Middle-earth Feedback: Champion Revisited

In Book 12: The Ashen Wastes, were addressing some of your feedback about the Champion class. While not as involved as a full-on Month of update, a Champion wont want to miss the dev diary about the latest update to their class!

Read the dev diary, then post your comments below!

Ardour - The penalty to Parry and Evade is 50% at level 50. The penalty is higher at lower levels up to 75% at level 10.

Eldar's Grace will no longer stack with Sudden Defense. This is a side effect of allowing Eldar's Grace to automatically suppress the effects of Fervour and Ardour.

Let Fly - the modifications to this skill were changed after the Dev Diary was submitted. Instead of the increase in range, Let Fly's induction time has been halved and the damage increased. The skill will now also turn on auto-attack. This change has no effect on Hunter's as far as I know.

Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange replace the underlying skills when in the appropriate stance. They have to be used just like any other skills to get their benefits. The base effects for Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange include the bonuses from traits at no cost.

Hedge only protects the Champion that used it from Disarm. Champions are not healers.

Hedge's de-taunt was never of sufficient magnitude to have much effect. Re-purposing the skill will not have a noticeable effect on the Champion's abillity to shed aggro especially with the improvements to the Ire skills.

Rising and Ebbing Ire still share the same timer.

The penalty to Parry and Evade for Ardour comes in at the end after all other modifiers.

There are no changes to runes and horns in this Book but we are looking at class items across the board for future updates.

Fight On has always been an AoE power drain. The amount of power drained was not sufficent to make it a Legendary skill which is why it got all the added effects.

Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange are powered by a defeat event instead of Fervour pips. They cost the same amount of power as the underlying skill.

There are no stance limitations on when Second Wind can be used.

Hedge can be used while not Disarmed to apply the short duration immunity to Disarm.

There are some technical issues with getting Merciful Strike and Fighting Dirty to light up only when they are applicable. It is something we looked at but it just wasn't feasible. We are aware of the difficulty of using these skills and are continuing to work on a solution.

Sudden Defense/Eldar's Grace suppresses almost all of the effects of Fervour/Ardour, damage bonus, power regeneration and the defensive penalties. Only pip regen will still be working. The Dev Diary is a little unclear.

Second Wind restores 70ish power at level 14 to 200ish power at level 50.

Heroics power cost was reduced to 30% (from 50%). The amount of power restored to fellowship characters nearly doubled.

Ah, the wonders of percentages for everything. Gildhur has it correct. The Parry/Evade penalties for Ardour are multiplicative. 14% Parry becomese 7% Parry at Level 50.

Gildhur has the use of Ire skills correct. [Snarky comment deleted]

The normal versions of these skills are not available in their associated stance. They can only be activated upon a defeat event. You give up the ability to activate these skills at will for the indefinite duration of the new skill.