{"id":48384,"date":"2018-11-01T15:16:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T19:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lotroplayers.com\/?p=48384"},"modified":"2018-11-01T15:33:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T19:33:29","slug":"48384","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lotroplayers.com\/2018\/11\/01\/48384\/","title":{"rendered":"[CC] Honey, can we break the bear? A beorning revamp tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bear is solid, we\u2019ve got monumental dps and are fairly effective group members. Vastin might be coming for my critter comics soon. If the current bear, outside of anything but landscape, only needs a few quality of life fixes. Please break my bear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incase you want to skip to a part.<\/p>\n

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Usefull, but sometimes we’re out of honey<\/p><\/div>\n

Index<\/span>
\n<\/span>1 -Current state of an unfinished class + examples<\/span>
\n<\/span>2 -Beornings overlaps in playstyles and trait lines<\/span>
\n<\/span>3 – Core changes to a beorning for a successful revamp<\/span>
\n<\/span>4 – Obvious bug fixes (aka betabear)
\n<\/span>5 – Putting back the pieces for beorning 2.0<\/span>
\n<\/span>6 – Mighty morphin power beorning, the 6-form dual armor bear<\/span><\/p>\n

1 – But everyone says the bear is broken<\/strong>
\nThe beorning isn’t broken. The bear is just so bogged down in unfinished and counterproductive mechanics. Any time you are in human form you want to be in bear form, but to do too many activities in bear form you\u2019re back into pants. This is best illustrated just with some examples, but isn’t limited to just these.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tanking
\n<\/span>Being a bear gives you the morale and critical defense you will need to be on par with other tank classes. While other classes can now start using their skills to get aggro. You kinda don\u2019t want to use skills cause they cost wrath which you need it to stay in bear form. Any time spend in human form opens you up to dying a lot easier.<\/p>\n

The trick to to being a better bear-tank is to know when you can do nothing. It\u2019s counter intuitive to being fun, engaging and protecting your group. The best time you tank isn’t when you tank.<\/span><\/p>\n

2 – Skill rotations are filled with do nothing moments<\/strong>
\n<\/span>While other classes have a double set of skills that build resources in all sort of moments. A hunter can use interrupts, long cooldown skills, short or long inductions to build up focus. Any attack by a warden will get him further in his gambits. How many times as a beorning have you swing your club into the air to just get the wrath? Or used hearten while you didn\u2019t need a heal to just get that 20 wrath over time before switching to bear? It\u2019s not like the class is flushed with skills at any point.<\/p>\n

Even skills that are supposed to provide a positive boost to switching between forms are losing most of their boost by shifting. The skill Expose provides two different buffs when used in both forms. But with the skill, a cry, one of two wrath builders, switching to bear form, expose again you\u2019re already down 6 seconds of the 1st skill boost. Hit thrash 3 times, cleanse or some healing roars to get them on cooldown and the human form boost is already gone. Just by keeping this skill up you\u2019re losing another 5 seconds of skills you\u2019d in other cases don’t use. It\u2019s just not worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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More in need than a bandaid<\/p><\/div>\n

3 – So how do we fix the beorning?
\n<\/strong>Not with some light fixes. Nearly every part of a bear is missing it\u2019s identity for that part cause it overflows into their other trait lines and forms. A blue guardian\u00a0is a tank, that can get extra tricks from red or yellow. While a dps guard is red with extra defenses from blue or aoe from yellow. Or he goes yellow and mixes up red and blue to suit his playstyle or instance. same with any class that has had their class balance already. Each line had his identity and just got them more emphasized. A \u00a0beorning has 3 lines and 2,5 forms that all interact and conflict with each other. Even more in any specific situation. <\/span><\/p>\n

The best times a bear has is in those moment he gets a chance to align 3 strong points while the negatives don’t mind. No dps, no aggro, but all the healing in the ettenmoors (just don’t expect to do anything else). Take hits and just survive without needing to protect or attack in Aom T2C on boss 2 only.<\/span><\/p>\n

Break the current class and rebuild it with the pieces you\u2019ll get
\n<\/span>All the parts of a great beorning are already in the game. We just need to rewire the bear. SOme of which are already taken a look at by Vastin, but i\u2019d like to take it even further.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Remove survivability as a core class mechanic<\/span>\n
      \n
    1. the survivability costs us options to excel due to balance issues with other classes<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Lower personal healing and remove the need to keep hearten up<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    3. Rework the roles that shapeshifting has<\/span>\n
        \n
      1. human and bear form feel like a 2ndary traitline \u00a0that counteracts the reason you\u2019re are in your main traitline often.<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. The reason to shapeshift shouldn’t be to not be in the other form. Provide a positive effect instead of making it feels bad to be in human form while tanking.<\/span><\/li>\n
      3. Provide a positive reason to shapefist or allow us to be in our desired form for the occasion. Longer bearforms or not make us regret being in human form.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
      4. Make each traitline feel more unique in more situations by adding more risks and rewards to each<\/span>\n
          \n
        1. It\u2019s ok to be a bad dpser in a tank spec, but blue feels like a selfious yellow line.<\/span><\/li>\n
        2. Yellowline is a bad redline if you\u2019re not in a party that needs healing<\/span><\/li>\n
        3. Redline is a squishy bluebear that can\u2019t heal other far too often<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          4 – The bear necessities bug fixes<\/strong>
          \n<\/span>Beyond the underlying issues the bear has plenty of bugs and no beorning comment is complete without it ofcourse. So i\u2019ll give you the bear minimum of these<\/span><\/p>\n