How are Champions for soloing fellowship quests and 3-man/6-man instances?

[Treadstone87]

Hello! I recently returned to the game after many years away but have yet to figure out what class I want to play. I'm leaning strongly toward Champion, because it means I can be the heavily-armored dwarf I've always wanted to be.

In MMOs, I enjoy playing extremely survivable characters who can do group quests and dungeons by themselves without needing to find other players to help me. I just find it more fun to do things at my own pace and on my own terms. I've spent a while searching around on various forums and websites for info on the most popular solo classes in LotRO, and I've found that Beornings and Wardens come up the most, with Guardians, Captains, and Champions coming up fairly often too. Since I've decided that a dwarf is my destiny, that limits my selection to Champion and Guardian, and because I don't want to tank in group content (did that for years in another game, and I don't want to deal with the stress anymore), that limits me to Champion.

It seems most Champions build their character for an all-out AoE offense. They enjoy running around and gathering up a small army of foes, then AoEing them down as fast as possible. Is this the only way to build a good Champion? Because I prefer to be more of a lumbering, heavily-armored warrior with a big two-hander who can survive fights against elite enemies. I know this sounds pretty much exactly like a Red-line Guardian, but again, I don't like to tank and as a Guardian I'd be expected to do that when playing with others.

Can Champions build enough survivability to solo fellowship quests and instances near their level? I know Blue Line is pretty unpopular but how is it for doing challenging solo content?

Thanks!

[Gertes]

It will be quite hard to solo any on Level 3/6 man content.
No matter what class you play. The Champion is not the most survivable class since you Lack some selfheal.
Maby you should try the Beorning, He is a Lot of fun playing solo with his insane selfe heal.

[Galdhron]

My Champion was more or less or semi-retirement around Level 37 and mostly helping people through Garth Agarwen instances. In that capacity she would champ tank ("Chank") the two 3-man instances and go damage dealer for the six man. She would rely mostly on the extra self heal skills the Blue line contributes while topping off her morale between battles from food. Lately I got her more active by joining a kinship and level her up to 40.

Now she is doing early Angmar and 3 Peaks missions, and absolutely shredding on level and up to 5 levels higher in Blue with a two-handed axe for blocking. The only real deficit is a lack of condition removal, so she's starting to accumulate wound/poison/disease/fear pots, but normally just heals through conditions or eats food after battle for condition removal. There is some fellowship content that's just a bit beyond her ability that she'll revisit when it's 5 levels below her current.

While most Champions are oriented towards the SHING-SHING, there is still a very honorable tradition in chanking, and it may offer the solo solution you've been looking for. Chanks and Beornings may be the most damaging tanks in the heavy armor class and are very survivable.

[Gertes]

When you Look at max level Things Change a Lot, the chanks damage becomes very weak compared with the Moral of the enemys.

[Galdhron]

When you Look at max level Things Change a Lot, the chanks damage becomes very weak compared with the Moral of the enemys.

Aye, but isn't end game mostly about group content, where the original poster didn't want to tank anyway? It seems like the question was about soloing on the way to end game.

[MimDerZwerg]

Can Champions build enough survivability to solo fellowship quests and instances near their level? I know Blue Line is pretty unpopular but how is it for doing challenging solo content?

Thanks!

I've been playing champ for 10 years as main char.
I never had any issue with solo content many levels above.

All small fellowship quests are possible.
Only on some where you get a lot of tactical damage and have only a single strong enemy can trouble you some.

Self heal are there in all lines. red/yellow got small self heal skill. Red line (single target) gives you morale on kill. Yellow line (AoE) gives you morale (proc) by using a AoE Skill.
Edit: Blue line is horrible for solo play (and has issues at end-content). You should use red and yellow tree and swap depending on content.

Red tank was always a mystery for me. I always used yellow line because its focused on AoE.

If you like to run into a group and smash it, champ is what you want.

Almost every 3-man instance can be run solo by champ on tier 1 (same level) easily.
(If you figured out how your class works)

[Erionor]

Not bad, warden is good for this too.