Red line -> lack of dps or AoE skills - see why

[Ingiogal]

I agree mostly with what you're saying, and I'd much more inclined to if it weren't possible to trait so invincible. I think the misconception is that every class has to be a DPS class. Maybe a beorning's role is just as a self sufficient support dps/offtank.

My own opinion is philosophical rather than practical and has two aspects:

First, every class can't be THE class at something. So I don't allow myself to get my knickers in a twist if I'm playing a class that doesn't get to be the king of every hill. That way lies madness.

Second, I try to figure out the fundamental nature of my class and succeed at it to the best of my ability as a player. I also like to think of how classes affect the force of the player or players and Beornings are excellent enhancers on the battlefield. We see Beornings compared to Captains but it's not a duplication of role, imo. The Captain was widely praised the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" because he could switch between the big three roles serviceably and brings a big can of CanDo! to the fight. The Beorning's similar strength in my opinion is that he augments all roles while remaining true to a core nature of damage dealing survivor.

As a red beorning, I bring very serviceable DPS in a very survivable package so the enemy fights me at his peril.
As a yellow beorning, I become a great Battle Buddy to an ally and support healing and survivability.
As a blue beorning (the tree that's the shakiest so far so I've played it the least), I do halfway good tanking with my survivability by CC and dmg redirects.

As an aside, I find military parallels for a lot of LOTRO and I think that the Beorning fits the motto of the 1st Marine Division "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy". That's all about the Beorn we met in the books. You didn't cross him but you also didn't cross his friends. Interestingly, the 1st Marine Division is also referred to as The Old Breed and I like that symbolic association for the Beorning.

[DiogoVP]

My own opinion is philosophical rather than practical and has two aspects:

First, every class can't be THE class at something. So I don't allow myself to get my knickers in a twist if I'm playing a class that doesn't get to be the king of every hill. That way lies madness.

Second, I try to figure out the fundamental nature of my class and succeed at it to the best of my ability as a player. I also like to think of how classes affect the force of the player or players and Beornings are excellent enhancers on the battlefield. We see Beornings compared to Captains but it's not a duplication of role, imo. The Captain was widely praised the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" because he could switch between the big three roles serviceably and brings a big can of CanDo! to the fight. The Beorning's similar strength in my opinion is that he augments all roles while remaining true to a core nature of damage dealing survivor.

As a red beorning, I bring very serviceable DPS in a very survivable package so the enemy fights me at his peril.
As a yellow beorning, I become a great Battle Buddy to an ally and support healing and survivability.
As a blue beorning (the tree that's the shakiest so far so I've played it the least), I do halfway good tanking with my survivability by CC and dmg redirects.

As an aside, I find military parallels for a lot of LOTRO and I think that the Beorning fits the motto of the 1st Marine Division "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy". That's all about the Beorn we met in the books. You didn't cross him but you also didn't cross his friends. Interestingly, the 1st Marine Division is also referred to as The Old Breed and I like that symbolic association for the Beorning.

If Captain are master of something it is definetely BUFF, which is present in all of the trees regardless if it is a tank, dps or heal tree. And Beorning is a VERY GOOD healer and supporter/cc. But he ISN'T Support on his DPS line. He is pure DPS, with one self-heal that is Hearten/Composure. Yeah, when you're playing your beorning solo you don't need such a great dps because you already have a big and good self-heal. But in a fellowship that wouldn't be important because you'll have a healer that will do the job of healing you and the other people of the group and your DPS wouldn't be better than a hunter's DPS or a RK's DPS that are still ranged classes. That's why I think the suggestion of a toogle skill that sacrifices some of your defences to increase your damage would be really great for groups. Other than that, another toogle skill that changes many of the skills to AoE to lose some damage per target would be great as well!

And blue line is pure sadness.

[Raulfin]

I spent the last 2 days playing Beor, I got it to 19 3/4 before a wild laggy appeared and killed me. While not a sample of end-game performance, this is more first reaction. I was Red line during this time, tank seemed 'meh' and heal didn't look any better. Everywhere I say Swipe, I mean Thrash.

1. I felt like I was playing Cappy, but with none of the cool toys or bannerman.
2. Bear form didn't feel intuitive in any way, the wraith drain is so fast and the build so slow that you can get about 1-2 bear attacks in every 2-5 mobs depending on how close they are.
3. Going Bear can get you killed pretty fast (if you get links/group). "Sweet I went bear and I lost 4 attacks, an AoE and all legit self-healing (potions don't count, they never did), but I can swipe 1 foe at a time".
4. Swipe cost should be changed from 10 to 1-10. Since building wrath doesn't happen in bear there are tons of times I'll be at 5 wrath and can't do any damage except bear auto-attacks, changing the cost to 1-10 would let me do a weaker swipe to burn off that little bit and go straight back into man instead of leaving resources on the board I can't use (leaving resources on the board is bad), unless you are counting every wrath you can waste ~3sec trying to use a skill you can't afford (3sec in MMO is a huge amount of time). That or change bear form to need 5 wraith instead of 1.
5. Club damage bonus racial? With every picture of them using an axe and everything about them being Axe, why is the racial for clubs?
6. Reds perk to turn Swipe3 into AoE is nearly pointless since there are several boss fights where you can't do any AoE, it means that you have to almost completely stop DPS for 5sec every 3sec (Bells of Dale's final Boss as example). The perk could, instead, add a new skill that is opened by using Swipe2 so the player can decide to do either a single target or AoE Swipe3. or...
7. Red should get a Bear AoE toggle skill that makes all bear attacks hit 3-5 targets in front.
8. More bleeds, all bear attacks should have bleeds, individual attacks damage seems fine, but bear is so underwhelming (in that it takes so long to get to and is over so fast) it feels like little more than a +50% damage for 30sec button but also takes away AoEs and self heals.
9. The player seems to be the least capable Beorning ever, every other Beorn goes straight into bear when combat starts (I know they are NPCs and don't use the same rules) which makes it seem like the PC is just the little brother that mom made you take with you to hang out with your friends. (this one is more kidding)
10. Perks for Sacrifice (L32 skill) can be taken as early as level 11 (6th perk point)

11. Bestial Fury, I used the wrong wrath cost for Trash before,

12. Any Advantage will pretty much only ever be useful in a group, and you shouldn't be so concerned with getting heals in group that you spend 3 perk points on it for the off chance that when you need 'HEELZ NOW' and your real heal is on CD (or you don't have wrath) you can get behind the foe (which is likely attacking you since you need 'heelz now') to use a 'meh' heal. It feels like its in Red just so heal line has something to get at higher levels.

From the first impression, it seems that Beorn will be tremendously lackluster in end game. Like childrens breakfast cereal, beorn raid DPS is arguably preferable to nothing.

I really enjoy the class and am glad I bought it, I don't yet see it replacing Hunter and Cappy as my fav classes, but it is much more fun than champ, LM or RK for me.

[DiogoVP]

7. Red gets a Bear AoE toggle skill that makes all bear attacks hit 3-5 targets in front.

Are you saying they HAVE a toogle skill that does that or that they SHOULD have a toogle skill that does that?
I am confused.

[Raulfin]

Are you saying they HAVE a toogle skill that does that or that they SHOULD have a toogle skill that does that?
I am confused.

"Should get", I re-wrote that part to be more clear.

[Constrictions]

Manbeorpig, what sort of rotations are you running at the moment out of bear form?

Curious as to how you manage your wrath.