Whats up with deathclaws

[Park77]

Level 14 unarmed with spiked knuckles, piercing strike, and Boone takes care of the blind and young on very hard + hardcore.

 

I am still 1 swipe away from death from a regular Deathclaw though. And now that you take 75% damage in VATS, I can't be cheap and VATS my way to victory like I could in FO3.

 

But I am adamant against my no-gun policy this play-through. I'll come back to the quarry when I've got better armor, purifier, and a better weapon....

[secksegai]

it's kind of funny to see how many folks aren't familiar with the deathclaw experience outside of FO3. Players focusing on ranged (ie guns, energy weapons, explosives etc) should have no trouble with them - in the lower levels unless you've got really good equipment and/or a relatively safe spot to take them out without them closing the distance, you should know to avoid them, since running won't save you. Same principle applies to cazadores since they're the other really big threat in NV.

 

Unless you're specifically geared for melee combat with the equipment and perks to back it up, melee combat is a near instant death. Even if fully focused on melee, you still need to utilize pulling tactics since swarms of either cazadores or deathclaws will result in death quickly without cheating.

 

I'm glad that deathclaws are serious opponents again, but I'm not too fond of the cazadores, though that's more since I've got lousy average fps and trying to snipe them with a bad frame rate moving that fast is rough without vats.

 

Hope to hear of your progress with your melee build there Park77.

[WarKirby3333]

I love deathclaws. Them and cazadors are one of the few things that can stand up to my 9-man army.

 

Using a companion as a meat shield is a good start. Get someone melee focused wearing power armour.

 

And snipe them with high powered rifles that can penetrate their DT. For best results, take out the legs first as it disables their leaping ability.

 

If they focus on you, pop some med-x and backpedal rapidly while blasting with everything you've got!

Edited November 26, 2010 by WarKirby3333

[Xenno]

My fav way of killing deathclaws in NV is sniper rifle with the silencer and carbon parts but...

 

I remember when i went to dead wind cavern, and it was like what now its a cave and on entrance 4 deathclaws, sniper just wont do here.

So i just take plasma caster with hs electrode and wipe the floor with them.

 

My bigges suprise was when i saw legendary deathclaw, i didnt know they exsist.

 

I try to kill him with plasma caster and he killed me few times, after few trys with plasma caster, i take my sniper loaded 308 JSP rounds and sneak attack him.

First shoot was sneak attack critical it took more than 60% of health to legendary deathclaw on hard hardcore, the he came closer to me i used VATS to headshoot him and he was dead.

JPS round are insane.

[Herculine]

They're called Deathclaws instead of Fluffybunnypaws for a reason. Now they live up to their name.

 

I'll admit I'm used to a more leveled experience as opposed to a static and linear experience, but it's not so bad once you get used to it.

[SwapMe]

Enemies aren't scaled like they were in FO3.

I kind of like it this way, while it does make the beginning of the game more linear there's a sense of accomplishment when you finally manage to kill one.

 

 

When I was level 3-4 I tried to snipe them at the Carry Junction. I sniped 4 of them but used more than 100 bullets (low repair skill and an almost broken sniper rifle).

 

Many levels later - around 16-17 or so - I jumped down a cliff and landed right behind a Deathclaw. After crunching I got it with one shot (The Machine and a sneak critical) before it could turn around. I jumped up to grab the hand. Two red marked made me turn around just to face two other Deathclaws charging me. To my surprise I got the second with two head-shots in VATS and was just plain lucky the third was stuck in come cactus. It got free before I got my AP back, but I took it with 3 hip shots and one VATS shot with The Machine. I too one swing at me and removed 2/3 of my health.

 

I really like that things seems much harder in NV. It may just be me, but I've done 5 trips to vault 34 and still hasn't explored it all. I simply need to escape for fresh health, ammo and a rad removal before I manage to get to the end of it.

[washerw2]

Yea those 'Deathclaws' were way too easy to kill in Fallouts 3 especially after the game had been heavily modded!

[TheNeutralGood]

I hate games that scale difficulty. It's lazy and boring as all hell. I loved morrowind where nothing is scaled at all. and if you want you can rush the the hardest parts in the game and get the best items. Stuff like that makes replay worth while.

 

Scaled anything for me means i dont want to replay the game.

[antonkr]

2-4 shots in the head with a sniper or gauss do the trick.

[thethiefofdarkness]

Aye, Deathclaws in NV are the strongest in the entire series (FO1 and FO2 lacked armor piercing :D) so its no surprise that people are getting annihilated by them. Even at level 30 and at endurance 10 (Armor don't do jack since they ignore DT) , a single deathclaw can still 3-4 shot the player.

 

The best way to hunt deathclaws is a huge initial damage to 1-shot it before it notices you. That means stealth, headshots, sniper rifles, shotties and all other means of dealing death. Energy weapons are really awesome due to their high damage, huge crit damage and the meltdown perk. I once took out the deathclaw prometary of around 6 deathclaws (2 mothers and 1 alpha) with a single shot from a fully repaired tesla cannon prototype to the head (MC ammo and optimised crits). Glorious!

 

Of course its not impossible to melee them, you'll either need a super high damage weapon like the balistic fist (one shots) or a weapon that can cause a ton of fatigue damage to knock them down. You can also exploit the knockdown + thermic lance/chainsaw combo to kill deathclaw but not when they are in packs.