Recovery state - Created for Jinjaah

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Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

lol. so you've tried true heroics in a craid after sprint and it stuns everyone? That's......insane.

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While I have not tried that yet personally, I do know that when this skill combination is executed properly it results in a 15-meter PBAoE stun on anything in range. As the maximum targets for the skill is 20 to begin with, then it's pretty much a given that it will work -- especially as Update 12.2 changed the skill to no longer miss or be Blocked/Parried/Evaded.

Of course, if the same craid is (somehow) all present within 5 meters of each other, using Ebbing Ire after sprint to stun all of them would be more humorous.

EDIT: On a side note, I'm finding that I extremely rarely use True Heroics in its Berserker iteration, if at all -- as opposed to the nice movement speed debuff which helps keep things in range of my AoE skills in the Deadly Storm specialization, or the taunt aspect of the skill in Martial Champion. However, being able to use this along with a fully-traited Sprint to stun everyone in range is giving the skill a whole new use for the Berserker specialization, personally... perhaps adding an inherent stun to the Berserker version of True Heroics would actually be beneficial? The legacy for crafted Champion horns could be repurposed to buff the potency of the True Heroics stun instead.

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Originally Posted by RingOfFire

I've been playing around on Live with the "next attack will stun" functionality from having the Athletic trait at its maximum rank, and the results have been interesting to say the least. Apparently, not only will "any" damage skill stun any and all targets within range, but even taunt or debuff skills like Champion's Challenge and Champion's Duel can trigger the stun (I suspect this is due to any of these skills being registered as a "hit" upon successful execution on a hostile target, according to the combat log). I'm not entirely sure yet if being able to use Horn of Champions to launch an 8-meter AoE stun centered on a target up to 30 meters away, stun a specific target from up to 40 meters away with Champion's Challenge, or stun up to 20 targets in a 15 meter radius with True Heroics (and this is without any trait points invested in Broad Sweep! Good thing the skill has a natural 5 minute cooldown, considering this can theoretically stun almost an entire raid on its own, and if Broad Sweep is somehow at rank 4 or 5...), is a bug -- or a very fun feature. ;)

Personally, I'm thinking that this is something definitely worth keeping in, as well as increasing the cooldown reduction Athletic grants to Sprint from 15s/30s/45s to 40s/1m 20s/2m or 1m/2m/3m. In situations where the movement speed debuff immunity granted by Sprint is not necessary -- or the movement speed buff, for that matter -- being able to choose precisely when to apply a stun on our next skill of choice may grant some interesting tactical functionality to the Berserker line, and also allow us to stun a target (or targets, depending on the skill in question) without breaking our rotation by using Horn of Gondor. For even more fun, I'm thinking raising the stun duration from 3 seconds to at least 5 seconds (more than this may be overpowered though, IMHO) would help offset Sprint's cooldown and give an alternative use to the skill. Given some of the potential ways it can already be used on Live which I listed above, this may also give a legitimate reason for it to be kept as a tier 6 trait in the Berserker tree, to give an additional benefit for investing heavily.

EDIT: Amusingly, this even works with Ebbing Ire of all skills! A stun with theoretically no maximum target limitations, along with actually reducing our threat in the process, is way too good to pass up. It even has the same range as Horn of Gondor and costs one less Fervour pip. :D

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This is too funny. Good job playing around with this. Unfortunately, it does not seem practical to trait this deep into red for the Moors until the line is fixed but I am filing it away for later.

I continue to think about how born for combat could be made awesome and I've come up with a bunch of ideas, but I thought this one was very exciting and if implimented with the correct cds wouldn't be too powerful, but powerful enough for a passive capstone:

Born for combat:
range: 5 meters
Max # of targets: 5
deals xxxx - xxxx [weapon type] damage
cooldown: 40 seconds

When born for combat is used, champion's advantage and blades of courage has 100% chance to proc on the next blade skill*. Also, The next blade skill will cost 0 pips.
When any blade skill crits, the cooldown for born for combat is lowered by 2 seconds (can only proc twice per second and on the first strike only**).



*I used to have flurry refreshing but I think it would be too much since it's a 30 second duration and very easily kept up as it is. I replaced flurry with blades of courage because Moors :P.
**this allows the skill to become stronger and happen more often while facing multiple enemies and also doesn't force the champion to choose to dual wield to aoe.

I've been giving the Berserker specialization some more thought, and I'm starting to contemplate just what would be the ideal approach to give it an impression unique from our other two specializations. While the skill animations of the Deadly Storm specialization strike me as having a careful balance between force behind every blow (especially Raging Blade) and "finesse", it feels as though some of the single-target and Berserker-specific skills could use some animation changes to give them some more individuality.

• In terms of animations, Wild Attack, Blade Wall, and Swift Strike seem pretty good where they are currently, when taking into account that they are "core" skills and not specific to any one specialization.
• Devastating Strike definitely looks good currently, as the skill animation gives me the impression of the Champion throwing their whole body into the swing and not hesitating to bring down the full force of their strength on an unfortunate adversary -- fitting for a Berserker.
• The animation of Merciful Strike feels like another Wild Attack -- rather than a swift "coup de grâce", so to speak. Perhaps adjusting the animation to give the impression of it being a swift but carefully-placed strike would further individualize this skill?
• Remorseless Strike seems hard to improve in terms of its animation, IMHO.
• Ferocious Strikes currently has the same animation as Brutal Strikes (which is already good as-is, personally). If the skill is truly unable to miss, be parried, or be evaded, then I think it needs a different yet fitting animation (perhaps something along the lines of the Champion delivering a series of devastating attacks of escalating ferocity, holding nothing back?) to truly fit in the Berserker specialization.
• Controlled Burn feels more generic in its animation rather than the intense focus I would expect in a self-buffing skill of its description, IMHO.

Also, while the skills available in the Berserker specialization felt decent at first in terms of their application, they are beginning to feel somewhat limited in number. Perhaps adding another skill would better round out the selection available? I am personally leaning more towards a multi-hit skill causing a decent DoT (possibly tiering up depending on how many strikes in the skill actually connected), buffed by the Deep Strikes trait. I know this sounds like the Reaver's Thrash skill, but I honestly do not see much else when it comes to a new single-target skill which stands out from the rest.

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Originally Posted by Jinjaah

I'll make a general post since the last couple posts have been on a similar issue that I think is very important to this update.

One thing I would like to see is that the three different lines that exist be more focused on what they set out to do. Berserker to me, is the single target burst damage champion. They pick out a target and then ferociously put all their energy into defeating that opponent whereas the deadly storm creates chaos on the battlefield with his area effect capabilities [em. Dietlbomb]. Finally the Martial champion. To me, they have a lot of potential to tank in a unique way. They don't necessarily want to mitigate/avoid their opponents damage, they want to be hit because it empowers them.

I'd rather not necessarily tie the lines strictly to weapons. There could absolutely be things throughout each tree that encourage specific types of weapons but itemization is such an important choice in LOTRO that it feels unfair in some ways to restrict a player in that regard.

Stances are also an issue that should probably be addressed. Right now it feels like the consensus is that Fervour is the go-to stance. On paper, this makes a lot of sense. To me I think this is the perfect time to take a good look at stances in general and re-evaluate if they still serve a purpose functionally for the champion or if their bonuses are things that champions should just have by default.

-Jinjaah

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Perhaps the issue is that Jinjaah didn't take these ideas far enough.

Suggestions to make the Berserker line more of a "single target burst damage champion":

• Greatly decrease animation times and cooldowns of all single-target attack skills, including Wild Attack and other Fervour builders.
  
  • This build should have the quickest skill rotation of all the classes.
  
  
• Decrease dependence on bleeds. Make it all about rapidly smacking the enemy.
• Lower damage per hit to compensate for higher hit rate.
• Give the champion more skills that cause slows on the enemy.
• Perhaps make some high-damage skills gated by procs with only a short window to use the skill. This rewards fast/twitchy play (like a berserker!).
• Restore CBR to pre-U12 state. This skill was fun.

I would also suggest making the Deadly Storm champion more like the pre-U12 hybrid red-yellow champion, allowing the player to weigh between single-target and AoE attacks without nerfing either too much. Give the yellow line more single-target Fervour builders (i.e. keep Swift Strike Single Target and have Blade-wall grant Fervour pips by default) and make Remorseless strike available in this line. Allow builds that feel like the old champion.

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Originally Posted by dietlbomb

Perhaps the issue is that Jinjaah didn't take these ideas far enough.

Suggestions to make the Berserker line more of a "single target burst damage champion":

• Greatly decrease animation times and cooldowns of all single-target attack skills, including Wild Attack and other Fervour builders.
  
  • This build should have the quickest skill rotation of all the classes.
  
  
• Decrease dependence on bleeds. Make it all about rapidly smacking the enemy.
• Lower damage per hit to compensate for higher hit rate.
• Give the champion more skills that cause slows on the enemy.
• Perhaps make some high-damage skills gated by procs with only a short window to use the skill. This rewards fast/twitchy play (like a berserker!).
• Restore CBR to pre-U12 state. This skill was fun.

I would also suggest making the Deadly Storm champion more like the pre-U12 hybrid red-yellow champion, allowing the player to weigh between single-target and AoE attacks without nerfing either too much. Give the yellow line more single-target Fervour builders (i.e. keep Swift Strike Single Target and have Blade-wall grant Fervour pips by default) and make Remorseless strike available in this line. Allow builds that feel like the old champion.

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Speaking of procs, Merciful Strike does feels a bit underwhelming for the Berserker specialization in its current state, considering the Berserker tree has the Merciful Minded trait. As the skill currently has a cooldown, I think adding a proc-based buff to the trait when maxed out may grant some additional value to investing in it. What I personally have in mind is a proc triggered by scoring a critical or devastating critical with Remorseless Strike, which resets the cooldown on Merciful Strike and temporarily removing the maximum health threshold, allowing it to be immediately used once on any target as a follow-up strike. I am also thinking that adding a damage buff to the proc (or some other useful effect) would make the skill more viable when using the Berserker specialization.

Also, this could potentially give a bit of additional value to set bonuses like the Ettenmoors Berserker armour 4-piece effect, which gives Wild Attack a chance of removing the cost of the next Remorseless Strike. As our Fervour trait set bonus already increases our damage for every unused Fervour pip, this could potentially grant a follow-up Merciful Strike skill execution some bonus damage from unused Fervour without having to use Battle Frenzy or a Potion of Fervour immediately after critting with Remorseless Strike.

I've been working a bit with hamstring root and I have to say it's completely underwhelming. The 1 second period where damage can't break it isn't long enough considering this skill is a moors only type skill (in my opinion). WIth full audacity the first hamstring would only last 1.5 seconds anyway. The next time it's used it would only be half of that so basically nonexistent. This would be a very nice skill if it was a reliable 1.5s + root, but it's not. Could we please get a slight buff to this skill?

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the blue line, the durations on debuffs are too short. Lack of AE. It plays SLOW. It also doesn't seems as survivable as a guardian or captain (haven't played my warden in a long time)All 3 trees need access to haste, yellow plays well because it is so much faster than the others. RED seems ok until you realize yellow does more single target dps than it does.

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Originally Posted by Mithlanros

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the blue line, the durations on debuffs are too short. Lack of AE. It plays SLOW. It also doesn't seems as survivable as a guardian or captain

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You can add Improved Raging Blade in Blue for example.

Survivability is not a problem, we are quasi-invincible in Blue (if we can solo T3 skraids...)
Champions just don't have the heal from mobs that Guardians and Yellow Captains have.

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Originally Posted by Castorix

Champions just don't have the heal from mobs that Guardians and Yellow Captains have.

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Just don`t... ?
Exactly that's what makes the Guardian and Captain so much stronger. (One might say even ridiculously so)

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Originally Posted by Anreon

Just don`t... ?
Exactly that's what makes the Guardian and Captain so much stronger. (One might say even ridiculously so)

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It depends on instances.
When there are plenty of mobs, my friends Captains are in "God Mode" ("Exemplar" gives them 2 to 3.5 K morale continuously !), and Guardians are also a lot better than me with my Champ.
But against big bosses, I'm more resistant

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Originally Posted by Castorix

Champions just don't have the heal from mobs that Guardians and Yellow Captains have.

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Sure they have : 10% max morale for each kill, in Red.

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Originally Posted by Eliahnus

Sure they have : 10% max morale for each kill, in Red.

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It is not the same thing.
Captains/Guardians can go afk with 50 mobs on them

I think one of the issues I feel that both the blue and red lines lack is that they need at least one more AOE skill. I personally would like to have rend be that skill. It would help both blue and red lines slightly increase their overall dps as well as allow all champs to utilize the current legacies already found on legendary items. Making rend usable in all lines wouldn't detract to it's functionality in the yellow line but help boost both the overall functionality of the red and blue lines and make the huge lack of AOE in those lines be less severe.

If you go into the yellow line to get AE you can't go after attack duration in red. If they would remove frenzy from yellow only it would work but right now Blue is just too slow.

Have there been any communications from turbine in the last 6 weeks? seems this thread has died out after a flurry of responses. Can we confirm Jinjaah is even still with the company? I know there were layoffs recently but I have no idea what good folks were let go.

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Originally Posted by Mithlanros

Have there been any communications from turbine in the last 6 weeks? seems this thread has died out after a flurry of responses. Can we confirm Jinjaah is even still with the company? I know there were layoffs recently but I have no idea what good folks were let go.

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He is. He's been very busy and probably hasn't had a chance to check back in. Once his time frees up a bit I'm sure he'll drop in and comment as appropriate.

Great! thanks for the update. Hopefully we get some meaningful changes soon.

I was just in a helms dike BB and got the protect the guard tower sub-quest. Not a single mob got remotely close the the tower and yet I get a "gold" award for what? doing the quest too well. Things like that keep me from doing BB's. You should get a bonus for no damage to the tower!! Take some things off the timer for scoring purposes. The same thing happens for main quests, if you mow stuff down too quickly you don't get a plat score, it makes no sense /vent off

Hey mighty awesome handsome the center of middle-earth champs! I've sent a PM to Jinjaah and as you can imagine he is very busy with all those classes and the moors but he will try to drop by some time soon to let us know of whatever he can :) So worry not, we are still on our way back to be the best of the best :)

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Originally Posted by Sapience

He is. He's been very busy and probably hasn't had a chance to check back in. Once his time frees up a bit I'm sure he'll drop in and comment as appropriate.

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Thanks for the update. I really appreciate it.

To me, attack speed is the single most important thing to address in Champions – DPS or survivability issues in Red and Blue come far behind in my book. While leveling my lumbering low-dps Guardian main had always been a drag before HD, and leveling my fluidly slick Champion twink had always been great fun, it’s now the other way around (especially after Guards got a very nice speed boost in 12.2). All three Champion lines feel unbearably cumbersome. Of course, the buffs in Red and Yellow somewhat compensate that feeling, but especially at the beginning of fights, it’s just incredibly frustrating, especially because I don’t have any controll over the procs – it’s really amazing how little _fun_ it’s gotten to be to engange in fights until some buff has procced (and, in Red, tiered up)! I actually feel like being punished for playing a Champion while before HD it was a great gameplay experience (again: DPS have _nothing_ to do with this, it’s all about response, fluidity, player skill and control).

In Red line it is an added frustration that the 5-tier-buff completely expires soooo quickly – it made me curse in frustration more than once that I simply cannot keep up a consistent flow of play, without it being any of my fault or lack of skill. In landscape play the mobs often just don’t stand close enough to reach them in time, while in instances I may need to wait for group members, for heals or for power reg, whatever. The old 20 second Flurry was such a great skill – it was a skill that was worth spending pips on and it felt like an accomplishment to maintain the buff at all times, even in hectic battles.

In Yellow line, game play almost feels like before as soon as the Flurry buff is up. But then again I have also invested fairly heavily into Red for the attack speed trait – just so playing feels bearably fast and responsive! That shouldn’t be the case. It’s like what Turbine did with mounted combat at first: Make people spend lot’s of points on maneuverability, just so it becomes at all acceptably fun to ride a war steed. There was a good reason to fix this and make fairly good maneuverability a standard feature, not something to be acquired by lot’s of points and frustration on the way.

Why Blue line does not have an attack speed buff of any kind is completely beyond me. With Guardians it was always a given that any tank spec needed to play quick, highly responsive with low reaction times and fast animations, and with Guardians that was always the case. Now why would this be different with Champions’ tank spec? Tanks _need_ to be reactive and move with the flow of battle. If any spec needs a good attack speed buff, it’s Blue line.

At the end, I’d be happy with just getting good old Flurry back as a standard skill regardless of trait line – with an additional -10%-trait in Red line or whatever. Or, as long as we’re dreaming, why not speed up _all_ Champion skills by 20% throughout the board – it’s been done for Guardians, why not Champions? Fluidity is one of the major factors in game play enjoyment (I’m sure not only for me), so I think it would be well worth it.

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Originally Posted by Myrmel

To me, attack speed is the single most important thing to address in Champions – DPS or survivability issues in Red and Blue come far behind in my book. While leveling my lumbering low-dps Guardian main had always been a drag before HD, and leveling my fluidly slick Champion twink had always been great fun, it’s now the other way around (especially after Guards got a very nice speed boost in 12.2). All three Champion lines feel unbearably cumbersome. Of course, the buffs in Red and Yellow somewhat compensate that feeling, but especially at the beginning of fights, it’s just incredibly frustrating, especially because I don’t have any controll over the procs – it’s really amazing how little _fun_ it’s gotten to be to engange in fights until some buff has procced (and, in Red, tiered up)! I actually feel like being punished for playing a Champion while before HD it was a great gameplay experience (again: DPS have _nothing_ to do with this, it’s all about response, fluidity, player skill and control).

In Red line it is an added frustration that the 5-tier-buff completely expires soooo quickly – it made me curse in frustration more than once that I simply cannot keep up a consistent flow of play, without it being any of my fault or lack of skill. In landscape play the mobs often just don’t stand close enough to reach them in time, while in instances I may need to wait for group members, for heals or for power reg, whatever. The old 20 second Flurry was such a great skill – it was a skill that was worth spending pips on and it felt like an accomplishment to maintain the buff at all times, even in hectic battles.

In Yellow line, game play almost feels like before as soon as the Flurry buff is up. But then again I have also invested fairly heavily into Red for the attack speed trait – just so playing feels bearably fast and responsive! That shouldn’t be the case. It’s like what Turbine did with mounted combat at first: Make people spend lot’s of points on maneuverability, just so it becomes at all acceptably fun to ride a war steed. There was a good reason to fix this and make fairly good maneuverability a standard feature, not something to be acquired by lot’s of points and frustration on the way.

Why Blue line does not have an attack speed buff of any kind is completely beyond me. With Guardians it was always a given that any tank spec needed to play quick, highly responsive with low reaction times and fast animations, and with Guardians that was always the case. Now why would this be different with Champions’ tank spec? Tanks _need_ to be reactive and move with the flow of battle. If any spec needs a good attack speed buff, it’s Blue line.

At the end, I’d be happy with just getting good old Flurry back as a standard skill regardless of trait line – with an additional -10%-trait in Red line or whatever. Or, as long as we’re dreaming, why not speed up _all_ Champion skills by 20% throughout the board – it’s been done for Guardians, why not Champions? Fluidity is one of the major factors in game play enjoyment (I’m sure not only for me), so I think it would be well worth it.

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This.
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Before making my suggestions, I'd like to have a short retrospective. The best thing before HD when playing Champion was the ability to react to events in the battle ground. You were able to switch between AoE and single target by changing your rotation, and/or pop Glory for a moment to save your healer. After HD, your abilities to react in-combat events are severely limited.

To bring something back, my first two suggestions are:

• Toggle skill ("Glory"?) to turn on/off extra threat generation; this skill could be available in Blue line, to help to fulfill your role as off-tank. For off-tanking, you'd use Blue spec, but you could decide when you are wanting to get mob attention and when not.
• Toggle skill ("Focus") to "nerf" DPS, by turning all AoE attacks to single target attacks (that is, all AoE skills have single target). In many instances, you are not allowed to AoE all the time, but on the other hand melee AoE is what all are expecting you to do.

Some quick suggestions to tweak trait trees could be:

• Bring back skills that consume Morale (like old Continuous Blood Rage); give us possibility to act suicidally if we feel that we need more DPS (or some other abilities).
• Remove fillers, and put something sensible instead of them. It would be good to place common things (something that are interesting in all specs) to lower parts of the trees, characteristic abilities to middle part, and the very specialized ones (for given spec) to high parts.
• Make basic skills (Second Wind, Battle Frenzy, even Dire Need) more easily available even if one has not chosen the specified tree. Almost all Champions need these skills in every spec.
• Think a moment where to put PvP skill traits (sprint, hamstring, stun durations). Now they are in middle/high parts of Red line
• Sprint cooldown is ridicuously long.
• Block: Higher in Blue line, give Champions ability to block with their weapons. This alone would greatly improve our tanking capabilities. AFAIK, Guardians can nowadays block with their weapons (that is, no need for shield), why can't Champions?
• Tact. mit. bonus: IMO, this would be better at higher parts in Blue tree. +5% tact mit is very useful for tanking, but in its current place it's unwanted filler.

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All in all, I think that tweaking trait trees do not fix the problem with Champions. IMO, the problem is - and has been - the fact that DPS line has been artificially divided to two parts. To really correct the situation, I would suggest to make Blue for tanking, Red for DPS'ing, and Yellow to something totally different.

Blue line would contain all the stuff needed to survive longer, and Red line would contain all the things needed to tune up your DPS. This suggestion would contain the suggested "nerfing" button to turn AoE attacks to single target attacks. In Red line, you could first give up Avoidances (like old Fervour stance) to gain more DPS, and later choose boosts to your "single target mode" to compensate the drop of targets of your skills.

You may now ask what would the Yellow line be. I don't exactly know, you'll need some imagination to figure out a third way to play Champion. Maybe it could borrow elements from e.g. Burglars, something like "Trickery with Swords". From our new skills, Riposte and Champion's Duel are fascinating, maybe Yellow could be based on things like that? Maybe Yellow Champion would get bonus when attacking behind (that is, you would get benefits if you can move & position yourself correctly), maybe Yellow Champion could get e.g. 2 second stealth to reposition her/himself like a "ninja"?

I really don't know. I just know that dividing DPS to two lines feels not right, and definitely you should never make DW/2H (weapon-dependent) lines!

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EDIT: Just adding some opinions. Personally, Champion and bleeds do not make a good match, I have always thought that we Champions make clean cuts :) That is, I'd personally like to see improvements in raw, plain, sustained damage instead of putting bleeds to everything. Rend is more than enough. I see the PvP mechanic change a little bit problematic from Champion's point of view: in Ettens, all classes are light armored classes nowadays, so we can't trust on our armors anymore - that's why many other classes are performing better nowadays. It really does not bother me, as I like challenges, but it can be something to think about when planning changes.

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Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

lol. so you've tried true heroics in a craid after sprint and it stuns everyone? That's......insane.

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it's a good stun but it's rare and a waste of our 2 highest CD's, the best use of the stun IMO is on horn of champions for a 30m range AOE stun, it's crazy useful.

With U13 around the corner, what is in store for us champs? There was a lot of talk mostly about red line fix's and some blue. I hope with the (recent events) champs didn't get pushed aside again. At the least increase our Base dps in red line on par with most other class's. There were some good idea's in this thread can you tell us which direction we are headed. Hopefully BR will be open soon to test out these potential changes but it would be nice to know what to expect sooner rather than later so we have time to discuss everything and give our feedback.

Hello,

sorry in advance for my bad english (I could be wrong in naming the skills right), but here are my two cents.

Yellow Trait line:
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- Storm blades is not effectiv compared with raging blade
- Born of Combat damage is a bit to low for the cooldown
- the rest works fine
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Blue Trait line:
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-Bracing attack:
30 seconds cooldown, 1-2k healing and costs 3 fervour
better change it to:
20 seconds cd, 2-3k healing + hot , and costs 2 fervour
- it would be cool if you can see, when the passiv auto heal is available again (noble fighter i belive :D)
-the rest is good
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Red Line:
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as already mentioned the missing damage is the biggest problem
- increase the damage and accelerate the attacking speed
- the cooldown of sprint is far to long +25% speed for (15s/45s) not comparable with the guardians sprint
- the cooldown of club (not sure whether the name is right) decreasing it from 10 to 5 seconds would be very nice

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Other issues:
- The function of true heroics disappeard (5 Min cd for 15 sec)
- Disarming is a huge problem, ==> return of hedge (the idea of disarming the enemy sounds nice )
- No fear could remove more effects (maybe also shorter cd)
- After HD every class have at least one skill to remove cc.
i would appreciate getting back the skill with removing cc every second
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Moors:
- fighting against a warg / reaver / BA with orc-craft / fell wrought damage is like beeing a chicken waiting to get impaled, but thats a different kettle of fish.
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My regards to Jinjaah for reading all this

Greetings from Gwaihir

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Originally Posted by Thrifkori

Moors:
- fighting against a warg / reaver / BA with orc-craft / fell wrought damage is like beeing a chicken waiting to get impaled, but thats a different kettle of fish.
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My regards to Jinjaah for reading all this

Greetings from Gwaihir

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Jinjaah announced this will be adressed with U13 as OC/FW damage will go through physical mitigation first (with a reduced pass akin to beleriand damage).

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Originally Posted by Tullkas

Hopefully BR will be open soon to test out these potential changes but it would be nice to know what to expect sooner rather than later so we have time to discuss everything and give our feedback.

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BR is supposed to open "later this this week" so we'll see.

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Originally Posted by Tullkas

With U13 around the corner, what is in store for us champs? There was a lot of talk mostly about red line fix's and some blue. I hope with the (recent events) champs didn't get pushed aside again. At the least increase our Base dps in red line on par with most other class's. There were some good idea's in this thread can you tell us which direction we are headed. Hopefully BR will be open soon to test out these potential changes but it would be nice to know what to expect sooner rather than later so we have time to discuss everything and give our feedback.

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When we were first told that U13 would give Champs a revisit to fix the stuff they broke, I had high hopes. Now that U13 is about to go to BR, and we have gotten zero information on this revisit, I have adjusted my expectations to non-existent. With Turbine, once it hits Bullroarer, it isn't going to get anything more than very minor tweaks and bug fixes. I don't believe for a minute that any of the effort put into this and other threads dealing with Champ issues will bear any fruit in U13.

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Originally Posted by Sthrax

When we were first told that U13 would give Champs a revisit to fix the stuff they broke, I had high hopes. Now that U13 is about to go to BR, and we have gotten zero information on this revisit, I have adjusted my expectations to non-existent. With Turbine, once it hits Bullroarer, it isn't going to get anything more than very minor tweaks and bug fixes. I don't believe for a minute that any of the effort put into this and other threads dealing with Champ issues will bear any fruit in U13.

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I hope you're wrong about that. I've got six characters total and two of them are champions. One of them is the second one I started playing and I joined the game about...six weeks before HD, I think. She's level 44 right now and traited full red line. I felt the difference when the changes were made, even though she was relatively low level. I picked the red line because it was supposed to do the most damage, but it has been a major disappointment. I suppose I'm what you'd call a casual player, though I do solo skirmishes and am trying to perfect my game play (age and slowing reflexes against me there). LOTRO is my first MMO. I do still enjoy my red line Champ to some extent, but things have really become a slog, and I find myself preferring to play the other characters instead of her. I came to the Champion forum to see if it was just me and after reading a bit started a new Champion on another server, traited full yellow line. Wow, what a difference! She is fun to play, and feels more like what a Champion is supposed to be. I also run my Guardian main with my kinnie's main, who is primarily blue line Champ, though he is a bit of a hybrid build. He seems much more formidable damage-wise than my poor red-line girl and almost as hardy as my guardian. I suppose I could just re-trait her, but I wanted to experience the differences of the two different lines. So far, the red line's main difference is that she feels puny compared to my minstrel, my guardian and even my hunter! Very unimpressive damage and not very much survivability. So I hope there will be some fixes with 13, or I will give up and re-trait her.

My eyes still tend to glaze over a bit when you folks talk about mitigations and buffs and all the rest, but I certainly agree with everything that has been said about the underpowered red line.

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Originally Posted by Sthrax

When we were first told that U13 would give Champs a revisit to fix the stuff they broke, I had high hopes. Now that U13 is about to go to BR, and we have gotten zero information on this revisit, I have adjusted my expectations to non-existent. With Turbine, once it hits Bullroarer, it isn't going to get anything more than very minor tweaks and bug fixes. I don't believe for a minute that any of the effort put into this and other threads dealing with Champ issues will bear any fruit in U13.

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Let's look at this from a different perspective. JinJaah has been hella busy. He's doing the best he can. But he can only do so much. He is all we've got and he is just about smeared out like butter on too many breads or how was that expression again?

You may not like me saying this, but to me every tweak we champs get is gravy. I am of the opinion that there are other areas/classes of the game that need way more than gravy.

Such is the state of LOTRO at this moment. We're looking at breadcrumbs and hopefully we'll get enough of them to fill our bellies. But slices of bread are being handed out very, very carefully because LOTRO is both short on bakers and grain.

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Originally Posted by Rainothon

Let's look at this from a different perspective. JinJaah has been hella busy. He's doing the best he can. But he can only do so much. He is all we've got and he is just about smeared out like butter on too many breads or how was that expression again?

You may not like me saying this, but to me every tweak we champs get is gravy. I am of the opinion that there are other areas/classes of the game that need way more than gravy.

Such is the state of LOTRO at this moment. We're looking at breadcrumbs and hopefully we'll get enough of them to fill our bellies. But slices of bread are being handed out very, very carefully because LOTRO is both short on bakers and grain.

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Heard that one (the busy part) already during Beta, that was 4 months ago.

And I am of the opinion that balance issues on such a fundamental level and the fact that 1-2 lines (out of 3) of a class are neither compatible nor fun is one of the areas of the game that need far more than 'gravy'.

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Originally Posted by Anreon

Heard that one (the busy part) already during Beta, that was 4 months ago.

And I am of the opinion that balance issues on such a fundamental level and the fact that 1-2 lines (out of 3) of a class are neither compatible nor fun is one of the areas of the game that need far more than 'gravy'.

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More-or-less agreed.

1. None of the trait lines are as fun as the pre-HD champion.

2. The overpowering of the classes is the devs' solution to the classes' oversimplication. The classes are too simple to allow players to adapt to difficult situations now. There is no tactical thinking. Underskilled/inexperienced/undergeared players used to be able to experiment and figure out ways to win with their minds. That isn't possible with the simplification now. If the devs wanted newer/less-skilled players to be able to experience the content, the content had to be made easier. They made the content easier by cranking up player dps. There will be no balance unless they repair the classes. They don't plan on repairing the classes any time soon, as they are ostensibly happy with this setup.

i just hope that battle frenzy gets fixed
its so anoying that it doesn´t activates 40% of the times use it

Most significant issue - massive skill gap when using certain skills while using 2H weapons or dual wield 1H. Maybe they could make all skills 'fast' like they did for the burg?

Spent about a week straight on my champ.
Leveled from 85-95 with 2nd age 1h and 2nd age 2h swords (pretty perfect maxed legacies). Did a ton of deeding/grinding and warbanding. Havent geared up enough for any serious instances. Have not played blue line at all.
Just my 2cents, I was going to wait until the new patch, but since there are no real changes there I dont need to evaluate them...

Big Problems
1. Red Line Fervour Generation is terrible.
Most important Red Line Legacy is Battle Frenzy Reduced Cooldown (Must get to -15)
This is crazy that red line usability requires a yellow skill and a legacy for that yellow line to function properly.
Red line dumps fervour like it is going out of business, it has a huge problem building fervour, and often feels laggy both DW and 2H. You stripped away Wild Attack's extra pip on crit, which leaves us with 2x 1 pip builder skills and 1x 2 pip builder skill. This means we need battle frenzy to function.
Suggestion:
Maxed out Wild Attack should give bonus pip on crit.
Champions Duel should give 1 pip per 5 seconds.


2. Red Line Flurry is useless.
It takes a while to get the speed up, then if you arent pounding away non stop it goes away. Very few battles you pound the entire fight.
Make it a duration of combat bonus, not 8 seconds. Also buff it to 25% (I know we get a passive 10%, but I side trait that on yellowline and still get yellow's 25%)
Yellowline Flurry is also bad, but AOE doesnt need speed buff, so its not a HUGE problem like redline is.

3. Red Line Damage is junk.
I'm relying on my 2 Hytbold set to get enough pips, crits are nothing compared to AOE, and things just take forever to die. Champions duel takes a while to build up, and only goes to 30%... The second and 3rd strike bonuses cost a TON of points, and provide weak benifit. Red line was heavily built on AA damage, which is now really weak.

3. Bring Back Hedge
Maybe as a cheap blue line investment.

4. Merciful Strikes is garbage.
It isnt worth using when the enemy's health is down.
It isnt worth increasing the threshold, the legacy only offers 10% damage bonus.
Needs a major buff, it no longer has a 0s CD, so why not make it gain pips now instead of dump them?

5. Devastating Strike stinks
Long Long animation.
Does junk damage
Long CD
Dubious debuff
Considering how it is the redline version of rend, how about put a BIG stacking bleed on it...
Or just rename it to fancy face slap...

6. Controlled Burn
So weak, so short so lame.
In short it should be minumum of 30 seconds duration 1 min CD
15% Damage 15% attack speed 1 pip per 5s Big power Regen

7. Heroics,
Very week, needs a buff.

Medium Problems
1. Blade Storm is useless.
Other skills do way more damage for way less pips
Give it to Redline and Blue Line as well, they both could use a nice free AOE popper at lower levels.

2. Brutal Strikes should not cost a point.
It should be a general use skill across all 3 lines.

3. Deep Strikes is bad
Uncontrolled bleeds are bad. In certain instances bleeds are bad. This could force the player into retraiting which is bad.
Maybe make it as a buff skill... 30s duration 30s CD that makes strike skill crits cause bleeds. Also the bleeds need a buff/tier.


4. Hamstring Root/Sprint
Not worth taking, sprint doesnt give enough bonus, hedging only needs 1 second max. No reason these are multi point dumps. Replace it with something flurry based. Red line should be about attack spam.

5. Born for Combat
Pretty weak damage, but doesnt cost pips, laggy fireoff.

Small Problems
1. Fear nothing...
Long Cooldown, no real benifit. Needs a buff.

2. CBR...
Rename it, the name makes no sense now.



Some stuff I would like.
1. Ferocious Strikes
make this work the same way as Fury of Blades, let it fire at 0 pips, and let the damage scale up with fervour. And i dont mean nerf the damage, We need a heavy hitter when we run out of pips.

2. Pip Gen
In Redline make the dump skills Brutal/Remorseless/etc.. give back 1 fervour per crit.

In summary the huge amount of lag in Red line is due to 2 issues.
1. Attack speed
2. Inconsistant Fervour Build up.
They both make redline jarring to play, and very unenjoyable, even if it did 50x more damage.

i'd like to bring up the point of attack duration once again. It seems like in both dps lines, we have to build up for our attack duration and easily lose it. I would like to make a plea for this random element of attack duration in our dps lines to change. Here's 2 scenarios that describe why this is a good idea:

first scenario. Yellow champ starts attacking foe and immediately gets flurry buff, and flurry buff refreshes for the duration of the fight. Champion feels like a champion.

Second scenario. yellow champ starts attacking foe and gets flurry finally 30 seconds into the fight. The flurry buff wears off after 30 seconds, never refreshing. fight ends on a low note. Champ recognizes the fight was slow and clumpy and was waiting for skills to fire a lot of the time. Champ recognizes there's no way to control flurry procing besides hitting all aoe skills.

Basically, every time we have a fight where flurry is up nearly 100% of the time, we become used to that feeling of awesomeness even though there's nothing we can do about it. So the next time we have a fight where it doesn't happen, we wonder what the heck we did wrong. We wonder why flurry didn't proc. We recognize we're not at our full potential but can't change that one bit.

So the flurry proc and the red line -attack duration buildup proc are both going to become "the norm" when they proc and really really really annoying when they don't. Thus, I propose we either 1. give anyone who traits yellow line flurry buff 100% of the time and give anyone who traits red line the -15% attack duration 100% of the time OR 2. Make it part of a skill in yellow line (for flurry) and red line (for -15% ad) that will refresh it. The random element is just frustration.

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Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

i'd like to bring up the point of attack duration once again. It seems like in both dps lines, we have to build up for our attack duration and easily lose it. I would like to make a plea for this random element of attack duration in our dps lines to change. Here's 2 scenarios that describe why this is a good idea:

first scenario. Yellow champ starts attacking foe and immediately gets flurry buff, and flurry buff refreshes for the duration of the fight. Champion feels like a champion.

Second scenario. yellow champ starts attacking foe and gets flurry finally 30 seconds into the fight. The flurry buff wears off after 30 seconds, never refreshing. fight ends on a low note. Champ recognizes the fight was slow and clumpy and was waiting for skills to fire a lot of the time. Champ recognizes there's no way to control flurry procing besides hitting all aoe skills.

Basically, every time we have a fight where flurry is up nearly 100% of the time, we become used to that feeling of awesomeness even though there's nothing we can do about it. So the next time we have a fight where it doesn't happen, we wonder what the heck we did wrong. We wonder why flurry didn't proc. We recognize we're not at our full potential but can't change that one bit.

So the flurry proc and the red line -attack duration buildup proc are both going to become "the norm" when they proc and really really really annoying when they don't. Thus, I propose we either 1. give anyone who traits yellow line flurry buff 100% of the time and give anyone who traits red line the -15% attack duration 100% of the time OR 2. Make it part of a skill in yellow line (for flurry) and red line (for -15% ad) that will refresh it. The random element is just frustration.

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You nailed it.

One might argue it's the same for crits and devastating strikes, they are random too right? But it's not the same. Attack speed is such a foundation of how champion melee feels.

I remember in the old fervor-stance days, sometimes I'd forget to activate the fervor stance. Do you know how I noticed? Not because of the lack of fervor buildup. Not because of the lack of damage of my strikes, no I noticed because of the eew! sluggy combat speed.

The short attack duration is so much of what makes the champion fun to play. It's better not to make that depend on the RNG.

What if, when battle acuity was maxes out, it gave great cleave a 100% chance to proc flurry?

And for red champs controlled burn could max out the attack duration buff.

Just some thoughts.

Another idea that springs to mind is tying a small attack duration buff to merciful strike with a 6 second duration. Would make merciful strike a lot more desirable

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Originally Posted by Jinjaah

Hedge will not be coming back but Blood Rage and Continuous Blood Rage will be providing a disarm removal now while Continuous Blood Rage will provide disarm immunity for the duration of its effect.

-Jinjaah

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Thoughts on change?

It's something, and that's much, much better than nothing, so I really appreciate this.

It does however tie two cc-counter cooldowns together, so I did ask Jinjaah to evaluate the cooldown duration on CBR.

Not really an issue in casual PvE where it's merely annoying to have to ride out a stun/disarm. But potentially lethal in PvMP where champs are squishy to begin with.