Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Gears of War 3 Horde Mode Boss Guide

    Seeing as some of the traffic to my website was being generated by people googling “Gears of War 3 Horde Mode” or variations of it, I figured I’d better post this sooner, rather than later.
   We will be discussing how to beat all the bosses in GoW3 Horde Mode, and handling each boss specifically. But first, a little overall advice: clear out the wave first if you can. The bosses all become very easy to kill if you can clear out all the “little” guys. The word “little” is in apostrophes, because more often than not, bosses are accompanied by the big hitters: boomers, maulers, grinders, and kantus. I will be posting another guide on all the “little” guys, but as a rule of thumb, kill them all first.

   You will need to learn how to kite, if you don’t already know. You can read about how to kite here. Also, this guide will be how to kill these bosses by yourself. If you have friends, this whole process becomes even easier.

   Now, on to the bosses!

   Berserkers: Berserkers can be tough. However, they are very dumb, and only utilize melee. The easiest strategy to beating a berserker is to use a scorcher (flame thrower) on him. He will cover his face and stumble around for a few seconds while on fire, and becomes more vulnerable to bullets while in this state. Once he goes back to normal, simply use the scorcher on him again. Rinse, repeat.

   Always keep an obstacle between you and the berserker if possible. This makes his charges easy to avoid, as he’ll charge right into the obstacle. If you can’t keep an obstacle between you, it’s still pretty simple to just roll out of the way when he charges.

   Lambent Berserkers: The lambent berserkers are easily the hardest enemy to beat. This is because they are only susceptible to weapons when they are about to charge or jump, or right after charging or jumping. They also only utilize melee, and so the kiting tactic works with them.

   They have a yellow/gold area on their chest that is their only weak spot. Unfortunately, this is covered by bone unless they are attacking, as I said above. The best way to beat them is to have quick reflexes. Let them get close enough to charge, and that spot will open up for a second. Do enough damage and it will stop their charge, making them stagger for a few seconds while still vulnerable in their chest.

   If you don’t do enough damage to stop their charge (or just want to play it safer), then roll out of the way while they charge, and then shoot the open area while they recover from the charge. This same tactic will work if they are jumping.

   Savage Corpsers: Savage corpsers take a while to beat, but are pretty easy. Their legs are impervious to weapons, but their head and abdomen are soft spots. They will walk straight towards you, and you can shoot them in the head. When you do this, they will cover their face with their legs, and can’t be hurt in their head (they can still be hurt by shooting their abdomen during this time.

   If you do enough damage by repeating this cycle, they will eventually rear up and scream in pain. You can take this time to unload on them. For this reason, reload anytime they cover their heads, so you’ll have a full magazine to unload into their soft belly.

   If they get too close, simply roll out of the way, and run. They can’t keep up with your sprinting.

   Eventually, they will burrow under the ground. An arm will come up and chop at you, but is easily avoided through rolling and running. After that attack, they will burrow towards you, and rise up suddenly. Dodge this, and the cycle starts over.

   Brumak: This guy’s difficulty depends on the map you are playing. There are some doorways that he can’t get through on some maps, so the strategy is obvious: hide in there.

   For other maps, you’ll have to make sure that you are behind cover. He has two attacks: machine guns mounted on both of his arms, and a rocket launcher mounted on his back that fires multiple rockets in a barrage.

   You will want to pop out of cover in between bursts of machine gun fire and shoot at the guns on his wrists. Eventually they will be destroyed, and he won’t be able to shoot them anymore, and will only have his rocket launcher.

   When he fires a rocket barrage, sometimes simply ducking for cover will work. But about 1/3 of the time, a stray rocket will miss the cover, and hit behind you. This will down you, and possibly kill you outright. The best idea is to have cover in which you can roll left or right, and dodge the rockets altogether.

   Once his machine guns are down, you can pretty much shoot him wherever. Some guides say to shoot his rocket launcher next. But in my experience, once you down the launcher, he is dead anyway. So just kill him.

   Reavers: When my friends as I see reavers, we get excited, as this is arguably the easiest boss in the game. They have two attacks: machine gun fire and a single rocket attack. The easiest way to beat them is simply to hide behind cover and shoot them. They are basically a mix between grinders and boomers. Their height does give them some advantage, as they can shoot over some lower obstacles, so beware of that.

   Also, the designers knew these guys were easy to kill. This means that if they show up as a boss, you can expect to fight 2-3 of them at a time, and about 5-6 total on that wave.

   They are also an exception to the rule about killings adds first. They are so easy, that you can include them in your killing plan.

   Gunkers: Gunkers can shoot at you from across the map. While not the toughest enemies, they can be the hardest, depending on the map and your base setup. When in close, they can also shoot out an arm that will down or possible outright kill you.

   If you are in an open area, you’ll have to do a lot of rolling around to avoid their ranges attack, which does splash damage. If you are in an area that that has an enclosed structure, sometimes you can get them stuck on an obstacle where they can’t get close enough to you to melee, and they ranged attack hits the ceiling before getting to you.

   If you can’t do this however, you’ll need to shoot and dodge, like stated above. This enemy is annoying, but not necessarily hard. It gets really tedious if you have two of them on the map at the same time. Hopefully you can get them to fire simultaneously, and so avoid both shots at once. The good news is, their shots have a high arc, so you can see it coming from pretty far away, and have time to dodge.

   Well, get out there and beat some bosses!

   - Woody

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