Ok so a little deeper on this! Hope this isnt spam since its maul related

I cant really test this since i can't waste the jewels i have for my fk.

1k to 4k maul dmg at 6/10. 2 charges 6/9. 9 charges 6/8
Or
1k to 3.6k maul dmg at 6/9 and 7 charges to 6/8

Great write-up as always.

My 2 questions are:

1. Obviously Metamorphosis is the go to helmet, but just how much more effective is it? Would you still consider using one with no +skills or something like +1 maul over Cerebus?

2. How does the Druid bear stack up against bears of other classes such as Beardins/barbs? Do the other classes have a real leg to stand on in melee as well?

400 damage is 68 PvP damage, 34 extra average. Say it takes 10 hits to kill your opponent - that's 340 damage spread out. If you land one extra hit at your average damage of 391 pvp damage (not including all the extra damage from the maul charges), then you're already ahead.

So Probably speed comes out on top over the long term. Extra damage may feel more consistent in some duels though. Honestly kind of a tossup, but I love seeing my Bear start hitting faster near the end to close it out.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 6 2023 11:54am

Even a Meta Bone Visage is better than Cerebus. Mark of the Bear's 25% dr and the lvl 5 Fanat equivalent increased speed are too big not to use. Otherwise you're going to max out at 9 frame (and mostly 11 or 10 frame) instead of 8 frame with 7 frame attainable after some charges.

Amazon Werebear with Meta is probably the #1 bear form because of the dodge fix. However, this is also dependent on Inner Sight. With IS, Bearzon is #1. Without, it drops to the bottom of the bear bunch. Barb and Pally have atrocious attack rating but can win sometimes. I think it's more between Druid and Amazon though.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 6 2023 11:54am

Love this so much. Next char gonna have to be a bear.

Awesome they're a lot of fun.

Just to shed some light on the question regarding whether other bear classes are viable, me and a few other people really geared up bearzons when our Metamorphosis helms came to NL this past reset. They are really fun in shapeshifting only matches (i.e., bearzon vs fury, bearzon vs mauler), but they do pretty poorly vs. zealer, even with top gear and IS.

I think mauler would probably win out over bearzon in vs. zealot matches.

This post was edited by Koston on Jul 7 2023 11:45pm

Cool to see the rise of the Bearzon (and a dodge fix after a couple decades lol), on the flip side with the IAS changes I suppose Bearsins are completely dead in the water? Whole gimmick was 3 frame with venom/cb/ow, I imagine that's no longer achievable?

You can get Weresin to 5 frame now with lvl 20 BoS and 100 ias total (weapon + gear) with a Feral Claw or 70 ias total with a Runic claw.

So I think it's still the fastest, just not 3 frame. But still uninterruptible I think. All Werebear attacks seem to be, even normal attack.

A Venom Bear is a cool concept. I doubt most melee people would be happy about poison damage, but since it's Venom and everyone duels in Normal now maybe.

If you wanted to pub with it, you'd need FHR for cast/ranged attacks even thought he attack itself should be uninterruptible.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 8 2023 04:24pm

COS
Werebear
5fpa in a 250ish damage claw with mods like fool's 5ctc amp, or maby stack ias somehwere else and use LO rune.
Bos
Maxed cm and bladeshield

There are actually some cool synergi effects there^^
Maby 7-9k bladeshield attacking 1 time each second is actually great help. It also can help ctc the amp.

Venom where allowed.

Personally i would not play gm melee, and instead make a stun-jump-shape-attack-feature with mb and lvl 1 traps to stun, and blade fury as ranged.

I'll have a look into such build on planner next time i have time^^

This post was edited by gel87 on Jul 14 2023 06:05am