The Bear Necessities of Tanking Humania

[FluffNStuff]

So I got tired of being the all powerful damage dealing gawd of the bird and decided to take my bear out for a spin in Humania. I must say, after finally finding enough games that I did not eat boot (mmm, tasty), was a useless bystander to thrashers or was embarrassed by other bears I was able to figure out the three keys for bears in Humania.

1) Ride the Coast : Make sure you got the mini map up, chose a side ( flip a coin if you must) and stay on the line. Never stray from that line.

2) Becon the mobs to the line you have chosen and use hell scream Remember to stay on the same line from number one, and just keep beckoning mobs to that line.

3) NEVER STOMP. Stomp is a vestigial skill that has no use in Humania. Your becon is high enough that you will pack the mobs tight , there is stun on the becon and your hell scream. Thinking the damage on your stomp will have any effect compared to what the Mage and bird are doing is sad for even a bear of little brain. So at best you do minimal damage, and at worst you scatter a mob you missed forcing a Bird to chase it, which is fine if you are hungry, because you will soon be eating boot :).

[SamTheDog]

Simple but eloquent truths. It's sad that there are so many of us bears out there that need to be reminded not to be scatter bears. I pretty much only use stomp if I'm getting pummeled, and if there is a second bear I usually let them beckon just so I don't send mobs everywhere.

[StompArtist]

That makes stomp sad and bears relatively mechanical :(

[Energizeric]

You can use stomp if you do so properly. When you beckon the mob to the coastline, once they pass where you are, then you stomp and they all fly into the costline and are lined up for the mages and birds to kill them.

[Whirlzap]

Apparently do stomp when you are on steriods.
Even though it does one heck of a scatter, them 1500+ crits will kill the mobs
=Scatterbear wins too

[LwMark]

You can use stomp if you do so properly. When you beckon the mob to the coastline, once they pass where you are, then you stomp and they all fly into the costline and are lined up for the mages and birds to kill them.

Ya i usually pull to the sides and just hit with a stomp amd mages an birds do their thing an were on our way never had a problem or ate a boot.

You just got to know where to pull xausr ive seen some pulls and im like did u realy just do that lol

[DREAMKILLER]

You can use stomp if you do so properly. When you beckon the mob to the coastline, once they pass where you are, then you stomp and they all fly into the costline and are lined up for the mages and birds to kill them.

Ya i usually pull to the sides and just hit with a stomp amd mages an birds do their thing an were on our way never had a problem or ate a boot.

You just got to know where to pull xausr ive seen some pulls and im like did u realy just do that lol

Yeah seen them myself..... Lol

[Marrypoppins]

Yeah seen them myself..... Lol

Ok it was me. I'm sorry :)

[Patricks]

It is also very useful to use stomp when entering a mob cuz it pushes enemies forward and closer to other enemies, then use beckon to group them together. You can definitely use stomp if all the enemies are grouped together against a wall as well.

Recommending stomp not be used at all is not very good advice in my opinion.

On you feeling like a bystander in the game as a bear, I agree. Bears are practically obsolete in humania cuz of the vast space, high enemy dodge, and low bear damage. The game is not balanced at all now. I use all three classes and feel mage is by far the best to use, unless u have elixir then bird is best.

[kiitz]

Bear hasn't been "necessary" since Nuri's when there were 1 hit kills, or in sewers when a good grouping bear would really increase the speed of overall runs. It's too bad because playing a bear well is really fun!!

[FluffNStuff]

For every bear that can effectively stomp in Humania there are 9 that cause nothing but scatter.

[GoodSyntax]

Bear hasn't been "necessary" since Nuri's when there were 1 hit kills, or in sewers when a good grouping bear would really increase the speed of overall runs. It's too bad because playing a bear well is really fun!!

Bears were perfectly serviceable in Mt. Fang, just not that useful for the Bosses. I had lots of great runs with two bears, two mages and a bird.

True, I guess that bears were not "necessary" in Fang, but sure did make mob cleanup easy.

[GoodSyntax]

For every bear that can effectively stomp in Humania there are 9 that cause nothing but scatter.

You could say that of any class in any map. At any given point there is really only about 25% online that actually knows how to handle their class and can work in a group - maybe even less.

I've seen countless "Rambo Mages" (guilty :victorious:) that gather huge mobs. Most of them end up dying and then realize that they are the only mage in the group.

I've also seen birds (especially the Thrasher variety) that love to break away from the group or charge ahead to initiate mob contact....they usually die too.

[FluffNStuff]

You could say that of any class in any map. At any given point there is really only about 25% online that actually knows how to handle their class and can work in a group - maybe even less.

I've seen countless "Rambo Mages" (guilty :victorious:) that gather huge mobs. Most of them end up dying and then realize that they are the only mage in the group.

I've also seen birds (especially the Thrasher variety) that love to break away from the group or charge ahead to initiate mob contact....they usually die too.

Agreed, but birds and mages just end up killing themselves, not making extra work for the rest of the party.

I have done quite a few of these line up runs, and it does make the game go quite a bit faster. It is not needed for thrashers or full pro mage / birds level 71's who kill everything instantly, but it does help a lot of groups. I really do believe in the bear, and am looking for a way to improve it's role.

[GoodSyntax]

Good point.

But it is somewhat disappointing that my mage has almost the same armor and dodge as a full STR bear.

I had hoped that Humania would bring the love back to the Bears, but, alas, that hasn't been the case.

While I do love the armor that I've got, there really isn't any reason why my INT gear provides nearly the same tanking ability as my STR gear.

[Energizeric]

Bears were perfectly serviceable in Mt. Fang, just not that useful for the Bosses.

Try killing Vlod without a bear to tank. Not too easy. Bears are not supposed to be the damage dealers. We are supposed to tank so that others do not get killed.

[GoodSyntax]

Yes, Vlod is super tough, but I've beaten him several times with a couple of birds and mages....no bears. Ranged attacks and kiting is really the only way to beat him without dying 20 times and hoping that one of the mages survived his attacks.

My point was that bears couldn't do much against Aunt Emma (she was stationary so beckon never worked), and Duke didn't need bears because if you just stood by the statue, Thralls never spawned, so no need for crowd control there either. Perhaps they were valuable for Grobble, but he was easy enough and didn't hit hard enough to warrant a full-on tank.

In the end, melee attacks on Fang bosses were just inferior to ranged attacks like bows/talons/wands/staffs. The biggest benefit to having a bear in the group is crowd control and tanking, but when crowd control has little value for the bosses and with Vlod insta-killing half the group, it didn't matter too much if the bear withstood the first attack when all the mages were dead.

But, as I said, bears were wonderful for mob control and clean up, just as it was in Nuri's (for most maps) and the Sewers.

I was actually defending bears (kiitz said that they weren't necessary). But, I while I pointed out that they provided value in Fang for the mobs, they just didn't fare so well with the bosses because of their attack range and low hit percent.

[Energizeric]

The key to defeating Vlod is that 2 mages in the group NEVER attack him, they only spam heal and revive when needed. Then he doesn't come after them, unless everyone else is dead. As a bear with good armor and dodge, I can tank him if I have a mage spam healing me and a few dozen pots to run through. Then I need a couple of birds to use ranged attacks at the same time. Occasionally I will lose agro and he will go after one of the birds, and perhaps even kill them. That's when the mages come in and revive him, and usually I can get agro back fairly quickly.

There are some bosses that require a bear. For example, the overlord (AO3) needs to be put near a barrel and the barrel blown up to remove his armor. Only a bear with taunt and beckon can do that. I've watched groups of birds and mages try to take him down and cause no damage because of his armor shield. Yes, once we are all lvl65 and above, a nice group attack can hit hard enough to cause damage even with his armor shield. But when we were lvl50-55, that was not possible.

But overall, yes bears were much more useful in the sewers than later campaigns. I still like to go back and farm the stronghold. That area where you have the huge mob and all the exploding floor drains is lots of fun for bears, not so much for others. :)

[GoodSyntax]

Ahhh...the memories in the Stronghold!

Largest mobs I've ever seen in PL.

We used to have really good tanks that would round up 50+ baddies at the start of the board, package them neatly into a corner, and then it was a mage and birdy dream come true! Just a full-on nuke fest. 10K of my kills probably came from that one map alone!

Big Thanks to all the awesome bears that ran that board with me.

The new boards that came afterwards never seemed to have the same level of awesomeness as the Sewers....that was the Pocket Legends Golden Age.

[Enisceloz]

You want to see large mobs and mega pulls?? I dare you to add me and join me in a game. Especially on Lagoon Sandbar!! It's all about knowing the mechanics of tanking and spots on the map to gather mobs. The rest is up to your team to finish the job. And you could successfully Stomp if you pull and time correctly so Stomp is indeed very useful especially on Thrasher. Add me IGN: Enisceloz and like I always say..."Enis Express...Choooo-Chooo!!!!"

[Energizeric]

Yeah, on thrasher the beckon/stomp combo results in death for the non-boss humania bad guys, so when they go scattering all over the map they are already dead. :)

[Enisceloz]

Yep and with out thrasher, if you have good armor stats you can pull then stomp without scattering. You just have to pull towards an edge then setting yourself to stomp correctly. The enemies there don't have pretty high Dodge, so most of the times you'll pull everyone. Once you stomp knowing the correct trick lol, you can pull again and stomp with out scattering once more and pulling the ones that might have dodged your initial pull. By that time you and your team should have annihilated the mob. All in a Bear can be very useful to efficiently clear out mobs very quickly (provided the Bear is accompanied by a good team that knows what their doing).