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.
i know this post is old but i want to respond to it
The bec is shorter than other polearms, but it's as long as most 2h swords. danish is 124, bec is 120. the bec's spike often goes unnoticed when you're not actually "dueling" the guy swinging it at you, giving it more effective range. i've been hit plenty of times because i forget about the spike and don't block, it hasp lenty of effective range. because of the weird polearm animation it is faster than all the 2h swords except for katana/longsword, and that might not be true post-nerf.
i mean, if we look at this objectively, the bec - is faster, hits harder, costs less and has all the advantages of the pole animation.
it is a problem because it twohits everyone. putting on plate will maybe, maybe let you survive one more hit. really what needed to happen was a nerf to pierce damage, the picks are slightly OP too. not a huge nerf, but enough to stop the migration to pierce weapons. people should use bec/pick because they like them not because they're OP.
as is, there's no reason to use a 2h over a polearm. the whole reason for using a 2h is killing lightly armored opponents easily and quickly. the changes to armor fucked all that up.
i mean, just play a game of battle and use a 2h and it's obvious the balance is fucked up, i have to hit sarranid wearing archers three times (with a danish) but get two shot by becs
anyway if you dont want to read all that, my point is - they ignored weapons commonly acknowledged to be OP, destroyed the 2h class entirely and kept the rest the same or buffed