Beorning

This page is about the class. For the race, see Beorning (Race). 

Class Difficulty: Advanced

Role: Healer/Damage/Tank

Available to races: Beorning

Gameplay: Beornings are skin-changers that can change into the form of a bear in combat. They focus their wrath while in bear form, choosing to deal grievous blows or bolster their own resolve. While skilled in combat, some Beornings also choose to wield their knowledge of the wilderness to assist their allies.

Lore: The Beornings of Middle-earth are a largely reclusive people. They trace their ancestry to Beorn himself, and spend most of their time deep in the wilderness. The solitude of the forest gives little comfort in recent times, with the enemy encroaching from all sides. The time has come for the descendants of Beorn to lend their strength to the Free People of Middle-earth.

This class is inspired by Beorn, who bravely stood with the Free Peoples during the Battle of Five Armies.

Class Navigation Classes Skills Traits Traceries Effects Deeds Guides

Gameplay

Beornings cycle between Forms to generate and expend Wrath in order to perform their specialization's role. They must time their strongest Wrath-consuming skills to have the greatest effect due to their long cooldowns and expensive costs. Beornings are tanky in every specialization, and don't have to worry as much about incoming damage. They have several strong debuffs available in all specializations, such as  Armour Crush and  Bee Swarm.

• Blue-line (Tank): Beornings specializing in the Hide trait tree use several AoE taunt skills like  Menacing Maul and  Thunderous Roar to maintain aggro of enemies. Their incredibly high morale pool and passive healing makes up for their lack of minor cooldowns. Despite this, they can use  Hurricane to drastically reduce damage for a decent duration. As tanks, they are best at maintaining AoE aggro.
• Red-line (Damage): Beornings specializing in the Claw trait tree use Wrath finisher skills like  Final Strike and  Execute to deal massive damage at the expense of consuming all Wrath.  Thrash is used to rapidly restore Wrath. They are also responsible for keeping up multiple bleeds, like  Bash and  Serrated Edge.
• Yellow-line (Healer) Beornings specializing in the Roar trait tree expend Wrath to heal the fellowship or raid via skills like  Relentless Maul and  Rejuvenating Bellow. They must carefully time their healing skills so that they do not run out of Wrath at the wrong time, and their biggest AoE heals have longer cooldowns. They also have several debuffs that require them to remain in melee range of their enemies while healing.

Despite the initial complexity of Wrath and Form-swapping, Beornings are fairly easy to play once learned. The notable exception to this is Yellow-line Beorning, which is the hardest healer to play in the game. The class is very strong if played well, but also has the potential to fall flat if the class isn't fully understood.

Wrath

Beorning Wrath UI

As a Beorning, you have a new vital named Wrath that replaces Power. Wrath builds up in combat through use of your skills. Many of your Man form skills will build wrath, allowing you to skin-change into a Bear. In Bear Form you unlock access to more potent, Wrath consuming skills. Wrath state is not maintained between logons so your character will always start with zero Wrath upon login.

Forms

Bar swap description

When Beornings gather sufficient Wrath they can take the form of a great bear to unleash attacks on their foes.

Beornings are designed to be a dynamic skin-changer class. A Beorning can alternate back and forth between forms (or stances) almost at will, dependent only upon their level of Wrath. There are two ways to do so:

• Use the skill  Bear-form or  Man-form.
• Use another skill that changes your form automatically ( Thrash for Bear-form and  Slash for Man-form).

A Beorning's basic skills emphasize the difference between Man and Bear Forms. There are skills available in three different ways -- those available in Man Form; those available in Bear Form; and those available in either form.

For more information, see Bear-form and Man-form.