Monday, August 3, 2020

Learning LOTRO: Lesson Twenty-Four - Beorning Class


In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.



It's time for the sixth class-focused entry in the series! Today we get to talk about the Beorning race-class! Race-class? That's right, Beorning is both a race and class! It's unique in that regard and means this will be an unusual entry. Very unusual.

This is only my third Beorning, but I have lengthy experience with the race-class: I made my first one on the first day the race-class was available back in 2014. It was... a rough start, and I'm happy to say there have been many improvements to it since then. I even wrote about Beornings in the early days of this blog: The Right to Bear Arms. (I have no shame, I know.)

Per the established method, the theme this time was "rose" and "bear," so I used Welsh to come up with Rhosynarth, or literally "rose bear." She's a tough bear in touch with her feminine side, and probably the only character I'll ever put in pink.

The following is a basic summary of the creation process and some of the things you'll encounter when you start out in LOTRO with a Beorning.





Character Creation

Creating a Beorning doesn't take much work or consideration the way other characters do: the race is the class, there's only one origin, and all you really have to do is decide on gender and appearance preferences.

Rhosynarth was actually the first character in this series that I had a name for (would you be surprised to know I have a spreadsheet with all of the classes, races, trait lines, names, etc. mapped out?). I wanted to make a slightly more feminine Beorning than my previous two, and using the color "rose" seemed the best way to do it.

For those who are new to LOTRO, and perhaps also to Lord of the Rings lore, Beornings are descendants of Beorn, who was the skinchanger in The Hobbit who gave shelter and aid to Thorin's Company and also fought alongside the Free People in the Battle of Five Armies. He was a large man who could speak to animals and kept many in and around his home as friends, and was able to take on the form of a monstrous bear. 



In LOTRO, your Beorning is the offspring of Grimbeorn who is the offspring of Beorn. You have many siblings who all stay and live in the Vales of the Anduin, and it isn't until the events of the Beorning Intro that it changes.

Normally I'd discuss the Intro next, but things are a little different for Beornings -- so we'll discuss the Skills and Trait Trees first.







Class Skills

Before talking about skills themselves, there's an important aspect of Beornings that is different from the other classes. Instead of having Power, Beornings have Wrath. Various skills build up Wrath, and other skills consume that Wrath. Wrath is what fuels the Bear form. You'll see once you start accumulating it in a fight that the bar is red instead of Power's blue. This means that Power-regenerating skills or items aren't of any value to you -- and they won't replenish your Wrath.

Another important thing to keep in mind as you level up and slot your skills is that your first and second skill bars will swap when you swap forms. You'll notice when you first enter the game that the first skill is Bear-form, and the rest of the skills on that bar are for Man-form. The second skill bar starts with Man-form and the rest of the skills are for Bear-form. The bars switch places completely when you change form so that the active form's skills are in your first bar. 

This wasn't the case when the race was first released, and boy was THAT a huge turn-off. But keep this in mind when you slot new skills or skills are auto-bestowed. You'll want to arrange those first two bars in such a way that you won't be scrambling to find a skill when you need it. I typically put the Any-form skills on the third and fourth bar so they stay the same, but you should do what works best for you!

Now on to the skills! You will start with these:





Bear-form: Transforms you into a bear. 
Slash: Swing your weapon! 
Slam: Clobber with your weapon like you're trying to make the bell ding at the carnival! 
Man-form: Transforms you into a man/woman. 
Thrash - Tier 1: Maul with your bear claws!


By the time you finish the very short Intro, you should also have:


Hearten: A heal skill to help your squishy pals, requires Man form.

That's a small amount of skills compared to some of the other classes (remember Minstrel?), but you'll also finish the Intro a lot faster and at a lower level than the others.






Trait Trees

My favorite trait line for Beorning is blue, which puts the emphasis on the bear form. If you're looking for a more balanced trait line then you should go with red which supports both forms, or the yellow line which gives you a lot of support and healing skills to help a group.


You can read up the Trait Lines here:



Beorning Intro (If You Can Call It That)

When you first load into the Intro, you are in bear form! Take a minute to gawk at how awesome you look. That marking you put on your face is visible on your bear, and your hair color is the fur color of your bear form. Pretty neat, huh?

You'll find that the first skill in your skill bar will change you back to your Man form. You should do this and talk to your sibling standing nearby. He'll talk at you for a bit, then point at a stranger talking to Grimbeorn at the front of the lodge. When you approach, you'll both be scolded and you'll discover that it is Radagast the wizard who has come calling. 

You are then urged to go talk to your other siblings while the first tries to find out more about Radagast's visit. You'll be sent to tell a cow to go back to her pen, and the next sibling will spar with you for a moment before sending you to fight obnoxious flies to get stronger.

It's very easy to lose your way in the lush flowers and greenery once your outside of the wooden walls of the Lodge grounds, so I've included the following info to help you if you are perpetually getting lost (like some of my kinmates often are, no matter the terrain or location). You may not have any trouble if you have an older computer or lower graphics settings -- and I don't intend to rub any salt into the wound! But should you have higher settings, and are prone to getting lost, then perhaps this info will help!




Once you dispatch enough of the flies, you'll run into your only sister, and she talks about the view of the Carrock before getting distracted by -- goblins! After fighting off a few, she'll tell you to run back to the Lodge to warn Grimbeorn and your family that the goblins have some kind of gall.



It doesn't matter if you decide to fight all of the red dots on your mini map on your way back. You can just as easily avoid them all and go back to the Lodge gate where your brother has protected it from more goblins. When you get back to the front door of the Lodge, Grimbeorn and Radagast ask what happened.

Long story short, you are the lucky offspring of Grimbeorn who is to be sent with a message to find Aragorn in Bree-land at Radagast's request. Get a good look around you and get any screenshots you want of the Vales, because once you click to depart on the horse you won't be back until you earn the racial travel skill back at level 19 (at the earliest).



Archet Yet Again?

Nope! The fast-tracked intro assumes you're not new to the game since you have to pay 1,000 points to purchase Beorning from the LOTRO Store. As a result, once you finish the very short tutorial around the Beorninghus... you'll get sent off on your task and end up at the front gate of Archet, but it's after the Intro events involving the Blackwolds. You're simply directed to speak to Jon Brackenbrook. 

Since you clearly missed Aragorn, he tries to play on your sympathy to stay and help the locals clean up. You're a diminutive level 6, so you can do so if you want to... but I recommend hoofing to Combe and taking a stable ride to Celondim. I still don't like the Blackwold storyline or the messy flow of quests in the Bree area!




Miscellaneous Things

  • Beornings use Medium Armor until level 15, at which point they can use Heavy Armor. (You're not given any options in the Intro, so I figured I should mention it.)
  • Remember how I said the Class Trainer is important? Forget I said that. Beornings have no use for their trainer until level 39 for a set of class quests. For this, you'll need to have the Return to Grimbeorn's Lodge trait slotted (gated behind the racial deed Enmity of the Goblins II, available at level 19). Other than the 3 books for the class quests, the only other items the Beorning Trainer has are Deed Tomes for those who use level boosts on their Beornings and need the two items available to complete deed sets. The only other Beorning Trainers are in areas level 50+ anyway, per this chart from the wiki:


  • Your best choices for weapons will be 1- or 2-handed axes and clubs. There is a racial trait you can earn (gated behind the racial deed Enmity of the Goblins III, available at level 25) which gives you Club- and Axe-damage bonuses. I have had the best experiences dual-wielding axes or using a 2-handed axe, but find what works for you!
  • Beornings get to make Honey-Cakes! At level 13 there's another racial trait you can earn (gated behind the racial deed Enmity of the Goblins) which lets you make a honey-cake without any tools or oven or fire. The cooldown is a mere 5 seconds, so you can make a stack of these and give them to friends for snacking on: they provide regeneration to Morale and Power, both in and out of combat.
  • Once again, be sure to check the Mannequins! Since you're not given an opportunity to see them in the Intro, and they aren't in Archet after the fire, you'll have to visit Bree, Thorin's Hall, Celondim, or Little Delving. I'll let you figure out which outfit I chose for my Beorning!



I leave you with some pictures of my Beornings! Show me yours on Twitter with the hashtag #GamerReverieBlog!




Was this entry helpful? Let me know! The series continues next Monday!

If you play LOTRO, consider joining The Fellowship on Patreon for as little as $2!



No comments:

Post a Comment