Stinkbugs

[Chilly Squint]

Could someone give me a pointer on how to fight these things? You can barely use a bow against them because they can just leap at you and suddenly release a gas cloud, you can't melee them, because of said leap attack, now if you try to back away from the cloud, they can just leap at you and release another one. Am I missing something?

[Killswitch]

Make a gas mask and it'll negate most of the gas damage

[Jaggid Edje]

I kill them with a crow crossbow.

If you use terrain and things around you to 'duck behind' right before they make their leap attack you can avoid it entirely while fighting them from range. Even in thick grass, they will get hung up on grass blades if you quickly move such that a thick area of grass blades are between you and then.

Saw another thread just moments ago where someone had some further advice. I'm going to quote it here for you:

Originally posted by Vossie:

On a side note you really don't need a gas mask to kill Stinkbugs. They are not meant for that, the stink cloud produced by the Stinkbug will break your mask very quickly. The Gas mask is needed to go through the pesticide area until you find a way to stop that. (No spoilers)

If you really want to melee the Stinkbugs use a Smoothie.

Also bugs fight each other which can be a good way to get parts very early on. :maxwellsmalls:

His comment about bugs fighting each other is not a bad tip if you just need a few stinkbug parts. There's a spot just inside the haze area where I find dead stink bugs all the time. If you move toward the haze from the red anthill, just as you get the gorge is the spot.
My first dozen stinkbug parts all came from just looting the dead ones there. I even built a bridge over so I could quickly cross the gorge to get any dead ones on the other side.

[The Reaperman]

The main problem with them is at the beginning - you need a gasmask to fight them, but you need stinkbug parts for the gasmask. A good idea is to look for spider cocoons - these sometimes contain parts for other bugs, worth a look. IF you are still struggling, then there's a rotten one in the Minotaur maze you can wear until you farm a couple parts...

[blackphoenixx]

You only need to throw pebblet spears while walking backwards. On medium difficulty it takes 7 throws with unupgraded pebblet spears to kill a stinkbug without crits, 4 if you have Javelineer 3 and use an eyepatch.

You can throw 4 spears while walking backwards before the bug gets its first attack off.

You'll take one or two ticks from the gas while walking out of it but that's easy enough to heal through with smoothies.

The same technique also slaughters red soldier ants in 3 throws (2 with Ant-nihilator 3).

[GAMING_Alligator]

Originally posted by Killswitch:

Make a gas mask and it'll negate most of the gas damage

You need a stinkbug to make a gas mask.

[Padgey]

find the trinket in the pond that gives you immunity from gas, or look in the spider sacks at the hedge area, there is loads over there, inside the spider sacks you can get random stinkbug parts, an early way to cheese a stinkbug, is there is one as your going over the brow of a hill before you can see the pond, its in the dry grass there is red mites there too, shoot it with a bow till it gets fairly close but make sure it stays aggro'd to you, lure it towards those weeds that cant be destroyed that are close to the pond, you cant destroy them but more importantly bugs cant destroy them either, so just use them as cover to basically cheese kill the stink bug there

[6teaNEIN?]

Originally posted by The Reaperman:

there's a rotten one in the Minotaur maze you can wear until you farm a couple parts...

That was removed, unfortunately

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by Vossie:

On a side note you really don't need a gas mask to kill Stinkbugs. They are not meant for that, the stink cloud produced by the Stinkbug will break your mask very quickly. [/quote}[/quote]
They are indeed meant for any gas cloud, whether it is Haze, or Stinkbug, or Greenshield bug. They are all the same cloud of noxious gas, essentially.

Yes, there are other means to counter gas effects, but combined = near immunity. Early game though, gas mask is your best defence. Lvl 1 you may need to make 2, depending how you fight, or atleast bring some repair materials along. Otherwise, once it is upgraded a couple of times, 1 will do just fine.

As Reaperman said, if you are struggling to find a way to kill them, cocoons are your best bet. There are more than enough around the Hedge area, as well as quite a few behind the Sandbox, but that is a much tighter space, and you will have to fight Orbs. Hedge is big and open, if you struggle against them too, it is open enough that you can sneak around :)

[pcdeltalink]

Gas mask can be acquired by finding stinkbug part in spider egg sac as others have said. However, gas mask is insanely fragile starting out and (on Whoah! difficulty) it will break before you kill one.

The solution to this I found is go ahead and parry their jumping gas cloud, get a few melee hits in, then retreat when they do the big gas cloud (the one they charge up for). This will preserve the durability on the gas mask and you can use it to successfully kill 1. You will need to repair between each kill (when playing on Whoah! difficulty).

*edit* I was using an Ant Club, lvl 4 at the time. Also, if you're fast, you could repair gas mask when you retreat from their gas cloud as I described.

[Brown]

Stinkbugs are very tough without a gas mask. To get a mask you need stinkbug parts. I lured a stinkbug to red ant hill where he got swarmed by ants and killed. I ran up and grabbed his parts and made a mask.

[Makeithappen]

essentials. A bow. Aphid slippers, natural explorer mutation, and a gas mask.

Shoot from far away. when it is ready to jump attack sprint sideways to avoid. keep shooting, and get some distance away from it. rinse repeat.

Edit: Don't have a gas mask? Go farm parts in the web sacs found around the map. Spiders collect bug parts.

[GamingWithSilvertail]

If you have red ant armor set, near the red anthill thats near the spawn location, you can essentially pull the stink bugs infront of the red ant hill and see them fight.

This is probally the best way.

You will get stink bug parts and a lot of red ant parts. You can prolly do this w/o armor but theyrs usually a few soldier ants still alive.

[HearNoEvil]

No one seemed to mention but you can find dead stinkbugs along the gassy areas, this is how i got early gas masks.
After the mask, I used 1H axe and shield.

[Princess]

Inventory full of pebblet spears. Get to hucking.

[Enorats]

I just downed a few random smoothies to heal myself while I melee'd it to death inside its cloud. I still almost died, but it got me the parts I needed for the mask. Once you have a mask, they're just about the least dangerous bugs in the yard.

[gutlor]

The toxicology badge takes care of that. It's in the pond.