LOTRO Champion Guide:
Legendary Traits
For the LOTRO Champion picking the right legendary traits can seriously affect your success and the success of your fellowship. Like the Class traits, legendary traits are highly dependent on the role you're filling. Either single target DPS,
AOE, or off tanking. There are 7 total legendary traits. Three of these came in the Mines of Moria expansion and require five of their respective class traits to be equipped. The in game trait grouping kind of helps with this: Blue for tanking, red for single target DPS, and yellow for AOE. Read on and I'll explain them all and share my
thoughts on the best of each for the LOTRO champion.
Legendary Trait Explanation
Deathstorm:
This trait is from the Moria expansion. It belongs to the Deadly Storm (yellow) class trait line. You can get it by following the Mines of Moria Volume II book series. The skill turns Great Cleave into Deathstorm. Deathstorm makes all AOE skill cooldowns reset and AOE skills cost 0 fervour. Probably one of my favorites for the LOTRO champion, and absolutely necessary at times... like in the Watcher raid. It's a royal pain to get but worth the effort imo.
Invincible:
This trait is also from the Mines of Moria expansion. It belongs to the Martial Champion (blue) class trait line. You can get it by following the Path of the Martial Champion class quest line. These quests are given by your trainer. The skill increases Adamant's damage reduction to 30%. It also resets cooldowns on Champions Challenge, Hedge, Bracing Attack, Sprint, Dire Need, and Heroics. It's obviously a good skill to have it you're doing some heavy tanking/off tanking, but not great for much else.
Continuous Blood Rage:
The third and final trait from the Moria expansion. It is part of the Berserker (red) class traits. Get this trait by reading the book "The Boiling Rage". You can get this book from the Iron Garrison Guard reputation vendor. It does require Kindred standing... This skill removes and provides immunity to stuns/knockdowns/dazes, but not from fellowship maneuvers. Also gives +50% to resists except disease, -90% healing, +10% damage (increases every 10 sec), and costs 630 morale and 60 morale/sec. That 60 morale/second equals 3,600 morale/minute... yeeeaaaah. So far I've never been able to find a very good use for it on a LOTRO champion. It simply costs too much for the benefit it give. Maybe if they ever reduce the healing reduction or morale cost... then it would be pretty cool. But right now good luck getting it to work for you!
Controlled Burn:
The CB trait comes from the level 50 class quests. You have to finish all of the quests in the series for it to be granted. This is an excellent skill for the LOTRO champion... at one point the best legendary skill. It replaces the stance you're in (fervour, glory, ardour) and gives +1710.7 ICPR, +15% damage, 75% chance to reflect 47 damage, -20% attack duration. It's a situational skill. It can be a big help in some raid/instances since you can parry and evade in the stance. Some people use it in the Gorothul fight in Sammath Gul at the end to help survive all of the adds. Personally though I don't use it if I can help it now that fervour gives +20 damage ;) Control your aggro and you shouldn't need it most of the time!
Explosion of Blades:
This trait gives the Raging Blade skill. It comes from collecting all of the pages from the book "The Artisan Blade". The book can be purchased from your trainer at level 39. Raging Blade is a full AOE skill. It generates large amount of threat, but never misses for on level enemies. It is probably one of my favorites, especially in AOE build. Just remember you can steal aggro with it. It's great for tanking/off-tanking though!
Ferocious Strikes:
This trait gives the Ferocious Strikes skill. You can get it by collecting all of the pages from the book "The Tome of Swords". The book can be purchased from your trainer at level 39. Ferocious Strikes is a single target (ST) skill that generates large amount of threat. It can only be evaded by on level enemies, meaning it cannot be blocked, parried, or miss. It's another great skill for holding aggro if you're tanking/off-tanking. It's also good if you're single target build. It doesn't risk the misses, parry, blocks that the other skills do. However if you're "hardcore" and do some DPS parsing or read what others say, you'll find that it's not the best for maximizing your DPS. I like it though, and unless I really need other skill usually have it slotted ;)
Fight On:
This trait gives the Fight On skill. You can get it by collecting all of the pages from the book "The Joy of Battle". The book can be purchased from your trainer at level 39. It's kind of a junk skill in my opinion. You can use the skill when your morale drops below 60%. It drains the target of 162 power and you gain 477 power. It increases melee damage by 25% for 30 seconds. If you're still in combat on expiration, you lose 25% of your power regen until out of combat for 9 seconds. A lot of people talk about how this skill works so well, but I've yet to see anyone actually implement it well. The 60% morale restriction makes it a real pain to time correctly. And really, if you're a good champ you don't usually get hit much (take note aggro whores!), so you don't get a chance to use it. If Turbine dropped the 60% morale requirement then this skill could be very useful, kinda like the hunter's Burn Hot skill. Go complain on the forum now so maybe they'll fix it!
Now that you know what all of the skills are and what they do, I'll quickly list which I'd use for the various builds. You can equip three legendary skills at a time so for each build I'll recommend the three best.
Single Target DPS Build
This is usually the best way to trait for soloing, PvMP, and most of the 3 and 6 man instances like Sammath Gul or Sword Halls.
• Explosion of Blades
• Ferocious Strikes
• Controlled Burn
You can obviously substitute traits that you may like better or fit the situation. I like these because when you really need to hit something, pull aggro, and survive they work well. You can try the Fight On or Continuous Bloodrage traits instead of any... but good luck ;)
AOE Build
This build tends to be very useful in raids and PvMP type situations, making the LOTRO champion invaluable. Raids usually have fights requiring the ability to burn down loads of adds quickly, which makes this build very
important. For instance in the Watcher raid the LOTRO champion MUST be traited for Deathstorm to take out the mass of tentacles that spring up in one stage of the fight. Correctly traited it is
a breeze... incorrectly and it's a wipe! Here are my choices:
• Deathstorm
• Raging Blade
• Controlled Burn
Again you can pick different traits, but you'll definitely want deathstorm for serous AOE. You may swap out Controlled Burn for Ferocious Strikes or Fight On, but that's entirely up to you.
Tanking or Off Tanking Build
This build is kind of rare nowadays, but every once in a while it can be necessary. I have tanked/off-tanked most non-raid fights with the Single Target DPS build, but this one can still be useful.
If you really want your LOTRO champion to be survivable here's what I'd do.
• Explosion of Blades
• Ferocious Strikes
• Invincible
For this build I'm assuming you'll be wanting to hold aggro and be tanking most of the adds/mobs. Using the Explosion of Blades and Ferocious Strikes skills will make you an aggro magnet. Since you're traited for
the Invincible trait for survivability, you'll want to run in Glory. With four or more in the Martial Champion line, Glory gets a big buff to morale. You can of course switch things around as you like, but this is the serious tanking build.
There are obviously a lot of other ways to set up your legendary traits with a LOTRO champion, but these are the ones I find most useful for the general situations described. Most of the others aren't terribly useful or are only necessary
in rare cases. As always though, use your judgment and play around with what works best for you.
I hope the LOTRO champion guide for legendary traits helped you out. See you over in the other sections of the guide!
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