Ran the first two levels of emerald spire on Saturday with my half-orc Bear/Beating medium. Again, my build ended up being very similar to Serisans, though I grabbed the Iron Hide feat instead of power attack and my stats are 16/14/14/12/8/14 (I'm just lazy about typing the whole sheet up). I was playing with a dwarf brawler, bard, sorcerer, barbarian, and bloodrager/ alchemist for level 2.
The first level was pretty standard run up, swing, and kill goblins. Expecting that the enemies would be pretty low health, I didn't think the Beating's séance bonus would be of much use. The triple natural attacks from the Bear (claw, claw, orc bite) was semi useful, but the cramped layout of the dungeon made using the reach of the long spear more effective for getting in range. I didn't trance at all because there was no room to get large and the beating is not better than my claws.
The second level was more interesting as the multiple attacks came up more often allowing me to do some decent damage. Spiders climbing up walls/ deep inside pits made the long spear an MVP on this floor as well. The group séance bonus on breaking objects was surprisingly very useful as we had to break out of webs that the spiders shot at us. I also took liberty on leaving my mark in the dungeon by breaking down every door we came across. The larger layout of this floor opened up the possibility of trancing bear to grow large, but the benefits did not seem worth the loss of a whole round.
Overall, I enjoyed being the high AC (20) multiple natural attack medium, though trancing never felt like a good option in the middle of combat throughout the two levels. At second level I picked up The Vision thinking that an out of combat spirit would be more useful for a trance, but the moment never really presented itself. Without ever trancing, again the influence mechanic never really came into play. Third level is pretty underwhelming as I never tranced at all during these scenarios, so we'll see if an additional trance per day is helpful. Now that I have the group séance bonus and enemies will have enough health to live through multiple hits, the option to use the Bear or Beating everyday is an interesting decision. I'm still just waiting for 5th level when I can have some unique options and abilities available to me.
You have Keen Scent, too? :-D I'd been dying to have a character with Keen Scent and claw/claw/bite at level 1.
You had pretty much the same experience as I did, though in my case I was basically the dedicated melee and everyone stood out of my way.