Vitality for Champions

[ipatino91]

So I've been perusing the forums and what not and many times champions are called to be off-tanks. Now I wasn't here during the heavy shield use era so I can't talk on that but this is my dilemma.

Champions have been decided by the developers to be an alternate tank, to both the Warden and the Guardian. However I assume they removed the heavy shield usage to differentiate between the classes. I think that's fine, however if we're supposed to be able to tank, why kill off so much survivability ? In my cases, it's not unusual at all to see 12-13k morale guardians (un-buffed) and several 12-13k wardens, all un-buffed, while the highest champ I've ever seen un-buffed was like 8.5k morale... I'm not saying to make champions full on tanks, but it's hard to tank when the average difference between regular tanks and us are 4-5k morale (plus a shield), which can definitely determine whether we survive or not.

These is just my humble opinion, but why not make Champions receive 4 morale per point of Vit, instead of the standard 3... We are "off-tanks" aren't we?

[Wilkens]

My un-buffed OT setup currently has me running with ~11.5k morale and ~+92% damage with the ability to keep improved hedge up permanently, a +900 parry up constantly, Sudden Defense every minute, TH bubble every 5 min, Martyr's Bauble bubble/heal every 5min. My mitigations probably need some work (only ~45-50% or so Tac Mit) but, again, that's not a top of the line champ tank mix...its a moderately well off champ tank mix.


*To Clarify a bit, make sure you trait 4+ Blue and activate Glory, its good for quite a bit of morale (in addition to all the CD reductions on defensive skills)

[SoAndSo]

with 2 pieces of the orthanc purple tank set (the instance stuff) + the martyrs set (not empowered yet) and a few other pieces of vit gear/jewellery I can hit 11.5k morale unbuffed. Hedge is up permanently, sudden defence on a min cooldown, true heroics for aggro + a big heal, dire need for an "ohshiiiiii" heal, bracing attack healing for 1k + the increased incoming healing. I sit on approx. 1200 vit and 1200 might when I run this setup. I also go from 2h to dw for less miss chances.

I managed to tank a t2 fangorns edge last night (not a huge achievement, but it was a kin first and it felt bloody awesome). Also tanked a dargnakh t2, and he hits like a truck at the end.

I am seriously enjoying tanking at the moment as its a nice break from dps for a change

Chanks are the preferred tank for shadow wing challenge as well.

in short - champs make awesome off-tanks, and very capable main tanks (for certain content). our skills + bubbles make the lack of vit not too big of an issue

[Zerethor]

Champions are fine as they are. If we get more buffed than we are now we will be Godlike.
My champ has 14k Morale unbuffed,1100 might 1800 vital 55.1% physical mitig & 57% Tactical. Thats my full tanking Setup on my champ It can get slightly higher i believe.I can ballance my stats also for DMG or Off-Tank.

Champs are great as they are now, i believe it will take some time untill they will get an upgrade.

[Miretocot]

Champions are fine as they are. If we get more buffed than we are now we will be Godlike.
My champ has 14k Morale unbuffed,1100 might 1800 vital 55.1% physical mitig & 57% Tactical. Thats my full tanking Setup on my champ It can get slightly higher i believe.I can ballance my stats also for DMG or Off-Tank.

Champs are great as they are now, i believe it will take some time untill they will get an upgrade.

I have slightly better stats, but Zerethor has gazillion times better skillz

In all seriousness, I actually do think Champions could use a slight morale increase; and I think changing the Vitality-morale conversion scale to the Guardian/Warden conversion scale is not all that unreasonable--at least for Glory stance. There are two reasons. First, game-play-wise, Champions are a bit squishy. I think I have around 14.5k unbuffed morale in tanking set-up, and that's still about 2k less than the kin Guardian/Wardens. In addition, we have far less avoidances (no block, and we have to make a conscious effort to decrease avoidances, due to how our aggro generation greatly depends on getting hit) so we take a lot more hits. Second, fluff-wise, it just looks bad that we have less morale than medium or cloth armor wearers. In fact, how in the world does it make sense that Champions typically have the fewest morale in raids? I know that effectively we have better survivability than Burglars for instance, but it looks unseemly that the kin Burglar in a raid has 8k morale unbuffed, whereas I have 6.6k.

[E28TG]

Personally I'd rather have some extra crit defence with the blue cap equipped vs the 4x vit/morale conversion.

[ipatino91]

Champions are fine as they are. If we get more buffed than we are now we will be Godlike.
My champ has 14k Morale unbuffed,1100 might 1800 vital 55.1% physical mitig & 57% Tactical. Thats my full tanking Setup on my champ It can get slightly higher i believe.I can ballance my stats also for DMG or Off-Tank.

Champs are great as they are now, i believe it will take some time untill they will get an upgrade.

But... as champs... aren't we supposed to be godlike? I mean if you look at stuff properly, we have our red line or otherwise known as Berserker. If you look at where that comes from, it's from norse warriors who before battle would sometimes enter in a state known as berserkergang. This enabled them to literally cut everything and anything down without fail and with no worry to damage since they were so fierce and wild, nothing would phase them. I disgressed slightly, my apologies.

Going back to the original subject, perhaps as Miretecot said before, I mean it looks bad if we have hunters who are supposed to be super squishy (no offense to hunters, I love mine but I'm just using this as an example) who have higher morale then us. And here is where the whole dilema is: What if you're NOT spec'd for tanking and you have to tank on the fly? I mean all of you have awesome sets for tanking and I mean it looks amazing, but contrast that when you're in full dps mode and you get called on to tank or at least off-tank? 7k morale will not cut it. I think it'd be nice if we used glory stance and that bumped up morale to 4 per vit only in that stance. And maybe a slight increase in defense as well. All this of course only in glory stance, especially for those "oh #### our tank is dead and the healers are getting killed."

This is all just my humble opinion. Thank you all for all your responses though. Very informative

[Wilkens]

Personally I'd rather have some extra crit defence with the blue cap equipped vs the 4x vit/morale conversion.

QFT

Seriously now, with anything north of 11k morale and decent mitigations (you need 50%+) you can run pretty much everything if you've got a good healer. The big worry isn't a series of hits taking you down over time before the healer can bring you back up, rather its the one-shotting putting you in a place to go down faster than the healer cna react. Crits and Devs from bosses are the big worry and the greatest shortcoming chank's have compared with Warden's and Guardians comes in the form of crit defense. I would MUCH rather see some more of this.

[tgs81]

Champion morale is fine the way it is. The issue is Guardian and Wardens and new content being designed with the idea that a tank will be around 20k morale buffed.

When a minority of classes have 2-4x the morale of everyone else then something is out of whack.

The morale/vit system was designed for a different era of the game and should have been looked over when so many of the other gameplay systems were overhauled for Isengard.

edit:
Have to agree with a couple of a prior posters. The biggest shortcoming of champion tanks is a lack of crit defense.

[Fabroy]

The main issue with the champion are :


tanking :

1st: lack of morale ok but honestly is not the highest issue, tanking myself buffed got 2 set up : high mitigation = 17.6k , medium mitigation (less than 60%) = around 19k . Soo yes compared to some guardian on 21k morale like in my alliance is well...

2nd : to be able to hold agroo now a day mostly is getting hit and leach, others dps skill help but against hardocore dps forget it. That mean avoid parry and evade that is killing your agroo. Bubble are suppose to compensate that we are not blocking and that we have lower morale than another tank, honestly that is funny use a buble in tanking on boss fight the buble will stand 2 sec next hit or next 2 hit will kill it, soo that only give 2 more second to healer to heal you up.

3rd : Yes we have very low crit defence i will say more knowing that we should be hit everythime we should be the class that should have the highest crit defence as tank, soo we get always hit but nothing stressy for a healer.

Conclusion : champion tank priority is : get more agroo generation/some group leach agroo or 30% of agroo generation in glory for some tank and spank, huge increas on crit defence , and in last less important honestly more morale vita morale like guardian and remove the glory morale bonus.


Dps:

1st : yes champion morale on full dps is indeed much lower , if you want hold a good dps you will be aroundd 7k morale on champion, when even runi or mini will be around 8k, sound funny.

2nd : Is not the developper that made the champion who made such mistake about champion is the end game content the isssue. Orthanc raid there is almost absolutely no loot for champion dps . Lot of ring, earing etc for caster and agility class, few weapon for champion a shiled for tank and caster.

conclusion : lot revamp in orthanc raid t1/t2/HM to aswell give back people motivation to run such challange.

[Haunt123]

I wouldn't want Champions to be too effective, they are meant to be off-tanks, comparable to Captains (Even though the Dev Diary compared them to Wardens/Gaurdians). One thing I'll say, though, is that the +Crit defense bonus we get in the Martial Tank line is pathetic.

[Galmarrar]

they are meant to be off-tanks

We are meant to be whatever is needed in the given situation. I off and main tank once in a while (main tank more often tbh) but when im needed to dps im happy with my 5,5k morale build (unbuffed)

[Fabroy]

We are meant to be whatever is needed in the given situation. I off and main tank once in a while (main tank more often tbh) but when im needed to dps im happy with my 5,5k morale build (unbuffed)

indeed you got the point, we are suppose to fullfill what is needed dps/tank/offtank.


I hope next patch they might doo soon they fix swiift blade , crit defence and agroo generation

[Dorothir]

I've made a thread about this in suggestions before. It basically said give us 5x vit and greater crit defense when in tanking mode. Show your support if you agree.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-Champ-Tanking

[Galmarrar]

I've made a thread about this in suggestions before. It basically said give us 5x vit and greater crit defense when in tanking mode. Show your support if you agree.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-Champ-Tanking

i would love to agree on this tbh, im a champ and i love this class really BUT in general im against this idea for 1 reason: Balance of classes. Champ can main tank but not as effectively as a guardian (not regarding personal skills in this statement, talking about the abilities of the class as it was designed). If that is done then guardians in OP should have sameish dps as champs to compensate etc.

[Gylve]

Guardians have ridiculous AoE dps. A friend of mine recently finished decking out his guard with the ToO dps set, LG Victor's jewels + other DPS jewels, got his LI's well along their way, etc. He puts up AoE numbers pretty close to my champ and probably a lot better than most champs (undergeared/underplayed/etc).

The only issue is that they're threat machines while they do this. They have no aggro dump whatsoever, one of their main AoE attacks has threat added on top of its damage and other is an AoE threat leech from the fellowship. Makes the tank's job very taxing.

I've never run anything other than a skraid with a really decked-out DPS warden, and it's pretty impossible to gauge anyone's DPS output in a skraid since everything melts so quick.

[Dorothir]

It seems to be a very popular myth that if champs get more morale/crit defence, then they'll equal or better a Guard in tanking. We all know a good champ tank < a good guard tank and any poor champ tanks don't exist because the class doesn't allow it.

Then the concept that if champs get more morale/crit def, then a guard must have more DPS. This is a false premise as most haven't seen a fully DPS dedicated Guard to even know what their DPS is. They seem to think that a champ can just change his traits and he's a brilliant tank, forgetting you need to make an entirely new gear set to be any good. The same goes for a DPS guard. You can't expect a guard to be amazing at DPS when they aren't kitted out for it.

I spent a couple of weeks giving my Guard nothing but DPS gear and all traits focused on DPS. With even average quest gear, I was a DPS monster.

So no, guards don't need better DPS if champs get more morale/crit def. They are already amazing if geared properly. What DPS guards need, as Gylve has pointed out, is a mechanism to reduce aggro and possibly even more in-comb power regen.

[Andy2879]

Yes i think champs could use some extra morale, and for sure we could use some help with power use. Champ is the only class that does have + ICP reg and that is the only class that quickly gets in to huge power problems while in combat. I do have 75 guard cappy and rk, not a singl power problem in long fights there. On my champ i run with 8k+ morale and when i see 5-6k champs i aways wonder how do they fight vs ranked creeps in the moors that have 14-18k health.

[Lestache]

Yes i think champs could use some extra morale, and for sure we could use some help with power use. Champ is the only class that does have + ICP reg and that is the only class that quickly gets in to huge power problems while in combat. I do have 75 guard cappy and rk, not a singl power problem in long fights there. On my champ i run with 8k+ morale and when i see 5-6k champs i aways wonder how do they fight vs ranked creeps in the moors that have 14-18k health.

I don't want to derail the thread, but regarding power issues:

Champs really don't have power issues. I suppose I should say that we shouldn't have power problems.

I'm an inveterate Remorseless spammer, and that's an incredibly power-hungry skill. Yet I can attack a dummy indefinitely without running out of power, simply by using Controlled Burn when it's up, the occasional power pot, and Second Wind (untraited, even) from time to time.

Throw us into a group situation and now we have Captains giving us power with Rallying Cries (assuming that they trait Now For Wrath), an LM to Share Power (although, again, we shouldn't need it), CJs from Burgs, and a few other things.

[Galmarrar]

Yes i think champs could use some extra morale, and for sure we could use some help with power use. Champ is the only class that does have + ICP reg and that is the only class that quickly gets in to huge power problems while in combat. I do have 75 guard cappy and rk, not a singl power problem in long fights there. On my champ i run with 8k+ morale and when i see 5-6k champs i aways wonder how do they fight vs ranked creeps in the moors that have 14-18k health.

about power issues i have been covered by the mate above, i have never had any problem regarding power as a champ, even when i went full nuking or for some other reason my power bar went down by popin CB i was at full power in no time.. if u have power issus with ur champ i suggest traiting second wind and maybe makin a rune for dps that has the - power costs % legacies.

as for morale... 5,5k is more than enough for me for these reasons:
a) i never go to the moors, i just dont like the place.. if i went ofc as all people do would pump my mits & morale
b) 8k morale sounds at least imo way to much for a champs with a dps role, and maybe too little for a champ with an off-tank role. why should i need more than 5,5k morale? in case tank is down lets say and boss-mobs are on me 1500 extra morale would let me survive maybe half a second? On the other hand my dps would be more than 20% lower than in my nuke build, dont forget that builds focusing on vitality giving us more morale tend to lack 2 things: critical chance and agility (miss chance)
c)morale as a champ is needed mostly to avoid being one shotted by aoe effects or things that u cant avoid really. as long as u are not one-shotted u are cool imo.