Do you have any hints to defeat the last opponent in the arena?

[Codaxio]

Hi everybody,

I would like to know if you have some advice to beat the last opponent of the arena?
My biggest problem is that my character uses a light armour (3 in strength) a crossbow (with special bolts), an energy shield, have psi abilities and is more stealth/dodge oriented. I didn't have any problem with the rest of the warriors but this one kills my character in one turn... I can't do anything and it's pretty annoying
I can't craft heavy armour with a lot of resistance because I don't have points in mechanics, so I tried to buy one in the merchant but even with it I barely stand one turn. The only time I survived more than one turn I was stuck in his net and my telekinetic punch (between 120 and 150 damage) almost had no effect on his life.

If anyone have advice please tell me.

P.S. Is there a way to skip the scene just before the fight because when you try for the fight for the n-th time, you loose a LOT of time (especially for a ten second fight).

[Gman]

Carnifex cheats, and has jacked up Initiative with an entangling net gimmick. There is very little to do about it, and I was an evasion/dodge build myself when I did it.  It was ridiculously annoying and I essentially had to wait to max lvl to have the most hp and armor, and then tanked his stupid cheating first wave and lit his ass on fire with Napalm until he died. 

I never liked the fight because he's coded to be a cheating shit that tries to Always go first, net, and shiv you.

-Create a custom low-speed shield with modifications
-Use things like gas/fire and AoE fuck him up since he also has stupidly ridiculously dodge/evasion, so shooting him at a distance is bs, too
-This also means frag/he grenades are a waste against him unless he's stunned, since he'll just evade most of the grenade with his broken ass stats
-Tasers come in handy, though he can resist the stun but it's not guaranteed he will
-He has several hundred in HP, so unless you manage to stun+opportunist, shooting is not usually efficient imo given he will dodge probably +75% of any normal shot if he can evade
-No, there is no way to skip the cut-scenes and this might or might not be intentional to keep players from using drugs pre-fight to get their own cheating edge (which I find annoying given how jacked Carnifex is and is basically a little cheater shit himself)
-Said cut-scene also makes your shield use charge, so if its not efficient, you might be actually losing much charge before the fight even begins

Unless you have high Constitution to have good health, or to resist his stupid stun from melee, or Somehow avoid his net (despite being a dodge/evade guy, he never managed to miss with that damn net and apparently high grade shoes with the Immunity:Immobilization trait still means nets work on you) the fight is pft.  A custom shield will help mitigate his damage, which helps because if you fully nullify damage on a hit that would stun, the stun won't go through either.  Honestly was surprised I beat him finally with my crafter/burster guy, tried at lvl 20 and had to return at lvl 25 just to stand a chance.

..yeah if it wasn't obvious, I can't stand Carnifex and his bullshit fight. I can understand making a HARD opponent for PCs might be a challenge but he's not, he just is a little shit that reminds me of a minmaxed PC monk.  Fighting that ain't fun. It's just irritating.

[Greep]

Keep in mind carnifax uses ONLY mechanical damage. I.e. you may want to don some tungsten steel armor if you can get mech resist close to 95% anyways.  1 attack per round taking almost no damage is better than 2 attacks taking a lot.  You should find tungsten steel gear enough through questing and most of the time I can get ~5 in helm, ~10 in boots ~70 in armor, for 85% total.  Additionally, lifting belt or doctor's belt help a lot.

Second, yeah carni isn't going anywhere, you can just wait till level 25

[Codaxio]

Thanks for the answers. Yeah you're right Gman this guy seems to be a little bit overpowered. That would be cool if there was a way to bribe the judge/director of the arena in order to have a little advantage during the fight. The acid guy for example had dogs, someone even had a plasma turret in a supposed 1vs1 fight, seriously?!? Why not us? Or I don't know why not a little mission where you could (beware possible spoilers) meet the real opponent that you were supposed to fight. Because if I understood correctly Carnifex killed him or something like that in the backstage. So maybe there could be a way to prevent this.

For now I think I'm going to follow your advice, wait until level 25 and come back as a terminator with a full steel armour and shield.

[Greep]

Well, I think carnifax does cheat in the sense that he has unattainable attributes at level 20 I think (godly dex/agility/con).  But I doubt he has 13 feats either

[Codaxio]

I usually just start the combat manually because fuck savescumming to win a random initiative roll.

Wait, so it's possible to start the combat manually? I always thought that at the end of the scene the combat started automatically. So if we do have a small window of time just before the start, is it possible to save during this period?

[UnLimiTeD]

I think saving might be a bit difficult, but spamming the enter key could work. ^^

[Ntey]

Beat him from 2nd or 3rd try, when he missed me and turn comes to me, then - flashbang, stealth, going behind him, using cut throat ability with best shock knife, punch him in the face 3 rounds in row by unique claws (can be found in sewers under core city)

all 3 rounds he was in stun he got 113 - 136 - 193 dmg just from bleeding + hits damage and died in pain.

my stats was
lvl 11
str 5(6)
dex 10
agi 7
con 5
per 5
will 3
int 7

essential skills is melee and stealth in my case on fight moment was 65(98) and 65(128) {have lot of stealth from items - ninja tabi boots, unique rathound regalia}
essential feats is cut throat, vile weaponry (also could mention reclessnes, but its not so good + here)

so its not that hard

[player1]

It is good that in released game version there is auto-save made just before rolling initiative, so no need to rewatch the cutscene.

[blakjak]

Best way I found to beat him is to stun/incapacitate him somehow then kill him in 1-2 turns with burst damage. Otherwise I almost always have trouble hitting him.

I did had to savescum with the autosave for good initiative rolls on one character who couldn't survive his first burst due to 3 CON, but aside from that I think I've managed to kill him at level 13-14 as long as he's CC'd somehow.

[hayaku]

I just defeated him, at level 14...

stealth/traps/crossbow character with low strength and con, rathound king armor...

Actually I beat him twice, once winning the initiative roll and one loosing it. Did take me about 10 reloads in a row each time though

How? Lots of serrated bolts + "vile weaponry" feat, essentially.

Stunned him, then hit him with tonnes of serrated bolts. Walked him into a bear trap, then with "deadly snares" just did round after round with more serrated bolts, which all crit, got +30% damage from the infected wounds, +25% damage from opportunist and +19% damage from smart goggles.

He kept healing, but at -75% effectiveness, and was suffering from about 5 or 6 bleeding wounds, each doing 7- 25 damage... By the time he got out of the bear trap I had quick tinkered one more in between us and that finished him off (good thing, caus I was netted lol).

Time when I lost the initiative roll was much harder. Had to survive the first onslaught, then set him on fire, heal while he was running off, and lead him into a trap when he came running back, then pretty much repeated the above tactic.

Hope that helps!

[Wildan]

First of all - Rathound Regalia is a very bad choice in general for a low CON build. Actually it's bad for everyone as it was nerfed beyond usefulness, especially with that 200% fire damage debuff. One grenade or molotov and your low CON guy is toast. It's also useless against Carnifex because you need something like 250+ dodge to even start avoiding his attacks, and for the purpose of mitgating damage it offers as little as a low-grade leather armor. Also the movement speed increase doesn't stack with tabbis, making that armor completely pointless except maybe for a max STR melee evasion build.

Even Evasive Maneuvers and Uncanny Dodge are of very limited use against Carnifex because you have to activate them in your turn and he's VERY likely to get initiative.
So for the majority of all characters the best thing is to forget about avoiding damage completely (he's gonna hit and net you anyway) and focus on reducing the damage he does. Remeber he does ONLY mechanical damage so if you can wear it without penalty, craft a multiplate tungsten metal armor and boots - regardless if you're a dodger or not. If you're low on STR then use an ancient rathound leather armor. Even with a low CON build you're likely to survive the first turn and because Combo was nerfed he won't neccessarily stun you.

If he nets you use flashbangs to incap him to buy time. If you suck at throwing, simply wear shaded metal helmet so you can't get incapped yourself and throw the flashbang exactly on him (you can't miss even with 0 throwing).

Next best thing against him are traps because once he steps on it his dodge and evasion will go down to 0. If you can't place them mid-combat restealth while he's incapped and back off to the opposite corner of the arena, stay behind one of the pillars and while being out of his line of sight lay as many traps next to it as possible, with atleast one tile for you free to step away. Snipers and X-bow guys can use snipe on him and if neccessary repeat the flashbang tactics.

If you can't snipe but are a gun user use an electroshock pistol to stun him, preferrably when he's still incapped because you won't miss.

By far the easiest way I ever dealt with him was with a heavy PSI slegehammer build. In the first turn he threw a net on me but then barely scratched me with his attacks because of my exceptionally high tungsten metal armor mechanical resistance. In my turn I first stunned him with Electrokinesis (0 AP thanks to Premeditation) then performed Pummel on him in order to reduce his dodge to 0 for 2 turns. With adrenaline shot I had 60 AP left which was enough for 3 hits with the tungsten sledgehammer. The last hit was a massive critical which took a good chunk of his health away.  Because of being put "off balance" by Pummel he couldn't avoid the attacks in the next round and died.
He's pretty much a joke against a PSI sledgehammer hybrid.

[LightningMonk]

I remember it stacking too.

[Bjorn]

Well... I just now managed to defeat him with my lvl 10, TankyTank Assault Rifle build. (A slightly experimental build, as I am going to max out Con to 16 as primary stat.) Normal Difficulty.
Carnifex had initiative, but I resisted his "yell"-intimidation attack, which is important. (If I dont resist, I will have my Gun skill reduced to almost nothing, meaning I almost cant hit him.)
I definately did not get him in first try, and I did need a little bit of luck, but because of my build I could fairly easily tank him for quite a long time. My weakest point was when he used Yell, and it became almost impossible for me to hit carnifex, even with a 9-bullet burst fire!

I relied mostly on damage resistance from armor, AND Damage Reduction.
A few vital things I learned/figured out in this regard, which others might find useful:
1. Dont use a metal armor, the moment Carnifex gets a few crippling strikes on you, your strength gets lower than the minimum strength of the metal armor, and your AP gets reduced by 15 points!. If you instead choose a good riot gear with reinforced fabric panel (and regenerative vest), you will actually get the same damage resistance against carnifex melee attacks, as you would with a Metal armor. Because Riot Gear has a 75% bonus to Damage Resistance and Threshold against melee! Only minus is the lower Armor penalty which makes Juggernaut Feat not work. (Riot Shield was NOT an option, as I was using Rifles)
2. Damage Reduction is not in itself overpowered, but when combined with Morphine, it gets pretty wild. With "Conditioning", "Lifting Belt" and "Mushroom Brew" I had 37% Damage Reduction, but when combined with Morphine I get a whooping 87% Damage Reduction, which are applied AFTER the armors Damage Resistance. When you multipliy that with the Damage Resistance of armor pieces, then Carnifex suddenly only damaged me for 10-15 damge per hit, which is much more survivable.
BUT... remember what happens at the end of the 3 rounds of morphine! (Actually that was how Carnifex died, I had him down on around 5% life, and then his morphine ran out taking away his last bit of health.)

Combine this with some Stun from a Taser, and a Flashbang, you can stay alive for a while.

Of the above, using the Riot Gear should be availible for most Character Builds, at least without the regenerative vest if you are not a crafter. And for stealth builds, it should be possible to craft a Riot Gear with Black overcoat that gives +stealth.
And by using a Lifting Belt and perhaps Mushroom Brew (if youre not a Psi-character), you can miximize the advantage of the Morphine. (Pure Morphine means 50% damage received, with just the belt and brew, you get that down to 30% damage received, which is almost doubling the advantage of the morphine.)

That was just my 2 cents in regards to Carnifex, at least sofar.

[hayaku]

Also the movement speed increase doesn't stack with tabbis, making that armor completely pointless except maybe for a max STR melee evasion build.

Just confirmed now... it certainly DOES stack!!

Naked: 39 movement points
Just 'Tabi': 61 movement points
Just 'Rathound Regalia': 49 points

Rathound + Tabi: 71 points!!!

71 points gets me so much travel, great for LOS abuse and all the rest. I also use this armor for the +25 stealth, which is a big help... immunity to fear has saved me more than once, and the fact that rathounds don't attack me has really helped with exploring and made things much easier in early/mid game. Best of all, the +10% movement speed stacks with the tabi boots, which stacks with the interloper feat and means I can practically run while stealth, makes a huge difference!!

I intend to upgrade to padded infused cave hopper leather armour at some point, and hoping the bonuses scale with quality. Would love to have more than +10% speed  +10 movement points but we will just have to see