Purifying the Purifier (or Screw your timelimits, I have laserbeams)

A work in progress guide to taking care of the dreaded buzzkill that is the S.O.B Purifier. Big cojones necessary but not required.

Preface

So, you're wandering through the Cooler, there's no one around and you're nearly dead. Out of the corner of your eye you spot him, the Purifier. He's following you about 30 feet back. He revs up his minigun (affectionally called Lil' Minnie) and breaks out the bullets. He's riddling you with bullets, what a pleasant surprise.

You're looking for the exit but you've wandered off the path. He's almost killed you now and you can see there's blood on his face! My god, there's blood everywhere!

wat?

Okay, in all seriousness, who is this Purifier and why is he the most frightening enemy in the game? Well, you see, everytime you go onto a new floor in the Cooler, there's a timelimit that's hidden from you, the time you're allotted is determined by an unknown algorithm that may or may not depend on the complexity of the floor. You know, like in Spelunky where if you stay on the same level for too long the music becomes creepy as ♥♥♥♥ and a spooky ghost comes to spook the skeleton out of you? That's the purifier, except it's to spook every bodily fluid you have out of you, and your skeleton.

How will I know that I'm being hunted?

Yeah, up there, in the upper right hand corner

You'll know when you've ran out of time on the floor when you see a big red HUNTED warning sign appear on the minimap, this means that you're, well, being HUNTED, sir/madam, and you should make haste to the nearest exit as quickly as you can. Thankfully, he's very slow and he is not loved by any of the Wasters dwelling in the Cooler as they will try and make short work of him, although nine times out of ten, it is he that makes a short work of them.

When he spawns, he ALWAYS spawns at the entrance and WILL home in on your position, no matter where you are, so don't try stealthing around him as he does focus on you unless he's preoccupied with someone else. Luckily, he's just as stupid as any Waster and will run into loaded traps and acid pools without a second thought, so you can actually use that to your advantage. He also doesn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about tripping hazards, so you can use that as well.

So how do I avoid him?

Running for your life (from the Purifier). He's brandishing a gun (It's Purifier Labeouf). Lurking in the shadows. Murderous Hunting Purifier Labeouf...

Running away from the Purifier is easy enough, he walks slowly and he has music that plays whenever he comes near, even with the DiscJoy equipped, so it's not hard to hear him coming. However, sometimes you might end up in a dead end with no escape and you might end up getting murdered by the Purifier anyway despite your efforts.

So, how does one stay away from the Purifier? Well, the easiest way to do that is to not run the timer at all and rush through each floor. But that's not fun, what we need to do is to figure out what to do against him when he's hunting you down.

- Remember that locked doors don't lead to the exit! - As the dev on the forums once said, a locked door will NEVER lead to the exit, this is presumably to prevent unwinnable situations where the exit is locked behind a (picking a random high number here) 23 locked door with no can openers and no weapons that deal that much damage in one shot. On that note...

- Pay attention to the modifiers! - Outside of Courier Runs, the only way you're going to see someone with an elite modifier is if you're going off the main path set by the game. So, if you're seeing Tough or Kitted-out enemies (maybe even both!), it's probably a good idea to re-set your course if you feel that you're not well prepped to deal with the Purifier at this time.

- Drinking flasks and looking through chests pauses time, looking through your inventory too! - Remember playing Fallout 3 or New Vegas and putting up your Pip Boy to eat a million snack cakes because you're low on health and the enemies just stand there while you fully heal yourself? Yeah, same applies to this game. Drinking unknown flasks also pauses time even though it kind of doesn't look like it. Basically, you can use this time to get your bearings. Abuse it well.

- Throw objects while he's nearby while you're hidden! - If you're able, you can pick up, say, a brick you tripped over and toss it towards the other side of the room to get him to move over there. Just remember, you have to be HIDDEN for that to work on anyone. Maybe that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥' Bricks buzz might come in handy after all...

- Juke! It's not just for MOBAs! - Juking is an act where you "make a sham move to mislead an opponent" or, in this case, the Purifier. If all else fails, you can juke him around a table and run out the other side while he's reloading.

I want to fight him, not run like a New Guy! How do I do that?

Okay, first thing you want to do is to make sure you're prepared. And no matter how prepared you are in Hangovers/Buzzes/Weapons/Armor/Groinguards, remember what the demon blood guzzling edgelord elf told you, "You are NOT prepared!"

And you'll never be prepared, the S.O.B Purifier is heavily armored and is a huge threat to you and anyone else in the Cooler, luckily, he has a fixed health pool, doesn't do much more damage as you go on into the game and you can easily take him on later down the line. Courier runs, however, are a different story.

So, let's get on with the actual part of fighting him. So, let's analyze him for a second here:

- He has heavy armor with a red blinking light that makes him extremely obvious.
- He carries a minigun around that fires in spurts AND deals heavy knockback to the unlucky person that gets caught. This can stunlock you if you're not careful.
- He is apparently a descendant of Liam Neeson as he will find you and he will kill you, regardless of who else is down there. Guess the PC is super important for some reason, huh?
- He is just as stupid as the 10 health enemies. He doesn't dodge, he doesn't jump, he just keeps moving in a straight line without much regard for his surroundings.

So, now that we've analyzed him, we can better take him on, so here's some general tips for when you want to deal with the Purifier:

- Leave as many traps loaded as you possibly can! - This goes without saying, the Purifier has the tendency of walking into traps and triggering them, oftentimes breaking their limbs and making it much, much easier to deal with them. Disarm and replace Tripping Hazards as you go too. Breaking limbs always help. On that note...

- RIP AND TEAR THEIR GUTS. I mean, RIP AND SHRED! BREAK THEM BONES! - As with every enemy in the game, breaking their body parts can be super beneficial to you. For example, breaking their groin will increase their damage taken which is super helpful in finishing them off.

- Try to land the first hit on him before he sees you! - Yes, he does home in on you regardless of your stealth but getting the first hit on him can mean all the difference and, who knows, you can possibly break whatever limbs he has left unbroken.

- Abuse healing items! - If you're not abusing medication, you probably should. It's always a good idea to keep 5 Medistims and 5 Junk Food/Liquid Bread/Solid Bread around with you at all times. Medistims will give you regenerating health up to 25 HP over 5 seconds and the food can give you a small burst of health when you need it. Guzzle Gut is super useful if you like using Junk Food as the boost you get from being in a Food Coma can help.

- Abuse his patterns! - He can't keep firing forever, he will have to stop to reload and that's when you can pop out and shoot him a couple of times before ducking back behind cover before he pins you against the wall with a hail of bullets. Also, he's practically bolted to the floor so, ignoring knockback, he can't really jump, so you can abuse his AI by hopping up onto a table or something and just kiting him around it. Who knows, you might get him stuck and you can just wail on him with a cutana or something.

- Drag others into your fight! - Got any locked doors? Good! That means you can draft unwilling and unwitting Wasters to your war against the buzzkill that is the S.O.B Purifier. He's also very effective at clearing the area so you can actually use him to your advantage to kill enemies you don't want to fight head on such as Spewmans and Droids.

Aftermath

"You limp into the darkness of the Cooler, blood oozing from your multiple bullet wounds. But you have won, you've outwitted the Purifier."

After killing the purifier, well, there's not much fanfare outside of an achievement if this is your first time, props to you if you've done it in the very first Cooler where you don't have much access to a lot of powerful weaponry. So, now what? Well, you do what any self-respecting Waster would do and loot his corpse! For your efforts, you get a minigun (called Lil' Minnie), some Rifle Ammo, a Purifier Helmet and Power Armor.


The minigun is probably a pretty powerful rifle weapon, despite the fact that it does so little damage, it does a ton of knockback and CAN stunlock an enemy (on that note, you can get stunlocked too if you're not careful). It has a 200 ammo capacity and it fires super fast. Useful for melting down big targets like a Spewman or maybe even another Purifier?

Update: At the time of writing, the knockback of the Lil' Minnie was stupidly ridiculous. However, depending on when you're reading this, perhaps after a certain hotfix, the Lil' Minnie's knockback is being nerfed. Still, I'd advise you to be careful around the Purifier.


The Helmet and Power Armor both have 5% damage resistance from bullets and explosions, basically, the full kit gives you 10% resistance, making it a pretty powerful armor set for early game where you're still scrambling to survive. And yes, it does change your voice a little, and nobody seems to give two ♥♥♥♥♥ that you're wearing it.

So congrats, you now have your Disc 1 Nuke if you've killed him in the first Cooler, enjoy being slightly more powerful than normal. Just don't run into any traps, that would be unfortunate.

Wait! He isn't dead! Purifier surprise! There's a gun to your head, and death in his eyes...

[Mom]

title says: "Big cojones necessary but not required."
Can you change necessary to 'reccomended' because necessary is defined by google as: "required to be done, achieved, or present; needed; essential."

[Syrett]

he used to be a pain in the ass tho

[Syrett]

ya. just sit at the end of a hall and shoot him with a rifle. like the fullbuckler or the emma grand which i use.

[NewsofPE]

They changed the way the SOB Purigier works, so now he's easy instead of being a force to be reckoned with

[Syrett]

if he shoots ya, it wont hurt much, but dont get close, dont get me wrong, the S.O.B Purifier is dangerous, just at the closest ranges, like point blank, almost touching him, then you are dead. otherwise the purifier is quite harmless, i overrated his strength, so did the guide maker. He is easy to beat if you know what your doing

[Syrett]

this guide is actually overplaying his power, all you need is the Vault Clearer (or point niner with lots of ammo) go down a long hallway (since with the aim he will hit you 5/100 times dealing 5 damage total) and just keep shooting him, he wont move closing unlike all other enemies even though almost none of his bullets are connecting, you just need a semi auto pistol with knock back or the emma grand and he is already good as dead. its that easy.

[NewsofPE]

love the actual cannibal shia laboeuf reference, but nobody noticed that the whole huide was based around it

[void bastard]

"He carries a minigun around that fires in spurts AND"

I'm very disappointed that didn't end with "if he shoots ya', it's gonna' hurt."

[Thornfalk]

If you jump on a bed and wait, he will glitch out and keep walking around the bed unable to shoot you. I just abuse that to get free ammo and TP,

[swightly]

Once you already have high shoot stat with some tinker it's GG for him once you empty slab's AK on him. You even get back rifle ammo for free!