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The current state of Beorningers & Grimbeorn

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Odysseus:
Good night people of Edain Mod,

After a small absence, I decided to signal my return with a few thoughts of mine on the Beorningerss and Grimbeorn, in how they currently perform. Some of these thoughts that I will share, might be shared by others, and I encourage those to share their thoughts as well. It will be a long and grueling post, but hopefully worth it [ugly].

Now, I am aware that the latest patch (4.2.1) has introduced nerfs to Beorningers, and I believe this to be steps in the right direction. Their performance has been hampered a bit since they were first introduced. However, I am still under the impression that they overperform, if only a little. I don't necessarily think all that I will suggest is needed or should be the top priority at the moment, but I think that the following ideas might be worth taking a look at. Since Beorningers are a more recent addition, I will tackle this topic with a bit more detail. Allow me to start with a quick little overview on Beorningers:

Role: I believe their role to be some kind light-siege/cavalry hybrid, which can be enacted by switching forms.

Apparent Advantages:
1. A light siege platform that can defend itself, and nothing to snort at either, for they can ignore heavy armour completely, meaning that they can one-shot most infantry models. It also means that they do high damage against heroes.
2. High attack speed.
3. Can switch between forms to suit your army and your enemy's army composition.
4. Can level and do so quickly.

Apparent Disadvantages:
1. More expensive than their light siege counterparts in other factions.
2. Do not possess trample immunity.
3. Take up more population cap than other light siege (If I am not mistaken).

My thoughts:
As it stands, the Beorningers perform quite well. What they lack in direct punch compared to battering rams, they make up for in their high attack speed. They are not uncounterable, since cavalry can trample them, knockback units like Trolls ''troll'' them, and they can still be damaged decently by turrets, archer, sword and pike blobs. Still, I feel they are too attractive and too effective. I've seen a couple of replays and did some tests myself, where ''spamming'' Beorningers was the tactic employed, simply overrunning any and all base defenses and defenders. However, my main gripe with them is that I find the Beorninger bear form kind of lackluster in comparison to their human form. The human form does most things the bear form does, but better. Beorningers need to be more counterable by heroes and also need to be less menacing to heavily armoured units, and I feel there needs to be a little bit more emphasis or focus on their light siege role, and not in their ability to deal with heroes or heavily armoured units.

My suggestions:
- Decrease their overall armour-piercing damage. Make it so that they kill most infantry models in two or three hits. I'm not sure what their current damage modifiers look like, but it would be interesting to see them not take down a model per hit and be less efficient against heroes. Keeping the armour ignoring feature is an interesting feature, but I believe it either needs to be toned down or linked to some kind of research like Forged Blades or Battle Axes upgrade or maybe something else (Scroll down a bit, to the second spoiler tag :P).
- Make them more vulnerable to heroes, but I imagine that this is mostly related to their damage output. Nonetheless, a look at their armour values against hero-damage might be interesting, right?
-Make the Bear Form more resilient to arrows and perhaps give it knockback immunity?
- Not completely sure about this one, but trample immunity for the human-form would be interesting to see to make up for their would-be decrease in damage.
- Decrease the amount of EXP they get from killing units. If a Beorninger kills a regular battallion on his own, which isn't that hard at all, he levels up by multiples. Perhaps the EXP they get from buildings could be increased, to provide a counter weight. Taking down a Gondor Spearmen formation can easily level a Beorninger to level 3 or 4, if I am not mistaken.

Conclusion: I believe this will make them less attractive to ''spam'' and make them more defined as either light siege in human form, and more supportive in taking down heavily armoured troops, instead of leading the front in human form. It will also make the switching between bear form and human form more important, apart from the faster movement speed in bear form, as the bear form will become more attractive if you wish to deal with infantry.
Wait, there's more!

I mentioned Grimbeorn, didn't I?

Well, currently, Grimbeorn feels like a more expensive Eomer. A bit lackluster in his role. However, I do not think that tweaking his stats will really solve this or at least make him more attractive. See, Galadriel can already quite efficiently deal with masses, and Legolas even has an additional aspect (hero killer) next to his mass-slayer role. So, why not for Grimbeorn? Or alternatively, change his role to make him similar to Treebeard, a support platform for Beorningers, because I think that the faction has 3 mass slayers as it stands and this seems a bit redundant.

My thoughts:

Give Grimbeorn a more unique and defined role. Instead of a Mass-Slayer, he could become a Beorningers Supporter, just like Treebeard is an Ent supporter.

In human form, he could exude some kind of leadership that either makes Beorningers more resistant to arrows and turrets OR gives them that armour-piercing feature that they currently possess. Furthermore, the healing herbs could heal only the Beorningers, but in a larger radius. The Bees could make it so that they earn resources for each enemy slain (although that sounds a bit far fetched, so maybe not). Some kind of ''Train Beorningers'' ability doesn't sound that bad either. Just like Adamin and Melkor Bauglir said at some point in the Lothlorien Balance Discussion concerning Legolas's iconic Train Archer ability: ''Sometimes, a simple and unspiring ability will do the trick.''

Similar abilities would apply when he is in Bear Form, where he supports Bear Form Beorningers, making them more resilient to revenge crush damage or to arrows when under that form leadership. Nonetheless, I was hoping to make him different and more unique, a role like a building destroyer supporter or something fancy/ridiculous like that. Something like a Treebeard-Gloin hybrid when it comes to abilities.

Alternatively, Grimbeorn could receive an additional aspect, just like Legolas. Either a tank or some other supportive function, but I haven't come up with anything for that since I am hugely in favour of my previous proposal hehe. Questions will probably arise, but that's what I am looking forward to, so no harm done in that.
Any thoughts? Good or bad?

Thank you for bearing with me. I look forward to your replies!

Kindest regards.

Elite KryPtik:
I don't really understand where this idea of "light siege" came from. The Role that Beornings need to fulfill is that of an infantry heavy-hitter, who is also very good at harassing outer economy buildings. When people are looking to besiege an enemy camp or castle, they will get Ents, who bring all the siege that Lothlorien needs. People are not going to specifically get Beornings to attack an enemy base.

When Lothlorien was first released to the beta testers, Beornings fulfilled the same role as Berserkers, good at killing battalions of units. The issue was that they had huge knockback and AoE, and also murdered heroes, making them absurdly OP. For human form, I would like to see a small AoE attack returned to them without the knockback, since their attack speed is slower than berserkers, with lighter damage and extreme vulnerability to heroes like berserkers. Bear form should have trample and have a strong attack against single units, monsters and heroes. I personally think both forms should have trample immunity, but that's just me. With this method, in human form they could deal more damage against groups of units, but be countered by single units and heroes, while Bear form could be used to escape or focus down stronger single units.

Lothlorien really doesn't really have a great mass slayer hero right now, yes there's Galadriel, but due to her cost she rarely comes out till very late game, and her basic attack is the only mass slayer function, her abilities in the palantir are supportive in nature. Legolas only has 1 mass slayer power, the Arrow Wind, which takes forever to unlock, so he's out of the running. I think that Grimbeorn needs to fulfill the mass slayer role, it just makes the most sense, he has a giant battle axe and can become a bear.

Hamanathnath:
Beornings are in a much better spot after patch 4.2.1, but in my opinion they there is still room for improvement. 

The only real problem I have with the Human form is how effective they are against heroes.  I'm not saying that scout heroes should be able to kill a beorning, because, after all, they do cost less.  However, when heros that cost around a price of 1500, for instance Gloin, can be taken down by 2 beornings, without being able to kill one of them before he is dead, there is a problem.  Yes, I know Gloin is a building destroyer, but considering his price is nearly double the price of 2 beornings, getting killed so easily isn't too fair in my opinion.  My suggestion would be too reduce the damage Beornings do against heroes, and increase the Damage they take from heroes.  I don't thing these changes should be too big, but enough where heroes at least have a chance.

Personally, I think trample immunity for human form would further make the bear form not as useful as the human form, so I'm against that idea.  I also believe the beorning would have a lack of counters is they were immune to trample.

I don't think there is too much wrong with the bear form, but I think the one change they need is higher melee damage, because right now, it is really low.  I know the risk of increasing their damage too much, especially since they have AoE and Knockback on their attack, but right now it takes too long for bear form to kill anything with its melee attack.  The best example of this is when Bear Form attacks a Iron Hills ram rider.   While it's funny seeing a the ram rider continuously get knocked down by a bear, it takes a lot of hits for the bear to kill 1 ram rider.

The beorning leveling up really fast isn't a problem at all. The way I see it, there really isn't a point in making it level slower.

If there is one thing I want the beorning to have, it's an ability besides just switching forms.
Maybe something that unlocks at level 3.  Here is what I would add.

For Human form:  For 20 Seconds, the Beorning is Immune to Knockback/Trample and has a small AoE on his attacks.

For Bear Form:  For 20 Seconds, The Beorning is Immune to Crush Revenge damage and more resistant to Pikeman melee attacks.

Of course, I'm just suggesting an ability.  I would like to here some feedback on it to see what other people think.  I just think that Beornings could use another ability.

Concerning Grimbeorn, what exactly is his role right now?  Is it stated anywhere?

Odysseus:
Thank you, gentlemen, for the good feedback. Well, according to the original hero roles sheet on the site here, Grimbeorn was/is supposed to be a mass slayer, here: http://forum.modding-union.com/index.php?topic=30866.0

The list is a little outdated, but most of it still stands.

Awaiting a bit more feedback.

Greetings.

korner:
just one short question in between: what do you people mean with "AoE"?

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