Mad Island Combat Guide (Enemies & Weapons)

Mad Island Combat Guide (Enemies & Weapons) – In order to legitimately “beat” this game, fighting things is inevitable.

Whether it’s because there are bosses blocking your progress, they have the loot you want, or just for food.

Mad Island Combat Guide (Enemies & Weapons)

Now, before we start, in case you haven’t read another control manual, there’s one button I should know about:

This attack is slower than your normal attack and is uncancellable (until later), but it rewards you with a double damage attack (which can increase attributes in the future).

One of the main benefits of heavy attack is saving your weapon’s durability, which is pretty important when you can’t craft repair kits yet.

Also note that you can’t use a bare hand heavy attack, you have to equip a weapon to do so.

Later you can spend a skill point to upgrade your heavy attack to deal even more damage that can be canceled out by shield blocking and faster animation!

If you’ve played Don’t Starve before, you probably already know the basics of combat.

But if not, the game here is called Bob and Weave.

The way you dodge and attack the enemy depends heavily on what kind of enemy you are fighting.

I’ll have a dedicated section on boss attack pattern later, but there are generally 6 types for most enemies:

• Herbivore
• Fighter
• Heavy
• Projectile
• Rush down
• Elusive

Herbivore

A group of enemies such as:

• Chicken
• Pig
• Deer

These “enemies” will not defend against you and will run away when they spot you or take damage.

The most effective way to deal with them is to approach them from behind and use a heavy one-shot attack, which is very doable with a decent weapon and some point in the damage upgrade.

Fighter

A group of enemies such as:

• Native
• Wolf
• Bear
• Bat

These are enemies that have the same or higher speed than standard players, but due to their somewhat slow attack animation, it’s still possible to run away from them without taking damage, or better yet, with some speed investment, run right past them.

The safest option against them is Trick Stab:

You can just run past them, which will get them stuck in an attack animation where you no longer exist, giving you enough time to land at least 1 heavy attack on his back.

You then retreat until they start running at you again to repeat the process.

You can just run past them, which will get them stuck in an attack animation where you no longer exist, giving you enough time to land at least 1 heavy attack on his back.

You then retreat until they start running at you again to repeat the process.

Heavy

A group of enemies such as:

• A great native
• Fisherman
• Browsing Android

These are enemies that have slow movement speed and a long attack animation in exchange for massive damage and/or HP.

However, you are allowed to use the Trick Stab method as a fighter, if you are very good with it, you should be able deliver 2 heavy attacks instead of 1.

However, with enough speed and a heavy LV.3 attack, you can do what I call Spacing Retreat instead.

By taking advantage of their low movement speed, you can time your heavy attack to hit the enemy as they approach you, but still have time to run away, move, and do it again.

Projectile

A group of enemies such as:

• Native child
• Guardian’s child
• Milky (aka the cow)

These are enemies that attack with long-range projectiles.

Because of their range, you can’t trick them.

Instead, you have to rely on Whiff Punish: run around them, wait for their projectile to appear, make sure they’re not heading your way, then run up to them and attack them.

However, there is one notable exception to this enemy type, and that is the tower android enemy in the lab.

Their projectile is so fast that it can only be dodged with the high speed stat and you are well away from them.

In their case, it’s best to use a shield to block the shot and then go in for a heavy attack.

Rush Down

A group of enemies such as:

• Android foot
• Neck (a.k.a. the odd bird running around in the cow area)

These enemies runs faster than the player making it impossible to use trick to stab them.

Fortunately, there are only a few enemies that fit this category.

It’s best to use a shield to hit and then attack them.

Elusive

A group of enemies such as:

• Bird
• Mandrake

These “enemies” are similar to herbivores, but have more or less 360° vision and can leave the game when threatened.

Stop chasing them forever.

If you want to get their loot, you better be careful to make sure you spot them first AND they have a strong enough ranged attack option to one-shot them.

On Boss Fight

For the boss fight, you need to be aware that the bosses AI can only choose ONE move to use at a time and won’t change its mind until it executes that move.

This means that if a boss runs straight at you, you can be sure that they want to melee attack you and you can attack them safely, or if they’re slow enough, you can use Spacing Retreat indefinitely instead!

Weapons consideration

There are some weapons I want to highlight.

Cactus sickle and shield

In my opinion, they are the best cheap gear you can get.

They only cost 10 cacti to make, of which there are plenty in the desert.

Crafted from a sand workbench, the recipe for which can be obtained by sneaking into a native camp at night.

The sickle has 15 attack, which is better than the Iron Sword attack of 12 and we all know that iron is better spent elsewhere.

The cactus shield came with 1000 life and will serve well in the late game.

Just keep in mind that if an enemy dies from reflected damage, you won’t get EXP from them.

An argument can be made for Blood Sword and Blood knife having higher attack, but those require Bloodstone crafting which is much more time consuming than cactus and you might want to use it for something else like raid horn.

Plus, the cactus gear alone is enough to get 2 more weapons from the underground ruins. Which are possibly the best weapon in the game.

Mad Island Combat Guide (Enemies & Weapons)

KATANA

A weapon that a level 5 ruin robot can find in a bounty chest guardian.

It’s the highest damage weapon in the game that I’ve found due to the fact that the Giant Glove (which has 5 attack points, sold by the merchant) requires killing a Giant, which isn’t worth it since it’s a waifu.

It also has a unique heavy attack that puts you at range to deal AoE damage.

With this weapon, you trade trickstab for facestab instead.

This means that you time your heavy attack so that by the time the enemy’s hitbox comes out, you’ll already be slashing them with a cool dash.

This weapon is definitely worth having, so you should keep repeating level 5 ruins until you get one.

On another note, since you can’t craft this other weapon from the ruins, you’d better use repair kits to restore their durability, especially since the KATANA only has 140 durability.

Can be crafted on an iron workbench for the low cost of 1 iron ingot, 1 rope, and 1 sap.

Crystal Sword

A weapon that the level 10 dark soul boss in the ruins can find in the bounty chest guardian.

Even though it has a significantly lower attack than KATANA, it makes up for it with a heavy, almost full-screen attack!

It even ignores terrain and wall height!

With this weapon, you can basically forget the bow ever existed.

Suffice it to say, it’s the best weapon against a swarm of enemies ever.

However, as with the KATANA, you cannot craft this weapon, therefore, repair kits are needed for long-term use.

This weapon is definitely worth having, so you should keep repeating level 10 ruins until you get one.

With a combination of KATANA, Crystal Sword and Cactus Shield: Nothing can stop you.
If you fail to dodge a big attack or forget to keep your gear’s durability up.

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Written By: Garden