A Wild Dev Appears!

[Jinjaah]

Hey Everyone,

This has been long over due but I wanted to introduce myself as the new Champion dev. My apologies that this did not happen sooner but better late than never, right?

I am very excited to be working on the Champion since it was my first class when I started playing LOTRO. I know with all the change looming in the distance, there are concerns about what the state of the Champion down the road. Rest assured that a lot of time and effort is being put into this class and I am quite excited for what the future holds. But enough of that, lets get down to business:

A lot of you have been posting amazing ideas for the champion changes but lets consolidate them into this thread. Feel free to post any ideas or concerns you may have about the Champion's future. Please try to be respectful of others thoughts and opinions and try your hardest not to derail the thread.

I hope that you are all as excited as I am for the changes and look forward to reading and responding to your feedback.

-Jinjaah

[Exion_Blade]

Welcome! Give me a moment as my masterball seems to be lost in my pack somewhere.
GET EM PIKACHU

[Tarmas_Eldar]

Welcome!

Ardour. Just delete it.

Everything else is awesome. We are in such a good place right now that tbh part of me wants you just to leave us alone because change is more likely to make things worse than better.

My Champ is my main, my first character and (despite the 5 lvl 85 alts) 99% of LOTRO for me. It has never been more fun to play than now.

[Nakiami]

The current end-game armor sets seem to favor dual wielding over two-handers with their set bonuses. This is the reverse of the Isengard situation. This may be an itemization issue, not a champ issue, but it affects champs. Given that a 2H rotation is best served by Brutal/Ferocious then immediate Clobber then Merciful Strikes; and a DW rotation is best done with 2 buttons (Wild Attack then Remorseless), I'd like to see bonuses that benefit both styles. For the 2Her, maybe a cooldown reduction on Clobber (as long as that wouldn't be considered 'best in slot'), or a Brutal cooldown reduction, or more fervour on Brutal, or something like that.

There aren't many interesting rune legacies for DPSers, especially now that power is not a problem. There's plenty for survival and tanking, how about some that boost DPS somehow?

[Jinjaah]

Welcome!

Ardour. Just delete it.

Everything else is awesome. We are in such a good place right now that tbh part of me wants you just to leave us alone because change is more likely to make things worse than better.

My Champ is my main, my first character and (despite the 5 lvl 85 alts) 99% of LOTRO for me. It has never been more fun to play than now.

There are certain elements of the class currently that work very well, but there is always room for improvement and tweaks(like stances).

-Jinjaah

[ShammWoww]

Same dev for my 2 85s.

Be gentle please

[Jinjaah]

The current end-game armor sets seem to favor dual wielding over two-handers with their set bonuses. This is the reverse of the Isengard situation. This may be an itemization issue, not a champ issue, but it affects champs. Given that a 2H rotation is best served by Brutal/Ferocious then immediate Clobber then Merciful Strikes; and a DW rotation is best done with 2 buttons (Wild Attack then Remorseless), I'd like to see bonuses that benefit both styles. For the 2Her, maybe a cooldown reduction on Clobber (as long as that wouldn't be considered 'best in slot'), or a Brutal cooldown reduction, or more fervour on Brutal, or something like that.

There aren't many interesting rune legacies for DPSers, especially now that power is not a problem. There's plenty for survival and tanking, how about some that boost DPS somehow?

I can see where you are coming from with the sets appearing to favor DW over 2H and can assure you that wasn't the intention. Overall I think we could of done better on the champion set bonuses but all we can do at this point is learn from it and move on.

-Jinjaah

[Galmarrar]

Welcome mr. dev

Thinking about possible champs changes ideas:

Ardour:
Either make it usefull (without nerfing the usage of fervour, with ideas like making aoe in fervour lower) or delete it. Personal ideas about it are: a)boost its single target dps as well when traited 4 deep, so it becomes a somewhat viable route for things that need survival + crazy aoe without though lowering our single target dps significantly. b) it may sound like a wild idea but make it somewhat of a supportish stance. By supportish i mean on top of aoe add things like extra debuffs on cleave (lowering resistances and/or p/e/b on mobs), higher stun on horn of gondor or the stun being followed by a short root debuff, raging blade & blade wall apart from extra targets having a chance to start a fellowship-wide buff when traited etc.. In general tweaks that might make ardour usefull in some situations.

Fervour:
Fine as it is, dont touch it

Glory:
Maybe make p/e more usefull, since atm they nerf our threat generation with reprisal.

Itemization & other issues:
1st of all i have not seen a decent teal tanking off-hand except the ones crafted, i'd love this to be added (except if there is one and i have not yet seen it).
2nd issue: Lack of dps earrings on par with earrings of wrath unleashed.. would be nice to have some more choices in that slot.
3rd issue: Rune legacies, a few more wouldnt hurt.
4th issue: 2h oriented set bonuses, for example in order to counter the current loss of 2h dps atm, have a set with 2 set bonus -cd on seeking blade when using brutal and 4 set bonus +5% dps with 2handed weapons (theoretical numbers on the 2nd bonus, just the number needed in order to fill the loss from clobber nerf.. might be 3% or 7% etc).
5th issue: Do something with "Fight on" legendary skill.. maybe this can be worked together with issue number 3 and add a rune legacy that lowers its icpr debuff from 25% of normal to 50 or 75% of normal

These are my ideas atm about champions.. i know some are a bit stupid & wild, but well... its a brain-storming of some sort i guess

[Gylve]

As I mentioned in another thread (not sure if you saw it), I think it would be cool if the trait tree system did away with tying Fervour to red traits and Ardour to yellow. I think Ardour is largely beyond saving - it's just too situational to use very often and even then you'd have to devote a lot of gearing/LI work into running it effectively.

Instead, I think it would be neat if we had a tanking tree, a 2h tree, and a DW tree. You should be able to single target or AoE dps just as effectively with either tree as your focus, with differences instead being tied to the skillsets and flavors typically enjoyed by players who prefer one style to the other. Give the 2h tree bonuses to Swift Strike and Brutal Strikes, while the DW tree would favor Wild Attack and Remorseless.

In addition to removing a somewhat useless niche trait tree/stance from the game, LotRO's recent design choice to include one raid armor set per "tree" would then please a lot more players. Currently, we always get one tank set, one useless Ardour set, and one proper DPS set with bonuses that favor either 2h or DW but never really both (or sometimes flat out suck. Lookin' at you, Erebor 2-piece bonuses!). This, in turn, pushes people who like to perform the best that they can to change their playstyle to something they don't like as much. If every new armor tier had options for both DW and 2h, people would feel less left in the dark, even if it happened that one set was stronger than the other.

Glory: The Greater Erebor 4-piece bonus is an obvious band-aid to the fundamental problem of champion tanking: avoiding attacks lowers our threatgen. In environments with high amounts of incoming damage, our extra survival tools (not counting hedge, which rather takes the place of a heavy shield, but Sudden Defense, Invincible and Bracing Attack) help but don't really come close to the survivability benefits of 25% extra avoidances. A more permanent band-aid would be to either make Reprisal proc on avoids, or to incorporate the Greater Erebor 4-piece bonus into the Glory tree. A real solution in line with Orion's design intent (that we tank by getting hit) would probably be to re-nerf might's contribution to parry while giving us extra survivability in other ways (more crit defense, more ways to achieve -incoming damage%, more ways to overcap incoming healing, etc.).


That said, I agree with the general sentiment that the class is in a pretty good place right now, especially since power consumption was fixed. Whatever you do, don't give shields back :P

[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. 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

[Tarmas_Eldar]

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.

See, this is where you're starting to make me nervous.

(1) I like fervour. It's perfect.

(2) I like Glory, it's perfect.

(3) I have no use for Ardour, it's useless.

My fear is that you are going to solve (3) by making (1) and/or (2) less true. Turbine have a habit of solving perceived problems with nerfbats.

Champs are in a great place by now. Please don't feel you have to justify your new position by making changes just for the sake of it.

[Tarmas_Eldar]

2nd issue: Lack of dps earrings on par with earrings of wrath unleashed.. would be nice to have some more choices in that slot.

This is really an issue for Rockx.

In fact there is any earring with the exact same stats as Wrath Unleashed. Problem is it drops from Ost Dunhoth Disease wing, which no-one runs.

[Frisco]

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. 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 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

That's the kind of post that scares me!

There seems to be an obsessive need to make 3 trait trees/sets, and that's just not necessary. We shouldn't have to be retraiting *within* an instance to be able to do proper DPS. I'm fine with the traits as they are, but as I posted in another thread, I'm wary of continuing down the path that tries to make Ardour useful at the cost of Fervour.

Ardour was conceived as a survival/DPS hybrid. Then sometime during Moria development, someone decided 3 was the magic number and brilliant ideas such as splitting DPS into 2 roles, tanking into 2 roles, making special lines just for Burglar Gambles, LM pets, and Hunter CC were born.

The only reason we've had so *little* complaint is because Ardour is a skill that both satisfies the obsession with 3 trait lines, and can be ignored entirely. Trait whatever reds and yellows you want, and play in Fervour. If it gets to the point where we can't ignore Ardour anymore, that's when the happy Champ community you see will become foaming at the mouth like Hunters. See what splitting their DPS into 2 trees has done to them? Even their forum has padded walls.

[Jinjaah]

See, this is where you're starting to make me nervous.

(1) I like fervour. It's perfect.

(2) I like Glory, it's perfect.

(3) I have no use for Ardour, it's useless.

My fear is that you are going to solve (3) by making (1) and/or (2) less true. Turbine have a habit of solving perceived problems with nerfbats.

Champs are in a great place by now. Please don't feel you have to justify your new position by making changes just for the sake of it.

All I was alluding to is that I agree with you about what a stance like Fervour provides, I just think now is the time to evaluate if these bonuses need to be worked into a stance or should could be integrated into the champion in other ways.

My intention was not to make you nervous but to spark this conversation. : )

-Jinjaah

[Shaigat]

There was a thread ("Month of the Champion Ideas") where ppl spoke about their ideas.

1. We've been nerfed when it comes to tactical mitigation (get parry instead, tho) in pvp. For example, the 'Resilent warrior' 'Moors 2-set bonus of tactical mitigation was removed. Any chance it will be back, even as a 4-set bonus ?
2. Horn (item, not skill one) is not working when I'm moving. Please make it working as the skill one. Pvp issue.
3. Sprint is in most cases useless. Even equipping and maxing legacies for it doesn't make situation much better (pvp).
4. Creeps got all their toys right from the store, we don't have this opportunity. Balance this (vide some nice ironical post in general section).
5. Lots of typical champ's items still got agility instead of fate.

General notes: now, it's like almost everybody got it's '1%' chance for getting gold item. It's like pauperisation of the hardcore gamers. I'm not taking the side of raiding ones, but it doesn't need a gear or skill to get end-end-game items. When Isengard came out, after we get all we needed from new instances (and did t2c) we tried to underman them (2-man 3-man instances, 3-man 6-man instances, etc). We knew we don't get any extra reward for this, it was fun, and we knew that the instance (in t2c) is demanding itself. Now, there is no need, why should we bother to do something like this. We don't even bother with t2 or t2c, we always get the '1%' chance for gold item, scroll or new gems (barter items). T1 takes 5 minutes, t2 takes 50 minutes (in average), but has like twice bigger chance for gold items. Whoa. No satisfaction.
Dunno, there are plenty of options: make a hardcore solo instance variations, raise a chance for gold items when undermanning an instance while lowering as much as possible when it's done in full team(s). Anyways, loot tables needs to be revisited. 'Skill' over 'grinding'.

(the first age symbol is quite different thing, I consider it more as a big mistake; it's easy to spoil items base / economy, but it takes a much longer time to bring the balance back)


Shaigat

[CmdrMagic]

My few words of input:

Agree with above posters. Champs do not need an overhaul. We are in a great spot right now. Our DPS right now is fantastic, both AOE and single target. Sure there are a few skills here or there that I wish were better. However, given our current state I wouldn't want improvements to some of those skills at the cost of something else.

To be honest, with skill trees coming, I am more concerned about making sure we don't lose the great thing we already have than trying to improve anything.

[Mirnir]

I find it a bit weird that optimal AOE in the AOE stance requires us to use a single target melee skill. Maybe you could have Battle Acuity become a non-targeted AOE skill (like Swift Blade) while in Ardour stance?

Also, just to try something a bit different, what if Flurry was a stackable or tiered buff in Ardour, something like: 10% > 15% > 20% > 25%, the top tier (when traited, if necessary) exceeding the permanent Ardent Flurry buff in Fervour. This could maybe allow Ardour+Yellow to be more useful than Fervour in longer fights with many waves of adds. Maybe.

An idea for Rend could be to allow for an option in Ardour via traiting to modify the skill so that it uses all available Fervour pips but increases the bleed magnitude (and armour debuff if traited) depending on how many pips were consumed.

I don't know if this would make Ardour compelling. It should be best option for AOE. I would like it to offer something a little different and more interesting than just hitting harder though. It would be great if there was some aspect of it that made it feel different to AOE'ing in Fervour, which should not get nerfed as a result. That was why I made the Flurry suggestion, but I'm sure there are better ways to mix it up a bit. The recent updates since RoI had a lot of great ideas, but in practice, it still always felt like the Ardour stance itself was not as good for AOE as Fervour.

[warriorpoetex]

Since 2007, I have enjoyed the Champion. Please do not make me choose if I want to ST DPS or AoE DPS. LOTRO was unique that we had two roles .. now, one of those roles will be butchered into two trait trees. Other games that used 3 trees would had been better with just two ... or just one ala Everquest 1/2's AA system.

Going a 3 System is a horrible idea, will have some folks screaming CLONE CLONE CLONE and will only frustrate loyal LOTRO players. There are better alternatives.

[Ecsmyth]

I have to agree that I can't see much need to "over-haul" champs. Some tweaks maybe, but not an over-haul like we got a little while (maybe a year) ago.

Like others, I will agree that ardour is fairly useless to me. I spec as an AoE champ, but run in fervour all the time.

I absolutly love glory tanking now. Lots of fun tanking by getting wailed on.

Please don't make any sweeping changes for the sake of change. I love my champ, and want to continue to do so.

[Raffle]

These are the things that were true of a champ when I rolled him 6 years ago

1. Aoe dps was by far the best in the game.

2. Single target dps was second only to hunter, but the most important aspect was that it was SUSTAINABLE. Nothing burst about it. No power issues. The same dps at one minuet as at thirty five minuets.

3. If things went bad, champs could throw on a sheild and situationally take over tanking duties. No running to a bard. Just swap out a shield and go.

With a few provitions these points should still be the core of a champ.

1. For aoe we may still be king, but oddly almost no champ cares a out maxing out aoe numbers. Give us a reason!

2. Our single target damage is fine. This provision lies with our brainless rotation. If you DW you hit wild attack then you hit remorseless. Then you die of boredom. Why can't we have skill combinations that would apply massive damage or bleeds biased on the attacks you string together. IMO there should be more than one way to get to max dps.

3. Don't get me wrong. I love the current shieldless champ tanking system, I just don't think we should have to leave the fight and retrait to be viable. Perhaps if we swap to glory we should get the immediate tank bonuses nessicary to do our job with a 2-3 minuet cool down on going back to a damage stance.

Anyway I'll end by saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Also it's always nice to get immediate feedback from a dev. So I thank you for that. Keep up the good work!

[Fresuvi]

@Jinjaah,

There are a few traits that aren't in a good place right now. From what I have noticed since I began playing back in '08, Ardour is mostly useless, it was buffed significantly in RoI and RoR, but is still only useful in a few situations.

I can see where you're going with the idea of integrating some of the champ stance buffs into us as passives. It does seem like it could be a good idea, if it is done the correct way. I do however, miss having a more challenging rotation. Achieving maximum damage from simply going straight from WA, to rend, to WA, to remorseless, then spamming WA and remorseless for the rest of the fight really isn't fun. Also, having only one way to achieve maximum dps is not fun. Hunters have a few rotations that can reach similar points of dps, but we champs have one that is very simple and quite boring at the same time. Perhaps bring flurry back to what it was before, and give it a more effective use with dual wield. It effects 2h's much, much more than it does Dual's. 2h with flurry on is a noticeable difference, whereas I can barely tell with Dual's.

A good idea IMO would be to remove the debuff to p/e from Fervour completely. Put it to an extra 20% inc damage(equal to the outgoing damage we receive). Having champs Fervour tank the main boss in certain raids(alluding to F/F t2c here, as this was the go-to method by many of the kinship's on my server) shouldn't happen. Fervour should be deadly if we pull aggro, and I feel this 20% inc damage boost would fix this.

Allowing champs to at least parry in fervour also takes us back to a lore connection. Champions go into the heat of battle(especially in ferv stance) with swords blazing, allowing us to parry quite often, but we do not pay as much attention to our vital defenses. Theoretically we should be able to parry, even while fully fighting, as we are masters of melee combat.

Give Champ runes some type of Damage bonuses. I'm tired of having a Vit/Fate/Might legacy in place of a potentially useful LI slot.

Lastly, FIX SPRINT. Champions should be able to RUSH into the fray and open with a big loud attack. I currently rarely ever use sprint, and the times when I do are for escaping in pvp. Make the trait automatically rush us towards the enemy and hit them for a huge amount of damage(When it crit's). This is very similar to a Warrior's charge in WoW(players took a vote back in WotLK on my server forums for the most creative and fun skill, this skill won it).

P.S:
I'm fine with the way 2h is now. I have both a 2h FA and a dual weild FA, and I am able to retain similar dps while using each one. I have always seen the best dps while hotswapping both anyways. But some set bonus would be nice that gave Brutal or Ferocious like 5-10% more damage or something.



Thanks for claiming the spot as Champ dev, Jinjaah. Champ has been my heart and soul since I first began this game(total of 9 months played across my 2 champs), and it's good to see someone stepping up to the spot and giving us some real feedback.

[Anolus]

Hello and welcome Jinjaah i wish you all the best but remenber that you are not working on lorematers wardens or other secondary classes you are working on the class so .... ( i'm sure you understood me )

[MrWarg]

The Champion is mostly fine in my opinion. However, there are a few areas I would like to see addressed:

Stances

Put simply there is next to no point in using Ardour. This is for two main reasons: a) the content simply does not require it and b) Fervour is not only 'good enough' to use instead, it is actually perfectly fine.

My suggestion would be to either roll Fervour and Ardour into one stance as a combined damage stance with Glory remaining as a tanking stance or even to scrap stances altogether. If the latter was decided upon then Champions could be given innate combat bonuses through passive traits with tanking bonuses being granted through the use of a tanking traitline.

Legendary Traits

Raging Blade - Awesome trait! The thing is almost everyone always has it equipped because it is so good. It reminds me of the old Staff & Sword legendary trait from the Lore-master. Could this be made part of the Champion's normal skill set please? It is pretty much always traited anyway, which reduces player choice and also build variation.

Ferocious Strikes - This trait feels a bit 'meh' to me. I think it could do with being jazzed up a bit to actually act and feel legendary.

Tanking

I am intrigued by the idea of Chamions' tanking efforts being affect by taking hits from the enemy. I would like to see this concept expanded upon.

Weapons

I would like to see different weapons provide meaningful benefits for Champions. That is not to say I want weapon A to be better than weapon B, quite the contrary. I think it would be cool if different weapons provided slightly different functionality, but overall they provided the same effect. In other words different routes to the same objective to fit different plays styles and tastes.

Single Target Damage Rotation

This can feel a bit repetitive and stale in my opinion i.e. Wild Attack - Swift Blade - Remorseless Strikes ad infinitum with perhaps the occasional Merciful Strike or Feral Strike thrown in. Perhaps the rotation could be jazzed up a tad?

[klover307]

jinjaah... do you have a soul..?

[Androctus]

A Wild Dev Appears!

You are confronted with (1) Wild Dev.
Should you:

(F)ight
(R)un Away