Hello,
I played my hero a lot and now I tried champ. Hence I was able to compare them directly. I did some science.
Hero (RR7)
50 Celtic Spear
42 Shield (slam)
10 Blades (side snare)
38 Parry
Champ (RR3)
50 LW
42 Shield (slam)
38 Valor (yellow debuffs)
10 Blades (side snare)
4 Parry
For both, I charged blue buffs from combo pots and red str/con from Ancient Stag Femur. I used the side-chain of Spear Spec from Hero and Annihilation from LW chain of the champion.
I did extensive damage testing at the dummies. I computed the effective DPS considering swing speed using this calculator: http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/weaponspeed.html . I assumed the target has the 150 galla MHB on all armor pieces. Considering the 17% proc chance per hit, that averages to a flat damage reduction per hit of 25.5 .
Comparison:
Hitpoints:
Hero 2006
Champ 1720
The champion has about 15% less hit points than the hero.
DPS (vs MHB)
--- Update: fixed a minor error in the DPS calculation and added LW comparison ---
Hero Celtic Spear: 104.73 (5.6 spear 99% qual)
Hero Large Weapons: 108.4 (5.5 greatsword 99% qual)
Champion Large Weapons: 93.36 (5.5 greatsword 99% qual)
My champion is dealing about 10% less damage than my hero with CS and 14% less damage than my hero with LW. Please keep in mind the RR7 <> RR3 difference.
I did not apply the str/con debuff on the dummy, because that would somehow reduce its' absorb due to mob mechanics.
Stoicism: CC Immunity
Hero has free stoicism, champion does not. Considering that after being CC'ed, you get an immunity timer of 5x (AFAIK) the delve duration of the CC, capped at 1 minute. If you apply 9 sec slam you will have an immunity timer of 45 seconds. Thus, you can be stunned 20% of the time, amounting to an average of 12 seconds per minute. I did not reach enough RR with Champion yet to spec Det9. I will directly compare the CC-Duration of root and mezz considering red resistance debuffs. This will amount to a total amount of seconds per minute that you can be CC'ed if the enemy players chain-CC you perfectly and you don't get demezzed. This way, we can calculate how much overall effectiveness the champion is losing due to the lack of stoicism. I will edit this post and add this. Coming soon.
Overall Utility
Hero:
100% DPS (104.7 CS, 108.4 LW)
100% Hitpoints
38 Parry = 19% parry bonus
Slam
Side-Snare (Blades)
Backsnare (Celtic Spear)
Prevent Flight (RA); can stack with backsnare
Trip: PBAE snare 15 min RUT (RA)
Grapple: PBAE root 15 min RUT (RA)
Cheap Purge
Shortbow
Stag instant self-heal, 20 min RUT
Champion
86.16% DPS vs LW (93.36), 89.14% DPS vs CS
85.74% Hitpoints
4 Parry = 2% parry bonus
Slam
Side-Snare (Blades)
instant-DD 77 delve, 15 sec RUT
instant 40% snare 86 sec delve, 20 sec RUT
-51 s/c debuff, 20 sec RUT
-58 d/q debuff, 20 sec RUT
-15% haste debuff, 20 sec RUT (remark: there is a LW anytimer that has a better haste debuff...)
Wrath of the Champions: PBAE instant DD 15 min RUT (RA)
Wild Arcana: 27% chance to crit debuffs
Comparison
Here is a compact list of what champions lose compared to heros:
They deal about 15% less damage (considering my RR difference and the champion DD, this might be less drastic in general, but I think at least 10%).
They have 15% less hitpoints and parry less often.
They can't insta self-heal themselves.
They can be chain-CC'ed better due to lack of stoicism (exact numbers coming soon).
They have worse range rupt capabilities: if a hero is rooted or snared, he can pull out the bow and rupt as long as he wants. The champion can't even equip a bow. He only has the DD and the snare, so on average, he can range-rupt every 10ish seconds.
They can't peel as good because they have no back-snare and can't spec Prevent Flight, Trip, Grapple.
They lose 6 RA points because of expensive purge.
Conclusion
Champions suffer this massive list of drawbacks just in order to gain an instant DD, instant Snare and the capability to negate the spec-buffs of one enemy target every 20 seconds. Do you know how long 20 seconds are in an RvR fight? The yellow debuffs aren't even as strong as the spec-buffs and have a high resist rate, unless you sacrifice slam in order to get 50 valor with red debuffs. You can't even compensate with in higher RRs: Heros gain much better RAs, so the utility gap is becoming even bigger as soon as you get higher RRs.
There is one single thing that champions can do better than the other melees: solo 1on1 play, because due to debuffs it is like fighting an unbuffed enemy. But how about group play?
Champions as peelers
Even if champions had stoicism, cheap purge and 100% the same damage as hero, I would still rather pick a hero or even a BM as a peeler. Champions in their current form are no peelers, period. The instant-snare looks nice on paper, but if you put that on an enemy melee, you won't be able to snare-style him for a minute, so this is basically an instant self-debuff. Thus, the instant snare obviously can only be used offensively. IMHO, this should not be changed. Champions should remain an auxiliary peeler; but heros must remain the best peelers on hib side.
Champions in the melee train
With 100% hero damage, stoicism and cheap purge, champions would have better offense compared to a hero, because of their str/con debuff, the instant DD and the instant-snare. Heros would still have much better defenses. However, they would still deal less damage than a Blademaster. The single reason you would consider playing Blademaster+Champ instead of 2xBlademaster would be the s/c debuff and the instant snare, which allows the train to reach a target faster and make it easier to burst it down due to str/con debuff. The hero's job would still be to peel. Additionally, the champion can d/q debuff another caster or supporter from time to time.
Champions as utility debuffers
Another option would be to make Valor much better. So instead of giving champions the same DPS and CC-Resistances as heros, you could try to make debuffs strong enough to compensate their deficits regarding all other aspects. As I already wrote in another post, reducing debuff cooldowns to something between 5-10 seconds might make champion okayish. I tend to 5 seconds, because casters have that same cooldown on debuffs and debuffs still are defenitely not an I-win-button at all. As a compromise, you could put the debuffs on the same cooldown, so the champion has to choose which debuff he uses every 5 seconds. That would make things more interesting from a tactical perspective. Champions' unique niche role would be a debuffer that has much better defenses than a caster, has red str/con and d/q at the same time and can do some auxiliary peel and DPS jobs additionally.
Even if you implemented both options at once, there would still be room for a hero and a blademaster in a group. But I defenitely tend towards adjusting the debuff capabilities of champions, rendering them a very interseting niche class when combined with wild arcana.
Final words
On the phoenix landing page there is a nice sentence describing the servers' mission:
Not changing champions' capabilities would provide 100% original 1.65 flair: champions only appearing as solo characters every now and then, but never being picked up in groups. That in turn would contradict the mission "to accommodate the player style of today". Implementing at least some of the changes mentioned above would change that, but keep as much 1.65 flair as possible, because you would only adjust certain cooldowns and damage formulas. The general champion "look and feel" would stay mostly the same, though.
Thanks for reading
I played my hero a lot and now I tried champ. Hence I was able to compare them directly. I did some science.
Hero (RR7)
50 Celtic Spear
42 Shield (slam)
10 Blades (side snare)
38 Parry
Champ (RR3)
50 LW
42 Shield (slam)
38 Valor (yellow debuffs)
10 Blades (side snare)
4 Parry
For both, I charged blue buffs from combo pots and red str/con from Ancient Stag Femur. I used the side-chain of Spear Spec from Hero and Annihilation from LW chain of the champion.
I did extensive damage testing at the dummies. I computed the effective DPS considering swing speed using this calculator: http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/weaponspeed.html . I assumed the target has the 150 galla MHB on all armor pieces. Considering the 17% proc chance per hit, that averages to a flat damage reduction per hit of 25.5 .
Comparison:
Hitpoints:
Hero 2006
Champ 1720
The champion has about 15% less hit points than the hero.
DPS (vs MHB)
--- Update: fixed a minor error in the DPS calculation and added LW comparison ---
Hero Celtic Spear: 104.73 (5.6 spear 99% qual)
Hero Large Weapons: 108.4 (5.5 greatsword 99% qual)
Champion Large Weapons: 93.36 (5.5 greatsword 99% qual)
My champion is dealing about 10% less damage than my hero with CS and 14% less damage than my hero with LW. Please keep in mind the RR7 <> RR3 difference.
I did not apply the str/con debuff on the dummy, because that would somehow reduce its' absorb due to mob mechanics.
Stoicism: CC Immunity
Hero has free stoicism, champion does not. Considering that after being CC'ed, you get an immunity timer of 5x (AFAIK) the delve duration of the CC, capped at 1 minute. If you apply 9 sec slam you will have an immunity timer of 45 seconds. Thus, you can be stunned 20% of the time, amounting to an average of 12 seconds per minute. I did not reach enough RR with Champion yet to spec Det9. I will directly compare the CC-Duration of root and mezz considering red resistance debuffs. This will amount to a total amount of seconds per minute that you can be CC'ed if the enemy players chain-CC you perfectly and you don't get demezzed. This way, we can calculate how much overall effectiveness the champion is losing due to the lack of stoicism. I will edit this post and add this. Coming soon.
Overall Utility
Hero:
100% DPS (104.7 CS, 108.4 LW)
100% Hitpoints
38 Parry = 19% parry bonus
Slam
Side-Snare (Blades)
Backsnare (Celtic Spear)
Prevent Flight (RA); can stack with backsnare
Trip: PBAE snare 15 min RUT (RA)
Grapple: PBAE root 15 min RUT (RA)
Cheap Purge
Shortbow
Stag instant self-heal, 20 min RUT
Champion
86.16% DPS vs LW (93.36), 89.14% DPS vs CS
85.74% Hitpoints
4 Parry = 2% parry bonus
Slam
Side-Snare (Blades)
instant-DD 77 delve, 15 sec RUT
instant 40% snare 86 sec delve, 20 sec RUT
-51 s/c debuff, 20 sec RUT
-58 d/q debuff, 20 sec RUT
-15% haste debuff, 20 sec RUT (remark: there is a LW anytimer that has a better haste debuff...)
Wrath of the Champions: PBAE instant DD 15 min RUT (RA)
Wild Arcana: 27% chance to crit debuffs
Comparison
Here is a compact list of what champions lose compared to heros:
They deal about 15% less damage (considering my RR difference and the champion DD, this might be less drastic in general, but I think at least 10%).
They have 15% less hitpoints and parry less often.
They can't insta self-heal themselves.
They can be chain-CC'ed better due to lack of stoicism (exact numbers coming soon).
They have worse range rupt capabilities: if a hero is rooted or snared, he can pull out the bow and rupt as long as he wants. The champion can't even equip a bow. He only has the DD and the snare, so on average, he can range-rupt every 10ish seconds.
They can't peel as good because they have no back-snare and can't spec Prevent Flight, Trip, Grapple.
They lose 6 RA points because of expensive purge.
Conclusion
Champions suffer this massive list of drawbacks just in order to gain an instant DD, instant Snare and the capability to negate the spec-buffs of one enemy target every 20 seconds. Do you know how long 20 seconds are in an RvR fight? The yellow debuffs aren't even as strong as the spec-buffs and have a high resist rate, unless you sacrifice slam in order to get 50 valor with red debuffs. You can't even compensate with in higher RRs: Heros gain much better RAs, so the utility gap is becoming even bigger as soon as you get higher RRs.
There is one single thing that champions can do better than the other melees: solo 1on1 play, because due to debuffs it is like fighting an unbuffed enemy. But how about group play?
Champions as peelers
Even if champions had stoicism, cheap purge and 100% the same damage as hero, I would still rather pick a hero or even a BM as a peeler. Champions in their current form are no peelers, period. The instant-snare looks nice on paper, but if you put that on an enemy melee, you won't be able to snare-style him for a minute, so this is basically an instant self-debuff. Thus, the instant snare obviously can only be used offensively. IMHO, this should not be changed. Champions should remain an auxiliary peeler; but heros must remain the best peelers on hib side.
Champions in the melee train
With 100% hero damage, stoicism and cheap purge, champions would have better offense compared to a hero, because of their str/con debuff, the instant DD and the instant-snare. Heros would still have much better defenses. However, they would still deal less damage than a Blademaster. The single reason you would consider playing Blademaster+Champ instead of 2xBlademaster would be the s/c debuff and the instant snare, which allows the train to reach a target faster and make it easier to burst it down due to str/con debuff. The hero's job would still be to peel. Additionally, the champion can d/q debuff another caster or supporter from time to time.
Champions as utility debuffers
Another option would be to make Valor much better. So instead of giving champions the same DPS and CC-Resistances as heros, you could try to make debuffs strong enough to compensate their deficits regarding all other aspects. As I already wrote in another post, reducing debuff cooldowns to something between 5-10 seconds might make champion okayish. I tend to 5 seconds, because casters have that same cooldown on debuffs and debuffs still are defenitely not an I-win-button at all. As a compromise, you could put the debuffs on the same cooldown, so the champion has to choose which debuff he uses every 5 seconds. That would make things more interesting from a tactical perspective. Champions' unique niche role would be a debuffer that has much better defenses than a caster, has red str/con and d/q at the same time and can do some auxiliary peel and DPS jobs additionally.
Even if you implemented both options at once, there would still be room for a hero and a blademaster in a group. But I defenitely tend towards adjusting the debuff capabilities of champions, rendering them a very interseting niche class when combined with wild arcana.
Final words
On the phoenix landing page there is a nice sentence describing the servers' mission:
We aim for a general patch level 1.65 with many custom additions to accommodate the player style of today but keeping the classic flair.
Not changing champions' capabilities would provide 100% original 1.65 flair: champions only appearing as solo characters every now and then, but never being picked up in groups. That in turn would contradict the mission "to accommodate the player style of today". Implementing at least some of the changes mentioned above would change that, but keep as much 1.65 flair as possible, because you would only adjust certain cooldowns and damage formulas. The general champion "look and feel" would stay mostly the same, though.
Thanks for reading