Sudden Deerclops attack(I need help surviving it)

[pdcbta53]

Surviving winter can be hard especially for new players(Like Me). This is my first winter, so I am really struggling to survive, but with only 6 days left of winter I thought I was gonna make it. It's the 29th night and I was waiting for day to come Until I heard weird sounds(Besides the ones of me going insane). I started to panic, and to make it worse the ground started shaking. I nearly crapped myself when I saw a deerclops in my base camp. I panicked closed the game and went to the don't starve wiki then came here, what should I do.

-I am playing as wx-78

-I have no sticks

-Only weapon I have is a spear

-I have a log suit and a winter hat

-don't wont him to really completely destroy my base

-he is really close to my fire

-Wiki says it has 4000 health on DST

-Help Me

-No friends playing with me.(Its on DST though)

[BOSSzombie]

Do you know where the Dragonfly is in your world? If you can get the Deerclops to follow you to the Dragonfly, that would probably be your best bet at this point. You'd just need to trigger a fight between them and the Dragonfly will mop the floor with the Deerclops. If that doesn't work for you, you can always try to lure the Deerclops into a forested area and have it keep felling trees until it spawns a Treeguard or two or three, then let them deal with it.

[CaptainFun]

I mean, if he's already at your base he's gonna start breaking stuff (he targets base structures before players unless you engage him). I guess priority one would be to get him away from the base. You can attack him and get him to chase you, so maybe you can lure him to some spiders or something far enough from your camp and get them to fight. 

[Auth]

13 hours ago, pdcbta53 said:

Surviving winter can be hard especially for new players(Like Me). This is my first winter, so I am really struggling to survive, but with only 6 days left of winter I thought I was gonna make it. It's the 29th night and I was waiting for day to come Until I heard weird sounds(Besides the ones of me going insane). I started to panic, and to make it worse the ground started shaking. I nearly crapped myself when I saw a deerclops in my base camp. I panicked closed the game and went to the don't starve wiki then came here, what should I do.

-I am playing as wx-78

-I have no sticks

-Only weapon I have is a spear

-I have a log suit and a winter hat

-don't wont him to really completely destroy my base

-he is really close to my fire

-Wiki says it has 4000 health on DST

-Help Me

-No friends playing with me.(Its on DST though)

Hi there, name's windowborb, here to help with fighting things.

Fighting the deerclops can be tricky your first couple of times. If you don't want him to wreck your base, here's a tip:

Make sure you stay out of his attack range if he goes to do an attack. Then, hit him and begin running. This will cause him to follow you and not smash your stuff (unless you lure him directly through it)

If you know of any treeguards or tentacles, try luring him into those to keep him distracted. If you found any badlands biomes (iconic with vultures, cactus, and tumbleweeds) try harvesting tumbleweeds for twigs, if not, pray you can find some ready-to-harvest saplings.

 

Now, after you've lured him away from your precious base that all the new players ask to get to,

Fighting the deerclops one-on-one is easy, once you have the pattern down. He's 2 hits-then run, then run back after his attack animation, 2 hits, run, etc. However, note that the deerclops has a super heavy insanity aura, so you might want to make sure your brain's in the right place before confronting the big bad for a fight, or you could always completely ignore him for him to either come back later, or wait for next year. However, it is ill-advised to let him go around alive, because the deerclops eyeball can be made into the "eyebrella", a super good item for both spring and summer, that can be repaired with the sewing kit item as well. 

If you need to, (for instance, you're going insane) just take a break from smacking your pointy ended stick into his colossal kneecaps, eat some jerky, eat some candy, pick some flowers, take a nap, etc. He'll only follow you for a little while before growing bored to stomp off to some other mayhem, or to just come back later. Either way, saved time is saved time!

Personally, here's my tactic - make sure he's always on fire, until near death. It may help to get the "Health info" mod installed so you can tell when this is, as if he dies while on fire, im pretty sure the eye is dropped just as ash. What lighting him on fire does - Warms you up when you charge at him, and does some gradual damage while you're not in the doofus' face 24/7. Keeps you from freezing to death, and don't worry if when you land in your 2 whacks it seems you're taking fire damage, you won't lose any health from the fire if you just do 2 whacks and run right on out of there.

 

If you need any more additional help, feel free to let me know, I'll do my best!

[AlternateMew]

You needn't actually kill him unless you want to. It would be good experience, though you should keep in mind that to expect death while you learn.

He's big and slow. Hit him in the foot and grab his aggro away from your base. Every 15 seconds or so, let him catch up to you and try to attack (but not actually hit you) to keep his attention.

When he's comfortably far from your base, you can choose to fight him or ditch him. For the latter, just keep running until he loses interest, or gets distracted by something (pigs will work). Signs can also help: if he gets distracted smashing a sign, you're home-free to take off and can pick up the board later.

[Axelocke]

"Oof, sounds like you've got yourself into quite the situation, pal."

All I can suggest is eat any gears, if you have them, that is. 

[Arlesienne]

Honest?

Why do most of the posters advise the OP to challenge the 'clops?

Personally, given the situation, I would run as soon as I start hearing the announcing moan, plop down any cheap structure and let it wreck this one, then see if I'm fit to lure it to the swamp (tentacles, treeguards and more). I love using tooth traps on the 'clops. It has 4000 health in DST. One trap deals 100 damage. It has ten uses. If you can afford having a minefield of those (particularly if you can reset them each time they're triggered), your problem is pretty much solved. Use the mobs like beefalos to weaken the giant as well. In your situation (no twigs), divide et impera is the wisest thing.

Good luck!

PS If you are in CET or some other timezone close to it, I could try helping you, actually.

[knightzaid]

On Day 30 it best to be smart about this

If Im lucky I will build a fire next to the beefalo so when the deerclyops comes there will be a all out war. Unless the herd still is huge the herd will lose.

This can also be done to farm penguins tree gurdian and wood c:. also note the last few days 31-35 should be spent away from the main base unless you can have the deercylocs spawn very far from base

I also assume you know how to make meatballs and meaty stew??

[AnonymousKoala]

Deerclops is FAR from the terrifying monster people make him out to be.

In DST he spawns at the night of day 29/day 30.

Get a hambat by then and make sure its fresh. Get Armor(Football Helmets and Log Suits do the job). Get healing if you don't trust yourself/your ping to let you kite good enough, get a light source, and prepare something for sanity because he will make you go insane fairly soon if you're even around him. 

The pattern to kite him is 2 hits and run. If you have a walking cane, feel free to be greedy and go for 3 hits and run.

Also, when you hear his moan, run from base. Grab the stuff you need, leave base, prepare for the fight. He will then not spawn there, since he spawns around you at the place you are in the final moan(I think its third one but im not sure).

[Arlesienne]

20 minutes ago, AnonymousKoala said:

he spawns around you at the place you are in the final moan(I think its third one but im not sure).

The third one from my experiences. May be buggy if there are more people on the server and they're spread apart (it SEEMS it then chooses the biggest group and/or the ones close to structures, but I'm not certain), yet this won't be a problem in our case.

[AnonymousKoala]

10 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

The third one from my experiences. May be buggy if there are more people on the server and they're spread apart (it SEEMS it then chooses the biggest group and/or the ones close to structures, but I'm not certain), yet this won't be a problem in our case.

There's also how a late joiner might cause Deerclops to spawn later(Joined a friend's server on the day Deerclops was supposed to spawn, Clopsy didn't come up until a few days later), but again, irrelevant to OP's case.

[Kittydub]

Haha, reminds me of the first time I saw him. I died over ten times, rolled back over ten times and eventually just grabbed my thermal stone and ran my booty off. Made a fire someplace else until winter was over (day 35/36) then came back. Yeah, there was some rebuilding needed in my poor base, but I wasn't ready for that big of a fight all by myself. 

[Auth]

I must be some sort of weirdo, because deerclops has never smashed a single structure of mine in DST, despite me usually being in my base when he spawns (because I really don't care) while he will smash everything I know and love in the base game. Heck, I can lure him right past my science machines in DST and he still doesn't smash them as he walks over them. Trees, yeah. Structures, nope. I don't have any mods to disable that, so either he doesn't smash stuff as much in DST or my deerclops is secretly only coming out each winter to see his tallbirdologist senpai, hoping that senpai will notice him as the lovable cyclops he is, similar to tallbirds.

 

It's a shame I like jerky more than deerclops.

[Arlesienne]

41 minutes ago, Weirdobob said:

my deerclops is secretly only coming out each winter to see his tallbirdologist senpai, hoping that senpai will notice him as the lovable cyclops he is, similar to tallbirds.

I'm certain that's exactly it!

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh, god.  Does that mean Deerclops's smashing stuff is because he feels spurned?  Is he doing it for attention--or is he secretly Yandere-Chan?

Seriously, though, my experience with Deerclops is that he will smash all your stuff in both versions of the game.  In Together, the second-to-last time I encountered him, I tried my darndest to lure him away into the spider-forest but HE KEPT TURNING BACK AROUND AND MAGNETICALLY HEADING RIGHT FOR MY CAMP AGAIN!  I mean, I was even hitting him and everything and he wouldn't have it, past a certain distance away from his spawn point.  Which was right near my camp, of course.

My usual experience with him is closest to what Kitty described--I love taking him down with tooth traps, but I usually don't have that many by only the first winter.  I try to be away from my base and make a small secondary one I don't care about, then lure him into an area with something dangerous, such as a large beefalo herd, swamp, or spider forest.  BUT, that doesn't always work out...

Most recently, I seem to have lucked out--it was winter, I was exploring the desert all by my lonesome, because yay desert!  I can get twigs and grass out of the tumbleweeds even when they're not growing back anymore normally, and I'm'a pick cactus to cook later for sanity, and--oooh, um, those are lava pools.  I think I'll just...skirt past here really quickly doo-de-doo, tumbleweeds are awesome and

ohgod

whatwasthatsound

...I think I _inadvertently_ spawned the Deerclops in RIGHT next to the Dragonfly.

(dies laughing)

Also, this may sound like an odd priority, but keeping a miner's hat nearby might be a good idea in winter, as stupid Deerclops always likes to spawn in the dead of night.  Hat means your hands are free for weapons! 

...Notorious

[AnonymousKoala]

27 minutes ago, CaptainChaotica said:

 

Also, this may sound like an odd priority, but keeping a miner's hat nearby might be a good idea in winter, as stupid Deerclops always likes to spawn in the dead of night.  Hat means your hands are free for weapons! 

...Notorious

Not odd at all actually, and surprised I didn't remember that myself.. A lantern is great too, but with a miner hat, you can attack and wear armor as you fight, while having the light come out of you. Since armor in DST doesn't stack, its even better since you don't really give up a slot that could be used for more armor.  (The explanation is aimed at OP btw, If you're confused on why I went in detail)

[ExtollerOfTrolls]

Hmm, I've never beat a DST Deerclops, partially because I'm not incredibly experienced myself, but also because I play with inexperienced players a lot.

I'd say, keep him far away from the base. It's a good idea to have a wormhole that lead far away near your base so you can make a speedy getaway and just jump back through once he spawns. (Dragonfly will follow you in RoG, but I think Deerclops will not, and that was how I kept my base from being massacred by Bearger for the second time.)

If he spawns near the base, having a pacified treeguard can be useful, as he is hostile to every mob. Me and my sister had that happen while we were playing yesterday. We just sat around and watched, but thinking back on it, maybe we should have fought while we had Lief on our side, since we knew he was gonna die. (I'm sorry, Lief.)

 

[applebottom]

22 hours ago, Kittydub said:

Haha, reminds me of the first time I saw him. I died over ten times, rolled back over ten times and eventually just grabbed my thermal stone and ran my booty off. Made a fire someplace else until winter was over (day 35/36) then came back. Yeah, there was some rebuilding needed in my poor base, but I wasn't ready for that big of a fight all by myself. 

@pdcbta53, this is your best bet. You barely survived Winter so it's bad advice to fight him. If you can lure him away and save your base, that's good. But don't feel bad about retreating. A wise man chooses his battles. (And a wise man is better than a dead man.)

[CaptainChaotica]

Heh, actually _that_ happened on an earlier world of mine!  One player who normally mains as Woodie showed up for a while, made it his goal to collect 1,000 logs, and did so.  Along the way, he spawned so many treeguards that you couldn't forage any direction from the base without seeing at least one.  They calmed down, and we quickly got so used to them we started referring to them by ordinary names like "Steve", "Bob", etc.  (Resulting in later lines like "OH NO, he got one of the Steves!")

...they were very useful to have around against hounds and the like...until Deerclops showed up.

(takes off hat)  Rest in Peace, Steves.

Also later on we had the Tomb of the Unknown Birchguard, who gave its life fighting the Bearger.

...Notorious