Harpoons, serpents, and stamina

[abrannick]

Have they changed how the harpoon uses stamina in the past few weeks? Up until recently, I was able to harpoon a sea serpent, sail to the closest land, and drag the serpent up onto dry land far enough that it couldn't get back to the water before I killed it with an iron weapon - all without ever running out of Stamina. It might've gotten a little low, but it never ran out completely unless I tried to sprint while dragging it up the shore. This was the case, even without massive stamina buffs from top tier food and stamina potions.

Now, even with halfway decent food buffs (Serpent stew, sausages, Queen's Jam), trying to drag the serpent out of the water burns through my entire stamina bar in seconds. I simply can't get the serpent out of the water before the stamina is gone, the serpent escapes and swims off. I got lucky once when a curbstomping party of greydwarves happened to be at the shore where I landed and they aggro'ed on the serpent, keeping it occupied and close enough to the shore for me to kill it and still loot the scales and whatnot. But this isn't always an option.

TL;DR - why is the harpoon burning through stamina so much faster lately? I couldn't find any posts about a harpoon nerf, other than the patch note from March stating that the harpoon no longer worked on bosses.

[amaoto]

Things I noticed with the new harpoon mechanics:
If the harpooned target is coming to you, you will not consume stamina
If the harpooned target is trying to get away from you, it consumes stamina. The stamina consumption is probably based on the size of the target and burns through your stamina at a much faster rate than before, since I tried harpooning deers just for the heck of it.

I'd recommend harpooning a serpent when its close to the shore, not as soon as you see one. On my serpent hunts, it usually requires me to harpoon it once or twice

[Sinandur]

Yes, they changed the Harpoon mechanic.

They took issue with the Viking Space Program launching players into atmo.

Amaoto is right on all counts, as far as I can tell.

You want to *slowly* lure the Serpent near to shore, *then* harpoon it. Keep your ship speed low. I'd suggest paddle speed (one chevron). If you move at sailing speed, you'll likely outpace the Serpent and it'll retreat to its spawn area. These speeds presume you're sailing in a Longship. I can't recommend Karve speeds for Serpent luring and it's not a good idea to use a Karve anyway - it's great at turning on a dime (so, good for navigating a rocky river), but not much else.

The Frost Arrows are fantastic for hunting serpents, as not only do they slow them to a crawl, making it hard for them to wriggle back into the Ocean, but serpents are constantly 'wet', so they take bonus damage.

[blankitosonic]

just kill them in the ocean with 3-5 frozen arrows , the meat floats and you dont need the scales because scale shield sux

[abrannick]

Okay, so it's not just me - they changed the stamina usage.

As per Amaoto, I definitely noticed that it started burning through stamina when the mob was trying to pull away. So, I carefully navigated close to the shore with the serpent following at paddle speed (yeah, longboat - karve can't take the constant chomping for too long). I actually got to the shore with my stamina bar pretty much full.

And that's where it all went south. As soon as I hopped out of the boat and started trying to drag the serpent up onto the shore, I burned through my stamina bar in less than five seconds. Like, completely. And I was decently food-buffed at the time. I tried to re-harpoon the sucker, but my stamina hadn't recovered enough to make it worth it. Same thing with trying to hit the damn thing - I had no stamina to attack it, and it just slithered off into the waves.

I just hate to have to wait until I'm nearly capped out with top tier food buffs and Draugr Fang bow and frost arrows and black metal sword before I can start hunting these things again. I can understand them wanting to nerf the exploit, but I really hope they re-adjust that stamina usage. It feels like they seriously over-corrected.

[Ptolemy]

Originally posted by abrannick:

Okay, so it's not just me - they changed the stamina usage.

As per Amaoto, I definitely noticed that it started burning through stamina when the mob was trying to pull away. So, I carefully navigated close to the shore with the serpent following at paddle speed (yeah, longboat - karve can't take the constant chomping for too long). I actually got to the shore with my stamina bar pretty much full.

And that's where it all went south. As soon as I hopped out of the boat and started trying to drag the serpent up onto the shore, I burned through my stamina bar in less than five seconds. Like, completely. And I was decently food-buffed at the time. I tried to re-harpoon the sucker, but my stamina hadn't recovered enough to make it worth it. Same thing with trying to hit the damn thing - I had no stamina to attack it, and it just slithered off into the waves.

I just hate to have to wait until I'm nearly capped out with top tier food buffs and Draugr Fang bow and frost arrows and black metal sword before I can start hunting these things again. I can understand them wanting to nerf the exploit, but I really hope they re-adjust that stamina usage. It feels like they seriously over-corrected.

What food were you using, out of curiosity? I've managed to land and kill a few using bread, carrot soup and turnip stew without very much difficulty. Although I was using a draugr fang with a high bow skill, and it took four shots and next to no stamina to kill them once they were on the beach. Might try with a huntsman bow and see how much harder it makes it.

[Ptolemy]

Yeah, it's considerably harder to kill them on land with strictly swamp-tier kit. Feels like they get away at least as often as I manage to kill them, and that's with 100 bow skill, which is horribly OP and completely eliminates draw time. I'm inclined to agree that it needs tweaking if they want people to be able to get scales before they get a draugr fang and frost arrows. Although I guess they may not.

[stvlepore]

Originally posted by blankitosonic:

just kill them in the ocean with 3-5 frozen arrows , the meat floats and you dont need the scales because scale shield sux

But I ‘need’ the trophy, which sinks

[Sabaithal]

So, question: If you can't get a serpent near the shoreline, but you manage to kill it...how do you pick up the loot? I've read that it apparently sinks to the seafloor pretty quick, and by then you cannot get to it.

[Ryzilynt]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

So, question: If you can't get a serpent near the shoreline, but you manage to kill it...how do you pick up the loot? I've read that it apparently sinks to the seafloor pretty quick, and by then you cannot get to it.

That's what these guys are talking about in this thread. You use the harpoon and drag it on shore and kill it or kill it in shallow water.

[RcsPcsN1]

Lead it to the nearest shore, dig a hole while it aggros your boat (it will survive with over half health if you're fast), then just drag it into the hole and kill it with whatever means you want.

[grinsekeatzchen]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

So, question: If you can't get a serpent near the shoreline, but you manage to kill it...how do you pick up the loot? I've read that it apparently sinks to the seafloor pretty quick, and by then you cannot get to it.

Only the meat doesn't sink, which is why most, including me, just kill serpents on the open sea since you don't need many scales at the moment.

[abrannick]

Originally posted by Ptolemy:

Originally posted by abrannick:

Okay, so it's not just me - they changed the stamina usage.

As per Amaoto, I definitely noticed that it started burning through stamina when the mob was trying to pull away. So, I carefully navigated close to the shore with the serpent following at paddle speed (yeah, longboat - karve can't take the constant chomping for too long). I actually got to the shore with my stamina bar pretty much full.

And that's where it all went south. As soon as I hopped out of the boat and started trying to drag the serpent up onto the shore, I burned through my stamina bar in less than five seconds. Like, completely. And I was decently food-buffed at the time. I tried to re-harpoon the sucker, but my stamina hadn't recovered enough to make it worth it. Same thing with trying to hit the damn thing - I had no stamina to attack it, and it just slithered off into the waves.

I just hate to have to wait until I'm nearly capped out with top tier food buffs and Draugr Fang bow and frost arrows and black metal sword before I can start hunting these things again. I can understand them wanting to nerf the exploit, but I really hope they re-adjust that stamina usage. It feels like they seriously over-corrected.

What food were you using, out of curiosity? I've managed to land and kill a few using bread, carrot soup and turnip stew without very much difficulty. Although I was using a draugr fang with a high bow skill, and it took four shots and next to no stamina to kill them once they were on the beach. Might try with a huntsman bow and see how much harder it makes it.

I had Serpent Soup, sausages, and Queen's Jam (which had given me more than enough stamina prior to this nerf). And once my stamina ran out, the serpent swam off before I had recovered enough stamina to make any attacks, bow or otherwise. Simply put, I am currently unable to kill the serpent on land - unless I get extremely lucky and encounter a war party of greydwarfs just as I make landfall *and* they aggro on the serpent *and* it decides to fight back instead of swim away.

Now, yeah...like some others stated in this thread, I could just kill it in open water with my bow and a few good arrows. But at this stage in the game, the scale shield is quite an upgrade to my iron banded shield and I can't get the scales (or the trophy, for that matter) unless I'm able to kill it on land or in extremely shallow water. If I have to wait until I have completely top-tier food (which would include Plains-level food) before I have enough stamina to kill the serpent on land, I'd already have a better shield than the scale one, which makes getting the scales completely pointless to begin with.

[Ryzilynt]

You could also try using a stamina potion

[Camaro]

I watched alot of videos on how great the serpant shield was. I did the grind, made the shield. Only to find NO parry bonus. Its been hanging on the wall, never used it.

[Chillum]

Originally posted by stvlepore:

Originally posted by blankitosonic:

just kill them in the ocean with 3-5 frozen arrows , the meat floats and you dont need the scales because scale shield sux

But I ‘need’ the trophy, which sinks

It is a very sexy trophy.

But its not super rare. Like 30% drop rate I think?