Stats and Tactics: The Plant

Version: Beta 4c



Name: Man eating Plant
Base HP: 5000
Base HP Regeneration: 10 hp/s
Base Armor: 7
Armor Type: Heavy
Base Movementspeed: 0

The man-eating plant is probably the most sophisticated enemy you will encounter. Although it can not move, it posseses deadly abilities and powerful attacks, so your team will need a good team work and coordination to kill it without trouble. But there are a few facts and tricks you can use to ease your task.

Rule No.1 - Stay away!
The Plant's normal attack is artilery-like. That means you can easily evade it when you are quick enough. That only works when you have some distance between you and the Plant - the more distance the more time you have to run away.
You will also notice that there are half a dozen tentacles attached to the Plant. When you get too close, they will attack you and they hurt! So never try to run through the Plant, you wouldn't survive it.

Rule No.2 - Bullets are useless!
Well, not totally useless, but because of the Plant's high armor and it's damage resistance, it swallows a lot of valuable ammunition before it dies. Especially on Nightmare or even Hell, you won't be able to gun it down anymore.
It is more important to focus your normal riflefire on normal enemies such as zombies, ghouls, whiteys.

Rule No.3 - Watch out for them!
The worst thing that could happen while you engage the Plant is that a Hunter/Stalker attacks you from behind, throws you on your back and eats you alive. Because of that Hunters and Stalkers have the highest priority! Kill them at all cost, especially when you see that one of your allies is pinned by them. If the Plant decides to attack a pinned soldier, he is as good as dead.

Rule No.4 - Free your back!
A few minutes after the city's power is fully restored and the lights turn on again, a Monstrosity spawns. This boss is a larger version of the normal fatty. It has more hitpoints, deals more damage and is faster then his smaller brother.
You should wait for it and kill it before you engange the Plant, except you're 100% sure to be able to kill the Plant before he arrives (in which case you won't be needing this tutorial. Go away, hush). After it hits the dust, you can safely attack the Plant.

Rule No.5 - The Offspring!
I am not talking about the music band, but of the "mini-plants" that spawn from time to time. Each of them has half a dozen small tentacles which have an attack similar to the Plant. A single one does not deal so much damage, but all of them will kill you quickly. You can evade them, but you have to run straight away from them. Alternatively you can also destroy them, but be warned that they can take a grenade hit before they go down. Because of their low attack range, it's best if you simply run away a few steps until you're out of range.

Enough of rules. How to kill it?

Way No.1 - Wax it!
Shoot at it until it dies.. neither clever nor efficient. You can use this tactic when playing on Normal Difficulty, but in all other cases you will have more troubles than it does you good.

Way No.2 - Blow it to the moon
If you have a Demolitions or found enough Explosive Charges you can attemt to detonate the Plant. However you'd have to get very close to it (Remember Rule No.1?). I saw a lot of players dying during this action, so here's a few tricks:
- Have a armor with you. Spectra or even a Full Body Combat Armor would be ideal.
- Carry a Medkit with you. Excellent for fast healing.
- Don't try if you have a broken leg. Reason's obvious I think.
- A Scout or Sniper could try to get close to it with their Cloaking skills. But beware of units with true sight (gargoyles).
- You are in an ideal position when you're being attacked by a single of the Plant's tentacles. Try not to be attacked by two.
- Use the Numblock to plant the explosives and get the hell away again.
As a general rule I would say that 8 explosive charges (and +3 for every difficulty level) will suffice to kill it.

Way No.3 - Army Style
If you don't have enough bombs to kill it (blame your Demo), there are several other skills which you can use:
- Grenades fired by the Rifleman or from items are very effective against the Plant because they ignore it's armor.
- Sniper or Marksman can deal quite a bit of damage with their Critical strikes. But it's not enough to kill it.
- A Firebat with Napalm skill can deal a considerate amount of damage, because the Napalm skill also ignores armor (I believe).


You know any more tricks? Want to share your plant sensations? Post 'em.

when my mates play we sometimes on harder difficulties employ the old notd tactic for hades =)

basically load one or two people up with xplosives and firearms (in dotd case, the demolitions and maybe a medic) and let them solo it. if the demo maxes his AT and inf missles as much as possible, by lvl 7-8 he can solo the plant no worries and noone else from the team gets hurt. dunno if this is right, but it also seems to me that most people seem to die not from the plant, but from as s3rius said; by atacks from behind. with this method, worst case scenario is that the demo dies after his first missle barage and the plant sits on wat, 400/500 hp, more than enough for a riflman's nade or a couple of shotty shots.

peace

aww, i havent even got up to that boss:(

s3rius wrote: - A Firebat with Napalm skill can deal a considerate amount of damage, because the Napalm skill also ignores armor (I believe).


You know any more tricks? Want to share your plant sensations? Post 'em.

urgh... yeah remember rule number 1?
the short range of the firebat makes him a prime target... even if his napalm does lots of dmg, it doesn't stick very long to it and you need to keep spraying the boss with it to kill him fast... but while under the arty shots from the boss or the spanws, it's damned hard to survive....

Mishotaki wrote:

s3rius wrote: - A Firebat with Napalm skill can deal a considerate amount of damage, because the Napalm skill also ignores armor (I believe).


You know any more tricks? Want to share your plant sensations? Post 'em.

urgh... yeah remember rule number 1?
the short range of the firebat makes him a prime target... even if his napalm does lots of dmg, it doesn't stick very long to it and you need to keep spraying the boss with it to kill him fast... but while under the arty shots from the boss or the spanws, it's damned hard to survive....

Never saids that this is a good idea - but its a way to deal some damage to it. And a Firebat, especially with Protection Matrix, sustains quite a few hits. You'll need to be careful nonetheless.

can this boss be out-run?

This boss doesn't exactly move much, but if im not wrong, on a couple of occasions, if you run too far away, it will drag you back.

Oh , i so just killed that boss, pretty easy! i just did some disabling shots and stuf:)

Yes, it can actually drag you. Forgot about that.
If there is no enemy nearby the Plant, it drags a random player close to it. Dragging disables your movement for a short time, so it might end deadly when you get dragged near some zombies.

Get a firebat with an energy shield and its an easy kill:)

but better yet .. let firebat go in with the shield then make him put mines down then some nade it .. = gg



All Modes = 7~8 mines will kill the plant.

How Proffessor Zoidberg still alive..I thought he die at his lab..And then suddenly at park he set up Sentry Gun..

He dies when you do the Hydra mission, in the darkness mission he walks out, pees his pants and runs. You then find him in the park later where he gets owned.

Gimli.SoG wrote:He dies when you do the Hydra mission, in the darkness mission he walks out, pees his pants and runs. You then find him in the park later where he gets owned.

pity prof at the last still got owned