Champion Feedback Thread

[mmdur1]

Words.

Not sure if this is supposed to be English or Elvish or whatever, but it's just weird.

On topic, I do believe that something needs to be done about the potency of fire debuffs vs all others, and the easiest solution seems to be to allow champs and other melee classes to use oils. If that is impossible for whatever reason, then we should change LM debuffs at least to debuff physical in the same way they do fire.

[Grimlir83]

They could as well make legendary titles with fire damage for dps classes... instead of all the current titles, which are Beleriand ones without exception (I can make a mistake) at tier 3.

[Araphorn]

Can we please have a different Dev for Champions? True Champion DPS-Balance in Single-target Red Line, after a month of these balancing passes is still no where to be found in a raid environment (not to mention that they are being outdps'd by several classes even on the dummies, and in some cases by over 20%). Adding 5% damage here and 10% there to certain skills is not going to achieve anything. There's plenty of good suggestions on the Champ thread and the Dev is not listening. So, why ask for feedback?

So far, there's been 0 communication from the current Dev in the Champion Feedback thread, and 1-2 lines of (usually meaningless) fixes each iteration, whereas other classes are being listened and communicated to, with plentiful of trait changes and workarounds....

[Brain9H]

Can we please have a different Dev for Champions? True Champion DPS-Balance in Single-target Red Line, after a month of these balancing passes is still no where to be found in a raid environment (not to mention that they are being outdps'd by several classes even on the dummies, and in some cases by over 20%). Adding 5% damage here and 10% there to certain skills is not going to achieve anything. There's plenty of good suggestions on the Champ thread and the Dev is not listening. So, why ask for feedback?

So far, there's been 0 communication from the current Dev in the Champion Feedback thread, and 1-2 lines of (usually meaningless) fixes each iteration, whereas other classes are being listened and communicated to, with plentiful of trait changes and workarounds....

I second this petition, completely agree.

[Schaijian]

Can we please have a different Dev for Champions? True Champion DPS-Balance in Single-target Red Line, after a month of these balancing passes is still no where to be found in a raid environment (not to mention that they are being outdps'd by several classes even on the dummies, and in some cases by over 20%). Adding 5% damage here and 10% there to certain skills is not going to achieve anything. There's plenty of good suggestions on the Champ thread and the Dev is not listening. So, why ask for feedback?

So far, there's been 0 communication from the current Dev in the Champion Feedback thread, and 1-2 lines of (usually meaningless) fixes each iteration, whereas other classes are being listened and communicated to, with plentiful of trait changes and workarounds....

Sad but true.

Not only that there is no response to or any sign of acknowledgement of the feedback regarding champions, now a formerly working skill is bugged:
The first hit of Raging Blade only does half the damage of all other hits. On live servers it is the same or nearly the same damage for all hits:




The small difference for main hand damage should be from slightly different mastery values, but I do not understand the rather large increase of the offhand damage.

Additionally:

Still no way to take advantage of the too strong fire mitigation debuffs...

[Giliodor]

Sad but true.

Not only that there is no response to or any sign of acknowledgement of the feedback regarding champions, now a formerly working skill is bugged:
The first hit of Raging Blade only does half the damage of all other hits. On live servers it is the same or nearly the same damage for all hits:




The small difference for main hand damage should be from slightly different mastery values, but I do not understand the rather large increase of the offhand damage.

Additionally:

Still no way to take advantage of the too strong fire mitigation debuffs...

Ferocious Strikes and Brutal Strikes have undergone something similar. On live, each hit does more damage than the previous for Ferocious Strikes, while Brutal Strikes does the same damage on each hit:





On BR:

[gaara908776]

Can we please have a different Dev for Champions? True Champion DPS-Balance in Single-target Red Line, after a month of these balancing passes is still no where to be found in a raid environment (not to mention that they are being outdps'd by several classes even on the dummies, and in some cases by over 20%). Adding 5% damage here and 10% there to certain skills is not going to achieve anything. There's plenty of good suggestions on the Champ thread and the Dev is not listening. So, why ask for feedback?

So far, there's been 0 communication from the current Dev in the Champion Feedback thread, and 1-2 lines of (usually meaningless) fixes each iteration, whereas other classes are being listened and communicated to, with plentiful of trait changes and workarounds....

I don't think asking for a different Dev is going to get us anywhere, Ara. I definitely agree though, Red Line Champion's need a second look. Yellow line is in a perfect spot as-is. Decent ST dps and insane AOE dps. Red Line, the "Berserker" Champion role feels completely useless in pretty much any non-landscape setting. I will use the example of my Champion that I recently leveled to 115 and fully raid geared. I parsed in Rakothas ~90k DPS in Red Line, was competing in dps to a Hunter who had Blade Brother. Yet in level 115 content, similarly geared champions can't parse over 40k on live. The reason for this INSANE disparity is solely linked to ridiculously high partial b/p/e on mobs in all T2 instances at level 115. Finesse literally has 0 affect on partial b/p/e so a Champion can have 150k finesse and still get an unlucky parse with ~10-15% partial Evades alone. This effect is exacerbated significantly if you aren't perfectly positioned behind the target at all times. Red line Champ has become so crit reliant, that increasing damage to strike line skills without first addressing the problem of partial b/p/e's and mitigation debuffing disparity in groups.

Dev's need to get their act together and properly design combat mechanics for level 120 that don't totally shaft physical dps classes and more specifically melee classes.

The only options I see are to redesign the Red Line Cap Stone traits to something like a Berserker's Rage trait, where the champion is given a short burst cooldown in which all of his Fervour Spenders, I.E. Brutal, Ferocious, Remorseless, etc. become unavoidable attacks. Red Burglar is amazingly viable in current content because they are able to pierce B/P/E much more easily than a Champion can, and their dps is done in bursts as well.

This sort of concept would also fit the Class Lore where the champion enrages himself into a frenzy and begins a brutal onslaught against his target. This could potentially be gained at the behest of B/P/E. This would be reminiscent of Red Line Champs of old, where in fervour Stance we had -30% incoming healing, and were unable to b/p/e.

I know the entire reason I rolled a Champ was because absolutely loved the class fantasy of a Gimli style combatant, raging into the fray with brute-like strength and no regard for ones own safety in order to mow down enemies at a pace that makes even Legolas winded. I didn't create a Champ to be some debuffing, aoe, corruption removing, pansy. I'd guess that many here who were around for pre - Helms Deep, remembered the glory days for champs where even the best hunter was sweating to keep an even pace with you in dps. After all, it's not like Champions get to sit in the back of a raid pew pewing.

Anyway, I think all Araphorn, and probably the rest of us want is some communication between our Dev because essentially we've been on radio silence since build 2 and many things have remained inadequate compared to other classes. I mean for christs sake, my Red line warden is out dpsing my Red Line champ on BR by over 10% that's just ludacrous.

[Schaijian]

Another thing that makes me wonder is that on bullroarer fighting with 2*1h weapons feels totally clumsy. There is a long delay after each skill that is not present when using 2h weapons.

[dselden]

Can we please have a different Dev for Champions? True Champion DPS-Balance in Single-target Red Line, after a month of these balancing passes is still no where to be found in a raid environment (not to mention that they are being outdps'd by several classes even on the dummies, and in some cases by over 20%). Adding 5% damage here and 10% there to certain skills is not going to achieve anything. There's plenty of good suggestions on the Champ thread and the Dev is not listening. So, why ask for feedback?

So far, there's been 0 communication from the current Dev in the Champion Feedback thread, and 1-2 lines of (usually meaningless) fixes each iteration, whereas other classes are being listened and communicated to, with plentiful of trait changes and workarounds....

This. My two most played classes (Mini and Champion) have zero feedback in their class feedback threads while all the classes that Vastin has done have a multitude in comparison.

[Melleo]

Give us this back. Ever since hd launch the class really hasn't been a ''berserker'' anymore...

And if the mitigation debuffs that heavily favour hunters and rks in raids are not going to get changed this could also set the strike skills damage type to fire as well.

[Decoutan]

Bracing Attack:
Still heals faintly; 3699 without the Class Rune Legacy, and 4833 with. Cordovan mentioned that working off of percentages is easier for the game, so that would be a simple solution for this attack, as for how much; well:
10% should be enough. for nonblue champions that would mean like 6-8k~ heal, for blue line 12k~.
Since this skill has a relativly long animation, i think this improvement will be just fine.


Dire Need:

My Champion has 7.170 Power. Using Dire Need on full power, when:

- neither 5 points in the trait tree nor the legendary item: 9.559
- no point in the trait tree, but the legacy: 11.050
- 5 points in the tree, no legacy: 19.118
- both 5 points in the tree + the legacy: 22.101

If neither investment into the skill is done, then for 1 trait point i think it is a relativly fair investment.
The heal of the legacy is neglegable but since the cooldown gets reduced by a lot i think it is ok as well.
But the 5 point investment to basically double to effectiveness of 1 point seems weak in relation.
Since the skill can be brought down to a minute cooldown, i don't think the solution is to just ad the base heal onto the existing one for each points; that would mean like 60k heal.
But rather, i think having the base skill heal less morale, but than have every trait point add said onto it is a solid solution.
For example the base would heal 6k, for one point invested, but then witth all 6 invested, it would heal 30k.
in the bigger picture this is not the largest of differences and probably won't change the champions behaviour in play, but it would make it so that the 5 points are more of a consideration than right now.


Sudden Defence:
I think it would be fair to mention that the legacy lowering Sudden Defence's Cooldown from the non imbued legendary weapon has been removed.
The 10% extra Damage while it lasts seems fine but kind of out of place.
Different possible buffs are mentioned below.

Adamant:
For its relativly tame effect i feel like it could last 5 seconds more.
Tough to be honest, that also would not feel great, since the champion already has a lot of "improve marginally" - sklills.
Fight on, Dire Need, Sudden Defence, exalted combatant, unbreakable, soon bracing attack and of course Adamant.
They are all different, but they are all giving you like let's say a 10% buffer which helps, but none actually make you survive a extreme situation, even if it just for a very short time.
i Wouldn't mind setting the base to 5 seconds, + 5 seconds off of the legacy, and making it more effective while it lasts, putting it to perhaps 60% and therefore doubling its effect.


Also, incoming melee and tactical damage for the champion is being reduced via the trait tree and skills; but ranged non tactical damage not anywhere.
And since

Unbreakable:
Is in a really weird spot, i suggest giving it that role; reducing the incoming, non tactical ranged damage by 4 % per hit, up to 10 times (like melee/tactical at their current peaks on live/BR),
while also increasing the morale.

leading into


Fight on:
its crit bonus off of the legendary rune seems out of place.
I would suggest this skill to work with unbreakable to create a rotation, but also the feeling of your skills working together.
Currently, if you're having a hard time, you easily get the feeling of redundancy between like 6~ skills that all marginally buffer oneself but in a slightly different way..all mentioned above.


Second Wind and Vigour of Champions:
First of: Vigour of Champions is not worth even 1 Point and could currently be removed; i do not think it is necessary to enhance a fine skill like second wind; especially since we are talking about power which is still relativly redundant even tough it has one extra usage in Dire Need.
Second Wind itself i feel like should be placed Higher withing the tree; other trees having such easy acces on demand for a more so blue skill i feel is unnecessary.
I'll draw the comparison to battle frenzy here; while you can get the skill out of the first line and it will be ok, its real power steems from the enhancements a couple of rows below.
Now, this comparison is lacking just a tiny bit since battle frenzy is way more just all arround champion usage, while second wind is nieche, but that would more so lead into a debate of wether Ardent Rage should be where it is at, and less about Second Wind.


Invincible:
While the idea of the champion getting stronger the less Morale he has is cool, i feel like there is not enough of a pay off to really justify trying hard to stay at a certain amount of morale to just not die, but have more damage output.
One is always putting himself at a risk with that, and a little bit of extra damage does not make it even
I do think Invincible is strong enough, but perhaps a tweak /change to another skill to make lower morale (percentage wise) have more of a pay off would be nice.

Trait Trees - +x Might/Vitality~ etc.:
I still feel like even tough the +x of an attribute like might has been improved, i still feel like they are just filler and make the whole tree slimmer than it could be which is very subjective but has its ground when you look at other classes that do not have such things withing their trees but actual enhancements to the trees specific role.
Adding to that, the first tier, one point, is worth half of tier 5, 5 points. it should probably go about in steps of 300~ untill 1500 and not steps of 200 starting with 700.


At last but not least, Deafening Horn also seems really out of place.
The Skill is not insanely powerfull and does not deal a lot of damage; adding a little more damage onto it has little effect.
Different types of improvements to the skill would be welcome here; there are a lot of options; from lower cooldown, to a different buff/debuff.

[dselden]

Give us this back. Ever since hd launch the class really hasn't been a ''berserker'' anymore...

And if the mitigation debuffs that heavily favour hunters and rks in raids are not going to get changed this could also set the strike skills damage type to fire as well.

Yes. I imagine a good 80% or so of champions who played before HD were mainly red line champions. Champion was designed around being a berserker type in the fervour stance even while you had the option of traiting for ardour instead in aoe situations. As it stands now on BR, red line guardians do more dps than red line champions.

[ConsistantRager]

Hello,
Just giving my two cents. Since partials Are such an issue I had an idea which would be to change champs duel how it is now to a single target toggle skill that makes the opponent with with the effect on them unable to partially bpe. This skill would have a 15-20 seconds cd if the target died or you take the champions duel off someone. Anther effect this ability could have could be a strike damage damage penetration through mits. This could easily scaled to increase or decrease champions ST damage. The main part would be the anti partials though. I'm not sure anyone else has given this idea yet as I have not read the entire thread but I saw a lot of people thinking of ways to make partials less of a dps issue.
Hope this helps!

[dselden]

Hello,
Just giving my two cents. Since partials Are such an issue I had an idea which would be to change champs duel how it is now to a single target toggle skill that makes the opponent with with the effect on them unable to partially bpe. This skill would have a 15-20 seconds cd if the target died or you take the champions duel off someone. Anther effect this ability could have could be a strike damage damage penetration through mits. This could easily scaled to increase or decrease champions ST damage. The main part would be the anti partials though. I'm not sure anyone else has given this idea yet as I have not read the entire thread but I saw a lot of people thinking of ways to make partials less of a dps issue.
Hope this helps!

Yeah, I think repurposing champion's duel to be a champion only buff that increases dps in some way and gets rid of the slow would be a smart change. Another idea that I proposed a while back was making Continuous Blood Rage a skill for red line champion again that made them CC immune, increased outgoing damage, but also increased incoming damage to the champion, gave a % damage over time effect to the champion's health, and maybe brought back the -incoming healing % that champions used to have in fervour.

[Schaijian]

So as of beta 4 champions are even falling behind guardians in terms of single target dps:

...

But at least guardians got Vastin, a caring developer who sees the problem in this and is willing to look into this and even more: he communicates with the players.
I did a search for the devs forum activity during this beta and there were 36 posts from Vastin in the class feedback forums of guardians, loremasters and hunters. Most of them directly related to the concerns and feedback that was given.

As you might have already guessed, FriendlyHat has not been this communicative. He made a total of 0 (sic!) posts during beta in any of "his" class forums (warden, champion and minstrel).
Of course pure communication is no sign of good or bad work on class balance, but seeing that since beta 2 the only change to champions that was made is "Traits - Good Defense / Strong Offense no longer provides an AoE damage burst if the bubble is broken."
despite all the complaints and proposals, I would not give best marks to his work...

[Seodric]

Totally agree with Araphorn and the other players here that the feedback and communication from Friendlyhat have been non-existant. Red being below yellow in ST parses is un-acceptable.

There's also alot of great ideas in here, that it seems is not even being read ....

Raging blade is indeed bugged for first hit.

2h is way more smooth than 1h. You can actually interrupt animation of a few skills properly with clobber and BF on a 2h weapon, But not at all with a dual-wield 1h setup. Therefore you'll always see 2h dps above 1h dps atm. Even for full AoE , 2H is better. Which is not the case on live (mostly due to stats on offhand, but still). Aim should be that dual-wield and 2H should do about same dps.

Dwarf animations on Ferocious and Brutal strikes is still slower than Man/Elf/High elf races. Dwarf indeed feeling way more clunky and slow cus of it... Also loosing dps compared to the other races ofc. (Same for Hobbit Burglar animation being slower than Man Burglar on 'Flashing Blades')







Finally got a parse i can deem somewhat ''lucky'' with yellow champ aswell. About 4-6k+ higher than red (depending on how lucky the yellow and red parse is obv):


Still below that red grd parse tho lol...

[gaara908776]

Totally agree with Araphorn and the other players here that the feedback and communication from Friendlyhat have been non-existant. Red being below yellow in ST parses is un-acceptable.

There's also alot of great ideas in here, that it seems is not even being read ....

Raging blade is indeed bugged for first hit.

2h is way more smooth than 1h. You can actually interrupt animation of a few skills properly with clobber and BF on a 2h weapon, But not at all with a dual-wield 1h setup. Therefore you'll always see 2h dps above 1h dps atm. Even for full AoE , 2H is better. Which is not the case on live (mostly due to stats on offhand, but still). Aim should be that dual-wield and 2H should do about same dps.

Dwarf animations on Ferocious and Brutal strikes is still slower than Man/Elf/High elf races. Dwarf indeed feeling way more clunky and slow cus of it... Also loosing dps compared to the other races ofc. (Same for Hobbit Burglar animation being slower than Man Burglar on 'Flashing Blades')






Finally got a parse i can deem somewhat ''lucky'' with yellow champ aswell. About 4-6k+ higher than red (depending on how lucky the yellow and red parse is obv):


Still below that red grd parse tho lol...

You're also using a build with ridiculously low finesse that would never be viable in real level 115 content. AoM would require you to pretty much double your finesse which would either force you to give up those attack duration/Dev mag runes, or drop some mastery/crit. Using builds like these just gives devs an inaccurate picture of the current baselines of DPS unfortunately.

[Seodric]

You're also using a build with ridiculously low finesse that would never be viable in real level 115 content. AoM would require you to pretty much double your finesse which would either force you to give up those attack duration/Dev mag runes, or drop some mastery/crit. Using builds like these just gives devs an inaccurate picture of the current baselines of DPS unfortunately.

I see your concern yes, but to compare with other classes, you should do parsing with capped mastery and crit, or else you'll see parses with all kinds of gear stats, and it will just mess up the comparisons. In this build I didn't trait 1566 might, Didn't have new stuff from summer skirmish instances. Did have golden essences. In a raid setting you should be able to give room for mits + finesse just fine, champ will get mastery + crit from minstrel and captain. I am actually running in moors with only 12k more finesse and it is totally fine, also done whole AoM raid with 66k finesse, which is fine aslong as you're behind the target at all times.

And it's not like other classes have the same issue. They will have to give up some stats aswell if they want good finesse + mits.
Not all of them is heavy armour though, that is true =P


About the relics, aslong as they're still in the game, they will always be an option to use to minmax your character. That's why i posted the parse with the gear aswell, so devs could see i used the relics for my parsing. I also parsed with dev relics and atk duration relic for my hunter and burglar aswell.



This don't change the main FACT anyways, - that minmaxed red champion is behind current red grd, behind red warden, behind red hunter, behind red burglar, by a pretty good margin. And it don't change the fact either that yellow is doing more than red champion atm, which is just silly.

[Giliodor]

Seodric, I think the main concern is that you're posting extreme parses, which are admittedly impressive, but don't accurately represent the class as it is right now. And I'm not saying that that is what you're claiming. I'm only saying that in reality, the class is even worse off than what one might gather from looking at the parses you've posted. I think we should be making that very clear, so that there is no confusion.

That is, if anyone is listening. Which doesn't appear to be the case.

[Seodric]

Yep, it's totally true i only posted my highest parses at the times and not the average kind of parse i was doing. I saw a rise in the average parse as my rotation on the dummies got better and better though.

Red champion average with a good rotation would be around 47k-48k (with interrupting animations on Wild Attack, Remorseless, Horn. Only using 2h. Crit cap/mastery cap, dev relics+1 atk duration relic)
Yellow champion average with a good rotation around 51-52k (with interrupting animations aswell on Blade Wall, Rend, Horn. Only using 2h. Crit cap/mastery cap, dev relics+1 atk duration relic)

Sad thing is, (because of bad and slow dwarf animations) I'd expect for example dwarf champion numbers to be 4-5k below those numbers, so 43k area in red, and 47k area in yellow... (Which indeed seems to be what @Gertes parsed and posted here)

Now it's starting to get quite visual how far behind for example a red Dwarf champion is compared to other classes.

[Kasius]

Suggestions based on the fact that red champions do a lot lower dps then most other classes on the dummy and in raid situations even rks/red lms will pass by:

+20% strike still dmg in red specilisation.
You Need to make sure all buffs you give to strike skills or any red line depended sksills are locked in the trait tree.Otherwise it will just buff the st dps of yellow line and you wont see a red Champion in a grp/raid where you can easy take a yellow champ who can debuff,aoe and do more St dps!

-Would be cool to bring continues bloodrage(as a red passive skills you can get in the trait tree) back with a stacking buff on the champ:
-every 20sec 10% more melee dmg and 5% more incoming dmg.Stacks 5 times

[RicoFTW]

Every time they try and boost red st dps, it always end up somehow boosting yellow st dps as well. What about if SSG would just try and nerf base damage on some of the yellow skills like blade wall, raging blade and fury of blades. Not that I would be fun of that but it might end in less dps to 1 target while in yellow but obviously with 2-3 or more targets it would be doing more than red line st. So far with all the changes, we are still at the start point where aoe line out dps st line in st situation.

[Giliodor]

Every time they try and boost red st dps, it always end up somehow boosting yellow st dps as well. What about if SSG would just try and nerf base damage on some of the yellow skills like blade wall, raging blade and fury of blades. Not that I would be fun of that but it might end in less dps to 1 target while in yellow but obviously with 2-3 or more targets it would be doing more than red line st. So far with all the changes, we are still at the start point where aoe line out dps st line in st situation.

It's funny because they buffed yellow line, which was already outperforming every other class in the AoE domain by a large margin.

[Schaijian]

Every time they try and boost red st dps, it always end up somehow boosting yellow st dps as well. What about if SSG would just try and nerf base damage on some of the yellow skills like blade wall, raging blade and fury of blades. Not that I would be fun of that but it might end in less dps to 1 target while in yellow but obviously with 2-3 or more targets it would be doing more than red line st. So far with all the changes, we are still at the start point where aoe line out dps st line in st situation.

Nerfing a totally working yellow line because they are not able to make things right with red line (it´s not as if there were no good suggestions made by the community...) does not seem to be the way it should work. This would make champions even less favourable in a group situation given the actual ranking in single target dps. If they do it, they should do it the right way: by giving red line a red only buff, be it a generel increase of all damage as a trait line bonus or with a red only skill like continous blood rage or something else. But do not mess with yellow line to make red the better solution for single target.

[siipperi]

Nerfing a totally working yellow line because they are not able to make things right with red line (it´s not as if there were no good suggestions made by the community...) does not seem to be the way it should work. This would make champions even less favourable in a group situation given the actual ranking in single target dps. If they do it, they should do it the right way: by giving red line a red only buff, be it a generel increase of all damage as a trait line bonus or with a red only skill like continous blood rage or something else. But do not mess with yellow line to make red the better solution for single target.

Is it really fair to have one class doing double the AoE compared to rest of the pack while wanting to have single target as strong as rest? If single target is as strong as anyones, AoE damage should be at least significantly closer to others. Guardian is probably 2nd highest AoE DPS now (I would imagine around 150k DPS in raids) so champions lead on AoE might be a bit reduced but they probably still do significantly more AoE DPS than any other class.