Champion
The Champion is a solid flavor mech that adds variety to the heavy mech line-up, but does not have any outstanding builds that excel in a particular role over other chasses.
With a flat, wide profile reminiscent of the Ebon Jaguar and Nightstar, chunky arms will tend to collect damage and are moderately useful as shields, though are often stripped of armor for spare tonnage since the hardpoints are in the torsos. The torsos have decent survival quirks and weapons mounts are quite tight around the cockpit for good clearance and convergence. With decent footwork and no over-twisting, the Champion is XL-friendly, if not truly XL-safe due to its somewhat large CT hitbox, which does lend to some heavier payloads.
Additionally, the Champion has excellent agility, superior to almost every other heavy mech, and can even feel and play more like a medium despite the slower speeds of many builds.
| Variants | LA | LT | CT | RT | RA | HD | JJs | MASC | MaxEng | Accel | Twist | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CHP-1N | 22 | 2 | 2 | 0 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 100o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | |||
|
CHP-2N | 21 | 2 | 3 | 0 | FALSE | 360 | 50.0 kph/s | 100o @ 139.0o/s | 20o | |||
|
CHP-3N | 1 | 21 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 100o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | |
|
CHP-1N2 | 32 | 2 | 1 | 0 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 100o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | |||
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CHP-1NB | 4 | 4 | 0 | FALSE | 360 | 43.1 kph/s | 100o @ 126.0o/s | 20o | ||||
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CHP-INVH | 11 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 5 | FALSE | 360 | 50.0 kph/s | 100o @ 139.0o/s | 20o |
CHP-AP
CHP-1N2
A middling variant, with enough energy hardpoints to work with, and a single ballistic with a decent cooldown quirk. The two missile aren't entirely useless either.
Very agile close-range skirmisher, with enough range to threaten out to about 450m if you can lead the heavy gauss shots well.
Trades safer, longer-range ER mediums for more lethal medium pulses. Very precise burst brawler, but extremely slow for its tonnage and range-limited. Position carefully, because mistakes with punish you heavily.
This offers higher burst output than the pure 6MPL build of the CHP-3N, at the expense of synergy and sustain. You can also run LE295 by stripping the arms down.
CHP-1NB
One of the two truly unique variants of the Champion. Four ballistic and four energy all safely tucked into the torsos with perfect convergence. Combine this with a very large velocity quirk for ballistics and you have the recipe to make some fantastic things happen.
A lack of quirks means this build falls behind other AC2 boats such as the Rifleman in terms of raw DPS, but the Champion has ideal torso convergence and a significant velocity quirk, making it one of the most accurate AC2 mechs in the game, while having above average durability and mobility.
The ERMLs heat up quickly, and can be swapped for standard MLs if you find yourself around 300m often.
Compared to the generally superior AC20 + 4 MPL build, you basically just shoot people for 40 pinpoint, rinse repeat, relatively straight forward. However, it does lose a not insignificant amount of DPS and heat efficiency.
It's a Gauss rifle and 2 PPC's on a 60 ton 'mech with great agility, a good enough peeking profile, and 20% velocity. What more do you need to know!?
CHP-3N
This variant is generally speaking, the best, mainly because it has the most energy hardpoints, while keeping the vaunted ballistic, which the Champion as a whole can easily take advantage of. On top of that, all builds are boosted by a range quirk.
Among the more fun builds this chassis is capable of running - it truly plays more like a medium mech. While your alpha and range are quite low, your heat efficiency is nothing short of amazing, and your DPS is excellent, making for a notably squishier, but also stronger version of the vaunted cMPL Linebacker.
This is the less fun, but slightly more sensible version, of the 6 MPL XL build. Trading speed and a heat sink or two for some added survivability. Usually comes down to personal preference which one you would rather run.
More alpha and burst DPS than just 6MPL. The LB10 somewhat makes up for the lack of heatsinks, so the only real disadvantage here is a slower XL compared to 6MPL.
This alternative to the excellent CHP-1NB's AC20 + 4MPL build lacks DPS but boasts alpha damage. Also harder to sync the weapons, due to the AC20 having 10% reduced cooldown and the ML's having a not insignificant DPS reduction over the MPL's. However, due to the ML's having an inherently superior range bracket to the MPL's, and that excellent 10% range quirk, the range on this build is actually very comfortable, as opposed to the sightly restrictive range on the AC20 + 4 MPL version.
A staple IS laservomit mech with durability, some speed, decent range and heat efficiency, but lacking in alpha, which is rather typical.
Play this when you want people to feel your wrath, unfortunately that comes at the price of your wrath taking time to arrive, and said wrath being somewhat limited in range, the range quirk does help this, however.
Solid alpha, solid heat efficiency, cool down quirk for that Gauss Rifle, and added durability with the LE engine make this build a cooler running, but shorter ranged version of your typical laser vomit build.
Pure high-alpha trading build. Well, high as far as IS is concerned. Beware of being very slow, and with XL in order to carry this kind of firepower.
A simple-to-play ERLL boat with decent speed and good burst output, assisted by a range quirk. Great lightweight pick for FP range decks.
This offers better long-term sustain and tighter mounts at the expense of all else so that you don't have to worry about the arms and can make better use of the Champion's agility and geometry to make tight peeks. Find a good spot and abuse it non-stop, because you're a bit slow to reposition.
CHP-1N
This variant of the Champion does not have enough hardpoints for boating either ballistics, energy, or missiles, and also lacks in sufficient quirks to make up for this hodge-podge of mixed hardpoints, making it one of the worst variants.
The CHP-1N can adapt builds from other Champion variants, although it will have strictly inferior quirks. A few options will be provided below, but plenty more are possible.
Good sustained DPS and good durability due to STD engine, but extremely slow. This not a true LBX brawler - stick to the edges of your ML optimal range. Twist aggressively when you need to - there's no excuse to lose your CT when you have a STD engine to take advantage of.
This is strictly inferior to other dakka Champions, but unfortunately one of the better and more flexible builds available to this lackluster variant.
Other variants of the Champion are simply better quirked for this loadout so there is no point in running it here. But if you insist on playing a CHP-1N anyways, this build is still very playable.
CHP-2N
Unfortunately a truly terrible variant. This trades one the CHP-1NB's ballistic hardpoints for a single useless missile hardpoint, giving up the supremely useful ballistic velocity in the process. However, this variant does have one advantage, it has slightly better agility than other Champion variants, which is a moot point since Champions as a whole are already plenty agile.
CHP-INV "INVICTUS"
The Invictus is a solid variant, for anything involving MRMs and SRMs. Jumpjets and four missiles means that this variant ends up brawling quite well, and skirmishing well too. Beware of the fact that half of its missile hard points are in the arms, which are particularly wide, meaning that this variant does not corner peek well.
This variation maxes out jumpjets and cooling for close-range poptarting. XL fragility means this is not a suitable brawler - it is meant to played predominately using cover and safe distances, even abusing the range quirk, for farming in solo queue.
This build is generally a worse version of the QKD-IV-4, however, this does not make it inherently bad. There is a quirk to boost the MRM range, but spread and velocity means you'll be inaccurate at those ranges anyways.