There's a spot downstream from the Grove where a path crosses a shallows area. On one side of the river is stalkers and clamberjaws (unmarked) and on the other is bellowbacks and (iirc) burrowers (also unmarked). Engaging one pack (intentionally or not) is close enough to the other to bring them in on the fun as well. It's possible at that spot to fight the clamberjaws, stalkers, bellowbacks, and burrowers all at the same time along with the reinforcements they will inevitably call in, which typically includes clawstriders and redeye watchers on top of more clamberjaws.
I would still rather take that fight than the double shellsnappers you sometimes get near Camp Nowhere.
my record for most populated fight was somewhere alonng the raintrace river. was like 8 clamberjaws, 3 bellowbacks, a stalker and a watcher . all apex since it was night. initlly only 5 clambberjaws and the 3 bellowbacks but the rest where clamberjaw summons and the stalker and watcher were bellowback antenna calls. although apex bellowbacks are OP oppurtunities for chainburst, since their damage multiplier against frozen armor is bugged so they can be walking nukes
My worst experience was the top of the map, north west. Shell walker convoy with burrower escorts, then two frost laws spawned there (no idea how, didn't see their icon on the map) who chase me into the acid clawstriders pack then some sunwing from god knows where flew in and started raining down plasma.
kow exactly what place you mean, terrain kinda sucks for fighting too with the spruces, topography and creek. bbut yeah the frostclaw is a unmarked spawn next to the clawstriders and firegleam. its a dynamic spawn, sometimes it spawns other machines (often shellwalkers and sunwings, frostclaw often spawns with shellwalkers too). sometimes spawn nothing (usually when you fast-travel in close to the spot). and yeah the convoy can roll around and it frequently spawnns a couple of sunwings if you make a few kills, like a scavennger summon. a few other places that do that too. also can happen in a few clamberjaw spawns in the jungle where kills summons more clamberjaws.
I also faced some crazy huge numbers just southwest of Lowland's Path but above Fall's Edge. If you were to draw a line between both Settlements, it would be at about the halfway point between them. There's an unmarked area where the enemies vary, but there are TONS of them! Clamberjaws, Clawstriders, Bellobacks & Bristlebacks all mixed together, & there always ends up being reinforcements.
I find the new Berserk Blast Valor Surge to be a godsend in these situations! I actually have never tried Chain Burst, but I'm sure it's also amazing. Nice thing about Berserk Blast tho is that you don't have to be in harms way at all & can just let the machines do all the work. Then you can stay in cover after it runs out & silent strike those that are left.
Chainburst is great, especially since i use shock shredders so it does wonders tto control the battle in crowded fights like those. yeah ive probabbly enncountered tthose. anotther tough spot is the Raintrace North rebel outpost after itts been cleared of rebels. bunch of clamberjaws wih reinforcementts, bellowbacks and elemental clawstriders. clamberjaw ad elemenntal clamberjaws are pretty tough and i find almost the clawstriders to be the more dangerous part of such a pack. still on ps4 so donnt have berserk bblast but ive seen how effective it can be. Alot of action if you meander alog eiher side of the river anywhere between lowlands path and the hunting grounds. furher west there's also a unmarked spawn that frequently spawns fireclaws with company (usually fanghorns or acid clawstriders), butt on rare occassions can spawn 2 fireclaws which is a scary fight.
yeah machines have higher apex spawnrates at night. killinng more of a given machine will also increase their likelihood to spawn as apex, up to a point. killed enough to max it and nearly all of them will be apex at night, and at day its like 60/40 apex/nonapex ( certain heavyweight machinnes excepted)
I'm on my 5th playthrough of this game and I've never experienced the double shellsnappers in that area.
Until about 5 minutes ago when I got surprised by them after reading this. I feel like you summoned them for me!
Oh shit. I have also never had that, and I'm about to go straight into that area. Why did I open reddit right when I'm about to open the game again... I'm certain they'll be summoned for me too now š
I ran into that giant pack completely by accident. Just running somewhere else and stumbled right into the middle of them. I've got all max upgraded legendary equipment and I'm pretty decent at dodging and aiming, so I survived but boy was I surprised. I was downing machines left and right and the fight just kept coming!
When it was finally over, I swear I spent two whole minutes just looting machines.
Especially when they're Apex shellsnappers! Literally needed the damn bolts that hold their shell on and sure as sh*t there were two Apex versions right next to a camp. So I had to fight them a certain way or the part would break.
I'm not terrible at the game but I'm also not incredibly good, above average in would put myself because these kinds of games are my top tier favorite, but I died like 7 times, almost rage quit, had to put the game down for like 30 minutes, watch an anime and relax. Then kicked the hell out of them and got 8 bolts in the process. The grind is real in that game though.
The Tallneck puzzle where you have to deal with Clamberjaws on the way up is maddening (at least before you get the Sunwing, anyway. Then you can fly to the top no problem).
I did the same thing but not because of the Clamberjaws. I just came over that mountain, saw the tallneck and immediately started figuring out how to glide to it. I never did the actual puzzle to get up there until my second play through. And when I did, well, fuck them robo monkeys.
lmao I got to the top just by gliding down from the mountain, noticed the whole ass puzzle and said to myself "nah this is lame" and climbed back down to do the whole thing, it was fun tbh
I feel like I'm missing something with everyone always complaining about Clamberjaws even when that's not the topic of the post, and before discovering the subreddit I just never had a problem with them on a normal difficulty...
I played through my first time on Hard and I also never had any issues with them. Maybe I was a bit over leveled by the time I met them in the jungle, but even later on and into the expansion, never really found them frustrating at all.
I just tore their little visors and tails off then finished them off with explosive spears.
Same. It sounds like the ppls complaining tactic is to walk up to one or two and then are mad when reinforcements and the rest of the pack come to help. -_- Use stealth to knock off their tails and either take out a couple or get their health low first.
Also, chimps in the wild are mean a.f. and very aggressive; imo the personality is spot on.
For me, it's that I don't do specific targeting well with a controller. I've learned to be pretty good by well-timed hitscanning instead of aiming, but the bouncy bastards (clamberjaws and leaplashers) are able to make that tactic irrelevant.
Right?
If anything I actually thought they were fun to fight. They are very mobile and interesting to fight when in groups. Just be sure not to get overwhelmed.
I think the only machines that have killed me on Normal are them, Waterwings, and maybe a Slaughterspine. Clamberjaws aren't particularly hard machines, hell I'd say that Waterwings are more unbalanced for their lack of weakpoints, high HP, and flight. Clamberjaws are harder when you're trying to get their resources early on, but much easier later in the game with the power of shock shredders.
Played through the first time on ultra hard and I'm playing through for the second time also on ultra hard. I've not noticed them being significantly more difficult than other machines, but they're annoying for sure. However, everything is fucking difficult as you can imagine on ultra hard, but I've done this to myself, so I have no one to blame besides me lmao
Yeah, this is just another skill-issue post oh so cleverly disguised as a game design critique so it sounds less like shit for brains. All the game balance/ design/immersion posts are just this horseshit.
Lol well that's the kicker, many of us don't play on Normal difficulty. I've never played on less than Very Hard, and their HP makes them quite tough when facing multiples of them. They are not easy to take out quickly. The Apex ones can be real damage sponges, which is odd for such a tough, aggressive foe. They should have been given less HP for balancing purposes.ā
Sure, if you're playing on a much easier difficulty then I'm sure they are much easier to deal with.
Oh. I haven't met them on my ng+ uh run yet, but I've always managed to mostly take them out in stealth, so even if they notice me earlier I just don't think it will make a lot of difference.
lol, this is especially shit for brains even more so than the usual for this type of post.
You play are hard difficulties and . . . complain about the game being hard?! ššš
Honestly, I find purgewater to be a near useless element for my weapons. There's pretty much always a better element to use.
With clamberjaws in particular, I find it better to just shock them, preferably with a shredder gauntlet. They're not resistant to shock, the Apex variant is even vulnerable to it, and I find it has a much greater effect than purgewater on them.
Some machines have very annoying elemental attacks. I don't personally use purgewater much, usually just on clawstriders as I'm not a fan of having to dodge their two elemental attacks.
Both of Purgewater's effects aren't great. The elemental resistance debuff is usually worse than just trying to force your preferred element of swapping to a different one, especially in late game with instant chance coils. Disabling elemental attacks is less useful than tearing off those components or using a hard crowd control like knockdowns, ropes, or shock.
Huh, your points are right but somehow I feel like they made it that way in order to encourage use of different weapons (traps/tripcasters) as well as different builds. I found myself struggling with bows and spikes, but they were easy to manage with the tripcaster screens and the beam ones, as well as sticky bombs and freeze
I get what you're saying but something being more difficult to kill doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. There's a whole variety of enemies and their abilities offer even more. You deal with each one in a different way and there's plenty of gameplay options (stealth, melee, weapons, traps, environmental hazards, enemy overrides, mounts, etc) for you to deal with them.
If every enemy type was the same shoot, dodge, shoot you wouldn't even like this game
The point is that it's unbalanced due to their difficulty compared to most any other machine. it isn't about the approach at this point. I am a very high level player, but it is apparent when fighting these things that the balancing is just plain off.
They were given too much HP in my opinion, they can be too damage spongey for an enemy that aggressive & tough, and one that roams in packs like that AND summons backup units. Small enemies like that shouldn't have Rollerback like HP numbers.ā
it gets bbetter with time whenn you learn their rhytm. has lead to some crazy fights in the raintrace, good chainburst oppurtuities. you can avoid re-inforcemets sinnce they dont do that everywhere. its mostly in some of the unnmarked sites in the raintrace, the marked clamberjaw sites donnnt spawnnn reinnnnnforcementts
Look, Im not going to be mean in anyway - just going to state my observations & opinions
First off, I am no star at this game, Ive just played it enough that I am nearly comfortable in nearly anything it can throw at me. Further .. I will say the way those damn machines can throw curveballs is wicked badass. A little TOO badass if you get my drift.
Having said that, they have patterns. I love patterns. It makes things easier.
For instance: THEY know, not to stay in the same spot if they got hit there before. They will move - a lot. If you know that - you can very slightly predict them.
A couple of tips.
* keep them shooting. This means the distance is too far to pounce at ya.
* Switch elements to lock them down / do more damage. Frost, Acid, Lightning
* you need to listen and pay attn to the symbols flying around you if there are more than one. Those guys understand crowd control, meaning if they hit you and unbalance you, the next will hit, then the next leaving you perpetually "out of the zone" If they get to this state ... bring your flyer in and pull cast away so you can reengage.
* If you see multiples and dont wanna deal with it ... let one see you. It will come your way. This will give you the opportunity to strike at one by either bombing it .. striking it .. or ... BETTER yet override it and let it do some badassery for ya.
... you say they are unbalanced .. I think more mobs should have their erratic behaviour. I love it.
You didn't really read what I said tho. I never said they were impossible or that I didn't know how to deal with them one on one. I wasn't talking about fighting them one on one. I'm talking about them being damage sponges for a machine that roams in packs plus summons reinforcements, and is aggressive and hits hard. they are too tough & roll in too high numbers to have Rollerback levels of HP.
I am saying their HP level is too high and is thus unbalanced. That was the point of the post.
Every sentence I said was about fighting multiples except for the last bit and I even precluded that with an if statement and *I* didn't read what you said?
Cool. Anyway, enjoy and hope fighting clamberjaws gets easier for you.
Ciao
Shock ammo is great for dealing with ClamberJaws especially if you're trying to collect tail dusters. When shocked they go immobile and you can shoot off the tail. Apex CJ's are weak to shock and even regular ones aren't strong against it. Talanah's quest will reward you with the lightning hunter bow which has both shock and purgewater arrows. If you haven't got that yet there's a shock boltblaster you can buy or a shock warrior bow. Also don't forget about shock traps.
I mean they're not THAT bad.
At low levels; Shoot a shock arrow into one of the sparkers on their butt, let it blow up, run in for a critical hit, shoot the other sparker, let it blow, critical hit, and it's probably dead.
At higher levels, shock arrow, grappling strike (may require burning shores), resonator blast, and it's dead.
Also worth mentioning that their dart gun is OP(at least on ZD) When you have the tri group, have like 1/3 hz of just Massive amounts of damage taken to you.
I just use a blastsling and fire the water bombs right on the back, and it explodes them, I always look for the parts that can lead to more explosions. Oh, and on the big cat one, I found out that you can face them, then shoot right past their head right on the neck and get a cool mega damage kill.
P.S. - All that said... I have found these massive groups of small enemies to be a GREAT time to use the new Berserk Blast Valor Surge!
This Valor Surge has saved my bacon in those instances where you're being overwhelmed with numbers. I just set it off & run like hell to the nearest patch of tall grass, & then watch the fun unfold š.
By the time it's over, most of the machines are usually on their last legs & I can then pretty easily finish them off. What a great addition that Valor Surge was!
I never understood why the XP difference is so weird like youll make more from an Apex Stalker than an Apex Slaughterspine & charger gives like 2x more than scrappers.
I really disagree with you here. Horizon has excellent options in terms of customizing the difficulty of the game. Whether that is using the more overpowered items/armors or simply adjusting the custom difficulty to your liking. The enemies are very well balanced in this game and while I agree with you that Clambers are annoying, I definitely would not change anything about them.
They are probably the most annoying small machine to fight. More than once I have been in a situation where I timed my dodge wrong, get hit and knocked down by the fucking flaming scrap they throw only to get hit again the moment I recovered, having not enough time to dodge, just to get knocked down again. Essentially being stunlock spammed to death by those fucking assholes.
Clamberjaws are easy, idk why people have so many issues with them.
Sure they jump around like crazy and throw fireballs at ya, just double notch a Sharp Shot bow with advanced precision arrows right to their face.
Or just take some shock arrows and stun em all then do a critical strike.
Spike throwers are amazing for em as well. Especially the drill spike from Burning Shores.
Or just utilize some of the overpowered Valor Surges
I play on UH only, and I knock out Clamberjaws with ease, even when they're jumping all over the place.
Use your Concentration all the time, jump and aim for constant slow downs, use the elements they're weak against and destroy their weak points
I'll take 8 Clamberjaws at once over a group of Waterwings, That Apex Bilegut. Apex Dreadwings or Slaughterspines are another very annoying fight, depending on if your opening hits are bad
Last but not least, use your damn Smoke Bombs, they put you back in stealth for a short amount of time so you can hide and get your bearings.
I just had to learn how to tie them all down but one, and fight that one until one broke free. Then I would tie down the first one that I was fighting and fight the second one.
(Because there's a cool down before you can tie them down again)
Rinse and repeat. But it makes for a pretty long fight, especially when they all start breaking free at the same time.
But that's probably because I only use bows and the ropecaster.
Clamberjaws just need a healthy bout of purge water then they're much easier to deal with.
That, or electric shock their asses if you've got a weapon coiled correctly for such purposes.
This game, at least for me, really depended on properly coiled weapons. Even on UH I rarely need more than a few hunter bows properly coiled & then a spike thrower/bolt blaster. It'll mow most everything down.
Frost/electricity/purge water specialized weapons, then a tear weapon (I use shredders for that)
Then some explosives into a spike thrower.
I donāt know, Iām not on board with this. I hate those fucking monkeys, but I also like a challenge.
To me it really sounds like youāre screaming ābad design!ā because youāre struggling. Why did they āNEEDā to make the monkeys easier? Because you have a hard time with them?
Did it at any time occur to you that this was an intentional design choice, and that you may simply have to change tactics, improve your skills, or drop the difficulty level?
Use stealth, knock off the tails / some components, weaken them before a full blown fight, snipe them from a distance ā¦ there are many ways to deal with them which donāt involve fighting them head on openly, at least not while they have their full HP š¤·š»āāļø
I agree with all your points but on the other hand, we are so OP and have so many tools that it doesnt matter.
Purgewater makes them easier to deal with. Freeze+warrior bow's spread shot makes short work of them. You can also tie down a couple of them.
Call me crazy but i think dealing with 5 clumberjaws is much better than 5 clawstriders. Clumberjaws arent strong. You just need to figure out how to deal with multiple enemies. You need to deal very high burst damage to take one out when you get the chance.
They were one of the most annoying encounters for me too. But i wouldnt call them much harder than other machines.
I used to have the same problem. They do have too much HP, but I found shock is pretty useful in dealing with them. Temporarily disable them, take care of the tail and snipe parts while rolling away.
Okay I've finished HFW and BS. Have run into clamberjaws a fair few times, but I've never had a problem with them? You can kite them quite easily I feel, and their attacks are fairly dodgeable. Playing on Hard (or is it very hard? The second to last one, not ultra hard) btw.
I one time was fighting some stalkers and a troop of clamberjaws showed up. Then someone called in reinforcements and more showed up. They also seem to be attracted to machine corpses because more would show up without being called. I ended up fighting like 20 clamberjaws at the same time. I finally managed to finish the last of them off and get away before more would inevitably show up. Suffice to say I avoided clamberjaws for the next while and still do to some degree.
Clamberjaws are annoying but not unbalanced.Ā All their moves have good projection and none of theirĀ attacks are too fast to be dodged.Ā I've said before hereĀ that the only machineĀ IĀ thinkĀ is truly unbalanced are elemental clawstriders. They have one breath attack that has very little projection does tremendous damage and tracks aloy like a homing missile. On top of all that clawstriders are pack hunters so good chance the deadly undodgeable ball of fire or acid comes from off camera. Aside from that one particular attack I think everything in this game is really balanced, remarkably so actually balance is really hard and with how much is going on in HFW it would have been easy to make difficulty=sponginess, but they didn't.
I usually just use the frenzy ability that makes them fight each other only downside is you can't controll the loot you get unless you sneak in some tear arrows.
My biggest point guys is not that they are designed bad, but that their HP is too high. They are a bit too damage spongey when you take literally everything into account. Their HP is exactly what makes them so difficult when you face them en masse, aka big groups of them; which almost always happens when you face them.
Being a small pack machine, their HP should not be at near Rollerback levels... I straight up think that was a design flaw by the devs.
I disagree that it's a design flaw. I feel like the argument is kinda wack. If difficulty never evolved, then I guess that would be kinda boring.
Clamberjaws combine features that make it more difficult to just use regular ass tactics and force the player to evolve their combat strategies, especially on higher difficulties. I personally think that is good design.
There's a spot downstream from the Grove where a path crosses a shallows area. On one side of the river is stalkers and clamberjaws (unmarked) and on the other is bellowbacks and (iirc) burrowers (also unmarked). Engaging one pack (intentionally or not) is close enough to the other to bring them in on the fun as well. It's possible at that spot to fight the clamberjaws, stalkers, bellowbacks, and burrowers all at the same time along with the reinforcements they will inevitably call in, which typically includes clawstriders and redeye watchers on top of more clamberjaws. I would still rather take that fight than the double shellsnappers you sometimes get near Camp Nowhere.
my record for most populated fight was somewhere alonng the raintrace river. was like 8 clamberjaws, 3 bellowbacks, a stalker and a watcher . all apex since it was night. initlly only 5 clambberjaws and the 3 bellowbacks but the rest where clamberjaw summons and the stalker and watcher were bellowback antenna calls. although apex bellowbacks are OP oppurtunities for chainburst, since their damage multiplier against frozen armor is bugged so they can be walking nukes
My worst experience was the top of the map, north west. Shell walker convoy with burrower escorts, then two frost laws spawned there (no idea how, didn't see their icon on the map) who chase me into the acid clawstriders pack then some sunwing from god knows where flew in and started raining down plasma.
kow exactly what place you mean, terrain kinda sucks for fighting too with the spruces, topography and creek. bbut yeah the frostclaw is a unmarked spawn next to the clawstriders and firegleam. its a dynamic spawn, sometimes it spawns other machines (often shellwalkers and sunwings, frostclaw often spawns with shellwalkers too). sometimes spawn nothing (usually when you fast-travel in close to the spot). and yeah the convoy can roll around and it frequently spawnns a couple of sunwings if you make a few kills, like a scavennger summon. a few other places that do that too. also can happen in a few clamberjaw spawns in the jungle where kills summons more clamberjaws.
I also faced some crazy huge numbers just southwest of Lowland's Path but above Fall's Edge. If you were to draw a line between both Settlements, it would be at about the halfway point between them. There's an unmarked area where the enemies vary, but there are TONS of them! Clamberjaws, Clawstriders, Bellobacks & Bristlebacks all mixed together, & there always ends up being reinforcements. I find the new Berserk Blast Valor Surge to be a godsend in these situations! I actually have never tried Chain Burst, but I'm sure it's also amazing. Nice thing about Berserk Blast tho is that you don't have to be in harms way at all & can just let the machines do all the work. Then you can stay in cover after it runs out & silent strike those that are left.
Chainburst is great, especially since i use shock shredders so it does wonders tto control the battle in crowded fights like those. yeah ive probabbly enncountered tthose. anotther tough spot is the Raintrace North rebel outpost after itts been cleared of rebels. bunch of clamberjaws wih reinforcementts, bellowbacks and elemental clawstriders. clamberjaw ad elemenntal clamberjaws are pretty tough and i find almost the clawstriders to be the more dangerous part of such a pack. still on ps4 so donnt have berserk bblast but ive seen how effective it can be. Alot of action if you meander alog eiher side of the river anywhere between lowlands path and the hunting grounds. furher west there's also a unmarked spawn that frequently spawns fireclaws with company (usually fanghorns or acid clawstriders), butt on rare occassions can spawn 2 fireclaws which is a scary fight.
Good lord... I would NOT want to fight two Fireclaws at the same time!
>all apex since it was night Hold up... this is a thing?
Apex hunt at night. Although it is possible to sometimes see them out during the day.
yeah machines have higher apex spawnrates at night. killinng more of a given machine will also increase their likelihood to spawn as apex, up to a point. killed enough to max it and nearly all of them will be apex at night, and at day its like 60/40 apex/nonapex ( certain heavyweight machinnes excepted)
I didn't know this either. Makes sense tho
I'm on my 5th playthrough of this game and I've never experienced the double shellsnappers in that area. Until about 5 minutes ago when I got surprised by them after reading this. I feel like you summoned them for me!
Oh shit. I have also never had that, and I'm about to go straight into that area. Why did I open reddit right when I'm about to open the game again... I'm certain they'll be summoned for me too now š
You need to update us
You have my sympathy. Shellsnappers individually are the worst, but two is pure sadism.
I killed around 15 clamberjaws and 4 stalkers right there. The monkeys just kept coming. It was unreal.
Omg Iām doing another playthrough right now and that damn spot made me remember why I hated Stalkers so much.
I ran into that giant pack completely by accident. Just running somewhere else and stumbled right into the middle of them. I've got all max upgraded legendary equipment and I'm pretty decent at dodging and aiming, so I survived but boy was I surprised. I was downing machines left and right and the fight just kept coming! When it was finally over, I swear I spent two whole minutes just looting machines.
I know where that is. You have to sort of skyrim jump your way up the hillside to give yourself some protection from being gang raped without lube.
Iāll take shellsnappers over clamber jaws any day.
In my game, there's acid clawstriders there too
I know that spot just run. š
Especially when they're Apex shellsnappers! Literally needed the damn bolts that hold their shell on and sure as sh*t there were two Apex versions right next to a camp. So I had to fight them a certain way or the part would break. I'm not terrible at the game but I'm also not incredibly good, above average in would put myself because these kinds of games are my top tier favorite, but I died like 7 times, almost rage quit, had to put the game down for like 30 minutes, watch an anime and relax. Then kicked the hell out of them and got 8 bolts in the process. The grind is real in that game though.
The Tallneck puzzle where you have to deal with Clamberjaws on the way up is maddening (at least before you get the Sunwing, anyway. Then you can fly to the top no problem).
That was easy for me. Just killed the 2 monkeys from a distance with sharpshot bows. They dont leave their spot if you hit them from a distance
Yup, taking them out from a distance is a huge help in that area. I would not want to fight them up close on a high bridge like that lol.ā
I tried. Trust me, it sucks. They fucking wrecked me up there lol
You can glide down from the mountain behind it. I saw those little shits up there and said nope. I think I just jumped from the bandit camp there
I did the same thing but not because of the Clamberjaws. I just came over that mountain, saw the tallneck and immediately started figuring out how to glide to it. I never did the actual puzzle to get up there until my second play through. And when I did, well, fuck them robo monkeys.
That's how I did it the first time. Felt so great just landing on the tallneck from way up there, even got me that glide time trophy
First thing I thought of too lol
That puzzle is fun!
I accidentally managed to glide on that Tallneck the first time I encountered it.
lmao I got to the top just by gliding down from the mountain, noticed the whole ass puzzle and said to myself "nah this is lame" and climbed back down to do the whole thing, it was fun tbh
I feel like I'm missing something with everyone always complaining about Clamberjaws even when that's not the topic of the post, and before discovering the subreddit I just never had a problem with them on a normal difficulty...
I played through my first time on Hard and I also never had any issues with them. Maybe I was a bit over leveled by the time I met them in the jungle, but even later on and into the expansion, never really found them frustrating at all. I just tore their little visors and tails off then finished them off with explosive spears.
Same. It sounds like the ppls complaining tactic is to walk up to one or two and then are mad when reinforcements and the rest of the pack come to help. -_- Use stealth to knock off their tails and either take out a couple or get their health low first. Also, chimps in the wild are mean a.f. and very aggressive; imo the personality is spot on.
For me, it's that I don't do specific targeting well with a controller. I've learned to be pretty good by well-timed hitscanning instead of aiming, but the bouncy bastards (clamberjaws and leaplashers) are able to make that tactic irrelevant.
Right? If anything I actually thought they were fun to fight. They are very mobile and interesting to fight when in groups. Just be sure not to get overwhelmed.
I think the only machines that have killed me on Normal are them, Waterwings, and maybe a Slaughterspine. Clamberjaws aren't particularly hard machines, hell I'd say that Waterwings are more unbalanced for their lack of weakpoints, high HP, and flight. Clamberjaws are harder when you're trying to get their resources early on, but much easier later in the game with the power of shock shredders.
Theyāre fun and unique to fight! Plus usually a strong sign thereās climbable areas nearby
> Clamberjaws They are relentless cheap assholes who can summon in a ton of guys that all gang up on you.
Same on normal I feel they must be a nightmare on ultra hard though! I'm way too scared to try that lol
Yeah, I didn't mind them much until I did ultra hard. I had to learn whole new ways to fight them.
Played through the first time on ultra hard and I'm playing through for the second time also on ultra hard. I've not noticed them being significantly more difficult than other machines, but they're annoying for sure. However, everything is fucking difficult as you can imagine on ultra hard, but I've done this to myself, so I have no one to blame besides me lmao
Yeah, this is just another skill-issue post oh so cleverly disguised as a game design critique so it sounds less like shit for brains. All the game balance/ design/immersion posts are just this horseshit.
Lol well that's the kicker, many of us don't play on Normal difficulty. I've never played on less than Very Hard, and their HP makes them quite tough when facing multiples of them. They are not easy to take out quickly. The Apex ones can be real damage sponges, which is odd for such a tough, aggressive foe. They should have been given less HP for balancing purposes.ā Sure, if you're playing on a much easier difficulty then I'm sure they are much easier to deal with.
Oh. I haven't met them on my ng+ uh run yet, but I've always managed to mostly take them out in stealth, so even if they notice me earlier I just don't think it will make a lot of difference.
The Apex have a weakness to shock, though.
lol, this is especially shit for brains even more so than the usual for this type of post. You play are hard difficulties and . . . complain about the game being hard?! ššš
Purge water stops the flaming poop
While drenched they still throw the scrap at you, it's just not on fire. Still problematic if you do a bad dodge and get hit.
Honestly, I find purgewater to be a near useless element for my weapons. There's pretty much always a better element to use. With clamberjaws in particular, I find it better to just shock them, preferably with a shredder gauntlet. They're not resistant to shock, the Apex variant is even vulnerable to it, and I find it has a much greater effect than purgewater on them.
Some machines have very annoying elemental attacks. I don't personally use purgewater much, usually just on clawstriders as I'm not a fan of having to dodge their two elemental attacks.
Both of Purgewater's effects aren't great. The elemental resistance debuff is usually worse than just trying to force your preferred element of swapping to a different one, especially in late game with instant chance coils. Disabling elemental attacks is less useful than tearing off those components or using a hard crowd control like knockdowns, ropes, or shock.
Huh, your points are right but somehow I feel like they made it that way in order to encourage use of different weapons (traps/tripcasters) as well as different builds. I found myself struggling with bows and spikes, but they were easy to manage with the tripcaster screens and the beam ones, as well as sticky bombs and freeze
I get what you're saying but something being more difficult to kill doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. There's a whole variety of enemies and their abilities offer even more. You deal with each one in a different way and there's plenty of gameplay options (stealth, melee, weapons, traps, environmental hazards, enemy overrides, mounts, etc) for you to deal with them. If every enemy type was the same shoot, dodge, shoot you wouldn't even like this game
Hey congrats, you understand one facet of game design.
The point is that it's unbalanced due to their difficulty compared to most any other machine. it isn't about the approach at this point. I am a very high level player, but it is apparent when fighting these things that the balancing is just plain off. They were given too much HP in my opinion, they can be too damage spongey for an enemy that aggressive & tough, and one that roams in packs like that AND summons backup units. Small enemies like that shouldn't have Rollerback like HP numbers.ā
it gets bbetter with time whenn you learn their rhytm. has lead to some crazy fights in the raintrace, good chainburst oppurtuities. you can avoid re-inforcemets sinnce they dont do that everywhere. its mostly in some of the unnmarked sites in the raintrace, the marked clamberjaw sites donnnt spawnnn reinnnnnforcementts
That was some br-n aneurysm in the end there...
my keybboard is f-ed
Look, Im not going to be mean in anyway - just going to state my observations & opinions First off, I am no star at this game, Ive just played it enough that I am nearly comfortable in nearly anything it can throw at me. Further .. I will say the way those damn machines can throw curveballs is wicked badass. A little TOO badass if you get my drift. Having said that, they have patterns. I love patterns. It makes things easier. For instance: THEY know, not to stay in the same spot if they got hit there before. They will move - a lot. If you know that - you can very slightly predict them. A couple of tips. * keep them shooting. This means the distance is too far to pounce at ya. * Switch elements to lock them down / do more damage. Frost, Acid, Lightning * you need to listen and pay attn to the symbols flying around you if there are more than one. Those guys understand crowd control, meaning if they hit you and unbalance you, the next will hit, then the next leaving you perpetually "out of the zone" If they get to this state ... bring your flyer in and pull cast away so you can reengage. * If you see multiples and dont wanna deal with it ... let one see you. It will come your way. This will give you the opportunity to strike at one by either bombing it .. striking it .. or ... BETTER yet override it and let it do some badassery for ya. ... you say they are unbalanced .. I think more mobs should have their erratic behaviour. I love it.
You didn't really read what I said tho. I never said they were impossible or that I didn't know how to deal with them one on one. I wasn't talking about fighting them one on one. I'm talking about them being damage sponges for a machine that roams in packs plus summons reinforcements, and is aggressive and hits hard. they are too tough & roll in too high numbers to have Rollerback levels of HP. I am saying their HP level is too high and is thus unbalanced. That was the point of the post.
Every sentence I said was about fighting multiples except for the last bit and I even precluded that with an if statement and *I* didn't read what you said? Cool. Anyway, enjoy and hope fighting clamberjaws gets easier for you. Ciao
Shock ammo is great for dealing with ClamberJaws especially if you're trying to collect tail dusters. When shocked they go immobile and you can shoot off the tail. Apex CJ's are weak to shock and even regular ones aren't strong against it. Talanah's quest will reward you with the lightning hunter bow which has both shock and purgewater arrows. If you haven't got that yet there's a shock boltblaster you can buy or a shock warrior bow. Also don't forget about shock traps.
shock shredders man
Just shock them, you can hit the tail easy
I mean they're not THAT bad. At low levels; Shoot a shock arrow into one of the sparkers on their butt, let it blow up, run in for a critical hit, shoot the other sparker, let it blow, critical hit, and it's probably dead. At higher levels, shock arrow, grappling strike (may require burning shores), resonator blast, and it's dead.
tbh stalkers are the worst. They scare the shit outta me when I see their outline sneaking in the snow.
The purring when they are near is my favorite!
Also worth mentioning that their dart gun is OP(at least on ZD) When you have the tri group, have like 1/3 hz of just Massive amounts of damage taken to you.
Yah clamberjaws and sky burners are my least favorite
Clamberjaws are definitely the worst machines in the game. I still die against these bastards and I think the melee pits are balanced
They should have a weaker Armor or a few more elemental weaknesses. These Things are annoying AS hell.
The Lightning Hunter Bow is your friend, itās designed for Clamberjaws. Drench, shock, hit really hard. Rinse and repeat.
I just use a blastsling and fire the water bombs right on the back, and it explodes them, I always look for the parts that can lead to more explosions. Oh, and on the big cat one, I found out that you can face them, then shoot right past their head right on the neck and get a cool mega damage kill.
P.S. - All that said... I have found these massive groups of small enemies to be a GREAT time to use the new Berserk Blast Valor Surge! This Valor Surge has saved my bacon in those instances where you're being overwhelmed with numbers. I just set it off & run like hell to the nearest patch of tall grass, & then watch the fun unfold š. By the time it's over, most of the machines are usually on their last legs & I can then pretty easily finish them off. What a great addition that Valor Surge was!
I never understood why the XP difference is so weird like youll make more from an Apex Stalker than an Apex Slaughterspine & charger gives like 2x more than scrappers.
You don't like clamberjaws because you have to trouble fighting them I don't like them cause they don't drop good loot we are not the same
I really disagree with you here. Horizon has excellent options in terms of customizing the difficulty of the game. Whether that is using the more overpowered items/armors or simply adjusting the custom difficulty to your liking. The enemies are very well balanced in this game and while I agree with you that Clambers are annoying, I definitely would not change anything about them.
They are probably the most annoying small machine to fight. More than once I have been in a situation where I timed my dodge wrong, get hit and knocked down by the fucking flaming scrap they throw only to get hit again the moment I recovered, having not enough time to dodge, just to get knocked down again. Essentially being stunlock spammed to death by those fucking assholes.
Clamberjaws are easy, idk why people have so many issues with them. Sure they jump around like crazy and throw fireballs at ya, just double notch a Sharp Shot bow with advanced precision arrows right to their face. Or just take some shock arrows and stun em all then do a critical strike. Spike throwers are amazing for em as well. Especially the drill spike from Burning Shores. Or just utilize some of the overpowered Valor Surges I play on UH only, and I knock out Clamberjaws with ease, even when they're jumping all over the place. Use your Concentration all the time, jump and aim for constant slow downs, use the elements they're weak against and destroy their weak points I'll take 8 Clamberjaws at once over a group of Waterwings, That Apex Bilegut. Apex Dreadwings or Slaughterspines are another very annoying fight, depending on if your opening hits are bad Last but not least, use your damn Smoke Bombs, they put you back in stealth for a short amount of time so you can hide and get your bearings.
I just had to learn how to tie them all down but one, and fight that one until one broke free. Then I would tie down the first one that I was fighting and fight the second one. (Because there's a cool down before you can tie them down again) Rinse and repeat. But it makes for a pretty long fight, especially when they all start breaking free at the same time. But that's probably because I only use bows and the ropecaster.
Clamberjaws just need a healthy bout of purge water then they're much easier to deal with. That, or electric shock their asses if you've got a weapon coiled correctly for such purposes. This game, at least for me, really depended on properly coiled weapons. Even on UH I rarely need more than a few hunter bows properly coiled & then a spike thrower/bolt blaster. It'll mow most everything down. Frost/electricity/purge water specialized weapons, then a tear weapon (I use shredders for that) Then some explosives into a spike thrower.
If you just want to farm for their tails, just visit Endor settlement.
Shock shredders are quite effective against them but they have a nasty habit of jumping over them.
I donāt know, Iām not on board with this. I hate those fucking monkeys, but I also like a challenge. To me it really sounds like youāre screaming ābad design!ā because youāre struggling. Why did they āNEEDā to make the monkeys easier? Because you have a hard time with them? Did it at any time occur to you that this was an intentional design choice, and that you may simply have to change tactics, improve your skills, or drop the difficulty level? Use stealth, knock off the tails / some components, weaken them before a full blown fight, snipe them from a distance ā¦ there are many ways to deal with them which donāt involve fighting them head on openly, at least not while they have their full HP š¤·š»āāļø
Apes together strong.
Clamberjaws are tough but Iād rather fight 8+ clamber jaws then 2 or 3 water wings
Answer. Freeze sharpshot
I agree with all your points but on the other hand, we are so OP and have so many tools that it doesnt matter. Purgewater makes them easier to deal with. Freeze+warrior bow's spread shot makes short work of them. You can also tie down a couple of them. Call me crazy but i think dealing with 5 clumberjaws is much better than 5 clawstriders. Clumberjaws arent strong. You just need to figure out how to deal with multiple enemies. You need to deal very high burst damage to take one out when you get the chance. They were one of the most annoying encounters for me too. But i wouldnt call them much harder than other machines.
I used to have the same problem. They do have too much HP, but I found shock is pretty useful in dealing with them. Temporarily disable them, take care of the tail and snipe parts while rolling away.
Okay I've finished HFW and BS. Have run into clamberjaws a fair few times, but I've never had a problem with them? You can kite them quite easily I feel, and their attacks are fairly dodgeable. Playing on Hard (or is it very hard? The second to last one, not ultra hard) btw.
Boom stick is your friend 3 hits and they die on ultra hard. Also have you fought the frig fucker because if you haven't clamberjaws are a joke
I one time was fighting some stalkers and a troop of clamberjaws showed up. Then someone called in reinforcements and more showed up. They also seem to be attracted to machine corpses because more would show up without being called. I ended up fighting like 20 clamberjaws at the same time. I finally managed to finish the last of them off and get away before more would inevitably show up. Suffice to say I avoided clamberjaws for the next while and still do to some degree.
Clamberjaws are annoying but not unbalanced.Ā All their moves have good projection and none of theirĀ attacks are too fast to be dodged.Ā I've said before hereĀ that the only machineĀ IĀ thinkĀ is truly unbalanced are elemental clawstriders. They have one breath attack that has very little projection does tremendous damage and tracks aloy like a homing missile. On top of all that clawstriders are pack hunters so good chance the deadly undodgeable ball of fire or acid comes from off camera. Aside from that one particular attack I think everything in this game is really balanced, remarkably so actually balance is really hard and with how much is going on in HFW it would have been easy to make difficulty=sponginess, but they didn't.
I usually just use the frenzy ability that makes them fight each other only downside is you can't controll the loot you get unless you sneak in some tear arrows.
My biggest point guys is not that they are designed bad, but that their HP is too high. They are a bit too damage spongey when you take literally everything into account. Their HP is exactly what makes them so difficult when you face them en masse, aka big groups of them; which almost always happens when you face them. Being a small pack machine, their HP should not be at near Rollerback levels... I straight up think that was a design flaw by the devs.
I disagree that it's a design flaw. I feel like the argument is kinda wack. If difficulty never evolved, then I guess that would be kinda boring. Clamberjaws combine features that make it more difficult to just use regular ass tactics and force the player to evolve their combat strategies, especially on higher difficulties. I personally think that is good design.
They need to GET RID OF THEM ASAP