Champ Level 50 Gear

[Alash]

Our primary goal in LOTRO is to do damage, and lots of it. Most like to think that that's all there is to the Champion, but I've found that we are blessed with the ability to adapt. We can act as a safety net for the fellowship and raid by protecting the more squishy classes, and we can offtank quite well - some of the more experimental players even claim that we can tank as good as any Guardian outside of raids. For each of these approaches comes different choice of armour, weaponry and trait setup, and that's what I'll try to cover in the following. Note that this thread is dedicated to finding the best possible setups, and may not be adequate if you're new to the game, or haven't the time required to get the items mentioned. Before we begin, however, there are a few links that may come in handy.

Trait Compendium: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings_Online_Traits_Compendium
Guide to Choosing Weapons: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=58815

I want to urge everyone reading this to take part in the ongoing discussion, and for that reason I will not explain the choice of armour and traits here, but let following pages of posts do the talking.


Balance build

About this build
This setup is the one you will be using when questing, completing deeds, doing instances, and farming mobs. It's an all-round setup that emphasizes on striking the balance between survival, endurance, and hit power, an excel in its versatility to deal with pretty much anything Turbine throws at you. Being a jack of all trades, you will find situations where a modified version of this setup is better, but those situations won't be covered here; and the difference is marginal at any rate.

Virtues

• Discipline
• Innocence
• Justice
• Loyalty
• Valour

Class Traits

• Eye of the Storm
• Deadly Strikes
• Heavy Shield Use
• Stalwart Blade
• Vicious Strikes

Gear





Tanking build

About this build
As a branch of the class that Turbine has shown increasing interest to, the tanking build is now well known to most players, and respected as a viable secondary focus in most fellowships. The more experimental claim that they can tank everything Shadows of Angmar has to offer, but as a general rule of thumb, you should be able to tank most things that are not raid-oriented. An interesting aspect of the tanking build is that in most instances, tanking isn't needed all of the time, but only when things get rough. As a Champion in disguise, you're able to fill in these gaps by dealing damage, and deploy your versatility to great effect.

Virtues

• Discipline
• Innocence
• Justice
  
• Valour
• Zeal

Class Traits

• At the Ready
• Heavy Shield Use
• Patience
• Stalwart Blade
• Vicious Strikes

Gear (outdated)

[Gainas]

Comment on 'TANK' set up:
I tried to use an heavy shield on my Champion and I can tell you he becomes insanely vulnerable; we do not have any 'shield' skill.
I'd rather focus the Tank set-up on improving Parry/Evade/Common mitigation (then pumping Might and Agility? not sure).

[Alash]

It depend very much on the caliber of the mob you're trying to tank. All mobs in 6-mans (save Mordirith) are easy dual-wield tanked, but when tanking 2000+ hitting mobs I've found that I'm simply not healable without the extra mitigation and avoidance of a shield.

The only problem is maintaining aggro. A way around that is an initial Fervent Rage followed by dual-wielding Ferocious Strikes in Controlled Burn - it usually make a big enough lead in threat to maintain the mob for the rest of the fight. Besides, at the start of combat this build should give you a good 5000+ morale of slack while you're vunerable which in 95% of all tanking situations is more than enough. We are talking about a very rare situation in any case; Champions being main tanks on raid bosses should be a last resort, and as offtanks generating threat fast isn't vital.

[Maermaethor]

Very good. Will use this when my champ reaches lvl 50...

[Herow]

may I add "Dragon Kite Shield Of Fleetness" to the list, its a yellow item but it's stats are actually good against all kinds of damage 532armour, -10ranged, 15might, 15 agility and 15 vitality. And it looks cool too! I use it all the time

[Alash]

Updated the Nuke build by replacing Jewel of Skill and Mirrored Ancient Steel Axe with Warrior's Jewel and Blade, thus gaining 0.3% extra Melee Crit.

It should be said about this build that being so focused on pure DPS it's only useable in few situtations and you'd find yourself running dry of power very quickly if using it for grinding or questing. Only for timed fights like the last phase on Thaurlach can it make a difference.

[VibeS-]

wouldn't Dragon boots be better than mirrored?:S in Nuke build I mean...would make the power problem even worse but would add some nice skills.

[Alash]

Thanks for the heads up. I agree it's a better choice for nuke build, so I've updated it.

[Ghan]

So Ive read on the champion forums that might doesnt increase damage output that much.. I dont know who it was but he said that he didnt notice much difference between 400+ might or 320ish might. Is this true?

Anyone have any idea what brutal strikes, for example would deal on the "Nuke Build" and the "Endurance Build" if all the strikes hit and non of them crit?

[Darkrusher]

Originally Posted by Ghan

So Ive read on the champion forums that might doesnt increase damage output that much.. I dont know who it was but he said that he didnt notice much difference between 400+ might or 320ish might. Is this true?

Anyone have any idea what brutal strikes, for example would deal on the "Nuke Build" and the "Endurance Build" if all the strikes hit and non of them crit?

True, I have recently reached 500 might unbuffed (mostly for fun) and I don't notice much difference since I passed 400. so I will soon change it to get more vitality/agility.