The Champion is the mightiest of all the classes, and what it lacks in modesty it makes up for in ego, and I think we can all agree that that's a good thing.
OVERVIEW
Primarily, the champion is a melee DPS person. a hunter might try and tell you that they're the best DPSer as they can kill enemies at range saving time, but you're not going to be able to hear them over all the SHING SHING and dying mobs.
While predominantly DPS, there are three specific lines you can take to achieve your ends, these are;
The Beserker: OP single target DPS
The Deadly Storm: OP AOE DPS
The Martial Champion: OP Tank with DPSing
The trait line you choose is mostly up to you, most Champs prefer one traitline over the other and will happily shout you down if you try and claim that another is superior. All Champs are right though, because they're Champs.
what follows is a general outline of what to expect from a certain line and how best to tailor it to a certain situation. With the new system you can dip into different trees to gain amount of what makes that line OP to make you a little more OP than you already were.
The Berserker
Berserkers excel at single target DPS, traiting into the Berserker line will give you several really powerful single target skills, the traits will also increase your crit chance and give you fervour in the face of an enemies defeat. They also have Continuous Blood Rage which turns you into a demigod, but damages you in turn.
Legendary legacies to go with the trait line would be those that increase the power of strike line skills, specifically Remorseless strike, and critical hit ones.
The downside of the berserker line is a lack of AOE so if you're in a room with dozens of enemies, you're going to have to cut them down one by one, which can be a pain. Also, being a champion generally means you're going to be spending a lot of time within melee range of enemies. Your heavy armour and ego will protect you a lot of the way so you can feel free to pop continuous blood rage and chop away, but it's good to be wary that a champion's tactical mitigation is it's Achilles Heel, and if you set on fire there's a good chance you're going to die without a friendly healer around.
The Deadly Storm
AKA: Blender mode.
The Deadly storm line has less DPS against a single target, but in trade off gives you a wide range of AOE skills. When heavily traited, a Deadly Storm champ will be able to singlehandedly clear out entire rooms of dozens of mobs singlehandedly thanks to their OP AOE. One skill in particular has no max targets and is capable of almost one-shotting an on level opponent.
Legendary legacies to go for are ones increasing AOE and crit, also the battle frenzy cooldown legacy that turns the skill into a joke. They once changed second wind as it was basically a skill you had to hit every so often to keep it on, and now they've made that skill exactly the same, if you don't have it on, you're going to die so you have to mash it every 45 seconds... Anyway, I digress.
Downsides of The Deadly Storm are that all the other classes will call you OP and tell you you need to be nerfed. It also leads to delusions of grandeur as it's hard to not cackle when you're standing on the corpses of dozens of enemies in school while your allies are yet to finish putting out the bookstands. It also, like berserker, leaves you a little bit squishy, you can no longer rely on bubbles for comfort so you have to be a little careful.
The Martial Champion
I haven't experimented much with this traitline since the change so I'll have to come back and edit this later, but generally it will make you immortal at the cost of not being able to do as much DPS. It's predominantly used for chanking, but can also be good for if you're feeling a bit squishy while out in the wild.
Legendary legacies include ones that increase your aggro generation and also ones to increase self healing and preservation.
The downside as I said is that DPS is lower, but generally you'll be in a position of tanking so you can let lesser mortals do your DPS for you.
The Champ’s role in a group
In 90% of situations, the champ will be around for their DPS skills. In many instances it’s best to run in Berserker and to follow fairly close behind the tank. You should make sure you’re standing behind the mobs, incase they have frontal aoe skills like a lot of mobs do. Standing in front means healers have to do work, and they get cranky and yell then stop healing, and rule 1 of LOTRO is, do not annoy your healer.
Rule 2 coincidentally is do not annoy your tank. A bad champ can do this in two ways, one is to get carried away and charge into battle before the tank is ready. Unless you’ve got a really nice tank with you, odds are they won’t help you out and will just leave you to die at the hands of the mobs. The other way is by stealing aggro and keeping it. Champs often have OP DPS, and tanks often have a hard time keeping up. The thing to remember is that even though you think it is an achievement for stealing a tanks aggro (which it totally is. /highfive) it annoys the tank no end, and an annoyed tank is likely to just walk off and let you keep aggro, and because you’re rocking in berserker mode, and have used CBR you’re soon to be dead.
Summary
So the key to being a good champ is to make sure you’re traited right for the task at hand, make sure you’re standing in the right spot and then SHING SHING away.
PS, every champ loves to get into the whole 2H 1H debate, I’m not here as it’s meaningless. Choose whatever feels best for you then let everyone else use what they’re using. Unless it’s a 2H weapon of course, because they’re rubbish.
