in many places, densely packed with mobs & moving from place to place is often either a slow crawl, killing everything on the way, or a straight run, looking for a “dead” spot where either all of the mobs have given up chasing, or enough have that you can turn on the one or two remaining. Using the latter tactic (e.g. from Anzarmekhem for the Realign Mirror quest), I found that equipping even a light shield & dropping Fervour stance (so you have full B/P/E) helps soak up the damage. And you score a few blocks for the deed on the way! Just remember to switch stance back on afterwards (when soloing, Ardour, if you’re going to keep the shield equipped) – easily forgotten…

Apart from that, dual-wield all the time, says I! I know that we can use 2-handers, but I’ve never felt that they match the various benefits of 2 weapons. Some Champions like to use a 2-hander. Extensive testing in Moria suggested that the dps output is about the same for a well played character - a 2-hander gives you less attacks, but bigger numbers. When SoM came out, Turbine removed weapon speed, which removed the major disadvantage of 2-handers (they were much slower). However, as far as I'm aware, some skills are still less effective (e.g. Feral Strikes only gives you 2 blows, not 3; some skills need an extra reserve Fervour pip to be usable). I await some comments from Champion users of 2-handers, cos I still don't!

That apart, all armour & weaponry is much of a muchness. My personal preference on all of my alts has previously been to load base stats for the most part, as these underlie & impact on everything else. I'm willing to sacrifice a few AV for it too, though not too many. Post-Moria & into SoM, bonuses to melee-crits & -vulnerability are much more valuable, but you'll have to do your own comparisons to decide whether you think it's for you. As far as a Champion is concerned, in-Combat power or morale regen is still a waste, in my opinion. If the fight is going to last long enough for either to matter, you're going to need a Minstrel & Loremaster to keep you going anyway.

For weaponry, maces are nice for the occasional bonus stun. Be aware, though, that there is the occasional monster that violently objects to being stunned (Thorog, the undead dragon of Book 5 & Helegrod, will give you an AoE hope wipe for even thinking about it... ;)), so make sure you carry a spare weapon to replace it/them. It's more sensible to bear in mind your racial weapon bonus trait if you've equipped it, & choose accordingly. I'm a Man (I am!) so it's swords for me - 2% may not seem a lot, but it adds up over the course of a long fight, especially if it's 4% for dual-wielding swords... At high levels, always avoid Common Damage weapons if at all possible, since so many mobs have high mitigation.

For other equipment, jewellery et al, I follow exactly the same thinking; mostly base stats bonuses for preference & anything else is a nice added extra. The main exception to the base stat rule is that any melee vulnerability reduction is well worth considering. Really you want stat bonuses attached to it too, though.

[Raedwulf]

I Want To Cut His Head Off!
Unlike the Loremaster guide, I'm not going to go through skills in detail, because it's not worthwhile. The Loremaster is a generalist & needs a detailed examination; you're a specialist - you hit things for your living (& their dying...). Your skills fall into 3 basic groups - Single target, AOE, & Miscellaneous Not Doing Damage. I'll deal with them on that basis, starting with the Miscellaneous for a very good reason...

Spoiling for a Fight...
Fervour is to you what Focus is to the Hunter. Without it, a full bar of power notwithstanding, most of your quickslot bars will be grey & your skills unusable. You've 3 stances, but Ardour, to my mind, is useless (except as noted above). It's neither one thing nor the other; Fervour every time for me! It adds a whopping 20%-odd to your damage output & over 1,700 points per minute to in-Combat PR, as well as a fervour point every 5 secs. Admittedly when Turbine were busy nerfing us ("Can't have any competition for the RK, don't you know old boy!" he says cynically...), they inflicted a -30& healing penalty on you, but it's still the stance you'll spend 99% of your time in.

Ardour sacrifices much of that benefit (half the fervour rate, only 80% of the iCPR & all of the damage bonus) in favour of giving you a severely nerfed Parry & Evade (something in the order of 1/3 of what you would otherwise have)... Not worth it. Kill it quick so that it can't hit you, don't fanny around trying to fend it off! Unless of you course you actively need to tank, in which case you'll want to switch to Glory to become an aggro magnet. There's no other reason for using that, so 'nuff said!

Don't forget you've got Battle Frenzy. It's moderately expensive, power wise, & a long 1m CD, but useful nevertheless. It's most effective early in a fight when you're being submerged by swarm mobs. To get rid of them ASAP, you want your big AoE attacks available ASAP. A good tactic at the start is Blade-wall, then Battle Frenzy. If you’re in Fervour, that should give you another point by now, and that’s the 5 you want for Raging Blade. Your 4 other Frenzy building skills are Merciful Strike, Swift Strike, Wild Attack, &, if you've the Stalwart Blade trait slotted (as you ought to), Blade-wall. Merciful Strike is a bit tricky to use, because the mob does have to be under 20% hp. However, if you're facing a succession of Elite+ mobs, it does give a very handy +2 fervour. The damage bonus is pretty much incidental to that. Post-Moria, it can now be traited to be available at up to 50% hp – very useful. I do not like Swift Strike. It is very expensive for very little, in comparison with Blade Wall. Its only plus is the fact that it's a single target skill, unlike Blade-wall. I don't use it if I can help it, but more on that shortly. For fervour building, your best combo is WA / B-w.

Flurry is one of your most important skills. It costs 2 fervour but it's well worth it. Even un-traited it's -15% attack duration for 20s; traited it's -20% for 30s. Red Haze & Second Wind are both very useful too, once something has died to open them. The former means lots of extra fervour over a long fight (1pt / 15s doesn't sound much, but in a 5 minute fight, that's 20 bonus fervour – effectively 4 free 5pt attacks); the latter, if you're lucky, gives frequent little power boosts. For me, it means a boost of around 1/10 of my base max power up to 4 times a minute. That's down what it used to be, but on top of the enormous regen rates that the stances grant, still very useful. Dire Need is the Champions get-out-of-jail card, but it's a weak one. You've a 30m CD on it, for a start, & that compares unfavourably with the Loremasters 10m CD on Wisdom of the Council. It's also power dependent - whilst it gives you back in morale twice what it costs in power, it takes half the power you've got; and if you've you got no power, well, twice nothing is nothing, let's face it! On the plus side, I rarely seem to run my power bar down that far, so it usually is a life-saver. My one word of advice is - don't put it on your main quickslot bar! The number of times I blew this by hitting the wrong key when I was going for a next door skill! :( I've moved it now...

One of your 5 newer skills (i.e. post-Moria) is a damage-saver, Adamant, that gives you +10% mitigation on all damage. It’s long cooldown, short duration, and reaction to it seems mixed. It might take a bit of pressure off the Minstrel if you’re tanking, but I’m not sure how much real use it is. The Legendary-traited version, at 30%, is better, but probably not worth what it takes to slot, unless you’re Main Tanking (see Traits below).

I've hardly ever used Heroics, but it can come in handy. It costs you over 800 power, but at an average 325 power boost to everyone else, you're giving back 1950 to a full fellowship (including yourself). At the level cap, if you have the Heroics Heal Chance legacy on your stone, you can also have a very good chance of getting 600 morale for yourself too. On top of that, 325 is a significant slice of the power that a Loremaster needs to Share the Power which, if they're traited Healer (as they probably ought to be in a group) gives back @ 20% net gain (730 power cost for an average 850 power given, without LI boosts). In other words, if you use this in conjunction with a clued-up LM, you gain @400 power, the same as the LM loses giving it back to you, & your other companions share something like 1400 points between them - very handy... Who says a Champion is no use for anything except hitting things?

Hedge is of erratic utility, especially given its 3m CD. If you've got an on-the-ball LM to hand, you should have a big bonus to your wound resistance. Nevertheless, if you do catch a disarm, this will clear it, so keep it somewhere handy. It can now be traited (90s cd; 20s duration), but unless you’ve built for the AoE set, you’re unlikely to have it equipped. Apart from Exchange of Blows & Champion's Challenge, which are useful if you're having to tank for whatever reason, I rarely, if ever, use most of the other non-damage skills. Rising Ire & Ebbing Ire are worth a mention though - a quick way of either pulling aggro, or dumping it on your friendly neighbourhood Guardian! Last word to Blood Rage – at a large morale cost, you can break any stuns & roots, but it has a slow induction / animation, so best saved for the long 10s+ stuns you get from some mobs (or in the Moors). There's a Legendary Trait for it, but frankly, I don't think the benefits are worth anything like the cost, and I've never slotted 5 red traits to test it.

No AoE! No AoE!
Tell them to get stuffed. If you supinely roll over in front of your so-called comrades, you're going to have a hard time of it. Let them get away with this & you are nothing but a second rate HNT/GDN abortion. This is the point at which they replace you with a first-rater, a specialist. You're a big, bold, heroic chap with two weapons, muscles & load of heavy armour to give weight to your errr... arguments - stand up fer yerself!!

Seriously, let the party or raid get away with "No AoE" & you just lost a big part of your damage output. You can't pull like a GDN & you can't snipe like a HNT or RK, so what's the use of having you around? You can easily be replaced, not only by a HNT / RK for straight damage, or a GDN for tanking, but who would shrug over losing a CHM in favour of having both LM & BRG instead of only one? Or including a CPT instead for the extra healing / buffing / ress? Nine classes, only 6 slots in a fellowship, who loses out? That's right, you! Because you don't offer anything extra, just a bit of dps, & you piss everyone off by breaking mezzes all the time...

Now is the time you need to start educating your companions. Your dps is tremendous. I’m fairly sure that the CHM actually does more dps than the HNT (& I have levelled both to the cap, if you're wondering); the RK, I'm not so sure because of the appalling single target crits that they can churn out. That's not an argument against the CHM, though, it's an argument (the main argument) that the RK is overpowered. Your dps is less obvious because it's spread around, but it's there nonetheless. Mezzes are all very well, but they're resistable, they're breakable, & never mind temporary immunity, there are plenty of boss-type mobs with total stun / mezz immunity. Never met one that's immune to a smack with a sword! Any fight where there's more than a couple of mobs involved wants a Champion involved as well. A group that knows how to properly operate with a proficient Champion will finish its fights at least 10% quicker, more where fights involve upwards of half-a-dozen mobs. That's not just the fight finishing 10% quicker; that's 10% less chance of a patrol wandering up, 10% less chance of mezzes failing, 10% less time for the mobs to be dealing out wounds, disease, dps, & all manner of nastiness; 10% less risk all round for everybody. That's a huge advantage!

The details of your AoE skills don't matter much. I'll say only that traited Blade-wall gets you a fervour point, as well as hitting up to 5 targets in front of you; Blade-storm was your main fervour-costing AoE attack & works all round; now you have Rend (an improved Cleave) which is half the fervour cost for less damage, but puts both a bleed and (more importantly), when traited, a -500 armour debuff on all targets; Sound the Horn is an AoE stun that does a small amount of damage; and the Legendary Raging Blade, despite costing a maximum 5 fervour & not giving a huge amount of individual damage, hits up to 8 targets & never misses, besides pulling extra aggro.

What does matter is the way you set about using them. The two classes that have to be aware of everything going on around are Burglar & Loremaster, but you're immediately behind them in the "eyes wide open" stakes. There are times when it's inappropriate for you to be using your huge, whirling, indiscriminate all-round attacks & it's up to you to judge it. But if someone is stupid enough to mezz a mob in the middle of the group it isn't your fault when that mezz gets broken, it's theirs. What is important, & this is where the Champion becomes an artist, is maneuvering to allow yourself the maximum potential impact. Your principal function is AoE dps; your secondary function is tanking. So combine the two - if a mob gets where it shouldn't, get it out again, get it stunned, & get back to doing what you're best at! Ideally a LM or BRG will come in & deal with the errant mob. Ideally, because they are the ones who will stun it, so they know when to stop attacking it. Unfortunately, not only are they rather soft & squishy, they also have other duties to attend to. More often than not, you will need to deal with it. To be fair, you are much better at attracting aggro (this could be a good time for a quick switch to Glory stance, but don't try your Challenge, as you'll likely pull a lot of other stuff you don't really want to) & surviving it.

What you are going to need to do is this... First of all, you need to have set up a good understanding with your mezzers. Before the fight starts, in other words. That way, everyone knows what's expected of them. If a mob then gets somewhere awkward, get hold of it, switch to Glory on the fly if you need to, get it somewhere safely out of the way, scream for the mezz & stand still! That's right, you're going to have to stand there for a few seconds & let it hit you. Otherwise you risk breaking the very mezz you're asking for. If your group is organized, this shouldn't be an issue - by way of example, even if the MNS is busy, the LM can always give you a heal while they're waiting for their mezz CD to expire. Once the mob is out of it, you can gaily charge back into the main melee, deal AoE with joyous abandon & your mates will be hugely impressed with you (if they're actually bright enough to realise what you just did. But that's another story... ;)). Job done.

Please form an orderly queue...
One at a time & no pushing! Alright, for whatever reason, you can't use your AoE. You've a bunch of single-target skills, & you need to know how to make best use of those too. First & foremost of these, and the one thing that anyone genuinely wants you in the group for, is Clobber. No-one else can do this. Other classes do have interrupt skills (the Guardian's Stamp, for instance), but no-one has an interrupt on a 3s CD... There will be fights where your routine will be WA / Clobber / WA / Clobber / WA / Flurry / Clobber, & round you go again until the mob's dead. Tedious but necessary. Keep Clobber on your bar next to WA & B-w / SS so it's easily available. Also bear in mind that if you need to tank something out of the way for a mezz (see above), you may want to be Clobbering it as well - Healer & Captain (i.e buffing) type mobs may need to be shifted, but the last thing you want is them doing what does you most harm!

Ferocious Strikes is the single shot Legendary equivalent to Raging Blade. It's a decent attack given its accuracy, but it's again expensive on fervour. Fighting Dirty doesn't do much of itself, but it does give you a massive +25% AoE damage bonus for 30s - don't neglect it. Like untraited Merciful Strike, an enemy needs to be low on health (25%) before it can be used, but like MS it can be traited for 50% use. Traited Bracing Attack will give you a very useful heal, for me it amounts to about 1/8 of base morale. Hamstring slows an opponent. Don't presume that's a plus. There are times, particularly in raids, where the leader will state a specific injunction against slows & suchlike, so don't forget what it does. Relentless Strike is your next best single-shot after FS - with a 1s CD, it's essentially always available, though it does demand 4 fervour. Feral Strikes does a decent amount of damage. More importantly each of the 3 blows has a 25% chance of removing one corruption from the target. However, the supposed 25% chance x 3 seems, in reality, to equal about a 40% chance of actually removing a single corruption overall! Swift Strike is your single-target alternative to Blade-wall. As previously mentioned, it's crap; but if you can't AoE & you need to build fervour... One more thing to add about it though - if you're a CHM who keeps running his power down despite being in Fervour, you're probably using this, and using it far too much! It costs you 143 power for an average 160 damage; traited Blade Wall gives you the fervour point, and 180 + 170 damage on up to 5 targets at a cost of only 90 power. So why were you using SS again? ;)

[Raedwulf]

Traits
As with any class, which traits you will equip will depend on whether you're solo or grouped. It will also be affected by what you expect to face, and by what aspect of your abilities you need to emphasize. As with other classes, trait sets mean you have a choice of 3 paths. For the Champion, you have Berzerker, which ups your single-target performance; The Deadly Storm line for AoE; & Martial Champion is your Main Tank set. Equipping 2, 3, & 4 traits within a set gives you an increasing number of advantages geared towards that line; equipping 5 allows you to slot the Legendary trait belonging to that line.

What follows is what I think are the most useful within each line, along with any other useful comments. It’s then a question of how valuable you feel the set bonuses are within a given line as to how many you take, and whether you slot one of the “lesser” traits in that line to achieve the better bonus.

Berzerker
Deadly Strikes - Paired with Vicious Strikes below, this gives a significant bonus to dps on your strikes. This one gives +25% damage on a crit.
Vicious Strikes - Paired with Deadly Strikes above, this gives a significant bonus to dps on your strikes. This one gives increased crit chance (+1040).
Flurry of Blows - Adds 10s duration & 5% attack speed bonus to the the effect of Flurry. Well worth equipping!

My standard set-up includes these 3. The Berzerker 3-trait bonus essentially gives you a free DS + VS on Wild Attack, which makes it hit like an anvil! If you’re looking for a 4th (gives you 1 Fervour pip every 4s, instead of 5), then equip Bountiful Mercy, which raises your Merciful Strikes threshold. None of the other traits are worthwhile, & there’s no point in trying to equip 5 to make the Legendary Continuous Blood Rage available, anyway.


Deadly Storm
Stalwart Blade - This is the trait that makes Blade-wall add a point of fervour. A must-have most of the time for me, regardless of set-build.
Improved Rend – Adds the Armour debuff effect to Cleave & Rend. As with Stalwart Blade, hugely useful. These are the two from this Deadly Storm I try to keep equipped, no matter what.
Dirt Cheap – Raises the Fighting Dirty threshold to 50%. If you’re looking for one extra trait to equip in this line, it’ll probably be this one. Essentially, if you’re taking the top 3 Berzerker, top 2 DS, & BaD below, it’s a toss-up between BM above, & this one (presuming you’re at least L57, of course!).
Winds of the Storm – This looks attractive, but usually you can't really justify using a slot on it. It makes Blade-storm & Raging Blade hit an extra 5 targets. But how often do you face more than 5 / 8 at a time? Post-Moria, this comes into its own in several of the instances, such as Vol 2 Bk 4 Ch.7 or 16th Hall, & you'll find it very useful in those (provided your healers are on the ball!). Outside of that? DC or BM will serve you better.
Fervent Rage - Some Champions like this one. It makes Battle Frenzy generate 5 Fervour, filling your Fervour meter. Sounds good, but how often, after the start of a fight, are you on zero Fervour without one of your 5 Fervour skills on CD? Because using one of those is usually why you're on zero. Since BF gives you 3 untraited, I don't see this one as worth having, myself.
Mighty Blast – I tried this. Briefly. It may mean the Sound the Horn doesn’t get b/p/e’d, but the first thing it did was miss!! Didn’t seem worth it to me…

Martial Champion
Braced against Defeat - Improves your BA. This is the one MC trait I never drop, if I can possibly help it, though you can do without it if you have enough trustworthy healers around.

MC is actually a very nicely designed, well thought out set. It’s almost a shame you probably won't ever use it! If you do, you’ll certainly want Heavy Shield Use & At the Ready. Bear in mind that, if you are using it, many of your single-target & AoE skills have a secondary component of additional threat generation & it’s those that you’ll want to emphasize using. Given that, Call of the Wild & Patience are likely also useful. If you’re not equipping BaD (you should be the healers’ main focus after all), then Vigour of Champions is probably attractive, since Glory stance (which you’ll be in) power regen is only 75% that of Fervour. And whether you take BaD or VoC, that makes the Legendary Invincible available.

Legendaries
Once you’re at L60, you have 3 Legendary slots available & 7 Legendary Traits to choose from. Except that you can discard the high-risk, desperation-card Fight On straight away, along with equally desparate & risky Continuous Blood Rage (which will basically wipe you in short order) from the Berzerker trait line (& why would you trait for single- target damage anyway? Especially if you're grouping?!).

This leaves you to perm 3 from 5. The familiar & obvious ones are the bonus AoE (Raging Blade) & single-shot (Ferocious Strikes) attacks available, along with Controlled Burn. This is death on two legs! :Y It’s basically Fervour stance without the B/P/E switched off, & that massively reduces the amount of damage you take. It only lasts for 2m 30s (traited with the Blue Line Controlled Fury, 3m 30s) and has a 10m CD. It’s of debatable utility in group work, it’s a godsend when trying to solo Elite+ mobs, or too many Normals / Sig’s when you have to. At the moment, these are the 3 I keep slotted.

The other two are Deathstorm (Deadly Storm line, duh!) which does a number of interesting things to your AoE skills, & Invincible (Martial Champion line), which is the trait that makes Adamant’s effects 30%, as well as resetting a number of MC skills. The former is useful in some very situation specifc cases (The Watcher is the only one I can recall), I haven’t tried the latter. Just remember - “You have to have FIVE traits equipped in the trait line for them to be available!”

Virtues
For Virtues, you can't go far wrong with Loyalty, Wisdom, & Innocence. Other traits for the CHM really depends on how you feel. Fidelity is useful in the end-game again (though there's little shadow damage in Moria, curiously), but most of the “middling” virtues listed in the Virtues Guide are viable, depending on your needs at the given moment. Currently Raed slots Loyalty & Innocence, Charity (Wound Resist & Ranged Defence), Discipline (Might & weak Melee Defence) & Zeal (Disease Resist, Melee Def, Poison Resist) for a pretty high Melee Defence, better Ranged Defence, & some nice bonuses to resists.

[Raedwulf]

Tips & Tricks & Tactics
Presuming you have Improved Rend, make sure you use it as early in the fight as possible. Having to spam Sound the Horn to complete the deed should have taught / reminded you how useful a skill it is, particularly when facing more then one opponent. Since it lasts about 4s (once you take into account the moment of “recovery”), it effectively prevents 2 attacks per mob, as well as being an interrupt & a weak AoE damage. That’s a lot of extra damage in your favour when facing 2-3+ mobs.

In fellowship, be prepared to die. If, for some reason, you start catching some serious damage, it's almost certainly a waste of time trying to run away. Whether it's sudden big hits, or a slow erosion of your morale because a healer has gone down is beside the point. The chances are, if your personal healing is all used, you will not be able to get away before dying & time you spend running is time you're not doing damage. You Are The Nuke, remember. The group will probably be better served by the damage you can deal in your few remaining seconds than they will be by your slender chance of survival. Rather than acting selfishly (it's only a few extra silver for repairs & we've all got more money than we'll ever spend), give them the best chance of finishing the fight off by whacking as long as you can & wait for your ress.

You are also the Minstrel's best friend. They may not realise it, cos everyone focuses on the GDN, but really, it's you. The Guardian will be busy. What's more, while every good player should be aware of what's happening around them, the Guardian (along with the Hunter) is the most narrowly focussed class, with good reason. After the LM & BRG, you, by virtue of your AoE, need to be the most aware of the immediate environment (the MNS, before you ask, is probably going to be busy watching people's health bars & keeping buffs up). Therefore, you are the best placed to rescue your Minstrel from trouble. Don't wait for any GDNs to notice, because they're probably not paying attention. Get in there, get that (this is where Rising Ire comes into play) / those (you are the King of AoE after all) mobs off him. Move them somewhere else & get them stunned or killed. Your Minstrel will love you & write songs in your praise (this may not be a good thing... ;)). Or possibly a nice epitaph for your glorious self-sacrifice... :D

And following on from the last 2 paragraphs, the Minstrel is YOUR best friend. The CHM's forte is spreading damage about. That means that in big fight, a CHM is likely to pull peripheral mobs early in a fight. The focus of the healers needs, then, to be on the CHM, as they will probably need looking after when no-one else is taking significant damage.

The early stages of The (on-level) Rift are a prime example – take the Hillmen / Slave / Slave Master fight, for instance. The CHM can clout everything in sight; GDNs tend to pick up individual mobs, keep them, & don't need healing for a while; WDNs are multi-tanks, but your dps will out-strip their slow-burn threat build to begin with. The CHM wallops everything they can first blow to stop mobs running through the group to squishier people behind. Therefore, they get hurt by everything quickly early on. The GDNs / WDNs will eventually gather up most of the aggro from anything still alive, but CHMs are better at picking it up early. GDNs have Challenge, yes, but GDNs will not keep aggro on multiple mobs against a good CHM using AoE. In fact, less-than-good GDNs will struggle to keep aggro against a good CHM, period! So long as the group is aware of what the CHM is trying to do, it's an excellent tactic that makes for a quicker, cleaner fight. It's that question of the CHM making sure he's able to use his AoE kills to maximum effect.

If you do switch to a shield on the fly, there's a problem switching back to dual wield - any single handed weapon you equip will go straight into your Main Hand if your Off hand isn't empty. Here's a tip from Grimbos that will help - "I have a slot for a 2h, for my main 1h, for my main offhander and my shield. whenever I want to switch from sword&board to DW, I equip my 2h, and then my primary 1h, and then the offhander. usually doesn't take more than a second." Essentially, you need something that will clear your Off Hand slot - a fishing rod works equally as well.

Conclusion
You are a Champion, not a doormat. Do not let your group bully you out of using your chief skills. Educate them. As often as not, you are their chief weapon & they need to conform to your specialities; not the other way round. The non-Champions think you're just a thug; you're not. You're Zorro, D'Artagnan; in a Victorianesque quote "a good blade carving the casques of men"; not a bloody butcher going mental with a meat cleaver. The only "must have" class is a Minstrel, & you can often get away without one of those, especially with the advent of RKs (if they'll condescend to heal, anyway!). But a Champion is usually seen as disposable & that's plain wrong. Make sure "They" understand that, preferably by demonstrating just how wrong "They" are!

In the Service of the West

Rædwulf Guthweard, Champion of the Company of the White Tower

[Raedwulf]

Eighteen months after the last edit, here it is, brought up to date at last...

[Grimbos]

Still reading, will update this post during ;) Nice work though!


For weaponry, maces are nice for the occasional bonus stun.

As of SoM, maces only provide a slow to attack speed, so most champs don´t bother with a mace anymore, unless it has all the right stats. If you´re a man, the racial +2% damage outweighs any other option and you will most likely go for a sword. The same counts for Dwarves (Axes) and Elves(1h Swords)


Fervour [...] adds a whopping 20%-odd to your damage output & over 1,700 points per minute to in-Combat PR, as well as a fervour point every 5 secs.

Actually, it doesn't add 20% to your damage output. It adds 20% to your Melee Offence rating, according to a dev post here (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?353124-graal-Fervour-not-increasing-damage-by-20-.-Is-this-wai&p=4939299#post4939299)

Heroics:
has been changed into True Heroics at lvl 64 to also accomodate a 30s buff, depending on stance.

Fervour - +30% incoming healing
Glory - +15% melee damage
Ardour - +60% to in-combat Power regeneration

Clobber:
Clobber is now on a 5second cooldown, and Burglars can achieve the very same cooldown with the right traits on their legendary item.

[Raedwulf]

1) That goes to show you how long it is since I used a mace! The point about racial weapons I've already made, although I've done it slightly wrong. Because the Main Hand does more damage than the Off, if you wield a racial weapon in your main hand, you get +1.something % extra damage overall; in your Off, you get +0.something %; with both you get the full 2% overall.

2) I'll check that out later, but if it is true, it's hidden. I've switched Fervour on and off, and the only numbers that change on any of the Character page tabs are the Parry / Evade ones that Fervour makes N/A.

3) Ah, yes. I was stanceless when I was checking out the skills, so missed that.

4) :s I never realised that! As if it wasn't bad enough nerfing the hell out of Fervour & taking away the Legacies for it too... Wankers!

Thanks for the corrections Grim. I'd be interested in any comments you have about 2-handers, and Legacies too - I'll add a section on LI's later. I'm still running around with an old 1st Age sword that has +% Fervour damage on it... ;)

[Grimbos]

I'll jot down some of my notes once the kids are in bed, I got a couple of thoughts about them, but I'll need the time to write 'm down properly.

[Hirion]

A few comments:

Just a banter over words, although since you do like to banter on them yourself :), the MMO term 'nuker' is not entirely focused on max damage output but on ranged damage (often with a focus on spell-like abilities), so you can call a Champion a nuker vs. sniper all you want, but many old-school MMO players might read something different into the term; something the Champion is not (a ranged damage-dealer).

I guess the original term is more rooted in the intercontinental (range) part of deploying a nuclear strike than the actual damage (AoE) - or perhaps from the internet attacks from a distance for that matter.

That being said, I agree with the underlying message of not neglecting the power of Champion damage over the Hunters and Rune-keepers, and the different strengths of each, only the confusing use of terms.

¤¤¤

Alright, I'm not a champion. It's class I've played the least and I have no inkling of end content championing so I might be wrong in case traits, legacies, or updated skills change later on, but (Grimbos already having beaten me to a few)...

First & foremost of these, and the one thing that anyone genuinely wants you in the group for, is Clobber. No-one else can do this. Other classes do have interrupt skills (the Guardian's Stamp, for instance), but no-one has an interrupt on a 3s CD...
Isn't Clobber on a 5s cooldown?

And if that is a yes, then both Guardians and Burglars can match them with 5sec cooldowns of their own. Granted they will only have access to this short cooldown when they reach Moria and only if they have traits and/or Legendary Items for it - in other words, only with Champions is the short cooldown given, but at higher levels Guardians and Burglars are often found to be as good for the job of interrupting.

Fighting Dirty doesn't do much of itself, but it does give you a massive +25% AoE damage bonus for 30s - don't neglect it. Like untraited Merciful Strike, an enemy needs to be low on health (25%) before it can be used, but like MS it can be traited for 50% use.
I've always been a bit in doubt about this one - I'll have to test it or look to those of you who've played the class a lot - but reading the skill description I always suspected it not to be a 30sec +25% bonus but a 30s window of opportunity in which the first AoE will be +25%. This may simply be a badly phrased skill text or me not being a native speaker and misreading it, if it's in fact not a constant +25% damage buff duration. In any case I'd love to be asured in how the skill works.

[Tiermond]

Don't underestimate traiting Battle Frenzy and Deathstorm for those oh shit moments when you pull far too many mobs, a few seconds of AOE madness and your surrounded by corpses and left wondering how the hell did I survive that one.

[Hirion]

Bah - you underhandedly edited your post to catch yet another of my points while I was writing, Grimbos!

Well at least then let me add not to forget that Wardens probably have the shortest cooldown on interrupt - however that will more or less make them unable to do much else if the interrupt is needed often.

Also, one thing I'd really find useful in a guide, being new to the class, would be brief listing of the skill changes based on stance, as some of them change effect and description on changing between the stances. It's easy to miss it if either new to the class or if using a given stance, e.g. Glory, seldomly.

To be honest I'm not even sure which of them change, as I've to sit down and read through all the skill descriptions while alternating my stances...

[Grimbos]

Concerning 2-handers.

There's actually a pretty big debate between dual wielders and 2hand users. Thing of note here, though, is that those advocating the use of a 2h weapon are primarily visitors of the Ettenmoors. In a fight for Renown, big hits are of more value than a steady supply of damage. Wielders of 2handers are also more likely to draw attention from a mob early on in the fight, because the spike damage (especially from Remorseless Strike) is so insane that you can potentially take down a quarter of an on-level Elite's health in about 2 seconds (Battle Frenzy - Remorseless). However, in longer fights, the damage seems to even out properly between 2hand wielders and dual wielders. While power is something of an issue post SoM, it's quite easy to adapt your skill rotation into something that is sustainable in prolonged fights. If, like me, you like to use a combo of Brutal/Feral + Clobber for burst damage, it's pretty easy to burn through your power in no-time. As you've already said, avoid the use of SS, as it's a power hungry skill that will only be logical to use if you've got both the -strikes line power cost as well as the -swift strike power cost legacies on your champ rune.

Basically, there is a choice to make.
You can go for the big bang 2hander approach. You'll need both the remorseless strike +% damage legacy as the +% critical magnitude legacy to get those sweet 4k devcrits on your twohander. You'll also need to trait Vicous Strikes and Deadly Strikes and a boatload of agi and might.

Plus side:
* big hits make for quick finishes (if you're lucky on a crit)
* No concerns about power (unless you overdo SS)

Down side:
* less control of damage output
* you don't get to pick stats on your offhander, yet have to go to the lottery for stats on your 2handed weapon, adding to the lottery of needing the right legacies.

The other choice is more of a sustained damage dual wield build that will give you a more controlled damage output, at the expense of a little more power usage. Where with a 2hander you don't really have to pay attention to your little blue bar, a dual wielder will have to keep an eye on it until he gets a feel for what's sustainable.

[Grimbos]

I've always been a bit in doubt about this one - I'll have to test it or look to those of you who've played the class a lot - but reading the skill description I always suspected it not to be a 30sec +25% bonus but a 30s window of opportunity in which the first AoE will be +25%. This may simply be a badly phrased skill text or me not being a native speaker and misreading it, if it's in fact not a constant +25% damage buff duration. In any case I'd love to be asured in how the skill works.

This is true. next AoE attack deals +25% damage