Anyone else struggle with cauldrons?

[mbp]

In almost every other area of the game stealth rules supreme but in a cauldron you are locked in to a small arena with some of the toughest monsters in the game with nowhere to hide and no where to run.

[Seamus]

Gotta take advantage of things like trip wires and freeze weapons when you can't hide.

[Hyperion]

Yeah I had to look up a damn tutorial in my first playthrough to take down that dumb Thunderjaw cauldron and even then it took me like 2-3 tries.

I'm playing on Hard fyi.

[Cornbreadwebb]

Use the breaker arrows that knock parts off and use the enemies own gun against them, also get the sling and start lobbing explosives at everything. I literally beat every cauldron like this. Just ideas

[UncivilS3rvant]

Originally posted by cornbreadwebb:

Use the breaker arrows that knock parts off and use the enemies own gun against them, also get the sling and start lobbing explosives at everything. I literally beat every cauldron like this. Just ideas

I really do need to learn how to use the sling, I was so pants at using the aim indicator that I sacked it off as soon as I got a ropecaster after barely using it...

[seven_legs]

the ropecaster i find is good to use and the tearblast weapon.

[ErzPaladin]

Originally posted by UncivilS3rvant:

Originally posted by cornbreadwebb:

Use the breaker arrows that knock parts off and use the enemies own gun against them, also get the sling and start lobbing explosives at everything. I literally beat every cauldron like this. Just ideas

I really do need to learn how to use the sling, I was so pants at using the aim indicator that I sacked it off as soon as I got a ropecaster after barely using it...

the sling is pretty nice when you're using its arc trajectory hidden out of cover. That makes it harder for machines to detect you. The higher your stealth-value, the better. A little bit repositioning from cover to another cover helps a lot, too.

[UncivilS3rvant]

Originally posted by ErzPaladin:

the sling is pretty nice when you're using its arc trajectory hidden out of cover. That makes it harder for machines to detect you. The higher your stealth-value, the better. A little bit repositioning from cover to another cover helps a lot, too.

OK, probably going to need to interchange the sling on a regular basis with the ropecaster then as I use two bows and the tripcaster all the time...

[LK]

A cheese strat I use on UH (but works on any diificulty) is ropecaster, freeze them, and triple shot spam with concentration. If they're not weak to being frozen, use sticky bombs. It's a bit more work on Frozen Wilds but still works. Bad thing about this is that gameplay becomes boring since every machine is easily killed with this strat. Only the fireclaws are kinda fun to fight since they are the only machine that is a bit resistant to this strat, but still works nonetheless

[LK]

On smaller machines, you only need ropecaster and your spear since you can tie a machine down, then just critical hit them with your spear till they die. You can get 2 critical hits per tie down.

[CSharpDude]

The confined space does make the harder cauldrons a challenge. I used Tripcaster bombs and did a lot of dodging with the usual strategy of removing components. And I turned the disc launcher on it after I removed it. Fun fight.

[Sachith Perera]

They are meant to be challenging by being different to regular combat situations, just like hunting trials. They force you to be tactical about the machines you fight rather than arrow or bomb spamming.
For example, in cauldron Rho, you can lay a lot of blaze tripwires and traps to deal massive damage to the ravager that joins the fight. Or you can ropecast the snapmaw and shoot its freeze sac when ravager gets near, freezing both.Or you could tear off its cannon and quickly dispatch both machines.
If you like stealth, I think you'd love cauldron Xi and loathe Epsilon.

[CSharpDude]

Originally posted by Sachith Perera:

They are meant to be challenging by being different to regular combat situations, just like hunting trials. They force you to be tactical about the machines you fight rather than arrow or bomb spamming.
...
If you like stealth, I think you'd love cauldron Xi and loathe Epsilon.

Good points and something I like about HZD. there are different tactics for different enemies and situations. And there are several ways to accomplish the same thing depending on your play style and preferences.

[mbp]

Thanks for all the responses. I guess my post was inspired by the fact that I stumbled across the thunderjaw before i had completed the other cauldrons so I was quite unprepared for it. I went back when I was better geared and had a bit more experience with combat and got it down second time around. I didn't do anything fancy with traps or bombs. I just peppered it with tear arrows to remove anything that could be removed and then rolled around like a lunactic while aiming for weakspots with damage arrows. Took a while but eventually it went down.

[evil tomatoes]

Originally posted by mbp:

Thanks for all the responses. I guess my post was inspired by the fact that I stumbled across the thunderjaw before i had completed the other cauldrons so I was quite unprepared for it. I went back when I was better geared and had a bit more experience with combat and got it down second time around. I didn't do anything fancy with traps or bombs. I just peppered it with tear arrows to remove anything that could be removed and then rolled around like a lunactic while aiming for weakspots with damage arrows. Took a while but eventually it went down.

ended up doing this when i played it on the ps4 too. i tend to explore the map when given access to it before moving the story and, well, curiosity killed the cat. lol fun stuff.

for big ones, i go with ropecaster, ice, sticky and it's over after a few repeats. as LianK pointed out it can kill anything in the game so it can get boring.