Riders of Rohan Developer Diary: Champion
By: Jonathan “RockX” Steady
Hello all, it’s RockX! Today I’ll be talking about the main updates, changes and improvements we’ve made to the Champion for Riders of Rohan. Our primary focus for Riders of Rohan was on survivability and threat management, but there’s something in here for everyone.
Improved Skills
Level 77 – Horn of Champions (new skill!):
- In no stance and in Glory stance – Targeted (30m range) AoE threat generation.
- In Ardour stance – Point-blank AoE threat reduction .
- In Fervour stance – Single-target threat reduction, stronger than Ardour’s.
Horn of Champions is a new skill which is all about helping Champions manage their threat. The threat generation and reductions are instant, allowing Glory champions to pull multiple mobs at range with a strong threat generating ability. Meanwhile, Horn of Champions in Ardour and Fervour stance will decrease your threat on your opponent(s), letting you beat them up even more. The skill is on a 30 second cooldown, and has no Fervour pip cost.
Level 80 – Improved Bracing Attack:
- Adds a Heal over Time effect in addition to the standard heal.
- Heal and Heal over Time effects will always trigger, even if the attack doesn’t connect.
The Heal over Time effect will benefit from the same things which affect the standard heal.
Level 83 – Improved Wild Attack:
- On Critical or Devastate, adds a +5% critical hit chance to the Champion.
When you land a Critical Hit or Devastate with Improved Wild Attack, you’ll receive a buff which increases your Critical Hit chance by 5% for 6 seconds. The buff will refresh itself should you continue to land those big numbers.
Skill Modifications
We’ve heavily increased the damage of Merciful Strike while in Fervour stance. As before, the amount of damage dealt depends on the number of Fervour pips. With 3 Fervour, Merciful Strike will deal about the same damage as Brutal Strikes. With 5 Fervour, the low end of the Merciful Strike damage will be right around the high-end of Brutal Strikes.
Trait and Trait Line Modifications
- The Deadly Storm – Traiting 2, 3 and 4 deep will reduce the cooldown of Blade-storm, Raging Blade and Horn of Gondor by 1 second per step.
Item Advancement
- “Combat Effect Duration” Legacy has been replaced with “+Targeted Melee Range” Legacy.
- “+Hamstring Range” Legacy has been replaced with “+Champion Skill Bubble Strength” Legacy.
The Targeted Melee Range legacy will impact any melee-range, single-target skill the champion uses. The Champion Skill Bubble Strength legacy will increase the strength of their bubbles by a percentage.
Legendary Trait Modifications
- Fight On’s Exhaustion effect now lasts 60 seconds or until end of combat, whichever comes first.
As always, everything listed here is not final and is subject to change based on feedback and testing. Thanks for reading, and Forth Eorlingas!