Level 30 Beorning Review - Blue Line

In my first look at Beornings, levelling in the red trait tree ("The Claw"), I found the class interesting but had a few frustrations with the gameplay. I have recently levelled a second Beorning to level 30 using the blue trait tree ("The Hide"), and found it a much better experience for solo questing.

My blue line Beorning

One of the first things I noticed was that it was so much easier to generate wrath in blue line compared to red line. Having Hearten provide wrath at a low level on a short cooldown was fantastic - now I could reliably generate wrath and have a heal-over-time effect while my character transformed into a bear and she would still be healing and generating wrath for a little while, letting her stay in bear form for longer.

She was a lot less squishy in blue line. My red line beorning would frequently drop below 50% health, but that has been very rare for my blue line beorning. In blue line, she could handle a lot more mobs - she took on 8 wargs in the Lone-lands near where you summon Shadepaw for a quest and survived; she killed one in man form while generating wrath, switched to bear form, killed 3, switched back to man to heal and regenerate wrath, finished off another one, switched back to bear and killed the final 3 and still had about 40% health at the end.

Regarding being less squishy, I think that is largely due to the buffs and debuffs available in the blue line. For man form there is Guarded Attack which increases armour by 10%, while in bear form Claw Swipe reduces the amount of melee, ranged and tactical damage dealt by nearby enemies. Trait points spent in increasing vitality also helps. The red line focuses more on critical strikes and bleed damage rather than survival, although they do have Expose which reduces enemy mitigations by 40%.

Blue line also has slightly more AOE potential, with Biting Edge in man form and Claw Swipe in bear form, while the red line only has Biting Edge and has trait points to make it single target (although why anyone would willingly give up their only AOE attack is difficult to fathom).

The dps was lower and fights took longer in blue line compared to red, but that is to be expected. Out of curiosity to see how big the difference was, I killed ten level 30 Bog-wardens in Harloeg, Lone-lands, in each spec; gear, virtues etc. were the same. Note, my character doesn't have her virtues and gear maxed for her level, so better players would get better results. She used the same type of rotation for both specs - shoot to pull mobs into melee range, use each of her man form attacks to generate wrath then switch to bear form and use Thrash until the mob was dead (usually 1-2 Thrashes). Using Claw Swipe or Bash wasn't necessary and increased the fight duration.

Here's some data:

The red trait tree is good at single target damage while the blue trait tree is good at surviving any situation. Having tried levelling solo with both specs, I'll be sticking with Blue - it feels more like how I imagined Beornings would play; changing forms often and being tough.

Special Event: Treasure Hunt, December 2015

I love the treasure hunting event in LOTRO. It's fun running around with lots of other people all looking for the mother lode - the huge dig site, hoping to find something good before the round ends or your meager supply of pickaxes runs out.

You see a range of strategies too - people who always dig at the same spot; people who dig at random sites - maybe they like the way the gold sparkles against the snow, or a rabbit ran past the dig site so it must be lucky (who knows?); people who deliberately look for the most out-of-way dig sites; people who do a circuit of the entire area, stopping at a few spots along the way; or people who use their trained cave-claw to find the best dig site in an area then dig at every dig site nearby except that one (???). It's a great place for people watching. Some really nice cosmetic outfits and mounts to admire too.

Last year my hobbit hunter found the treasure-laden pony and has been using it ever since as her favourite mount in-game. This year I took three of my new characters through, alternating them when I ran out of pickaxes instead of waiting for the quests to become available again. I found a couple of gem-inspection emotes, a treasure-hunter's backpack, a treasure chest housing decoration, and, just when I was about to give up and go back to questing, my new lore-master found a huge dig site and the treasure-laden goat. Hooray!

Treasure Laden Goat

So now I can retire happily from the treasure hunting field until next year and hope for another special mount for some lucky character. Maybe the horse next time? Fingers crossed.

Level 30 Beorning Review - Red Line

I've been levelling my little Beorning lately and she has just reached level 30. She is mostly questing solo, with occasional skirmishes for variety, using the red ("The Claw") trait tree. These are some of my thoughts about the class so far.

My Beorning

First Impressions

The introduction in the Vales of Anduin was too short. The zone was practically deserted and I don't think it gave much background lore on what it means to be a Beorning.

So many times I wish I had a proper gap-closer to get into combat without face-pulling. I wish Rush was either targeted so you charge directly at a mob, or that Bee Swarm had no wrath requirement so it could be used to start combat (I know you can use Ferocious Roar to generate wrath even out of combat, but it has a long cooldown). Even having Vigilant Roar taunt mobs in man form would be useful. Using the bow auto-attack helps, but it's not really ideal - I'd prefer to have a specific skill rather than an auto-attack. I'd like to see them make entering combat a better experience.

AOE could be a little frustrating at times. In man form, we had Biting Edge as an AOE move (although it didn't do much damage and the cooldown seems too long), but mostly it was burn them down one by one. Having Hearten to heal and Cleanse to remove debuffs was a life-saver. In bear form, they died pretty quick with Thrash but it required having a lot of wrath built up to get all the mobs down before the wrath ran out. I also seemed to take a lot of damage in bear form and couldn't use Hearten so had to rely on potions. I got Relentless Maul at level 30, which is a bear form AOE, so it might get better.

I spend most of my time in man form because it takes a while to build enough wrath and usually by the time I have, the mob is almost dead so it's not worth changing to bear form. I mostly only change to bear if it's a longer fight against an elite, or I have lots of wrath and several mobs to kill close together. I believe it gets easier to build and maintain wrath later, so this is fine for now.

Bear Form
(demonstrating Relentless Maul)

I spent most of the first 30 levels dual-wielding clubs but recently changed to a two-handed axe. At first, combat felt so much slower with the two-handed axe, like I was waiting longer between abilities, but I was hitting much harder and when I get a crit mobs die fast. I've seen some discussion on the forums about dual-wielding being better for man form and two-hand weapons being better for bear form. I think I'll stick with two-handed weapons for now, but maybe compare weapons again at a higher level.

Gear hasn't been too much of an issue, with quest rewards (the boxes of might-based medium armour are great), crafted jewellery and occasional pieces from the skirmish vendors. I need better weapons though. I also need to work on increasing the right virtues to boost stats and hopefully make her a little less squishy.

Conclusion

Overall, I'm finding the class enjoyable enough that I want to stick with it. I think it will get better at higher levels as we get more abilities and traits.

Pros

• Interesting class with ability to change forms
• Good self-healing in man form
• ST damage is good

Cons

• Takes a lot of damage, particularly in bear form
• AOE damage is not great
• Initiating combat can be frustrating, especially with no wrath

Crafted Weapons Gallery Coming Soon

Return of the Lore-master

Hi. I took a break from LOTRO after the release of Central and Eastern Gondor. Mostly I felt disappointed with the quality of the releases. However, after some time away I started to miss Middle Earth. My interest was also piqued when they announced the imbued legendary items and cosmetic weapons. So I'm gradually getting back into the game again, especially since the Farmer's Faire (my favourite holiday event).

Cosmetic Weapons and Gallery Coming Soon

I know I kept a couple of staves that I got as quest rewards while levelling Myndariel because they looked cool but I'm sure there's a lot more nice looking weapons out there and since I like crafting I'm going to focus on crafted weapons and showcase them in a gallery like I've done with armour, to make it easier to find good looking swords, daggers, axes, bows, spears, staves and shields ... did I forget anything? Probably. In any case, my craftsmen will dust off their tools and get to work very soon in the crafting hall of Bree.