As I mentioned a couple weeks back, I’ve started up a Champion and have been leveling her up as my schedule just hasn’t worked well for raiding at all and I’m burnt out on Mirkwood dailies. As the above picture shows, I’ve made my way to Rivendell (small rant on that later) and I’m sporting my nice armor set hand crafted by my Captain.
To recap a bit, I’ve recently hit level 32 and finally got Clobber so I can start feeling more Champ like and actually interrupt stuff. It has been killing me seeing all the heal inductions and just having to power through, but no more! I’m having an absolute blast playing the class, partially because I’m just not concerned about dying. I keep trying to test myself and run into mobs, sometimes pulling more then I intend, trying to take down as much as I can. Luckily later on Champs start to get a couple more “oh-crap” buttons so I’m a bit more resilient then I was previously.
I’m pretty sure I’ve yet to find a good rotation, but I primarily work to get up enough Fervour for the AoEs to get off as many of those as possible, then use Battle Frenzy to gain more Fervour to AoE some more. I’m getting better at using Flurry to speed up my attacks, but sometimes I forget it. I have pretty much adopted the Fervour stance as my default and only drop into Ardour if I’m trying something I know I shouldn’t be trying 😉 I really have noticed the benefit from the various class traits that add Fervor PIPs for crits, but I don’t have all that many class traits to choose from yet.
I haven’t been too worried about my gear so far, primarily just crafting a new armor set whenever I can but not getting obsessed over crits. I’ll check out the AH periodically for weapons, but now that I’ve started Skirmishes I think I’ll use Skirmishes as a way to upgrade my weapons while crafting my own armor, jewelry, and cloaks.
My leveling plan has worked out pretty well actually as the bouncing between North Downs and the Lone Lands seems to have maximized the quests I could do and allow me to not get tired of seeing the same zone for an extended period. I still have all of Agamaur and Harloeg to do in the LL and am on the last chapter of Book 2. I’ve done all of Trestlebridge, Amon Raith, and Western Esteldin and am just now starting to work on the Eastern part after I finish up the last bit of Othrikar. I’ve also picked up the vector quests to the Trollshaws, Evendim, and Oatbarton so I plan to pop to each of those to remind myself what the level range is as well as pick up the stable routes. I imagine I’ll spend a fair about of time bouncing between those areas as I continue to level. I also quite like mixing in Skirmishes as a change of pace from questing and will be able to more smoothly level out my soldier as well as utilize some of the rewards for item upgrades and to help out with crafting. For my soldier I did pick the herbalist as I think that will help out the most as I don’t think I’m lacking in the DPS department 😉 Skirmishes will also allow me to skip over areas or quests that I’m not super excited about.
For crafting, I did decide on the Historian and am leveling both the Weaponsmith and Scholar professions as I already have a GM Farmer. Scholar is actually going pretty well as I just unlocked the Artisan tier, but Weaponsmith is going rather slow since I can’t mine my own ore and it is outrageous to buy off the AH. I will end up running around on my Warden I’m sure to do some prospecting at the lower tiers such that I don’t go bankrupt, I just haven’t felt the urge to do it. I plan on joining the Weaponsmith guild as I think the rewards there far exceed Scholars, but please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. One aspect that annoyed me a little bit was the quest to unlock the Artisian tier for Scholars is marked as a level 25 quest but requires you to go to Rivendell! Even at 32 there were lots of red mobs along the way, so I’m pretty sure that at 25 you’ll get that nasty “this level is too high for you” debuff that sends every mob running after you.
Overall the champ seems to be going very fast but probably costing me more then the Warden as I’ve had to repair more. But that could also be due to the Lone Lands revamp as Orion did an amazing job with that area as not only does it flow better but many of the annoying quests have been tweaked or fixed. As I start to wear armor for longer periods, I’m sure I will have to either get better or adapt my style as this could get quite expensive 🙂
I plan to take some snapshots and videos of my champ here soon and will post those such that those smarter with champs can tell me what I’m doing wrong.
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