LOTRO Champion Guide:
Everything You Need to Know About Champs!
The LOTRO Champion: Some call them OP (overpowered for those of you that don't know the lingo!)... but everyone wishes they could be one ;)
6 Pieces of 4 slot gear gives you 24 slots to work with. The stats that I would prioritize as a Warden Tank are Mitigations, Resistance, Critical Defense, Incoming Healing, and Morale. As a medium armor class, Wardens cap their mitigations at 50% with 18,750 Rating required to get there.
This was one of the first characters I played in the game. No matter how many alts I create it is always my favorite. With the best AOE (area of effect = hits everything!) of any class and the ability to wear heavy armour, champions are extremely versatile and useful in any situation.
This LOTRO champion guide covers most everything needed to become a skilled champ. One of the biggest problems for new players is understanding the difference between AOE and ST (single target) skills. Champions also need to understand their role in a fellowship. These two simple pieces of the puzzle can really make or break an instance or raid run.
It's also very important to have the correct gear and traits. Failing to take the time to acquire good gear and grind the appropriate traits can make for a poor champ... good luck finding a good group like that! It's important to be an asset to a group, not cause wipes.
This guide has information on:
• Traits (virtues, class, race, legendary)
• Armour
• Jewelry
• Legendary Weapons
• 2H vs DW (2 handed vs duel wield) weapons
• Skill Usage
• General Tips
• Single Target DPS Build
• Off Tanking Build
• AOE Build
Understanding the champion and gearing up wisely will make you one of the most sought after players in the game. Whether you like to run raids or are strictly a solo player, making use of the information in the Lotro Champion Guide will make your journey through the lord of rings online much more enjoyable.
Traits
There are four types of traits you can equip in The Lord of the Rings Online, virtues, class, race, and legendary. Each is very important and you need to understand what they can do for you. Depending on the fight, whether you're raiding, doing small groups quests, or soloing will play a big role in what you slot. For each type I will give my thoughts on what I recommend.
Virtue Traits
Virtues can be critical for the LOTRO champion. These are achieved by completing quests, slaying monsters, and exploring specific areas. Check out this part of the guide to find out which are most important.
Class Traits
These traits are earned by using your skills. Check out this section to find out which ones you just gotta have!
Race Traits
These traits are earned by killing a specific type of monster and depends on whether you are a dwarf, elf, man, or hobbit. There aren't too many options here, but check out this section to see which ones I would equip.
Legendary Traits
These traits can be a real pain to get... there are a few that are pretty useless, some that are situation specific, and a couple that I use ALL THE TIME. Find out all about them here!
2H vs DW (two-handed vs duel-wield) weapons
Always a subject of much debate, almost every LOTRO champion wonders whether a two-hander is better than duel-wielding weapons. Check out this section to find out what I think.
I hope you find this guide useful! If you have any questions or would like additional topics covered - as always let me know!
Return from LOTRO Champion Guide to LOTRO Guru
*Updated for Mordor: 21.3*
Prologue
Greetings fellow kin! This goal of this guide is to provide some guidance around the optimal progression path, from start to finish, for your Legendary Items in LOTRO. I will preface this by stating my opinion that the Legendary system in LOTRO is extremely convoluted in its current state (patch 21.3), so this guide is intended to bring some clarity into how to handle this process. As a player returning to the game after a hiatus since launch, it was very overwhelming for me at first – so I genuinely hope this helps folks in the community digest this “Legendary” adventure.
Lotro Warden Leveling Guide
* Please note, this guide is not the only way to handle LI progression, but intended as a recommendation for an optimal path. For the sake of simplicity, this guide begins the journey at level 100 *
Notable Terms
Before we start, let’s go over some terms we’ll use throughout the guide – just to brush up on our LOTRO verbiage!
- LI – Legendary Items. These are items (weapons, class items, and saddles) which are intended to grow in strength with your character as they level.
- FA – First Age. The rarest and most powerful type of LIs. These are the items you will be long-term investing in for usage!
- SA – Second Age. Uncommon LIs which are more powerful than TAs, but not as strong as FAs.
- TA – Third Age. The most common and least powerful type of LIs. These are what you will use to help level your FA LIs.
- Legacies – Abilities you can add to your LI and level up individually to increase their effectiveness. There is a large selection of Legacies, providing considerable flexibility in how you build your LIs.
- Relics – Bonuses which are applied to your LIs. There are multiple types of Relics, each with options to select from, allowing you to tweak your LIs to your liking.
- Deconstruct – An action available at the Rune-master in which you break down a LI and in return, receive a selection of options – the most important of all, a single Legacy after level 30. We’ll talk more about what to Deconstruct later.
- Imbuement – An action available at the Rune-master in which you Imbue a LI, increasing its potency and convert its leveling process to an updated, more usable one. We’ll talk more about when to Imbue later.
Optimal Legendary Item Progression
- As a quick primer, have a quick read through LOTRO Wiki’s Legendary Items page.
- At level 100, craft or find someone to craft your desired level 100 FA LIs.
- Consider if you need multiple weapons for different builds (single target / AOE, DPS / support).
- If really wanting to min / max, some people repeat crafting until the FA LI rolls their desired initial values in its main attributes. Unlike Legacies, you can’t modify its attributes. This could get quite expensive.
- Plan ahead for which Legacies you want for each FA LI.
- LOTRO Tools has a nice chart which shows the available pre-imbued Legacies, as well as what they are changed to after imbuing.
- You can have 4 Major Legacies and 3 Minor Legacies per LI.
- Slot all FA LIs and apply a Legendary Title to each.
- Place Relics in each FA LI and keep these up to date as you level them.
- Use an [Anfalas Scroll of Delving] on each FA LI to raise its cap to level 70.
- Level your FA LIs to level 70.
- Ensuring all FA LIs are slotted, continue leveling your character to 115.
- Note that you don’t have to have LIs equipped to gain experience, but they must be slotted.
- In the remaining slots, equip TA LIs and level each to 30, selecting the Legacies you planned for your FA LIs in step 2.
- Once level 30, Deconstruct each TA LI to acquire a Legacy Replacement Scroll which you’ll use on your FA LIs to work towards your planned FA LI Legacies.
- Repeat this TA LI leveling/Deconstructing until you’ve replaced all your FA LI Legacies.
- Use an [Anfalas Crystal of Remembrance] on each FA LI to add the 7th, and final, Legacy.
- Use 3x [Anfalas Star-lit Crystal] on each FA LI to increase their DPS and empower their Legacies 10top-casinos.
- Imbue your FA LI to enhance its power and unlock the perks of Imbuement.
- Make sure you double check that you’ve completed your planned Legacies and all previous steps before Imbuing each FA LI.
- Use a lot of [Anfalas Star-lit Crystals] on each Imbued FA LI until you reach its base Legacy cap (53).
- Use a lot of [Anfalas Scrolls of Empowerment] on each Imbued FA LI until you reach each Legacy’s cap (69).
- Take a deep breathe, because you just nailed it with a Best in Slot First Age Legendary Item. Congrats, kin!
Epilogue
Lotro Class Slot Guardian
So I know this was quite a long-winded Guide. I generally try to keep these simple and straight-forward, but the LI system in LOTRO is quite honestly not that. I hope this recommended optimal path on how to handle LI progression helped you wrap your head around how to approach this.
If it has, please consider sharing this guide with your friends and maybe even toss me a follow on Twitter or sub on Twitch! As always, if you have recommendations for future guides or any topic you’d like me to write about, toss me a suggestion! Please leave your feedback in a comment below and I’ll see you all in Mordor!
Lotro Warden Rotation
Credit to Bludborn and /u/_v0k_ for providing feedback and direction with this guide! For a more detailed walkthrough, check out Dadi’s Guide.