How to ACTUALLY Kill Cazadores (A Serious Guide)

A comprehensive, non-meme guide on how to kill some of the most annoying enemies in the game.

So why exactly are Cazadores SO deadly?

Cazadores are deadly for a few reasons, which we can see from the stat block pictured here (taken directly from the FNV Wiki:


From this we can gather a few things:

Cazadores have a high perception, meaning they can detect you from a long way away, even if you are crouched.

They have high heath, on par with Super Mutants, and are much tougher than most surrounding animals or insects like Bighorners or Fire Ants.

While the stats say they only have 12 speed, I can only conclude they have 12 speed on foot. Flying, cazadores are EXTREMELY fast. They can get on top of you within seconds.

They spawn in groups as low as 2 or 3 and as high as 6 or 7.

But of course, the worst part is damage. Cazadores (the base variant) inflict 70(!) DMG. That is on par with the most damaging weapons the Courier can wield. For reference, the Blade of the East (one of the most powerful melee weapons in the game) inflicts 65 base damage on hit. It is VERY hard to negate damage that high, even with heavy armor, perks, implants, and DT buffs like Whiskey Rose. However, worse than that is the dreaded Cazador Poison. This is a highly potent venom, inflicting 8 DMG per second for a whopping 30 seconds. Giant Cazadors in Zion deal more. In addition, Cazador poison will sap AP on hit. I have consistently checked my EFF status on the Pip-Boy and seen -16 AP listed under the Cazador venom debuff, in addition to the heath damage. Feeling woozy yet?

THIS is why Cazadors are deadly. They counteract many different builds.

High perception guarantees they will find you without a high Sneak skill.
High speed means they will be on top of ranged characters like Guns and Energy Weapons characters instantly.
Low-level melee characters cannot hope to out-damage Cazadors up close. Venom drains health quickly and saps AP on hit, meaning you will only have 1 or 2 full bars of AP in VATS to shoot.

Okay, so what can we DO about it?

The most basic tip I can give you is:

AIM FOR THE WINGS.

You will hear me repeat that many times. Always, always aim for the wings. You only need to disable one wing to FORCE cazadores to ground. Their movement speed will decrease significantly, leaving them vulnerable. It makes them much easier to hit and far easier to avoid.

Another thing we can use is Antivenom and Poison resistance: two highly underrated effects for God knows what reason. I know when I first played this wonderful game, I would stuff all my antivenom away and never bring it with me because it was just cluttering my inventory.

If you plan on heading to Zion or Jacobstown or any area of the Mojave where you suspect there will be Cazadores, bring at least 3-5 doses of Antivenom or Datura Antivenom (found in Honest Hearts). This will CANCEL the Cazador venom effect entirely. Of course, it's not worth much to cancel the effect only for another bug to apply it. This is why poison resistance consumables like Blood Shield and the Snakebite Tourniquet are useful. Even armor can grant poison resistance effects, like the craftable Gecko-Backed Leather Armor and it's Reinforced variant.

Blood Shield needs to be crafted. It requires a Spore Plant Pod, a Barrel Cactus Fruit, and one Cave Fungus. All three can be found in Zion Valley National Park in the DLC Honest Hearts. Spore Plant Pods in particular can be found on dead Giant Spore Plants at the Vault 22 Guard Camp located here:



You can also gain incredible poison-resisting effects by playing and completing Old World Blues.

More Detailed, Build-Specific Advice:

Fortunately you don't have to tailor your character to kill Cazadores. However, I will highlight a few perks and tactics every build can take advantage of when fighting Cazadores.

In general, accurate or fast-firing ranged companions such as ED-E, Boone (found in Novac), Raul (atop Black Mountain), and Arcade Gannon (Freeside Mormon Fort) are all useful backup when fighting cazadores. Arcade in particular makes Stimpaks 20% more effective.

Perks such as Travel Light (move 10% faster in light armor) can make it harder for Cazadores to catch you. Run and Gun (requires Agility 5 and Guns 45) can keep your one-handed weapons accurate while running away.

Guns/ER Characters: anything that boosts Critical Chance is great. Perks like Laser Commander and clothing such as the 1st Recon Beret are very useful. Cazadores have high health, but if you remember the stats we saw earlier, they have no DT or DR. Crits can exploit that lack of resistance. Other more niche perks such as Light Touch can also help, especially alongside high luck and perks such as Finesse and Better Criticals.

Ranged characters can use Turbo or Implant GRX to slow down time, which shuts down the speed advantage of Cazadores for a limited time (AIM FOR THE WINGS).

For Energy Weapons characters specifically, the Compliance Regulator pistol found in Zion (Honest Hearts DLC) can paralyze any creature for 10 seconds on a critical hit. This can be combo'd with deadlier weapons to freeze and zap small groups of 2-3 Cazadores.

Stealth Characters: a high sneak skill or a Stealth Boy should counter a Cazador's high Perception. This means you can fight them on your terms: take advantage of chems or consumables such as Med-X, Blood Shield, or Turbo. Sneak criticals can help you even the odds as quickly as possible. Weapons with bonus critical damage such as the Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle (Sniper's Nest near Cottonwood Cove, inside a Very Hard locked chest) are great.

Melee Characters: you have a hard task ahead, but don't worry! First, weapons with Bonus Limb Damage (AIM FOR THE WINGS) like the Machete Gladius and weapons with Bonus Critical Chance like Chance's Knife are great. Second, fight fire with fire! Apply poison to your weapon. This can be done by crafting a poison such as Bleak Venom or Cloud Kiss (you can find the components necessary to craft these via the Fallout Wiki) and clicking on it. You will be prompted to apply that poison to a compatible melee weapon of your choice (knives, fire axes, katanas, generally anything with a blade). This will significantly boost your DPS, alongside the staple Melee perks like Slayer and Super Slam!

Explosive Characters should be one of the only builds naturally suited to killing Cazadors (provided they dont get close to you). The high damage of grenade launchers and rifles are bound to cripple the WINGS, letting you easily finish the bugs off in bunches of 2 or 3. Staple explosives perks increasing damage and blast radius are great. If you are running explosives, it's worth picking up the Spray and Pray perk so you don't accidentally kill your companions with your explosives.

Conclusion

I really came to appreciate Cazadores after learning how to fight them. The fact that Cazadores are so deadly and have an answer to most character builds helped me to be creative and take advantage of the many crafted consumables in Fallout New Vegas.

Apart from detailed build-related advice, remember these three basic tips:

1. AIM FOR THE WINGS!
2. Bring antivenom and poison resistance consumables.
3. Cazadores have no damage resistance, so damage buffs from chems like Psycho or perks like Better Criticals are especially useful.

Now go out into the wasteland and stay safe! :-)

[majorpribluda]

Excellent guide. It's posts like this that bring the value of Steam social whatnot.
I'll add one thing which is a mild, totally in-game exploit -- be somewhere high. For example, you can scale the western cliffs from Goodsprings north to the Khan or whomever camp blocking the otherwise simple valley (west of the graveyard, "just go north").

If you are high enough and the slope is steep enough, they cannot get to you. They do not fly in 3d it seems, but "elevate" above the ground, in 2d+1, and there's a limit to their elevation (heavy use of "it seems" throughout).

While this may seem a little unfair, it's the kind of "exploit" of the game engine that feels within the rules -- height of position is after all an advantage in RL, so there you go.

[Gordon, GORDAN!]

Cazadores and Deathclaws have a lot in common, being Tough, fast melee attackers with devastating damage output.

Cazadores are like "glass cannon" versions of the Deathclaws. While they are still strong, in comparison to Deathclaws, both their strong AND weak points are magnified, with Cazadores being more potent damage-wise then Deathclaws with an equally crippling Achilles Heel that is MUCH more obvious than the Deathclaw's legs (bright orange on Dark Bluish body, anyone?) while being weaker health-wise.

[JimLambda]

Thanks for this, I'm playing with JSawyer Ultimate Edition and it's Survival Mode enabled. Game difficulty on Normal, with Famine to boot. Lvl 15 and I'm getting rinsed in 1 hit lol. Thanks for the guide it's very insightful :)

[bluetrazyn]

no problem, ave true to Caesar or whatever faction catchphrase you prefer

[finnfantastico]

thx

[incompetent lobotomite]

thanks for an actually serious tutorial