Recovery state - Created for Jinjaah

[RingOfFire]

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

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

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

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

[Thorcar]

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

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

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

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

[mrfigglesworth]

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

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

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



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

[RingOfFire]

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

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

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

[dietlbomb]

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

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

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

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

-Jinjaah

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

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

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

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

[RingOfFire]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[mrfigglesworth]

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

[Mithlanros]

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

[Castorix]

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

You can add Improved Raging Blade in Blue for example.

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

[Anreon]

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

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

[Castorix]

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

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

[Eliahnus]

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

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

[Castorix]

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

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

[Jsmooth73]

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

[Mithlanros]

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

[Mithlanros]

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

[Sapience]

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

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

[Mithlanros]

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

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

[unip0pcorn]

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

[Rainothon]

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

Thanks for the update. I really appreciate it.

[Myrmel]

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

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

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

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

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

[Anreon]

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

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

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

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

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

This.
(text)

[TamX]

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

To bring something back, my first two suggestions are:

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

Some quick suggestions to tweak trait trees could be:

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

- - -

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

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

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

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

- - -

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

[Thorandril]

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

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

[Tullkas]

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