It is normal to have a hard time in this place?

[craig234]

Level 9, two companions, normal, I went to Scylla. Near the landing in an open field there are some primals. With a 400 DPS heavy weapon, I can't kill them. Usually battles are easy.

[midnite rule]

Enemies don’t scale to your level.
The Primals will become pushovers on higher levels.

If you’re there for Irion, just avoid the Primals.

[Du-Vu]

Scylla's a fairly tough area at lower levels, I think? Been a while since I played. Some enemies can scale but different areas and enemy types have set floors and ceilings for enemy levels, iirc. Maybe come back for the primals around the time you start finding Mk II variants for weapons (you can get heavy weapons with 1225 DPS), and/or in the teens for levels.

Like ^ said, you can skirt around them for now. Just stick to the roads for the most part.

[craig234]

Thanks, took a few tried but got them, skipped other things.

[snuggleform]

Primals have a lot of armor, so if you use a weapon that fires a lot of low damage projectiles you will have problems (even if the listed dps is high, such as machine guns). Might want to look for slow firing laser weapons. And treat them seriously with everything at your disposal - companions, consumables, TTD, sneak attack from stealth, perks with cooldown, whatever. Or just come back to them later, I don't remember them bricking any particular missions.

[RACHMANOVSKI]

Not bragging or anything but it's fairly easy for me.

I don't know how you spread your point, but try to focus on one weapon skills on early weapons (Handgun or Rifle or Automatic rifle(?)) instead of trying increase them all simultaneously-- because there are bonus to be unlocked at certain points counts and it helps a lot, for example, to land crits if you used handgun.

Also try to mod your gun, I always have gun with extra shock damage or acid or anything that is not just physical damage when I leave ground breaker.

Also do not forget to utilize your TTD, It offers more damage than regular shots.

That being said, the Primals also knock me off pretty quick. My companions constantly downed but I run around and shoot and recharge ttd and shot-- generally they die quite quickly.

[craig234]

Now I'm in Devil's Peak Caverns and have to kill a 'Mega Mantiqueen', and can't so far. I only killed a regular one once.

I have a 499 long gun and a 400 heavy gun. Nyoka has a 640 heavy gun, but companions are killed quickly.

I use three foods - 25% health, 200% regen, and a shooting boost.

[Du-Vu]

Got any unfinished quests, like Roseway? What level are you now, and what are your weapon skills? If your companions are dying quickly, what are your Leadership skills like? Just in general, what the skills you're focused on, the ones at 80+?

Not upgrading that 400dps heavy machine gun probably isn't doing you any favours. You could fight some marauders/outlaws and probably loot something better by following some of the local Stellar Bay/Amber Heights/Fallbrook quests.

[craig234]

Level 13, gun skills are at 50, leadership at 30, no skills over 50 really except engineering is boosted, defense are at starting level (12/9). Haven't seen a heavy upgrade yet.

Since gun skills are 50, it's time to pick what to raise higher. I have 22 unused points, but doubt it'll make a big difference.

Thinking long guns since light seem low damage and heavy seem inaccurate.

[craig234]

Oh, and I do need to go find out about the inhaler. I see it mentioned but haven't used it yet. Maybe it'll help.

[midnite rule]

Originally posted by craig234:

Now I'm in Devil's Peak Caverns and have to kill a 'Mega Mantiqueen', and can't so far. I only killed a regular one once.

I have a 499 long gun and a 400 heavy gun. Nyoka has a 640 heavy gun, but companions are killed quickly.

I use three foods - 25% health, 200% regen, and a shooting boost.

First off, you don’t have to kill the Mantiqueen. You do if you wanna save Berthold, but ask yourself if he’s really worth the effort.

But if you insists…
Mantisaurs are highly resistant to Plasma damage. IIrc Nyoka’s default machine gun fires plasma, so maybe give her some other gun.

Mantiqueens have a weakspot on the belly (I think it’s supposed to be egg sacs), if you hit it using TTD they will collapse and remain incapacitated for a few seconds. Very useful.

[Du-Vu]

The inhaler lets you use all the items in your quickslots at once. How good it is depends on how much you've upgraded your Medicine skill-- upgrade it enough and it revives your companions during a fight. Since you mention you're not using it, are you also making use of TTD and companion abilities?

13 is still not super-high. It is doable, but if you're having trouble, you might just want to go back and grind out some other quests, level up and re-gear. The thing about plasma is good advice, I always forget that about mantisaurs.

[craig234]

I'll make sure she's not using plasma. How do you find out resistances in game?

I am using TTD but it seems to do almost nothing, despite having the two tier 1 perks. It lasts about a second. I use it anyway for a little possible benefit.

I'm not sure you can actually see weak spots? I'm not using companion abilities, no idea how, I assumed they use them automatically.

[Du-Vu]

The default keys are F for your inhaler and Z and C for companion abilities.

While in TTD, as long as you don't move or shoot, you go super slow and can scan enemies a bit just by looking at them, viewing their health, armour, faction, tactics, etc. Kind of like VATS from Fallout.

Shooting or moving uses up the bar. TTD doesn't last long if you're only using high-ROF rifles/machine guns/burst pistols, as they eat through the meter pretty quickly. If your Strength and Dexterity are negative, then movement will also drain the meter pretty fast as well. But if you're switching to long guns, though, try it out -- keep still and aim carefully and you should be able to see those weak points when you mouse over them if you're in range, and you can gain additional status effects for hitting them, and extra damage as long as your Perception isn't negative.

There are also tooltips which mention plasma generally being good against beasts, but I think there are NPCs on Monarch, possibly including Nyoka, who mention Mantisaurs being the exception to that rule, iirc. Mantisaurs are vulnerable to Corrosion, if you have any weapons or mods that deal it.

Apparently if you have the damage numbers visible, if an enemy is resistant to your current damage type, the numbers apparently drift down instead of up? I just read that now, can't say I noticed when I played.

[craig234]

ah I found that two of the letters use the companion special attacks, and it was close but I killed the mega manticore using them.

Still not quite sure what's best for the inhaler (I can put 2 things) or how it affects companions without higher skills for it.

[craig234]

Not sure what to do with a lot of the guns, a lot are about 200 dps and look useless, one is a level 7 gun with 134 dps but the dps is in blue font.