Tips on defeating Deerclops

[Alkimia]

Can I get some advice on defeating Deerclops? I've already survived a year, but I didn't fight any of the seasonal bosses and I really want to learn to fight them. I've already died twice to Deerclops after setting this goal and I honestly don't know what to do now. I made sure I had more than one football helmet, had a hambat, but now the problem is my sanity. By the time I get Deerclops to low health, Terrorbeaks start to attack me and make it pretty much impossible to hit the boss. I tried getting in close to hit Deerclops, got stunlocked and that was the end of my latest run. I'm really struggling here to say the least! Also I'd like to know if there any better healing food other than pierogi, they're nice and all but the animation is really long.

[Dextops]

for deerclops just tank over a camp fire like a couple football helmets and like 4 healing items and you are good for tanking for the average character if you wanna kite i think its something like 1-2 hit 1-2 hit repeat you choose your method

[Frashaw27]

Note: for this method to work you need to tank all the damage that comes to your face, but doing this will ensure a scrumptious eyeball and only near death.

1) Prepare the following things:

1x Marble Suit (Not essential but heavily reduces any rng sinanagins)

1-2x Football Helmets/Battle Helms

1-2x Preferred Health Food/Item (since timing is your problem, consider blue caps at double the amount or try trail mix)

1x Freash or Near Freash Hambat

1x Prebuilt Campfire

#x Fuel (non-specific, but enough to get the fire roaring)

2) Wait for them to spawn, normally on night 30 and go to a vacant area so that they don't  tear apart your base like Doom Guy on a demon.

3) Bait out the first attack near the blazing flame and then don't  stop hitting until the Miopic menace is slain. Healing is fine but the main point is to spend as little time as possible not attacking Deerclops.

[Aeglefire]

For the sanity issue that you're running into, you can try to gather up as many green mushrooms and cacti as possible before Deerclops shows up, then cook them all so now they heal +15 sanity each, and then you can start your fight with Deerclops this way, knowing that your sanity won't be an issue.

If you want some good sanity restoring crockpot recipes, try Taffy (3 honey + 1 twig) and Fancy Spiralled Tubers (1 potato + 1 veggie/fruit/small non-meat edible + 2 twig). They both restore +15 sanity each as well.

[RogueGamer12]

Considering it's a boss fight right in the middle of winter, make sure to bring items that can warm you up as well as a campfire. Bring healing items in case you take damage.

A key to winning against any of the bosses is learning how much hits you can hit them before they attack you. Learning when to move back is key.

[Cheggf]

If you hold F mindlessly you lose less sanity than if you put the effort in to dodge. If shadows do spawn because you're dodging, I find freezing Deerclops with an ice staff as you deal with the shadows to be very effective, although most characters deal enough damage and have enough sanity where Deerclops can be killed before shadows start spawning.

A few easy to get healing foods with a faster animation than pierogis are blue caps (sanity penalty), trail mix, and butter muffins.

[Lil K]

I usually "fight" him in the swamps. I say "fight" cause i just bait him to fight the tentacles. Very cheap method overall, but also very dangerous since I do it without wearing any suit. 

[Pine G]

If you struggle with the sanity drain, I recommend taking a sanity restoring food like cooked green caps, taffy and jerky with you. The latter is also great for restoring health. It's best to kill Deerclops as quickly as possible, especially if you're tanking, to avoid nightmare creatures from spawning and making the fight more difficult. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Tanking is boring

You can gather cactis from the dessert, cooked gives you sanity so you only need to worry about fighting deerclops

[BellumOmnes]

As others have said, you can just facetank everything and your whole preparation for that would be two to three football helmets, two to three log suits (you can also use marble armor) and a hambat. If nightmare creatures are troubling you, just build a couple more log armors, helmets and some sanity food. Ideally when Winter comes you'll just go around and gather some cacti, once you hear Deerclops growling leave your base, build a fire and start cooking the cacti. This way you can restore your sanity once the fighting is over or simply keep yourself topped off.

Your sanity will always take a hit but it's faster if you just facetank the Deerclops and kill him asap. Kiting and dodging his attacks will extend the fight and you will surely go insane.

This is the most straight forward way to fight it, but you can also lead the Deerclops into the Swamp and make him walk around tentacles, spiders, merms and whatever else there is until it's weak enough for you to finish him off. Pigs can help you, sometimes even the hound attack can be useful. Beefalo herds can also be very helpful.

You can use a similar tactic when you're fighting the Bearger. Just plant a forest and start kiting him in there, soon the Bearger will spawn a few Treeguard who will either kill the Bearger for you or simply weaken him just enough for you to kill him. You don't even need an armor for this method and you're farming logs, at the same time.

For an easy (and cheesy) Dragonfly kill you can surround the magma pools with stonewalls and literally facetank her until it's dead. Blocked pools means that the flame larvae can't reach you and will simply burn out.

The other bosses require a bit more preparation but once you get the hang of it, you'll see it's super easy. Hambat is probably my favorite boss killing weapon.

[SinancoTheBest]

Ingredients: Marble Suit, Hambat, Campfire, Fuel, Sign Post, Lobster Bisque, Vegetable Stingers

Recipe:

0: Before day 30, aim to kill a werepig for hambat materials. Plant some marble bushes early on or at least have 6 marbles. Reserve a few berries for fishing Lobsters; very easy and cheap healing. Alternatives include Pierrogies, Fishsticks and Surf n Turf. You won't need much healing anyway with marble armor. Having sanity food can be very helpful; you can make some in winter using Asparagus for Vegetable Stingers. Alternatives include green mushrooms, cactus flesh, soothing tea. Having extra Logs, Manure or Charcoal is always great for fueling fire.

1: Prepare all ingredients by day 29. As the dusk of night 30 comes to an end, get yourself and everyone else at the base out of there, to reasonably far open field.

2: Place the campfire. Place the Signpost nearby and write something suggestive on it. This shall attract Deerclops.

3: Leave your baggage somewhere far from fire. Fuel the fire to its max, draw Deerclops to yourself and start whacking it

4: Soon you'll get the eye, meat and figure sketch. Consume fresh and store in a cool and dry place.

[Cheggf]

What's up with people greatly exaggerating how much you need to tank Deerclops? Four to six pieces of armor with even more for fighting shadows? A marble suit and two helmets? Wes, who takes 33% longer to fight Deerclops than the standard character and as such would need 33% more armor, can tank Deerclops using 2 log suits.

[SinancoTheBest]

9 hours ago, Alkimia said:

Also I'd like to know if there any better healing food other than pierogi, they're nice and all but the animation is really long.

Meat items take longer to consume. You can prepare some vegetarian friendly healing food or healing items. As far as crock pot dishes go, Trail Mixes, Butter Muffins, Flower Salads or Dragonpies would do the trick but none of them are in season for Winter so you'd be best off with cooked potatoes. If you have garlic too, you can prepare a few potato puree to help with both help and sanity. 

As far as items go, Healing Salves and Honey Poultices will also do the trick pretty reliably. 

[Friendly Grass]

A tip for less sanity loss: if you attack deerclops, step back a bit, and continue attacking you’ll still be in reach but the sanity aura will be considerably less. 

And if you tank as a normal character the fight will be a bit more than 30 seconds long. Not a big deal at all.

[Alkimia]

Thanks for the help, but another thing. Wearing both a log suit and football helmet doesn't add any more defense right? I remember reading that somewhere, but still not sure.

[Cheggf]

4 minutes ago, Alkimia said:

Thanks for the help, but another thing. Wearing both a log suit and football helmet doesn't add any more defense right? I remember reading that somewhere, but still not sure.

In Don't Starve Together armor stacking was removed, but wearing multiple armors helps prolong the durability since it splits the damage. Since both log suit & football helmet are 80% protection they'd both take half the damage and last twice as long.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

My recommendation if you end up not liking the tank method (which I dislike for any boss lol) is to make sure to pick up a walking cane from mactusk if he is generous enough to drop you the tusk. If you learn to use it properly, it’s essentially one of the best items for increasing survivability and increasing dps if you’re kiting as the move speed let’s you run but also get more hits in before kiting. You essentially can set it in your first inventory slot and swap it back and forth with your weapon by pressing your 1 key on PC (if you prefer to use one of your extra mouse buttons there’s programs like auto hot key that can help with that).With a walking cane you can learn to consistently get 4 hits off with any character which will make the fight shorter and make the sanity tax less punishing.

If you’re minimally preparing otherwise the hambat; thermal stone; fire and or thermal stone; and emergency health/sanity restoring foods should be good.

As for the shadows there can be a few methods. Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe deerclops will restore health if you have to run for a little bit so taking the shadow creatures away until deerclops loses aggro and taking them out can help, just slightly draws out the process so keep an eye on your heat and make sure you take clops to a place where you losing their attention won’t cause destruction. The extra preparation method would be to freeze deerclops since finding a blue gem to make a staff is a lot easier in winter (again mactusk has two guaranteed blue hounds per spawn which can help with that). Alternatively you actually can fight them at the same time but it takes some learning to where you bait out a deerclops hit, then bait the nightmare’s hit and then swing at the shadow.

I hope any of that helps and if you need/are interested in tips for finding mactusk or what sanity/healing foods you should sort out say something! 

Honestly, when you’re learning to fight a boss that barely shows up, for your first time I think there’s no shame in rolling back if you die so that you can get your practice in because otherwise you get few opportunities. If you have the option to and don’t want to consider rolling back just for that, you can try making a dummy world and spawning in the supplies you need and spawning in deerclops and practicing that way. 

[Alkimia]

6 hours ago, Cheggf said:

In Don't Starve Together armor stacking was removed, but wearing multiple armors helps prolong the durability since it splits the damage. Since both log suit & football helmet are 80% protection they'd both take half the damage and last twice as long.

Alright, thanks for clearing that up!