The Champion redesign has gone terribly awry; Turbine, please address our issues

[Wilantuk]

Great suggestion OP and I think very much needed.

Can we please get an official response? Jinjahh is communicating in a thread on the hunter forums and I think in all fairness we could really use some of the same communication here. This thread looks splendid for the communication from our developer to begin in.

The champion community at large has been very patient and quite nice about the overwhelming changes to the class..........let's here from our Dev!

[tuga88]

I was going to come back to lotro...


but after reading so many threads where my class is broken(and my second favorite the RK)... i'm going to keep me and my money away.

Gotta love F2P games... minimal support and game breaking changes everywhere!

[Dercin]

I was going to come back to lotro...


but after reading so many threads where my class is broken(and my second favorite the RK)... i'm going to keep me and my money away.

Gotta love F2P games... minimal support and game breaking changes everywhere!

A dev has been very responsive in the champ forums about many of the issues and has laid out possible changes coming, you should check it out. Would link but I'm on mobile ATM.

[Fralin]

A dev has been very responsive in the champ forums about many of the issues and has laid out possible changes coming, you should check it out. Would link but I'm on mobile ATM.

Umm.... assuming you're talking about Jinjah. Yes, very responsive indeed... unless you cut out the 1½ month of silence from beta to last week... and the fact that there were multiple threads bringing up the same issues with no response. Most of the champ issues were known since beta (at least by testers), yet in 12.1 nothing BUT in 12.2 we get more bows (yay!). I would not say someone is responsive if they don't post for months at end even if they are class dev and only posting AFTER several champs got into the hunter forums and asked him to drop us a line or two. He did answer, yes, but responsive is a whole different thing

[Peter_Pan]

Umm.... assuming you're talking about Jinjah. Yes, very responsive indeed... unless you cut out the 1½ month of silence from beta to last week... and the fact that there were multiple threads bringing up the same issues with no response. Most of the champ issues were known since beta (at least by testers), yet in 12.1 nothing BUT in 12.2 we get more bows (yay!). I would not say someone is responsive if they don't post for months at end even if they are class dev and only posting AFTER several champs got into the hunter forums and asked him to drop us a line or two. He did answer, yes, but responsive is a whole different thing

I doubt Jinjaah asked to be the dev for 3 different classes AND the Ettenmoors at the same time. When he didn't respond for 1,5 months, I think it was a combination of his holidays and urgent things in PvMP. I really don't expect a dev to post during their holidays, and as broken as the champ may be in certain aspects, Ettens was much more in need of fixes with update 12.1.

As for him only replying after champs posted in the hunter threads; he wasn't given much of a chance. I find it logical when someone starts posting in the forums of 1 particular class on one day, before moving to the next one on the next day. In this case, the hunter forums were the first in line, and several champion players jumped on top of it straight away. Next time it may be us champs who are on top of the list.

For someone with so many different areas that need to be worked on, I am very much surprised at Jinjaah's engagement and communication. He posts a lot more here than previous champion devs did, and those didn't have 2 other classes and a PvP zone to worry about as well.

[Kaldor]

Red Line is still FUBAR even after these changes...

True Heroics can no longer miss or be blocked, parried, or evaded
Champion's Challenge can no longer be resisted.
Fixed the Sharpened Blades Trait and Rend skill so that Rend will refresh at tier 5 rather than expiring.
Fixing the deed "All in All" so that Blade-Wall's dual wield version contributes to deed completion.


Do you see any real Red line fixes in there? I sure dont...

[Jinjaah]

Red Line is still FUBAR even after these changes...

True Heroics can no longer miss or be blocked, parried, or evaded
Champion's Challenge can no longer be resisted.
Fixed the Sharpened Blades Trait and Rend skill so that Rend will refresh at tier 5 rather than expiring.
Fixing the deed "All in All" so that Blade-Wall's dual wield version contributes to deed completion.


Do you see any real Red line fixes in there? I sure dont...

None of the fixes we discussed in previous threads were slated for 12.2. We are planning a large number of changes mainly focused on the blue and red lines for update 13. I will post those changes once the decisions become final and we can talk about them.

-Jinjaah

[edjepredje]

None of the fixes we discussed in previous threads were slated for 12.2. We are planning a large number of changes mainly focused on the blue and red lines for update 13. I will post those changes once the decisions become final and we can talk about them.

-Jinjaah

To be honest, there isnt a whole lot of talking to be done when the decisions are final. I think this is part of why people are complaining. There is lots of feedback, but it seems to be useless to give any.

~Edhun

[Leixy]

To be honest, there isnt a whole lot of talking to be done when the decisions are final. I think this is part of why people are complaining. There is lots of feedback, but it seems to be useless to give any.

~Edhun

It seems to me that Feedbacks are simply suggestions, regardless of how strongly worded they seem.

they aren't demands or anything like that.

[Jinjaah]

To be honest, there isnt a whole lot of talking to be done when the decisions are final. I think this is part of why people are complaining. There is lots of feedback, but it seems to be useless to give any.

~Edhun

That's a good point and I should clarify. When our internal decisions our finalized, not final going into update 13. We can talk about them during our implementation and allow time for user feedback.

-Jinjaah

[Belegwe]

That's a good point and I should clarify. When our internal decisions our finalized, not final going into update 13. We can talk about them during our implementation and allow time for user feedback.

-Jinjaah

You make it such a joy to go on the Champion forums (or Hunter/Rk for that matter). These changes have had quite an effect on all of us, some classes more than others, but all of us. It is really reassuring to have a Dev that really shows they care about how we feel about the product we invest in and the ongoing provider-customer relationship. Thank you.

[edjepredje]

That's a good point and I should clarify. When our internal decisions our finalized, not final going into update 13. We can talk about them during our implementation and allow time for user feedback.

-Jinjaah

Thanks for clearing that up. The next thing is to actualy talk and allow the feedback. I feel like that wasn't really the case during HD beta.

In my opponion this should also means that our class is placed in perspective to other classes. Currently its fair to say that we are in the bottem in terms of both damage (except for AOE) and survival. Current champ really is a laughable punchbag compared to Mini's/Cappy's and even to itself pre-HD.

~Edhun

[ArrexBloodclot]

Thanks for clearing that up. The next thing is to actualy talk and allow the feedback. I feel like that wasn't really the case during HD beta.

In my opponion this should also means that our class is placed in perspective to other classes. Currently its fair to say that we are in the bottem in terms of both damage (except for AOE) and survival. Current champ really is a laughable punchbag compared to Mini's/Cappy's and even to itself pre-HD.

~Edhun

Running Yellow - in PVE - there is little I fear with my Champion. In fact, my Champ can do things that most classes can not do. I can solo Library and School in minutes - while my guardian almost died and took 5 times as long to run it.
It is clear to me that running around in PVE with anything less than full yellow build is inferior. I do just as much damage in yellow as I do in red, and the mechanics seem to be better.

Howevr - in the moors I have taken to running RED with a 2 hander for burst DPS. I build the 2 hander for that reason, and when the action rolls - I fire up my +15 damage skill and run in - only to find that I am doing less damage to a Creep than I would with the same weapon in yellow. So I ran yellow last night and got more KBs by far than I have in nights passed.

I miss my o Sh-t shields…… I miss my HEDGE- did I insult you? Why take my hedge away? I hate that the 1 or 2 selh heal skills I have are useless to me in PVP when I have a capped Phys mitigation, full AUD, and I watch my health evaporate without any good way to replace it. My ability to survive has diminished massively- so much that if I solo - I need to be very mindful about how I travel - all the time watching a Warden or Yellow Cappy sit still in a group of 7 creeps and LIVE…..


PVE - I have no complaints.. There is little I can't do IMO. PVP - Im getting spanked.

[Giliodor]

post

That is because in PvP, there is huge spike/burst damage. The champion's sole survival skill is Fight On. Fight on, is a very powerful HoT. Heal over Time. There is currently nothing a Champ can do against spike/burst damage; Impale, Vital Target, Wargs from Stealth. Also, my champ is taking the same damage as a minstrel something might have gone wrong here?... But yeah, it's too late. Yellow guards & captains will reach a level of godmode that was never seen before in the Moors if mitigation would've been implemented normally.
My suggestion: implement a passive trait. Berserkers are ignorant to pain, so why don't we give them this passive: On every harmful skill, receive a stacking -3% incoming damage (stacks 10 times). This will still not fix the issue with burst damage, but will at least add a bit more surviveability.
Maybe Sudden Defence should be granted as a default skill. Specialising in MC would give you a -2m cooldown as passive. Open for suggestions of course.

[ArrexBloodclot]

That is because in PvP, there is huge spike/burst damage. The champion's sole survival skill is Fight On. Fight on, is a very powerful HoT. Heal over Time. There is currently nothing a Champ can do against spike/burst damage; Impale, Vital Target, Wargs from Stealth. Also, my champ is taking the same damage as a minstrel something might have gone wrong here?... But yeah, it's too late. Yellow guards & captains will reach a level of godmode that was never seen before in the Moors if mitigation would've been implemented normally.
My suggestion: implement a passive trait. Berserkers are ignorant to pain, so why don't we give them this passive: On every harmful skill, receive a stacking -3% incoming damage (stacks 10 times). This will still not fix the issue with burst damage, but will at least add a bit more surviveability.
Maybe Sudden Defence should be granted as a default skill. Specialising in MC would give you a -2m cooldown as passive. Open for suggestions of course.

Not bitching at all, but getting killed within 3 seconds of fighting from Impale - well sucks. Im burning Stacks of Morale pots - and the Bounder's morale pots which are awesome and have a different CD than regular morale pots, to recover from a Wargs initial attack in an effort to have a chance... Actually I have been winning most of those now, but the impale that Happyfeet (on Ridder) hits you with is deadly. No point in trying to solo him - I cant.

[Giliodor]

Not bitching at all, but getting killed within 3 seconds of fighting from Impale - well sucks. Im burning Stacks of Morale pots - and the Bounder's morale pots which are awesome and have a different CD than regular morale pots, to recover from a Wargs initial attack in an effort to have a chance... Actually I have been winning most of those now, but the impale that Happyfeet (on Ridder) hits you with is deadly. No point in trying to solo him - I cant.

What is the point you are trying to make?

[Kaldor]

None of the fixes we discussed in previous threads were slated for 12.2. We are planning a large number of changes mainly focused on the blue and red lines for update 13. I will post those changes once the decisions become final and we can talk about them.

-Jinjaah

To be honest, there isnt a whole lot of talking to be done when the decisions are final. I think this is part of why people are complaining. There is lots of feedback, but it seems to be useless to give any.

~Edhun

That's a good point and I should clarify. When our internal decisions our finalized, not final going into update 13. We can talk about them during our implementation and allow time for user feedback.

-Jinjaah

Jinjaah: Thanks for clearing that up. I understand that most time players want nothing more than to be the OP FOTM class. I dont on my Champ. I want to be able to spec the Red line, and be able to destroy stuff with it being a clear race to the death, either mine or the mob. Im willing to take that loss of survivability that the HD changes brought on, providing I get the DPS to offset that. Right now, we dont have either in the red line.

[mrfigglesworth]

ideas to make champs more survivable

I tell you what, keep the champ the way he is, NAY even take away fight on and bracing attack, and then give me complete immunity to all combat states except slows when traited and capped in berserker stance, and I'd be happy.


I WANT TO BERSERK AS A BERSERKER :P

[hubbafire]

I agree with all these problems, but I have found an additional problem that may only be slightly related yet still very important IMO. I do not spend a huge amount of time with this game, but the time i do spend on LOTRO is usually spent playing the Champion. I started playing a long time ago and for whatever reason found this class to be the most fun and therefore the Champion became and has remained my main. But now somehow, whenever I get on to play I find it genuinely and severely boring.

Now note that I'm only posting my opinion and no one is forcing you to read any further and I actually recommend that you don't if you feel my negative attitude might put a damper on your day.

The reason I am so bored when I play the Champion can most likely be attributed to a number of points: 1. How useless I feel when playing with my friend, a Loremaster who's Lynx does more damage than i do even when he is in the red trait line (And I am writing this after 12.2) I am only slightly exaggerating here 2. How helpless I feel when soloing, for example when I run a solo skirmish and regardless of whether I am traited in The Beserker or The Deadly Storm line (Currently the latter is obviously a much wiser choice under nearly all circumstances) I feel like it has become a simple game of rotating through the few skills that are even worth using and pray that they die before I do. Kiting would be my only other option... You can forget that, I don't have the time to level up through kiting. 3. The very simple nature of Champion mechanics that don't go very far beyond building and using fervour over and over again. Arguably it is worth keeping fervour full for some time to make use of the +ICPR and +Damage, but even with this added element it is still so very plain and simple. This is especially true when you compare the Champion to Warden's, Runekeeper's and Loremaster's who all have interesting combat mechanics and/or more than a handful of skills to rotate through.

I believe to revive my interest this class, and I may be alone here for not many people are as unrealistic and foolishly hopeful with their suggestions, there would have to be some serious revamping done. Please note that I'm just going to be rambling on about things I personally think would be very cool and the numbers used in these examples have had hardly any thought put into them, so if you are still reading just pay more attention to the concepts than any of the specifics.

Some particular idea's that seem very interesting to me are changes like introducing "life-steal" to Champions. This is just one term used for the mechanic that works like the Captain's revealing mark, i.e. gaining morale for a percentage of damage dealt. But for Champions, instead of having it be a mark on the enemy, it could be a passive they possess, e.g. It could work like this: Basic passive of life-steal = Berseker - 20% + 3% per fervour pip, Deadly Storm - 10% +2% per fervour pip, The Martial Champion - 0%. Now I don't really want to punish players for using their fervour so maybe the bonus per fervour pip isn't such a great idea. Instead, an idea that I really find interesting is something like: Berserker +0.3% Life Steal, +0.3% Attack Speed, and +0.3% Damage for every 1% of missing health, Deadly storm - Same idea but reduced to 0.2% per 1% missing health. Bracing attack would ideally become something along the lines of lower or no damage but changed to a "fast" skill with a quicker animation and a 20s CD instead of 30, and in specific trait lines automatically changed to: The Berserker - +10% Life-steal (10s), bubble for 10% of maximum morale (10s); The Deadly Storm - +10% Life-steal (10s), -20% incoming damage (10s); The Martial Champion - Same boring old heal =D.

Continuous Blood Rage: This is the next thing that I really miss, the toggle of CBR; the days of not having to deal with CC were some of my favorite . This is how I would propose bringing those days back. CBR becomes a toggle with no CD, while toggled on the positive effects would be: Immune to all Combat States aside from dread and full immobilize, Sprint is always active while in CBR, +A little bit of resist rating and Remove 1 Poison, Disease, Wound, Fear.. etc. every 5 seconds. Seems OP and it probably is, but in a lot of fights I have 10 effects on me and it would take 50s to remove them all, in that time i would have received 10 new ones. Negative Effects: No in-combat morale regen, Cannot block/parry/evade, -90% Incoming healing (Except your own heals and life-steal).

Next mechanic that I think would GREATLY add to the skill level required to play Champions to their max effectiveness would look something like this. Change fervour from a scale of 1-5 to 1-10 scale, now increase the fervour cost of all fervour costing skills accordingly, but only increase the potency fervour generating skills slightly. Now increase the power cost of all strike and blade skills but a significant amount something like 50%. To compensate a bit for these two nerfs give the champion 1 or 2 more skills for generating fervour and 1 or 2 more skills (in all trait lines) for power regen and I would move the -75% power cost that CBR currently has from CBR to Controlled Burn. And lastly, reduce the CD of ALL strike and blade skills to 1s. This would make the Champion far more interesting because it would make it a game of juggling power and fervour in order to put out the most damage. It would require a lot more skill and a lot less monotonous rotating through the exact same skills at all times.

Changes to strike skills: Trade a small amount of damage for quicker animations and shorter wait times between Champion skills simply because IMO fluidity and quick response adds a lot to how nice a game feels and BALANCE all strike skills so that none are nearly obsolete. Just for awesomeness, make Ferocious Strikes a 4-hit skill, but reduce the damage so the total damage is slightly less than what it is now, but make it reaallyy quick.

Examples of 1 more way to generate fervour: Change precise strikes to, on any critical hit (not just from strike skills) Gain 1 fervour. Also, on every strike skill -2% Attack Duration and +1% Critical Chance stacks 10 times instead of 5 allowing the champion to get really scary if given the time.

Examples of 2 more ways to regen power: 1. Fight On now also Restores 3% of Maximum power every 2s, ability to reduce CD of Fight on to 2 minutes with traits or legacies. 2. Adrenaline (Passive): For every 1% of missing morale, +1% to ICPR. When your power drops below 10% this bonus doubles for 10s (1m CD)

Example of 1 that does both: New Skill: Sacrifice 15% of Maximum Morale to gain 10% of Maximum Power and +ICPR for 10s, gain 1 fervour per second for 5 seconds [fast] (10s)

Champions Duel: I would just want to add +3% life-steal every 3s with the +3% melee damage.

Controlled Burn: Change to +10% damage, -20% Attack Duration, and -75% Power Cost (20s)

One other new skill that would fit with these changes (Exalted Combatant of The Berserker line): Upon Dropping below 20% of max Morale receive effect: -10% attack duration, +10% melee damage, and +20% Critical and Devastate magnitude for 10s (Same CD as Exalted Combatant).

[Belegwe]

Thanks for clearing that up. The next thing is to actualy talk and allow the feedback. I feel like that wasn't really the case during HD beta.

In my opponion this should also means that our class is placed in perspective to other classes. Currently its fair to say that we are in the bottem in terms of both damage (except for AOE) and survival. Current champ really is a laughable punchbag compared to Mini's/Cappy's and even to itself pre-HD.

~Edhun

Single target damage definitely needs a general boost for both red and blue. As compared to Minis though, champ survivability is way better (more a reflection on Minis losing most all their survivability mechanisms). Actually, if you want survivability as a champ you can run blue line with a good allocation of traits and have an option at survivability while still doing decently good damage (especially once they fix single target damage). Minstrels don't really have that recourse. Sure they can go blue and try to heal themselves through damage but not while laying down any real damage themselves. The only thing keeping Minis alive at all is the damage they do. Our champ damage definitely needs a boost though, no question.

[Kerin_Eldar]

We can talk about them during our implementation and allow time for user feedback.

You just accepted his argument that feedback is worthless, because by your own words here you're only open to 'feedback' once your decision is final and only the small, largely irrelevant details are open for discussion.

Let's face it, the experience of beta after beta after beta shows that large numbers of players giving you exactly the same advice falls on deaf ears, again because the decisions are largely 'final' and you (Turbine, not you individually) won't change your mind.

[Aedfrith]

There's a reason I've played my champ for precisely 2 hours since Helm's Deep.

It's spelled out above.

I'm lucky, I have alts I enjoy playing (hunter and my 2nd main, cappy, in particular). But I pity anyone who post HD has one character and it's a champ, guard or warden.

[Peter_Pan]

There's a reason I've played my champ for precisely 2 hours since Helm's Deep.

It's spelled out above.

I'm lucky, I have alts I enjoy playing (hunter and my 2nd main, cappy, in particular). But I pity anyone who post HD has one character and it's a champ, guard or warden.

I assume you don't like AoE, don't like PvE or just don't realize the Deadly Storm's potential?

While the Berserker is in dire need of a fix, I have found the Deadly Storm to be amazing and had a blast playing with it.

[Aedfrith]

I assume you don't like AoE, don't like PvE or just don't realize the Deadly Storm's potential?

While the Berserker is in dire need of a fix, I have found the Deadly Storm to be amazing and had a blast playing with it.

Yep, yellow is definitely the only line that works at the moment - but I was concentrating on getting other classes (hunter, cappy, minnie, burg) to 95.

[Belegwe]

Truth is, it is not a question of people not liking this role or that role so much as people on most classes feeling their mains have changed so much that they have lost their magic. With alt classes that you don't play as much, the changes may be just as sweeping but because they weren't your main/second main/etc. the adjustment is often a lot less painful. Some day our main classes will be balanced out/fixed/we will have been away from them long enough that through a combination of these 3 factors people will go back to playing them. The only classes I see large groups of people giving up on entirely are minstrels and to a slightly lesser extent wardens (woefully inadequate damage output especially for a class with 2 dps lines).