Beorning Rework Suggestion

[Avalon1993]

Hello folks from Middle-earth!

Avalon1993 here, coming up with a rework suggestion for the Beorning class.

Since its introduction in the game, more than 3 years ago, the shape-shifter class is lacking some final touches and is underperforming. Several bug fixes and buffs went through as time passed with the updates, but still dont finished the class completely. Some problems that Bears currently have: only 20 LI legacy options (other classes have around 34!), the off-hand weapon does not increase damage in bear form forcing the player to use a two-handed, immunity to Attack duration buffs / debuffs, lacks a basic defensive skill, defenseless tanking spec and still have some impactful bugs.

My intention with this suggestion is adress everything that was mentioned above (and more!) and hopefully bring the class to a bearable state. Including a complete overhaul suggestion to The Hide specialization, forgoing avoidances almost entirely and a new mechanic to delay incoming physical damage.

General

Basic skills

• Skin-change is now immediate.
• Hearten and Ferocious Roar animations lenght reduced.
• Claw Swipe is now a basic skill but does not have the debuff of damage reduction (the debuff is The Hide only). Earned at lvl 8.
• Sacrifice is now usable in any form.
• Ferocious and Assertive Roar are now usable in anyform.
• New Skill, Invigorating Honey: Man form heal over time. Heals X Initially and X every second for 12s seconds (X is around 3% of Nature's Mend total healing. Using on the same target will refresh the hot duration), 1s induction. Adds 5 Wrath. 3 seconds cooldown. Earned at lvl 10.
• New Skill, Maul: low damage melee ability (same damage as Slash) usable in Bear form, does not consume Wrath. Cooldown 3 seconds. Earned at lvl 1.
• New Skill, Mighty Roar: low damage full aoe ability. Reduces the damage Beorning receives from enemies hit by 40% (20% for Tactical). Usable in Any form, cost 15 Wrath. 120 seconds cooldown and lasts 15. 10m range. Max Targets: 10. Earned at lvl 26.
• New Skill, Improved Hearten: after using the ability, the Beorning generate additional Wrath over time. Every 1 second: +6 Wrath, duration 5 seconds (Hardened Heart is too good of a trait to be in the first row of The Hide, forcing every spec to trait it. So now the effect is a basic skill). Earned at lvl 45.
• New Skill, Improved Slam: Now heals the Beorning if used from behind the target (Any Advantage trait effect moved to this skill). Earned at lvl 52.
• New Skill, Improved Invigorating Honey: now stacks up to 3 times. Earned at lvl 48.
• The base damage of all the Beornings skills are reduced, but now have better scalings based on weapon damage, Physical/Tactical Masteries, legacies and traits.
  Note: the damage at low levels is extremely High and stop scaling properly around lvl 70, this is meant to fix it. Scaling and base values should be closer to Red/Yellow Champions for The Claw and significantly lower for The Hide/Roar.

Bug fixes:

• Piercing Roar, Claw Swipe, Slam and the new skill Mighty Roar damage reduction debuffs use the full value at all times (sometimes it does not reduces the same amount described in the tooltip).
• Relentless Maul properly shows the cooldown remaining of the skill after switching forms/skill bars.
• Beornings can't leave Bear form until Relentless Maul channel ends or be canceled.
• Relentless Maul no longer ends prematurely if: current Wrath is exactly 20, Wrath goes to 0 or the skill is recast during the channel. To stop the channel on purpose you need to move.
• The off-hand weapon now increases damage of Bear form skills and auto attacks while dual wielding (abilities would have a second hit just like champions and bleeds would scale of both main and off-hand weapon damage).
• Attack duration buffs/debuffs and all silence effects now properly affect Beornings.
• All disarm effects are now properly dispelled after entering Bear form.

Legacies

• Call to Wild Duration and Bond of Trust Heal chance changed places. The first is now in the Carving and the second in the Weapon (to accommodate the other changes and better distribute the legacies).
• Bee Swarm Damage and Bee Swarm Debuff Duration merged.
• Execute Damage, Relentless Maul Damage, Vigilant Roar Damage, Turn the Tides damage, Vicious Claw Damage, Hearten Heal Strength and Chance for bonus Wrath from Slam removed.
  
  Legacy options would be (including 22 new ones!):
  
  Weapon:
• Bear form Damage
• Bee Swarm Damage and Debuff Duration
• Bond of Trust Heal Chance
• Chance for attacks to Return Wrath
• Thickened Hide Duration
  
  New ones for the Weapon:
• Man Form Bleed Damage
• Execute/Savage Blow Target - avoidance rating (Savage Blow is a new Man form skill, more information in The Claw changes section)
• Man Form Finesse rating
• Claw Swipe Arc (this imbued and at max make the skill Full AOE)
• Man form -%Attack duration
• Bear Form skills damage
• Any Form skills damage*
• Mighty Roar bonus armour
• Frighten Damage Reduction (Frighten is a new effect, more information in The Hide changes section)
• Aid the Assault Range
• Invigorating Honey Incoming Healing buff
• Bear form Healing
  
  Carving:
• Bear Form Critical Defence
• Call To Wild Duration
• Grisly Cry Fear Duration
• Healing Potency
• Man Form Damage
• Rush Duration
• Vigilant Roar Reflect Damage
  
  New ones for the Carving:
• Chance for bonus Wrath from Counterattack
• Total Wrath Capacity (up to +50)
• Critical Magnitude
• Beorning Heal over Time Pulses
• Critical Healing Magnitude
• Man form Healing
• Man Form skills damage
• Bubble Potency
• Worthy Adversary bonus armour
• Beorning Bleed Damage
  
  Note: other classes have around 17 options for both main weapon and secondary LI. While Beornings have only 10! With these New legacies the number would be 17 for them as well.
  
  *: Includes only the skills that can be used in both forms: Vicious Claws, Bee Swarm, Nature's Vengeance, Mighty Roar and Counterattack. The new Animalistic set bonus does not affect this legacy.

Specializations:

The Hide

• Bear form wrath cost removed.
• Counter: 10% evade removed. Now gives the Beorning 1.5% damage reduction for every 10 Wrath. Lasts 20s, 40s cooldown (instead of evading 10% more attacks the Beorning takes up to 22,5% less damage from them. Less physical damage taken overall than live values when current wrath is above 67 and works for Tactical. Thickened Hide, damage reduction debuffs and mitigation buffs become better because of more hits being received and not avoided).
• Counterattack is now usable after being physically hit but have 3 seconds cooldown (no longer needs Counter to be active).
• Claw Swipe now applies a damage reduction debuff (same as live values, -3%/6%/9% based on stacks).
• Vexation bonus: no longer gives +5 Wrath after being hit. Now have the effect: After receiving any physical damage the Beorning negates 3% of it for every 10 Wrath, and takes the same amount over 10 seconds (increase the efficiency of heal over time and bubbles, more time to react to bursts).
• New Set bonus, War Beast: after receiving a critical or devastating hit, negates 75% of Vexation damage over time for 10s. Also, Critical Defense passive buff of Bear Form is tripled (don't take the Bear Form Critical Defence legacy bonus into account).

Traits Replacements:

• Hardened Heart trait: effect moved to the new skill Improved Hearten.
• Rake set bonus: is on the second row of traits and far left, have 3 ranks. Gives Claw Swipe a stackable bleed, the duration is 4/8/12.
• Second set bonus: is now Recuperate. gives the skill Recuperate (no changes to the skill, just making it The Hide only).
• Menacing Assault set bonus: now replace Recuperate trait in the fifth row. Increases the arc Relentless Maul hits by 30 degrees and any struck is forced to attack the Beorning.
• Defensively Minded set bonus: is now the fourth set bonus.
• Sixth set bonus is the new War Beast effect: after receiving a critical or devastating hit, negates 75% of Vexation damage over time for 10s. Also, Critical Defense passive buff of Bear Form is tripled.
• In Harm's Way and All on the Line traits: are now on the first and third row, respectively. Moved to the right.
• Rending Blows and Armour Crush traits: moved to the left column.
  
  
  
  
  Note: Most of the trait replacements have the intention to: a) dont leave The Hide only skills/mechanics as traits options for other specs and b) rearrange the traits in a better way to other specs to trait into and The Hide leveling smoother.

Traits QoL changes and buffs:

• Opposing Presence trait: now increases the damage of Biting Edge by 2.5%/5%/7.5%/10% (not only the aoe, but the bleed as well if Serrated Edge is traited). Rank 5 is only to give the skill a taunt for a short duration and increase the cooldown by 5s.
• Assertive Roar trait: turns Ferocious Roar in Assertive Roar. Assertive Roar increases Max Morale by 5%/10%/15% for 15s. Restores 5%/10%/15% Max Morale and 10/20/30 Wrath over the duration of 10s. 60s cooldown. At Max rank grants +50 Wrath if used out of combat (the new defensive mechanic is based on current Wrath, this change would allow the player to prep for a difficult fight going above 50 Wrath before starting it).
• Quick Recovery trait: Now only increases the initial Heal without reducing the Hot.
• Down but not Out set bonus: Man form heal and +50 Wrath bonus in Bear form removed. New bonus: when morale goes below 20% in Bear form, Procs War Beast and heals for 20% max morale initially and more 20% max morale over 10 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 60s.
• Down but not Out set bonus: only show the icon in the buff bar after the effect going into cooldown (this is to give better information to the player if the effect is ready or not).
• Thunderous Roar trait: now grants the skill Thunderous Roar. Taunt all enemies within 10m of the Beorning for 5 seconds, 20s cooldown (Vigilant Roar stay as a different skill).
• Worthy Adversary set bonus: after going to Bear form receive a 20% Max Morale heal over 10 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 20s (currently, you hurt yourself for going Bear-Man-Bear. Losing a flat 20% Max Morale because the morale does not come back after switching twice).
• Animalistic set bonus: allow the Beorning to use all the Man form skills while in Bear form. Slam, Slash, Biting Edge and Guarded Attack generate 40% less Wrath if used in Bear form. Additionally, Maul gives the Beorning a buff called Frighten. Frighten: Guarded Attack frightens the target, consuming this buff and causing the next attack against you to deal 20% less damage and procs War Beast.

Examples:


Note: Vexation will be always active in The Hide and delays Physical damage only. Counter have 50% uptime and War Beast can be permanent while in combat if the Beorning is critically hit or use Frighten every 10s. Only Counter Reduction works for Tactical Damage.

Possible rotation focusing on survivability:

Note: the Main goal in the example rotation is get to 100+ Current Wrath having some protection while you ramp buff and debuffs, then stay at 100 ~ 145 Wrath range. There still room to improvements, alternatives routes (like ignoring protection and going for the faster ramp, staying at 150 Wrath to have the absolute maximum defense you can get or using Armour Crush on cooldown to increase your group DPS), few situational skills to mix in (Relentless Maul for stun immunity, Thunderous Roar for AOE taunt, Thickened Hide and Sacrifice for dire need situations) and some utility and different builds available. It is even possible to start doing some heals using Invigorating Honey in Bear form!

Pros:

• Very good to soak damage
• Vexation + War Beast + Down but not Out anti-burst
• Heavy Armour Mitigation levels in Bear form
• Increased value for Hots and Bubbles used on the Beorning (the damage delay give more time to benefit from those abilities)
• Very good corruption removal and debuffs dispel (probably among the best available in the game!)
• No power issues

Cons:

• Need time to ramp Wrath and debuffs/buffs at the start of fights
• Some windows without mitigation buffs can make him unstable as a tank
• Several buff/debuff to keep track of, increasing the difficulty to play the spec effectively
• Extremely low avoidances, lack of block
• Have only Sacrifice to protect group members (1 target, 33% uptime)

Conclusion: This spec should be perma Bear form, no incentives to stay in man form at all. Because staying in Man form you lose the HP/armour bonus of Worthy Adversary making the Beorning lose the defense needed as a tank. The new Vexation mechanic (float around 25%~49% reduced incoming physical damage if paired with Counter and War Beast while above 75 current Wrath) is to implement a new playstyle for the tanking Bear and making up for low p/e and lack of block, instead of giving avoidance buffs and be exactly like the other tank classes. You need high current Wrath to increase survivability, ramp mitigation buffs, apply debuffs of outgoing damage to enemies and can do everything in Bear form!

The Hide tl;dr: Can use all skills in Bear form but generate less Wrath, new dalayed incoming damage mechanic, +Crit def in Bear form, Recuperate hot not reduced by Quick Recovery trait; Ferocious Roar can be trait to become a defensive skill that increase Max Morale, heals and generates a bit more Wrath but have 1 min cd; Thunderous Roar is a new skill instead of replacing Vigilant; Claw Swipe can be Full AOE with new legacy maxed out; new healing induction based Man form skill (that can be used in Bear form with 7th set bonus); new defensive skill that reduces 40% damage of up to 10 close targets and several quality of life changes to set bonuses and traits.


The Claw

• Expose not usable in Bear form anymore.
• Recuperate is now The Hide only, and Composure trait is removed (this is meant to reduce The Claw self healing and open design space to damage and QoL buffs to the spec).
  Note: Still have acess to Hearten and the new healing over time skill Invigorating Honey. The last can be improved by the 7th set bonus (the new Composure) to become instant cast, grant more wrath but have increased cooldown and become self only.
• Claw Swipe is now a basic skill and the stackable bleed is available from the Rake trait (The Hide second row). But the debuff is a The Hide set bonus only.
• New skill, Savage Blow: High damage single target Man Form skill (same base damage as Execute), need at least 75 current Wrath to be used, adds +20 Wrath and automatically enters Bear form after a successful hit. 20s cooldown. Earned via the new fifth set bonus.
• Several new legacies to support and buff the spec (some of the live legacies options are removed, more information in the Legacy changes section).
• Call to Wild skill: now have 60s cooldown (other dps classes have better resource generating skills at 60s or even lower cooldowns).

Traits Replacements:

• Any Advantage trait: effect moved to the basic skill Improved Slam.
• New First row trait, Shape Shifting: you keep the bonus of the previous form for 2/4/6 seconds.
  
  • Bear form: Crit Def, Armour, Max Morale, Healing and bonus Damage.
  • Man form: Bleed Damage, Healing, Finesse, -Attack Duration and bonus Damage
• Enraging Sacrifice trait: removed.
• New second row trait, Nature's Menace: Sacrifice becomes Nature's Menace: adds 10 wrath every second for 4/6/8s, only usable in Bear form. At the end of the effect all wrath is lost and you enter Man form. Leaving Bear form ends the effect prematurely. 30s cooldown.
• Crippling Stings trait: now have only 2 ranks. Adds -30% snare to Bee Swarm at rank 1 and increase to -50% in rank 2.
• Festering wounds set bonus: is now in the fifth row and have 3 ranks. It says +1/2/3 Beorning bleed pulses (increase the number of pulses of all bleeds not only Bash).
• New Fifth set bonus, Savage Blow: earn the skill Savage Blow. High damage single target Man Form skill.
• Composure trait: removed.
• New Sixth row trait, Slice and Dice: Maul now hits up to 2/3/4/5 targets in front of the Beorning at the cost of 2/3/4/5 increased cooldown. At max rank also deals 100% more damage to targets suffering from bleeds.
  Note: Slice and Dice have only 4 ranks and Moment of Opportunity now have 4. Keeping the maximum of 8 to be spent in the sixth row.
• Moment of Opportunity trait now have 4 ranks and says: on every Man and Bear form skills, place a stack of Opportunity on the Beorning. Increasing the damage of the next Execute by 5% per stack. Expires if out of combat for 9 seconds. This effect stacks up to 2/4/6 times. Rank 3: At 6 stacks this buff can be consumed by a free Execute that can be used regardless of the target's healt threshold. Rank 4: At 6 stacks this buff can be consumed by Savage Blow for a DoT (35% of SB total damage over 14s, pulses every 2 seconds).

Traits QoL changes and buffs:

• Flayer of Evil set bonus: now also increases +20% damage and +Finesse in Man form.
• Battle Born set bonus: now also refresh Raining Blows buff after switching into Man form.
• Sharpened Claws set bonus: the effect is applied after the use of Assertive Roar as well.
• Wrathful set bonus: Gain 3% Critical Chance for every 20 Wrath (now up to 150 Wrath). Invigorating Honey becomes Composure, a self only heal. Removing its induction, doubles the wrath generation and increasing the cooldown to 12s (still restricted to Man form only).
• Turn the Tides trait: now applies the damage if you interrupt Inductions using Rending Blow/Armour Crush or Vicious Claws. Also to all enemies feared by Grisly Cry.
  Note: the damage applied is the same of three corruptions removals and the legacy Turn the Tides damage is removed, more information in the Legacy changes section.
• Lumber trait: now says After using Rush: in Bear form, your next attack will knock down your target. In Man form, your next Melee Skill critical hit have +15% Magnitude (Expires if out of combat for 9s or after entering Bear form).
• Final Strike trait: now increase the damage of Execute and Savage Blow by 10%/20%, change the health threshold requirement of Execute to 40%/50%.

Possible rotation focusing on single target damage:

Pros:

• Versatility, can do single target and aoe damage
• Strong Mitigation penetration
• Faster wrath generation than the other specs
• Dynamic shapeshifting playstyle
• No Wrath issues
• No Power issues
  

Cons:

• Need time to stack bleeds
• Melee+Medium armour without Get Out of Jail Free cards
• Only one defensive skill
• Limited self healing

The Claw tl;dr: the main focus is giving Man form more damage and usefulness aside of wrath generation. Enraging Sacrifice is now replaced by a self buff that generates 10 wrath every second for 8s but consume all the wrath at the end of the effect. Execute procs based on RNG changed to a manageable playstyle, that have a better DPS. New High damage Man form skill called Savage Blow. Constantly switching between forms to do more damage and added a few more aoe. More good options to trait in other trees and Call to Wild cd reduced in half.

The Roar

The Roar Disclaimer: this spec is already closer of being optimal in the live servers than the other two. And is extremely strong for Pvmp, so the changes are more focused on bring utility, support and QoL instead of buffing and increasing its numbers to avoid creating new problems.

• New basic skill, Invigorating Honey: low single target healing over time (around 36% of Nature's Mend total healing amount, the Improved version allow to stack the HoT up to 3 times), 1s induction. Adds 5 Wrath. 3 seconds cooldown.
• Vicious Claws skill: now have the same version as The Hide (adds 5 Wrath instead of costing 10, needs at least 1 wrath to be used).
• Several new legacies to support and buff the spec (some of the live legacies options are removed, more information in the Legacy changes section).
• Now have better options to trait in other specs :
  
  • From The Hide:
    
    • Assertive Roar: turns Ferocious into Assertive Roar which gives +50 wrath if used out of combat, self heal and temporarily +Max Morale but has longer cooldown (60s instead of 40s).
    From The Claw:
    
    • Shape Shifting: you keep the bonus of the previous form for 2/4/6 seconds.
      
      • Bear form: Crit Def, Healing and bonus Damage.
      • Man form: Bleed Damage, Healing, Attack Duration and bonus Damage.
        [ New LI Legacy ], [ Existing LI Legacy ].
    • Nature's Menace: Sacrifice becomes Nature's Menace: adds 10 wrath every second for 4/6/8s, only usable in Bear form. At the end of the effect all wrath is lost and you enter Man form. Leaving Bear form ends the effect prematurely. 30s cooldown.
    • Turn the Tides trait: now applies the damage if you interrupt Inductions using Rending Blow/Armour Crush or Vicious Claws. Also to all enemies feared by Grisly Cry.
      Note: the damage applied is the same of three corruptions removals and the legacy Turn the Tides damage is removed, more information in the Legacy changes section.

Traits QoL changes and buffs:

• Raging Blow trait: increases 3%/6%/9% of Vicious Claws damage. If support, applies to the target of Mark of Grimbeorn: 5%/10%/15% incoming damage reduction, duration 12 seconds (incoming damage reduction instead of bonus outgoing damage).
• Desperate Shouts trait: now says after using Ferocious or Assertive Roar, the Wrath cost of your next healing skill is reduced. At max rank, the cost is fully removed.
• Grimbeorn's Strength change: Sacrifice causes you to negate 45% of redirected damage (up from 25%. Theres no way to reduce the % redirected damage because of Enraging Sacrifice removal, so this buff is meant to compensate for that).
• Quick Mend trait: now increases healing and reduces induction of Invigorating Honey as well. Max rank makes the induction of both skills to be usable on the move.
• In the Face of trait: now grants a new skill In the Face of, in combat rez, 3 min cooldown (this should fix the problem with bear up).
• Levelling Roar trait: no longer removes the damage of the skill. Additionaly to the increased range, reduces the avoidances and resistance rating of the target for 20 seconds (making up for some of the 15% damage increase loss to the marked target after the Raging Blow trait changes proposed).

Rotation simulation and wrath flow chart, soon.

Pros:

• Very High aoe healing potential
• Decent Crowd Control
• Medium Armour and +Crit Def in Bear form
• Good debuffs
• The absolute best single target debuff dispel in the game!
• In-combat rez
• No power issues

Cons:

• Can run out of wrath and if Nature's Menace is on cooldown will be not easy to get wrath back fast. Creating windows of low healing output.
• Only one self defense skill
• No emergency heals
• Need to be in melee range to build wrath and buff

The Roar tl;dr: Now have good traits in others specs, better legacy support, damage reduction instead of increased damage output to marked target (usually is the tank), possible solution to the in-combat rez problem, some buffs to existing skills and LI legacies. The new Nature's Menace (The Claw trait) can solve the dire need situations as you rapidly gain Wrath to heal the Fellowship/Raid. New Heal over time induction based ability for Man form that adds 5 wrath.

Miscellaneous:

Possible (and cool) changes to Bear form:

• Immune to disarm effects (how it is possible to disarm a bear?).
• Lower Fire Mitigation and High Cry Resistance. Could include +Fire Mitigation in Tatical Mitigation increase (4th row trait in The Hide) to neutralize the damage taken if needed (https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Damage_types, https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Category:Bears, see Advanced stats).
• Possibility of interaction with quest items.
• Running wild: the Beorning could run like a mounted man! (same limitations: stop at receiving a Crit or after losing 250 morale, 2 seconds inductions, etc).
• More fur colors to choose from: redish, yellow and white (not gray, white like Polar Bears!).

Thats all, thanks for the reading.
Forgive me for grammatical errors, English is not my native language.

Dont let the Bear down SSG!

[Joedangod]

There are some pretty excellent suggestions in there although there are a few points I'd like to nitpick on.

- Recuperate is now a basic skill. Earned at lvl 38. (Especially needed while in The Claw)

I disagree with this. The Roar certainly doesn't need it, The Hide already has it. You're making this a basic skill purely for The Claw (although it's not hard to spec it). Can't really advocate for boosting red heals when the traitline has composure available. If there was to be a composure nerf along with recuperate being made baseline then I would agree that this change makes sense, without a composure nerf you just end up with excessive healing for a DPS line.

- Expose: not usable in Bear form anymore.

Not entirely sure why it was enabled for bear form in the first place but overall it would be best if it was removed entirely or dropped down to ~10% bypass. With expose at 10% they could then bump up the man form/bear form legacies by a hefty amount (probably looking for them to be around 150%+ for bear tooltips to be even moderately close to champion values). I'm saying bump the legacies rather than base damage simply because base damage bumps would make Beornings even more excessively powerful in the 1-75 range and result in another hunter style problem of breezing through solo content at low levels.

- Enraging Sacrifice trait: Sacrifices is now a self buff, Wrath consuming skills use Morale instead, 1 Wrath -> 0.9%/0.7%/0.5% Max Morale cost ratio per rank. 20 seconds duration and 1 minute cooldown. (Can be used in combination with Call to Wild to decrease the Morale costs every 2 minutes).

Not entirely sure how this would work out in practice. I think even at a 0.5% health : 1 wrath ratio you'd still be haemorrhaging morale by using it, granted I haven't done any wrath cost per second analysis to back this thought up.


As far as the Hide/Roar suggestions go you certainly put forth some good ideas. The legacies are also great although it should probably be suggested that several of the current legacies be removed (it's a little ridiculous having every single DPS skill with a specific legacy just for that one skill).

[Avalon1993]

Thanks for the reply Joedangod!

I disagree with this. The Roar certainly doesn't need it, The Hide already has it. You're making this a basic skill purely for The Claw (although it's not hard to spec it). Can't really advocate for boosting red heals when the traitline has composure available. If there was to be a composure nerf along with recuperate being made baseline then I would agree that this change makes sense, without a composure nerf you just end up with excessive healing for a DPS line.

I propposed some Morale costs for The Claw, so the intention was to compensate for that. Could be too much healing indeed.

Not entirely sure why it was enabled for bear form in the first place but overall it would be best if it was removed entirely or dropped down to ~10% bypass. With expose at 10% they could then bump up the man form/bear form legacies by a hefty amount (probably looking for them to be around 150%+ for bear tooltips to be even moderately close to champion values). I'm saying bump the legacies rather than base damage simply because base damage bumps would make Beornings even more excessively powerful in the 1-75 range and result in another hunter style problem of breezing through solo content at low levels.

Good approach. The Beorning class is labeled as "Damage" after all, so going for scaling instead of high base values would make them not overpower and relevant at all levels.

Not entirely sure how this would work out in practice. I think even at a 0.5% health : 1 wrath ratio you'd still be haemorrhaging morale by using it, granted I haven't done any wrath cost per second analysis to back this thought up.

The idea behind this is to keep the same mechanic (losing morale to generate wrath) but in a controlled way. You know how much morale is going to cost based on the ratios, and consequently the amount of Wrath that can be used while the effect is up. A window of Wrath not going down while using wrath consuming skills. Enraging Sacrifice + Composure + Wrathful (set bonus crit bonus based on current wrath) + Call to Wild would be a very strong combo for burst.

Currently if you use Enraging Sacrifice: the target can suffer a very large amount of damage and kill you, tank just a few or many mobs giving different wrath incomes. And the skill is not supposed to be in a regular damage dealer build, feels out of place. My suggestion was a attempt to make this trait less volatile and more constant and desirable to the damage Bear.

As far as the Hide/Roar suggestions go you certainly put forth some good ideas. The legacies are also great although it should probably be suggested that several of the current legacies be removed (it's a little ridiculous having every single DPS skill with a specific legacy just for that one skill).

Yes, the legacies need some work. Beorning have only 10 options while others classes have around 17. I will try to redo the legacies piece of the post later and will take this in consideration. Maybe I can give some ideas to SSG staff work with.

[Morphails]

All in all, great post. Thank you for taking the time to make this. Here's my two cents:

Basic skills
- Skin-change is now immediate.
- Hearten/Composure and Ferocious Roar animations lenght reduced.
- New Skill, Maul: low damage melee ability usable in Bear form, does not consume Wrath. Cooldown 3 seconds. Earned at lvl 8. (filler bear skill, to have something to work while low on wrath, incresing dps and giving more options).

Those are indeed the most important QoL changes. Bash could do with some reduced animation length aswell in my opinion.

Basic skills
- Bee Swarm light damage over time damage increased by 300%.
- Recuperate is now a basic skill. Earned at lvl 38. (Especially needed while in The Claw)
- New Skill, Mighty Roar: average damage ranged ability usable in Any form, cost 5 Wrath. 20 seconds cooldown. 20m range. Earned at lvl 45. (To pull, finish low hp mobs running away, dump Wrath and keep monsters in combat)

- Bee swarm is all about the debuffs. It does so little damage that even a 300% buff wouldn't really make you use it for extra DPS.
- The way I spec my bear I have recuperate available in all three trait lines regardless. There's not much else to grab anyways.
- I usually range pull with bees or corruption removal. An extra pulling skill seems nice, but I don't think it's needed.

The Hide
- Bear form wrath cost removed.
- Counterattack is now usable after an evade response (do not need Counter to be active).
- Worthy Adversary set bonus: after going to Bear form receive a 20% Max Morale over 10 seconds (currently, you hurt yourself for going Bear-Man-Bear. Losing a flat 20% Max Morale because the morale does not come back after switching twice).
- Down but not Out set bonus: Man form heal removed; Bear form now heals for 20% max morale initially and more 20% max morale over 5 seconds.
- Animalistic set bonus: allow the Beorning to use all the Man form skills while in the Bear form, Wrath generation skills adds 40% less Wrath.
- Recuperate trait: Recuperate now increases incoming healing by +5% for 10 seconds, stacks up to three times.
- Thunderous Roar trait: now grants the skill Thunderous Roar (Vigilant Roar stay as a different skill).
- Vigilant Roar trait: now applies the reflect after the use of Vigilant or Thunderous Roar.
- Opposing Presence: now have 4 ranks and increase the damage of Biting Edge by 2.5% for each. No longer force enemies to attack you.
- New Trait: Threatening Presence. Biting Edge increases the threat generate by the Beorning to every enemy stuck by the skill. Requires Opposing Presence to be at max rank.

I think the main issue with tanking on a Beorning is that it takes somewhere between two and three times as much damage as a Guardian/Captain. These are all great suggestions, but I think the spec needs a complete rework to ever be even remotely useful.

The Roar
- In the Face of trait now grants a new skill: In the Face of, in combat rez, long cooldown. (this should fix the problem with bear up)
- Piercing Roar damage reduction applies after the mitigations calculation. Using the full value of 20%/40%.
- Rejuvenating Bellow now have a Heal over time effect as well.
- Nature's Bond gives a bubble to the target.

Yes to all of these, but most importantly: scale Beorning heals with tactical healing rating. Could do with an AoE panic heal similar to Minstrel's Triumphant Spirit.

The Claw
- Enraging Sacrifice trait: Sacrifices is now a self buff, Wrath consuming skills use Morale instead, 1 Wrath -> 0.9%/0.7%/0.5% Max Morale cost ratio per rank. 20 seconds duration and 1 minute cooldown. (Can be used in combination with Call to Wild to decrease the Morale costs every 2 minutes).

This one seems really interesting and I like the idea of it. The morale cost looks way too high though, but in the end that's just a matter of fine tuning. That being said, I think red line should have Composure nerfed or removed entirely, and in exchange get the base damage of all skills (both forms) significantly increased. If all Beorning damage were to be doubled, they'd still be a below average pick for a DPS slot.

As far as the legacies go, I agree with all of them except the evade on Counter legacy, since Beornings don't work very well with avoidance builds.

[Avalon1993]

Your contribuition is appreciated Morphails.

Those are indeed the most important QoL changes. Bash could do with some reduced animation length aswell in my opinion.

Yep, I'll add to the list.

- The way I spec my bear I have recuperate available in all three trait lines regardless. There's not much else to grab anyways.
- I usually range pull with bees or corruption removal. An extra pulling skill seems nice, but I don't think it's needed.

The point is to diversify the builds, instead of grabing Recuperate all the time. If you already have it the points can be spent elsewhere. Additionally, Beorning has very few skills to work with and it feels like something is missing. Having Recuperate, Maul and Mighty Roar like I suggested would (maybe) complement the class.

Yes to all of these, but most importantly: scale Beorning heals with tactical healing rating.

Aw, forgot about that! Thanks.

This one seems really interesting and I like the idea of it. The morale cost looks way too high though, but in the end that's just a matter of fine tuning. That being said, I think red line should have Composure nerfed or removed entirely, and in exchange get the base damage of all skills (both forms) significantly increased.

The morale costs could be too high, but it takes Composure usage into consideration. If Composure is nerfed or removed the cost could be way lower. And like Joedangod stated, in order to increase the damage the scalings (Physical Mastery multiplier) should be touched not the base values to avoid another problems.

As far as the legacies go, I agree with all of them except the evade on Counter legacy, since Beornings don't work very well with avoidance builds.

As the changes propposed goes live, the Beorning does not rely on being hit to generate Wrath anymore. All the Man form skills would be usable in Bear form (The Hide only), including Wrath generation (reduced by 40%). Opening design space to avoidance buffs.

[Avalon1993]

Made some changes and added many items to the rework list!

[Rhunar]

How about an intrinsic buff of the "Hide" specialization:

+6% full parry chance
+6% full evade chance
+12% partial parry chance
+12% partial evade chance

Would solve many issues with the blue trait tree.

Rhunar

[Avalon1993]

How about an intrinsic buff of the "Hide" specialization:

+6% full parry chance
+6% full evade chance
+12% partial parry chance
+12% partial evade chance

Would solve many issues with the blue trait tree.

Rhunar

Thanks for the reply Rhunar, you gave me an awesome idea! What about a different mechanic to reduce damage instead of throwing in raw avoidances? Giving b/p/e will make the Bears exactly the same as others tanks.

Edit: changed a few things in the suggestion. Included the new mechanic to delay incoming damage and ways to supress part of it.

[Avalon1993]

Edits:

• Reformatted the entire suggestion.
• Finished the rework and QoL changes for every spec.
• Corrected some grammatical errors.

Planning to do:

• Introduction.
• Wrath flow tables.
• In depth description to the suggested gameplay.
• Possible rotations and builds.

[Avalon1993]

Edits:

• Mighty Roar from 30% flat reduction to everything -> 40% Physical and 20% Tactical (now it is more in line with similar skills from others classes).
• The new skills Invigorating Honey and Maul now have some values for scale comparison.
• Counterattack now have 3s cooldown. Down from 5s.
• The legacy Counter damage reduction is now Chance for bonus wrath from Counterattack.
• Removed the passive of +10s bonus duration to War Beast from Animalistic.
• New Animalistic passive: using Maul gives the Beorning a buff called Frighten. Using Guarded Attack consumes this buff to proc War Beast and lower the next enemy physical attack by 20%. 10s cd.
• The Hide rotation and Wrath flow simulation added.

During Wrath flow simulations I noticed four important things: Guarded Attack becomes useless after reaching 5 stacks of its buff, Maul has no use in The Hide (the new suggested skill, not Relentless Maul), no way to proc War Beast consistently in the rotations and Counterattack needed some buffs to achieve its purpose of main Wrath generating skill.

The changes to Animalistic passive solve three of those problems.

Counterattack 5s cd was too high and crippled The Hide rotations, causing huge problems to generate Wrath while doing what you need to do. CA have very high value for its +10 Wrath in a Current Wrath based playstyle so it needed a buff in order to keep everything smooth. Another way to solve the problem was to lower the penalty of bonus Wrath to Man form skills while in Bear form from 40% to 20%. But the only use to CA currently in the suggestion is to generate Wrath, while other skills have multiple purposes. Shifting power from CA to other Man form skills could lead to it becoming useless and ignored in the rotations so I concluded lowering the cooldown to 3s could be the best option.

Does not look like a big thing but Beorning animations are very very fast, you can cast many skills in a short time frame leading to a fast paced and hungry rotation. If CA is on cooldown you dont have good options to gain Wrath and if you dont have Wrath you cant use the best skills and have lower defences. The rotation become stuck, starved and clunky very fast. Also, the suggested playstyle is perma bear (not going Man to get some Wrath) + the higher your Wrath the tankier you are (low Wrath is very bad) making this problem a snowball that never stop growing bigger and bigger. With 3s cd on CA and some management all of this go away and the rotation becomes smoother like it should be.

The Hide rework is now finished!

Planning to do:

• Introduction.
• The Roar and The Claw Wrath flow tables and example rotations (has proven to be very useful to find problems in The Hide).

[Avalon1993]

Edits:

• Did some work in the Legacies suggestions:
  
  • Changed Counter damage reduction to Chance for bonus Wrath from Counterattack (this change was not saved in a previous edit somehow).
  • Chance for bonus Wrath from Slam and Worthy Adversary bonus armour removed.
  • Frighten Damage Reduction, Invigorating Honey Incoming Healing buff and Beorning Bleed Damage added.
  • Call to Wild duration and Bond of Trust Heal Chance changed places.
  • Claw Swipe arc increase legacy can now make the skill Full AOE!
  • Now every spec have 7 high priority and over 10 desirable/optionals in both Weapon and Carvings.

The suggestion is almost completed, only need final touches in The Claw and Roar sections.

[Avalon1993]

Edits:

• Added the usage of Sacrifice to any form.
• Added Silence and Disarm issues to the bug fix list.
• Updated some descriptions that lacked effect duration or other meaningful information.
• Bestial Fury changes removed. The previous was not achieving its goal during simulations.
• Changed the Wrathful bonus. Now includes the 'new' Composure, modifying Invigorating Honey to better suit The Claw.
• Battle Born bonus to Man form changed to Raining Blows buff refresh.
• Slice and Dice now have only 4 ranks. Down from 5.
• Added a new rank and description to Moment of Opportunity. Savage Blow now consume the Opportunity buff if you have the 4th rank traited.
• Added a The Roar disclaimer concerning all the changes proposed to the spec.

Edits 2:

• Updated The Hide simulations. Now have better visuals, Debuff and Defense meters
• Ferocious and Assertive Roar are now usable in anyform
• Sharpened Claws description included. The buff is granted after using Assertive Roar
• Added The Claw simulations!

The suggestion is now finally completed!

Thanks for everyone that contributed giving ideas, replies, inputs and feedback. You are awesome!

[Olebenny]

Excellent work all around I really hope the devs take this into consideration when they look at reworking classes.

Personally I wish they gave up on trying to make beorning a jack of all trade but master of none and make them instead dedicated healers. Their raid wide heals and burst are very nice. The set bonus from the raid for their heals is also pretty good

[Decrepify]

Thread bump cause it deserves a lot more attention than was given.

[Inoshishi]

Just to add my two cents, I would like them to take a look at the following skills:

• Ferocious Roar
• Sacrifice
• Call To Wild
• Thickened Hide
• Nature's Bond

Here are my suggestions.

Ferocious Roar
Blue-line: Assertive Roar

• Currently, upon use max morale is increased by 10% (fully traited)
• Instead of morale, I would rather see a 20% increase in b/p/e
• I would also implement an AoE taunt to the skill

Red-line: Sharpened Claws

• Currently, upon use the next attack has a 100% chance to crit
• I would like the skill to have a damage component so there is no "waiting for the skill animation to end" to continue the dps rotation.

Yellow-line: Desperate Shouts

• Currently, upon use the next attack has no Wrath cost (fully traited)
• Does this trait work properly? I see no reduction of Wrath costs when using this skill in yellow.
• I would implement a fellowship HoT to this skill. Similar to red-line, there should be no "waiting for the skill animation to end" to continue the healing/support rotation.

Sacrifice
Blue-line: In Harm's Way, All On The Line

• I can't think of any changes to these traits at the moment

Red-line: Enraging Sacrifice

• I would remove redirected damage altogether and increase wrath per hit

Yellow-line: Grimbeorn's Strength

• Currently, there is 25% damage mitigated when using Sacrifice on the player with Grimbeorn's Mark
• I would redesign the skill to reflect 25% (or more) of the mitigated damage back to the source (similar to Vigilant Roar in blue line)

Call To Wild

• Instead of +5 and -5 Wrath on skills, I would just take away Wrath costs while the skill is active (cannot build or spend Wrath)
• Increase critical chance and devastate magnitude by 10% while skill is active

Thickened Hide

• Currently reduces incoming damage by 60% while receiving 1% morale per hit
• Instead of incoming damage reduction and healing, increase mitigations by +30% while the skill is active
• Attacks received while using the skill would generate threat (similar to Vigilant Roar in blue line)

Nature's Bond

• Currently, upon use 70% of incoming healing is redirected to the target of the skill
• I would change the skill to affect the entire fellowship
• The Beorning would have its incoming healing halved, but each member of its fellowship would receive a 10% increase in incoming healing
• While Nature's Bond is active, every member of the fellowship receives Grimbeorn's Mark

[Joedangod]

Just to add my two cents, I would like them to take a look at the following skills:

As a guy who extensively ran Captain/Guardian and Beorning tank in Throne I have to say that any suggestion that Beorning needs more AoE taunts is ridiculous. Beornings already have the single best AoE taunt in the game and it's incredibly easy to manage aggro once you have used it. It's so good that it would be nerfed if any other class had it, Beornings only get to keep it because they are basically incapable of pulling/holding aggro without it due to the exceptionally low base damage on skills.

[laughatdo0m]

As a guy who extensively ran Captain/Guardian and Beorning tank in Throne I have to say that any suggestion that Beorning needs more AoE taunts is ridiculous. Beornings already have the single best AoE taunt in the game and it's incredibly easy to manage aggro once you have used it. It's so good that it would be nerfed if any other class had it, Beornings only get to keep it because they are basically incapable of pulling/holding aggro without it due to the exceptionally low base damage on skills.

Definitely agree.

[Pavlin]

As a guy who extensively ran Captain/Guardian and Beorning tank in Throne I have to say that any suggestion that Beorning needs more AoE taunts is ridiculous. Beornings already have the single best AoE taunt in the game and it's incredibly easy to manage aggro once you have used it. It's so good that it would be nerfed if any other class had it, Beornings only get to keep it because they are basically incapable of pulling/holding aggro without it due to the exceptionally low base damage on skills.

Agree with you /only on beor dont need more taunt part/ but i stronly disagree with ""Beornings already have the single best AoE taunt in the game""
there https://imgur.com/a/odg6inK
The only ""advantage"" beor aoe taunt have is that he has no limit/ taunt all target in range/
Beor is a squishy tank, and getting all mobs agro at same time may lead to dead bear.
Its annoying both to the healers and to the main tank. (because beor is always offtank)
As a beor i wont mind if we switch taunts with guard.
Hope we will see some changes in 22.2.

[Joedangod]

i strongly disagree with ""Beornings already have the single best AoE taunt in the game""

Lowest CD/Most Targets taunt. As far as holding aggro goes it's the best taunt in the game hands down. I also can't say I've ever used Beorning as off-tank, only ever main-tank since Captains pretty much own the "off-tank" role. Swapping Vigilant Roar out for challenge would just end up with Beornings not being able to hold aggro if groups come in waves faster than every 30s.

[Happychappy]

Only thing i would worry about is if composure was removed the red trait bear would be too squishy. They are sat in medium armour only and need some sort of heal/mitigation boost.

A Guardian now has access to a fair bit of dps, whilst still retaining some nice healing and mitigation skills to help it stay alive. A hunter has a 20% heal on a possible 10 second cool down plus a potential 30% heal on a 45 second cool down, is a ranged class and can get 58% mitigations. A minstrel has a Critical Chord every 10 seconds. Some examples.

So in view of this i would say Composure is not to far off the mark. Blue needs better Recuperate/block/mitigations and not pinch (but maybe share if low enough tier) Reds main stay alive skill.

[Stillgrave]

I began playing Bears back in their beta and I've only recently decided to actually buy one and play it. But I've been playing solely in blue line, so that's where my suggestions are going to lay for the most part.

1) Provide blue line with the ability to block while dual wielding.
2) Remove wrath cost of bear form entirely while in blue spec.
3) Make all bear skills/man skills use the same slots in the quickslots bars. Have the skills be replaced as we shapeshift from one to the other. This would allow for new skill spaces to be opened up for any new skills for use to acquire.
4) Spiked fur: (new skill) reflects 1% of damage to any attacking the bear and increases aggro by 5%, bear animations are slowed by 2%, costs 0 wrath, bear form only, duration 15 seconds, cooldown 1 minute. (the idea is that the bear has used mud or other debris to spike up their fur in an effect similar to Celtic limed hair)
5) Ground Slam: (new skill) aoe stun, range 10 meters, costs 5 wrath, bear form only, duration 8 seconds, cooldown 1 minute 30 second. (animation of the bear standing up and then physically slamming both paws into the ground with dust/wind spreading out)

I'm not entirely sure about this last one, but perhaps make it so that the wrath building skills are lessened in how much wrath they do gain or remove the wrath building part entirely but instead make it so that the bear gains say... 3 wrath for every 2 seconds in combat.

Overall I like your suggestions though and hope that the devs take a good look at this thread.