Bear Trap formation
Build the whole Bear session — not one perfect march.
The standard 10/10/80 ratio tells you what a Bear march should aim for. Formation planning answers the harder question: how do you build every march with the troops your account actually has?
Quick answer
10/10/80 is the target. Your inventory decides how many times you can repeat it.
Start Marksman-heavy. Then check your deployment capacity, number of available marches and total troop inventory before filling the first squad. If you want the ratio itself explained, we already have a guide for that.
Read the Bear ratio guide →The planning process
Build from the session backward.
01
Start with the target
Use 10/10/80 as the standard starting point, then move on. This page is about turning that ratio into a complete Bear session, not debating the baseline again.
02
Count the marches you can actually send
Plan around the march queues available on your account. More marches create more opportunities to hit the Bear, but every additional march also needs troops to fill it.
03
Look at the whole troop pool
Before building March 1, look at the Infantry, Lancers and Marksmen available for every march. The question is not whether one squad can hit 10/10/80 — it is whether the whole session can.
04
Distribute before you lock anything in
If Marksmen are the limiting troop, spreading them intelligently across the session is usually better than building a few perfect squads and starving the rest.
About that extra march
VIP 2 + a monthly purchase does not magically equal another march.
The VIP March Queue benefit begins at VIP 6, and VIP benefits must be active for you to use it. Reaching the required VIP level and activating VIP time are two different things. Buying VIP time or a monthly benefit while you are still below VIP 6 does not unlock the VIP 6 March Queue.
There are also other ways an account can gain march capacity, including the separate Extra March Queue purchase. For Bear planning, the important number is simple: how many marches can your account actually deploy right now?
The mistake we are trying to prevent
Do not spend all your Marksmen before March 6 gets a turn.
Build one march at a time
March 1 — Perfect
March 2 — Perfect
March 3 — Looking good
March 4 — Running thin
March 5 — Where did the Marksmen go?
March 6 — ...well, shit.
A beautiful first march is not much help if it consumes the troop type your later marches needed for damage.
Plan the whole session first
Start with every troop available, every march you intend to send and your actual deployment capacity. Then distribute the inventory across the session instead of discovering the shortage halfway through.
That does not mean every march has to be identical. It means every march is part of the same plan.
This is what the Squad Builder is for
You do not have to redistribute the troops by hand.
The FSC Bear Squad Builder takes your available Infantry, Lancers and Marksmen, deployment capacity and number of squads and builds around the whole troop pool. Instead of guessing what March 4 should get after Marches 1–3 are already filled, the tool can account for the shortage from the beginning.
We can drop a real Squad Builder screengrab into this section once we choose the sample setup we want to show, so the example matches the tool instead of becoming another generic formation chart.
Special formations
Sometimes the hero gives you a reason to break the standard pattern.
A standard Bear joiner march is still Marksman-heavy. But if you deliberately build a different troop mix, the hero leading that march should make sense for it. A Lancer-focused joiner skill, for example, becomes much more interesting when the march is intentionally Lancer-heavy than when you drop that hero onto a standard Marksman-heavy squad.
This is where heroes such as Renee become situational rather than simply “good” or “bad.” Formation and hero choice need to agree with each other.
See which joiner heroes fit the job →Caller vs joiner
Do not assume your joiner formation is automatically your caller formation.
A rally caller brings the caller's hero trio, stats and rally setup into the fight. A joiner is solving a different problem: repeatable troop formations and a useful lead joiner skill. We keep those jobs separate so a rule meant for one role does not get taught as a universal Bear rule.
Learn how to build a Bear rally caller →Rebuild when the account changes
Your saved Bear formations should not live forever.
Revisit the plan when your deployment capacity changes, you unlock another usable march, your troop inventory grows significantly, you promote into a new troop tier, or you gain a hero that gives you a reason to build a specialized formation. The goal is not to memorize six numbers. It is to keep the formations matched to the account you have now.
Quick answers
Bear formation FAQ
What is the best Bear Trap formation?
Start with a Marksman-heavy formation such as 10% Infantry, 10% Lancers and 80% Marksmen, then make sure your total troop inventory can support that target across every Bear march you plan to send.
Is formation the same thing as troop ratio?
No. Ratio tells you the troop mix you are aiming for. Formation planning turns that target into multiple usable marches based on your deployment capacity, available troops, heroes and rally role.
Why are my later Bear marches weaker?
A common reason is allocating too many Marksmen to the first few marches. Plan from the full troop inventory before locking in March 1 so later squads still have enough damage troops available.
Does VIP automatically give me another Bear march?
The extra March Queue benefit begins at VIP 6, but your VIP benefits must be active. Simply buying VIP time or a monthly benefit while you are below the required VIP level does not magically unlock that march.
Should every Bear march use the exact same formation?
Not necessarily. The standard target may work across all of them when your inventory supports it, but troop shortages and specialized hero choices can make a different formation useful for a particular march.