The Bear Spear, and a prediction

[Bob The Tomato]

Having had the good fortune to make use of the Bear Spear in Wintermute, I feel I can say the mechanics are pretty simple to grasp. It will make a fine addition to the game.

Wintermute spoiler below.

When first acquired, the spearhead is damaged and requires repair. During such time, it becomes an item in the inventory. It weighs 3.75 kg, and if harvested, yields one cured maple sapling and two scrap metal. However, as it is a unique weapon, I strongly advise that you do NOT harvest it.

Once it's repaired at the forge, it becomes a quest item and disappears from your inventory, along with its mass. It can still be accessed via the radial menu under the Weapons tab.

True to its word, the Bear Spear is indeed a Bear Spear. I tried using it on a wolf and it didn't work. The wolf stopped mid-charge as I took position, held its ground while growling at me, and waited for me to exhaust myself before charging and pouncing.

When used properly, the Bear Spear allows a bear attack to turn into a struggle where you can fight back. During the struggle, you can still be hurt. Alltogether, I've suffered brusing (both major and minor), blood loss, had a hatchet get ruined, and sprained a wrist.

The sprained wrist turned out to be catastrophic, as one cannot equip a weapon with it, including the spear. So make sure you have a painkiller remedy handy.

As for where this will go in the future, I strongly predict that when the bear spear is added to survival mode, bears will become impervious to arrows and rifle rounds. It makes no sense to have one otherwise. Current strategies for taking down bears work better than what the Bear Spear offers, so there's no need whatsoever to craft one, unless things change in such a manner as to make current strategies ineffective.

Personally, I would welcome such a change. In my opinion, bears ought to be the the scariest wildlife in TLD, but they're not. Currently, the moose is, since the moose is the only wildlife that cannot bleed out. However, if Hinterland were to make bears impervious to the rifle and arrows, thereby forcing us to craft a spear if we want to hunt a bear, that would put them right up on top as the most feared wildlife in game.

[IFIYGD]

You really should put a spoiler alert or use spoiler tags here Goth, you are giving a ton of spoiler info away here, especially for folks who have not yet played Wintermute, or who have not gotten to this point yet. The title looks like a Survival Mode discussion about the spear and what yu think it might be like when added to Survival. Serious spoilers here for folks.

[Bob The Tomato]

Fair point. Spoiler formatting added.

[IFIYGD]

I wish I had a good thumbs up emote, lol!
I hope will suffice?
Thanks Goth. :)

[Aemon Bane]

Personally I disagree Goth, is a knife or hatchet pointless in survival for defending against wolves or are they a back up incase you get caught off guard/cornered. The Bearspear would be a similiar use for against bears/moose preferably you manage to avoid them or take them down from a distance, but should things not go in an ideal way for you atleast you still have a fallback albeit a far less ideal one.

As for the wolf test, makes sense to me, the type of tool the spear is is intended for getting a freight train style charging animal to impale itself, so moose or bear fits, wolves on the other hand do not "charge" so much as they look for an opening and lunge.

[Bob The Tomato]

Knives/hatchets don't weigh nearly as much as a hunting rifle.

That's a heck of a lot of mass to put into a 'backup' weapon.

Also, a knife/hatchet appears as an option when you enter a wolf struggle. If you don't have the bear spear in your hand, in the active position, then you're gonna get mauled.

[tychancho]

I could possibly conceed your point that arrows should be made ineffective against bears because of their fur and hide could repel such a basic handmade weapon, but rifles? I can't agree.

[Aemon Bane]

Originally posted by Goth Skunk:

Knives/hatchets don't weigh nearly as much as a hunting rifle.

That's a heck of a lot of mass to put into a 'backup' weapon.

Also, a knife/hatchet appears as an option when you enter a wolf struggle. If you don't have the bear spear in your hand, in the active position, then you're gonna get mauled.

Ah, I see, I take it stalker or lower is your normal play, in interloper you have nearly nothing to carry, there is almost nothing you don't make yourself, and until you have crafted a full set of furs for armor even a single wolf struggle is death let alone a bear or moose mauling. In interloper having the spear on you ready to pull out and get positioned if that first shot doesn't bring them down is very likely the difference between a dead character and a living one.

Even in stalker the spear should be useful for this reason, as for fox/owl difficulties, you don't need the improvised hatchet or knife, and can find plenty of arrowheads without visiting a forge so forges and everything that goes with them are useless by your thought process on this.

I would like to point out I'm not saying that there is no chance you are right, I am saying that I definitely see another use for the spear in survival that you seem to have overlooked.

Last I am going to bring up the bleed out, technically neither the bear or moose should bleed out to arrows from the shoddy makeshift bow the characters use, the rifle maybe could cause them to bleed, but from the bow there should still be a possibilty for a *critical hit* where you just so happen to hit the right spot to bring it down, what the percent should be is far more debatable.

[SBlack]

I don't see anyone carrying a spear as a "just in case" weapon. Bears are too easy to avoid for that. They are extremely fast when they run, but just walking you can easily get away from them.

It's a hunting weapon

[Boston]

The fact that it doesn't work on wolves is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid.

[Bob The Tomato]

I can see why it doesn't, from a mechanics perspective. They'd have to do a whole new struggle animation for wolves in addition to bears. Probably was too much.

[=Axton=]

Bears have a bleedout indicator? The boss bear doesn't,and the fight echanic with the spear is kind of anoyying, if you dont have it aimed just right before he atacks you take damage despite having it equipped.