Thread: what are the best champion traits?

hello everybody i have a champion lvl 35 and i wanted to know what are the best traits to be equipped. thanks

Anything that increases pips,

Anything that produces more damage.. Standard set up for years was 4 red /3 yellow, but now I do 4 red 2 yellow 1 blue

But MUST haves are:
Yellow
Stalward Blade (blade walls generates pips)
Blade Storm (blade wall requires less fervour)
Red
Vicisious Strikes (critical chance)
Deadly Strikes
Flurry of Blows
Deep Strikes
one blue
Time of Need

This is what I use, I feel it gives me the greatest amount of fervour and damage for every day play. If there is certain encounters that may require a few changes you can do that. But I like all of htese traits.

I dont use the moors for my champ (I do a creep) and that would change things ALOT. But this is for PVE play.

Best for what? Soloing? Raiding? Party play?
Depends on your playing style.
Soloing I used red Berserker-Traits for they gave the highest DPS.
Now, I use the blue Master its of Combat traits that turn the Champion into a more durable Fighter.
The yellow AoE build I mainly use for Raiding/Party play with a proper tank at hand.

As previously stated depends what you wanna do with your champ. I run 6 red 1 yellow atm, which needless to say gives me a lot of dps. Though that traiting is probably not for everyone. In general it's all a choice between dps/aoe/endurance. where the difference between dps and endurance can be as high as 50% of top dps.

probably 4 yellow and run in ardour since you cant parry/evade in fervour and you probably dont have the survivability traits from blue line yet

personally though, i use:
reprisal
braced against defeat
time of need
second wind
imp rend
the flurry one

not really a dps build i know but i spent most of the time on my champ pre-roi feeling squishier than my rk so i like being nigh-indestructible xD and dont really have to worry about pips, i just aggro everything before i start SHING-SHINGing - with everything beating on me the pipgen from reprisal is just ridiculous sometimes (ever felt like you had to rush skill use to not waste fervour pips? )

Must have? Flurry. It's the biggest single boost to DPS you can slot for fervour stance, and useful to all three stances.

Everything else is down to playing style, and complemented by the legendary traits and weapon legacies that will open up for you later.

I'm not a min-maxer I just slot what I like, but personally, I run 5y 2r in Ardour because I find p/e makes a big difference to incoming damage, and that having Improved great cleave for some AoE spamming every 90secs is a lot of fun. I also have Controlled Burn which I use with Fervour and the brutal strikes legacy for respectable single target damage.

Yellows I don't leave the house without:

Ardent Rage: Its just... *Hoots his horn* * ardent rage* *SHING SHING* ... hacking into stunned mobs is just too much fun
But basically its an emergency skill, hit it, and blow the 3 second stun, or the 5 fervor morale shield, or the shing shing, or whatever you think needs doing.

Eye of the Storm: Bladewall and Rend 1 less fervor. Hit Battle Acuity, Cleave, and you can spam AoE's back to back for 15 seconds.

Swift to Anger: Swift strike is now an AoE... whats not to love?


Reds I don't leave the house without:
Vicious strikes \
Deadly Strikes |---- single target melt.
Deep Strikes /
Flurry : Because the above mentioned AoE skills work better if you get 20% more attack speed and do more damage in Fervour. Of course, you will also gather a massive amount of aggro. Quicker is better. Just hit True Heroics and keep hitting those AoE's

Originally Posted by Barrynor

Swift to Anger: Swift strike is now an AoE... whats not to love?

Um... the fact that it's now AoE?

That's actually basically the one trait I won't use. Swift Strike's purpose in life is to be available in case I can't use Blade Wall for some reason having to do with mezzing, or Ents or the like.

But I DW so the power consumption issue is bigger for me.

Personally, I usually go 5 red/2 yellow with Ardent Rage and Stalwart Blade as my 2 yellows when I'm DPSing, because the focus is generally single target.

Tanking, at the ready, vigour of champions, and sometimes aggressive exchange get dropped in favour of whatever I feel like, usually dps skills like vicious strikes or flurry of blows, but other than that I go all blue.

Currently i'm traited:

Blood-lust (Extra fervour on crits)
Vicious Strikes (Critical chance)
Flurry of Blows (Permanent flurry while in fervour stance)
Deadly Strikes (Critical Multiplier)
Stalwart Blade (Blade wall generates fervour)
Winds of the Storm (More AOE targets)
Eye of the Storm (Blade storm and Rend cost 1 less fervour)

I run with 5 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue.

Reds

Vicious Strikes
Flurry Of Blows
Deadly Strikes
Deep Strikes
Athletic/Blood Lust depending whether if I'm in moors or not.

Yellow

Ardent Rage

Blue

Braced Against Defeat - personal choice of mine. I don't seem to have any power problems at all and I duel wield even so no point of me to have the power restore increase trait

Since you're just lvl 35 you probably won't have much of a choice what to slot, do you?
So at first you could name the traits you already unolocked

For questing, in general, I'd definitely recommend slotting as many red traits as possible (i.e. at least 4 to gain the full bonus of the traitline). They all are pretty good for enhancing (single target) Dps. Furry of blows, blood-lust, the 25%crit-multiplicator and +crit-rating for strike skills are the best 4 during the leveling process, i guess.
When you've unlocked more than 4 slots you can add yellow traits like ardent rage, eye of the storm, swift to anger or such; or blue ones if you keep on dying all the time by having pulled way to much (but that's what most champs have to face during questing ). Or keep on filling it with red ones like improved controlled burn and deep strikes




Have fun

If you're grouping without Improved Rend, you're doing your fellowship a pretty serious disservice.

Flurry of Blows is the one trait I always slot no matter what I'm doing (including tanking with 5 blues).
I only ever unslot Improved Rend if there's another Champ in the group who has it.
I only ever unslot Stalwart Blade if I'm tanking with five blues and there are no other Champs in the group (in which case it's Flurry and Rend for the two non-blues).

I mostly play solo with a fair amount of running 3-mans and 6-mans. I like to do a lot of AOE but I wanted to focus a little more on single darget dps so I am trying to fine-tune my traits. I just had a few questions:

here's what I'm going to trait:
improved rend, stalwart blade, swift to anger, flurry of blows, vicious strikes, deep strikes, deadly strikes

is traiting 4 red worth it? I used to love merciful strikes pre ROI (and always traited bountiful mercy) but now I realize that skill is pretty much worthless so I am swapping out bountiful mercy. the increased fervour generation is nice, but they give bonuses to merciful strikes. do these bonuses make it worth using this skill again?

should i swap out maybe deadly strikes for either time of need or braced against defeat to sacrifice the 4 red bonus if you think merciful strike bonuses are being wasted?

is ardour worth it if you're focusing on aoe? the deadly storm bonuses seems like a nice improvement; the %15 less power and %15 damage w/ 4Y traited is a nice bonus, especially if you combine that w/ battle acuity (traited for 1 less pip) & great cleave. (improved great cleave is awesome but doesn't last long enough to be worth traiting 5Y). but i just feel like you lose too much in single target and ICPR not being in fervour. and seems like too much of a hassle to swap back and forth.

I am a fairly casual player, take a couple months off, come back for a few months etc. I like to dual-wield and am not too concerned if a 2-hander is slightly better for this or that; just trying to improve some things a bit. you guys have any helpful tips?

To the OP, it is a little difficult to answer your question without knowing exactly which class deeds you have completed or not. As some have mentioned Flurry of Blows, Deadly Strikes, and Vicious Strikes should always be slotted unless you are going into full tank mode. If you are a dual wielder, you should slot Stalwart Blade to help with the fervour building. If you prefer a two hander, then use Swift to Anger for the pip building.

After those four, it gets into a personal preference area. While you are leveling, slotting Braced Against Defeat or Time of Need will definitely help with your survivabilty. I prefer Braced as you can use it as your killing blow and get your morale back up right at the end of the fight. For me, it just leads to faster game play since you are not waiting for it to regen.

If you want to go another yellow, then Ardent Rage or Improved Rend are both decent options but not must have. An instant 5 pips can always be useful and putting a rend on will help you burn down the mobs quicker. If you want to go another red, then you can look at Blood-lust for the extra fervour generation.

Don't be afraid to mess around with the traits to see what you are most comfortable with and be sure to work on the class deeds for any you do not have traited yet.

Originally Posted by devintownsend

is traiting 4 red worth it?

Yes. The extra pipgen alone makes it worthwhile, and the extra Merc Strike damage is nice as well, despite the limited use of the skill.

should i swap out maybe deadly strikes for either time of need or braced against defeat to sacrifice the 4 red bonus if you think merciful strike bonuses are being wasted?

Well, I don't think the bonus is wasted as I said, but if you were going to swap a trait out, it definitely shouldn't be Deadly Strikes as that's a fantastic DPS boosting trait.

is ardour worth it if you're focusing on aoe?

No, not really. The flat damage bonus from 4Y does actually make your AoE's hit a little harder (I'm talking a really small amount) in Ardour than they would in Fervour, but it's not enough of a bonus, imo, to lose out on all the bonuses that come with redline + Fervour.

My normal trait setup is: 4R - Deadly Strikes, Vicious Strikes, Blood Lust, Flurry of Blows
3Y - Stalwart Blade, Swift to Anger, Ardent Rage

Currently I'm running with Controlled Fury instead of Swift to Anger since Swift Blade is broken at the moment. Deep strikes just isn't enough damage to be worthwhile (maaaybe on single target only boss fights). I don't have the armor rend legacy and tons of champs slot Imp. Rend so I pretty much never do as 1) it's of limited usefulness in 6-mans and b) someone else is usually keeping Imp. Rend up in raids.

Originally Posted by devintownsend

is traiting 4 red worth it? I used to love merciful strikes pre ROI (and always traited bountiful mercy) but now I realize that skill is pretty much worthless so I am swapping out bountiful mercy. the increased fervour generation is nice, but they give bonuses to merciful strikes. do these bonuses make it worth using this skill again?

should i swap out maybe deadly strikes for either time of need or braced against defeat to sacrifice the 4 red bonus if you think merciful strike bonuses are being wasted?

is ardour worth it if you're focusing on aoe?

Even though they tried to improve Ardour in RoI, it is still better to AOE in Fervour because of the fervour generation and crit. There were some good threads about it a little after RoI came out but I am too lazy to look for them.

You definitely do not want to take out Deadly Strikes and lose the crit multiplier. This is a staple trait needed, especially for single target DPS. There shouldn't be a need for you to trait Braced when running 3- and 6-mans. If you are running into morale problems, tell your healer to hit the buttons harder.

Originally Posted by Thorcar

If you are running into morale problems, tell your healer to hit the buttons harder.

or just have a captain use revealing mark... you'll never need a mini heal again If you die, it's because you're not putting out enough damage (makes CBR a viable trait too, just remember to turn it off after the mobs are dead )

thanks for the tips guys; that is kind of what I was figuring. I will def keep deadly strikes. And I was only considering traiting braced for solo play but now that you mention it I really don't have much survivability issues so I guess I won't be needing that.

Yeah, that trait is nice when you're blue traited and in Glory as Bracing has a shorter CD. The real benefit is the giant incoming healing buff that you can keep up 1/2 the time. With the long CD of Bracing in Fervour, it's just not worth traiting for solo play or group DPS.

I nearly always run with

(R)Controlled Fury (CB's my favorite legendary )
(R)Flurry of Blows (Permanent Flurry in Fervor)
(R)Vicious Strikes (+Critical Rating)
(R)Deadly Strikes (+Critical Magnitude%)
(B)Vigor of Champions (No more Power problems)
(Y)Stalwart Blade (Pip on Blade-Wall)
(Y)Ardent Rage (Instant Shing-Shing)

Most of the times (when in DPS mode) I run with following traits:

(R) Controlled Fury (CB is an awesome legendary)
(R) Flurry of Blows (Permanent Flurry in Fervor - THE #1 DPS trait)
(R) Vicious Strikes (+Critical Rating)
(R) Deadly Strikes (+Critical Magnitude%)
(R) Bloodlust (extra pip on every crit of Wild Attack; an excellent trait, gotta love it)
(Y) Stalwart Blade (Pip on Blade Wall; mandatory for a DW setup, next to useless when you run 2H)
(Y) Improved Rend (nice DPS boost for all the raid/fellowship)

If another champ slots improved rend, I will replace it with (R)Deep Strikes (bleeds on strike skill crits; basically ~50 DPS for free)

EDIT: My favorite legendary is Continuous Blood Rage. My other legendaries are Controlled Burn and Raging Blades (Shing-Shing ftw).

@Haunt123 & Vodomir

Ya, I always trait the same way as Vodomir unless I am on Rend duty. However, the OP is only level 35 so I didn't bother mentioning Controlled Fury.

I used to trait Deep Strikes as well, but as the level cap was raised to 75, the trait's worth reduced significantly for me. The bleed is now way too small for me to want to trait it.

At level 35 you have 4 class trait slots. I would pick:

• Stalwart Blade
• Flurry of Blows
• Deadly Strikes
• Vicious Strikes

Stalwart Blade makes Blade Wall generate a pip; this will increase your damage output. The other 3 all increase your damage output.