The thing about Cazadores, or Calzones as I like to call them, is that their wings are like paper. A good buck-shot to the wings and they are harmless, as they move like worms without flight. Deathclaws, however, are running around on compact tanks for legs.

Sadly, an addendum, the AP .308 ammo did absolutely nothing that my regular ammo didn't already do damage-wise. I just lured them to the local train platform with grenades and mines and glitched them into the flooring while I finished them off.

What? That's not cheap, I'm just workin with what Obsidian gave me.

How far "East" ? I went across the river, ran into ~ 10 Death Claws, but nothing shows up on Pipboy, and a search along 1/2 mile of river shows no caves or way up the mountains

On Normal/hardcoe I was one shotting Blind deathclaws with the Anti-Materiel Rifle with AP rounds. Not sure if Blind ones are harder than regular ones, and I assume that Alphas are the hardest. I'm also unsure if the incendiary rounds do more or less damage/dps than AP, but I also one shot giant radscorpions with incendiaries. I was one shotting the little deathclaws with the Marksman Carbine with AP rounds also...

For Zeus' sake, WHY are these things so ridiculously hard to kill?

I'm lvl 30, max Guns, high Perception, Agility, and Endurance with a good spot of Luck, and my weapon of choice is the Gobi Sniper rifle. My whole build is around mobility and sniping ( it goes without saying, I usually use Boone and nothing even gets close to us ). So far, aside from the obvious hang-ups in gameplay, I haven't had any issues fighting or killing unless jumped by a Legion Assassination squad. And even then, I can shuffle to a short-range weapon and pull through with a Stempack or two. But heaven help me if I stumble across a Deathclaw. First off, I'm guessing it's a bug, but they don't up on my compass regardless of my 10 Perception. I don't know they're there unless I zoom in and see them, or Boone spots them for me. If they see me first, I'm down in 2 hits. 2 very fast hits.

Even with Boone shooting from a distance, unless I get a critical sneak attack on them with my sniper rifle we're toast. If I can't essentially one-shot ( it drops to 2 bars with a crit ) the deathclaw in the head, it'll charge us and tear us apart, or at the very best seriously maim us and force us to retreat after the kill and stem up. And if there's more than 1? Impossible. Even in the best situation, Boone will die ( as will Ed-E or T-Rex, but then again they die even against 1 because they stupidly rush ahead ) and I probably follow suit.

I remember them being hard in FO3, but at least then I had a Dart Gun to slow them down to something below Mach 1 when they bull-rush me. Now I have to hope for a sneak critical, 1 on 1, or just find another way around. They have this [censored] Damage Threshhold so that I cant' even cripple their legs without at least 5 shots, during which they have of-course gotten in my face and proceeded to tear it off my skull, or if I layer the road with so many damn mines it causes a mini-apocalypse just by itself when they go off. I just cant help but think, given their numbers ( especially in the Quarry ) that there's something wrong with them. They should NOT be so hard for someone as geared and skilled ( in-game skills, not out of game skills mind you ) as I am.

Does anyone else have problems with them? Any tips or tricks on how best to approach them? Or am I doing it right, and just painfully slog through them ( hopefully ) one 4-minute save at a time?

Legendaries are the worst:

Level 30
Perception 10
Health 850
Damage 250

I found one in Dead Wind Cavern. Had to drop that difficulty like it was hot. Damn good thing Boone could book it in there and distract him. Got its health low enough to let the Danger warning go away and pop a hard .308 round in the back of its head. If you guys don't have a silencer on there, get one. Makes stealth SO much easier. Anyway that one's near impossible to kill on any sort of HC and/or VH setting. It's in the closed quarters of the damn cavern (I'm a witty stealth based sniper) with too other normal Deathclaws keeping watch. All of that for some low cond. T-45 and Mercy, the grenade machinegun. Safe pickins prospectors!

Hey and if anyone could give me the digits on the Deathclaw Prom/ Remnants Armor pickup? I've got an itch that only some Deathclaw hands can soothe, and seem to have lost my map. Isn't it around 6.11, or more towards the quarry (already cleared that place out.)?

Hmm... I see a lot of people "complaining" about deathclaws and it kind of makes me smile. I remember deathclaws back in FO1/2 when they were the "stuff of legend" and whenever you saw one you'd be like "OMGWTFRUN!!"... FO3 they were kinda pathetic if you ask me, now in FO:NV they're back on top where they belong. But I digress...

My character build focuses on boosting critical rate/damage and V.A.T.S. accuracy, I play my character as a sniper mostly as well. I really only use V.A.T.S. if I'm being lazy or there is a little too much going on 6 inches from my face... or when a big ass deathclaw is charging me at 752 mph. I don't recall what level I was at the time (probably high teens) when I acquired my sniper rifle but that weapon is like slapping people with the friggin' Hand of God, lol. I put the suppressor attachment on it and now I can one hit kill (headshot, duh) a deathclaw undetected from so far away it's completely ridiculous (free aim obviously) and should I screw up and find myself risking a "death-hug", it usually doesn't take more than two/three V.A.T.S. headshots to explode a deathclaw's head. Hell, I've one shotted Mother Deathclaws AND Alpha Male Deathclaws... More often than not though, I don't mess up and I can just pick off deathclaws all day long with NORMAL ammunition. The only time I can recall using AP ammunition was in that area across the river that has the Enclave Remnants armor and 3,293 deathclaws there and I don't even think I needed to, I just didn't want to risk a foul up, lol. :gun:

P.S. Almost forgot, I play on Normal/hardcoe difficulty. :fallout:

travel to 6.11 (cliffside prospector camp) then head due east, cross the river and head north a little bit, you'll see a path that leads up into the mountains

I'm level 20 and Boone with a the Gobi or plain sniper rifle, death claws are no problem, even in bunches. Now cazadors, or however you spell it, are the real pain.