Advice on certain midnight ordeal?

[Sandshark]

Does anyone have words of advice for dealing with The Claw's ultimate attack (the 25%~ hp triggered one). Have a skeleton crew and need to minimize casualties, employees always too grouped up to get every marked target into a containment unit in time... I've tried this around a dozen times, but have yet to figure out a method that didn't involve casualties. Never had a single casualty with the rest of the fight but every time I hit the 25% hp trigger shit hits the fan...

[Grim Xzag]

So, have you tried going down to 30% HP and waiting till it activates its Blue or Green ability. Once it triggers either one of them, the Claw will be in a stun for like a minute, making it super easy to kill it.

You can also decrease the clump amount and have like 30 or less employees attacking it at once. This would make it a bit easier to find who has the mark, but with less damage output, meaning it might activate another ability.

You could also try having a lower amount of employee health, this would make the Pale shields soak up more damage from the Claw. The lower the HP, the less the damage it deals, meaning the shield will last longer.

[CarThief]

As far as my experience goes, that attack is a instant-kill, the one he does on 25% or less HP and rushes from target to target. Barring a certain tactic, the marked targets WILL die (even pale shields don't prevent death from it). And likely anyone near his target will also die. He also does damage to anyone he passes by as he dashes from target to target, but this damage is survivable.

There's two ways i know to go about it without casualties, though.

The first method is to simply gang up on the Claw, and get it to like, 30-40% HP, wait for it to do an action that's stunnable (basically everything except his red damage dash-attack or his 25%< HP desperation attack), then send all your employees to beat it to death, stunning it hopefully and causing it to die before it gets up.

The second method involves fighting it as you wish, but the non-combatant or idle employees that are waiting for it to get near must be placed near a containment unit they can work on safely. The closer the better. If you can spread them out to reduce marker confusion, the better.

So, you spread them in advance (before he shows up) to spots where if marked, they can (REALLY) quickly start working on a Abnormality before being struck by him. This will remove the mark and keep them safe against the claw's desperation attack. (Besides the pale damage to anyone caught between him and his current target, but that's survivable. Especially with pale shields.)

If you see him kneeling down at 25% HP or less, he's starting THAT attack, and you should put your attacking party near some containment units in case they get marked. It helps to reduce the employee count a little, but if you decrease the firepower/manpower going after him, you'll need some strong(er) employees spread around the facility, ideally, to catch him after he dashes so he doesn't heal up. WAW or ALEPH gear should work fine against him, he's not tough, just his special abilities are.

And obviously, Execute any clerks marked by THAT attack of his, they're already dead anyway, it's one less warp-point for him and thus less collateral damage.
If no employees are present to deal with the Claw where he teleported to, you could summon the Rabbits to deal with it too. Especially if he's in a hallway, though there is a notable risk he'll do THAT attack again, so you always have to be prepared to avoid it.

The first method might be a tad easier, but i find the second method to be more fun.

[NeedsMoreDoge]

Originally posted by Sandshark:

Does anyone have words of advice for dealing with The Claw's ultimate attack (the 25%~ hp triggered one). Have a skeleton crew and need to minimize casualties, employees always too grouped up to get every marked target into a containment unit in time... I've tried this around a dozen times, but have yet to figure out a method that didn't involve casualties. Never had a single casualty with the rest of the fight but every time I hit the 25% hp trigger shit hits the fan...

You want only your elite hitsquad to be fighting him (a fairly small team of strong agents, about 1-2 from each department) or have rabbits do it. Everyone else should be spread out in hallways so they can work quickly.

When he marks employees for death after his HP drops, send any marked agents into containment units. The mark will be removed when they enter the containment unit. (Just remember to be careful with any continuous-type tools etc.) He can also mark clerks; if he does then just execute them. That way he won't do his massive Pale damage dash and murder stuff all across the facility.

I did day 46 a few times and this was the best way of reducing deaths tbh. Managed to get a 0-death completion with this.

[kaymarciy]

When you do a lot of damage in a short time, he will get stunned for a moment. The stun has some animation of him dropping to his knees and then standing back. He can't start his other attacks while the animation takes place. So... just use all of your agents and kill him during the animation frame. At least that's how I did it.

[Sandshark]

Thanks for the advice fellas I'll try some of the tips and see if it works. The upside to having such a small roster of agents is literally everyone in my facility has ALEPH gear, except maybe two, with 135+ in all stats.

[Sandshark]

Update: The 30% hp strategy where you wait until he uses a stun-able ability and then blitz the rest of his hp worked flawlessly. Thank you for the advice fellas.