How much of a difference does wolf tail actually make?

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

I've been preparing for my s+ professional run for the cat ears and I've started wondering how useful certain cosmetics actually are. The wolf's tail for example which I just finished a assisted s+ for I've read someone say that they literally can't tell the difference between leon kicking with or without it.

I know from another that at least to me the wolf tail is better then the antlers because while the tail boosts all melee including grabs with the knife attack the antlers only boost active knife jabs. I was considering getting the chicken hat next but at the same time I'm starting to wonder if the tail would be better for the straight up killing power?

[76561198177043055]

Wolf Tail - +50% to Physical Damage, Prompt Knife Attacks, and Grab Knife Attacks
Deer Antlers - +50% to Normal Slash and Knife Stab
Chicken Hat - 30% Damage Reduction

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by Diego Umejuarez:

Wolf Tail - +50% to Physical Damage, Prompt Knife Attacks, and Grab Knife Attacks
Deer Antlers - +50% to Normal Slash and Knife Stab
Chicken Hat - 30% Damage Reduction

I know the raw stats but what I'm asking is if anyone who's actually used the cosmetic can feel the difference with it? Like does the tail actually helps in a professional run with the increased health pools.

[Soren]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Originally posted by Diego Umejuarez:

Wolf Tail - +50% to Physical Damage, Prompt Knife Attacks, and Grab Knife Attacks
Deer Antlers - +50% to Normal Slash and Knife Stab
Chicken Hat - 30% Damage Reduction

I know the raw stats but what I'm asking is if anyone who's actually used the cosmetic can feel the difference with it? Like does the tail actually helps in a professional run with the increased health pools.

It would largely depend on which gun you're using and which point of the game you're in, with what upgrades the gun has on it for whether that 50% physical damage helps you or not in saving a bullet. That is so subjective of an experience it'd be hard to contrast it with another experience.

Personally, I used none of the cosmetics for my run and didn't have a problem. If I were you, I'd say the chicken hat is the most recommended for the pro S+ run. Guaranteed to be useful because receiving damage is going to happen. Wolf Tail would take second place imo.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by Soren:

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

I know the raw stats but what I'm asking is if anyone who's actually used the cosmetic can feel the difference with it? Like does the tail actually helps in a professional run with the increased health pools.

It would largely depend on which gun you're using and which point of the game you're in, with what upgrades the gun has on it for whether that 50% physical damage helps you or not in saving a bullet. That is so subjective of an experience it'd be hard to contrast it with another experience.

Personally, I used none of the cosmetics for my run and didn't have a problem. If I were you, I'd say the chicken hat is the most recommended for the pro S+ run. Guaranteed to be useful because receiving damage is going to happen. Wolf Tail would take second place imo.

Yeah your probably right, guess Ill get my hardcore run started, interestingly enough I used the tail on the village fight and I noticed that backstabbing salvador did a TON of damage and he only needed like 2 more shotgun shells to kill him after.

[Soren]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Yeah your probably right, guess Ill get my hardcore run started, interestingly enough I used the tail on the village fight and I noticed that backstabbing salvador did a TON of damage and he only needed like 2 more shotgun shells to kill him after.

Yeah, knife stabs against Dr. Salvador already have super high base damage. 50% on that is kind of clutch I guess. And the outfit can always be swapped off after the village fight.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Originally posted by Diego Umejuarez:

Wolf Tail - +50% to Physical Damage, Prompt Knife Attacks, and Grab Knife Attacks
Deer Antlers - +50% to Normal Slash and Knife Stab
Chicken Hat - 30% Damage Reduction

I know the raw stats but what I'm asking is if anyone who's actually used the cosmetic can feel the difference with it? Like does the tail actually helps in a professional run with the increased health pools.

You wont see the difference, at least not for knife related usage.

Primal Knife has 1.2 attack at max upgrade. A 50% boost still makes it weaker than any pistol in the game firing a single bullet at max pistol upgrades. Consider that perspective.

The wolf tail for melee grapples/kicks can be relevant, but knife ones... not a chance. Irrelevant. Knife prompts are useless for bosses because guns far exceed them for hurting weak points. Knife prompts on bosses only help extend a flailing animation so you can... shoot even more (ex. Ramon shoot > knife prompt before it ends > gives more time to shoot additional bullets while it flails). Knife attacks on trash mobs are a 1-shot except special mobs which will take poor dmg aside from the first chainsaw encounter in the game and arguably that first bullet (but ladder more effective tool there) and beyond that lol not worth it.

Chicken hat I've never used. If you plan to stay at minimal HP and abuse the 1-hit mechanic it should be void value. If in pro the 30% might not be enough to matter anyways, esp with the safety mechanic. However, until you have cat ears its potentially the best hat aside from wolf tail for melee attacks as Gas Mask is bugged and doesn't provide any aiming like assisted mode does.

[KRON]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Gas Mask is bugged and doesn't provide any aiming like assisted mode does.

It did for me. I just had to enable aim assist in the menu, since it turnes off by default if you start on the pro difficulty.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

I know the raw stats but what I'm asking is if anyone who's actually used the cosmetic can feel the difference with it? Like does the tail actually helps in a professional run with the increased health pools.

You wont see the difference, at least not for knife related usage.

Primal Knife has 1.2 attack at max upgrade. A 50% boost still makes it weaker than any pistol in the game firing a single bullet at max pistol upgrades. Consider that perspective.

The wolf tail for melee grapples/kicks can be relevant, but knife ones... not a chance. Irrelevant. Knife prompts are useless for bosses because guns far exceed them for hurting weak points. Knife prompts on bosses only help extend a flailing animation so you can... shoot even more (ex. Ramon shoot > knife prompt before it ends > gives more time to shoot additional bullets while it flails). Knife attacks on trash mobs are a 1-shot except special mobs which will take poor dmg aside from the first chainsaw encounter in the game and arguably that first bullet (but ladder more effective tool there) and beyond that lol not worth it.

Chicken hat I've never used. If you plan to stay at minimal HP and abuse the 1-hit mechanic it should be void value. If in pro the 30% might not be enough to matter anyways, esp with the safety mechanic. However, until you have cat ears its potentially the best hat aside from wolf tail for melee attacks as Gas Mask is bugged and doesn't provide any aiming like assisted mode does.

Alright, something else I noticed doing a test run of the village is that the pistol staggers WAY less on professional, I didn't realize this would be the case and makes melee much less of a priority now that I see that.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by KRON:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Gas Mask is bugged and doesn't provide any aiming like assisted mode does.

It did for me. I just had to enable aim assist in the menu, since it turnes off by default if you start on the pro difficulty.

Ohhhhh so that is what is happening. Thanks for that. I wont try it to confirm as I actually hate the aim assist but now I can at least give correct info since this clarifies I was wrong about gas mask.

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

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Alright, something else I noticed doing a test run of the village is that the pistol staggers WAY less on professional, I didn't realize this would be the case and makes melee much less of a priority now that I see that.

Are you using Red 9 in that run by chance? Reason I ask is because of its fire rate. Despite its higher dmg per shot its suspected that DPS is more important within a very short window for prompting stagger (thus 2-3 shots back to back) rather than high dmg per shot and the Red 9 simply has too slow of a fire rate to reliably pull it off as much as the other pistols. It isn't confirmed as far as I know but its been my experience (explains why the TMP is so good at staggering special mobs for instance) and some other people "feel" (for what its worth) it appears to be the same for them. Likely dmg does play some type of role, too, but not a simple more dmg = better as said.

Also if you haven't tried it try shooting enemies in their knee. It tends to make them kneel for a melee attack or even turn around and kneel for a suplex.

[Nightwitch]

If you try to get the cat ears as easy as possible go for
- Ashley armor
- Chicago Sweeper
- Chicken Hat

Complete all merchant requests in the village to get enough spinells for the exclusive for the sweeper, unlimited ammo, at the start of the castle. From that point, it´s easy, the sweeper´s staggering is so good, you don´t need melee anymore, you just can mow everything down.
And grenades are your best friends for some sections.