Basic Guide to Dealing with Wolves (V.183)

[Link1714]

I've noticed a lot of people talking on the steam forums and on here about the wolves causing them a lot of trouble, so I'd like to offer some tips on dealing with wolves for anyone who cares.

The following is a comprehensive guide on how to deal with wolves on purpose and by mistake.

On voyageur mode I've lived over 100 days several times(My user name is Link1714 on steam), and I've found that once you have your key tools, it's quite easy to hunt while evading wolves so long as you are careful. Use flares, stay as far away from them as possible, and do whatever you can to find at least a hatchet or a knife before purposefully risking a wolf encounter.

*****There are only 2 instances where you should purposely engage in combat with a wolf (I.M.O.)

1. If you have a knife(acceptable to use prybar or hatchet but knife is best), have skill in combat with the wolves, and at least 2 bandages, .20ml of antiseptic, and/or 2 doses of antibiotics (4pills)

*****(for this scenario i'm going to assume you have a hunting knife, and the game automatically equips your strongest weapon in your inventory when the struggle begins)

Once the struggle begins, mash your power storing button (most likely LMB unless you can switch it, i don't know i never bothered to try) and then unleash your attack with RMB.

****If you want to kill the wolf right then and there and not risk a second struggle, I think its best to partially charge up 2 attacks, maybe only a third both times. This should bring the wolf to close to 60-80% (not sure since its hard to tell while being eaten and some wolves seem to have more hp) But if you get it to this range of health, you have a good chance of killing it with just two more fully charged hits. If you don't kill it, it will surely bleed out, so its best to heal up immediately and follow the trail when you feel comfortable. You might have taken too much damage from the struggle and don't want to risk another one. Go back to your shelter or the nearest indoor shelter and sleep for a few hours. The wolf should be dead somewhere nearby the next day. Try to hunt in open areas so it's easy to find your quarry after it's been wounded.

****If you want to get the wolf off as soon as possible, in my experience its best to do fully charged attacks to start and if two fully charged attacks don't rebuff the attack, then start spamming smaller hits after that.

An easy way to remember this is :

Kill wolf - weak hit, weak hit, FULL POWER, FULL POWER

Fight off Wolf quickly - FULL POWER, FULL POWER, weak hit, weak hit.

Obviously, these two strategies have only 4 hits in them, but keep hitting just in case the wolf does not die. These are rough numbers based on V.183. Typically my encoutners have had 3-5 hits depending on the wolf, the situation, or the strategy I chose.

****I can't tell but i think a fully charged hit w/knife does about 30-45% damage. Its hard to say because I firmly believe certain wolves have more health than others. Also, sometimes you may encounter a wolf who is weakened already, most likely from an encounter with you. So i work under the assumption that the damage falls between this range. It's always better to assume that things are working against you, so that if they do you're ready for it.

Engage with a wolf only when you're sure its alone, and preferably, try to engage one that is near a deer. I often try my best to lure deer close to wolves so that they are attacked and killed for me. I've actually gotten one wolf to kill 3 deer once in a 1 hour (in game) period. After killing it, I harvested over 35kg of meat this way, as well as materials. Now this was an extraordinary situation, but still, its important to MAXIMIZE your benefit. Attacking a wolf is a big risk no matter what the situation. NEVER take a wolf lightly. Even if -----------------------------

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-------->2. You have a gun and at least 2 bullets (1 for you fellow headshot getters out there)

For me, the easiest way to hit a wolf that's walking or running towards me is to walk backwards while facing the wolf and try to steady my aim, and then crouch, deep breath, and fire. It should be easy to target the head when the wolf is so close and the face is equal to the center mass. Just crouch and aim at the upper center mass and you should hit the head. If the wolf gets too close, see above on how to handle struggle.

** OPINION: **Shooting a wolf (unless you are jumped by one or you are gathering pelts for a wolf coat) is kind of a waste of a bullet. Deer cannot be killed with hunting knives so therefore can only be killed by a rifle or a wolf. So a rifle round should give you 9-10 kg of meat from deer instead of the meager 5kg from wolves.

Inversely, it's worth it to send a deer into the path of a wolf and then kill the wolf with a bullet. It's still kind of a waste if you could take it out with the knife, but that costs supplies as well. Balance your options and choose your path.

Ideally if you use 30 bullets in your entire game, hopefully less than ten have to be used on wolves.

Now when it comes to wolf encoutners that are NOT on purpose, if you are encountering too many wolves in v.183, in my experience this is either because you live in the gas station neighborhood of the Coastal Highway, or you live at the Camp Office. This makes sense because these areas are heavy in resources (fish, cabins w/food, deer often nearby on a daily basis) Note that the Camp Office is also close to the Derailment which is a known dense wolf area.

There are other areas that have high wolf populations, but they aren't suitable living areas (except Trapper's Homestead), so you shouldn't be spending long periods of time there anyway. Many areas are only suitable for get-in, get-out trips or quick overnight stays when blizzards come.

Maybe even if you live at Trapper's, but its pretty easy to evade the wolves there. If you leave the house and they are too close, gotta go back in and wait maybe. Or if they are all over Mystery Lake or all over the Coast, well you can't hunt on the lake/coast that day. That happens. Gotta adapt. Maybe just chop firewood in the woods that day instead or something.

When traveling, stick to higher areas, (although you might risk twisting your ankle) I've found that on cliff sides you typically can avoid wolves easier. Also, try not to travel without some tinder and some cedar wood. Cedar wood has a better chance of igniting when you don't have good fire skill yet or accelerant. Also remember, Flares don't make you invulnerable to wolves, generally you can use one to keep a wolf at bay and then you should stop moving towards it, and toss the flare towards it, try to get it as close as you can to it without provoking an attack (might be trial and error) but more often than not if you keep far enough away from the wolf but toss the flare with a good arc and land it close, the wolf will scare off.

***EDIT

Also while traveling high ledges or steep mountain sides, crouching is always your best friend. Any time you accidentally or purposefully jump off a ledge, you should crouch when you land. I might be crazy but i've noticed it reducing my sprained ankles and fall damage.

There's more I could add but this is pretty long and boring already. Any questions anyone has I'll be happy to give my opinion of an answer. Any criticism or corrections are welcome. I don't care if you're a jerk i'm only interested in the information you have to contribute.

[elloco999]

Nice guide! Very informative.

You're right about some wolves being tougher than others. I once reported a bug that I encountered a wolf that was much much stronger than all the other wolves I'd met and it turned out to be by design.

F.Y.I. I've lived at the Camp Office for the last 130 days or so and I don't think there are that many wolves in this area. Sure there are quite a few but they can usually be evaded with ease. But there are days that it seems like every time you go outside there's a wolf just outside, so it can be tricky. Certainly wouldn't recommend it for new players.

[Link1714]

Definitely. This is almost a guide for people who've already gotten past the 20-30 day beginning blues when you're hunting for all of your tools. I would suggest any new player to just keep moving until they find a knife, hatchet, full set of clothes and ideally a rifle. I don't like to settle til i've explored a good chunk map. Then i like to start hoarding supplies before i make other expeditions to slowly gather the remaining dry food on the map as i live off of the land. Always eat your lowest condition food first (unless its raw)

As for the camp office, no the wolves don't surround it but they are often on the lake and the derailment which surround the camp. Also I've been playing on Stalker lately so i probably was thinking about the wolves on that mode. Only for that though the rest of this guide is based on Voyageur. I haven't played long enough on my stalker run yet. Just got to like 10 days and counting.

[ChillPlayer]

Very nice guide, I learned all that the hard way already though. Some things to add about hunting wolves with the rifle (when it's necessary), for voyageur or stalker: as you said, it's best to aggro them and keep them in the aim until they are close enough for a headshot. But - and this is crucial, for it cost me my 22 day Stalker run lol - don't wait for too long or the wolf will jump you and you'll get in a fight. Aim, let it come and shoot from at least 5-6 meters distance, the more the better, I tend to shoot them from 10m or more if possible. Even if you don't hit, the wolf will run away, maybe even hurt - beats fighting the wolf with a knife in my book And you can still follow the blood splatters on the ground to harvest the bled out wolf.

When you are chasing a wolf hunting a deer, don't shoot the wolf from behind when he is devouring the deer. You have a better chance for a deadly shot by strafing to it's side (can be closer than the usual save distance) and shoot it right where the neck an front leg lines connect. That's by the way the easiest way to kill a deer too, keep distance so it doesn't notice you, strafe to it's side and heart-shoot it.

The wolves in Mystery Lake tend to be afraid of you if you are wearing the wolf coat and you run towards them with drawn and aimed rifle, especially in near 100% condition. The ones in the Coastal region are not afraid on the other hand, where at the lake almost all wolves run away from me, none does at the coast. Don't know if that's just pure coincidence or game mechanic (could anyone confirm that maybe?).

When you absolutely have to outrun a wolf for some reason, don't forget that you can always press "4" and drop a lure to put some distance between you and the beast. You can mostly get it back later.

And lastly, no post about wolves is complete without a word about Fluffy hehe. Easiest way to kill him, workes every time: Enter building, run through to the control room and towards the work bench. Wait between bench and table, after about an (adrenaline filled) minute it will walk into the control room. Keep aim always up, when it's head is in good sight, pull the trigger and kiss Fluffy good night :twisted:

Hope this is of some help

[snegec]

You don't need to aim for the head to one-shot a wolf. Just aim for it's head/torso and it'll go down. If you're from the frontal area and wolf has already gone into stalk mode.

As for Fluffy, flares also work to reposition him.

[Link1714]

If you bothered to read the post I said to aim for the center mass, but I would also still recommend anyone to aim for the head to ensure instant death for the wolf. There's no reason to aim anywhere else unless you're scared you'll miss.

I also addressed flares.

[Rongeur]

IMO the best place to gank Fluffy is just as she's coming up the stairs - if you stand back and aim straight through the doorway at head height, it's almost impossible to miss. And even if you do, you've got enough distance that you can take another shot easily.

Edit: That's wolf-head height, obviously, not people-head. Unless she's somehow learned how to walk on her hind legs, or she's riding on the back of another wolf, in which case you'd probably be better off using the bullet on yourself.

[Link1714]

Yeah If you have a lantern you can try puttin it down on the floor, lit to light up the room before you aggro Fluff. Helps with the visibility. I usually just go after her, if I have a hunting knife. No risk of cold, or other wolves attacking. Just a straight up deathmatch. I do it during the day so If you wound fluffy run outside immediately and just wait a few hours (by that wooden shelter if you need to)and she should die from bleeding out. At least if you follow the death struggle directions up there, that's been my experience.

[Cosmoline]

Remember to look long and hard for the body after the wolf runs off from a deer kill. I've found several quite some distance away. Just take note of the direction, patch yourself up, and maybe rest an hour before going after him. Sometimes they have 6 kg or more of meat on them plus gut, so it's well worth the trip. I've only had one instance of a wolf wounded with a knife or rifle that didn't die. And I think he probably did die but got absorbed in some snow bank glitch.

Another tip I'd offer is to do your Liam Neeson thing where there is ONE wolf on patrol. After awhile you'll notice sections, like by the trapper's cabin, that have a sole wolf. The places with two next to each other are just too dicey. Remember if you're the predator, you choose the ground.

Heavy clothing such as the wolf coat, deer shoes and rabbit mittens seem to help as a form of armor against their defenses. And they're all patchable with leather and gut--no precious cloth needed. Save the cloth for bandages. If you're a real man, rip your pants and underwear into cloth for bandages :lol:

The wolves in Mystery Lake tend to be afraid of you if you are wearing the wolf coat and you run towards them with drawn and aimed rifle, especially in near 100% condition. The ones in the Coastal region are not afraid on the other hand, where at the lake almost all wolves run away from me, none does at the coast. Don't know if that's just pure coincidence or game mechanic (could anyone confirm that maybe?).

On Voyageur mode, I haven't noticed wolves running away with any predictability. Most of the time on the ML map they don't run off. They do give me a bark, which might be because of the coat(?). But as with you, on the CH map none of them ever ran off. They attacked, then attacked again. Bastards!

[Link1714]

I personally have never found a wolf with morte than 6kg, and i've killed many. I hope they do exist as you say! I believe you, I just never found one with that much T_T

[tredmill]

I have found (a few times so far) on Coastal Highway, out on the ice, that if I'm walking, approach (from behind) a wolf that is feeding on a dear, step by step until he perks up, and you wait, he tends to run off with a whimper. I'm playing Voyageur, wearing the wolf coat, deerskin boots and rabbit mittens, not carrying rifle.. I tried running up from behind, thinking that the quick approach may scare him off, but that only resulted in a fight. 68 days in.

[Cosmoline]

I'm pretty sure I've had some at over six but under seven. I'll start paying attention to see if any come up over seven.

I tried the flare trick with Fluffy. Just made him angrier! He saw the flare, charged, and tore into me.

[foam]

1. Equip knife.

2. Spam crap out of left and right mouse button (left, right, left, right, etc.).

No knife, no gun? Run like hell.

[ChillPlayer]

If you want to fend the wolf off very quickly, just spam right mouse button. I did some training in Stalker a few days ago, 24 minutes after I was spawned near clear cut I've fighted off 3 wolves in a row without regeneration inbetween and without a knife(!), just bare handed with the cloths I was spawned with and after the 3rd wolf I still had 20% condition.

You won't injure it much like that, he will just run away quickly. If you want to eat the wolf then you need to mix some left clicks in between. But if it's just about you surviving the attack, spam right, don't bother with left because this is the time when the wolf injures you the most.

I suggest to everyone who has troubles with wolves to repeat this. Start a new game in Stalker and run for the first wolf you encounter, click only right - easy eh?