| The Deadly Storm |
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This Deadly Storm trait line is an extension of the Champion's expertise: AoE DPS. Appropiate to the name this trait line is all about doing as much AoE damage as possible, and the more enemies to hit, the better. Here you will find several utilities to help overcome some the problems with Champion AoEs--like high Fervour and Power costs. There is really little to nothing here that directly improves your damage. Rather, in keeping true with the Champion's theme of being unstoppable, these traits are all about maintaining consitant damage--always having another AoE to use, ensuring the enemies don't avoid them or disarm you, raising your resource generation--especially Fervour, lowering Fervour and power costs, and other such things. You might say that this is the "Group Champion" line, since it is in group that you fight the most enemies, and therefore, where AoE is more useful. Just be careful with this line, and make sure you have plenty of tankage and support in your group, as you'll likely be drawing an incredible amount of aggro which could result in rather unpleasent cirumstances. No one can compare to the AoE DPS of The Deadly Storm. When you need a Champion to do what Champions do best, look here.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- Increased chance to hit with Area Damage Skills.
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| 3 |
- -10% Area Damage Skills Power Cost.
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| 4 |
- Area Damage Skills have reduced chances to be blocked or parried.
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Deathstorm" legendary trait.
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Stalwart Blade |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Blade-wall" 500 times
- Effect: Your "Blade-wall" now generates 1 Fervour for every enemy you hit. This is a very good trait as it improves your aggro generation really quite significantly. You can't go wrong with it.
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Winds of the Storm |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Blade-storm" 350 times
- Effect: With this trait, both the "Blade-storm" and the legendary skill "Raging Blade" can hit a maxium of 5 additional targets. While it looks really nice, it truth this trait is a bit situational. Sometimes, you just aren't going to be fighting 6 or more enemies at once; it is here that this trait is pointless. Sometimes though, you will
be fighting 6+ or more enemies at once, making this trait invaluable.
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Eye of the Storm
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- Acquire: Land critical blows with "Blade-storm" 50 times
- Effect: This sets the Fervour cost of "Blade-storm" to 3, effectively lowering the cost by 1. This may not seem like a lot, but for whatever reasons, getting to 3 Fevour just seems significantly easier than getting to 4, make this trait more usefull than it sounds. Your milage may vary, however. You'll really have to try it for yourself and see how it works for your play-style.
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Fervent Rage |
- Acquire: Use "Battle-frenzy" 450 times
- Effect: With this trait, "Battle-frenzy" now instantly gives you a whole 5 Fervour. This is a really incredible trait for all Champions, regardless of build, as it allows you to instantly use high Fervour cost abilities, like "Bracing Attack" or "Ferocious Stirkes". It also pairs nicely with "Deathstorm".
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Dirt Cheap |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Fighting Dirty" 300 times
- Effect: An amusingly named trait, equipping allows you to use "Fighting Dirty" on an enemy that is at 50% morale rather than 25%. This is a very solid trait to have, as it makes using "Fighting Dirty" a little less maintainence, and generally also allows you to use "Merciful Strike" on the same enemy. While it is certainly helpful, it won't make or break your build.
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Mighty Blast |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Sound the Attack" 500 times
- Effect: This trait has a rather intersting effect--one of which being that it changes "Sound the Attack" to "Horn of Gondor". The tooltip says that it makes "Sound the Attack" unavoidable by any means--blocking, parrying, or evadeing. This is a little misleading. Technically what the trait does is change "Sound the Attack" from a melee skill to a tactical skill. Since technically, tactical attacks can't be blocked, parried, or evaded this trait does do what it says, but there are a number of side effects involved. First off, tactical attacks can be resisted. So essentially you trade one kind of evasion for another. Despite that, the overall amount of enemies resist seems much less than the total amount of block, parry, and evade most mobs get. Second, you should keep in mind that now your "Melee Critical" rating doesn't apply to this skill. Your "Tactical Critical" rating does, which as a Champion tends to be rather lacking. An effective trait, but passable if it doesn't interest you.
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Tight Grip |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Hedge" 200 times
- Effect: With this trait, the cooldown of "Hedge" is reduced to 90 seconds, and the duration of the ability is increased by 20 seconds. It seems like it would be a good trait, but when you really think about it, how often are you disarmed? Orcs and Orc-kind really love to disarm all the time, but even then the normal cooldown of "Hedge" seems to be adequate. No mob I know of disarms so often as to require you to use this trait. Just pass on this one.
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Improved Rend |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Cleave" or "Rend" 250 times
- Effect: This trait provides that added affect of an armour-rend to "Cleave" or "Rend" in additional the bleed effects that those skills provide. This is a very nice trait.
Youn can't go wrong with it.
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Tip: As always with armour-rends, this trait is most effective with a group. The larger the group, the better.
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Deathstorm
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete Epic series "Volume II: The Mines of Moria, Books 1-6"
- Access: Equip 5 skills from this set.
- Effect: This legendary trait changes the name of "Great Cleave" to "Deathstorm". First off, all you AoE cooldowns are reset. More importantly, it improves "Cleave" so that for the duration of the buff, all your AoE Fervour skills require absolutely NO FERVOUR! Is that not incredible?! Last but least, your AoE damage is improved by 10%. This one trait puts the Champion far beyond all classes in term of AoE damage, and seeing it in action might just be the scariest thing you'll ever witness. While the other legendary traits are all extremly useful in the right situation, this is arguably the best legendary Champion trait.
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| Tip: To get the most useout of this skill, you should try to use all your AoE skills first, so that they are on thier cooldowns. Then, use "Battle Frenzy"--best if paired with "Fervent Rage"--to fill up you bar again and use "Deathstorm", allowing you to use all the AoE skills again that you just used a moment ago. Be careful though, as you will generate aggro like nobody's buisness.
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| The Beserker |
A very strong trait line for a Champion, and likely a favourite amoung many of them, The Beserker focuses on single-target DPS. You may or may not claim this to be the "Solo Champion" line, but it really does have it's uses in groups. While you're certainly no Hunter, you can fill thier role in pinch with this trait line. The biggest emphasis of this class are your "Strikes" skills--more specifically, improving your critical hits with them. You have a lot of "Strikes" skills as a Champion, each with varying affects. But many traits in this line affect all of them in identical ways. There are also some traits to help with Fervour generation, though not as much as The Deadly Storm, which is fine since your "Strikes" skills generally cost much less Fervour than AoE skills. In a group with a Hunter, you might be better off going with the other trait lines, since the Hunter will easily out-do you in the single-target DPS department any day of the week.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- +40% Critical Multiplier for 2nd and 3rd attack from "Brutal Srikes" and "Savage Strikes".
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| 3 |
- +960 Critical Rating and 25% Critical Multiplier with "Wild Attack".
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| 4 |
- Increased Fervour generation in "Fervour" stance.
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Continuous Blood Rage" legendary trait.
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Swift to Anger |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Swift Strike" 1000 times
- Effect: This trait causes your "Swift Strike" to generate 1 Fervour on critical hits. Nothing remarkable here, but it's still a good trait.
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Blood-Lust |
- Acquire: Land critical blows with "Wild Attack" 50 times
- Effect: This trait causes your "Wild Attack" to generate 1 Fervour on critical hits. Nothing remarkable here, but it's still a good trait.
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Vicious Strikes |
- Acquire: Complete level 15 Champion quest.
- Effect: Slotting this trait substantially improves your chance to crit with the following "Strike" skills: "Savage", "Brutal", "Merciful", "Relentless", and "Ferocious". You can't go wrong with this trait, and it's even worth considering if your focusing on other lines.
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Tip: This trait is especially effective when combines with "Blood-Lust", "Swift to Anger", "Deadly Strikes", and "Deep Strikes".
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Deadly Strikes |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Savage Strikes" 500 times
- Effect: This trait increases your crit chance by 25% with the following "Strike" skills: "Savage", "Brutal", "Merciful", "Relentless", and "Ferocious". A really good trait for a crit build. It rather nicely increases your DPS.
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Deep Strikes |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Brutal Strikes" 1000 times
- Effect: With this trait, the following "Strike" skills will now apply a decent bleed effect on critical hits: "Savage", "Brutal", "Merciful", "Relentless", and "Ferocious". A really good trait for a crit build. It rather nicely increases your DPS.
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Flurry of Blows |
- Acquire: Use "Flurry" 750 times.
- Effect: Slotting this trait improves the buff of "Flurry" to 20% and the duration to 30s. A really good trait for most Champions, and ones who like to use heavy slow weapons may really appreciate the extra speed. With faster weapons, this trait makes "Flurry" turn you into an intimidating whirling dervish of weapon strikes, but unless you're quick on your keyboard, you may not be able to make the most of it with already quick weapons.
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Athletic |
- Acquire: Use "Sprint" 150 times.
- Effect: All this trait does is reduce the cooldown on "Sprint" by 2 minutes. Though "Sprint" is really nice as far as movement speed boosts go, it seems like a bit of a waste for a whole class trait slot.
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Bountiful Mercy |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Merciful Strike" 350 times
- Effect: Equipping allows you to use "Merciful Strike" on an enemy that is at 50% morale rather than 25%. This is a very solid trait to have, as it makes using "Merciful Strike" a little less maintainence, and generally also allows you to use "Fighting Dirty" on the same enemy. This trait can really help with generating Fervour quickly and
easily.
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Continuous Blood Rage
Legendary |
- Acquire: Buy "The Boiling Rage" from Iron Garrison Guards after gaining Kindred faction
- Access: Equip 5 skills from this set.
- Effect: This legendary trait improves this "Blood Rage" so that it is now a toggle skill. While the toggle is active you are immune to Crowd-Control. Down-right awesome, but be wary; while the intial Morale cost is halved, you lose a substantial amount of Morale EVERY SECOND, while the toggle is active. Harsh. Also your incoming healing is reduced by 90%. Even Harsher. And yet, you also intially gain a +10% bonus to damage--the damage bonus increases the longer you stay alive. Not to mention you also gain a 50% bonus to almost all of you resistances. A controversal trait, like the skill. There are some really great things about this trait, and some big drawbacks. Ultimately, you have to try it out your self to see if it works for you.
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Tip: This trait is often most effective right at the begining of a dangerous boss fight.
Your Morale is still high at this point, so you can stay alive the longest, allowing the damage bonus to build up so that you can really start to dish out some pain. And if you can help it toggle the skill off when you getting low on health as it'll make things easier on your healers since they won't have to rez you. It is also a good idea to have a Guardian around
when useing this trait--much more so than usual. Since your ability to have morale restored is just about nil here, the less enemies that attack you the better.
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| The Martial Champion |
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Sometimes you may just not be able to find a tank, be it a Guardian, Warden, or Captain. When this happens, you just have to take matters into your own hands. The Martial Champion is the tank trait line. These traits revolve around the idea of trying to take the brunt of attacks and staying alive. The trait line is an extension of specifically the Champion's ability to just keep going, though in this case it is to keep going while being tough. You're definately no replacment for Guardian, and the Warden certainly still out performs you. However, slotted this way, you're about as good of a tank as the Captian, which is pretty good. However, you tank very differently from a Captian. You have the ability to generate a ton of aggro, both from your "Glory" stance and your inherent Champion high-DPS. Captains lack the ability to generate much aggro, but they by far make up for it in thier survivablity--something that you lack in comparison. Still, you can tank most enounters in a pinch, but you absolutely have to have full-time healer for it to really work.
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| Equipped |
Bonuses |
| 2 |
- "Champion's Challenge" gains additional threat.
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| 3 |
- Reduced chance to consume defeat event when using "Second Wind" and "Blocking Blades".
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| 4 |
- Increased Fervour generation in "Glory" stance.
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| 5 |
- Can equip "Invincible" legendary trait.
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Call of the Wild |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Wild Attack" 1250 times
- Effect: This trait adds extra threat to your "Wild Attack" skill. This trait allows you to hold aggro a bit better. Helpful, and worth considering.
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Braced Against Defeat |
- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Bracing Attack" 400 times
- Effect: With this trait, "Bracing Attack" will grant extra morale. If you find yourself soloing a lot, you will love this trait. Champions can be very fragile, and trait like this does wonders for your surviability. But, when it comes to tanking for a group--especially a group with a healer, the extra morale that this provides is not as helpful. So definatly slot this for soloing if you need the extra health, and consider whether or not it's useful when in a group.
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Heavy Shield Use
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- Acquire: Complete level 30 Champion quest.
- Effect: This trait allows you to equip Heavy Shields. This trait is pretty much a requirement for tanking. The armour a Heavy Shield provides is what makes the biggest difference between a tanking and non-tanking champion.
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Tip: Really, you shouldn't even bother lugging a normal Shield about when you get this trait. Just keep a Heavy Shield handy, and even when you don't have this trait slotted.
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At the Ready |
- Acquire: Block 1000 enemy attacks
- Effect: Slotting this trait provides you with a very mediocre bonus to your block. To reiterate, very mediocre. Unless you're desperate for extra Block chance to tank with, which is not necessarily a bad thing, you should pass on this trait.
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Patience
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- Acquire: Strike enemies with "Exchange of Blows" 500 times
- Effect: Slotting this trait causes the effect of "Exchange of Blows" to execute more often, specifically 75% of the time. It also allows you to reflect, Fire and Shadow damage in addition to Common. This is usually a good thing for tanking since you'll likely be attacked by many mobs already. You'll be able to so extra damage to them. Also, your attack will generate more aggro.
Good trait for tanking, but pass otherwise.
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Tip: This trait
works well with your "Glory" stance. If you're tanking, you're likely to be in "Glory" stance, and this trait enhances "Exchange of Blows" in addition to the ehancements of "Glory".
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Vigour of Champions |
- Acquire: Use "Second Wind" 750 times.
- Effect: This trait improves the power restoration of "Second Wind". Nothing special here, but can be quite useful while you're in "Glory" stance, since you power generation is rather hindered compared to "Ardour" and "Fervour". Otherwise don't bother.
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Controlled Fury |
- Acquire: Use "Controlled Burn" 75 times.
- Effect: Equipping this trait will increase the duration of "Controlled Burn" by a whole minute. Nice. And it will apply the effect of "Red Haze" for the duration of "Controlled Burn", which isn't all the incredible, but certainly usefull. This trait can be extreamly good in many cases, but I wouldn't call it "must have" for all Champions. Still you can't go wrong with it.
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Time of Need |
- Acquire: Use "Dire Need" 150 times.
- Effect: Slotting this trait causes "Dire Need" to also provide you with 5 Fervour instantly in addition to it's normal effects. Its a nice side effect, but mostly unimpressive, since the cooldown is so long. Speaking of which, the cooldown of "Dire Need" is reduced by 5 minutes as well; considering that still means a 25 minute cooldown, this trait is really not worth it.
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Invincible
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete level 58 Champion quest.
- Access: Equip 5 skills from this set.
- Effect: If you're gonna tank, and you want to be able to survive crisis situations, you need this trait. It increases the damage mitigation of "Adamant" to 30%. Awesome. Absolutely awesome. Also any cooldowns on "Champion's Challenge", "Hedge", "Bracing Attack", "Sprint", "Dire Need", "Heroics" are instantly reset allowing you to use them again instatly. This is really exceptionally good trait. If you're going to tank, get it.
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| Shadows of Angmar Legendary Traits |
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Ferocious Strikes
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete Tome of Swords book.
- Effect: This trait gives you a skill called "Ferocious Strikes". It is essentially a super "Brutal Strikes". It costs 5 Fervour, but it does A LOT of damage to a single target, and has a stylish animation to boot. Be aware though, it also generates alot of aggro which may or may not be good for you depending on your current role in the group. Overall a very good legendary trait to have.
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Tip: The trait "Vicious Strikes" improves your chance to criticaly hit with this attack. Good for any Champion build, but not always essential.
Tip:The trait "Deadly Strikes" increases the damage you do on critical hits with this attack. Good for any Champion build, but not always essential.
Tip:The trait "Deep Strikes" cause this attack to proc a bleed effect on critical hits. Good for any Champion build, but not always essential.
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Explosion of Blades
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete The Artisan Blade book.
- Effect: This trait gives you a skill called "Explosion of Blades". It is essentially a super "Blade-storm". It costs 5 Fervour, but it does incredible amount of damage to a maximum of 8 targets, and also has an awesome SHWING SHWING sound effect to it. Be aware though, it also generates alot of aggro which may or may not be good for you depending on your current role in the group. This move will tear up a bunch of baddies very easily. A. Very. Awesome. Trait.
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Fight On!
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete The Joy of Battle book.
- Effect: This is perhaps the least liked of Champion traits. When you are below 60% morale, you can trigger this ability. The general effect is that you instantly drain a bunch of power from all the enemies around you. The more enemies, the more power. However, if a mobs resists it, you get no power from that mob. Perhaps what is more exciting is the 25% damage buff you get for 30 seconds. This can turn a sour fight into a more favourable one, but not always; If after 30 seconds the battle doesn't end, you'll recieve a really nasty debuff that reduces you power regeneration to 1/4th it's normal rate. In the right circumstances this trait could be extreamly useful, but with all the other Legendary Trait's which are useful in almost all circumstances, it just isn't worth slotting this one.
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Controlled Burn
Legendary |
- Acquire: Complete the level 50 Champion quest.
- Effect: This. . . this is just bueatiful. The best Champion trait ever! Okay, think on your "Fervour" stance with all its good points; unparalleled Fervour-generation, insane power-generation, and the almost absurd bonus to damage. Oh, but we can't think about those good points for too long before we remember the downsides to "Fervour" stance; No Blockinf, Parrying, or Evading, and a -30% to incoming Healing. But here, they no longer exsist. Glorious. "Controlled Burn" gives you a skill by the same name that is identical to your "Fervour" stance minus the inability to block, parry, or evade and you get healed normaly. This skill only has the good side of "Fervour", as in there are no penalties associted with it. However, it is a limited resource. "Controlled Burn" lasts for only 2 and a half minutes, and it has a long cooldown time of 10 minutes. Also while for duration of "Controlled Burn" you can simultaneously use "Ardent Flurry" and "Glorious Exchange" as though you were in your "Ardour" and "Glory" stances, respectively, while in "Controlled Burn" stance. You will want to save this skill for boss-fights or other dire circumstances. Ultimately, GET THIS TRAIT.
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Tip: This trait can even be used effectively while you're tanking a boss-fight.
The big thing about "Glory" is the huge threat generation it provides.
It doesn't give any defensive bonuses. So you will be no less vulnerable in this stance.
The aggro you generate while doing this--huge damage or not--may not be enough to replace "Glory" however, so be wary.
Tip: "Controlled Burn" and "Fervour" are tied together, so anything that affects "Fervour", like legacies on Legendary weapons, will affect "Controlled Burn" as well.
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