Overpowered Creatures

[Grasshopper]

How do I deal with overpowered creatures like crawlers and azuridae goliaths? Crawlers poison you, then hide on the ceiling until you're paralyzed, so you can't even fight back. Goliaths completely shut down psion characters with psi inhibition, often resist stuns, have a lot of hp, and plenty of offensive and defensive psionic skills.

Not to mention groups of people like iron heads and Lunatics that gang up on you. I've been trying to get a goliath carapace for better armor to... well, survive. But the goliaths are uncommon, surrounded by crawlers, and difficult to deal with themselves (I'm a psion character, looking to upgrade from my regular azuridae carapace armor).

Tl;dr: I'm struggling to fight the creatures and groups I find myself up against, and I don't know what to do.

[Tamiore]

Short answer:
vs beetles you rely on sheer DPS combined with CC and blocking line of sight to avoid retaliation
for crawlers there are several topics already, use search function

[Qiox]

Crawlers don't hide on the ceiling, they just hide like any other thing using stealth. You can reveal them by: bumping into them, lighting them on fire (incendiary grenade) or with a flare. Assuming you don't have enough Detection to spot them. When they go into stealth they move the nearest spot that breaks line of sight with you. So check around the closest corners.

If you suspect an area has Crawlers, or know it does, pop a Morphine shot before the fight starts. This greatly reduces the amount of damage you will take. And with a high enough physical threshold armor, they actual can't even poison you because they do zero damage when hitting you.

If you find you can't do any of this, or even if you spot them, you can't kill them before you the stun kicks in from the poison, you are likely too low level to be taking them on.


For Goliaths that have no crawlers around, take the train to Rail Crossing. At the North end of the platform is a zone transition into a caves area that can be difficult to spot because the rock overhang completely blocks all the red tiles you would normally see. Just mouse over it and you will see it.

Two zones North along the water is a spot with a mix of Goliaths and normal beetles. And more further north. Going East from those areas will hit a couple spots with Crawlers, but you can actually circle around North of them to completely avoid those crawler zones if wanting to explore that area more or get to a few quest locations found over that way.

[destroyor]

In addition, as a psion you can pre-buff yourself w/ Cryo-Shield + Pseudo-spatial Projection before starting a fight against crawlers and death stalkers.

Very generally speaking, as a psion you should stealth scout an area before starting any battle. You have lots of options starting your alpha strike (your full turn of action before any of your enemies gets a turn):

Against organics:
Target an enemy close to the center w/ relatively high health w/ Thermodynamic Destabilization -> high grade grenade -> Telekinetic Proxy -> Telekinetic Punch -> flashbang any survivors

Locus of control -> enrage -> do whatever

Locus of control -> Bilocation -> force field to protect yourself/enter stasis

If Psionic Mania -> Cryokinetic Orb, done properly battle over.

Against robot -> high grade EMP grenade -> plasma/HE grenade -> Electrokinesis


At very low level another tactic would be kiting enemy w/ Cryokinesis at extreme range while always running away + delay enemy using flash bang + block enemy pathway to you using incendiary grenade.

[happybjorn]

Locus of Control also makes you immune to thought control powers (and some other stuff) while active. If you are playing as psi, then you can spend a couple turns immune to most of what the big beetles try to do to you (they always try to projection and psi interrupt as their first two actions, so it's always useful for one turn).

Then AoE whatever them on the turn it's gonna wear off.

[peet]

"goliaths are uncommon"
so you playing psi on normal and have troubles? -_-
you can use psi inhibition too + locus of control = a MASS psi inhibition
aggro psi beetles, stasis on self then explode whole bunch of them with thermal distabilisation
hide behind force field, use electro trap etc.
options are numerious

against crawlers use AoE and electro trap

[Morgian]

My non-psionic solution (and psi is very good in Underrail as you just attested :) ) with my current build is pretty much as described: I steath close, see how things stand and then alpha strike all that moves.
I am using energy pistols as main weapon, and grenades as secondary. My crafting allows me to make type IV grenades and solid energy shields besides laser guns. I built myself a set of laser/plasma/electro, leaving one out depending on area, which works well.
I check out the beetles, then I wait until they are close enough for a grenade - the goliaths, I don't care that much about the azuridae. Then I can laser the survivors, relying on Ambush and Aimed Shot. I get about 440 out of a laser crit atm, and the same from the electro gun, although that one can be suicidal. If I am sure I'll get the Ambush effect, I just go for four laser attacks to take the goliaths out.

Crawlers are nasty, but mostly a nuisance. Their bigger cousins are more dangerous, but work the same. As described above, they just hide and move very fast and far around the closest corner. A crawler zone is usually dark and has red dream mushrooms in it. You can cheat a little to clear the area: prepare some traps at the entrance and then toss a grenade nearby. The sound makes them come to investigate, they will spot you and try to sting. Next you have a crawler in a bear trap and just shoot him down. Some zones have lots in them, so a double or triple row might be advisable. One of the caves south of Dude's home has like 8-10 in it, including death crawlers.

Traps are just the safest way. You can also toss a flare, grenade or psi fireball where you suspect them to be - around the nearest corner. If you hit him, he is revealed.

If you can afford the weight, you can carry a heavy armor set around and switch to it in crawler areas (and other places, too). If they deal no physical damage, you won't get poisoned, turning them in just a nuisance.That trick requires pretty good armor, but besides crafting it, there are several good ones available for sale at random. Just find a set that has a solid physical protection and a large bonus against melee attacks.

[Varyn [GER]]

As I'm having telekinesis 45 with pretty much all my characters, I really like placing a a electrokinetic imprint trap and then wait behind it for a crawler to get stunned. I really need a /wave command ;o)
If you have stasis you can also cast it on yourself while all crawlers come to pointlessly poke you. When stasis ends you back up, throw a grenade and thats it =)

If you have trouble with groups you have several options (greatly varying on your build). Here some wild approach ideas greatly depening on the enemies/situation/battlefield you know:
1. Chokepointing
Place a bear trap in front of a door and pull the enemies while you break line of sight. One round after the trap activates you can throw your biggest grenade behind the door, because all enemies are gathered there - been blocked by the rooted guy. Keep in mind that enemies use a different path (if possible) if one is blocked. You can even use that to your advantage if, for example, you don't lockpick/hack a door you might want to stay closed for the battle.
With some telekinesis you don't even need a grenade - you just need a 1 tile chokepoint - have always one guy blocking the chokepoint either via electrokinetic imprint, taser (or even throwing nets) or a force field (when everything else is on cooldown). Never shoot the stunned/blocking guy unless he left the stun. In your turn: get into line of sight, shoot, stun, break line of sight, repeat until all are dead.
2. Grenades grenades grenades.
Either for damage against groups or for crowd control. Don't misjudge explosive grenades because their early variants become weak pretty fast - buy a few better HE grenades at a shop for sticky situations. They might seem to cost a lot - but if you calculate the cost of your ammunition/meds etc you would otherwise need, then they're pretty cheap. A molotov can set enemies on fire, making them panic; the fire on the ground zones enemies - forcing them to take another path. They are also really great for the ambush feat - throw a moli and ambush-crit everything. Flashbangs - pretty self-explanory. A fight is easy when most enemies don't fight ;o)
3. Run and gun.
Always try to end your turn behind a corner - forcing the enemies to spend most of their AP for movement.
4. Kill and retreat
Also really good whith 45 telekinesis: Kill a few enemies and block their path at the end of your turn with a force field. Then run and run, maybe place a electrokinetic imprint in a door on your way. Stealth, keep running, end battle, keep running. let enemies search for you and either blow them up with a grenade when they're gathered at your last known position or let them return to their normal position and start your next engage.
5. Silent killer
When an enemy doesn't see or hear you or your victim: he doesn't care ...because he doesnt know ;o) Use that to your advantage to kill a patroling guard/dog while they're out of sight of their mates. You can even kill small groups stealthy: kill one or two, stun the third. Kill the third in the next round. No one could ever call for help. Just keep your noise in mind: grenades are loud, taser is silent. Enemies run to noise they hear - when you can retreat fast enough unseen you can often stealth away. With a crossbow build you can easily kill groups stealthy in one/two round without them make any sound.
addional: every build can use bear traps. Bear traps don't start battles. You see a patrol always stopping in that one corner there? place a bear trap every time he's out of sight. Takes some time, but does help if nothing else works. Keep in mind that some enemies can see and disarm traps... although i never had a patrol disarm one. But patrols can see your traps from time to time and dont walk over it... BUT that's just their pathfinding - the spot where they stop and wait is always the same and they will always walk onto that tile, even if there's a trap. The whole process can be sped up with caltrops on top.


Also set priorities depending on your weaknesses: Psionics and Crossbow users are usually top priority. Directly next i would say snipers when your shield isn't strong enough an melees if you can't keep them away with crowd control (stun, slow, zoning etc)

[Zilenan]

For psi bugs, they're pretty weak to melee and grenades. They have very little dodge and evasion so if you can take them down with some kind of utility like molotovs or one-shot them with frag grenades, you'll really hurt their buffs. Melee is mostly good against them due to lack of dodge and because they always retreat a little bit every time you get too close to them which usually means they'll use up enough AP to use one less psi power on you. This is 60 or more less damage per turn for Goliaths.

For goliaths, you mostly want to run into melee against them. You basically can't kill these things with guns because of the hit chance debuffs they throw onto you, so if you're going pure ranged you need to hide around corners and spam it with grenades, preferrably molotovs to make them run away. Bear Traps will be your friend if you can't just rush it with melee because they will get stuck and you can just blow them up with grenades.

Crawlers are a bruh moment and if you're wearing something like Riot Armor, it can be very very hard for them to kill you due to your damage threshold. They tend to sting and then immediately climb onto the ceiling and teleport away, so a possible tactic you could use against them is to use feats like Sweep/Dirty Kick to either stun them or remove their evasion + dodge which then lets you pile in damage.

Another good thing against both of these things is bear traps. The bear traps will completely remove their evasion + dodge and this is especially good against Crawlers as they lose their escape abilities. If you know there's a crawler in the map and don't want to inch up with bear traps to kill them, what you can do is surround yourself in bear traps and then throw an explosive grenade somewhere in line of sight of you so that it will attract the Crawler, which will then see you, beeline to you, and get stuck in the bear trap and open to you killing it.