Why your Bear Hunt damage is not growing - causes and fixes
Only low this time, or less than everyone else - the causes fall into a few patterns. Diagnose yours at the end.
1. Left hero not working (most common for joiners)
If your leftmost hero's first skill has no bear effect, your buff is zero. Check with the Left-Hero Checker.
2. Troops not full
Troop count drives damage directly. Fill barracks and join full.
3. Bad troop ratio
Too much infantry, or 100% marksman, both lose efficiency. Marksman-favored mix (e.g. 10:30:60) is safe.
4. Leader formation (if you led)
Defensive/irrelevant heroes will not scale. Use DMG/ATK heroes.
5. Trap upgrade / Cyrille unused
Trap upgrade boosts team damage (up to +25%); Cyrille's talent boosts personal points (up to +30%).
6. Few rallies (low turnover)
It is a 30-minute total. Cut march time and stage your launches.
7. Attack and lethality are out of balance
An easily-missed advanced cause. Bear Hunt damage is fundamentally "Attack × Lethality," so a high value on only one side won't scale. High attack but low lethality caps your total because one side of the product is small. Check your per-type profile stats to confirm both attack and lethality are growing in balance. If lethality lags, prioritize charms and hero gear headgear/boots (lethality).
8. You're leveling hero gear "thin and wide"
The community consensus is "level only two pieces per hero." Spreading across all four pieces dilutes resources and can't even match a single mythic piece. For marksman/lancer heroes focus headgear and boots (lethality); for infantry focus gloves and belt (HP). Exclusive gear especially scales with generation, so prioritize leveling your main heroes' exclusive gear.
9. You forgot to use boosts or pets
Surprisingly common: forgetting 2-hour boosts or a pet's active skill. Using all-troop ATK +10% / Lethality +10% boosts right before Bear Hunt raises points directly. Activate attack/lethality pets (Cave Lion / Saber-tooth Tiger) too. Conversely, defense/HP buffs and pets are wasted since the bear doesn't counterattack — stick to attack/lethality.
Reference: measured gain per upgrade (third-party test)
Once the causes above are fixed, Altema's per-factor verification (featured by the official WOS Japan X account) is a good guide for where to invest next. Open the panel for numbers.
View measured damage gain per factor (Altema)
| Factor changed | Measured gain |
|---|---|
| Heroes SR → SSR | ~+210% |
| Damage-buff skills equipped | ~+33% |
| Legendary gear upgraded | ~+16% |
| Hero levels raised | ~+15% |
| Troop buff items used | ~+10% |
| Chief gear upgraded | ~+3.7% |
| Pet skill active | ~+1% |
Mapped against causes 1–9 above, the measured data supports the same order: heroes (quality, skills, levels) first, gear second, boosts as finishing touches.
It's rarely one thing. Often an invalid left hero + partial troops + low lethality stack together. The diagnosis tool ranks multiple causes by priority, so the fastest path is to knock them out one at a time, biggest first.