Champion Feedback Thread

[keztryl]

The biggest barrier to playing champ blue line imo is the absence of any aggro "multiplier" skill. I know that the martial champion line is not a priory, but I feel like just a few small changes would make go a long way in making it viable for off tanking.

If I could only make one change to this line, I would reduce the cool down of Champion's Challenge and make it an "aggro copy/multiplier" taunt. Without an aggro multiplier taunt, champions cannot take and maintain aggro from other tanks or high DPS players. This basically rules them out as potential tanks in just about every raid. I would prefer if this skill had a CD of 10-15s (assuming it was an aggro copy skill like what captain's and guard's have), but I could live with 20s (which is effectively an eternity if the tank loses aggro).

If an "aggro copy/multiplier" taunt is just not in the cards, what about a 5s CD to go along with the 5 sec forced taunt? Then at least champs could hold on to one target (although this option would require substantial effort on the part of the champ). I don't mind the existing aggro mechanic, but without the ability to aggro swap in any way, or take control of the situation if the "main tank" falls over, I just can't see a blue champ ever being seriously considered for the more challenging group content.

[keztryl]

Please remember that this is a melee class, which LOTRO always punishes in Raids, it should be in the very top DPS output on Training Dummies, because the mechanics in the raids will slow it down compared to Ranged DPS, which are shooting safely from a distance, completely out of harms way. From what my friend told me, Hunters with HS reset set are parsing 50-55k (which is going to be a lot more with LM and RK Fire Debuffs), and Red Burglar around 55k+ margin. Red Champions are well 15k behind the margin.

Also, one other thing. This is not a discussion of Yellow line, about AOE being be the main focus of Champion. That is simply not true. For the past few updates, not many fights (or any in that case) favor AoE more than Single-target fights. Bring Champion Red line back to the top, like it was in pre-RoR.

I found these comments insightful. In the very few boss fights where melee classes are not having to contend with stuns, push backs, running to locate a target, etc. (I'm thinking of fights like Rako and Sagrog), it would hardly be awful if champs were doing more DPS than other DPS classes. These are melee encounters where we are going to toe-to-toe with big melee targets, it just doesn't make sense to me why red line champion should on par (or better than on par) with the "nuker" classes.

[keztryl]

• “Riposte” now grants “Sweeping Riposte” by default.

The damage of Sweeping Riposte seems lower than what is on its tool tip. SP is hitting for 3.5k for me on average (base, without trait points), when the tool tip says is should do 8k-12k. Placed strike appears to scale the damage correctly, but the discrepancy between the actual damage and tool tip remains.

[Ardollas]

Dang, I guess I have some work to do on my champ. I was running with 215k mastery, 50k crit, 24% finesse, and I couldn't consistently hit 40k. A few times I had DPS of 40k for a minute, but for a full 3 minute battle, the best I could do was 28k on red line with a legendary 2H. I could increase the crit rating and get the 5% damage boost, but that doesn't seem like it it would give an additional 10-12k DPS. Should I be using a 1H instead? I don't weapon swap during combat - should I? Should that even be necessary?

Bottom line is that red line still needs work. My yellow line passes with lesser gear got similar DPS numbers. I would say it needs something to reduce or bypass enemy mitigations, since the line goes about as far as you can in relying on critical hits (Yellow line has Rend, which reduces armour rating, which in turn reduces mitigations, along with a mitigation bypass chance higher in the tree). I want to reiterate my request to scale up the Rend armour reduction LI legacy and Horn of Gondor Mitigation debuff legacies more appropriately for Mordor. Rend was the main reason many people wanted champs for the Dread Terror raid, and when paired with the Horn of Gondor debuff, it also helped champs keep pace as AoE damage. Alternatively, can the Rend armour reduction tier up with the bleed? That would seem to be helpful for longer fights while not making champs OP 2 seconds into combat.

I haven't had a real chance to tank with Blue Line on BR. The bubble skill still seems too weak. It also still needs a force taunt skill, as the one single-target taunt is weak and has a long CD, and Horn of Champions is an AoE skill.

[JarrydP]

I've noticed a delay on blade wall and swift blade that keeps throwing rotations out. Anyone else noticing this? It's driving me nuts.

Not sure if this is intended or something that needs to be looked at.

Please Fix



P.S. Araphorn can we see a break down on your combat analysis, always looking to improve

[RicoFTW]

Skill delay noticed after several skills, especially rend. Red line should be pulling more dps than it does atm. Like it has been said many times already, fixing the delays might be enough. If not then increase strike skills base damage instead of bleeds (which makes no sense to me). It almost feels like that you have boosted all *wound* bleeds, if that was even intended (champ, guard, hunter, warden).

[Ensnared]

My opinion is based on past experience tanking Throne and Abyss T2c. I deal with tanking single bosses and large trash pulls, and constant trash waves such as 6man SS first boss in ~1min 15.


So first of all lets accept Champion are a dps class that can tank. Champion tanks shouldnt become as easy as Guardian tanks. Tanking power is fine how it's atm and so is aggro: single and aoe.

My opinion may not be shared with SSG but imo concerning class balance it's the best concept. Champions are a dps class that can tank, but not as good compared to primary tanking classes.
Champions aggro generation is harder but still effective: single and aoe. It's true that aggro is harder compared to other classes but ive never had issue losing aggro on extremely high dps fights or trash mobs. To hold aggro I must work harder as a player because my class is: primary dps, secondary tank. Therefore I accept the faults in my class but I enjoy tanking very much. Champion tanks have unique advantages compared to other tanks and require more player skill to master.

Champion Blue Line Set Bonus "Glory" is being changed to a flat 10% melee damage reduction.
“Riposte” now grants “Sweeping Riposte” by default.
Morale Bubble from the Blue-line spec skill "Sudden Defence" is being converted to a % bubble covering ~15% of the player's unmodified Max Morale.

These changes are fine.

Suggestions.
Passive skill: Exalted Combatant

Just making sure you're aware that Exalted Combatant does not work like the Wardens Never Surrender.
Never surrender triggers if they go under 15% morale to heal the warden by 50%. However if the player is at 30% and a boss hits the warden for 50% of his morale, NS will save the Warden from death and heal. Exalted Combatant triggers at 30%, but if you are at 40% and boss hits for 50%, Exalted Combatant will not save the Champion.

Active skill: Unbreakable
I dont know how this skill was suppose to work, but I can explain how it works atm and what I would change.
Currently Unbreakable is only used to gain extra 20% morale for very limited time depending on how fast you get t10. The skill has a secondary function which is never used: that's to cash out your stacks to deal damage. Once you cash your stacks the skill instantly stops working, even if you just used the skill 2 seconds ago.
I suggest you change the following: Allow unbreakable to continue to stack up after the cash out has been used, so the cash out attack can be used several times over 30 second period and be used at any stack. Give the aoe attack a dps boost so players can use it to generate aggro aoe. This would be very fun cd to spam the cash out over and over for 30 seconds to lock in aggro.

Passive Invincible

The lower your morale the more damage you do while Adamant is active. Very illogical to ask a tank to stay nearly dead to get a dps boost. This is the last capstone for blue line which is normally the best passive. I like the concept to give Champ tanks more damage, but this isnt practical. I hope the Dev replaces it with another passive that gives a damage boost somewhere else...maybe a passive to remove partials? That would be cool.

Dps Champion
You'll need to address the partial bpe issue if you want any improvements on dps.
Melee dps classes are always in more dangerous situations compared to glass cannon range classes. It would be logical for the class that's in the most dangerous position to deal high or highest damage in terms of a pro-con situation. However glass cannon range classes are a stable in MMORPG. So it's a problem that exists, and it's your job to figure that out. Atm there's no reason why anyone would bring a Champion dps class over a glass cannon range class. So if you cant make Champion dps on par with glass cannon range dps, then they need to bring something unique to the fight.

[Gertes]

I've noticed a delay on blade wall and swift blade that keeps throwing rotations out. Anyone else noticing this? It's driving me nuts.

Not sure if this is intended or something that needs to be looked at.

Please Fix

What race are you playing? As i mentiont already my dwarf has also slow/delayed animations compared to my High-Elf.

[Araphorn]

I've noticed a delay on blade wall and swift blade that keeps throwing rotations out. Anyone else noticing this? It's driving me nuts.

Not sure if this is intended or something that needs to be looked at.

Please Fix



P.S. Araphorn can we see a break down on your combat analysis, always looking to improve

Yes, I'm experiencing really bad delays on Blade-Wall, Rend, and on follow up Brutal after a fast Fero-Clobber combo.

Here's a breakdown of a parse I got today. I've done plenty now, and I highest I can reach so far is 45K in Yellow Line Single target build, depending on Crit/Partial luck, whereas in Red Line, it's really hard to break 42K for me.

DPS target dummy says, 'Thou didst maintain a DPS of 44,937.82 over the last three minutes of our momentous conflict!'

[Giliodor]

Aside from the obvious flaw right now (that is, yellow outperforming red on single target - please address this as soon as possible), there is another issue I would like to raise, and hear opinions on.

For red/yellow champs, the only defensive ability is Fight On. To me, this skill seems weak beyond belief. Not only is the heal very low when compared to damage that enemies deal in raids/6-mans/PvMP, it is also on a long cool down. Considering that champions are a melee class, they often find themselves in the midst of the fight, where lots of AoE damage is going on, etc.. Also, even blue line hunters, which are a mobile ranged class, have more defensive abilities than champions.

For this reason, I would propose that champions need some ability that actually makes them able to soak some damage for a short period of time. My proposal for such a skill would be as follows:

Die by the Sword
Fast
Your mastery of the blade allows you deflect even the swiftest attacks. With each successful deflection, your combat prowess is increased.
For each successful parry, you gain -3% attack duration, stacking five times.
+25% parry chance
Incoming damage is reduced by -30%.
Duration: 12s

Cooldown: 3 minutes

[Gertes]

The problem with balancing yellow vs. red single target DPS is, that you need some skills out of the red tree to deal nice single target damage. So every time you buff certain skills like Ferocious Strikes, not only redline deals more dps, yellow lone also benefits from it. So i think it is important to buff skill like Remorsless strike more (or other skills that can´t be used in yellow), or/and give the red champ stronger CD´s, here we have the same problem, yellow champs can take controlled burn out of red, but the red champ can´t take anything usefull out of yellow/blue to boost his dps.

So in my eys one of the main Problems is, that a yellow champ can pick amazing things out of red, to boost his dps. But redline Champs can't.
And this is the point where SSG adds the old continues Continuous Blood Rage in the Game, so redchamps can deal amazing singeltarget dps, in exchange to survivalbility

[keztryl]

My opinion is based on past experience tanking Throne and Abyss T2c. I deal with tanking single bosses and large trash pulls, and constant trash waves such as 6man SS first boss in ~1min 15.

So first of all lets accept Champion are a dps class that can tank. Champion tanks shouldn't become as easy as Guardian tanks. Tanking power is fine how it's atm and so is aggro: single and aoe.

My opinion may not be shared with SSG but imo concerning class balance it's the best concept. Champions are a dps class that can tank, but not as good compared to primary tanking classes.
Champions aggro generation is harder but still effective: single and aoe. It's true that aggro is harder compared to other classes but ive never had issue losing aggro on extremely high dps fights or trash mobs. To hold aggro I must work harder as a player because my class is: primary dps, secondary tank. Therefore I accept the faults in my class but I enjoy tanking very much. Champion tanks have unique advantages compared to other tanks and require more player skill to master.

While I like the DPS tanking style of champs for mobs and single boss fights that don't require aggro swapping, I think a single "fellowship aggro" multiplier taunt similar to captain's threatening shout would allow Champs to tank fights like Rako on level or pick up aggro should the primary tank fall over (say, in a fight like Dread Terror - Unbroken). Before the changes to trait trees, captains were not primary tanks either. It is the lack of an aggro multiplier skill that has made Wardens and Champs less desirable in many boss fights. Without getting into the issues facing Wardens, I feel there are good reasons for making some small adjustments to champ tanking mechanics.

Some history... "Off-tanking" is no longer the thing that it once was. Before trait trees champs could switch to glory (equip their shield + tanking LIs) mid-fight and off-tank a few mobs, or a spawned sub-boss and then switch back to their primary DPS roll. The "off tank" champ couldn't go "full glass cannon," but they didn't have to give up contributing substantially to DPS. Before trait trees, "off-tanking" situations were often handled by either a captains or champs (champs being better at gathering up spawned mobs, captains better at picking sub-bosses). With the switch to trait trees, though, the "off-tanking" abilities of both classes were turned into comprehensive tanking lines, but these classes lost the flexibility of being able to pick up the aggro slack in a pinch, and then switching back to their primary role (dps, or support). So while there are good reasons not to compare champs to "tanking" classes like Guardians (and hopefully Wardens, once again), there is no reason to think that they should not be comparable to Captains and Beornings (again, hopefully).

I know from some of your other videos that you have said that your kin "indulged you" in letting you tank AoM, and my point would be that this shouldn't be such a hard sell. I am also not convinced champ tanking should be that much harder than other tank classes, just because they are primarily a DPS class. Captains were never a tank class or a healing class, but tanking on a captain is not way harder because of it. Captains may not be able to quickly pick up groups of mobs, but even with one aggro multiplier taunt every 15 seconds, they can still tank in fights where aggro swapping is required. With champs, even if the cool down for challenge remained the same at 30s, transforming this skill into an aggro multiplier would allow champs to tank sub bosses on par with other classes. Sure this would still be more challenging on champ, but in contrast to the AoE taunt skills of a captain, using sweeping riposte and raging blades to pick up and build aggro on mobs is much easier (and feels completely natural for AoE DPS champs).

The lack of comparable survival skills when things go wrong however, still puts champs at a slight disadvantage, and imo there really is no reason for this. In days gone by, dire need, adamant, and sudden defense worked just fine. Adamant doesn't need much improvement, but dire need is still useless (imo). The heal is just not big enough to warrant spending any trait points. The problem with the morale bubble granted by sudden defense is that even 15-17% of max morale does not provide much of safeguard if your morale is low. It doesn't need to be as good as warrior's heart or shield of the Dunedain, but it should be good enough to buy you 10-15 seconds when you have to contend with several new mobs spawn or the healer goes down, etc. I would prefer this mechanic worked like the instant "big defense" skills of other tank classes (in buying you a fixed amount of time for the fellowship to stabilize), but given its shorter cool down, I could live with a bubble that is limited to reducing the healing burden for anticipated problems. In this case, though, I feel that Dire Need ought to provide a big restoration of health when things are truly dire.

[RicoFTW]

It also seems like dual weild gets some serious delays in yellow line compared to 2hander. Yellow line dps with 2h is around 39k ish, basically the same as red line but with dual weild only doing about 31k.

[Giliodor]

The problem with balancing yellow vs. red single target DPS is, that you need some skills out of the red tree to deal nice single target damage. So every time you buff certain skills like Ferocious Strikes, not only redline deals more dps, yellow lone also benefits from it. So i think it is important to buff skill like Remorsless strike more (or other skills that can´t be used in yellow), or/and give the red champ stronger CD´s, here we have the same problem, yellow champs can take controlled burn out of red, but the red champ can´t take anything usefull out of yellow/blue to boost his dps.

So in my eys one of the main Problems is, that a yellow champ can pick amazing things out of red, to boost his dps. But redline Champs can't.
And this is the point where SSG adds the old continues Continuous Blood Rage in the Game, so redchamps can deal amazing singeltarget dps, in exchange to survivalbility

That isn't a problem at all. You simply bake the buff to single target DPS into a red line trait bonus. Those aren't obtainable when specced into yellow.

[Teledion]

I haven't tried parses on the BR yet, updating the game now. Reading the thread I've seen multiple comments about increase in dmg from bleeds. This effect will be of greater help to the yellow champ than the red one due to the cancelling of dots in red. If it hasn't been fixed the reapplication of deep strikes can cancel out the next dot tick and since the first tick isn't instant this leads to los in dmg. The problem isn't as apparent in yellow line since less ST skills will be used and therefore the dot won't be canceled as often.

Will return with proper feedback once I get my champ fully geared and have done proper parses.

[ColMcStacky]

Posted this in another thread in the Champion subforum, but I figured I'd repost it here as well. Anywho, going point by point:

• Champion skill damage is being increased across the board: If this scaling is appropriate without being over/underpowered, then it is definitely welcome to all three trait lines.

Blue Line:

• Champion Blue Line Set Bonus "Glory" is being changed to a flat 10% melee damage reduction: This will be helpful in keeping damage reduction more consistent.
  
• Morale Bubble from the Blue-line spec skill "Sudden Defence" is being converted to a % bubble covering ~15% of the player's unmodified Max Morale: Definitely a welcome, positive change. My only reservation is that it encourages moralestacking, but since this has been the meta for years now, I don't see it changing in favor of balanced tank builds. In light of this, the change is definitely welcome and appreciated.
  
• Sudden Defence's morale bubble bubble grants +10% melee damage whilst active: I'm assuming this is additive, not multiplicative. While it's on the right track, I think it would be better served as a more potent damage increase (+30% mastery?) for 10s if/when the bubble gets popped. That way, if you aren't taking enough damage, the buff won't be given, but if you do take enough, it will help solidify threat.
  
• “Riposte” now grants “Sweeping Riposte” by default: Definitely welcome. I honestly never even thought about that change. It definitely increases threat because you dont have to hold out for the AoE proc instead of the normal one.
  
• Sweeping Riposte: Row 3 -> Row 2: Good for red/yellow. Doesn't affect blue. In group play, however, it may not be as effective as people think since the typical champ won't be tanking much, so won't be getting parry procs, at least in theory.
• Placed Strikes: Row 4 -> Row 3: Same as above.
• Tactical Mitigation Increase: Row 1 -> Row 3: Doesn't affect blue, effectively might nerf red/yellow mitigations depending on how the rest of the changes play out.
• Vitality Increase: Row 2 -> Row 1: I guess it helps blue in t1 now since tact mit trait was removed. Other than a stepping stone, depending on how much Vitality it gives, it's meh.
  

Yellow Line:

• Blade Wall’s inherent damage has been increased dramatically. The bonus damage from the trait ‘Barbed Wall’ has decreased in proportion. This was done to make ‘Barbed Wall’ less of a “must-have” trait: Welcomed change. Helps with hybridized builds, which seems to be what SSG is aiming for with the majority of the trait changes.

Overall, I would say these changes are definitely a step in the right direction for us chumps. I did notice, however, that Bracing Attack and Dire Need are conspicuously absent from any changes. I hope this is looked at in future BR builds this patch, or in subsequent balance passes.
Some other things I would like to see looked at:

• Bracing Attack: A HoT component should be added to it in my opinion (~2-3k), as well as giving a considerable increase to the initial heal magnitude and increasing the duration of the Incoming Healing buff it provides while traited blue. If the cooldown could be reduced to 20s like it was pre-trait trees, that would also be a great help.
• Dire Need: It should cost say 40% of your current power and check that amount against your max power. The amount drained as it relates as a percentage to your max power is the percentage of max morale that should be healed. For example, at full power, 40% is drained, this is 40% of max power, so 40% is restored to morale. When at half power, 40% of half is drained, this is 20% of max power, so 20% of max morale is restored.
• Unbreakable: Something definitely needs to be reworked. I would like to see it give a percentage of tact mit per tier (+0.5%? Maybe +1%?) instead of a rating, along with the increase to max morale. Once 10 tiers are achieved, it shouldn't roll off as it currently does, it should continue to refresh the 10th tier when being hit. There are a few options for the burst that can happen that I wouldn't mind seeing:
  
  1. Mighty Roar (burst from Unbreakable): if the devs are intent on keeping this, definitely needs a significant DPS increase to warrant this skill having such a large build up. Also, it would be nice for the burst to not consume the stacks, maybe so we can spam it to help build/solidify threat. If the stacks were consumed though (as it currently is on live), the damage this skill does would have to be drastically increased to warrant a decrease in max morale by 20% and (possible) increase in tact mit. It would be nice if this couldn't be avoided to make it more reliable. This would give a Chank a (better) offensive cooldown skill.
  2. Mighty Roar could be changed to an incoming damage reduction that does not stack with any other sources. Make it do -10% incoming damage for every 15% that the Champ is below max morale. This would max out at -80% incoming damage at 10% morale left. Maybe give it a 15s duration. Just enough to save you while a healer is down/out of range/whateever, and not enough to go complete god-mode. This would actually give a Chank a defensive cooldown skill. If this is done though, remove the tact mit buff from the stack of Unbreakable(My favorite solution.)
  3. Mighty Roar could become a very large bubble, say 50% of the Champ's max morale that lasts for however long the 10th tier of Unbreakable is up. (This is the most lazy solution in my opinion, but still a solution nonetheless.)
• Unstable: (tier 5 blue trait) This trait needs to not be gated behind the crit defence trait anymore. That is just an asinine requirement that never made sense because any decent tanking build always had and always will have enough crit defence to the point of making the trait useless. Also, it needs to proc by something other than receiving critical hits. Many bosses don't crit, making this trait completely useless in a boss fight. There are a few options:
  
  1. I recommend Defeat Responses (Champs used to use them, I don't see why Champs should be barred from these on virtue of being a Champ if they can be useful for us). To supplement actual enemy deaths, we could get Defeat Responses when the Sudden Defence bubble pops.
  2. Another option is tying the proc to Partial Parry (or partials or BPE in general). Again though, this would not be as useful as the above recommendation in a boss fight because of scripted attacks bypassing avoidances. If this is done though, the duration may have to be reduced slightly (from 8s to 5s maybe?) because of the sheer number of BPE we are able to get.
• Fight Through the Pain: See Unstable.
• Adamant: I would like to see this skill get a duration increase to at least 20s like we used to have with the throne set. Maybe just add +5s to the legacy for the skill? I think that would be an easy fix. As it stands, 15s is a bit too short in my opinion.
• Exalted Combatant: The tooltip is bugged on this, where if you scroll over it or H-tag it, the cooldown on the tooltip won't update, it stays static on the value it was at when you first looked at it. It would be a nice little quality of life improvement to see this fixed, and maybe even have some sort of indication on when this heal is up or on cooldown by the tooltip color or something.
• Skill Delay: FIXED

And as I've said elsewhere, if people are intent about Champs getting another forcetaunt/cooldown reduction/whatever, I think it would be more in-line with the spirit of the class if Horn of Champions or even Mighty Roar was given a very high threat multiplier, similar to War Chant on the Guard. I feel like that would allieviate some of the complaints about threat being too hard by some people while at the same time not letting the Chank devolve into the spam-to-win forcetaunt fest that every other tank has become.

[Minimur]

I copied my Champ over from live and just tested doing level cap end game content in Mordor in Yellow line. It was hard to notice much of a damage increase. Still getting a lot of partial block, parry, and evades to my attacks. It would be nice to get some kind of ability added to one of our skills to help mitigate mobs partial block, parry, and evades. Also, born for combat is still really bad in DPS terms. Spice it up or replace with something else. Bracing attack still needs more self healing at the higher levels, especial level 115. Did anyone notice if the crit rating on Flurry got increased at all at level cap? I forgot to check. It is really too low on live.

[JarrydP]

What race are you playing? As i mentiont already my dwarf has also slow/delayed animations compared to my High-Elf.

Race of man, though not sure that should matter.

Didn't get to check rend properly since i cut rend with bf, but maybe i should look at changing that.

[Papou_sous_la_montagne]

The biggest barrier to playing champ blue line imo is the absence of any aggro "multiplier" skill. I know that the martial champion line is not a priory, but I feel like just a few small changes would make go a long way in making it viable for off tanking.

If I could only make one change to this line, I would reduce the cool down of Champion's Challenge and make it an "aggro copy/multiplier" taunt. Without an aggro multiplier taunt, champions cannot take and maintain aggro from other tanks or high DPS players. This basically rules them out as potential tanks in just about every raid. I would prefer if this skill had a CD of 10-15s (assuming it was an aggro copy skill like what captain's and guard's have), but I could live with 20s (which is effectively an eternity if the tank loses aggro).

If an "aggro copy/multiplier" taunt is just not in the cards, what about a 5s CD to go along with the 5 sec forced taunt? Then at least champs could hold on to one target (although this option would require substantial effort on the part of the champ). I don't mind the existing aggro mechanic, but without the ability to aggro swap in any way, or take control of the situation if the "main tank" falls over, I just can't see a blue champ ever being seriously considered for the more challenging group content.

Hello.

Champion mechanics are fine but need some tweak as i explained in my first post. You need to understand his agro is maintained with masochism (reflec damage) + Champion's Challenge (mono taunt) + True Heroics (multi taunt) + Horn of Champions (not a forced taunt but up aggro i guess). Your teammate need to adapt you too.

[Arandour]

Further notes:
- People below might say that yellow line's Rend Armour should be buffed, so that the armour debuff is more effective. Please don't do this. Champions are a DPS class, not a debuffing class, and buffing Rend Armour will only lead to more gimmicky playstyles where it's more optimal to go into yellow for single target DPS.[/color]

I dont agree on that.If you want champions to be useful Rend should be buffed or else no matter how hard we will hit the raid leaders will prefer again range dps for safer and faster results.Champions will become useful to a raid again if they can hit harder and if they can debuff the armor of multiple targets so they drop down faster for the group.If with a champion in a group you can make that difference then Champions will become useful again or else raid leaders will continue give our spot to another range dps.

[Giliodor]

I dont agree on that.If you want champions to be useful Rend should be buffed or else no matter how hard we will hit the raid leaders will prefer again range dps for safer and faster results.Champions will become useful to a raid again if they can hit harder and if they can debuff the armor of multiple targets so they drop down faster for the group.If with a champion in a group you can make that difference then Champions will become useful again or else raid leaders will continue give our spot to another range dps.

That's simply not true. First and foremost, yellow champions are an AoE class. On a single target boss encounter, you should be forced to go red. In order for red to be viable, it has to deal DPS that is slightly above that of hunters/RKs, to make up for the fact that it's a melee class. If that is the case, there is no reason to choose a hunter/RK over a champion on the basis of DPS.
That's the first point: you'd be in red line anyway.

Secondly, if it were an AoE fight, then yellow champions would be taken no matter what, because it deals the highest AoE damage of any class in the game.

From these two premises, it logically follows that Rend is not necessary for champions to be viable in groups.

Rend armour is a crutch that makes otherwise bad champions useful.
There are already too many debuffs in this game, which creates an unhealthy raiding environment, in my personal opinion. That, however, is not relevant to the argument I'm making.

[keztryl]

That's simply not true. First and foremost, yellow champions are an AoE class. On a single target boss encounter, you should be forced to go red. In order for red to be viable, it has to deal DPS that is slightly above that of hunters/RKs, to make up for the fact that it's a melee class. If that is the case, there is no reason to choose a hunter/RK over a champion on the basis of DPS.
That's the first point: you'd be in red line anyway.

Secondly, if it were an AoE fight, then yellow champions would be taken no matter what, because it deals the highest AoE damage of any class in the game.

From these two premises, it logically follows that Rend is not necessary for champions to be viable in groups.

Rend armour is a crutch that makes otherwise bad champions useful. There are already too many debuffs in this game, which creates an unhealthy raiding environment, in my personal opinion. That, however, is not relevant to the argument I'm making.

I'm not sure I would say it is a crutch.

All of the classes use to have (and still have to some extent) some capacity to debuff. I think the idea originally was for each class to contribute a unique debuff such that when all of the different classes are combined, the fellowship/raid would do way more damage than if you stacked classes of a single type. The debuff skills were an incentive to reward diverse group makeup. But over time the effectiveness and uniqueness of these debuffs has not been maintained. The current state of rend is similar to the low strength debuffs that other DPS classes now provide. The mitigation reduction of penetrating shot, for instance, is not significant. Debuffing critical defense or increasing incoming light damage is just not important. At the same time Lore-masters and yellow burgs are more powerful in terms of the debuffs they provide (since the implementation of the trait tree system). Also, with the trait tree system each class is less flexible (why debuff light damage when LMs are not regularly using their lightning skills?). Champs have just been lucky that their debuff skill was as powerful as it was for as long as it has been.

I want my champ to be able to do more not less (more functionality with more incentives to bring to raid), but mt preference would be for the rend debuff to work along the lines of its original purpose, with each class getting a relevant unique debuff that makes that class inherently useful. Every class should provide a piece of the crutch (shiv?). But this would require changes across all classes with a clear strategy for how these debuffs would work in relation to each other while still remaining balanced. I know, I might as well ask for Fellowship Maneuvers to be useful again.

[ColMcStacky]

I just remembered after playing a bit yesterday and today (I stopped for about a month and a half or so for various reasons and got a bit rusty, forgetting a few things), is anything being done about the horrible skill delay in blue line? I read some vague comments about skills being sped up elsewhere, but I'm not sure if those were specifically talking red/yellow, or across the board. Again, I realize I'm in the minority when it comes to enjoying blue champ more than the other lines, but the delay is definitely something that needs to be fixed regarding blue-line while the effort is being made in my opinion.

In a little more detail, the issue is that the timer for animations doesn't start until the actual skill animation finishes when spec'd blue. This affects every single skill. I forget what the in-game option is called, but when you enable the option to turn on the hourglass timer for skill animations, this becomes clear. The hourglass doesn't start to drain until the animation actually finishes. This results in ~1s or more between skills where you are just standing there waiting with the next skill queued, but unable to actually do anything unless this is interrupted by an immediate skill (even fast skills suffer from this delay). Any attention given to this would definitely be greatly appreciated.

Also sorry for the double post in the thread. In my opinion though, this is one of the most crippling bugs to affect blue-line and I wanted to make sure it was given ample attention by an individual post rather than being tacked to the bottom of a wall of text.

[Ensnared]

I know from some of your other videos that you have said that your kin "indulged you" in letting you tank AoM

I am the raid leader, noone gifted me the opportunity to tank for fun. Champ tank was my main at 105 and I farmed everything with exception to 3 bosses in Throne because I was needed on Loremaster. Similar with AoM launch I was needed on Loremaster.

[keztryl]

I am the raid leader, noone gifted me the opportunity to tank for fun. Champ tank was my main at 105 and I farmed everything with exception to 3 bosses in Throne because I was needed on Loremaster. Similar with AoM launch I was needed on Loremaster.

My apologies, I thought I had read that on one of the blurbs introducing your videos. I must have been thinking of someone else.

I included your comments in my response not as a criticism or to divert from the thread but simply because I didn't want my earlier comments to be framed as an attempt to radically change the current DPS aggro mechanic of champ tanking. My position is that I would like blue line champ to be a little more accessible and competitive in comparison to other traditional "off-tanking classes" but still unique. As I mentioned, Wardens are in the same situation (in terms of the dps aggro mechanic) and this is nothing new. I don't want champs or wardens to lose their distinctive flavour, but I would like them to be able to swap aggro with a guardian or cappy tank with the same probability of success when required. I don't have a strong opinion on how this ought to be accomplished, only that I feel that some change is necessary to meet this goal.

Keeping champions challenge to a single target skill, but with a slightly shorter CD (say 20s) and the same "fellowship aggro multiplier" mechanic would only ease the difficulty of holding aggro on a single target, but in so doing would also put champs on more equal footing with captains and alleviate a lot of raiders' (and raid leaders') concerns about inviting a blue line champ to raid. Yes this is a solution to what might be characterized as social/education problem. Many players are no longer interested in waiting for tanks to build aggro, or strategizing on how to approach a boss fight with a "different kind of tank." But given this social climate, there seems to be very little reason to think that we can just stick with the "status quo" and one day convince other players that it is challenging and therefore fun to bring a tank who might lose aggro in simple boss situations (even though this will likely reduce what they find enjoyable about raiding, i.e., putting up high dps parses or whatever is their role).

I would also just like to point out that even if maintaining aggro of a single mob boss is no longer as difficult, this doesn't mean that there aren't other ways in which tanking can be made challenging through the raid mechanics. I know several experienced guardians and captains who find the aggro mechanics of AoM too easy, and I think this in part because these fights have been designed to ensure that "aggro" building classes (no aggro swapping, plenty of time for one tank to build aggro) are viable. The irony is that even though AoM seems designed to ensure aggro building tank lines are viable, the majority of those in the raiding community no longer seems to care. Improvements to blue line might allow champs with tanking proclivities to change the conversation (i.e., "our class is better now"). Decreasing some of the difficulty would give more players a reason to try it out. And bringing blue line champs more in line with guardians and captains might allow the raid builders to introduce different types of challenges as opposed to having to worry about designing a raid where traditional "builder" aggro class mechanics can still accomplish what for other tanking classes is the simplest of tasks.