Thread: How Surviveable is a champ?

ok so....first, to start it off.

I had a warden, got it to near 50...not really digging it anymore(and not just because of the nerfs)

so I rolled me a guardian, because I wanted something in heavy armor that could use a bow, and I wanted something that would like....very rarely die in solo combat.(I don't like being squishy.)

So It's at lvl 23..and I ran a GB maze(mind you I'm pretty well geared for this level) and yet....I was out-lived and out-tanked by the champion who was only a level or two above me on the team...

Now I know champ DPS is significantly higher than anything a guard will be doing ordinarily, and I know they use heavy armor...

but I guess my questions are

1.) is their ranged DPS higher as well?
2.) how surviveable are they in solo content? I mean like...do they have skills that restore their own health? and are they even slightly as risilient as a guardian?(I don't want to roll a champion and end up dying every 5 minutes while doing solo skirms and fighting yellows/oranges.)

Both champs and guards only use a bow for pulling and for the stats. "Ranged DPS" is a foreign and meaningless concept.

Champs can be very resilient with proper cooldown use. You'll take more damage than a guardian, but you'll kill much faster too, and you have both health and power restores that keep solo downtime to a minimum.

Champ DPS and AOE offset lower toughness. When facing multiple mobs, the champ shines and usually lives. It is the only toon I have that has survived and prosperd in several tougher upper level solo quests. At upper levels, champs can put out waves of damage while maintaining health and power pretty well. I'd go as a human to exploit the racial 2 to 3 K morale restoration trait.

Originally Posted by Lowana

Both champs and guards only use a bow for pulling and for the stats. "Ranged DPS" is a foreign and meaningless concept.

Guards can also use crossbows. But yeah the ranged is meaningless and we only need equip ranged tools that have good alternative stats. Don't worry about dps there at all.

To the OP:
1.) is their ranged DPS higher as well?
-- Nope

2.) how surviveable are they in solo content? I mean like...do they have skills that restore their own health? and are they even slightly as risilient as a guardian?(I don't want to roll a champion and end up dying every 5 minutes while doing solo skirms and fighting yellows/oranges.)
-- Very survivable if the skills are learned well, even after the recent loss of all champ shields. Yes, a couple moral restoring skills there; one short cooldown and one long cooldown.
-- The guard will always be more resilient during long fights, but a champ can hold attention well for brief periods in a group.
Difference here is champs will put out more damage and down their target faster, but a guard will last longer over time.

It's possible that the champ in your group example was:
(a). Putting out more damage than you could take threat away from with your skills. Depends on the players knowing their skills here so can't answer specific to the situation. A guard should always be able to eventually hold agro for the long term against a champ even two levels above.
(b). Using a champ skill of 'Champion's Challenge' to knowingly pull threat away from you for whatever reason. This is a huge single target threat gain and will pull a target away from anyone usually.

Depend are u smart or not so smart build.

Majority of champs go max dps and might stat and thats why they fail in beeing survivors, meaning raid/pvmp builds require everything not only dps and might stat. Champs should have 9k mitigations and 900+ vitality no matter how other stats are high if they want to survive.

You can be lvl75 champion with 6k moral and runing around, thats 2 hit job with stronger enemies.

So answer lies in champion build, check athelious if u looking for survivor build for example.

tl;dr: sounds like you want a Burglar

If you want ranged combat then you're going to need to go for a Runekeeper or a Hunter, because everyone else sucks at it. However, if you just want to be pretty darn survivable in one-on-one combat, then I'd suggest a Burglar; I've rolled a Champion to 65, a Warden to 65, and a Burglar to 55, and out of those the Burglar is the best at one-on-one combat. The reason he does so well is that he can block/parry/evade very regularly (and can cause three enemies in AoE range to permanently suffer a 20% accuracy penalty throughout the fight), he can perma-stun one mob whilst still having tens of seconds worth of stuns for a second mob, he has a tonne of 'OH SH--" panic buttons that can genuinely turn a losing battle (+50% chance to evade for 30s etc), he can self heal (reliable 20% heal every thirty seconds, unreliable 60% heal every minutes - sounds pretty poor, but you're not going to be getting hit very often), and he can do all of this whilst still putting out insane DPS (I generally kill on-level mobs in five to ten seconds without blowing cooldowns, three or four hits with one and two minute cooldowns used). I've taken down so many elites on him (up to +3) that I've lost count. It's a great solo character. It's also useful in raids for putting out two or three fellowship manoeuvres per five minutes, mezzing, DPS, and debuffing.

Don't bother with being sneaky either, if that's not your style - I never use stealth. I find the Burglar to be a nice mix between the Warden and the Champion: the Warden has (had) brilliant survivability, but poor damage, and the Champion has brilliant damage, but poor survivability. I was a relatively decent Champion, but I couldn't get through solo battles with elites etc without blowing absolutely all of my major cooldowns and using pots, so if you intend to solo a lot then I'd suggest a Burglar.

I'm sure I'll get masses of raging Champions telling me how wrong I am, how I need to L2P, how I wasn't 'built right' (because there's that one build that gives reliable B/P/E, self heals, mezzes, and panic buttons, right? /sarcasm), but after two years of playing a Champion I still couldn't get it to a state where it could reliably take down elites or handle enough on-level minions to utilize its AoE. I know that there are users like Athelious, but these people are the epitome of the class, so they oughtn't be used as reliable examples of how most players will be able to handle that class.

If you're looking to gain damage in exchange for survivability, then go Champion. If you're looking to gain survivability in exchange for damage, then go Guardian. If you're looking for a happy middle, then go Burglar.

That's my two pence... Now I await the inevitable flamewar.

Originally Posted by zrinko

Depend are u smart or not so smart build.

Majority of champs go max dps and might stat and thats why they fail in beeing survivors, meaning raid/pvmp builds require everything not only dps and might stat. Champs should have 9k mitigations and 900+ vitality no matter how other stats are high if they want to survive.

You can be lvl75 champion with 6k moral and runing around, thats 2 hit job with stronger enemies.

So answer lies in champion build, check athelious if u looking for survivor build for example.

That is just not true. I run with 5.5 k morale (550ish Vit) in my dps build and I dont remember when I died in a raid last time. When I trait blue and change gear (around 11k morale/1200ish Vit and 8+k mitigations) my survivability goes through the roof but my dps drops to the basement.

It all depends on what you are doing, but PvE works fine both ways. Just play smart is all.

Originally Posted by BGH122

I'm sure I'll get masses of raging Champions telling me how wrong I am, how I need to L2P, how I wasn't 'built right' (because there's that one build that gives reliable B/P/E, self heals, mezzes, and panic buttons, right? /sarcasm), but after two years of playing a Champion I still couldn't get it to a state where it could reliably take down elites or handle enough on-level minions to utilize its AoE. I know that there are users like Athelious, but these people are the epitome of the class, so they oughtn't be used as reliable examples of how most players will be able to handle that class.

No flame, but with RoI we actually got B/P/E and more than one panic button in Glory. I suggest you try traiting deep blue and swapping some gear around; you might find that after bit of a practice you can reliably take down more than 1 elite.

I am far from Athelious caliber and I was never very attracted to outstanding solo enterprises. Lately I was in need of relics and ixp runes and didnt feel like waiting/gathering, so I went to see how far I can go with solo STH. To my big surprise I waltzed through without ever dropping under 75% morale.
If I can do it then most certainly 99% of champions can do it as well.

Originally Posted by BGH122

If you're looking to gain damage in exchange for survivability, then go Champion.

You should probably play post-ROI if you're going to say that. I don't think you're presenting a current, accurate picture of the class to the OP. You can't super max out your might to the exclusion of all other stats and still have maximum survivability, but even then the class is tougher than pre-ROI due to bubbles alone.

Enough to be able to blast the s@@t out of his opponents within seconds and/or terrorize howling wargies @ Ettenmoors.

Originally Posted by erikave

You should probably play post-ROI if you're going to say that. I don't think you're presenting a current, accurate picture of the class to the OP. You can't super max out your might to the exclusion of all other stats and still have maximum survivability, but even then the class is tougher than pre-ROI due to bubbles alone.

Oh okay, maybe I'm out of date (given that I last played a champ in the last expansion). I know that they've become very, very good in PvPMP, but I basically ignore that aspect of the game unless someone specifically wants a class for that. Are they genuinely better in PvE, or are their new moves just more Controlled Burns i.e. great for the one time per ridiculous cooldown you actually get to use them? Do they now have sustainable heals and avoidances (B/P/E etc), without laughably gimping attack? Are they no longer entirely gear reliant?

These aren't rhetorical questions, I genuinely want to know.

Originally Posted by Reavier

So It's at lvl 23..and I ran a GB maze(mind you I'm pretty well geared for this level) and yet....I was out-lived and out-tanked by the champion who was only a level or two above me on the team...

A level or two can make a hell of a lot of difference at that level, especially if mobs were yellow to you and blue to the champ. Also, unless things have really changed since the last time I brought a lowbie up, GRD sucks at that level. They're decently tough, but have dick all for reliable aggro-generating skills. It will get better later.

For solo work, survivability <=> killspeed is sort of a sliding scale, and depending on how they're built and played, both GRD and CHN can cover most of it. The real question is which playstyle do you enjoy more? If you're on the fence, I'd recommend taking both classes to L40 or so, running them in as many situations as you can (those are perfect Dol Dinen/Fornost levels...) and seeing which class you prefer.

Originally Posted by CFury

No flame, but with RoI we actually got B/P/E and more than one panic button in Glory. I suggest you try traiting deep blue and swapping some gear around; you might find that after bit of a practice you can reliably take down more than 1 elite.

I am far from Athelious caliber and I was never very attracted to outstanding solo enterprises. Lately I was in need of relics and ixp runes and didnt feel like waiting/gathering, so I went to see how far I can go with solo STH. To my big surprise I waltzed through without ever dropping under 75% morale.
If I can do it then most certainly 99% of champions can do it as well.

Oh, okay. I suppose I'll give it a try.

Unfortunately, Glory now sounds horribly overpowered in both PvMP and PvE, so I foresee a big nerf awaiting it. I mean, seriously, massive fervour generation plus B/P/E?! That's obviously going to be nerf bait.

Originally Posted by BGH122

Oh, okay. I suppose I'll give it a try.

Unfortunately, Glory now sounds horribly overpowered in both PvMP and PvE, so I foresee a big nerf awaiting it. I mean, seriously, massive fervour generation plus B/P/E?! That's obviously going to be nerf bait.

I guess it's problematic in one-on-one PvMP, but to effectively tank in Glory you have to use a lot of survival abilities that lower your actual DPS by quite a bit. Effective Glory Tanking is gated more my cooldowns/gcds/limited snap agro than by Fervour Generation or Power now.

We have a lot of pips in Glory, but we need them to stay alive rather than to just pump out DPS.

Effective Glory champs are still entirely reliant on gear. They put out the least DPS of all the stances, because they use up the maximum amount of fervour pips generated (5 at a time) for survival skills and threat-generating AoEs. They need to have a decent skill rotation just to minimally approach the survivability of a guard. Approach, being the key word, and not even be on par - guards still have better mitigations than any other class.

Champs are nowhere near as overpowered as some people have been trying to claim.

Originally Posted by BGH122

Oh, okay. I suppose I'll give it a try.

Unfortunately, Glory now sounds horribly overpowered in both PvMP and PvE, so I foresee a big nerf awaiting it. I mean, seriously, massive fervour generation plus B/P/E?! That's obviously going to be nerf bait.

I suggest you try it and see for yourself. It is far from overpowered.

Just try and see what exactly you have to use to stay alive, how often and how many pips it cost you. Plus compare your damage output and see how often you can actually use any damage dealing skills in "survival mode". I believe an average OP guard is mile in front of us dps wise in such case while easily maintaining the same and even higher survivability.

I will not even try to talk about threat generation in fast paced multi mobs situations. I am still at loss when a hunter pulls 1, RK second one and even LM a third elite capable of oneshotting them, while 4th is heading for a healer - I have no idea how to pick up and gather all of them at once.

Glory is nice for soloing, not OP but nice. As far as tanking anything but single boss goes I think its sadly lacking still.

Don't roll a champion if you don't want to die!
Champs have awesome surv, but nothing compared to guardians or wardens.

Most depends on you, but I think you'll enjoy a guardian or warden more than a champion if you are looking for a strong undefeatable class.

My 50copper there.

PS: there's no fun in a champion who doesn't die :P

Originally Posted by Reavier

ok so....first, to start it off.

I had a warden, got it to near 50...not really digging it anymore(and not just because of the nerfs)

so I rolled me a guardian, because I wanted something in heavy armor that could use a bow, and I wanted something that would like....very rarely die in solo combat.(I don't like being squishy.)

So It's at lvl 23..and I ran a GB maze(mind you I'm pretty well geared for this level) and yet....I was out-lived and out-tanked by the champion who was only a level or two above me on the team...

That is because they healed him and thought you'll be fine. Or a much more experienced player.

Originally Posted by Reavier

Now I know champ DPS is significantly higher than anything a guard will be doing ordinarily, and I know they use heavy armor...

but I guess my questions are

1.) is their ranged DPS higher as well?

I don't recall offhand whether agility still boosts range damage. But in general, although weapon and skill are the same, the Champ can put out more damage since people will pile up stats more useful for range combat. Will still be useless, though.

Also, crossbow, which only Guards can use, have different characteristic which might turn out useful for you.

Originally Posted by Reavier

2.) how surviveable are they in solo content? I mean like...do they have skills that restore their own health? and are they even slightly as risilient as a guardian?(I don't want to roll a champion and end up dying every 5 minutes while doing solo skirms and fighting yellows/oranges.)

No.

A guard can between reducing damage through mitigation and through self-heals draw out fights with single superior mobs almost indefinitely. The drawn out slower fight with less damage also means that cooldowns are through more often. Think about it, if the guard battles the guy for 6 minutes and the champ for 3 minutes then the self-heal potion comes up twice as often in the fight.

The horn isn't going to cut it

If your idea of leveling is constantly messing with red mobs the champ isn't very good. It got better in RoI.

In general the Champ goes by paying for the repair bills with the superior amounts of loot gathered from white mobs

Originally Posted by Darmokk

In general the Champ goes by paying for the repair bills with the superior amounts of loot gathered from white mobs

See, this was my experience of a Champion, even at 65.

I'd cut through simple melee white con minions like a knife through butter, but when it came to anything even slightly harder than that then I'd have to blow all my big cooldowns (and I mean big, like manheal) to stay standing. With a Burglar, even against elite mobs with triple my morale, I usually get through without blowing my manheal or Ready and Able (full cooldown reset skill, thirty minute cooldown).

At lvl 66 was able to simultaneously take on 6 lvl 67 boars and needed to use no heals or bubbles or any other form of 'emergency' skill, just a standard dps rotation. I could also take on 3 lvl 72 orcs with similar criteria (may have used a pot in some situations).

At lvl 75 I can now routinely take on 5 lvl 74/75 with no need of heals bubbles etc and up to 8-10 if I use true heroics.

I can solo small fellowship skirmishes with my herbalist and it only takes marginally longer then the solo variant. ie there's no need to kite or do specific pulls. It's just straight out aggro everyone and spam aoes.

A champs survivability comes from dps. Kill them before they can kill you and no class can come close to a champs dps.


The only difficulty comes when facing enemies with excessive morale. 40, 50, 100k +. For these you will probably need to trait some blue and use glory and is probably a champs biggest weakness.

Originally Posted by Reavier

1.) is their ranged DPS higher as well?
2.) how surviveable are they in solo content? I mean like...do they have skills that restore their own health? and are they even slightly as risilient as a guardian?(I don't want to roll a champion and end up dying every 5 minutes while doing solo skirms and fighting yellows/oranges.)

Too answer your 2 questions.
1. Guards and champs have exactly the same ranged skill. But seriously this is unimportant. Today doing a some solo, some 3 man 6 man a few raids I clocked up 5.5million damage. Only about 15k of that was from my bow it's next to pointless.
2. As above, there's very little to be worried about if you're geared well. we have 2 bubbles which give temporary morale, 1 big heal, 1 small heal, but as mentioned champs are not about outlasting the enemy, they're about killing them before they kill you (similar result, different mentality).

Jesus, sounds like I need to start playing my champion again.

I'll go give him a run now.

EDIT: HOLY SHI-! What the heck did they do to Champions?!

I remember the two years I spent desperately trying to take down two enemies at once, painfully watching my morale drop down to perilous levels whilst awaiting my epic recharge Bracing Attack... What the heck did they just do to Champions?!

Now my Bracing Attack heals for a proper heal, and does so every twenty seconds. My Glory stance is actually more effective than my Fervour stance. My Second Wind continuously buffs up my power. If I aggro too many foes, I just pop a bubble in Sudden Defense which doubles my morale, and doesn't deplete my normal morale when it goes.

I just ran two skirmishes that I remember dying on continuously, and took down five on-level enemies in less than thirty seconds, including a lieutenant, and ended the fight with above medium morale and power.

Champions now kick serious ####; disregard all my Champion hate throughout the thread, because it seems that my two years of Champion playing may as well have been a different class with all the changes now made to Champions. In Glory mode, I B/P/E effectively, always have maximum fervour, can actually deal proper AoE damage without just getting squished, and can hold aggro properly.

Thank God my 65 Champion is now worth playing - it no longer feels like two wasted years. Devs, please don't nerf champions because of whining in PvP; my Champion is finally properly playable outside of Controlled Burn.

To the OP - I have a champ and a guard. I gave up on the guard. I am still leveling up my champ. The champ was way better and more fun. The guard was survivable. My champ died more than the guard but not significantly more. I was actually surprised from the start that I survived fairly well. After ROI things have only just gotten better.

if you don't want to die go guard. If you want what I consider to be a fun experience as a "hero" go champ, plain and simple.

I just did the quests to get all the fem gear. I was lvl 38 doing lvl 43 red quests. I didnt die once , not because the champ is op but because it forces you to pay attention and know which skill to use and when to use them. I Like that you can't just mash a I WIN button. You actually have to plan your attacks and pay attention to what you are doing. I have similar lvl cappy, LM ,burg and the Champ is the only one that holds my interest. It comes down to your games style and what will make you happy when you are playing.
Have a great time in Middle Earth Mate!!

CHEERS!!!

Originally Posted by BGH122

Jesus, sounds like I need to start playing my champion again.

I'll go give him a run now.

EDIT: HOLY SHI-! What the heck did they do to Champions?!

I remember the two years I spent desperately trying to take down two enemies at once, painfully watching my morale drop down to perilous levels whilst awaiting my epic recharge Bracing Attack... What the heck did they just do to Champions?!

Now my Bracing Attack heals for a proper heal, and does so every twenty seconds. My Glory stance is actually more effective than my Fervour stance. My Second Wind continuously buffs up my power. If I aggro too many foes, I just pop a bubble in Sudden Defense which doubles my morale, and doesn't deplete my normal morale when it goes.

I just ran two skirmishes that I remember dying on continuously, and took down five on-level enemies in less than thirty seconds, including a lieutenant, and ended the fight with above medium morale and power.

Champions now kick serious ####; disregard all my Champion hate throughout the thread, because it seems that my two years of Champion playing may as well have been a different class with all the changes now made to Champions. In Glory mode, I B/P/E effectively, always have maximum fervour, can actually deal proper AoE damage without just getting squished, and can hold aggro properly.

Thank God my 65 Champion is now worth playing - it no longer feels like two wasted years. Devs, please don't nerf champions because of whining in PvP; my Champion is finally properly playable outside of Controlled Burn.

Champs are now a(n even more) fun class to play. The cynical side of me is screaming that this means an upcoming nerf and more major changes. I hope this doesn't happen. I haven't hit endgame, I'm currently 54 in Moria, but I'm loving it. As for the PVPers...

"Paper fine, rock OP. Plz nerf, so unbalanced." -Scissors

It really depends on how you build your champ. Champs are capable of huge single target damage by 'red traiting' - especially since the removal of stat caps (though you will only benefit from this end-game), as you can eventually boost your outgoing melee to around 20,000. Even at lower levels, however, champs can do steady, high damage and handle 2 -3 mobs at a time damage traited (especially with a couple of 'yellow' traits in there to help your AOE, thus increasing the damage you can deal to multiple mobs simultaneously), though you will take damage yourself if facing this number of mobs (especially in fervour stance, where you gain a damage boost but are unable to block/parry/evade).

Conversely, champs can 'trait blue', and stack morale and really make the most of their defensive skills, as well as the huge benefit of a more frequent bracing attack (self-heal) with the relevant trait (a legendary weapon legacy later in the game increases this heal). However, when I levelled my champ, they could slot heavy sheilds and you could use equipment to increase block; now this is no longer possible, I am unsure of the survivability of a lower level champ, as shields were a must if you were tanking a tough mob, unless you had a compotent healer. You can still parry and evade though, and the versatility of switching stances can really help you out, depending on wether you want to damage or survive.

So yeah. A champ can be as survivable or kamikaze as you want it to be, depends on your traits and gear.

Have fun

I love my champion and im not even close to level cap...even before RoI it was still a fun class to play. It was more challenging back then due to the lack of being what we are now... but all in all its one of my favorite characters to play....

really its comes down to one thing for me.......SHING SHING...

If properly played they can tear holes in the universe. The other night i was running FT and me and a hunter took down one of the trolls at the end by ourselves in the same amount of time the rest of the fellow took the other one down. good traiting and proper technique makes this class a true hero which is what we are supposed to be.

Devs please dont listen to the whiners in the PvP....personally speaking LotRo is not a PvP game...yea its a nice addition but not what this game is meant for. you guys did a great job finally making the champs what they are supposed to be.

Originally Posted by Bubblelicious

1.)Ranged DPS is low, but u can do 500-600 crtic with battle bow of Theodred

I strongly advise against picking a bow based on its damage. Damage from ranged skills for Champs is insignificant. The point of the bow is twofold: 1) it lets you pull foes at range, and 2) it's a slot for stats to improve your character. The only people who should care about the damage on bows are Hunters, IMO.

Forget every piece of advice in this thread and answer this question. You're wandering through a zone owning the trash mobs and you stumble across a Rare Elite Master mob wandering by his lonesome. Do you:
a) Keep your distance and hope you don't pull him...
b) Figure what the heck, go all out and see how far you can take him down before going out in a blaze of glory!!!!

If you answered a, go roll a guard. If you answered b, welcome to the club!!!!!

Originally Posted by Reavier

ok so....first, to start it off.

I had a warden, got it to near 50...not really digging it anymore(and not just because of the nerfs)

so I rolled me a guardian, because I wanted something in heavy armor that could use a bow, and I wanted something that would like....very rarely die in solo combat.(I don't like being squishy.)

So It's at lvl 23..and I ran a GB maze(mind you I'm pretty well geared for this level) and yet....I was out-lived and out-tanked by the champion who was only a level or two above me on the team...

Now I know champ DPS is significantly higher than anything a guard will be doing ordinarily, and I know they use heavy armor...

but I guess my questions are

1.) is their ranged DPS higher as well?
2.) how surviveable are they in solo content? I mean like...do they have skills that restore their own health? and are they even slightly as risilient as a guardian?(I don't want to roll a champion and end up dying every 5 minutes while doing solo skirms and fighting yellows/oranges.)

From a fellow guardian you have some drawbacks at low levels. First off, you don't have a reliable AoE threat generator. You have one aoe skill that doesn't have threat attached so it doesn't do much and you have an aoe force taunt that expires and doesn't add to the overall threat. An aoe champ will pull off of you in multi-mob pulls. He shouldn't have been able to easily grab single target threat from you, however. Focus on Vexing, Bash, and your shield chain on the big boss and let the champ fight everything else. Normally in low level content the main boss is the only dangerous one in a group.

As for my experience with a 73 guardian and a 60 champ (he's next tho ) I would repeat what others have said. Champs are about DPS and hoping to win before they're dropped. Their endurance has improved with Rise of Isengard, but generally, they are still focused more on DPS than aggro management and endurance.

Going from Guardian to Champion, I'm not a fan of their survivability (or the extra work it takes to make them survivable). Also, as you get to higher levels and get more AoE taunt skills you'll find that your aggro management is through the roof. Imagine your Warden with the ability to lock down aggro on a big pull immediately and permanently while having more mitigations and better power management. That's where you'd be with a guardian. Champion is perfectly survivable given constant maintenance of a handful of things to keep morale up and drop mobs quickly.

Originally Posted by Big_A

Forget every piece of advice in this thread and answer this question. You're wandering through a zone owning the trash mobs and you stumble across a Rare Elite Master mob wandering by his lonesome.Do you:
a) Keep your distance and hope you don't pull him...
b) Figure what the heck, go all out and see how far you can take him down before going out in a blaze of glory!!!!

If you answered a, go roll a guard. If you answered b, welcome to the club!!!!!

Aww c'mon. I do much better on elite masters on my guardian than my champ. We can take em too!

Originally Posted by AdarinOuest

Aww c'mon. I do much better on elite masters on my guardian than my champ. We can take em too!

I didn't mean to imply champs are better at taking down elite masters. I fully believe champs and guardians are equally capable in different ways. Nitpicking over how each class plays differently is fruitless. I was instead trying to pick his toon based on attitude rather than stats.

If you are survival-oriented and don't want to start something you aren't sure you can finish, be a guardian. It's who you are. There's no shame in that. You're the rock everybody else leans on.

If you see potentially lethal situations as a challenge worth taking even if it seems completely stupid, then come join the club!! I've had my share of spectacular triumphs and spectacular deaths trying to bite off more than I could chew. The morale of the story, however, is it was ALWAYS spectacular!!!!


Corallary:
If you are a guardian who enjoys taking stupid risks, you were really meant to roll a champ. Join us!!!

Originally Posted by CFury

I believe an average OP guard is mile in front of us dps wise in such case while easily maintaining the same and even higher survivability.

To be fair an average OP guard is good only for getting wasted on power pots, nothing else.

Originally Posted by AdarinOuest

Going from Guardian to Champion, I'm not a fan of their survivability (or the extra work it takes to make them survivable).

Nor was I, then I played the most recent patch of Champions. Their survivability is now pretty much insane; with the seriously terrible gear I'd accrued with my 65 Champ, I find myself sitting on a measly even-4k morale, and 1.8k power, yet I can still sustainably win a fight against six on-level mobs, or even against shard/flake droppers with 18k morale (tried it twice with two different ones and won twice, now). Champions are much stronger than they used to be - if you've got a high one then I recommend giving it a go, because I was still basing my assessment of their survivability off the old pre-RoI survivability.

Just an Fyi for those worried about champion nerfs coming, they have NOT been nerfed at all in book 5. In fact, they have fixed the true heroics bug making them even tougher. /cheers!

It's a lot better than it used to be. And I'm thankful for that.
Leveling as a champ before was basically a diceroll if you could kill mobs faster than they killed you... Get a bad pull? You're screwed. - Just run away.

Outside of traited glory, champs aren't that great. The morale bubbles help but against many on-level mobs they will burn through the bubble so quick and without invincible & traited hedge to help with mitigations you're going down pretty fast...
Pretty easy to replicate, try tanking draigoch's head traited blue then traited red.

While blue traited, champs are pretty robust, potentially even with my captain in durability and definitely better than any non-heavy class... Barring wardens; but even a lot of wardens claim champs are more durable at the moment.

This is another great thread that highlights a couple champion themes.

1. There are many ways to play a champ, ranging from extreme AOE or ST DPS to extreme survivability. How you play within this range has a lot to do with both your comfort level in soloing and how you see your role in a group. Personally I prefer to go towards the extreme DPS end where I stand next to a guardian, let him get aggro and then unleash the fury. I use my bubbles and other defensive skills/heals in case I am drawing aggro but then I quickly try to ebb ire or whatever else I can do to give aggro back to the guardian (or warden...maybe). I don't enjoy being the main tank as much but if I have to, I take a much different view of how to play and would be inclined to retrait for survivability. Either way, I never like to go all the way to the extreme and try to find something more balanced but leaning heavily in one way or the other.

2. How survivable or fun a champ is has a lot to do with how much time you invest in learning how to use all of your available skills. One thing I find interesting about champs is how few skills they have that directly or indirectly affect others. The only two that come to mind at the moment are Ebbing Ire and True Heroics. Actually I don't recall if True Heroics affects others anymore, I'll have to check that. Your main interaction with other players is beating down mobs that are attacking them. The point is that as a champ almost all of your skills are equally useful whether you are solo or in a group so you should take the time to learn them all and figure out how to use them together in lots of combinations and rotations to get the most out of the champ. This includes examining many different trait setups, gear setups, legacies, and so on. If you don't spend this time, your champ won't seem very survivable or particularly efexcept as another warm body roaming Middle Earth.

In answer to the OP (and from what can be gathered from many posts in this thread), champs can be very survivable but it depends on how you choose to play.

Originally Posted by Razann

This is another great thread that highlights a couple champion themes.

1. There are many ways to play a champ, ranging from extreme AOE or ST DPS to extreme survivability. How you play within this range has a lot to do with both your comfort level in soloing and how you see your role in a group. ~snip~

So true.

You make your survivability as high as you want. Personally, I go high survivability because I solo as a rule. My champ is level 56 and pounding through Moria. My survivability right now is almost making me careless, because I don't have to worry about bad pulls - I just hit AoE fervor-burners instead of ST fervor-burners and know it'll take a bit longer to finish the fight. I blow through small fellowship content and laugh it off. Heck, with my mitigations, I only hit my bubble in emergencies, and I hardly pop hedge (I need to get in the habit though). I'm looking forward to finally getting my Reprisal trait (kicking myself for not getting it sooner) because fervor will hardly be a factor anymore.

Now, does my DPS suffer? Like crazy. I got excited over a dev crit for 500. At level 56. Using a legendary skill. On a SA weapon. That's probably terrible. I'm ok with it, because I don't like a ridiculously frenetic pace of combat. On the other hand, guardians were so slow that I gave up levelling mine at 15 (and rolled this champ, hehe). I can take content at my own pace, don't generally have trouble with 4 on-level mobs, and am beautifully versatile, since I can slide from "Wait, I'm only down 200 morale after that fight?" to "KILL IT QUICK NOW OH GOD" to "Wow, that's a lot of mobs. Wow, that's a lot of dead mobs" just by changing stances. I'm not going to hit the extremes of any of those without traiting deep, but at least I can change it up if I need to.

tl;dr: YMMV, but there's plenty of room to do what you want.

To the original poster: Level > Anything.

If the guard is level 23, and the champion is level 25, that can be more than enough right there. If the guard ignored leveling his traits while the champion did not, that is enough right there. If the guard has quest gear while the champ has custom crafted critted -- you got it, that is enough right there. Too many easy variables to even begin to make an assessment.

Not to mention that the game is not exactly balanced at all levels. Trying to figure out what playing a class is gonna be like in the 20s is like trying to figure out what dessert is gonna be like based on the appetizer. Lore-masters don't even *start* to get serious until at least 35, and probably not really until at least level 60.

Once you've played a character all the way to max level *and then add about 6 months*, you'll have a much better idea of how it really plays.

To answer the question in the subject heading: darn survivable. But solo vs. fellowship vs. raid at max level has different answers to who is most survivable under specific circumstances.

I have been using sudden defences, heroics, and dire need to last longer. I trait the dire need cool down to 5 min.

When it comes down to survivability it's all in the details. What's your traits? What's your gear? and do you know how to play? Lots of people pay very close attention to gear, but the single largest factor is if you know you class (true for any class). And it's all about the situation as well. traited one way in the wrong situation is bad, while the same traits can save your life in another situation.
Gear is important but not as important as skill. I've seen champs runa round with anything from 6k-11k in morale, but it's all a choice dps<->morale. Personally I prefer dps over morale, while others prefer to stack morale. I disagree with zrinko that you need 900+ vit to survive, simply beacues you'd loose too much dps in that case, but as i said, it's something that you need to discover, since it's also very much tied to your style of gaming. Post RoI champs became a lot more survivable, mostly due to the bubbles, but lets face it, getting hit on every attack will kind of kill you quite fast. Do they rival wardens or guards in terms of survivability, no, but they can still withstand quite a bit of pounding before going down

I'll tell you this. I got a lvl 50 Champion (I know the hardest part has yet to come, but still... :P) and she has never been defeated so far. Never ever. I usually fight white or yellow mobs (signatures too), sometimes orange ones and always in Fervour stance.