Help with honest hearts giant geckos

[BaconLover]

So I am trying to get through a section of the game involving going through giant green geckos, except that they are near invincible with insta-killing abilities. Med-x and psycho combination along with 10 stimpacks for extreme health regeneration doesn't help me even with mark 2 combat armor and a katana with the authenitc blade. 10 frag mines leaves them at half health but I only have 12 mines. Is there any good way to kill giant green geckos? and only 2 GIANT GREEN GECKOS.

[Arasteele]

Fat mine to the rescue. :)


Okay in all seriousness, I'm wondering a few things.... what level are you at? Playing on hardcore mode or regular mode?

I know exactly what you're saying though, when doing HH's on certain levels those things can be tough. You really then have to trot out the tactics. In a recent playthrough for example I had to backtrack a ways, find my way up to a ledge where I could shoot at them but they couldn't get at me. I then hit them with my grenade launcher, luckily having scrounged a lot of 40mm grenades for it. There were three of them down there, hit them with everything I had and eventually they did go down.

[ZarahNeander]

One word: HP ammo. Well, that's 2 words and depending on your loadout it might not work. Melee/Unarmed is bad, unless you're high level with stuff like ind. hand and such, yes they hit like a truck.
Plan B is stealth boy or running away. Jumping from a cliff is less painful than getting mobbed by 2 of those things.

[OKMB]

Sounds like you're way too underleveled. I'm at around 35 and I have no problem taking down a Gecko with anything in my arsenal. Assault Carbines can and will shred Geckoes, Trail Carbines take em apart, and when in doubt, Anti-Material Rifle em.

[ghpstage]

Like other 0DT targets (and there are a lot of them!), their natural predator is the SMG group. Add HP/JHP rounds for extra killing power.

[BaconLover]

Yeah, mabye I should just stick with Old world blues, I'm a level 20 melee build, and hardcore mode. No anti-matter rifle, just a hunting rifle and a katana with a few frags and plasma grenades.

[ghpstage]

AMR is really overrated, I wouldn't advise using it againstanything other than Deathclaws and and some of the tankir OWB robots.
I've entered all of the DLC at level 1-2 and completed all but Lonesome Road (which I have got to the end of but wanted higher skill before the nuking and final encounter), and of them all Honest Hearts was by far the easiest. Though I did use primarily pistol calibre guns.
On the other hand OWB was a major pain.

Don't underestimate SMGs. They are strong enough that you can use the one from Doc Mitchell's right at the start of the game, repaired once with a WRK and loaded with standard 9mm ammo to blast your way through the Cazadores north of Goodsprings without too much issue, even at level 1.
Giant green geckos are hardier, according to the wiki they have almost twice the health, but I suspect trying the same would be well worth it, especially if you can get a .45 SMG and pop some psycho.

Also, silly question I know, but did you try VATS with your katana?

[BaconLover]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

AMR is really overrated, I wouldn't advise using it againstanything other than Deathclaws and and some of the tankir OWB robots.
I've entered all of the DLC at level 1-2 and completed all but Lonesome Road (which I have got to the end of but wanted higher skill before the nuking and final encounter), and of them all Honest Hearts was by far the easiest. Though I did use primarily pistol calibre guns.
On the other hand OWB was a major pain.

Don't underestimate SMGs. They are strong enough that you can use the one from Doc Mitchell's right at the start of the game, repaired once with a WRK and loaded with standard 9mm ammo to blast your way through the Cazadores north of Goodsprings without too much issue, even at level 1.
Giant green geckos are hardier, according to the wiki they have almost twice the health, but I suspect trying the same would be well worth it, especially if you can get a .45 SMG and pop some psycho.

Also, silly question I know, but did you try VATS with your katana?

No I haven't, not sure if it would make a difference because once they hit you, you get knock backed so far you can't melee hit them, every hit prevents one of my melee hits... mabye melee weapons weren't such a good idea against GGG's
Edit: Also OWB is pretty easy even at level 8 (Which is when I completed it on my first game)

[ghpstage]

OWB wasn't hard per se, it was just grating. It felt ridiculous when trying to start a guns or even energy build there so it kinda forced me down an unarmed/melee route (I went unarmed) and I had to do some grinding before I could take out the bosses on Very Hard.
The difference between a character straight out of Goodsprings and level 8 is... quite considerable.

Interestingly when playing DLC like this Dead Money proved to be considerably easier than usual. A single throwing spear killed most ghost people despite not having tagged melee. Level scaling and restrictive equipment have a big impact.
Lonesome Road was the only one that did provide a challenge, and only in the bunker. Sentry bots at that level are not easy to bring down, not least when they suddenly surround you.

VATS with melee does come with double damage, I can't remember if it'll prevent staggerlock problems too. There will definitely be a solution, even if its to just outright cheese using Turbo.

Melee is one of the most powerful builds, they should be fine against GGGs.

[Arasteele]

Anti-Material rifle isn't overrated at all. It might be overpowered a tad though.

Have you seen what it can do to a deathclaw?? :)

[FedEx Noelle]

If you're having troubles with gecko's you must be a low level.
I had no trouble with Honest Hearts enemies and I was a pretty low level 21 when I went to Zion. Of course, I had power armor and a couple of pretty decent guns.

[Bansheebutt]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

Interestingly when playing DLC like this Dead Money proved to be considerably easier than usual. A single throwing spear killed most ghost people despite not having tagged melee.

Ghost People seem to have fallen for a few design oversights.

There's the infamous 0 Perception glitch, but Ghost People are actually exceptionally easy to kill through any means because all you need to do is cripple their limbs and they'll instantly die.

The so-called "Immortal" Ghost People are in reality one of the most fragile enemies in the game.

[ZarahNeander]

Originally posted by Arasteele:

Anti-Material rifle isn't overrated at all. It might be overpowered a tad though.

Have you seen what it can do to a deathclaw?? :)

AMR is a toy for SC. In HC, the weight of this thing and esp. the ammo weight is prohibitive. And it doesn't have HP ammo. With medicine stick/brush gun/really any gun with high base dmg, as long as 0.75 x base dmg > 3x DT, ypu're better off with HP ammo. For the medicine stick with cowboy perk, that's nearly everything excluding power armor and high end faction guys.

Have you seen, what medicine stick can do to a deathclaw? :)

Originally posted by Conflictions Ⓐ:

If you're having troubles with gecko's you must be a low level.
I had no trouble with Honest Hearts enemies and I was a pretty low level 21 when I went to Zion. Of course, I had power armor and a couple of pretty decent guns.

OP is talking about giant gekos, they are a different calibre than ordinary ones. And lvl 21 is actually pretty high level for my style of play.

[Noone]

haven't met any enemy in DC or Nevada that didn't instantly lose a limb/head vs. a lightsaber

I dont see any point in pretending one is on a console when it's a PC

only thing my character misses is skyrim's vampire lord telekinetic throwing of enemies to simulate a ForcePull and ForcePush, because Wasteland Jedi is fun

[Harry88814]

If you have trouble with Green Geckos, take Animal Friend perk.

[Arasteele]

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

AMR is a toy for SC. In HC, the weight of this thing and esp. the ammo weight is prohibitive. And it doesn't have HP ammo. With medicine stick/brush gun/really any gun with high base dmg, as long as 0.75 x base dmg > 3x DT, ypu're better off with HP ammo. For the medicine stick with cowboy perk, that's nearly everything excluding power armor and high end faction guys.

Have you seen, what medicine stick can do to a deathclaw? :)

HP ammo = very VERY good against those geckos, or any animal really.

But you're not quite being fair with your assessment of the AM rifle. Simply take the Weapon Handling perk for weight, for example, dropping it's ST requirements. Mod it for half weight, because there's a mod for that. The rifle then becomes highly usable for weaker-ST players. I've used it with as little as 6 Strength. Massively powered, highly accurate weapon.

As for ammo, nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the anti-mat with explosive ammo at range. You can literally take out or otherwise blow apart a whole herd of deathclaws, geckos, cazadores, nightstalkers, fiends, basically any group coming your way, with just a few shots. It knocks down whole groups of enemies as well. It transforms the AM into a veritable tank cannon, something no other rifle in the game can boast. Now how can that not be fun?

In place of HP rounds just use incendiary. With the AM rifle these rounds are actually more effective than HP rounds due to the lasting incendiary effect (look it up).

Or you can use hand-load match ammo instead of AP, which do 24 more damage per round. The .50mg AP round is still quite devastating to armored targets though, as it negates a whopping 15 DT.

I think that you guys who are negative towards the anti-mat just haven't fully tried using it correctly to it's full advantage, because if you had you wouldn't be on here nay-saying it.

However I'll admit this though... after using it for several playthroughs over the years I've come to put it aside and use other weapons, as it can very much make your game too easy. Because when fully developed, and the player having a high gun skill, it just mows down everything it hits. The sound suppressor really doesn't offer much in the way of stealth for the anti-mat either. Thus I've been on a Christine's COS rifle kick lately.