Gonna, write something about the champions, THE REAL CORE of the fellowships
Copy-pasted from the MIck article and changed it more suitable for champions

Marlon Harefield, a champion of Bree-land, , at your service.

I´ve reached level 50 about a month ago and don´t have the same experience about the game in general as Mick has. But I´m better player in any other way than he is
So these thoughts of mine are based on my own experinces and should NOT be concidered as the only truth.



Attributes. To put it plane and simple, no attribute should be overlooked with a champion either, with the exepction of Fate. Can´t really find that one uselful in any way to the champions. (maybe for soloing ones, because of the out-of combat morale regen) . Vitality ain´t that important either, at least for champions who enjoy the benefits of fellowship-questing. For soloing champions vitality is an attribute that shouldn´t be too much overlooked.
In my opinnion the most important attributes for champion are might and will. Might causes you to make some serious constant damage, which is at the end of the day, the main purpouse for the champions existance. Will on the other hand increases champions maximum power, which is very important thing. A champion who´s power has run out in a battle is as important as christmas tree in the summertime. Agility, of course, increases champions chances to deal critical hits. One might want to think wether it is better to hit hard with most of his hits (might) or get some critical hits now and then (agility). I myself have concentrated mainly on might. Will and Agilty come second and vitality the third. I have overlooked fate totally.


Gear. Naturally heavy armour is the armour class for the champions. But once again, for the champions constantly doing fellowships with guardians in them, one might want to think the importance of the stats of armour instead of the armour value. So if you have to choose between medium armour gloves with far better attribute stats and heavy armour ones with higher armour value but lower stats, you should really think of choosing the first one.
The ideal situation naturally is to find heavy armour gear with good stats.

Weapon. I´m not that familiar with the different damage types and stuff like that. But one thing I can and will poin out.
Dual wielding is the thing for the champions. Definately. Some of the skills Champions acquires at the mid- and high levels are uselful only with dual wield. At the lower levels it´s a matter of personal taste wether you use dual wield or 2-h weapon. Naturally 2 x 1h-weapon gives better attribute stats though.


Virtues. As Mick already mentioned in his Captain topic this really is a matter of personal taste. Naturally it would be nice to go with the ones giving bonuses to the right attributes.


Class traits. This really depends wether you are up for AOEing or just dealing major single hits. AS above matter of taste really.


Legendary traits. Haven´t completed the Champion quests yet, so can´t say too much about those traits yet. Though the controlling burn-trait appears to increase damage and power recovery, which is always welcome.
As for the traits acquired from the books, only one of them is useful. Fericious strikes it is called. The other two seem to be pure and simple rubbish.



Tactics. Nothing special in here really. Though one might want to keep in mind that Champion really CANNOT stand that much damage as guardians do. So think it over very carefully wether you want to attack more than 2 mobs at the time. As champions crowd-control skills are next to non-existant, a brave champion charging alone in the middle of crowd of mobs is a dead champion in many cases. 2 mobs of the same level as champion should cause no signifcant problems let alone 1.
Champion has 6 different single attack skills (5, depending on the traits) Champion doesn´t deal the biggest damage with his first, second or not even with third of his blows. So don´t get impantient and smack the foes with the skills dealing the lesser damage.
There is this thing called fervour (This could be compared to Rage in WOW). There more Champion gets excited in the heat of the battle, the more powerful blows he is able to deal. So don´t go waisting all of the fervour on lower damage blows.( 2 lowest ones, Wild Attack and Swift Strike, in fact add the fervour, so keep hitting with them untill the fervour goes up.) Let it grow and enjoy the reasults.


In the fellowships, champion is usually the main-assist and the main damage dealer. Champion can act as emergency tank aswell, but even though champion has quite good variety of aggro-management skills it isn´t wise to act as the main tank. First of all the impressive amount of damage the champion is capable of dealing goes all to waste while tanking and secondly and more importantly, champions cannot stand that much damage compared to guardians. Champion is very usable in kicking the shit out of adds while Guardian is keeping the boss busy. And thus keeping the minstrel´s arse unspoilled. But in general keeping the minstrel safe isn´t the main task for champion. Once again the full benefit of champions damage dealing goes to waste in doing this. There are better classes for protecting the Minstrel.
AOE´ing in fellowships is advicable only while dealing with normal mobs. When elites or such are concerned AOE´ing is something that is DEFINATELY out of the question. A hot headed warrior swinging his AOE-skills around while surrounded by elite mobs is the second easiest way of getting the entire fellowship dead. Can´t even be bothered to explain why, but if you are interested in finding the reason, go ahead try it out. Just don´t say you weren´t warned. (oh, the easiest way? didn´t you quess already? AOE´ing hunter, ring any bells? )

Yea. Quite an experience yesterday. Prime example why main assist (MA) is so important.

The hunter said when we started that he had been in vacation for the last 3 months, not playing. Maybe that should have told us something. I don't wanna bash all hunters, cause not all are the same, but if you wanna ruin it for the group... that's the way to go. Executing solo-tactics in fellowship.

I don't wanna seem like I know everything (which I of course do), but the tank too was a bit lost. Pulling constantly with the bow was a bad choise in my opinion. I cannot stress this enough.. a tank needs to get the aggro of all mobs. He just has to trust that he will be healed. The concentrated DPS will pull the one mob away, but only the one. Rain of Arrows and other AoE ruins it all. 100 % certain.

When the tank is trying to get all aggro, others should even wait the couple of seconds for him to get the aggro. If you're not familiar with these tactics, it seems stupid, I know. But there is a point: organizing what otherwise is a chaos. There are few things more annoying than for the hunter (or anyone else for that matter), to shoot as many mobs as they can with high damage. Mobs run past the tank... and control is gone.

Like it says in the forums and elsewhere with in more detail.. tank aggroes everything, minstrel heals tank, MA (usually the champion) organizes the killing-order, everyone else assist MA. Yes, there is crowd control and other responsibilities too, but in a nutshell, that's it.

I don't wanna sound like a kiss-ass here, but Taera is one of the best minstrels out there. Focus in healing. Know your role.

Marlon wrote:

One thing though that is essential when targeting is concerned, is the communication between the stunners and the champion

And communication in general. Between the tank and the stunners is highly important too. Marlon already explained the squashing-order there... the stunners should stun the strongest (or ranged) mobs, and MA should start from the weakest (or ranged) mobs. Tank keeps all others in his grasp. TALK TALK TALK!

_________________
Playing Lotro is like making love to a beautiful woman; you enter with the state of mind that patience and determination are the virtues here, but after some ferocious efforts you realize that the time spent has been in vain.

Not wanting to do the old compare to the unmentionable game, but I remember Marlon saying, when he was like level 30ish, something like: "this game is easier than WoW, in the sense that people don't have to do a flawless job to be succesful in group play".

Still thinking like that?
Dying 10 times in one day really takes it out of ya.

For the record, I never played WoW. So I can't compare.

Have to agree about the player base. Yesterday when I tried to explain to the fellowship what the goal and the tactics should be, I at the same time realized that I probably come off like a know-it-all dick.

I don't like to tell people how they should play their character, especially because I haven't played any other char than the capt, but I felt it would be better to try advise them a little than to continue the smackdown we were getting. And I think it got a little better towards the end.

Being a guardian myself, it isn't quite my class forum area, but after reading this I'd like to comment a little:

Mick wrote:

Like it says in the forums and elsewhere with in more detail.. tank aggroes everything, minstrel heals tank, MA (usually the champion) organizes the killing-order, everyone else assist MA. Yes, there is crowd control and other responsibilities too, but in a nutshell, that's it.

Undoubtely, Mick is right in this, and I happily throw myself on all the bosses upfront (with a healer in my back, please!) while others care for the lesser mobs. But often people seem to think that their DPS (at which a guardian lacks heavily) count more than the durability of the tank (which obviously is what the guardian is designed for). I especially like the idea of the group to wait a few seconds before taking any actions to allow me to gather up some aggro - it's perfect teamwork, though it surely feels odd at first.

Sadly, I often faced the above described mess of (random) fellowship members pulling off mobs from me, so I'd start to run around helplessly to get a smack in at all - what a silly feeling that is, especially knowing that most often it's time to run soon (if you can). The usual reasons for group failures are over-dpsing the tank or shooting random targets. Yet, I have the hope that these kinda problems are mainly due to the 30'ish level I am at, and therefore most players not being experienced in teamwork since it only started to be required rather few levels ago. People seem to have to get used to it, after getting to this level mostly solo.

But there's another most important thing to know about guardians: Most of their special attacks that draw aggro, do somewhat useful damage, stun or recover power, only get enabled after blocking/parrying, so it is most important to have plenty of mobs bashing the guardian for "working" at maximum efficiency.

Besides, at least seeing players at my currently 30'ish level, I learnt to not trust a random healer blindly and found that my way of going for a maximum in-combat regeneration saved my life many times, as it makes a huge difference in longer battles. (And in short battles nobody requires a tank anyways). With such "base healing" I usually am happy doing red mobs with "only" a secondary healer as teampartner, and I only can recommend this kinda setup for tanking, while I consider Might and Vitality as second important attributes on my equipment.

i always find that when im in a group i always end up as the back up tank incase the guardian is defeated (rare as that is)

Of course what Mick says is correct, but there's also another scenario possible, e.g. in a group with a "spare" champion.

This one could easily work as off-tank, aka pulling away a few lesser mobs from the main tank or the softies, incase there's just too many of them for a single tank. (Possibly this was ment with "backup tank").

Since a champion uses heavy armor, with a proper healer in the back, he/she can tank quite okay in average situations. Especially seeing the nice damage amount this is great for crowds of lesser foes. But the lack of a shield and defensive ability will not make a champion last long in tough situations.