The Bec is a good weapon, but it lacks two significant bonuses that other polearms provide:
- Bonus vs. shield
- Length. It's a very short weapon for its speed
Example alternatives:
Long War Axe. 1 less speed, 3 more range. Does more swing damage against <40 armor targets, does less swing damage against >40 armor targets. Worse thrust. Bonus against shields.
Poleaxe. 4 less speed, 21 more range. Does less swing damage against anyone but peasants, but does more thrust damage. Bonus against shields.
Those are options of equivalent strength to the Bec, but with different uses. The Bec excels when fighting low athletic, well armored 2 handers. The Axe excels at fighting shielders. The Poleaxe excels in larger battles or when fighting horses.
When servers end up with lots of small skirmishes between slow two-hander tincans like rumour has it on NA servers, the Bec is going to be fantastic. On EU servers teams stick together more and form lines, which makes the long range Poleaxe (or its faster cousins) better.
Note I've only played on NA servers a couple of times, so I'm mostly going by forum hearsay on how they work. I was surprised by the complete chaos when I did play there though, with teams spreading out all over the place and forming no coherent lines or positions.
