The Top 10 Reasons Why Champions are an Awesome LOTRO Class

"You lookin' at me? Hey! Down here. I said, are you lookin' at me??"

Ah, the Champion – Masters of Mayhem, Dukes of Destruction, Archons of AoE, and Sultans of Schwing-schwing… if any class can give the Hunter a run for his money as Middle-earth’s preeminent “aggro-bunny,” it’s this guy. Probably the only thing that could make this class more awesome would be some animations of dismembered goblin appendages and gore flying out of the melee, and at the center of that melee is The Champ – a blinding whirlwind of apocalyptic awesome-osity.

How awesome is the Champion? Let us count the ways…

1.       Force Taunt. It doesn’t get used super-often, but it’s still fun to know you can pull anything off the main tank for a few seconds. Ha! He hates me more!

2.       Rend. There aren’t too many armor debuffs in LOTRO, and this is unquestionably the best one.

3.       Horn of Gondor. The Champion’s musical skills must be pretty atrocious to be capable of knocking a bunch of Orcs senseless, but the skill is still awesome.

4.       Boast. This has to be one of the best force-emotes in all of LOTRO. SING MY PRAISES, PEONS!!!

5.       Blue-line Tanking / Sudden Defense / Fight On! / Bracing Attack / Dire Need. Thought you had the Champion beat, didn’t you, Mr. Mob? In the words of Lord Helmet: “FOOOOLED YOOOU!!!”

6.       AoE Attacks. Is there any other class that causes so much damage to so many mobs so quickly that displaying it all can actually create lag issues? No. No, there isn’t.

7.       Critical Hits. Here’s the truth about Champions: while everyone else is concentrating on the boss’s morale level in order to prepare for the next phase of the fight, the Champion is actually playing a different game. We like to see whether we can pile up enough consecutive crits to get the damage indicators to climb over the boss’s head. Extra points if it’s a troll or a giant.

8.       Ease of Use. Similar to the above, some of us Champions prefer to play entire raids while hitting all of our keyboard commands using only our noses.

9.       Self-Mutilation. Must … hit … Priest of Vengeance’s … shiny … spinny … thing …

10.   Raging Blade. It’s incredibly satisfying to hear that infamous schwing-schwing! going off all around you like the cast of Wayne’s World broadcasting live from some nude beach on the Riviera.

“Let the bodies hit the floor … Let the bodies hit the floor …”

Padhric

Master of Toons