Are Beorning worth playing...

[Sjaldan]

I have seen this question asked in other parts of the forum and I am currently limited to this particular section so I am going to give my input that I have so far as I am new to the race and coming back with a VIP account after a break from the game. There are a few things that are different about the class and the trait tree such as being able to put points into enhancing a skill that you will not get for another 20+ levels and maybe down the road that will change but I am actually looking at it as a benefit because it eliminates a possible point investment option.

First off you have to decide on your style of play, are you going for protection (The Hide)? damage (The Claw)? or being natures little helper (The Roar)? Personal I am more or less soloing it right now so I am staying on level or just a couple levels below the Evil that is running around. So what I have found is a blend of points spread out over all three trait lines right now seems to work best for me with the stance dancing from Human to Bear to Human, etc. I currently have 25 points to spend due to level and deeds and here is how I am currently spending it.

Selected Specialization: The Claw (Red Line), which give bonus Wrath on every critical hit done.

Vitality Increase (Blue Line) ~ Rank 2 ~ 4 points ~ +32 Vitality
Hardend Heart (Blue Line) ~ Rank 3 ~ 6 points ~ +6 Warth per second for 5 seconds
Vigilant Roar (Blue Line) ~ Rank 1 ~ 2 points ~ Any hit received reflect 30% of damage
Critical Chance (Red Line) ~ Rank 5 ~ 5 points ~ +5% Critical Chance
Bleed Damage (Red Line) ~ Rank 4 ~ 4 points ~ Slash Skill now applies bleed damage with +15% bleed damage which stacks up to three times
Encouraging Strike (Yellow Line) ~ Rank 2 ~ 4 points ~ Slash Skill now applies a self heal buff of +2% outgoing healing which stacks up to three times.

So basicaly I have a little boost to Morale and The Claw Specialization gives +30% damage in Bear form. So my basic standard set of skills is as follows for one to three targets where you can just worry about them one at a time.

Slash > Expose > Ferocious Roar (if available) > Slash > Slash > Hearten ~ Then I change to Bear form.

So what I have now (saying that FR was not used) Slash has place 3 bleeds on my target for 10 seconds and it also has placed a +6% to my healing.
Expose has placed -40% Mitigation on the target for 8 seconds which helps with the two Slashes that come after it and first attack in Bear.
Use Hearten just before going into bear form does an initial heal and xxx heal per second for 8 seconds and the +6 Wrath per second for 5 seconds.

Once in Bear form > Vigilant Roar > Bee Swarm> Trash > Trash > Thrash >

Vigilant Roar now has placed a buff that reduces my damage taken by 30% for 10 seconds.
Bee Swarm does light damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds.
Trash Tiers up three times with the total sum of Wrath spent being 30 Wrath which is the same as the total extra Wrath given by Hearten.

By this time your Hearten cooldown should be getting to the point that by the time you start over again and get to it should be ready for use so just repeat and repeat. Depending on how fast you click the skills you may have to hit the Slash or Expose an extra time before the Hearten on the cycle though but that is fine as you are building Wrath.

I have found using this way of points spent and rotation of skills used to make it so I am not really concerned about death. For example when I was level 32 and 6 or so points less into the above build I would headed to the Southern Barrow Tomb full of Signature evil creatures and pull 6 - 8 them at a time and just finish them off one by one as all of them did their best to damage me and in the course of of killing 200 - 300 in one run though the tomb I had to use a Moral Potion once and that was due to the fact I was half paying attention during one set 5 or 6 I pulled because I was talking to my kid that was in the same room as me.

Now I do no that they are level 20 and I am level 32 so it is really not that big of challenge but also there were times that I would not make it though my second cycle of skills and be hit with a 15 second stun and have 4 or 5 of them hitting me and I just waited to the stun was over and started the cycle over, no big deal. I know that not everyone will agree with this spread out of point spending that I am playing around with but it does have its advantages if you spend some time doing just you and the environment. I say they are worth it because you can as I do on a typical basic skill cycle only use 7 different skills and I am doing damage, damage over time, healing, healing over time, wrath building with each skill, wrath building over time to counter my wrath spending in bear form and enjoy a 30% reduction on the damage I take for 10 seconds and this is all spread out and overlapping with each other over the course of each 16 seconds which is the ideal repeat time of the skill cycle.

[Gladnagl]

A shallow build like this might work well on trash mobs (and even Signatures 12 levels under you are still trash), but it would struggle with on-level foes in Evendim (where my Level 35 Beorning is now). Spreading so many points outside your tree makes more sense when you've already hit your capstone skill.

You can still skip skills in a single Beorning tree that are meaningless and get 25 points deep with useful skills.

[Linnier]

Worst...... Thread....... Ever.......

[Sjaldan]

Somebody does not seem to like my thread....

Well as I stated in my post it seems the best for me right now for how I am currently playing around with the class. It is a build that suits a purpose of a current play style that is appropriate for the level of the area that I am in. So what is wrong with experimenting with different types of builds to see what is possible? Test the limits or you will not know what works best for you, after all it is not all about the numbers. With that build I have a level 38 Beorning that is a few points lower in the build that I listed in my first post that is running around North Downs Dol Dinen pulling and taking on three (on level) Elites (each: 4,000+ Moral ~ 1,000+ Power) and dealing with them comfortably. I have also ran around Ost Forod and Tinnudir doing quest and Rep grinding and yes I will grant you it probably takes longer to do a kill on a one-on-one situation but I assure you the build that I mentioned above is not really shallow for that area and I am not struggling.

That kind of results says I can further explore, test, and play with different options and builds. True it is an far off the path of what is considered a normal build but I am having fun exploring the options and it may not be maxing out damage control, damage per second, healing abilities, etc. I think if some people read this post and give it a shoot or makes them think of a build that is a little more off the common path then that is good. As I was reading the responses two sayings came to mind,

~ One man's trash is another man's treasure.
~ If we were all the same life would be boring.

Also at level 38 I have yet to register my first character death.

[Redterrier]

I find this build interesting. It makes sense to me, so I'll check it out. I found I didn't care for the blue line at all, and am using mostly red and yellow lines. A little mix and match might work well. My Beorning is mid low/mid 30's now, so hard to tell what will work in the long run.

[Sjaldan]

Another key and important factor that I should have made mention of in my initial post is that I am fully equip with the closet possible equipment to level for all things and if it is not a critical success item I do not use it. Also I focus on Vitality, Might and Fate but that goes without saying really for this class.

[Erkenbrandy]

I am a rookie. However, so far, I can only see Beornings as a cool redundant class.

[goldenstar777]

I like the class even though i haven't reached high lvls yet. It seems to me like some type of champion.It has some melee skills to build wrath so you can change into bear mode which is quite powerful imo. It has some healing skills but i believe they are not as effective even with the "support" yellow tree. I like the class as tank or dps but my opinion may change as my toon will lvl. And most important it has really good survivability. And last but not least you can cook honey-cakes without even the need to look for ingredients and without being cook!!! So i think it's worth trying it

[Skaified2]

As Red line traited I find my Man-form rotation goes something like:

Expose->Biting Edge->Slash->Slam->Slash->Expose->Slash->Slam->Slash->Biting Edge->Slash->Expose->Slash->Slam->Slash
Doing that will get you a rotation without encountering any cooldowns until the end that lasts for 1 second, in which you can repeat.
But honestly you wont need that long of a rotation to get to 100 wrath from 0, so stopping mid way to go bear is usually the way to go. Sometimes I just get so drone that I stay in man form for no good reason.

You can then give yourself a hearten and ferocious roar and repeat, or switch to Bear form and Thrash->Thrash->Thrash until you're out of wrath, which because of Red Line will reset the duration of Expose and you can squeeze all 3 Thrashes easily in 8 seconds. If an enemy has an abnormally large amount of hp, a Bash before you begin thrashing does wonders.
Using Ferocious roar before switching to Bear to get that free crit on the first Thrash is nice too.

As for using trait points in other trees when it comes to solo'ing, apart from Hardened Heart I wouldn't recomend it. However using 2 points for 1 Hardened Heart is completely worth it, and I would max it later when I get the chance (I really want to get that auto execute atm in Red Line lol)
I never really thought of using Vigilant Roar buff and I may actually give it a chance now after reading this, but this is also because as mainly dps I never used Vigilant Roar in the first place, as either not to grab the aggro off a tank or simply not wanting to waste the wrath on a relatively useless attack.
I really wouldn't put anything in yellow tree except maybe Fate for crits. The Hearten buff you have equals out to a +6% outgoing healing which isn't incredibly huge, when you could have spent those 4 points on increasing Thrash damage by 12% which stacks with the 30% while in Bear form, and later will stack even more with the total 15% from Raining Blows. Maybe I'll visit the yellow tree later for the fellowship rush or the knockdown but idk..

But then again if what I'm doing seems like the cookie cutter build it may just be coincidental. This is what I've found from my personal testing while playing and I've really enjoyed crushing things.
He's quite beefy overall and hits like a truck.

[CampCounselor]

Though my Beorning is not high leveled yet either, the class has acquired somewhat more of a role in group play I feel, specifically in the heals or dps line.... however, I have noticed that the Beorning seems to be a patchwork in terms of animations.... slash, several of the marks, and other man-form skills closely resemble or seem to be identical to those of other classes. However, these do not inhibit one from enjoying a new, diverse, and interesting class. The Beorning is next to my warden in terms of survivability (in heals line, that is ;-) ).

Mahenarth R7 LM / Iorgorn R5 Warden / Valion R4 RK / Gravorian - 70 Beorning
Gathfaz R10 BA / Macniar - R6 Warg /
Counseling 'Moors Campers in Distress since 1784.
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[Gladnagl]

Regarding the movement speed question, you get a skill called Rush at Level 36. I know, kind of a far ways out.