That much is obvious, since the reason why he got dropped on the ground wasn't because the deathclaw got ******* homerun-ed during the animation, it's because that's what was intended to happen.
Given it's bethesda, I'm certain that if it was the kill finisher animation, he would have died regardless of the animation being interrupted.
But in Skyrim, when you hit level 50 and have reached the armor cap, have full resists to everything, use a shield, etc, the bosses can't just one-hit you by getting close. I mean I fought Miraak on one of my super-overpowered characters once and wanted to see how much damage he did, so just stood around letting him hit me for a while and it barely even moved my health. I think that was on Master and not Legendary though.
From what I can tell in FO4, any deathclaw can OHK you at any time. I've got the top level ballistic weaves on an army fatigue and hat, plus pretty highly upgraded combat armor pieces all around, for a total of nearly 300 DR and energy resist, and I've pretty recently been killed from full or near-full health by regular deathclaws using that move. Also it's my first character and I'm kind of a scrub so I'm only on Normal difficulty.
To be honest I have yet to be one hit killed by a deathclaw given that I either keep an incredible distance from them or I'm in power armor.
Given that you can almost always find an unreachable spot for them though, it's not too hard to take em out. Unless you're out in an open field, in which case well, good luck.
I never use the power armor - originally I never wore it because it was too hard to find fusion cores in the early game, but now I have a huge stockpile of them and am just so used to not wearing the armor. I tend to sneak a lot too in bethesda games so that's sort of contrary to the big bulky power suits. I'm also at the point in the game where you don't have much choice but to fight deathclaws every once in a while.
Apparently.
It makes everything less likely to kill you so yknow.
Also has great radiation protection so if you're going into the glowing sea, it's a must
Yeah, I did use the power armor for that one. I think the person who gives you the quest from the memory den tells you to though, so I remembered it that time haha.
Or, you know, you could shoot him. If you use the rifleman perk properly and fully upgrade laser weapons, you can get a gun that does almost as much damage as a mine per shot. If I'm not wrong, mines do 150 damage, and I have a semi-auto laser rifle that does 129 per shot (and I haven't maxed out the rifleman perk), and it has 12 in a magazine. You can do so much more damage by shooting than putting mines, it's part of what sucks in this game, Deathclaws aren't mostly a threat after a certain level or if you use certain weapons.
Based on my shenanigans with it, he's going to rush right to Jamaica Plains and grab the 2076 World Series Bat, which is the one that has a chance to homerun enemies. I look forward to him continuing my legacy of heads batted in and kneecaps said goodbye to.
could be worse
you could run like a professional marathon runner from kenya, and the bad guy / monster thats out to get you, that only ever WALKS... still gets ahead of you and catches you
Well excuuuuuuse me for not enjoying a painfully fake Irish accent. I mean, we Irish people can act too. Some of us are quite good at it, Just after you take the whiskey away.
it just played the same animation that it does if you were in a suit of power armor when the deathclaw picks you up. it doesnt insta kill when youre in power armor, so itll pick you up, jab you, then throw you back down in the same manner.
i think i've ended up on my side before, but im not sure
i read somewhere below that if you have like a crazy amount of health and you're playing on easy, you can actually survival without power armor, so that mightve been that animation that played
The fact that the deathclaws have so many unique animations in general is really cool. Several of them, like the one in Concord, have special entrances where they climb out of or into their lair.
i gave strong grognaks battleaxe, just for the novelty of it. it was pretty cool to watch tbh.
i gave curie a ripper because she was using a pipe pistol and all i had spare on me was a ripper. she actually tore **** up with it. however, if you use ranged weapons, giving a companion melee weapons they get in the way so much.
I gave something called originally General's Cho's Revenge or something like that, it does 50% better damage to bots and synths, its serrated and electrified, and piper absolutely destroys synths with it. I'm on hard and level 32 or something and she kills all but the leaders and legendary synths in one hit with it. Sure, she's downed quite a bit, but that's fine, she's more like a pack mule that kicks ass occasionally anyways.
I actually gave a fully modified plasma sniper and the sword to her and she switches between them fairly competently, just don't give a weapon that's **** to em for safekeeping, cuz you might give her a couple amazing weapons and start sniping then look over at her to see her sniping someone with a unmodded 10 mm. I've also noticed, like you mentioned, mid-range weapons with companions are useless outdoors. Shotguns, short range rifles and the like, pistols, they act like they have some semblance of accuracy and try and shoot from a mile away with em. They do fine with em indoors but outside i stick to melee weapons and snipers, otherwise they just waste ammo shooting near enemies.
If you're on Normal, and depending on what you're up against, Cait and Strong can usually hold their own in melee. I mean, if a bottlecap mine explodes right up their ass, yeah, they're dropping. But, even Piper can take a hit or two from a deathclaw before she falls on her ass. Give Cait a serrated machete, like I did. She won't be as skilled or aggressive as you can be, but when she swings she'll hit pretty hard. Strong with Grognak's Axe is a wrecking ball.
Depends how weak he was, compared to the deathclaw.
I'm assuming it works like your own melee finishers, where if you are in a state where you can kill an enemy with your next attack, you can trigger the finisher with a power attack.
So if you're strong enough to kill an enemy in a single hit, you can trigger it on your first hit.