Everything You Need To Know About Bear Hunt in Whiteout Survival

Bear Hunt is an alliance event that can be repeated every 2 days and lasts for 30 minutes. Players can call or join a rally to attack the Raging Bear and are rewarded based on the total damage dealt.

Bear Trap

Alliance can build a Bear Trap once the requirements are met.

Game update on January 13th, 2025 introduced a second Bear Trap for a single Alliance with consideration to different time-zones of players in an Alliance to give more players across the board a chance to participate in the event, increasing Personal Rewards and abolishing Alliance Rewards.

Hunting Trap 1

• Alliance Level 5
• Milestone Kindling Embers completed.
  
• 50K Alliance Meat
• 50K Alliance Wood
• 10K Alliance Coal
• 1K Alliance Iron

Hunting Trap 2

• Alliance Level 6
• Reached 10 days of state history.
• 50K Alliance Meat
• 50K Alliance Wood
• 10K Alliance Coal
• 1K Alliance Iron

The traps work on a different cooldown, any one player can only participate in one Bear Hunt per 2 natural days*. There is an internal, individual cooldown for the event for every player.

Also, the traps cannot be set on simultaneously at the same time. Makes sense, would kinda lose the point then :)

*Game update on March 3, 2025 changed the personal cooldown of every player from flat 46 hours to "2 natural days". This is the follow up to the introduction of 2nd Bear Trap. It basically means that your cooldown is now two in-game day resets (00:00 UTC). So if you participated in Bear Hunt at 23:59 UTC on Monday, the soonest you can participate again would be 00:01 UTC on Wednesday. This means you can choose to participate in 1st or 2nd trap anytime you want and you can swap to the other one in two days without an issue.

Bear Trap Enhancement

The most straightforward way to increase damage to the Bear is to enhance the trap.

From the event page, or by clicking on the trap, you can select 'Trap Enhancement' option, there you can donate 'Explosive Arrowheads' you get from Intel missions. When enough Arrowheads are donated, the trap is enhanced to a new level and everyone will have their Troop Attack increased against the next Bear.

After the Bear Hunt is done, the Enhancement Level resets, so the Trap needs to be filled again.

Game update on April 27, 2025 changed the amount of Arrowheads needed. This was to adjust for the fact that most Alliances need to fill two Bear Traps. Previously the enhancement cost was 200/300/400/500/500 Arrowheads.

Very important thing to realize is, each Bear Trap has its separate 'Trap Enhancement' progress, meaning you need to donate 'Explosive Arrowheads' to both if you want to boost their damage.

By donating Arrowheads, you are also rewarded with 200 Alliance Tokens per 1 Arrowhead. This is a very good way to get more Alliance Tokens to buy whatever you desire from the Alliance Shop.

You can donate Arrowheads even if the enhancement is at max level to receive the Alliance Tokens, but any donated Arrowheads at that point will NOT transfer to the next trap so consider that.

You can also dismantle the Bear Trap at any point without losing any donated Arrowheads, they will carry over to the new trap.

Bear Hunt Rewards

Although the rewards are based on individual damage dealt by each player, everyone's performance will entirely depend on cooperation of all who decide to participate. There are many ways how any one person can help increase their, and others, damage. And there are also few ways how doing the wrong thing can drastically decrease it. I go into detail in this guide and try to explain these situations so you understand what you should do, and more importantly, what you shouldn't.

Alliance Damage Rewards

Everyone in the Alliance, even people who did not participate in Bear Hunt, received Alliance rewards. But game update on January 13th, 2025 completely removed them and increased Personal Rewards instead. Which is a good thing for those who participate actively, not so good thing for people who regularly miss the Bear. But the same update introduced 2nd Bear Trap to give Alliances a chance to run a second trap at different time to allow more players a chance to participate.

Previous Alliance Rewards were:

• 5 Sergey shards and 3,000 Alliance Tokens in new servers.
• 1 Essence Stone and 3,000 Alliance Tokens in older servers.

Personal Damage Rewards

Personal rewards come in several ranges and increase in quality the higher damage threshold you pass.

• Update on January 13th, 2025 slightly increased Personal Rewards across the board and added Sergey shards to the rewards pool for new servers and Lucky Hero Gear Chests for older servers. 

Left table are rewards in a new server. Right table are rewards in an older server.

Hunting Achievements

Game update on March 3, 2025 introduced a new feature - Hunting Achievements. Players get extra one-time rewards by passing specific damage thresholds. Achievements also serve as a historical record for the highest Personal Best Total Damage.

How To Maximize Bear Damage?

There are number of ways that you, as an individual, and as an alliance can increase the damage you inflict upon the Bear and we will discuss them further in this guide in more detail.

The thing you need to understand is that a 'Bear Rally' is really no different from a rally against a facility, Sunfire Castle or a player city. Only difference is, the Bear does not fight back, so all you need to focus on is offense.

How To Be a Good Rally Leader?

If you are starting a rally, you are the rally leader. This means different rules apply to you from those who join your rally. This is crucial to understand because if you do not, everyone in your rally, including you, suffers the consequences.

As rally leader, all three of your Heroes use all of their Expedition skills (up to 9 with all mythic heroes). So it is paramount to use your best - combat - heroes who have the best offensive skills and are of the highest star-level so they can also provide the highest possible % bonus (Attack and Lethality) and have the Expedition skills leveled up.

I am using Flint, Molly and Bahiti, so I provide 8 Expeditions skills in total as rally leader.

The worst thing you can do is to use weak (blue, or low-star) heroes, heroes who have zero combat skills (e.g. Gina), or use no heroes at all! If you do this, everyone in your rally will score very low damage!

How Can You Increase Your Bonuses as Rally Leader?

• Strong Heroes - Mythic heroes of the newest generation are obviously the best choice, but it will depend on how developed your heroes are, for a time your heroes from previous generation might be stronger, so it will be different for every player. Simply try to use your best Infantry, Lancer and Marksman heroes at the time.
• Hero Gear - Use high level mythic gear, which you can also Forge to further increase its Lethality stat. If you don't have mythic gear, use what you have, but lower tier gear is vastly inferior. You should look for ways to get a a full mythic set for each hero class, you will benefit greatly from that. Start with Headgear and Boots for each hero since those are the two pieces providing Lethality bonus. Exclusive Hero Gear also plays an important part because through it, the individual heroes can provide large increases of Lethality and some extra bonus skills.
  
  • You can equip Hero Gear at Furnace Level 15.
• Chief Gear - It provides bonus to Troops Attack and Defense, the better gear you have, the higher bonus.
  • You can use Chief Gear at Furnace Level 22.
• Chief Charm - It provides bonus to Troops Lethality and Health, the better charms you have, the higher bonus.
  • You can use Chief Charm at Furnace Level 26.
• Pets - They provide Troops Attack and Defense bonus for leveling up and Lethality and Health bonus for Refining. Leveling and Refining pets is very expensive and unless you are spending money, it will take a long time to max your Pets. Be efficient and focus on the pets which skills you want to increase first.
  • You get access to Pets at Furnace Level 18, if your server is older than 60 days.
• Daybreak Island - The Tree of Life itself provides Troops Attack at level 5 and Troops Lethality at level 10. And then there are several buildings (Decorations and Accessories) which provide Troops Attack and Lethality buffs to all troops or specific troops type.
  • You get access to Daybreak Island at Furnace Level 19.
• Technology - Research stat buffs in your Battle branch tech tree to get better bonuses. Same goes for alliance technology.
• Facilities - You can get extra Troop Attack bonus for your alliance by being in control of several facilities. You can stack the buffs, but only from facilities of different levels. So for example you can get a combined +13% Troops Attack by holding one Level 2 and one Level 4 facility. But if your alliance holds two Level 2 facilities, you will only get bonus from one of them.
• City Bonus Buffs - You can increase your Troops Attack and Lethality with these, but they cost a lot of gems and getting them from events is rare, unless you pay money for packs. So spending them for Bear every 2 days is not advised. But if you turned them on before the Bear for a different reason, know these can increase your damage here too.
• VIP Levels and Jeronimo - If you are a heavy spender and have maxed out Jeronimo, when you are a really leader, you and everyone else in your rally will benefit from his passive skill Natural Leader which increases Troops Lethality and Health by 15% even if you don't actively use him in the rally. But to max Jeronimo, you need to get to VIP level 12 which in itself also provides another Troops Attack and Lethality bonus of 16%.
• VIP Levels and Natalia - In an update during July 2024, Natalia received a buff where she got a new passive skill, similar to Jeronimo, which grants 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% Troop Attack and Defense per star, meaning spending any money in the game will unlock enough Natalia shards to bring her to a 1-Star and give you a 2% Troop Attack bonus.
• Skins - Some skins in the game actually provide combat bonuses and having more skins allows you to stack these bonuses to a meaningful stats increase. Although for the Bear purposes, you are interested only in 'City skins' which provide +2% Troop Attack bonus and 'Teleport skins' which provide +2% Troop Lethality bonus each.

Joining a Rally

Joining a rally follows different set of rules compared to starting a rally. This is the 'other side of the coin' you need to understand to be able to score high damage in Bear Hunt. And joining with the wrong hero will hurt you, and everyone in the rally you join. That's why understanding this mechanic is very important.

Note: This explanation applies universally to any rally you join, not just Bear rally, so if you learn how it works here, you can apply it everywhere.

How Do Joining Players Contribute to the Rally?

Players who join a rally can only contribute with the first Expedition skill from the hero in the first position of their march. That's it! Their Hero Gear is irrelevant. Their Chief Charm and Chief Gear is irrelevant. Their active Pet buffs that provide any kind of combat bonus are irrelevant (except the Deployment Capacity for themselves). Minister buffs are irrelevant. Nothing apart the first skill from the first hero matters. Period.

That's why using the correct hero is so so so important, because that is the only thing you can help, or harm, with.

• Read the section Best Heroes to Join Rally With to understand which heroes to use and why.

Joining players also obviously contribute with their troops, but in a Bear Rally, that has an impact only on each player individually, not on others.

Note: I've had discussions with various players telling me they score higher in their rally, if stronger players join them, claiming the strength of the joiner troops increases their own damage. I am yet to see any proof of this, if you have it, please share. But from my point of view, it does not make sense for it to work like that or whales would only allow other whales into their rallies, and being through several servers, I have never seen anyone enforce such a rule, despite the constant bickering about how to increase their damage.

Jessie is one of the best heroes to join a Bear Rally with because at Level 5, her first Expedition skill provides flat 25% damage increase to all troops.

The best way to prepare for Bear Hunt is to setup troop formations that you save before the event starts.

• Learn more about Troops Formations.

But this goes deeper, only four players from everyone who joins the rally can provide an Expedition skill buff for the rally, and it is important to understand how this selection process works to know how to avoid messing it up.

The formula for choosing who provides the buff is as follows:

1. The game looks at who joined first, second, third and fourth, and selects first Expedition skill of the joining player's first Hero as the buff for the rally.
2. When 5th or later player joins, the game recalculates based on the Skill Level of said heroes. Meaning if a player joined earlier with a Hero whose first Expedition skill is not maxed (Level 5), anyone joining after them with a Hero with higher first Expedition Skill Level can "overwrite them".

The way this mechanic works is both good and bad. Good, because if someone joins with a Hero with higher skill they can provide better bonus, and/or can overwrite a wrong hero, if that hero has low Expedition Skill Level.

Bad, because if a player joins early with wrong hero with Level 5 Expedition Skill, then no one can overwrite them and they basically waste one of the four buff slots for the rally. Only way to change the wrong buff is to remove the player from the rally, then the game recalculates based on the formula described above.

So if a player does not have enough of "correct" heroes, and they want to use heroes to increase their Deployment Capacity, they should ideally use as first Hero one that has their first Expedition Skill of Level 1, to make it as easy as possible to be overwritten by Level 2 or higher skill from correct heroes joining after them.

Examples of correct and incorrect Expedition skills provided as buffs from heroes of players who joined the rallies.

Example of Rally Bonus From Joining Players

I will present several scenarios to better illustrate what we just talked about. Observe which players provide the rally buff and how it isn't simply just the first four who joined. Look at the Star-Level of first heroes which indicates the maximum possible Skill Level for the heroes.

• 0 Stars - Skill Level 1
• 1 Stars - Skill Level 2
• 2 Stars - Skill Level 3
• 3 Stars - Skill Level 4
• 4 Stars - Skill Level 5
• 5 Stars - Skill Level 5

Scenario 1 - All Correct Heroes

Andy joined third, but his Reina is only 3-star, meaning the highest Skill Level can be 4, so later joiners with Skill Level 5 replaced her.

Scenario 2 - One Wrong Hero

Notice the change in damage with just one wrong hero skill used as buff for the rally compared to Scenario 1. Obviously the RNG in rally leader skills and troop skills influences the result too, but you can see a big dip here.

So What Have We Learned?

If any of the first four players join the rally with wrong heroes and those heroes have their first Expedition skill at level 5, the rally will get useless buffs that have no impact on damage done to the Bear, which means lower damage for entire rally. And only way to replace those wrong buffs is to remove the player from the rally entirely by the rally leader (R5/R4 cannot remove players from Bear Rally).

How Can We Avoid This?

You should only join Bear Rallies with correct heroes in the first position of each of your marches.

If you run out of correct heroes, either send in the first position a hero who has their first Expedition skill of level 4 or lower (ideally level 1); or simply do not send any heroes at all, just send troops.

• Sending no heroes will lower the Troops Deployment Capacity (how many troops you can send in a march) which might be a problem for players who do not have more march slots and would then be forced to leave some troops home.
• For those players sending heroes with low level Expedition skill is preferable.
• You should pre-save your Troop Formations with correct heroes before the bear starts, there is little time during the chaos to manually adjust it for every march.

Best Heroes to Join Rally With

As we have learned, you want to use heroes who have the first Expedition skill that can provide either damage buff or attack buff to your troops. Debuffs on the enemy actually work too, for example increasing their damage taken.

But before we go further, I would like to point out one very important piece of information: It is general consensus from what I've read online and from my own experience that attacking the Bear is a one-round combat.

This might seem like a "whatever" information, but it will be the basis for my hero suggestions, since some heroes have a chance-based skills which might and might not trigger and the probability of it triggering will not go up because there is not multiple rounds as in a regular combat. Similarly, heroes who provide a buff every X rounds or on X-th round, if they don't provide said buff on first round, then their skill should not matter.

Feel free to present any evidence that goes against this assumption, I will happily amend my statement when I get such evidence. There is no Battle Report for Bear attack, so I am not going to claim this assumption is 100% correct, but from observing the damage under various conditions, it seems to be true.

/edit: 2025-01-26: Folks at WOS Nerds discord are trying to run some numbers to prove that Bear attack lasts longer than 1 round. They are saying 5 or 10 rounds, which would potentially change the importance of some chance-based heroes, namely Tier B and C. But I am not sure if their findings are conclusive. To be honest, some of that data is quite difficult to digest. You can join the discord and read through it yourself it you want.

Image made with the assistance of Tierkmaker.

In an ideal world, I would recommend only ever using heroes of Tier S and A, but obviously that might not be possible for various reasons. Especially in earlier generations you might not even have enough heroes from these Tiers, or you might be using some of them in your own rally. Communication in your Alliance is the key, try to agree on rules that work for everyone, or at least the majority. Some compromise might be necessary. Rules don't need to be set in stone, they can change with time when new hero generations come, or simply when you decide that they no longer work for you as they are. Communicate, don't argue. Especially do not argue during the Bear. Discuss after, trust me on that.

S Tier

Heroes that provide substantial and direct Troops Attack or Damage increase for all troops. Best heroes to use.

• [1] Jessie (Lancer) - Increasing damage dealt by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% for all troops.
• [1] Jasser (Marksman) - Increasing damage dealt by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% for all troops.
• [1] Seo-yoon (Marksman) - Increasing Troops Attack by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• [1] Jeronimo (Infantry) - Increasing damage dealt by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% for all troops.
• [4] Reina (Lancer) - Increasing normal attack damage by 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% for all troops.
• [5] Gwen (Marksman) - Increasing target's Damage Taken by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• [7] Bradley (Marksman) - Increasing Attack by 5/10/15/20/25% for all troops.
• [8] Sonya (Lancer) - Increasing damage by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% for all troops.
• [9] Magnus (Infantry) - Increasing Troops Attack by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.
• [10] Blanchette (Marksman) - Increasing all Troops Lethality by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%.

A Tier

Heroes that provide direct Troops Attack or Damage increase, but less than S-tier heroes, or not to all troop types.

• [2] Philly (Lancer) - Increasing Attack by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% and Defense by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% for all troops.
• [5] Norah (Lancer) - Decreasing Damage Taken by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% and boosting Damage Dealt by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% for Infantry and Marksman.
• [10] Gregory (Infantry) - Increasing Attack by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% and Defense by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% for all troops.

B Tier

Heroes that provide a relatively high chance to damage increase, but not a guaranteed one. Lot of alliances will not want to use these simply because there is a chance that the skill will do nothing and that would basically equal to joining with a wrong hero and wasting one of the 4 skill slots. But especially around generation 4 and 5, many players will have a need to utilize these two heroes because they don't have enough better ones. Make a decision as an Alliance if you want to allow them or not.

• [3] Mia (Lancer) - Grants all troops' attack a 50% chance of cursing the target, increasing their damage taken by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%.
• [4] Lynn (Marksman) - Granting a 40% chance of increasing damage dealt by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% for all troops.

C Tier

Heroes that provide a very low chance to damage increase. I would recommend using these only during early generations when you don't have anything better and have those heroes with low star-level so you are not using them in your own rally yet. But even then it might still be better to follow the same rules as for Tier D heroes.

• [2] Flint (Infantry) - Grants all troops' attack a 20% chance of setting the target on fire, dealing 8%/16%/24%/32%/40% damage per turn for 3 turns.
• [3] Logan (Infantry) - Granting all troops' attack a 20% chance of dealing 8%/16%/24%/32%/40% extra damage per turn for 3 turns.
• [3] Greg (Marksman) - Granting a 20% chance of increasing damage dealt by 8%/16%/24%/32%/40% for all troops for 3 turns.

D Tier

• Everyone else.

Heroes in this Tier have a first Expedition skill which either does not provide any attack or damage bonus at all, or has such a condition that it does not matter in Bear attack which lasts only for one combat round (an assumption I am working with). Or are too restrictive to utilize commonly without agreed upon troop ratios from the entire alliance (such example being Edith, only boosting Lancer damage).

You can still use these heroes if you do not have enough from higher Tiers and need/want to increase your Deployment Capacity, but you should only ever use them, if their first Expedition skill is at Level 1. If you do that then ANY hero with their first Expedition skill of Level 2 or higher can overwrite them. So a better hero, even with not maxed skill, can still provide benefit to the rally when someone joins after you.

• For this reason, don't blindly increase every skill of every hero, even the ones you are not using anyway. You can utilize them for this purpose by leaving their first Expedition skill at Level 1.

The only downside is that a better hero with first Expedition skill of Level 1 cannot overwrite you. But that should be a very rare scenario and Level 1 skill would provide only a marginal bonus anyway.

The alternative is to use NO heroes, as many alliances enforce, but that comes with a downside of cutting the Deployment Capacity for people who need to adhere to this rule by up to 40,410 troops.

• Heroes at level 80 provide 13,470 Deployment Capacity.

This might lead to them not being able to use all of their troops and thus lowering their total damage and possibly the rewards. But it might be the correct call, if players are unable to understand the mechanics of joining a rally, the skills provided by first Expedition skill of first hero in their march and how are the skills picked (based on who joined first, and then based on the level of the skill) and are joining with D Tier heroes with Level 5 skills etc.

Troop Formations

• Learn about how to setup the Troop Formations HERE.

There are lot of opinions online about what is the best, some will be a bit outdated by now, but some might still hold truth.

I did a test for the damage output of each unit type in a "vacuum" (meaning no bonuses affecting only a specific unit type), and my conclusion is that - marksman do the most damage, followed by lancers and then infantry. If we take marksman as 100% baseline, then lancers do about 80-90% damage and infantry about 20-30% damage.

• This should be an expected outcome if we just look at the troop types' stats in the game. Marksman have highest Attack and Lethality, Lancers have slightly lower and Infantry lot less.

Knowing this, using a heavy Marksman + Lancer ratio should be preferable, so something like 10/30/60 should work well enough. Or even like 20/40/40 if you don't have enough Marksman.

But using specific troop ratios will only be relevant once you have enough troops to actually do so. Until then, just send all you have.

When Fire Crystal Troops' skills come into play, they further favor Marksman and Lancer over Infantry, and when late generation heroes arrive who have skills that boost damage of specific troop types, the troop ratios which you would want to be using can change - generally either leaning more towards majority of Lancers or Marksman - if rally leader uses such heroes. I don't think any skill can save how little damage output Infantry has, but maybe someone can prove me wrong.

Is There a Minimal Number of Any Troop Type To Be Used?

I do not have a definitive answer to this, but from some discussions and tests I have seen folks at WOS Nerds discord run, it appears that the damage formula expects a certain amount of troops of any type, otherwise all damage is lowered.

This threshold seems to be 10,000. So while I do not have any concrete evidence to support this claim at the moment, I would suggest using 10,000 Infantry at minimum "just to be safe". If anyone has more information on this subject, feel free to share, thanks!

Note: I did test this theory during the Valentine's event where we were able to attack the boss 5 times a day and where I could actually simulate stable conditions and reproduce the same amount of damage when removing other variables from my march (like chance-based hero skills etc) and I did observe change in the total damage when I used less than 10,000 Infantry, so there seems to be something to this idea.

Random Tips and Information

March Speed to the Bear

The lowest march speed to the Bear is 12 seconds. You cannot go lower than that even though it can sometimes look like you hit 11 seconds, but that is just game information not updating properly.

If you have a higher marching speed, especially if you are further away from the Bear Trap, increasing March Speed is very useful to get your march to the Bear faster and also to get your troops back home faster, so you can join another rally sooner.

There are few ways how you can increase your Troops Marching Speed - and you need to understand that this is a different 'speed stat' from the 'Solo Hunt Marching Speed' (or sometimes called 'Wilderness March Speed') which plays a role in PVE (hunting beasts, polar terrors, mercenaries and traveling to gathering places).

• Lv. 3 Expedition Facility - 15 % increase in Troops Marching Speed.
• Lv. 5 Rock Outpost (Daybreak Island Decoration) - 5 % increase in Troops Marching Speed (1% per level).
• Snow Leopard's pet skill 'Lightning Raid' - 30 % increase in Troops Marching Speed (15/17/19/21/23/25/27/30%).

Ideally, you want your march speed to the Bear be under 30 seconds if you can help it. This means you can start five 5 minute rallies, which is the maximum amount of rallies any player is able to create in a 30 minutes time-frame period.

I have seen some people suggest, that Gina or Walis can at least increase your marching speed back to your city from the Bear after the attack is done. But I was unable to confirm these suspicions, a rally I joined with Gina had the same marching time to Bear and from Bear for me. It was 27 seconds so if there should have been any cut-down on the marching time, it would have been noticeable.

Starting a Rally With 1 Troop

This can be an effective strategy, if your alliance has a lot of players online for the Bear Hunt.

It allows you to not tie down a portion of your troops in your own rally for 5 minutes, but to have them available to keep hopping in between other rallies. Mind you this will only increase your total damage if you are able to gain more damage from those troops in a 5 min interval than you would get if you used them in your own rally. So this makes more sense to do for weaker players, or if you have a lot of strong players with good bonuses starting rallies comparable to yours.

If you do this, don't forget to still adhere to everything you learned about being a rally leader (use your strongest heroes etc.), because if you expect from others to provide rallies for you to jump into frequently, you should do the same for them.

Swap Your Hero Gear Around If Needed

This is probably going to be mostly related to Gina. I personally have my main mythic gear set for Marksman equipped on Gina most of the time because I use her to hunt beasts and Polar Terrors to make use of her skill which lowers stamina cost; and I also use her in Arena (start of Gen 3 in our state at the time of writing this guide).

But she is NOT a good hero to use during a Bear Rally since she provides no combat skills. So before the Bear Hunt starts, I unequip her hero gear and put it on Bahiti for example. After the Bear is done, I put the gear back on Gina. This might be different for everyone based on which heroes you use for whatever reason, but the main point stays the same - use correct heroes as rally leader, but also equip them with your best gear to further increase the bonus they provide for the rally!

Gear does not matter when you are just joining a rally, so you only need to look out for this as rally leader. It might matter if you are joining a defensive rally protecting garrison, but that is a topic for another time.

Can I Participate in Bear Hunt With My City Shield Up?

Yes. The shield will not be deactivated.

Can I Participate in Bear Hunt After Moving to Another Alliance?

This depends on when did you participate in Bear Hunt last. Every player has an internal cooldown of 2 natural days* after joining or starting a rally against the Bear and this cooldown is separate from the trap's cooldown.

For example, If you did Bear on the same day you swap alliances and the new alliance's Bear Trap cooldown is about to run out later that day, you cannot participate in the 2nd Bear Hunt because your personal cooldown will not allow it.

*Game update on March 3, 2025 changed the personal cooldown of every player from flat 46 hours to "2 natural days". This is the follow up to the introduction of 2nd Bear Trap. It basically means that your cooldown is now two in-game day resets (00:00 UTC). So if you participated in Bear Hunt at 23:59 UTC on Monday, the soonest you can participate again would be 00:01 UTC on Wednesday. This means you can choose to participate in 1st or 2nd trap anytime you want and you can swap to the other one in two days without an issue.

Can I Participate in Two Bear Hunts Since the Introduction of Second Bear Trap?

No.

You cannot because every player has an internal cooldown of 2 natural days after joining or starting a rally against the Bear and this cooldown is separate from the trap's cooldown.

Conclusion

Being a good rally leader is much easier to achieve because it is a 'solo effort' of every individual, compared to the necessary 'combined effort' of entire alliance to properly joining rallies. It just takes a bit of preparation and some experience. You will get there with time.

Joining rallies is a different matter. A lot of variables go into this, and the short time-frame of the event when triggered and chaos that follows is not helping things. As we have learned, if even just few players mess up, it has consequences for a lot of others. So this part needs an effort from entire alliance and it can take a long time to get it right.

Don't be too hard on those who are messing it up, now you understand why they might be doing so, have patience with them and try and explain the situation. The amount of marches any individual player can launch, and the level of skills of their heroes, is also a big factor. They might be in a position where to use all or most of their troops they have to use the wrong heroes to join. In that case, we don't want to punish them for 'having too many troops' or 'not paying money for extra march queue or VIP level'. But their job is to, with time, make sure they can have enough proper heroes to join with.

Bear Hunt is a point of contention for a lot of Alliances and a source of many rivalries, players quitting / moving to a different Alliance or just general "bad mood" in your Alliance, mainly due to people not understanding WHY should they be using the heroes R4/R5 told them to. And more so if the rules are adhered to so strictly to the point of kicking people out of rallies if they don't follow them.

Before you start to argue about what heroes should your alliance be using, or kicking people from rally for using heroes you are not comfortable with, check how much total damage you do in the end. There is a good chance that you would not reach the next damage threshold anyway and starting a long argument or antagonizing other alliance members might simply not be worth the hassle. Similarly, if the difference would be just one more damage threshold which would be basically 1 more Essence Stone, is it worth the drama? It depends.

I am not suggesting to throw out the rules and proper heroes completely, but if you are an R4/R5 try to explain the WHY to your members so they can understand the reason behind your rules. Write them a private message reaching out and having a more 1-on-1 conversation, mass messages or ally chat "shouts" might get lost in the spam. Language barrier is also a thing to keep in mind. And if you are R3 or lower, hopefully after reading this guide, you will understand what you might have been doing wrong and where you can improve to help yourself and others.

Good luck in your Bear Hunt, everyone, and don't forget to feed the Bear :)

And that does it for the Bear Hunt guide guys. I hope you have learned something here today and if you have any tips that you want to share with others, feel free to tell us in the comments below! Thanks!