Weapon Testing Site nearly impossible?

So I just got to the Weapon Testing Sight mission, and although I have full appropriate gear, I die in one shot from his big hits, and 3-4 shots from his lightning barrage. I can survive the barrage by spamming med kits, but the one-shotters makes it near impossible.

I'm sorry if this just means I'm bad, but I've been going at it for an hour now.

 

There's a counter for each of his attacks.

The first punch can be easily dodged (double tap tech) or blocked with a two hander.

The missiles can be shot down. Take a ranged weapon with highest rate of fire (damage doesnt matter) and use it to destroy the missiles before they reach you.

There are 2 or 3 more specific attacks but I'll let you figure it out on your own. All can be avoided pretty easily though. If you can't dodge them, try using a shield or a well timed two-handed sword block. After a while he'll stun himself and then you have few seconds free to flail on him with your strongest dps weapon in melee. Repeat for a few rounds and he'll be dead.

 

There's three types of armor for tier 5. You're apparently using the "mage" armor(lowest armor/hp, highest health" made from the Matter Manipulator. Try either using the armor from the Accelerator(balanced between armor/hp and energy) or the Separator(High armor/hp crap energy).

To deal with the missiles, best bet is going to either shield block em or hit em. I had little difficulty beating it by just bringing the tier 5 hammer while wearing the Accelerator armor and smacking the mech repeatedly and backpedaling as needed to bandage. Had the perk of destroying missiles before they even started locking in on me.

First attempt had me die because I actually attempted to shoot the missiles down instead.

 

I tried for an hour and gave up, do I brought a friend. We took turns attacking him and slowly whittled down his health.

 

It helps to use x2 zoom out and a weapon that throws lightning.
Missles: they can be killed with attacks
Punches: jump over them
Over charged: run to corners and jump and dodge the bolts
Dash: jump, when he is stunned, you have 2 seconds to attack and back off.
Flame thrower: jump+ dash over him to the other wall
Double dash: jump, wait for it, jump

 

It helps to wolf down a meal that temporarily ups your Max HP and sets you in a Regen state just before you open the hatch to the fight proper, giving you that extra bit of insurance. Experiment with cooking and be sure to highlight the "heart+" tab to see what you have that gives the HP boost.

Also remember that you can stack a food heal with a Stimpack heal AND a First Aid/Nanoewrap heal all at once, giving you a steady regen plus quick-recovery.

Place a few weapons in the quickslot close together so you can quickly cycle as needed. Shotguns can kablooey the missiles at a distance if you got bad aim, don't worry about the shotgun needing to do heavy damage since it takes very little to detonate them. A good 165-point shield ought to handle the spark attacks.

 

Missile Tip: Use a tier 1 rapid fire weapon (automatic). They use negligible energy and you can easily spam "fire" and down the missiles. What I would do is run to side of room when missiles are about to fire, and just destroy them from range. It's easy as missiles 'spawn' from same spot on boss. Get your aim right and you don't have to move a muscle to kill them all.

The rest is pretty easy. Run away from fire. Jump over charge. Hit him while he's stunned. Bring medpacks and a food buff.

-Faz

 

If you have a bubble sword, it can make the missiles useless. As for overload, I hide in the corner with my shield or my two-hander out to block the electricity.

 

While the strategies I have seen mentioned are helpful, I still don't think shock hopper is quite fairly balanced. It shouldn't be far easier to beat him with violium armor. But, guess what, it is. With violium it takes far less skill, strategy and luck. In fact with the other armors it seems as though luck is your best helper, because I tried all strats listed above with Aegisault armor and got nowhere fast. I am no noob to gaming either. Switched to Violium and had him beat in three try compared to the ten plus before I quit with aegisault. Melee is simply to overpowered in this game still and CF hasn't done much to fix it, yet. I used to think it was people lacking strats but I no longer agree with that assessment.

 

Oh, of course it's not fairly balanced. And it probably won't be for a little while.

Mostly because it's likely to be reworked, moved in the progression chain, or any number of things, on top of the fact that balance and optimization are really tail-end processes done when games are way more complete than this one is.

 

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned is healing water. It gives a longer healing effect but does not give a full status - so it can be constantly spammed even with food and bandages.

With enough constant healing effects and a little practice dodging his slam - it becomes much easier.

Healing water can be found on many desert planets.

 

3 things you will need:

1. A quick melee weapon with a projectile effect.
2. A good shield.
3. Grapple hook.

Rocket Barrage - Simply spam the melee weapon right under the mech where the rocket shoots from, destroying the rocket and hurt the mech at the same time.
Fist Punch - Just walk back before the 3rd rocket. The mech will punch right after the 2nd rocket and before the 3rd, then go back on firing rocket. Time it right and you barely have to move.
Overload - Run to corner, dodge and block the projectiles. There will be probably only 2-3 projectile reaching you there.
Flame thrower - just run like hell and dodge till the mech use rocket again. Shield helps with the direct damage if you got caught, but won't stop the burn.
Dash 1 - The mech will use this after rocket barrage in lieu of punch from 2nd stage onward. It will move away from you to the other end of the room then dash back. You can try to block it with perfect timing, or double jump for an easier time, or just hook up with grapple hook.
Dash 2 - same as above, though grapple hook is more useful in this case.

 

i beat him with rubium
it took me several tries
the "shoot down missiles with machine pistol" is actually pretty hard to pull off because he begins moving immediately after the final missile so his body will block your shots
instead i used the rubium orb-staff, a shield, and the pulsejump+energydash techs for evading his attacks
basically:
-jump over him when he punches
-once you're back on the ground immediately begin charging the orb. the mech will not harm you while it proceeds to the center of the room to use missile barrage.
-spawn the orb ON THE MECH'S HEAD, preferably the side closer to you.
-the orb will linger for a while. if placed correctly, all the missiles will explode on it and none will get past. it will also deal good damage to the mech itself.
-once it starts overcharging huddle in the corner with a shield. try to get as much "perfect blocks" as possible as the damage of the overcharges can easily destroy your shield.
-evade dash and flamethrower with whatever techs you have. try to get as far away from the mech during flamethrower
-spawn as many orbs as possible in the place where the mech will hover if you see it begin to overcharge.
-keep doing these steps until it falls.

 

I used the Cardinal Staff, Rubium Armor, and 2 shields (equipped at the same time

The Staff can attack the Mech while destroying the missiles. The rest of the attacks you need to dodge, like the flame thrower and the dash punch. When the mech rises into the air you can hit it with another gem from the staff and then pull up your shields to help protect you from the energy blast. Bring lots of medi packs.

 

These few steps should help you to defeat him without much trouble.
1. Get full impervium armor set
2.Impervium 2H weapon or if you are lucky to find other legendary 2H weapon(dont bother with guns or magic)
3.Get good amount of Nano bandages for healing
4.Make sure that you have techs for double jump and energy dash to help you move better around him.
5.Keep jumping around him while attacking so you can avoid a rocket and flame thrower attacks
6. When you see him getting to the middle and getting up in the air, get away from him so you can avoid his attacks easier.

 

When it fired rockets or used the flamethrower, I stayed in/on/at the boss and just kept hitting it. I don't think the attacks can hit you if you are that close. That makes sense to me, you can't shoot someone who is in grappling range with you with a bazooka . Stupid penguin inventor should have given the mech a melee attack

 

Sorry to say it, but this advice is kinda terrible. The Shockhopper Mech is T5, not T6. You don't get the heat nanosuit until you beat it, so unless you have friends or other characters twinking you out, you cannot get Impervium armor or weapons. The best you can do on your own is Violium.

To be honest, Violium is not really necessary. You can take on this boss in Aegisalt or even Rubium gear and win, provided you have a thorough understanding of his patterns and you've prepared properly. The problem is that most people just want to tank-and-spank the boss, and don't realize that there's some tactical considerations to keep in mind. If you just wade in expecting to whup yourself a boss and call it a day, he's going to destroy you. As he should, because you're not fighting him smart.

So how do you beat this guy? Learn his attacks.

Overload - This is pretty much the Shockhopper's signature attack. If you get into a corner and crouch, you only need to dodge or block 2-3 bolts out of the dozens he's shooting. The rest of the time, you're free to hit him with your ranged weapon of choice. Carry a shield to make it easier, preferably one with more than 200 shield HP. Overload is only used at specific points - to be precise, every time the boss loses 20% of his HP. Further, he will drop what he's doing to use Overload, cancelling any other attacks in progress. Get good at dealing with Overload, and you can use it to 'interrupt' attacks you have a hard time with.

Missile Barrage - You can destroy the missiles with attacks of your own, but do it from range; messing up and getting hit by a missile will be almost guaranteed to one-shot you in Rubium armor. This is probably the biggest flaw in balancing this boss has - the damage could be toned down just a bit and this boss would still be extraordinarily dangerous. Still, placing a 'persistent' magic attack over his head (Avian pulse gem, Glitch static rift, Novakid false sun) will effortlessly destroy the missiles, or you can spray them with a shotgun or assault rifle as they home in. A Perfect Guard with a shield or two-handed sword will nullify a missile and preserve your shield HP.

Dashing Punch - Comes out suddenly and deals a shedload of damage (enough to one-shot a player in Rubium armor, similar to a missile), but he can only hit you with it if you're about one Shockhopper-width away. Fight him from a distance and don't let him corner you (hint: you can bypass him with Targeted Blink) and this attack is not even an issue.

Flamethrower - You can handle this attack almost identically to the punch. The flamethrower tracks slowly and has poor range, made worse by the fact that he slowly trundles towards you the entire time. Its damage isn't great and the burning damage-over-time effect is only 7hp per tick . So long as you don't let him corner you and hold the flame on you, this attack is laughable, and it's the best time to punish him with attacks of your own.

 

My biggest problem going into this fight was that I didn't know how I wanted to handle it. I tried initially with Rubium armor and managed to deal a bit of damage, but without knowing the boss's patterns, it was close to impossible to hit the boss with a charged staff attack without dying in one hit to something.

I tried again with Violium armor and found the energy total severely lacking. I didn't have enough energy to do anything ranged-wise that would significantly damage the boss, and although I didn't die as quickly, I still died. It was boring and ineffective.

I decided that I wanted to not die in one hit, but at the same time, I wanted to be able to use ranged attacks, specifically the Rubium nova staff if possible. I swapped out the Rubium chestplate for the Violium one for more HP/Defense while still having a ton of energy reserves. Mix-and-matching the armor sets ultimately paid off, as I was able to dodge most attacks effectively but could also tank a dash and counter with a magic nova to the boss's face.

Probably not the most elegant of strategies, but hey, it worked.

 

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it - Shockhopper is unforgiving. You mess up, and you'll realize it really fast - usually when he pound you into the dirt in three attacks or less. Mayb he could be toned back a little, in the interest of giving those who aren't using violium a chance to observe him a little, maybe make a few mistakes without being instakilled for it, but considering that restarting the fight is quick and easy (much like Dreadwing) it's not that big an issue.

I'll admit, Shockhopper can be frustrating. But I cannot call him unfair. He abuses no bugs and has patterns you can learn. He doesn't even hide up in the sky constantly like that coward Dreadwing, but instead goes toe-to-toe with you. Shockhopper's the straightest boss fight the game has offered thus far (I don't count the 'boss' of the Floran Hunting Party, since that's just a beefed-up normal enemy), and I love him for it.