This episode was brought to you by Skillshare [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 But instead of spending millions of years saving up the evolution points necessary to get them, you can unlock skills right now by using Skillshare Skillshare is an online learning community with over 20,000 classes in design, business, technology, and more Premium membership gives you unlimited access to high-quality Courses on must know topics so you can improve your skills unlock new opportunities and do the work you love My favourite course of theirs Is their one on motion graphics, which is taught by Kurt's Cassatt Join, the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with the special offer. That's just for my subscribers You can try a skill share for free for two months by using the link in the description Thank you so much for watching And if you've got an idea for a build that you'd like me to cover please leave your suggestions in the comments below. and Special thanks to my patrons on patreon if you'd like to see more from me my patreon and social media are in the description
