Agreed. Now, I know where the Int Bear hate comes from - ignorant players. The only real downside to an Int based bear build is less armor and dodge. While that does make playing an Int (Int/Dex) bear more difficult to play because you are squishier, that is something that can be made up by the skill of the player. Staying alive as an Int based bear (generally Int/Dex is the best) requires the player to make maximum use of their defensive cooldowns and their stunning/crowd control abilities. It really comes down to knowing each map well enough to know where you will need your cooldowns. There is a natural flow to each map. If you are running into a mob group with only 2-3 easy to kill mobs and the next group has 5-6 with some hard hitting casters, save your evade and ironblood. Noob bears completely ignore this aspect of the game and go, "Oh, look, an ability is available, better press it immediately!" A healthy spamming of pots is also generally necessary as an int/dex bear.
Its been reiterated multiple times (a few times by myself already), but playing an int based bear trades survivability for damage. You make up the survivability issues with more skillful play or by using an elixir (the easy way), so you are just left with contributing more to your team with more damage output.
I'll even go as far to say that an int based bear build is overall more effective than an all strength bear build. Full strength bears are virtually worthless due to the extremely low hit percentage (66%). Skills and attacks miss frequently and the str bear has difficulty even pulling and maintaining aggro. Thus, all that extra armor and dodge is useless because mobs aren't attacking the bear anyway.
/rantoff
Kiitz - Int/Dex Bear (66) || Kiitx - Dex Bird (66) || Kiitzx - Int/Dex Mage (66)
Woot woot!!!!
EVERYONE'S FAVORITE APPLE\Down with the Rep!/
Actually, i think IntBears will have a comeback. The armor on int gears now and the damage of the weapons compared to last time is just, insane. Everyone has a different build, conradin and I used to go str int back then. But I'd greatly suggest you go dex int nowadays. though StrInt bears shouldn't be a bad option.
[FONT=garamond]I like Bears. Be jealous.
If your a good tank, you won't need the extra armor I call str "training wheels".
EVERYONE'S FAVORITE APPLE\Down with the Rep!/
It depends on how you define "effective". Not having any Strength in your build will make it a little bit harder for you to survive, but if you are good enough to survive as both a strength build and a non-strength build, then it doesn't matter. Effectiveness of a tank is really then defined by the ability of the "tank" to keep mobs off of their even squishier teammates. As a bear, this is mainly done through a combination of stuns (beckon, stomp, hellscream) and not so much by soaking up shots to the face. The tank does still wants all the mobs to be attacking him instead of his teammates. The ONLY way to get that to happen is to have your taunt land on the enemy (and this doesn't always do a very good job) and more importantly, deal enough damage to the mobs to keep them aggroed on you.
Dex gives a bear more hit and damage which helps the bear land his skills to keep the mobs stunned and do more damage, keeping the aggro of the mobs/boss on him.
Last edited by kiitz; 03-27-2012 at 01:14 PM.
Kiitz - Int/Dex Bear (66) || Kiitx - Dex Bird (66) || Kiitzx - Int/Dex Mage (66)
Bookmarks