Help me understand how to make a Champion,

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Bleu42 wrote:

Oh man you are seriously underestimating champions.

Taking conqueror to worthy foe is 6% reduced dmg taken, 2% life regen, 20% more damage and 100% hit chance, freakin huge for just 4 points.

Then you've got First to Strike, Last to Fall. Sure, if you're using tombfist the intimidate, which is an awesome 10% more damage, doesn't matter. But Adrenaline is VERY nice, 25% AS and 100% inc dmg.

Yea inspirational doesn't seem great, but it exists for the same reason that the last Fortify node exists; for non-melee characters to get some use out of champion. You know who has a hard time keeping fortify up? Bow users, so there's your use for Fortitude.

Lastly, unstoppable hero is a really nice two points, huge armor and evasion especially for leveling, attack speed, damage, and can't be stunned.

Oh and this last point I could be wrong on, but I could have sworn you can now gain your taunt buff on all bosses, but they won't actually be taunted. At least this is reflected in PoB against shaper.

But yea, it's a great ascendancy yo.

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Phrazz wrote:

First of all: "Worthy Foe" and "First to strike, last to fall" gives you a 30% MORE damage boost. If you get intimidate from other sources, ok, but the "Adrenaline" buff is GOOD, and you can proc it whenever you want using blasphemy+curse+blood magic. The increase in armor/evasion and the offensive buffs on "Unstoppable Hero" are also nice, and the reduced damage taken on "Worthy Foe" is good.

The best part, though, is the "Enemies you taunt can't evade attack". They changed Shaper this league, as well as the guardians; they can all be taunted. This let's you stack as much crit as you want, without having to gear for accuracy. Yes, you have the "cannot be taunted" mods on maps, but well... Doesn't count for much.

No sane melee character takes "Fortitude". Go "Worthy Foe", "Unstoppable Hero" and "First to strike...".

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Necromael wrote:

Does the cannot be taunted still apply taunt but without negatives, or mob is 100% immune and it doesn't even receive the status?

Just to know if its reroll worthy regarding taunt.

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I0wa wrote:

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Bleu42 wrote:

Oh man you are seriously underestimating champions.

Taking conqueror to worthy foe is 6% reduced dmg taken, 2% life regen, 20% more damage and 100% hit chance, freakin huge for just 4 points.

Then you've got First to Strike, Last to Fall. Sure, if you're using tombfist the intimidate, which is an awesome 10% more damage, doesn't matter. But Adrenaline is VERY nice, 25% AS and 100% inc dmg.

Yea inspirational doesn't seem great, but it exists for the same reason that the last Fortify node exists; for non-melee characters to get some use out of champion. You know who has a hard time keeping fortify up? Bow users, so there's your use for Fortitude.

Lastly, unstoppable hero is a really nice two points, huge armor and evasion especially for leveling, attack speed, damage, and can't be stunned.

Oh and this last point I could be wrong on, but I could have sworn you can now gain your taunt buff on all bosses, but they won't actually be taunted. At least this is reflected in PoB against shaper.

But yea, it's a great ascendancy yo.

Thanks for the help, your post kind of makes it sound worse though haha, so it's for bow users basically? And knowing if taunt works vs shaper is a big deal, because if you can't get the bonus, champion is completely worthless, as I will be running the shaper frequently, that would make champion litterally the worse acend in the game. And how do you say 10% more damage doesn't matter, that's more damage than 100 Inc damage, and 25 ias combined

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Tanakeah wrote:

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I0wa wrote:

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Bleu42 wrote:

Oh man you are seriously underestimating champions.

Taking conqueror to worthy foe is 6% reduced dmg taken, 2% life regen, 20% more damage and 100% hit chance, freakin huge for just 4 points.

Then you've got First to Strike, Last to Fall. Sure, if you're using tombfist the intimidate, which is an awesome 10% more damage, doesn't matter. But Adrenaline is VERY nice, 25% AS and 100% inc dmg.

Yea inspirational doesn't seem great, but it exists for the same reason that the last Fortify node exists; for non-melee characters to get some use out of champion. You know who has a hard time keeping fortify up? Bow users, so there's your use for Fortitude.

Lastly, unstoppable hero is a really nice two points, huge armor and evasion especially for leveling, attack speed, damage, and can't be stunned.

Oh and this last point I could be wrong on, but I could have sworn you can now gain your taunt buff on all bosses, but they won't actually be taunted. At least this is reflected in PoB against shaper.

But yea, it's a great ascendancy yo.

Thanks for the help, your post kind of makes it sound worse though haha, so it's for bow users basically? And knowing if taunt works vs shaper is a big deal, because if you can't get the bonus, champion is completely worthless, as I will be running the shaper frequently, that would make champion litterally the worse acend in the game. And how do you say 10% more damage doesn't matter, that's more damage than 100 Inc damage, and 25 ias combined

By your replies thusfar,it almost seems like you don't want to understand what the strong points of the Champion are and are writing everything off because of numbers and nothing but that. It's not all about damage but about the overall package and what the Champion can offer when you look just beyond the damage. Now, I could very well be reading too far into what you've said so far, and you may genuinely want to try out Champion, but so far it seems you'll not be convinced and you're being you own worst enemy in a sense. Let's try and break it down a bit more.


1. Inspirational also provides movement speed and its buffs are always on and not tied to a flask...and 5% damage on an 'increased' mod is not going to break the bank. This is also something that not just you get, but your allies as well, so it beats the Sulphur Flask out quite handily there. However, if you're just going solo, even then it's still better than a Sulphur Flask, though compared to everything else in the tree it's not great.


2. Here's a problem that you and others I have seen run into so many times. Yes, Tombifst will make the intimidate portions of FTSLTF not nearly as valuable, but that's IF and ONLY IF you're running nothing but Tombfist. Looking at it from another angle, you're locked into Tombfist if you want the Intimidate effect - or Belt of the Deceiver - so you have to sacrifice one gear slot right there. Tombfist is a great glove, but there are better choices out there when you start to look for more upgrades to your gear, and BotD is nothing compared to a well-rolled Stygian Vise or even a rare Leather Belt.

By taking FTSLTF, you've now opened up two gear slots for other things and that can be anything from well-rolled rares, to other uniques that might synergize even better with your gear. Again, it's not just about the fact that you can get it on one piece of gear and think that it invalidates part of the node...it's also what else comes with the node, too. Adrenaline is a very strong buff that you can trigger with a setup of: Blasphemy + Curse + Blood Magic and 20 seconds is more than enough for when you'll need it, which is boss fights (I'll get more into that later). For two Ascendancy points, this node is extremely good.


3. Unstoppable Hero...again...you're looking at one piece of gear and thinking the node is invalidated. Kaom's Roots are very nice, but they're budget boots and honestly, I think they're far too overvalued for what they are. Sure, you get Unwavering Stance and a nice chunk of life...you lose out on good movement speed, resists, sockets, and you have no chance of ever using Evasion, it practically locks you into Iron Reflexes. This node allows you enormous flexibility over Kaom's Roots and honestly makes those boots look like a joke. Fortify can be kept up pretty easily and allows you get stun imumnity while still having access to Evasion, and potential for Armour/Evasion hybrid builds. Couple those with an Abyss jewel or two that have 'Chance to Blind' on them, and your Evasion skyrockets while still maintaining potentially good armour values.


4. Fortitude is definitely not that strong and really needs a bit of a boost to make it a bit more appealing. No arguments here, but then again, most builds won't be taking this node anyway.


5. & 6. As stated by others, Shaper/Guardians are no longer immune to Taunt, so Conqueror will always affect them at full value along with Worthy Foe. And since you said that you're primarily doing Shaper/Guardians, you're not going to run into any issues with that. As for the taunt immune map mod...meh...a big fat 'So what?' here. This will not be a big deal at all for trash for pretty much most of the maps that you'll be doing, and the only issue you'll run into is bosses, and even then you might not even find them worth doing. So is it a big loss in the end...IMHO...hardly.

Your 'Aspect of Carnage' node for Berserker is strong, but it has far more downsides in the long run than just the map mod that Champion has to deal with. For you, that's a global 10% increased (more) damage taken on your Berserker character/s and that's for all sources. That also includes the degen brought on by Rage stacks, bleeding, Blood Rage if you use that, physical, elemental, and Chaos Damage, Vulnerability map curse (flasks wont' always cover this), and all forms of those in degen form. Also, it means that you'll have a very, very hard time trying to wear an Abyssus helmet if you ever wanted to even consider wearing that and go for a crit-style build.

Champion on the other hand doesn't have to worry about any of that and even gets damage mitigation and regen from these four points, which helps against Blood Rage degen among other things. Also, Champion can wear an Abyssus and overall be much safer when wearing it while taking advantage of the DPS boosts it will bring. That and the ability to gear less for accuracy because of the taunt bonus means less dependency on accuracy, so gear choices and mods on gear reach a higher state of flexibility. That and you're not locked into RT...you can go crit, and crit loves 100% chance to hit. Yes, you will lose that on 'Cannot Be Taunted' maps, but again, if your primary goal is Shaper/Guardians then the above mod is practically not going to be around, and definitely not on Shaper.


Honestly, the best thing for you is to sit down in PoB (Path of Building) and take some serious time looking over the Champion as an overall package and not focusing on the DPS numbers. Leave those out of the equation...look and see what flexibility and build choices the Champion offers, and then go from there and see what kind of DPS you can get WHILE ALSO TAKING INTO ACCOUNT what defenses and other offensive choices it offers.