A Casual Stroll to Mordor

This week it took us not one, not two but THREE tries to actually record the “What We Did” segment so please forgive if our hearts are not in it by the time we actually got it recorded!

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Every player has some classes that they play well and others that they find challenging. For me, the Champion definitely falls in the latter category.

Allan “Orion” Maki released today the Developer Diary for Champions for the Rise of Isengard expansion (and boy is it a long one at that).

The Champion has always vexed me a little. When I started the class I was a bit confused as I had thought it to be a whirling deathstorm of blades; hacking its way through orcs, trolls, and any other nasty denizen of Middle-earth that got in my way.

This week we have special guest, Haakon on the podcast. We specifically asked Haakon to come on and discuss the proposed Champion changes Orion is blogging about since we felt we were doing a bad job of explaining it ourselves.

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I have gone through various aspects of building a Champion. I discussed the builds, stats, armor selection, skill sequences, but it occurred to me that I never really spent time discussing how playing a Champion is different from other classes. You can’t really play your Champion like any of the other classes or you will die. A lot.

In a further update to the proposed upcoming changes to Champions, Orion has laid out information about Traits and trait lines for the champions as well as their stances.

He was ordered to clear the camp out and plant a Malledhrim banner on the wall. The Elves plan was to lay in wait in the woods all around and ambush the troops sent here from the other garrisons as they received word of the “attack”.

This week we discuss role-play with the global services merger, proposed changes creep classes, champions and hunters, weekly store sales, coupon code deals and more!

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In the first of a series of blog posts about future class changes, Orion follows up on his earlier preview of the Champion revisions and offers a deeper look at the changes he had previously mentioned.

Orion weighed in today on the Champion Forums stating that Kelsens’ blogs that were posted yesterday are just the beginning…

Morlag of Landroval asks: Why are champs in glory, with a shield and heavy armor, still so much squishier than guards? Is it the guard reactives or some other mechanic I’m missing?

With the release of the new raid armor sets and a few new heavy armor drops I decided to update my Champion Armor Spreadsheet.

The Champions role is melee DPS, both Area of Effect (AOE) and Single Target (ST). This guide will focus on that role, for that reason I will focus on the Fervour stance.

It turned out the crafted items had what I was looking for. Most of the Multi-recipe Malledhrim items have poor stats but have larger special effects. The Malledhrim Gauntlets of the Gloaming have a 15% chance on a hit to give 74.5 morale. And the Malledhrim Hauberk of the Gloaming has a 75% chance to block 23 common damage.

I built this Champion Armor Spreadsheet so that I could optimize my armor selections to suit my tastes. I made it available on the forums to help others answer their questions. I have now updated it again to clean up the formatting, add a few more builds, and to make it available here on Casual Stroll to Mordor.

So Hunters and Captains and Burgs and Champs could now tank instances in their DPS stances. All it took was enough DPS to beat healer agro. For solo bosses, Hunters made excellent Tanks, since they have parry and evade. For instances like Forges or GS, however, there are a lot of trash mobs. It was merely due to class roles that Champions ended up in a position to take over the majority of the tanking burden in early Moria.

My primary goal is to describe a systematic method for attaining high DPS using a 2H weapon for those who might be interested. Maybe you already use a 2H weapon but want to eek more DPS out of it. Maybe you decided to use DW long ago without really taking the time to find out the changes required to optimize a 2H approach, and want to try it out now.

The Champion Roundtable was recorded on November 12, 2010. This episode is with special guest Champions: Elborigorn, Blademartial, Moramoth & Adam.

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By the time I got to the Champion I was just about fed-up with the questing process of 30-40; which was not a good thing considering that I had a few more characters to level

We welcome you to join us on Friday, November 12, 2010 at 9:00pm EST for a discussion all about the Champion class. Joining us in this podcast will be:

If you want to use two-handed weapons but don’t want to use pets, which class is best for you? Continue Reading to find out.

We didn’t really do much this week. Both our alts are stuck in the high 30s and are having difficulty finding content we’re able to complete.

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