Dr. Larson?

[XYX]

I mean really? This game was a 10/10 for me until Mr. Larson came along. Does this seem like balanced dificulty progression or a large spike in difficulty?

Does anyone have any suggestions to overcome this encounter (and possibly others) other than grinding for experience and hoping I dont go broke in the process?

[Victor]

Simple: use a grenade to take him out quickly (use pipe bombs if you can't afford the nades).

[Butchinger]

You can also try using precicion strikes. First his arms to lower his chance to hit and then his body/head. Also put your party in crouch position at the door, while only one party member starts the conversation (he/she will probably go down). Thats what i did and it worked after the third or forth attempt. Good luck!

[XYX]

Thanks for the input. I have tried everything but the grenade. I guess I could use some armour too. The problem is I have no money for either. This game is unforgiving compared to the 'hand holding' newer games these days. I have been coddled way too much of late..

[Equinsu ocha]

think of it as a blessing as most games basically hand you the win. Challenge yourself.

[red255]

*clicks*

oh the boss-ish of the Ag center. you got 4 rangers, Rose and angela right? Minimum?

theres 6 of you and one of him. whats the issue? just kill him.
he;s got 200 HPS. and a reasonably quick gun that jams frequently enough
with garbage penetration.

seriously if his gun jams on the first shot its probably over. if it jams in the first few shots even.

just kill him.

as for money, I'd suggest hunting raiders on the world map. there are plenty of locations with raiders. after you get access to the ranger HQ you can turn in broken weapon parts for scrap. money becomes less of an issue.

What difficulty are you playing on? I didn't really have an issue.

'course I might prefer Highpool because Walking Cloud is better companion than Rose is.

But you got 6 dudes. you need to do what 35 damage per dude? its not that big a deal.

unless you built a terrible team.

[wizard_of_wor]

I wanted to be clever and shot first like Han Solo without any prior interaction and then had Angela ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and moaning for shooting at civilians lol

[Zaris]

Yes Larson is a bit unbalanced (shooting about 1 million times in his turn^^) but like the others said, you have at least 6 people and he should go down in one round and if one of your people goes down just revive him. On normal difficulty you have about 200+ medi kits and 50 revive kits at the end of the game just from normal loot.

[LurkerintheVoid]

I have been playing through on Ranger (Hard) on my first playthrough and have noticed some spikes in difficulty with a few tough fights. I know now I haven't built the best party but mine is pretty decent and I've made some early weapon changes that helped recover.

One problem I've noticed is the random loot and it being tiered based on level. Throughout the Ag center had virtually no upgrades to guns except for multiple sniper rifle upgrades. It got much easier after I bought out the random weapon merchant to upgrade my party.

Some basic advice to see if your party is built decently.
-Combat initiative is important, perhaps more so then action points. High CI gives more turns so with it to low enemies may have multiple turns to your one.
-Don't overdo skills on your rangers. If you gives them 1 skill/skill point per level you should be able to max out skills around level 35 with use of books, shrines, and trinkets.
-Choose good weapons. Assault Rifles are amazing, I have 2 in my party. Having a sniper is great too. Pistols have good perk support and seem to work well for precise strikes. Melee (any) can be good to help when enemies close on your party. Energy weapons seem sub par but can shine in a few places. I'm not a fan of heavy weapons (ammo hogs, no mods), smgs (no precise strike, low armor pen), or shotguns (low armor pen, can hit your party).
-As someone said before, break down old weapons. It will give mods (if you have weaponsmithing) and weapon parts. Parts are sold for good money when you reach Ranger HQ and the mods just make all your weapons better. They can be taken out again so don't be afraid to use them on weapons that may be upgraded later.

I hope that helps.

[XYX]

It does. Thank you.

[red255]

If you are willing to rebuild your squad and start the game over than sure I can give you build advice.

I just built a quick squad its pretty simple. 3 guys same stats 2 assault rifles 1 sniper, and 1 leader. who's weapon type is moot. he's just a leader, I use him as a medic.

Started up the game. Did 3 points in assault rifle (or sniper) and 1 point in blades.

probably should have done 3 points but its moot.

stat wise (I really should write this down) I'll give it to you in a bit.
2/1/4/6/4/10/1 with Brittle bones. Take Tinkerer and they'll have 12 AP. 11 Initiative.

Everyone has 10 INT. the Leader had 7 Charisma. also the leader uses brawling.

Had a guy with demolitions who starts with a stick of dynamite. found a mauler before leaving ranger citadel, 125 damage right there to use on the boss I guess.

PIcked up Angela. dug up the holes the chest in the locked area in the back had the mauler.

Went on my Wasteland adventurer met a trader, she had good guns which cost 500 so you can't afford them. probably should pick up some ammo but I'm cheap I use blades. I start carving up the raiders. on Seasoned they got 10-15 HP. They carry makeshift machete's and a pistol. the machetes are much better than your starting knives. take em break down your starting knives to make grip tape. ideally for Angela. their weapons sell for around 40.

Then over to the left corner there theres a shrine, it gives XP enough to make level 2. and some higher level raiders 26-39 HP on seasoned. they carry slightly better weapons too. the melee weapon does one more damage over the machete that does one more damage over the knife. with grip tape its 2 AP to use and strikes diagonally. With 3 points in bladed and 10 points in leadership its +63% chance to hit. it serves a use for killing trash and using your secondary. if someone crouches you typically have 100% chance to melee them.

and it doesn't use ammo.

So anyways I wander thru here and pick up 2 makeshift machete and the bigger makeshift cleaver thats like 13-16 damage and 2 AP. I kill and shrine until level 4 really. I also got one of each pistol. Trying for the assault rifle lets see if I get it before level 4. then I'll pull back to the citadel and resupply.

Level 4 I made it to the citadel Bought the light armor for tinkerer. bought a FAMAS. picked up 2 makeshift cleavers from raiders and stuck grip tape on them. and picked up their Medkits.

I gave the FAMAS to the person I gave Full Metal Jacket to (assault rifle 4) you can modify it. break down the assault rifle they had for a +4% to hit flashlight and a raider pistol for -4% chance to jam. 4 PEN shoots off 3 rounds or 4 burst fire rounds with 12 AP doing 17-30 Damage.

....So here I got a squad. level 4. got 125 explosive damage. got 12 AP on 3 guys. The leader has 3 armor Cuz I took Hardened at level 4. could put on some armor on top of that to get more. would help. the midnight special only has 2 PEN after all, if you get your armor about 5 or so it won't really scratch you.

anyways I got 5 guys 4 have decent enough weapons
FAMAS 2 Makeshift cleavers and Ace-wrench modified with grip tape.

Now FAMAS does 17-30x4 so 94 damage. The mauler and dynamite would finish him off.

the Makeshift Cleaver does 13-16 damagex6 87 Damage again mauler and dynamite would finish him off (though you'd probably want to use it before you close to melee range)

Ace's Wrench...11-18x3 not quite as good but hey.

Point is if you got a squad that can kill things and weapons it shouldn't be an issue.

[Rumbleball]

Just got the game (directors cut) and making my way trough Eg Center. Started with 2 rangers and Ranger difficulty. Its quite hard to get about (well that was my decission) but its going onwards. However Im realy annoyed bout the shown hitchances (like many other do) that do not seem to be the final hit chance and finishing that Eg Center gave me something to look forward to.
Now I have 2 rangers and Angie as companion and crushed the mobs in front of Larson. My whole squad is infected and I'm in need to finish that quest. However my party is near death, can't find enough health packs around and have no money as well. Larson was my hope to get healed up finally. Well, big twist, its ok, but WTF? Fight starts and he kills my squad before im able to do anything... has about 8 shots or more per turn and does ~45 dmg per shot. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, this is the second quest in the game ... am I sopposed to put my stuff together and leave eg center in the hopes to get a litte stronger before the infection kills my whole squad? Leaving Eg Center before its done, the Doc will complain and I don't actually want to know whats going to happen then...

[jmsand1]

Why start with just 2 rangers? And even so, I think you can recruit the three goobers sitting near the goat at HQ if you need to fill in your starting squad. You should also have Rose with you. And if you are adventurous you could collect Ralphy from the Rail Nomads. So you should have at least 6 if not 7 Rangers for the final AgCenter fight.

[Gillsing]

I've read that you can only recruit the three Rangers sitting in the citadel courtyard if you've lost members of your starting team. Starting with fewer Rangers will not make it possible to recruit those guys.

Going to Rail Nomad Center to get properly equipped before tackling Ag Center is the wise thing to do, but it's clearly not intended or expected, and is basically metagaming unless you manage to do it by sheer accident, despite Vargas ordering the team to go to Ag Center and Highpool radio towers with the repeater units.

My solution for the Dr Larsen problem last time was a Steel Plate Armor (from Rail Nomad Camp) and the Thick-Skinned quirk and Hardened perk (level 4), for Armor 7, which made Dr Larsen's four pistol shots per turn do only 3-4 damage on Ranger difficulty, except for one crit which did 9 damage. Then he was shot with a carefully aimed Sabot Rocket (also from Rail Nomad Camp). Easy peasy.

Of course, I started with four Rangers, so I could afford to specialize in armor for one of them. Might have worked with Goat Hide Armor and whatever explosives could be found in Ag center, but I don't know. I have no idea how Dr Larsen manages to do such heavy damage with the crappy pistol that can be found on his corpse. It's an incredibly overpowered boss encounter so early in the game. No mistake about that.

Without one heavily armoured Ranger like that, and while being in so bad shape and having so few Rangers, you might have to rely on grenades and pipe bombs. One for each Ranger, and all of them standing to one side, a bit away from Dr Larsen, so they can carefully throw those explosives behind him, so he's within the blast radius and no one else.

If you can't beat him in a 'fair' fight, consider attacking him before he's hostile, by chucking an explosive from around a corner without him being in your Ranger's line of sight, but still within the blast radius. It's a bit like cheating, since your Rangers are at that point attacking a suspicious but seemingly non-hostile target. But Dr Larsen is a big cheater too, isn't he? Yes, he is.

[red255]

Originally posted by Gillsing:

I've read that you can only recruit the three Rangers sitting in the citadel courtyard if you've lost members of your starting team. Starting with fewer Rangers will not make it possible to recruit those guys.

Not sure why you are reading anything? I just tested it, didn't seem to be able to recruit the 3 recruits, unsure if I need to hit the radio tower first or what. I suppose I could shoot my own recruits to death and see if I could recruit them then instead.

Going to Rail Nomad Center to get properly equipped before tackling Ag Center is the wise thing to do, but it's clearly not intended or expected, and is basically metagaming unless you manage to do it by sheer accident, despite Vargas ordering the team to go to Ag Center and Highpool radio towers with the repeater units.

Rail Nomad gets on your map after radio tower during the frog fight, part of the find ace's logbook/killer questline of the main quest. As for when you are supposed to go there....its just north of the radio tower thru the radiation wall. I can see people going there first, especially if they bought the rad suits.

My solution for the Dr Larsen problem last time was a Steel Plate Armor (from Rail Nomad Camp) and the Thick-Skinned quirk and Hardened perk (level 4), for Armor 7, which made Dr Larsen's four pistol shots per turn do only 3-4 damage on Ranger difficulty, except for one crit which did 9 damage. Then he was shot with a carefully aimed Sabot Rocket (also from Rail Nomad Camp). Easy peasy.

OK. I would think the sabot rocket would be enough without all the perk sets.

But yeah Rumble was starting a game designed for a squad of 7 with 2. you are, at that point supposed to have a minimum of 4 rangers + angela deth + rose (or vulture's cry)

And Larson's numbers are adjusted for a whole squad.

if you want to do it with 2 people. save before hand. hope his weapon jams and hit him with a rocket. easy peasy.

[Cris]

You can go first to Rail nomad WITHOUT the rad suit.
I allways take Ralphy, Scotchmo and Rose before doing anything.
My order is Rail Nomad (for recruits and get early good weapons, but without doing missions), Ag center and THEN I go to radio tower and take all the statues and shrines.
Because that way I can build a team arround them and my rangers level up together.