New champ changes

[Mortal_Effects]

Finally a "more" polished looking list of "speculated" changes. I put it this way as things are always up for changes but so far things look awesome!! Guards eat your heart out. ;). Some pretty sweet looking ways to put skills together now, well have to see how things look when launched. If any champs want to put down a strat per stance their feeling, I'd love to read it. I'll be hashing thru things in the next couple days and posti g maybe a couple builds I'll be gong with.

Here's the post so you don't have to go elsewhere (by Orion)

A Champion stands on the front line no matter the circumstance. These are the brave souls that find courage in the face of certain death, foregoing fear as they charge headlong into the cacophony of battle. They are berserkers, they are defenders and they are engines of massacre and destruction. A Champion is a hero unlike any other, capable of defeating the most daunting odds with nothing more than weapons, guile, armor and a bad attitude.
With Isengard, the Champion is undergoing some significant changes that are meant to set them further apart from the other martial frontline classes. These changes are all meant to keep the Champion in line with the style of game play that you have come to expect and extend that gameplay across all stances.
Fervour Cost with Two-handed Weapons

For a long time, wielding a two-handed sword required the Champion to build up extra fervour before being able to execute their skills. We looked at this and decided that we could easily remove this restriction. Two-handed weapons deal more damage, but there are still some circumstances where the Champion is likely to desire the comfort of two-weapons over a single weapon. This change makes it so all of the Champion’s skills now possess a consistent fervour cost and utilization.
The Shield-less Tank

Shields are also going away for Champions. Champions remain a viable tank who uses altered skills allowing them to maintain aggro and add survivability. We wanted to define the tank role of the Champion differently than the Guardian and Warden. Guardians are an absorption tank, stacking the strength of heavy armor and heavy shields with skills that further enhance their abilities to absorb and mitigate damage as they control the ebb of the fight. Wardens use HoTs and lifetaps coupled with skills to boost their evasion and mitigation to control their enemies in a fight.
Champion tanking has always had the appearance and, in some respect, the game play style of the Guardian. Sadly, the Champion lacked many of the Guardian’s utility skills and was a lesser tank because of this. As game play goes, the slower pace of tanking as a Champion behind a shield seemed, to me, to take you out of your chosen role for something lesser. This prompted me to revisit the way that the Champion tanks, turning them into a Shield-less tank.
Through a combination of skill plays the Champion will be able to satisfy the tanking role adequately in any group or raid scenario. However, due to the basic damage output of the Champion there are a couple of trade-offs for tanking. First, they will need to focus on the Glory stance; this will provide them with the tools necessary to survive the initial onslaughts and longer nature of boss encounters. Second, they will end up dealing less damage than in other stances because of their attention to survival skills. Lastly, as a Champion you might expect to focus on parry and evade as ways to enhance your tanking, but a martial Champion tanks primarily by taking damage. Tanking Champions will need to get hit to hold aggro, forcing them to focus more on vitality and morale. The ultimate goal of these changes is to provide the Champion tank the same game play experience that they are used to from playing in both Ardour and Fervour.
Stances – Oh how they have changed

Stances provide us with a lot of power and we wanted to take full advantage of this when we revised the Champion, focusing on each stance and how it alters Champion game play.

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Glory is the main tanking stance. The damage reduction has been removed and replaced with the dependency on more survival-based skills. We also moved a lot of the threat generation into skill plays while in Fervour and, as such, the Champion will need to focus on this as a way to hold aggro in combat. To help the Glory Champion along Glory will continue to do the following: increase critical defense and power regeneration and also keep fervour generation at a modest level. Enhancements include: a reduction in the cooldown for Adamant/Invincible, Hedge and Bracing Attack.
The baseline enhancements listed above are the new bread and butter of Glory. There are other important alterations that the skill will make as well. Rising Ire will no longer be a trained skill; instead, Ebbing Ire while in Glory stance will become Rising Ire. Several other skills have been identified as “Glory” skills and moved into the Never Falter category of the skill panel.
Sudden Defence: This skill has been revised significantly. Instead of offering a bonus to parry and evade (useless to the Fervour Champion), the skill now provides a damage absorbing bubble to the Champion. This bubble increases in strength with every Fervour pip that the Champion currently has built up. The morale bubble lasts until removed or 15 seconds expire, whichever happens first.
Hedge: Damage on hedge is still incredibly low; the skill has been improved however. While it does now allow parry it does not increase parry; instead it increases the Champion’s Armour Value. This value is increased when the Champion is in Glory stance. It will still allow the Champion to avoid disarms and remove the disarmed effect. It will simply become a more permanent part of the Glory rotation.
Glory – Traits

Traits in the Martial Champion line will focus on increasing the Champion’s ability to be an effective tank and the trait set has been altered to augment the ability of the Champion tank.
Let’s highlight the changes to traits in the Martial Champion line. Only the changes are discussed in this section.
Call of the Wild: Generates more threat and on each use reduces the cooldown of the skill Sudden Defence by 5 seconds. This should allow the Martial Champion to keep Sudden Defence up more reliably over the course of a fight. Of course, it will force them into using the Wild Attack skill in place of other skills.
At the Ready: Skill executions that deal damage to a target will reduce the cooldown of both Rising Ire and Ebbing Ire by 2 seconds. This allows the Champion to have access to a primary threat building skill more often while in Glory stance; it also allows a Champion concerned about garnering too much attention to choose this as an off-trait.
Reprisal: Formerly called Patience, Reprisal causes Exchange of Blows to execute the retaliation damage more often. When in Glory Stance, Exchange of Blows will also generate more threat, activate upon entering Glory and potentially generate a Fervour Pip each time you are hit.
Braced Against Defeat: Each execution of the skill Bracing Attack will provide additional morale and apply a 15% bonus to incoming healing for 10 seconds. Time of Need: Dire Need and Improved Dire Need now adds 5 fervour pips and has its cooldown lowered by 5 minutes.
Time of Need: Dire Need and Improved Dire Need now adds 5 fervour pips and has its cooldown lowered by 5 minutes.
Vigour of Champions: Second Wind now restores more power every 2/seconds for 10 seconds. Before you get all upset, Second Wind has undergone a transition and this is actually a nice boost to the new baseline skill.
Tight Grip: Tight Grip increases the duration of Hedge buff benefits by 5 seconds and decreases the cooldown of the Hedge skill by 50% in all stances.
Aggressive Exchange: This trait was previously called Heavy Shield Use. As the Champion no longer uses a shield, the trait now modifies Blade-wall so that it generates increased threat when used.
Glory – Trait-set

The capstone for glory is unchanged; you still get Invincible to overwrite Adamant. The two-set bonus provides the Champion with an increased amount of critical defence while in Glory Stance and increases the amount of threat generated by Champion’s Challenge. The three-set bonus reduces the amount of fervour required to use Bracing Attack by 3 pips and further increases the Critical Defence offered by the Glory Stance. The four-set bonus increases the Champion’s morale and increases their Critical Defence while in Glory stance.
Glory – Conclusion

Now, there are a host of other skills that are included in this Champion update, but these are the primary skills altered by the Glory Stance and the Martial Champion trait-line.
Ardour has been something of a mistreated stance for Champions. It occupied no clear niche and by all accounts and experience its value was limited; very limited. Hopefully, changes being made to Ardour with Isengard will put those experiences to an end and allow Ardour to become a viable stance, albeit still fairly niche.
The goal I set out with Ardour was a little odd. I wanted to make it into a power conserving AoE stance that allowed for damage a little under Fervour with a greater level of survivability. It also was set up to highlight and accentuate the AoE skills over the strikes.
As such the following was done to the base skill of Ardour: entering Ardour provides a reduced cooldown to Great Cleave/Improved Great Cleave, Blade-wall will generate a fervour pip on successful hits, AoE skills will cost less power to use, threat generated by AoE skills is reduced, and the power regeneration and fervour generation of Ardour are unchanged.
Here are the highlights starting with the skills that were adjusted, modified and set into the Engage the Tide section of the skill panel.
Ardour – Skills

Flurry: Changed to no longer require a defeat response to activate. Instead, the skill’s duration has been improved and the cooldown to use it has been lowered. It will be a part of the rotation, but a lesser part of the rotation. This skill also gets a better boon in Fervour stance.
Battle Acuity: This skill was formerly called Fighting Dirty. The alteration to the skill removes the need for a defeat response. The duration has been lowered to 10 seconds; instead of generating 1 fervour on use, the skill will now cost 2 fervour to activate. The cooldown on the skill is now 30 seconds.
Rend/Improved Rend: Renaming Cleave and Rend to be more consistent and to help avoid confusion with Great Cleave.
Great Cleave/Improved Great Cleave: Cooldown of the skills are greatly reduced. Improved Great Cleave is the renamed version of Death Storm. In addition to resetting AoE skills, adding 10% damage to AoE skill and reducing the fervour cost of AoE skills by 5 fervour, Improved Great Cleave will also apply the same buff as Battle Acuity. These buffs will not stack, but the skill cooldown on Battle Acuity will not be triggered. The duration of Improved Great Cleave is 18 seconds.
Ardour – Traits

As with the Martial Champion line, the traits in the Deadly Storm trait-line have been altered. Only those changed are listed here.
Eye of the Storm: This trait will now set the fervour requirement on Blade-storm, Cleave and Improved Cleave to cost 1 less fervour.
Battle Acumen: This trait was formerly called Dirt Cheap. In its new form the trait modifies Battle Acuity so that it costs only 1 fervour to activate.
Ardent Rage: Formerly Fervent Rage.
Swift to Anger: Taken from the berserker line, Swift to Anger will now change Swift Strike into Swift Blade. Swift Blade will generate a fervour on critical hits. Finally, Red Haze will now activate when the Champion enters Ardour. While in Ardour, Red Haze will provide the Champion with a fervour pip for every enemy defeated.
Ardour – Trait-set

The capstone remains the same, although the name has been changed to Improved Great Cleave. The two-set bonus now provides the Champion with an increased chance to hit with their AoE skills. The three-set bonus reduces the chance that the AoE skills used by the Champion will be blocked or parried. The four-set bonus decreases the power cost and increases the damage dealt by blade skills and also lowers the amount of threat generated by blade skills while the Champion is in Ardour.
Ardour – Conclusion

While the changes to the Ardour stance are more subtle, they are no less transformational. It appears that the Ardour line’s niche will be landscape grinding and high trash count instance spaces or skirmishes. It also might be handy in the Ettenmoors.
The biggest change in the Fervour stance is our removal of the healing penalty during our testing. Whether or not that makes it to the live ship of Isengard remains to be seen, mostly because I missed the real penalty on three separate occasions. “For the love of…!” cry the Guardians and Wardens. There is a change, subtle and true, that should make the Fervour Champion incapable of being a viable tank -- threat generation.
Many skills that once had bonus threat applied when used have been moved to only generate that bonus threat while in the Glory stance. This should make it more difficult for the Fervour Champion to hold enough threat when grouped with other Champions and high DPS classes.
Baseline Fervour now looks like this: You cannot parry or evade, your power regeneration is increased, your fervour generation is increased, melee damage is increased and, lastly, Merciful Strike undergoes a massive transformation.
Fervour – Skills

Some of the skills belonging to the Toe to Toe section of the character panel have been altered. These are the changes.
Merciful Strike: While in Fervour stance, Merciful Strike will now consume all fervour the Champion has, dealing an increased amount of damage for each pip of fervour consumed. After 1 second, 3 fervour will be restored to the Champion. This turns Merciful strike into an effective finishing skill. The damage is not so high that it outweighs other marquee skills and the power consumption is still pretty high, but this feels more like a real finisher than it has in the past.
Blood Rage: The non-legendary version of the skill now only costs 10% of your morale to activate.
Red Haze: This is no longer a combat permanent skill. Instead the skill has been altered to add a fervour pip every 15 seconds for 45 seconds and provides you with the initial fervour pip on use. The cooldown is 5 seconds.
Fervour – Traits

As with the previous two outlines stances have been altered and the alterations are listed here.
Controlled Fury: This trait was moved from Martial Champion and now increases the duration of Controlled Burn by 30 seconds.
Flurry of Blows: This will now increase the duration of Flurry when not in Fervour stance. When in the Fervour stance Flurry becomes permanent and activated when entering the stance. This effect is not removed until you leave the Fervour stance.
Athletic: The cooldown of your sprint skill is lowered by 120 seconds and your Wild Attack will now enable you to stun your enemy on a successful hit for the 10 seconds after activating Sprint. The ability to stun is removed upon a successful strike, but the increased movement speed remains.
Fervour – Trait-set

There is a major change here and that change is to the capstone. Continuous Blood Rage now costs 10% of your Morale to enable. You will no longer suffer a 90% penalty to incoming healing. Instead, the taxing nature of the ability places a DoT on the caster that becomes more potent as the damage increases. This damage starts out low and increases by 20% for every 2% of bonus damage earned through the skill. Being low on morale will not disable the effect. Use at your own risk.
The two-set bonus adds a 40% critical multiplier to the second and third attacks from Brutal Strikes and to the second attack on Savage Strikes. The three-set bonus increases the critical rating of Wild Attack and also increases the critical multiplier of Wild Attack. The four-set bonus increases the amount of Fervour generated in Fervour stance, increases the damage output of Merciful Strike and reduces the cooldown of Merciful Strike by 10 seconds.
Fervour – Conclusion

In testing, it appears that the Fervour stance has reclaimed the title of top dog for sustained DPS. Of course, being in the mix is a dangerous endeavour.
I have highlighted the skills and stance specific alterations, but now let’s look at some of the other skills and legendary traits that have also undergone transformations.
Second Wind: Second Wind no longer requires a defeat response effect. The skill now restores power to the Champ every 2 seconds for 10 seconds and can be used every 10 seconds. The skill can only be used while you are in combat.
Heroics/True Heroics: The baseline version of the skill has had its cooldown reduced to 5 minutes. The advanced version of the skill now reacts differently based off the stance that the Champion is using. When in Glory, the skill will taunt enemies in the area surrounding the Champion and apply a damage preventing bubble to them. In Fervour, the skill will increase their critical hit chance and their chance and apply a damage preventing bubble. In Ardour, the skill will apply a combat and speed slow to targets within range of the Champion and apply the damage preventing bubble.
Seeking Blade: Formerly Blocking Blades, this skill no longer requires a defeat response effect. It now increases the critical chance of Relentless and Remorseless Strike. This effect lasts for 10 seconds and has a 120 second cooldown.
Raging Blade: Raging Blade no longer generates high threat in all stances. Instead the stance influences what the skill does. In Ardour, Raging Blade has an increased chance to critically hit. In Fervour, the skill increases the critical magnitude. In Glory, the skill generates high threat.
Ferocious Strikes: Ferocious Strikes now deals stepped damage. The first attack deals the lowest and increases the damage dealt on each successive hit.
Fight On: The buff applied by the skill now applies regardless of whether or not there were targets nearby to grant the power restoration portion of the skill and the cooldown was reduced to 5 minutes.
Controlled Burn: Controlled Burn has undergone a major change and one that is certain to be unpopular. The skill will no longer pre-empt stances. Instead it will increase damage dealt, speed attack duration, grant 1 fervour for each enemy defeated and provide a bonus fervour every 5 seconds. This will only last for 45 seconds. The cooldown is 5 minutes.
Legacy Changes

There have also been some changes to legacies to ensure that we are not making some skills become infinite use and the like.
Sudden Defence Cooldown Mod: This legacy formerly increased the duration of the Sudden Defence skill effect. Now it reduces the cooldown on the skill by a max of 30 seconds.
Hedge Armour Points Mod: We replaced the Sudden Defence Parry and Evade Modifier with a legacy that will actually affect the Champion skills. This will now increase the amount of armour points granted by hedge.
Battle Acuity Duration: Formerly the Rising Ire Cooldown, this legacy now increases the duration of the Battle Acuity skill effect.
Conclusion

There have been some pretty major changes to the Champion class, but the class play style remains intact. So far, it looks good. Hopefully, any concerns that are still surfacing through the Beta process can get hammered out and the class will ship out to Isengard in very solid shape.