What's the MOST Dangerous Being of the Cataclysm?

Game Talk The Bunker
1

I’m nearing day 200 in this Cataclysm run as a Barebones Fist Fighter with some metal knuckles. I’ve tackled down everything from Zombie Skelly hulks to Gas Boomers to a swarm of Zombie shockers with my fists (And a load of Adr shots) and I want to know, is there something even WORSE to encounter or have to fight with your fists than these nasty boys.

I’m still exploring the new stages of the Zombie evolution, so I’m curious if there’s even more insanity to come once the first year finishes? I’ve lightly poked my head into the fungal hives, and I’ve punched down those Trif Queens before, but I HAVE to know if I there’s something even WORSE out there to throw myself headlong into?

(I mean, the one thing I’ve decidedly never charged would be the .50 turrets since they seem to auto-hit you even if you’re speeding by going 100 miles an hour through glass windshields. If I wasn’t going that fast, i’d have died that time… Terrifying…)

2

Presently, the Gas Boomer was the absolute worst encounter I’ve had thus far. I ran up to punch him, and was engulfed in flames to the point where my Chitin practically roasted off of me before I climbed out. My packs burned and my tools all dropped into the inferno. I was left with 15% health and 290 pain scale. Two normal zombies legitimately almost finished me off that time, and ever since I’ve made sure to just back away slowly from those running napalm bombs. One kill is enough to check it off my list, thanks…

3

Can I assume Chicken walkers/tank drones etc are out? They are basically just nastier, mobile turrets after all. Other then that, off the top of my head:
The mi-gos that aren’t the standard ones are pretty nasty and amigara horrors can be deadly to the wrong build. Beyond those most of the stuff I can think of would be stuff from mods.

Edit: I guess you could try a shoggoth too, not really deadly so to speak but they are quite difficult to finish off with an unarmed fighter unless you pick a good place to fight them.

Maybe an armoured zombie? again not really deadly but still an achievement to take down with just your fists.

4

The Walkers were easily countered with a turn-1 melee stun followed by three layers of armor with added Kevlar to boost damage resist. (Corner lure, still bit 3 shots to the torso getting it) All things granted, the one I tackled chewed through my layers and shattered a leg and an arm to take it down. Combat stimming beforehand was a wise investment, but victory over it was attained because my strength due to mutations at the time was a whopping 20 due to me heavily investing points into pure meathead muscle.

I don’t recommend others trying to charge turrets at all in the current build, they can not, will not, and do not miss a shot. Even with enough armor layered up to effectively give me 40-40+ defense against cut-bash, it still chewed me up.

Shoggoth is an extremely fun one, but I was able to layer it down due to taking the Tiger unarmed stance which helps against natural defense and stacks with strength. It took quite a bit of bashing, but I could get enough strikes around or above 50 to overwhelm its healing factor and pummeled it to the ground without a scratch.

Thus far, none of the armored types, even the Kevlar Hulk, has been able to match my fists one-for-one. The potency of a 10+ unarmed build + the Tiger style accuracy from strength means that the chain stun off of the blows with a ~70 to hit speed is extremely deadly due to the low stamina costs.

If the Hulks are Stage 3, I’d love to have a Stage 4 monster tier be in development for after the first year that can challenge players in the late-game. Cataclysm’s all about facing the odds, getting super close to death, and figuring out tactics to overcome those challenges.

I’m trying to figure out how to conquer this world with the bare basics and no invested skills into anything. Thus far I’m up to mega-rid status and 10s for my Dodge, Melee, and Unarmed (Which was a maaaasssive grind by the by. Levels going into the 10s for anything other than the production cues are really tricky now, love it!)

It’s all about tactics now. Granted, I make an exception and carry a grenade and emp nade just on the off chance I face a scenario I really can’t get out of (Like those gas boomers catching me in a hallway), but thus far I’ve been able to grit my character’s teeth and crawl away from most bloodied scenarios.

Probably going to make a great book at this point since I have the entire run on capture. I’m just hunting for the biggest fish of the Cataclysm to see just how far I can push the true path of Unarmed warfare.

My first cata run was an unarmed run without any skill investments back before DDA with a shotty and an arm cannon, so I’m reliving my nostalgia by conquering the modern Cataclysm with fists and wit.

Hulks can be handled as long as you maneuver the chaff away, have proper armor, pop pain meds beforehand, stim up with normal caffeine and drugs as needed, and have your escape route properly cleared of chaff when you need to retreat for a healing week back at the stash point.

Gasoline boomers can be countered with proper fireman equipment if spotted ahead of time, and I carry basic fire protections after my first encounter to be safe since I find one to three per city.

Zappers can be countered with proper chain gear, or you can soak up a certain amount of damage through pure grit as long as you don’t mind spending the rest of the day calming down the pain scale you’ll eat for it. 25 speed is still 25 speed, or around 4 enemy strikes per one of yours. At that rate, I’ve found I can handle 3-4 shockers before my character’s life is at risk in my Chitin Warsuit.

Hordes of zombies still require some tact, but having stims in your system ahead of time, keeping the retreat path clear, and chaining slow-tiles with proper use of your character’s sprint and stamina will do the trick just fine. I’ve handled scenarios with 30-40 zombies a few times and suffered only moderate (100-120 points) health loss depending on the composition of the cluster.

The Cataclysm evolves as much as we evolve to tame it. I’m looking for the next advancement~

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Robots: C.Walker is easy if you engage him in close quarters and have protection from tasers. To fight Tank drone you probably need heavy power armor, and start fight close enough so it wont use its AP rockets. Even then 90 bash armor might be inpenetrable for fists. I know it was possible to melee it with fists before stammina rebalance and martial ars rebalance with just 8/8/8/8 character (upped to 17/17/17/17 with alpha mutations, bionics, and then even more with every possible drug) using some kind of kung-fu that increased your damage with every hit on the same target.
Other honorable mentions in robot category.
Tripod - high skill, good slashing damage, deadly flamethrowers, use survivor firesuit or RM13 armor.
Prototype robot - fast, ok skill and fancy moves
Mininuke hack - easy to defeat with just more skill than 5 in melee, but deadly if something goes wrong.
All the robots from National guard camp - sniper ones can do little damage through H.P.A., and ones with flamethrowers or granadelaunchers start a lot of flames that can cook you allive through that armor too.

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I got the latter from a corner camp and chaining combat stuns with full stims. This was a prepared third encounter after slinking away from two failed attempts. Both were also fully stimmed, and I needed to go to another city to get more combat stims (adr+) to make the third attempt.

With the tiger stance and knuckles plus my strength, I had enough power behind my blow to get damage in, landed the first strike critical, and finished it off with serious effort. Granted, I still got beaten to the point where damage was close to critical, but I finished that engagement without broken limbs and time to spare on the Adr’s pain suppression.

Thereafter, it was a rare moment seeing 303 pain as I had bleeding effect pouring from all 6 regions and I had my first instance of Chitin armor being flat out destroyed from fresh.

I carried an EMP nade from that encounter onwards~

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Oh, and dont forget the Wraith. Probably not as deadly as Tanks or shoggoths, but might still be a chellenge when faced in dark, with all the shadows it spawns and its regeneration. And i thing shadows drain your life through armor if you hit them.

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Interesting, I’ve yet to encounter one of these. What’s it’s evolution tier if it’s a zombie (ie tough, brute, hulk for 1-2-3), or where is it found if it’s an invader/defender?

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Wraith can be only found in forest houses that arent visible on the map. Its super rare to find it randomly, but if you get the coultists mission chain from starting or wandering NPC, then its more reliable way to finding one.

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Ah, so it’s a unique spawn. I’ll have to add hunting it to my list.

Sounds like i’ll need to prepare proper light methods for this hunt. A creature that spawns a large number of minions itself is tricky for the Unarmed build, but one that drains hp from melee strikes sounds like a true challenge.

Hopefully there are other terrifying creatures that break the Tier 3 mold of Hulk Smash into truly game-ending potency. I’m looking forward to what the most avid adventurers have encountered~

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I dunno, I have found one when I was investigating megamall. it was about 1 overmap tile away from mall borders. Didn’t see any houses/cabins nearby. Also, didn’t have cultist mission chain, whatever that is.

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ME! HAhahaha!!! Just kidding… a moose. Alright, alright, I’ll stop with the memes.

Seriously though, there comes a point where the player becomes the boogeyman of the cataclysm. If you’re looking for something that’s not the player then maybe try the tendril tower. Seems to give players who don’t use fungicide in survivor level armour a tough time with its armor penetration and easy shredding of gear, unless I’m just supremely unlucky with them. To be honest, base cataclysm doesn’t give much of a challenge.

If you’re not squemish of mods then magiclysm will introduce you to the demon spider queen. There’s another mod that adds a good amount of overpowered super soldier zombies and bioweapon types(Of which one is a particularly difficult boss) that often spawn in groups as if they all died at the same time to some other eldritch monstrosity that managed to bring them down, I think it’s either Aftershock or CRT Expansion.

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Gotta be base game. My veins run pure red, spiced with mutagen. I haven’t tackled a tower since way back in either .B or .C, and it wasn’t with my fists. I’ll have to consider hunting one down to assert dominance over the FILTHY invader.

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Obligatory mycus reference?

I don’t know where zombie grenadiers rate if we’re talking Chicken Walkers, Beagles, or Heavy Turret caliber foes; but I definitely wouldn’t want to go after one with my fists. Pretty weak with enough range, mind.

15

Definitely Kevin. Definitely.

3 Likes
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If you can take a chicken walker you can probably handle the worst of the mi-gos, amigara horrors are probably the only thing I can think of that might cause you an issue. If you can kill those too you basically killed everything of note.

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What about those hounds that come out of a smokey rift, get them yet?

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Yeah amigara horrors are probably the most dangerous enemy in the entire game. Barring the ancient red dragon of course, that thing is a fuckin nightmare

1 Like
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yourself full of confidence, recently im trying a melee char instead of a ranged one, had good armor for attacking normal zombies, anyway, almost got ganged up from fighting like 8 normal zombies because i forgot to manage stamina, a thing that in ranged is hell easier even if you are fighting 10+ mobs

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Stamina management is something you really, really have to pay attention to in melee. Unarmed takes less than having to swing something around, but you still can get drained after half a dozen zombies if you don’t balance your energies properly. It’s why I combat stim when I need to face something more than 15-20 Zombies of any type. Normally just normal stimulants unless I encounter something big, at which point the meth, crack, coke, heroin, and adrenaline come out in order to get me through it. I pay a price to my health stat whenever I go into these big fights, but it’s a trade out for being able to -survive- the engagement. I can afford to recover for two-odd weeks as long as I deal with the threat to my actual survival. I can always forage for food if I get desperate and always keep enough non-perishables for winter.

You have to consider a lot of factors if you’re going to go up against the beasts of the cataclysm. I started packing an EMP for the Incandescents after I almost died to a second one showing up. Now I activate it, sprint towards my target, and let it go off on my person to save the action of throwing it. etc.

It’s a whole other play style when you don’t rely on a multitude of tools. I made an exception for one nade and one EMP for Gassers and Shockers respectively.