The Bec superiority is a pure NA-only
MYTH.
On EU there wasn't any Goretooth to tear everyone up with it, guess what ? Nobody uses it.The tendancy to copy anything a good player does is really strong. That's how pikes became very popular in EU too. Early May, some EU topscorers began using pikes and went 5/1 kdr with it. The number of pikemen like tripled in one day... I think the most popular EU polearm is the GLA. We have Tor, xandhold, wayyyyne, torben and a couple more known players using it very effectively.
About the Bec, a duel between a bec and a glaive can pretty much explain why it's not that good. It's bloody short.
I can see why the bec is better in NA though. Higher armor average, lower athletics... less cav and shielders ? It's a very good tincan opener, but is inferior to other top tier polearms for all the other opponents.
So if all the NA community comes to EU server with becs, they will be shot, lanced, spammed by 1h and whatnot...
The average EU guy (on battle, the skill level on siege is lower) blocks as many simple swings as you want. Feints don't work that good but holded swings usually do their job. The level on EU_1 a few hours ago wasn't reprensentative at all. The server was crowded with players from everywhere. I even had people teleporting, you can hardly block a swing you don't see
About the archer damage and upkeep, I got to try this out but this sounds like bad news.