Need advice for Salazar fight

[Nightwitch]

Hey guys. I play on hardcore and this fight really gave me trouble. More specifically, Salazar´s second phase.
I'm done with the fight though. I killed him with a golden egg and while it was hilarious I'm not satisfied because it was too easy that way.
Let's put it this way, my ego is hurt now. :D

That's why I want to repeat the fight again, this time without eggs but normal.

Unfortunately, my gaming reflexes aren't as good as they were a few years ago, so Salazar's second phase is giving me quite a hard time. I can't dodge his attacks in this phase. It eats all of my healing (unless it kills me instantly) and ammo and I end up with nothing.
I definitely don't want to change the difficulty because hardcore is 99,9 % the perfect difficulty for me, standard I find too easy and boring and until this fight I had hardly any problems with hardcore, I even got the cabin on the second try and the water hall and the twin garrador room first try. It was intense and it was fun.
I really don´t want to play standart just because of this one fight, I would be bored in this diffficulty.

So I'm asking you for advice. The first stage is okay, I get him into the second stage pretty easily.
Which weapons work best in the second phase? What is the best way to behave? Where should I go and what can I do to avoid his attacks ? How much ammo do I need for which weapons?

Please help me and my bruised ego, I really want to win this fight in the normal way and not take advantage of poor Salazar's egg allergy. xD

[TyresTyco]

I always use the bolt action rifle for him.. well now one egg but before that.. it was the BAR. I hug the stairs as much as I can and try to keep distance to him. He has some good sound cues where you dont even have to look at him to know what he will do.

He isn't easy to hit with the BAR tho. Would be a nightmare with controller.

Apparently there are some spots where you are safer. Like the area Ramon starts the fight. Just run away from there once he is near.. shoot and repeat goin there.

[UncleRamen]

Aside from the rush bite, "lay eggs" which you highly unlikely can get a shot in, your best bet are to shoot his weak spot after he spits.

There are 3 types of spit you need to recognize the pattern and pre animation. Straight line, horizontal and scatter shot. For straight line, just side step. For horizontal, you can crouch behind a railing. For scatter shot, it's better to hide behind something. There is one overhead vomiting where he moves around. I find that one hard to get a shot in after he finishes as you normally need a roof over your head to dodge that one. He also sometimes follows up the straight line shot with a scatter shot so be alert.

Most of the time, I just rifle his mouth after he spits until he drops on the floor, then you can pump some magnum shots or do the knife prompt if you don't have a well upgraded magnum. He should go down after a while.

[Xengre]

EDIT: Oops I suck with names and got the two bosses names mixed up. My post is about the final boss...

Just keep running I found to be the easiest solution to both phases. He tends to fall behind and jump ahead of you. If he isn't near he isn't attacking as much. This gives you a ton of time to grab healing items scattered all around and he occasionally spawns more healing items quite regularly on hardcore, at least (doing my pro run still so can't confirm that yet).

One thing that helps is you can just use a Magnum or Rifle (no scope for closer range use) that is upgraded if that phase is causing issues. Pop it in the eye and he staggers instantly. Pop the next eye. Rinse and repeat loop.

I'm sure you can get up under him and around him to avoid attacks with some practice but I've not bothered, myself, since the above two points are more than enough unless you are trying to do this with a pistol for minimalist or something.

Also worth mention is you really don't need to kill the bugs. He kills them for you just run from them and reposition regularly. It feels totally pointless that they're even in the fight as adds aside from the free loot they drop.

Personally, if a single fight out of your entire playthrough is bothering you with regards to what difficulty you should play on then I think you should just consider not worrying about that one fight since you can pass it through other means rather than emphasizing a small segment of the entire playthrough. Its not even a good fight.

[UncleRamen]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

I always use the bolt action rifle for him.. well now one egg but before that.. it was the BAR. I hug the stairs as much as I can and try to keep distance to him. He has some good sound cues where you dont even have to look at him to know what he will do.

He isn't easy to hit with the BAR tho. Would be a nightmare with controller.

Apparently there are some spots where you are safer. Like the area Ramon starts the fight. Just run away from there once he is near.. shoot and repeat goin there.

Fellow BAR enjoyer.

[Xengre]

I second the bolt action rifle or the Riot Gun. Just remove scope from the rifle for this boss. You can stay on the first floor if you want to avoid some of its harder to dodge attacks from directly above as I don't think they're tuned correctly (at least one of them is literally instant and total RNG if you get hit and impossible to reliably avoid if you stay on 2nd floor). You can toss grenades in his mouth, too. A magnum obviously works if this particular boss is giving you issues but I think its better saved for final boss since the game gives such a ridiculously small amount of magnum ammo that the final boss will use almost all of it from an entire playthrough's collected magnum ammo unless you craft a bunch. As for the Riot Gun, its dmg is high and it fires fast. This boss actually gets close enough to use it reliably.

[RandomNonamegg]

Stay under the bridge use crossbow with granades on it. 3 hits on open mounth = gg.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by RandomNonamegg:

Stay under the bridge use crossbow with granades on it. 3 hits on open mounth = gg.

It only takes 3 grenade bolts to kill it? On hardcore or professional? If so that seems awfully odd... I wonder if they're hitting the weak point through the body and this is why. If so that is interesting. Could probably just shoot them to roof and wait for it to walk past lol

[Nightwitch]

Originally posted by Xengre:

EDIT: Oops I suck with names and got the two bosses names mixed up. My post is about the final boss...

haha, no problem, I'll have to do this fight too, a few tips in advance are never a bad thing. ;)

[Kitt 🌟 Stargazer]

I just kited him around the map and did short bursts with my Red9 and TMP when he was far away. You can attack him I believe when the mouth isn't open ( it's generally dangerous to attack when it's open, because it usually means he's about to attack himself ). I would stab him, then unload a bunch of shotty shells into his face after the stab since he appears to be stunned briefly before attacking again, get about 4-5 shots in with a not fully upgraded riot shotgun.

You can use terrains to block his attacks, and be careful about hitting his explosive uh... Lumps of flesh he leaves on the map.

[Nightwitch]

Originally posted by RandomNonamegg:

Stay under the bridge use crossbow with granades on it. 3 hits on open mounth = gg.

Really ? Fully upgraded crossbow I assume ?

[ice]

eggs

[Nightwitch]

Originally posted by ice:

eggs

I already did that but as I said, my ego is hurt now :D I am very ambitious and I want to beat him at least once without the help of eggs, they are just too strong against him.

[Nightwitch]

Originally posted by Kitt 🌟 Stargazer:

I just kited him around the map and did short bursts with my Red9 and TMP when he was far away. You can attack him I believe when the mouth isn't open

You think so? I don´t remember exactly if you could do this in the OG, could you?

[Kitt 🌟 Stargazer]

Originally posted by LuanaXo:

Originally posted by Kitt 🌟 Stargazer:

I just kited him around the map and did short bursts with my Red9 and TMP when he was far away. You can attack him I believe when the mouth isn't open

You think so? I don´t remember exactly if you could do this in the OG, could you?

It threw me off at first, but it's far more dangerous to attack him when his mouth is open as his attacks come out rather quick and it's difficult to dodge when your firing weapons or even aiming at him at those times.

It maybe does more damage with his mouth open and he himself is exposed though. But is it worth risking taking a lot of damage for it?

[Xengre]

Oh, another tip for this boss and the final boss. Don't mix your herbs and upgrade them (unless you simply have spare red herbs to blow). Due to the final HP remaining mechanic you will not die and usually heavy hits without body armor will take most of your life, anyways, from them making upgraded healing pointless. Just use your green herbs and spread them out after each hit.