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I've been having some trouble with the final boss battle, so I wanted some clarification on attacking the monolith.

When the heart of the monolith is exposed, is there any benefit to using a lot of ammo to attack it, or is it set up so you just need to get a shot in each time it opens up for x times?

If the number of shots don't matter against the heart I'd rather just save the ammo for the beasties around it, but I wanted to see if anyone knew the dynamics of what it takes to finish the level before wasting time on that strategy.

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1 Answer

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It takes a certain amount of damage to destroy it, so the answer is (of course) "It depends". Lot of people recommend using the contact beam, because you can whack Nicole, then nail the marker a couple of times, and kite the necros like a maniac. Since the contact beam does so much damage, you only have to last a few waves. If you have a lower damage weapon, you're going to have to hold out much longer.

The first time I beat it I'd carefully horded ammo for my (fully upgraded) pulse gun for the whole last chapter, so I just mowed down everything, then held down the trigger on the monolith till it closed. Worked pretty well. Didn't get through half the ammo I'd saved. Mowing down the necros also generates a bunch of ammo, so that's a plus to the "kill everything" approach.

The second time, I'd picked up a lot more weapons (given my preference I only use the plasma cutter and the pulse gun), and it was harder...I ended up having to go back a bit and sell one (effing flamethrower. What a waste.), and respec'd my contact beam through the roof.

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Ugh. I never bought the contact gun and spent all my nodes on the line gun and ripper. Neither of which seems to be that effective in that last level. I also have the javelin which works okay, but I keep getting overrun by those guys before I can do enough damage to the marker to knock it out. I wish I could get back to the store without going through that gauntlet of necromorphs again it took me like 80 tries to get through that alone. I can't imagine doing that while hoarding ammo. – JohnFx Aug 2 '11 at 19:44
Flamethrower and ripper worked for me for the critters, then the plasma cutter to blast the exposed Marker. – Shadur Aug 2 '11 at 20:30
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@johnfx: I love me some plasma gun. Fully upgraded, it's a monster. I can stand in front of a charging horde, and take all of their legs out with one shot a piece, then multiple sets of arms (the right arm of the guy in front, and the left arm of the guy beside him) as they try to get themselves upright. The only things I don't like it for are the chargers, and the little swarm floor guys. – Satanicpuppy Aug 4 '11 at 16:30
Thanks for the tip. I ran the gauntlet back to the store then sold all my guns except plasma cutter and force gun, then re-speced all my nodes from the other guns to these two, then spent the rest of the money on ammo and health packs. The line gun (which I previously had maxed out is pretty useless on that level). Managed to get through it in about 5 tries. I had tried at least 20 times with the other gun combo. – JohnFx Aug 6 '11 at 23:40

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