Original content created by community member: Mosby

Summary of tips from the beta forums, and other posts:

General

1. Official Lorebook Entry for Champions
2. We are primarily a DPS class.
3. We make the best Main Assists (we don't have to worry about tanking or debuffing, we can damage multiple mobs while targeting one, and we can pull aggro from a distance).
4. Champions have a few different stance-like abilities. They all provide significant bonuses or penalties to our DPS, power-regen, and defense skills. Fervor is our high-DPS high-regen one, but while it's up, we can't block, parry, or evade. This means we lose health very fast. A good champ will know which stance to use in which situation, and when to switch.
5. Our Controlled Burn (legendary ability) is like Fervor, but without the drawbacks. But - we lose it if we get out of combat (with a window of a few seconds), or below 20% morale. So it's good for long battles (like Thrang). Minstrels, please keep our morale over 20% if possible.
6. If we are in Ardour, we have a number of on-defeat skills that boost parry rating or add attack speed, etc. These states expire out of combat (again, like Controlled Burn, with a window of a few seconds), so if we are kind enough to stay in Ardour vs. our preferred Fervour, it is nice if you return the favor and get us to the next fight as quickly as possible.
7. Champions are great escort protectors because we can aggro large groups of things very fast.
8. Although we're not tanks like Guardians or Wardens, we can be decent off-tanks with heavy armor.
9. If there is no Guardian or Warden in the fellowship, you probably want to let the Champion pull the mobs and get aggro. We do enough damage to hold aggro, but we only have a couple of skills that will let us pull aggro off of other players.

Area of Effect (AoE)

1. Champions have a lot of AoE damage skills. We like clumped things. We can kill a clumped group just as fast as a single mob, and it's much more efficent to do so. So please don't separate the mobs unless you need to (see below). Hunters should either stay near us or manage their aggro carefully (so they don't end up pulling and separating the mobs).
2. We have two AoE stuns - one skill-based, one item-based.
3. If you are mezzing something in a big group and don't want us to accidentally clobber it, you need to give us some warning. Mezzing something and then typing, "Don't hit my mezzed guy!" means that by the time we see your message we've probably already whacked him.
4. If you are mezzing/riddling/crowd controlling a mob, don't do it right next to all the other mobs clustered around the champion. It's more dangerous for us to give up the extra damage on the 4 other mobs just so we don't wake-up your one cc'd mob. The only exception to this would be bosses.
5. If the group does need the crowd-control, then a mez-pull generally works well. That way the mezzed mob is far away from the rest of the mobs.

Miscellaneous

1. We can pull aggro off you, if you are close to us (and not running around). If we are supposed to guard you, you need to stand in a constant position, either beside us or in front of us so we don't have to go crazy looking for you or the mob wailing on you. Although we get more aggro management later, most of the time we only get one taunt, and it has a long cooldown.
2. Our Clobber skill interrupts just about any kind of casting/induction, and it has a very short cool-down.

Philosophy

Harumph describes the Champion (source: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=283276)

• I read a lot of things about champions on the forums, and I think it's time to clear up some misunderstandings. First, understand that the only way to win an encounter is by killing the mobs. This is through DPS. And because of our great AOE DPS, champions are the most important member of the group. But we fill other roles as well. Mostly, we optimize fellowships. How? Because we know these things:

• 1. Minstrels are lazy. I mean, come on. To do our max DPS, we need to be in Fervour, which has a -30% healing penalty. This just means that the minstrel must heal us 30% more. But sometimes they complain about this. This makes no sense. They rolled a healing class to heal, and now they get to heal 30% more! They should be thanking us. If someone said to me "Do 30% more DPS" I'd say "OK!"

• Minstrel carry around lutes and wear fancy hats. We need to keep them on their toes, or they will drift off and start daydreaming about butterflies, fancy hats, and butterflies in fancy hats.

• 2. Loremasters are afraid of almost everything. Seriously. All of their skills are based around this. They mez and root to keep the scary things away. If that fails, they debuff it, so it seems a little less scary to them. And they have pets to help keep things away from them, and to have someone to cuddle with in case they have a bad dream or something.

• Champions are not afraid. We are there to AOE DPS, and not hitting things is counterproductive. So we must break every mez we see. And the purpose of roots is to keep everything together so it is easier to AOE it all.

• Don't worry, little LM. The mighty champ will save you, even if you are just some weirdo in a bathrobe.

• 3. Raging Blades is the best skill ever. It hits a lot of targets, hits them hard, and adds threat. There is nothing not awesome about this. And it makes an awesome noise. SHING-SHING! When the fellowship hears that, they know it's go time! SHING-SHING! OMG, it's so awesome I would do it constantly if I could. Too bad its on a 10 second cooldown.

• Sometimes, a guardian or a warden will say "Don't charge in there and Raging Blades before I get good aggro" but really what they mean is "I'm totally jealous of that skill. Please don't use it and make me look like a wuss. I want to run up to those mobs and like yell at them some, and then pound on my shield menacingly. Ooh I'm so tough." Hahaha. To bad, it's DPS time! SHING-SHING!

• Then they'll say things like "Well, if you can't hold back, then at least Ebbing Ire on to me." But they do not understand to purpose of Ebbing Ire. It is used to punish lorebreakers. If I'm ever grouped with an RK an I think he's out DPSing me, I'll Ebbing Ire on to him. Take that lorebreaker! Behold the wrath of Tolkien!

• If I could pick them up and throw them into a well Darth Vader-style, I would.

• Just realize that while champions are awesome, we want you to be awesome too. That's why we do the things we do.

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