Champion

Choose an Archetype
Berserker	Bio Engineer	Champion	Commando	Defender

Class Statistics

HIT POINTS		The amount of life you have.
MELEE		Physical Attack Power
BALLISTICS		Ranged and Explosive Attack Power
ARMOR		Reduces Damage dealt to you.
SPECIALIZATION: Air Combat, Critical Strikes

Class Bonuses:	Air Combat Mastery
	Self and Group Critical Strike Bonus
Class Statistics:	Final Melee Damage: +0%
	Final Ranged Damage: +0%
	Base Blunt Resistance: +0%
	Base Slash Resistance: +0%
	Base Pierce Resistance: +0%
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Slug): 1299
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Plasma): 1229
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Laser): 1420
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Slug): 2387
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Plasma): 2256
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Laser): 2497
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Slug):
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Plasma):
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Laser):

Biography

The Champion represents ODIN's divine force of retribution. A strong warrior able to deal out a wide variety of caustic force field and anti-gravity based effects, increasing the combat effectiveness of his allies. One-handed weapons are the Champion's chosen tools of combat.

• Air combat specialist
• Spirit: The Raven
• Proficient with 1-handed weapons & pistols
• Medium Health
• Medium damage output in melee
• Medium damage output in ballistics
• Typical combo meter
• Capable of 8 air attacks
• Specialist at Critical strikes
• Main Co-op group benefit: Critical Strike

Please check out the Skills section.

Champion Skill Tree Advice

Excerpted from Darth's Interest in Champions page

First off, why be the Champion? Well for one, he is an excellent starter character. He has good allocations across the board, and can be molded into just about any type of combatant you want, be it melee, ranged, procs or a mix. Second, I don’t know why folks always refer to the Champion as the “jack of all trades and the master of none.” In my opinion it should be “Jack of all trades and master of three.”

1) Air Combat-nobody does this better than the champion. He gets 8…8 air melee attacks! That means you can knock 8 enemies into the air and hit them all, or just one tough bad guy and hit him 8 times. This is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence for the lone enemy you are attacking. In the skills section, we will look at how you can bolster his air attacks so the 8 individual guys you hit have a death sentence too.

2) Pistols-the Champion is the master of pistols. Nobody, except a Commando, can touch a Champion with pistols unless they try really hard to succeed and he tries really hard to fail. And the Champion does so much pistol damage so fast that in my opinion, even compared to the Commando, who will outshoot him, the difference is pretty negligible. I know some people say they hate pistols, but a lot of that probably has to do with the mechanics of aiming them. KahLrik posted an excellent tutorial in the FAQs and Guide section covering this. I suggest you read it, as I am certain you will learn a few things you didn’t know that will make you come to love the pistol. My Human Champion can kill a shielded spider in seconds with his custom made “rail gun” pistols.

3) Critical Strikes-this is a rare but devastating hit that allows you to do double the damage on your attacks.

Now, on to the skills. Many people say the champ is like a half as good Berserker or a wannabe Commando. Follow me my young apprentice, as we see why the Champion can do as much or more damage with a little work and skill allocation. The Champion’s upper tier skill, Unerring Strike, gives you a 7% chance for critical hits and you can rune it up to 17%. Add a red Epic Violation Effector charm and you can score these hits on a pretty regular basis, effectively doubling your damage.

Middle Path-Come Fly With Me

Your first skill, Asgard’s Fury, grants you an additional 42% to any damage you do while in the air. That means when you jump at a troll, you do 42% more damage when you hit it. So if you have a weapon that does 2000 damage, and you hit something in the air and score a critical hit, you will do around 5000 damage. Keeping in mind the Champ gets 8 hits, so that’s a possible 40,000 plus points of damage.

The spider, Feeder of Ravens, is a concussion mine that knocks all enemies high into the sky, allowing you to jump up and conduct 8 air melee strikes on them. Also, they will take damage from the fall when they hit the ground, so that’s usually 8 dead guys for the one spider, and all killed rather stylishly by you.

Valiant’s Might, your battle cry, causes every enemy you hit (excludes spiders, trolls and bosses) to be juggled into the air. And once they are in the air, they are in the Champion’s House. Take to the sky and kill all of those who dare to challenge a son of Odin.

Ascent to Valhalla, the last skill in this tree, increases your juggle launch height by almost 30%. This is more of a fun skill to me, but it is still really cool. When you hit someone and jump up, you will just keep going like you are about to fly. I can’t really explain it, but it is really neat to play around with. Plus, at that height, the fall will kill most things if somehow you do not.

Left Path-The Blade Master

The first skill here, Immolating Blade, has a 14% chance of doing fire damage to enemies. Just like when you hit an exploding goblin and catch on fire, you are now doing the same status effect to the enemy. Like the Defender’s enthalpy reduction attack, this doesn’t work as well with humans. However, on Cybernetic characters it is pretty spectacular. My cyber champion uses a 2 handed sword with a 6% Thermal Induction Pulse chance, 2 epic charms of Thermal Induction at 20% each, a maxed out sub munitions distributor, 5% for two handed status chance, and this skill at 14% for a 72% of igniting an enemy every time he swings his sword. Throw in some status effect damage and duration runes, and I only have to hit something once. As soon it starts burning I turn to someone else cause they will die in seconds. Again, it takes work to make this an effective build. And I know there are better, faster charms for destroying enemies. However, when you get tired of gravity wells and acid pools, this is a fun new way to kill the bad guys.

The Spider, Thermal Induction Mine, explodes and sets everything on fire, hitting them with the lingering status effect. The more points you put in increases the damage and radius.

The battle cry here, One Will Rise Above, causes all air melee damage to increase by up to 70%! You will have to knock them in the air, as unlike the middle path, it doesn’t do that for you, but still, a 70% damage increase!

Next, you have another specialization, Warrior of the Blood Eel. Like the Defender’s hammer damage, or the Berserker’s dual-wield skill, this grants you an additional 42% damage to any sword. So if you go this route, always make sure you have a sword equipped to get this bonus.

Finally, something else that is unique to the Champion. As a strange off-shoot of Immolating Blade, you can access Lament for the Battle Slain. This sub skill, the only one for any class, lets you do an additional 42% damage to all finishing moves when capped. Let’s think about that. You have a Sword that does 2250 damage. You also gain 250 or so from a fire effect. You leap into the air with your battle cry on and do an additional 70% damage, plus 42% more damage for Asgard's Fury. Your weapon is a sword, so add another 42% damage. Finally, your first hit is a finishing move, adding another 42% damage, and you score a critical hit, doubling everything you have just done. This is how you 1 hit kill Grendl-1.

Right Path-The Grammaton Cleric (see the great but little known film Equillibrium)

Your first skill here, Kinship of Gungnir, gives you a 42% damage bonus when you use pistols. So, pistols may not do as much damage as rifles, but with this skill capped, I bet they do. For the range issues, 1 pistol range 20% rune, and a ballistic lock 10% if you really think you need it easily solves that. Remember, you have 2 pistols, so again, read KahLrik’s pistol guide. If your pistols do 400 damage, when you shoot them both at the same target, you are doing 800 damage! Or if you prefer you can fire at 2 targets simultaneously. Since your alignment offers you a skill that grants ricochet if you are human, and a Metalstorm Impeller will give it to you as well, you can quickly wipe out a pack of enemies with your pistols. And since this an upper tier skill, any Champion can use this skill.

The spider for this path, Tree of Raining-Iron, is a deployable chain gun. The more points you add increases the damage done and the duration of the spider. Again, there may be better skills, but especially early in the game, you can drop this, stand behind it, and let it kill everything. Even at 50, if maxed out it is still very effective.

Storm of Mortal Wounds, your battle cry, is one of the best in the game in my opinion, and the reason many Champions go right path. When active, it grants you a critical hit on EVERY attack. That means every blow you land does double the damage guaranteed! So imagine if you have this active, and you’re also using Asgard’s fury from the middle path, the damage you would do during air melee. Again, maybe not as much as a Berserker, but for me, doing 5,000 instead of 8,000 damage is pointless when the enemy only has 6,000 hit points and I can hit him 8 times if I want. This skill applies to all attacks, so your ballistic attacks will gain critical hits as well. Remember your pistols at 42% increased damage? Double that.

The Final skill in this path is Stopping Power. This will increase the damage you do with slug weapons by 56%. My human right Path Champion has this skill and Gift of Gungnir capped. With my Aesir Slug pistols equipped with 30% pistol damage, 30% slug damage, maxed out rate of fire and a Metalstorm Impeller Charm, you can see how using these when my battle cry is active lets me kill most things in a second when both guns are trained on the same target.
Well, that is all for the Champion. As you can see, any one of his paths is a good choice, and they will all deal massive amounts of damage depending on how you set them up. Again, for me the fun in the game is in experimenting and trying different builds and play styles. If you aren’t a big fan of air melee or pistols, I encourage you to give the Champion a try and see how much fun it is.