1. Equal marches first
Don't make one great join and five weak ones. You can't choose which rally each march ends up in without slowing everyone down, so keep them even. After archers, use cavalry before infantry.
BEAR HUNT
How Bear damage works and how to organise rallies around it.
30 min every 48 hours 5-minute rallies
At a glance
The short version. A few of these go against the usual Bear advice.
Everyone rallies, however weak.
Weak players still take up spaces in other rallies, so they need to launch their own to give those spaces back.
Fill every rally to 15.
That's 14 joiners plus the leader, the number the game shows. Join whichever rally is closest to marching out, and relaunch yours as soon as it's home.
Cap joins at your biggest rally ÷ 16.
That fits 14 full joins plus a double share for its leader, who is usually well ahead of everyone else and gets some extra damage from it.
Archers, then cavalry, then infantry.
Split your archers evenly across your joins and your own rally: usually 7 marches, or 6 if you have five joins. If yours is the oversized rally from rule 3, count it twice, making 8. Do the same with cavalry, then top each march up to the cap with infantry.
Ratios only matter with lots of archers.
Aim for 5 / 15 / 80 once your archers can fill most of every march. Until then, keep your marches equal.
Join with a recommended first hero, or none.
Up to four joiners' first-hero skills apply to the whole rally, so the wrong hero can waste a spot.
The plan
The rally leader's stats and heroes set the strength of the rally. Each player's infantry, cavalry and archers are then scored separately, and up to four joiners' first heroes add their skills to the whole rally.
Rally leader
Their stats and heroes
14 joiner spaces
Each player's troops score separately.
Up to 4 joiner first-hero skills
- Everyone should launch a rally every five minutes. Spread the launches out so each rally has time to fill.
- Fill all 14 joiner spaces in every rally. The real limit in Bear is spaces in rallies.
- Cap joins so more of them fit. Ours is 85k for now, and it goes up as rally capacity grows.
- Keep your joins the same size. Split archers evenly first, then cavalry, then fill the rest with infantry. For full joins, 5 / 15 / 80 is a good ratio.
- Join with one of the recommended first heroes. If you don't have one, join with no hero.
A strong rally leader still matters, because it makes every hit in that rally stronger. Everything else here is about having enough rallies open that everyone's marches keep hitting the Bear.
Each troop type's damage grows with roughly the square root of how many you send. Send twice the archers and you get about 41% more archer damage, not double.
Each march in a rally is scored on its own, and its infantry, cavalry and archers each get their own square root. So the same troops do more damage spread across several joins than packed into one.
Exact model
For one march in a rally:
D ∝ KI√I + KC√C + KA√A
Each K covers the rally leader's attack and lethality, the troop's base attack, hero and widget bonuses, and the Bear matchup. Some skills only trigger by chance during the ten rounds, so the model uses their average.
Aim for 14 joiners in every rally. Full rallies give returning marches the most places to join.
If everyone has six marches and launches a rally every five minutes, full rallies let each march hit the Bear up to 2.33 times every five minutes. Empty spaces, or players who don't launch, bring that down.
Our joiner cap is 85k troops for now. That's our number, not a Bear rule, and it goes up as rally capacity grows. It stops a few big joins using up a rally's capacity and leaving spaces empty.
The cap doesn't apply to a strong leader's own rally. Fill it with whatever ratio works for that leader. Their joins into other rallies still follow the cap.
Why 14, and why everyone launches
Say P players have six marches each, L of them launch every five minutes, and each rally has S joiners on average. Each march then hits H = L × S ÷ (P × 6) times every five minutes.
That's highest when L = P because everyone launches, and S = 14 because every rally fills. That gives H = 14 ÷ 6 = 2.33. With 13 joiners on average it drops to 2.17; with 14 joiners but only 80% of players launching, it's 1.87.
The 14th joiner adds damage to that rally, but the bigger gain is that returning marches reuse that space all event.
Keep all your joins the same size. Split archers evenly first, then cavalry, then fill the rest with infantry. Once you have the troops to fill every join, 5 / 15 / 80 is the ratio we use.
Example troops. Tap the button to enter yours.
Your rally
85,000
Joins
- Infantry
- Cavalry
- Archers
| Troop type | Your rally | Each join |
|---|---|---|
| Infantry | 4,250 | 4,250 |
| Cavalry | 12,750 | 12,750 |
| Archers | 68,000 | 68,000 |
| Total | 85,000 | 85,000 |
Troops left home
- Infantry
- 0
- Cavalry
- 0
- Archers
- 0
Troops split between your rally and equal joins.
Archers first, then cavalry, then infantry. Use 5 / 15 / 80 once you have the troops to fill every join.
2. Use 5 / 15 / 80 when full
For the rally leaders we've tested, 5% infantry / 15% cavalry / 80% archers comes very close to the best possible ratio. The exact ratio depends on the leader. At our 85k cap, that's about 4.25k infantry, 12.75k cavalry and 68k archers per join.
Six full 85k joins at 5 / 15 / 80 need about 25.5k infantry, 76.5k cavalry and 408k archers in total. Until you have that many, keeping your joins equal matters more than hitting the ratio.
Everyone should launch a rally every five minutes, just not all at once. Start with two groups of rallies, then relaunch as soon as your rally comes home.
-
First group launches
30:00JoinsFirst group Rallying -
Second group launches
29:00–28:30Second group
29:0028:4528:30 -
Join again
Back homeFirst group After the first hitsHome, then joinSecond group Rallying
Example times. Adjust the gap for your alliance's travel times.
- Poll before the event. Ask who's coming and whether they want the first or second group. Leave room for people who don't answer and people who turn up late.
- The first group launches straight away. Open enough rallies that most people have somewhere to join. One or two extra is fine if those leaders don't mind cancelling.
- The second group launches between 29:00 and 28:30. Those rallies should still be waiting when the first group's joins get home. Leave enough time to hit the Bear, go home and join the next rally.
- If the first group doesn't fill, cancel a rally. Relaunch it with the second group instead of letting it go half-empty.
- After that, everyone relaunches as soon as they're home. Join whichever rally is closest to marching out. Travel times spread the later rallies out on their own.
Fast relaunch: while your rally is marching home, open the rally screen and tap your saved Bear formation. It won't load until those troops are back, so tap it again the moment they arrive.
How many rallies in the first group?
Count the marches free at the start and divide by 14. Fifteen players with six marches each is 90, enough for six full rallies with six marches spare. A seventh rally can work too, if its leader is happy to cancel when fewer people turn up.
Once the first hits land, those marches come home and join again, so the size of the first group doesn't limit the rest of the event.
When you join, only your first hero counts. The first-hero skills of up to four joiners apply to the whole rally, so use one of the heroes below. If you don't have any of them, join with no hero.
Any other first hero can take one of those four spots with a defensive or useless skill. If it gets picked, it affects the whole rally, not just your march.
Rally leaders use all their heroes and stats, so the selector above picks a leader lineup separately.
Your rewards depend on your own total Bear damage. Each tier adds one Forgehammer.
- 47M8
- 90M9
- 175M10
- 330M11
- 625M12
- 1.2B13
- 2.4B14
- 4.8B15
- 9.6B16
- 19.2B17
- 38.4B+18