This guide will mainly focus on fighting basic lava fauna and megafauna, please feel free to reply with your cheesy strategies below.
Goliaths
Apparently people fucking hate these things, in my opinion they’re some of the easiest to deal with in Lavaland
Drops - Goliath steak, goliath plates, bone
To fight goliaths, using melee is HIGHLY discouraged as these things’ melee power is high enough to rival combat bears, and likely beat them.
The main hitch with ranged combat is the tendril attack despised by miners, ash walkers and golems alike. A single hit from this will stun you for approximately 5 seconds, make you drop your weapons, and deal mild damage. The best way to avoid this attack is to look closely at the goliath’s eyes- When it turns red, be ready to move, it indicates that it’s about to grope you with its hentai tentacles. Simple as that.
From there, always stay two tiles away from it and spam the PkA or whatever until it dies and avoid being cornered at lava or in a cave without a quick way to dig around it, being within a tile of most fauna is a risk you want to avoid if possible.
Watchers
fuck watchers
Drops - Diamonds, watcher sinew, bone
Watchers can be extremely difficult or utter pushovers depending on your race and reflexes. If you’re able to dodge a disabler beam, you’re able to dodge a watcher beam, and are likely not going to have a problem dealing with them. The same goes for IPCs and other cold resistant individuals.
If you have shit reflexes like me, you should try and hide behind a wall in preparation for the watcher’s beams, and then peek out and shoot it while the cooldown is in effect. You can also use an ore box to hide behind if you’re actually doing your job (nerd), and then peek out and fire. Rinse and repeat.
Also not suited for head-on melee attacks without decent healing supplies, their melee can hit like a truck, and they don’t stop attacking when you drop.
Legions
ez pz
Drops - Legion core, an entire corpse with various sets of gear or a skeleton
Legions are probably some of the easiest fauna in the game individually. The mobs themselves do not perform any attacks, instead they spawn little shitter legion heads that don’t deal insignificant damage, but deal enough to be a threat en masse. This fact is the only thing that can make legions potentially dangerous in bigger groups (I.E. with necropolis tendrils).
The most efficient way to deal with a single legion twice is to simply get the jump on it with a single blast from a PkA and then blast it again, killing it in two shots. The cooldown of a default PkA is just slow enough to spawn another legion head before another shot can be fired, so just grab the strongest melee weapon you have and get firing. If you have a PkA with lower cooldown you could of course get a shot in before another head spawns.
Dealing with legions in groups around tendrils usually requires a bit more initiative. A strategy that has always worked for me has been coaxing legions away from the tendril without killing any, then digging back through to the tendril and shooting it there. Of course, why would you want to destroy a legion tendril when you could get science to turn it into an infinite insta-heal stone farm instead?
Elder Goliaths
like normal goliaths, but annoying-er
Drops: Same as normal goliath
These fuckers hate you. They’re not especially difficult to deal with in that you’ll die to them immediately, but holy shit can they take a long time to kill.
These guys look like meatballs from a Lovecraft-ian horror, will randomly spawn tendrils in their proximity, and are honestly kind of cool to keep as Lazarus injected pets. I don’t have a lot of tips for 'em, only seen 'em twice and only had a PkA one of those times. Just try and keep an eye on the floor, stay two tiles from it, and fire away.
Ash Walkers
these count as simplemobs, right?
Drops: Whatever equipment they made/Stole from your respectable miner brethren
These guys are always valid, have antag status, and will likely have no reservation in poking your eyes out of your skull if they know this. They usually won’t have advanced weapons like PkA’s or crushers, but they do have spears and their base even has an RCD, meaning they can cross lava if they have it on them.
To recognize an Ash Walker, look for:
- Digitigrade legs (The weird skinny feet that are always visible from the side)
- The yellow gladiator armor and/or a legionnaire helmet
- Names with an emphasis on Z’s, K’s, and A’s like Mazaar-Alakr or Al-Kazaar or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
- A lack of a backpack/A spear on the backslot
Even with this, always exercise caution with trying to kill an Ash Walker, as they could still be a lizard doing Roman soldier cosplay or some shit. Maybe give a warning to a lizard if you see them, as most Ash Walkers are too ■■■■■■ed to figure out that they could speak Galactic Common for whatever reason. If you see them speaking the Ash Walker language then blast their ass though.
I might add a piece for megafauna, but I’m much less experienced in that realm. Quick tip for new miners though, if you hear a clang sound in the distance and aren’t prepped with survival pens, run in the opposite direction.
Kinetic Crusher Trophies
If you’re a big buff miner rubbing your abs against golems to grind them into a fine dust, then you’re probably experienced with the Kinetic Crusher. Most lavaland mobs have a chance to drop a trophy upon their death if you kill them with the crusher. These can be used to further your mob robusting potential and thus gain more trophies, and on and on.
TROPHIES, COPY AND PASTED FROM THE WIKI
Legion skull Legion Makes your Crusher recharge faster.
Goliath tentacle Goliath Mark detonations deal more damage the more health you’re missing.
Watcher wing Watcher Mark detonations briefly delay some creatures from using certain attacks.
Magmawing Watcher wing Magmawing Watcher After a mark detonation, the next destabilizer shot will deal damage.
Icewing Watcher wing Icewing Watcher Identical to regular Watcher wings.
Eye of a blood-drunk hunter Blood-drunk Miner On mark detonation, gain stun immunity, damage-slowdown immunity and 90% damage reduction for one second.
Tail spike Ash Drake Mark detonations deal area damage and push enemies back.
Demon claws Bubblegum Melee hits deal bonus damage and heal you. 500% as strong during a mark detonation.
Blaster tubes Colossus On mark detonation, the next shot moves slower, but deals damage.
Vortex talisman Hierophant Mark detonations create barriers that only you can pass.
In terms of killing foul beasts with the Kinetic Accelerator, it’ll require much more cheese than usual.
If you plan on going against goliaths, a hit-and-run approach is advised to stay alive.
For legions, refer to the aforementioned advice in their section.
For watchers, a similar approach as the goliath is the most likely to stop damage when used in junction with a projectile-blocking object like an ore box, machine frame, locker, etc.
If you want to fight megafauna with the crusher, grab some survival pens and a pair of jumpboots from the mining points vendor, reinforce your mining exosuit with some goliath plates, and after that…
Good luck.