Why couldn't I cut this guy's arm?

[Tamaster]

When you first arrive in jericho city from out of the prison you meet this cultist guy that tells you to go to brother Eli.

Well stuff happened (no spoilers) and it came down to me fighting him.

Since I use spears mainly this playthrough, i saw his really nice orange spear and wanted it.

That particular fight i didn't use a spear against him but instead a Hammer, for the records, one i dropped from a boss.

So the whole fight i pummeled his right arm where he held the orange spear. No matter how small his health got, i never got the X prompt to cut his arm off. And i had 3 full energy bars! His armor was almost completely gone as well on that part.

I'm a veteran Surge 1 player and I never saw something like this happening before.

Result is, this guy is dead, and was an unique enemy, and with him gone is that sweet spear, probably unique as well.

Anyone can explain this mystery? Was it because Hammer class weapons are "bad" at cutting (unlikely but i have no better theories).

[GrimWisp]

Well, afaik there's a chance you won't be guaranteed a cut if you don't break the limb/armor so that could have been why. The weapon is still obtainable but not until end game so you could restart if you really wanted to use it.

[Tamaster]

Originally posted by GrimWisp:

Well, afaik there's a chance you won't be guaranteed a cut if you don't break the limb/armor so that could have been why. The weapon is still obtainable but not until end game so you could restart if you really wanted to use it.

Maybe that is why. He had still 20% or so armor on his arm.

Yeah that must be it.

[Sir_Gorz]

Always target the weapon arm and use the hammer's charged R2 attack, it stuns him and takes away a decent chunk of armor while also doing heavy damage. I discovered with hammers you usually do not need to completely destroy armor before you can sever a part so you might have been screwed by RNG, which does happen from time to time for me.

[Jin]

I always fight him after I farm up full VULTR set and Physical Aggression Redirector, in both normal and NG. He's spear has no RNG its 100% drop if you cut off his right arm. If you want guarantee the spear, I suggest you use the implant.