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[Bare Necessities instrumental plays]
Question: What kind of bear is best?
Every so often, the meta-game of outside breaks into the mainstream for a bit
Famous examples include the 'choose two' puzzle or the 'horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses' meme
but perhaps the most famous example is the simple question posed by Jim Halpert in
Season 3 episode 21 of the office where he asks what kind of bear is best
But before we answer that, let's take a step back and hear how Dwight responds
'There are basically two schools of thought' -- he doesn't get to finish his sentence before he gets cut off but he's right
There are two schools of thought, those being generalist approach and the specialist approach
So which school of thought is better when trying to optimize a bear build?
I think the best way to answer that is to outline each approach's most relevant members, and rank each of them on a tier list.
So without further ado, let's get into it
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a specialist bear is the Panda
I don't think many players would dispute that pandas are easily one of the worst builds in the current meta
What they will dispute is why. A lot of players think that pandas are garbage because they have an extremely low respawn rate
But pandas actually give birth just as often as other bears. Yes, it's rare, but that hasn't stopped the higher tier bears
What's really holding these bears back is their absolute dependence on bamboo
Of all the specialized bears pandas are by far the most over specialized. The combination of stats and abilities
they've got have made it
So even if they decided to stop being strict herbivores and pursue a more generalist approach, they can't really do it without a massive re-spec.
They've got the bite force comparable to lions and tigers
But with mobility and stealth as low as theirs, there's no way they'd ever be able to make use of it against another player
Pandas used most of their evolution points on their special ability 'pseudo-thumb' a bony like appendage that allows them to better
Hold on to bamboo. The rest of their evolution points, I assume, were spent on their ridiculous palette swap
This is the only bear could even consider being below average
We have to jump all the way up to C tier before we get to the next lowest bear
Next on the tier list we have the Sloth Bear and the Sun Bear
These bears use another specialist type build, this time focusing on insects
Now sloth bears and Sun bears are miles ahead of the Panda in viability
Insects, especially beehives are a great source of xp, assuming you can tank the damage from the stings
Not only that, but unlike bamboo, insects are pretty much everywhere
So habitat loss due to a human builder player doesn't pose as big a problem to them as it does for pandas
What keeps them down is that although they're great at tearing into well-fortified ant and bee bases. They're actually not very good at defending themselves
They have losing matchups against every other key player in their region
Including pythons, leopards, doles, and tigers, and for that I have to place them in C tier
The highest ranking specialist type bear on our list is the polar bear
The polar bear is one of the biggest land predators in the entire game, but despite the ridiculously high power stat
They have pretty bad matchups against the other popular Arctic classes
I've actually done an entire video on the Arctic meta which you can watch here, but the long and short of it
Is that their immense strength doesn't really come in handy that much
Since their best strategy to score elims on seals is to catch them off guard when they come up to recharge their stamina gauge
They don't have the mobility to chase seals down in the water nor do they have the strength to defeat walruses on land
So in my opinion, there's far too much luck involved in the polar bear gameplay to write them any higher than B tier
So that's all the specialist bears, now we're on to the generalist bears
Generalist builds if done right will pretty much always outclassed their specialized counterparts
Since they're much more prepared to cope with the rapid shifts of the meta like for example
If human players need materials to build their forts, or if the ice starts to melt
In addition these next builds differ from the others because they've got the Bear's signature move: 'hibernate'
Hibernation is key to the success of the bear players
because it allows them to completely skip the time of year that they're least suited to
Now this does incur some difficulty on the player since if they fail to collect enough loot to get them through the winter
Hibernation will actually drain their HP and possibly even lead to a game over
But if the Bears' abilities are used correctly, this shouldn't be too big an issue
The first of the generalist bears on our list is the brown bear
Brown bears have one of the highest power stats in the game with their sheer force being outclassed only by bull, cattle, and elephant builds.
They've also got fairly high mobility. Although it can't quite match that of the wolves or elk that they share a server with
But both of these stats are put to good use because of the animals' high intelligence one of the highest among solitary builds
This lets Bears use their strengths to successfully raid the treasure chests that human settlements control.
Now unlike its more specialized counterparts
It doesn't have the same venom resistances that would allow the Sun Bear and sloth bear to easily
Take out the eusocial insect players, so it's certainly not invincible by any stretch
But it can make up for these inconsistencies by doing what it does best: Griefing salmon mains
The salmon questlines final objective is to return to their spawn point and unfortunately
This exploit is pretty common knowledge among the bear subreddits and whatnot
Brown bears have almost as good a matchup against fish as Ospreys do, it's really unfair honestly
There are a few varieties of brown bear of which the grizzly is actually the weakest.
Sitting at the high end of A tier the strongest variety of brown bear, the Kodiak bear
Can just barely sneak its way into S tier along with the last bear on our list:
The black bear. Black bears are true champions of adaptability
when the anthropocene patch dropped
Every other North American bear actually quit the server, including one of the Ice Age Metas' top tiers: the cave bear
Cave bears and the florida spectacled bear were both specialists that were unable to adapt to the new meta
But the black bear player base has flourished.
This is thanks to having slightly scaled back versions of all the brown bears abilities plus extremely high arboreal mobility
This allows them to get access to valuable loot sources such as tree nuts, beehives, and bird's nests
So yeah
Jim is kinda right when he says the classic line 'false black bear' skills are essential for any effective character
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