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?

My gunny has both Miss Fortune and Mysterious Stranger, and I hope to get lucky.

My brawler has yet to engage Deathclaws.

Use AP rounds to get around their DT. Or if you have a high-crit rating, use a Gauss Rifle.

I just avoid them. If I wanted to fight a herd of Tyranosaurus, I'd have horns on my head and armour an Abrams couldn't shoot through.

I walked over one hill, and there were five or six in the valley in front of me....I thought, "Sorry, devs, but I haven't found the MLRS with fast reload and grim reapers sprint yet."

...

.......

Would you believe I forgot about the different types of ammo? x_x All that survivalist skill, a trunk full of excess ammo, and it never occured to me to make AP rounds. You, sir, are a genius.

What type of bullets are you using against them?

:celebration: Death claws are W.A.D for you lol :celebration:

(working as designed)

Just wait until they double the map height and add in giant man-eating bats.

I just use sneak and the A-M Rifle. :whistling:

i just simply use the anti-material rifle on them, went to the deathclaw prom. that is extreme east on the map from cliffside prospector camp across the river with my anti rifle at level 30, was 1-2 shotting deathclaws, went in search of remants power armor, had at least 10 plus deathclaws appear at once in the same immediate area

ninja'd by colonel martyr

I just went there today, that was one hell of a fight, but was it worth a suit of Enclave AND T-51b Armor? Hell yes.

Yes, it's awesome 'aint it?!?!?! I mainly keep to the roads whilst traveling and I'm always scoping (as I'm sure you are) for them. What's awesome is that unlike FO3 where unless you were in Old Olney or in their sanctuary, there were one or two at most to contend with. In FNV, when I scope one, and I keep looking I've usually been finding another, and then another.., and OMG, there's THREE more and a couple of babies for good measure! I had the unenviable predicament of having a herd of DC's on one side and a swarm of Cazadores on the other a bit ago. I just said screw this and took the VERY long way around. And I'm at level 23 or so with guns maxed. It really makes you have to decide, am I gonna take them on or just find another way around.

i went there, fought a couple deathclaws, searched for the armor, started coming back from the most extreme south position and ran into 2 deathclaw mothers, one alpha male and 7 regular deathclaws

Edit - got remnant power armor and T-51b Armor

my fav. part of this game, that is so much better the fallout 3, is that in order to get all the achievements, it takes multiple playthroughs, and not only that, it takes actual thought, fallout 3 was brainless, no matter what kind of character i played, i could get most of the skills up to almost 100 just with the bobbleheads and skill books

making a character takes so much more thought and planning

Cazador's svck, i think they are way too overpowered, especially given the chance you run into them if you like to explore before getting into the main scope of the game

Yeah if you don't have power armour and armour piercing ammo, going up against Cazadors is guaranteed cluster****. They're the new Deathclaws lol.

Playing on very hard with unarmed, p51 armor and ballistic fists(with veronica and rex), groups of advlt deathclaws up to 2-3 are doable, depending on how many knockdowns and disables i get.

The legendary deathclaw however....i could not kill. Maybe if i had a fat man and dropped 50 plasma mines i could do it. lol Tried 5-6 times and had to drop down the difficulty, and felt like a wuss.

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.

when it comes to deathclaws, try exploring the deathclaw promontory, i had the pleasure of going though it only to the have the game glitch and give me the only way out as to deal with 2 deathclaw mothers, a deathclaw alpha male and 7 regular deathclaws, for some reason, i guess i went to this area too early since the 2 prospectors that were supposed to appear in the area only appeared after 12+ deathclaws appeared

Just give boone some .308 AP rounds and set yourself up with the Antimaterial (sp?) rifle with AP rounds, or at least a sniper rilfe in good condition - oh, and perk or boost agility for the actions points - and watch 'em fall like dominoes.
They are expensive to kill (that rifle cost me more than my armor implant) but with Ed-E and Boone they aren't a problem any more. I'll take one or two of them solo.
Casadores also die pretty quick.

Oh, mele weapons work pretty good on them. I've seen "what's her name" take one out with Punchy. (of course she WAS wearing power armor at the time, but still)

FYI: This is on while playing on NORMAL difficulty.

Explosives :flamed:

i took out a baby deathclaw north of Sloan from a distance with This Machine and thought i'd actually accomplished something. then i saw a regular deathclaw running at me from over a ridge.

there were no survivors.

i pretty much do everything in my power to avoid any road that could take me anywhere near a deathclaw. in Fallout 3 they were a piece of cake; i'm so glad they're back to normal.

also cazadores are scrubs i don't get why people think they're so hard

Well early on the cazadores are pretty scary, but once you figure out you can clip there wings they are easy to deal with.

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

seriously i was lv 30 with a the 50 cal and i put them down with 2shots anywhere on them i could 1 hit them with sneak crit and headshots where one to 2 hits