Legacy:Bear

Bears are considered the toughest and most vicious animals in the game. Bears will, like Boars, attack you unprovoked. A level 10 bear will hit for approximately 800 HP. They sometimes will attack you and kill you while you are unconscious. To get to you, bears will destroy any objects obstructing their path with lower than Soak 25, meaning only Palisades, Brickwalls a wall of Strongboxes or a well placed Stone Mansion can stop bears from chasing you.

The quality of all bear materials (Raw Hide, Meat, Intestines, Bones/Teeth) is equal to Bear Level*20. Raw Hide, Intestines, and Meat are softcapped by Survival and your carving tool. Bones are only softcapped by Survival

MaterialQuality = ((Level*20 + ToolQ)/2) + Survival)/2 = (Level*20 + ToolQ + 2*Survival)/4

BoneQuality = (Level*20 + Survival)/2

Note: The quality of bear products can NOT go above the 200 quality mark. These formulas shown are here to represent if your tool quality and survival softcap the bear products.

Combat Behavior

The bear is going to start off with using a move that gives it 6 (!) initiative and a boost move before attacking you with either a swipe or a bite (the most dangerous of the two). Then it will fill up its attack and defense like most other animals. Fortunately it does not try to gain advantage like the boar or auroch does.

Bears go berserk when they're close to death, and they will start using a skill to instantly refill their attack bar. You will need to be ready to do a lot of damage fast if you plan to finish the bear before it finishes you. You can tell when a bear goes berserk based on its combat portrait, its level indicator disappears and its eyes turn into flames.

How to fight it

Melee: Bears can take off a large chunk of defense, if not outright hurt you. You will need combat stats of around 150 to combat against a lvl X bear melee without calling down thunder. If not, then you are best to fight against it at a range where it cannot hit you. You want to opt for slide if your defense starts to drop, especially after an attempted bite. Otherwise you can use dash or even slide to keep your defense high while gaining initiative.

Alternative tactic for X bear and ~70 Melee skill: Get behind some cover (boat or wall will do) and start calling down the thunder till you get 30 initiative. Then opportunity knock the bear 4 times in a row, immediately followed by a valorous strike. Retreat, repeat. You should not lose more than 40 hp each time with proper gear. The third strike should be a simple sting (remember, the bear has ONLY 800 HP, and you can do up to 300 damage at once!) to put him aflame. Then, finish him off with a valorous strike.

Common ranged tactic: Shoot at the bear from a boat or shallow water that's out of its reach. As of world 5 the bear will run away if you deal too much damage to it in a single shot or during a short interval (which seems to be around 80 damage) but will likely come back. You can avoid this by waiting for the so called "twitch" (the bear will try to path towards you, but since he won't be able to reach you, he will simply twitch for a split-second). Just let your aim build up until you are satisfied, then shoot directly after a twitch. If your timing is right the bear won't run (this tactic also works for any other animal that would normally run away from too much damage over a short time or low health). Once the bear gets enraged he won't run anymore.

Another ranged tactic: Try to lock the bear in or out of your palisade or brick wall. You can shoot the bear safely from the opposite side of the wall without it running off. This is only effective if you find a bear close to a gate. The one word of caution is to make sure you have enough time to run back into or out of your gate and lock it back before the bear catches you.

If your combat skill is not high enough, then use range to shoot it where it cannot reach you or simply avoid it.