Bear Hunt is an alliance event that can be repeated every 2 days (47,5 hours to be exact) 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.

Although this is an alliance event, the total damage you deal as an alliance is largely inconsequential due to the insignificant amount of alliance rewards compared to the personal ones. What matters is the damage dealt by individual players, so every player should make it their goal to increase their damage output as much as possible, this can be achieved in number of ways but more on that later. Of course one should still take into consideration the alliance as a whole and help weaker players pass higher damage thresholds so more members get better personal rewards.


Bear Hunt Rewards

Rewards you can get comprise of two categories - alliance and personal. You can get alliance rewards even if you have not actively participated in the Bear Hunt, while personal rewards are solely based on your damage dealt to the Bear.


Alliance Damage Rewards

In a new server, alliance rewards will be Sergey shards and several thousand alliance shop tokens.

Around the time when the server enters Fire Crystal age, or generation 2 of heroes, Sergey shards will be replaced with Essence Stone.


Personal Damage Rewards

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

Tip: If you know you will not be able to pass the next damage threshold, stop joining rallies (but still start one) and let other alliance members get a chance to get more damage in and possibly pass another threshold to get better rewards. It is a nice thing to do and it will not actually cost you anything. Of course if you need/want to test how much damage you are missing to reach another threshold for yourself, you will want to push as much damage as possible, but you don't need to do that every Bear.

Min DamageMax DamageEssence Stone10
Enhance XP Component
100 Enhance XP ComponentAlliance TokenMeatWoodCoalIron
02 5000201 100495 500495 50099 00025 000
2 5005 0000202 150991 500991 500198 50050 000
5 0008 0000203 2501 400 0001 400 000297 50075 000
8 00012 0000304 3501 900 0001 900 000396 500100 000
12 00027 5000305 4502 400 0002 400 000495 500125 000
27 50062 5000409 5004 300 0004 300 000867 500218 500
62 500145 00004013 6006 100 0006 100 0001 200 000312 500
145 000325 00005017 6008 000 0008 000 0001 600 000406 000
325 000745 00026021 7009 900 0009 900 0001 900 000499 500
745 0001 700 00027025 80011 700 00011 700 0002 300 000593 500
1 700 0003 900 00038029 90013 800 00013 800 0002 700 000687 000
3 900 0008 900 00049033 90015 400 00015 400 0003 000 000781 000
8 900 00020 500 00050138 00017 300 00017 300 0003 400 000874 500
20 500 00047 000 00060142 10019 200 00019 200 0003 800 000968 500
47 000 00090 000 00070146 10021 000 00021 000 0004 200 0001 000 000
90 000 000175 000 00080251 00023 200 00023 200 0004 600 0001 100 000
175 000 000330 000 00090255 90025 500 00025 500 0005 100 0001 200 000
330 000 000635 000 000100260 80027 700 00027 700 0005 500 0001 300 000
635 000 0001 200 000 000110365 70029 900 00029 900 0005 900 0001 500 000
1 200 000 0002 400 000 000120370 60032 200 00032 200 0006 400 0001 600 000
2 400 000 0004 800 000 000130475 00034 100 00034 100 0006 800 0001 700 000
4 800 000 0009 600 000 000140480 00035 800 00035 800 0007 100 0001 700 000
9 600 000 00019 200 000 000150585 00037 500 00037 500 0007 500 0001 800 000
19 200 000 00038 400 000 000160590 00039 400 00039 400 0007 800 0001 900 000
38 400 000 00099 900 000 000170695 00041 400 00041 400 0008 200 0002 000 000

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.


Trap Enhancement

The most straightforward way to increase bear damage is to enhance the Bear 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 slaying beasts. When enough Arrowheads are donated, the trap is enhanced to a new level and everyone will have their Troop Attack increased against the Bear.

Enhancement LevelExplosive Arrowheads NeededAttack Increase Against Bear
12005%
230010%
340015%
450020%
550025%

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.


How To Be a 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.

How To Join 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.

Players who join a rally can only contribute with the first Expedition skill from the hero in the first position in their march.

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.

Meaning you need to sort the heroes in a specific order (at least the 1st hero) and not rely on auto-sort from the game by default. Make use of Formations and save loadouts before the Bear starts!

Click on the red minus sign to remove the hero and place a correct one in its position.

Tip: Did you know you can also simply swap the heroes around by holding your finger on the first hero and moving it over another in line? So getting Jessie in 1st position in the example above takes literally 1-2 seconds with swipe of a finger!


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

  • First four players joining rally will provide a buff, and priority is given only to the skill level.

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

This means that the only way for 5th or later player to be able to replace a previous buff with theirs is if they joined with a hero whose first skill is of a higher level. But if all heroes already have skill level 5, it cannot be replaced. Only way to change the buff is to remove the previous player from the rally.


Example of Rally Bonus From Joining Players

  • For the purposes of this example, please ignore that it is from a Berserker Cryptid rally, that is irrelevant, the rules still apply.

As you can see, Ilyaze, Sinti, Malu and GHT8 were the first four players to join the rally, meaning the heroes in the first positions they joined with would provide their first Expedition skill as a bonus buff for the rally.

But when we look at the Rally Bonus detail, we can see that a buff from Malu's Seo-yoon is missing, that is because she only has the first Expedition skill at level 3 thus her buff got replaced by a 5th player joining the rally, A1B2C3, and their Molly's skill which is level 5.

Rally in the example above would get NO bonus to damage or attack towards the Bear.

What Else Can We See On the Picture?

Barbie and Antolozza joined with Jessie (2x +25% damage) and Love with Jasser (+20% damage (LVL4 skill)), which would be the correct heroes to join a Bear Rally with and had they joined first, the rally would get a bonus of +70% damage. But in this case they would be completely wasted, because first heroes of players who joined before them already have their first Expedition skill at level 5, so it cannot be replaced by later joiners. To make use of the proper buffs, rally leader, iov, would have to remove Ilyaze, Sinti and GHT8 from the rally. Then, Barbie, Antolozza and Love would be able to provide the correct buffs.

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; 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.

Heroes Do No Damage to the Bear

By the way, heroes do NO damage to the Bear!

We have tested this in stable conditions with our farms, where we made sure that the only variable was whether I (SintiFARM) added heroes or not. And as you can see from the picture, I did the exact same amount of damage with and without heroes.

This means that you do not need to try and use your strong heroes to join other rallies to possibly increase damage dealt, this will not work. Instead, keep your best heroes for yourself to start a rally with, there the strength and gear of your heroes matter very much!


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. This can be a direct increase or a chance to increase. Debuffs on the enemy actually work too, for example increasing their damage taken.

Whiteout Survival Heroes To Join Bear Rally With

Image made with the assistance of Tierkmaker.

S Tier

Heroes that provide substantial and direct Attack or Damage increase. Best heroes to use because their Expedition skill can stack with each other.

  • [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%.

A Tier

Heroes that provide direct Attack or Damage increase, but less than S-tier heroes or have some added conditions/restrictions.

  • [2] Philly (Lancer) - Increasing Attack by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% and Defense by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% for all troops.
  • [5] Norah (Marksman) - Decreasing Damage Taken by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% and boosting Damage Dealt by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15% for Infantry and Marksman.
  • [7] Edith (Infantry) - Reducing damage taken by 4/8/12/16/20% for Marksmen, and suppresses the enemy, increasing damage dealt by 4/8/12/16/20% for Lancers.

B Tier

Heroes that provide a (relatively high) chance to damage increase, but not a guaranteed one. And heroes that provide damage increase during X amount of turns. Problem is, we do not know how many turns there are in a Bear Rally attack since we do not have a Battle Report like for a regular rally attack. So one can argue that some of these heroes actually provide NO benefit at all. Hard to tell without rigorous testing in stable conditions, which is virtually impossible to achieve in an average alliance.

  • [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.
  • [6] Renee (Lancer) - The troops she commands can place Dream Marks on their targets every three turns, dealing extra 40%/80%/120%/160%/200% Lancer Damage once next turn. The Dream Marks last for 1 turns.
  • [6] Wayne (Marksman) - Allows friendly troops to launch an extra attack every 4 turns, dealing 20%/40%/60%/80%/100% damage.
  • [7] Gordon (Lancer) - Every 2 attacks, Lancers deals 20/40/60/80/100% extra damage and apply poison to the target for 1 turn. Poisoned enemies deals 4/8/12/16/20% less damage.

C Tier

Heroes that provide a chance to damage increase, but with a very low chance. Still better than nothing :)

  • [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

Heroes that provide absolutely NO benefit for a Bear Rally attack as a joiner.

  • Everyone else.
  • Only use these heroes to join with, if their first Expedition skill is level 4 or lower and you don't have any hero from a higher tier to join with and need any hero for the purpose of increasing your Troops Deployment Capacity for the march.

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 cutdown 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. Because the 2-day cooldown actually works also on personal level for each player individually.

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.


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, even if just few players mess up, it has consequences for a lot of others. So this part needs an effort from entire alliance and it will 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.

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!