Big Bear

The Big Bear is the second boss of the canyon and can be found at the end of the second area. He is a huge and dangerous wild bear feared by everyone roaming the canyon. Many have tried to slay him but no bear trap alone is enough to end him. The bear can be surprisingly fast and not only uses his massive claws to take down his victims but was also seen ramming people and hurling them to their death.

Behavior
The Big Bear has two stages, the second of which starts after the bear has lost half of his health.

In the first stage of a basic run the bear only uses simply melee attacks which can easily be evaded by well-timed dodge rolls. Because of the bear's size the melee attacks can have a surprisingly long range. The bear usually moves rather slowly allowing the player to get some distance, but every now and then the bear will sprint to catch up with the player.

It is possible to get a major advantage by running around rocks or similar solid objects to use them as cover and to slow down the bear.

Once the secondary phase has started the bear will also start to use dash attacks with a short animation indicating the long dash attack. The bear can still be hit and damaged, even while dashing. But getting hit by the dash attack will inflict serious damage to the player. The dash can also be evaded by dodging, but it is more difficult if there is little distance between the bear and the player.

He is 25% resistant against explosives in a regular run and 50% resistant in looped runs.

Tactics
To fight the bear a character with high agility is recommended. Because the bear has a lot of health he will be able to do several attacks that are difficult to evade with a character that is bad at dodging. Therefore it is helpful to get the Athlete upgrade. It is also helpful to get cover between the bear and yourself, for example some rocks.

Shields will protect from melee attacks, but not from dash attacks. There are a lot of deactivated bear traps scattered in the Big Bear boss arena. These bear traps can be activated by a melee attack. If the bear steps into one of these activated bear traps it will inflict significant damage. Just watch out to not step into these traps yourself. Every bear trap can only be used once, but with some luck there are enough bear traps to take down the bear boss without having to use actual weapons too much.

A weapon with a lot of knockback power, e.g. shotguns, helps to get some distance between the bear and yourself.

With a high agility character and skilled dodging the bear can be taken down head on as long as the used weapon does not slow down too much while reloading.

If the bear is too fast it is helpful to aim the direction you are moving to reduce the slowdown. Carrying two weapons slows down the player more than carrying just one. Some weapons, like revolvers, pistols or bows, have less slowdown while reloading than others, like Flint- or TNT-Weapons.

It is possible to use companions to confuse the bear, but usually companions will be killed by the bear due to its high damage and attack frequency.

It's best to save dynamite for the second stage of the boss fight so that the dynamite can be thrown at the bear when he is far aways. For example when he is about to start a dash.

There is an achievement that forces the player to take down the bear using nothing but melee attacks. Melee weapons can and should be used here. This achievement is very difficult but doable with solid dodging and a strong melee weapons with enough durability. When going for this achievement it is not allowed to use bear traps or companions.

Trivia
In the alpha version of the game the Big Bear was the first boss instead of the second one because the Wilderness was actually the first stage.

The bear is much faster, tougher and in general more dangerous in looped runs. In looped runs the bear traps in the level are also unusable and instead there will be toxic vegetation that the bear is immune against.

The total health of the Bear is scaling with the amount of players in Co-op.