Guides/Mob Killing Guide


 * This is a WIP guide that contains basic and advanced tactics for surviving most of the possible hostile creature engagements in Don't Starve.

Equipment
While your character can actually brawl and punch enemies to death, most playable characters in Don't starve are not known for their physical prowess and even the smallest of the enemies will easily outdamage and kill your character if unprepared, so you'll need weapons for dealing damage (poke the enemy with the pointy side until it stops moving) and armor for your character to wear.

Weapons
Almost every item your character can wield in his/her hands can be used as a weapon. From fishing rods to pickaxes, and from walking canes to dark swords, every item you can wear in the Hands slot of your character has its own damage value and can be used to hit the enemies. This section will not cover traps, since their main usage is for stationary defenses.

Melee Weapons

 * Most tools in the game (Axes, Pickaxes, Shovels,...) can be used as weapons. While their damage is subpar and each hit makes them lose durability they're still a decent way of dealing damage and their gold variation makes them renewable, provided a Pig King is spawned.


 * Your main weapon for the entire game will be probably the Spear, easily craftable and with good enough damage against most enemies. Because flint is a renewable resource due to earthquakes in caves, the spear is a renewable weapon. Another weaker weapon is the Ham Bat, which can be crafted if access to flint is limited.


 * Your preferred weapon for the entire game will be the Tentacle Spike. While you probably will not actively farm tentacles for their spikes, always be on the lookout in swamp biomes for traces of nearby battles (like silk, glands, rot, fish, monster meat...). Swamp denizens like Spiders, Merms and Tentacles like to spend their days happily engaged fighting each other, so you'll easily find "phat loot" around their chosen battlefield. As long as tentacles are involved, there's a decent chance for a spike or two to be found nearby.


 * The most damaging weapon in the game is the Dark Sword, but it's difficult to craft and wielding it gradually reduces sanity, so you will only rely on it for difficult fights or when using Maxwell (Character)


 * Finally, while it's damage is lesser than most tools (see above), the Walking Cane can be used as a great weapon since it has no durability and thus can never be destroyed. The cane may be especially useful for destroying structures (ex. Spider Dens) and easily kiteable enemies (ex. Koalefants) that require a large number of hits to be destroyed or killed.

Ranged Weapons

 * The most basic ranged weapon your character will use is the Boomerang. Boomerang's main utility is to engage "frightened-type" enemies (mainly Koalefants and Gobblers), and to grant safer first strikes against enemies you need to isolate for any reason (Chess Pieces, Beefalos). Boomerangs return to your character once they strike their target, and you need to "catch" it; if your character stays stationary after the boomerang has been thrown you may just hold down the Spacebar button and you will catch it automatically, but in case you move your character the boomerang will "home in" to your new location and you will have to time a Spacebar press to catch it manually. If you fail the catch, the boomerang will hit you in return, damage your character and fall to the ground.


 * Darts are the second most useful ranged weapons in the game, and somewhat easy to craft. There are three different types of darts, each one requiring two Cut Reeds (gathered around swamp biomes) a type of bird feather (dependant on the dart type), and an extra component (dependant on the dart type). Each dart has only one use, but can stack up to x20 for every kind.
 * 1) Blow Darts: Deals heavy damage to a single target. Will kill most non-boss creatures with 3 to 5 darts.
 * 2) Sleep Darts: Will put most creatures to sleep, from one dart for small creatures to 4 darts for boss-type creatures.
 * 3) Fire Darts: Sets most targets on fire. Be aware that the burning target may set nearby flammable materials ablaze, spreading the fire.
 * The Fire Staff is also used to set targets on fire. It has 20 charges and you character's sanity drops by 1 everytime you use it. Similar to the fire dart, targets set ablaze may spread the fire.
 * The Ice Staff is used to freeze enemies on their tracks for a short time; small enemies will be frozen with a single blast while larger ones may need up to 4 blasts; any enemy struck by a blast but not frozen will be chilled instead, moving slower. It holds 20 charges, drops the character sanity by 1 each time it's used, and as long as it's worn, drops your character's temperature at a faster rate.

Armor
Most creatures deal a great amount of damage and can down your character in a relatively small number of hits. Armor protects you by absorbing a percentage of the damage dealt by an enemy hit, losing durability in the process.

Your character may wear armor in both their head and their torso, stacking multiplicatively against enemy attacks (which means, the last equipped armor absorbs a percentage of the initial damage, and then, the armor equipped in first place absorbs a percent of the damage that bypassed the first damage reduction). Finally  the damage that bypasses both armors is then received by your character. For more in-depth info and theorycraft, check Armor.


 * Two body armors, while granting the least amount of protection, are easily renewable (Grass Suit, Log Suit) while the more protective ones (Marble Suit, Night Armor) are either non renewable (marble is a finite resource, at least until the Caves update), or difficult to craft because of the needed materials. Also, marble suit slows down your character, and night armor drains sanity while being worn and as a percent of the damage received.


 * As for the head armor, the Football Helmet is the only generic armor available (somewhat easily renewable as long as you can farm Pig Skins), while the Beekeeper Hat only works against bees so it's mainly used on active bee and honey farming.

Creature Behavior
Creatures in Don't Starve may be separated in classes, depending on their normal behavior against external threats and character proximity.

Passive
Passive creatures will never attack your character or other creatures, even if they are being dealt damage. While some of them may be completely impervious to character presence, most of them are "frightened" of your character and will actively avoid your character if he/she gets too close.

Passive, non-"frightened" creatures are Passive, "frightened" creatures are:
 * Butterflies. Will keep flying between nearby flowers.
 * Rabbits (and Beardlings). Will run to their designated rabbit hole. If your character stands beween the hole and the rabbit, they will actively run away from your character if you're giving chase, or run towards the hole, then away from your character once they get near if you stand still.
 * Birds. If your character approaches while they're grounded, will immediately take off and fly away.
 * Gobblers. Will try to hide in a nearby Berry bush or actively move away from your character if caught in open ground and no bushes are nearby.

Neutral
Neutral creatures tolerate your character and other creatures presence, and will only fight back if attacked first or threatened.

While some neutral creatures won't mind your character's presence and allow it to an extent, others will actively avoid your character, and to engage them your character will either need a ranged weapon, or cornering them against the terrain or a structure.

Neutral, non-"frightened" creatures are: Neutral, "frightened" creatures are:
 * Beefalos (while not in their mating season)
 * Bees
 * Treeguards (1)
 * Koalefants
 * Smallish Tallbirds (2)
 * Pigs (2)

''(1)Treeguards will only attack the creature that chops down a nearby tree (the final "chop" that cuts down the tree itself); while most of the time will be your character, if your character has befriended a Pig and is the pig the creature that lands the last chop on the tree, the Treeguard will attack the Pig while staying neutral to your character, still being an active creature in the world. Pacified treeguards will stay neutral unless attacked.''

(2) While Pigs and Smallish Tallbirds will not actively run away from you and may even step into yourself, will quickly fall back a short distance if you (or themselves) move too close to each other.

Aggressive
Aggressive creatures will immediately attack your character (and natural enemies) when they get to close to each other. Most of the aggressive creatures in the world are highly territorial and will only chase your character some distance away before returning to their spawn location, while others will chase you a long distance or even forever.

Aggressive creatures are:
 * Beefalos (during their mating season)
 * Clockwork Bishops
 * Clockwork Knights
 * Deerclops  (will chase forever unless outrun by a long distance)
 * Frogs
 * Ghosts
 * Guardian Pigs
 * Hallucinations
 * Hounds (Timed hound waves will chase forever unless distracted; hounds spawned from Hound Mounds won't)
 * Killer Bees
 * Krampus
 * Mactusk & Son
 * Merms
 * Mosquitoes
 * Spiders (only slightly aggressive during daytime and dusk, become more aggressive at night)
 * Spider Queen  (will chase forever unless outrun by a long distance)
 * Tentacles (non mobile, unable to chase)
 * Treeguards (will chase forever unless outrun by a long distance)
 * Tallbirds (will chase a much longer distance if eggs are taken from their nests)
 * Werepigs

Stunlocking
Small enemies in the game are vulnerable to stunlocking; a stunlockable monster being hit by any kind of attack will become stunned for a small time frame; if your character keeps attacking the monster repeatedly the stun timer will continually reset allowing the monster to be killed without any kind of retaliation

Creatures currently vulnerable to stunlocking (as of game version The End of the Beginning)
 * Bees and Killer Bees
 * Spiders (Spider Warriors cannot be stunlocked)

Kiting
Kiting, (also known as Hit-and-Run) is the action of running back and forth between creature attacks, hitting the creatures in the small time frame available before they start attacking again. Kiting itself may refer to both Defensive Kiting and Offensive Kiting mechanics. The standard kiting mechanic when fighting lone, kiteable creatures, is the following:
 * 1) Stay in motion, constantly moving away from the enemy.
 * 2) Wait for the enemy to start it's attack animation.
 * 3) Keep moving and stop a short distance away, until the attack animation of the creature ends.
 * 4) Immediately move towards the creature and start attacking. If you know that creature's Attack Period, land as many hits as you believe you can get during that time frame. If you're not sure, best is to land just one or two hits.
 * 5) Repeat from 1 till the creature is dead.

Defensive Kiting
All melee monsters in the game are vulnerable to defensive kiting. As long as your character keeps moving "away" (doesn't need to be in an exact straight line, just the general direction) from the creature when it starts their attack animation, your character will outrange the creature attack radius before the animation ends, counting that attack as a "miss".

Defensive kiting is less effective against monsters that attack in packs since you may get attacked from several angles at the same time, with separate attack timers.

The most common exception to this mechanic are ranged monsters, since proyectile speeds are always faster than movement speeds and thus, no creature can outrange a projectile. You'll need to run in a zig-zag pattern, or make a turn once a ranged attack animation starts to avoid those kind of attacks.

Ranged creatures not vulnerable to defensive kiting are:


 * Mac Tusk


 * Clockwork Bishops

Also, some creatures in the game have developed a defensive kiting behavior themselves, thus, once engaged, will stay in motion, continually moving away from their main target (which can be the player or another creature) until their attack period is reset. Creatures with defensive kiting behavior will only kite the enemy they are attacking, thus, other enemies may land attacks normally as long as they can predict their movement well enough to position themselves.

Creatures with defensive kiting mechanics:
 * Bees and Killer Bees (while not actively kiting, will usually move a short distance away after most attacks)
 * Clockwork Knights (while not actively kiting, will usually move a short distance away after most attacks)
 * Pigs (and Guardian Pigs)
 * Merms
 * Mactusk & Son (ranged enemy, will actively try to stay at range from his chosen target)

Offensive Kiting
Most creatures in the game are vulnerable to offensive kiting. Once creatures end their attack animation several seconds must pass until they can attack again; on these seconds most creatures will either stand still, make some kind of animation (barking, growling,...) or will keep moving towards you if they're melee, readying themselves for their next attack. Your character may use that time to hit the creatures several times without any kind of retaliation, then start a defensive kiting procedure once their attack period is reset.

Check a particular creature wiki page or the AP column in the Monster info table for updated attack period values.

Mobs that are vulnerable to offensive kiting.


 * Spiders and Spider Warriors
 * Hounds (all variants)
 * Bees and Killer Bees
 * Beefalos
 * Tallbirds
 * Mosquitoes
 * Ghosts
 * Krampus
 * Hallucinations
 * Tentacles
 * Clockwork Knights
 * Deerclops
 * Treeguards
 * Spider Queens

Creatures that have developed a defensive kiting behavior (see defensive kiting above) are usually immune to offensive kiting from their main target.

Advanced Mechanics (by creature)
While this does work for many hostile mobs, some are more difficult and require a more advanced approach.

Hostle creatures have a so-called "aggro radius". A "personal space" around them that will make them hostile towards your character or natural enemies if you (or them) cross it. Highly aggressive creatures have a very large aggro radius, while less aggressive creatures have a much smaller one. I'll measure the creature's agro radius in terms of Berry Bushes placed side by side.

Bees and Killer Bees
Bees are neutral creatures that will naturally spawn from Beehives and Bee Boxes from time to time. Up to four bees may be found away from their spawning structure at any given time; bees will fly near their hives/boxes looking for flowers to land in, but can also be found landing on the ground, specially if all nearby flowers are "occupied" or if their hive/box is destroyed while they were away. There's a chance for a group of killer bees to spawn from a hive when a nearby bee from that hive is attacked and will always spawn (unless already outside) if their beehive is hit by any attack.

Killer bees will always move and attack in a tight formation, thus making kiting difficult. In Adventure Mode killer bees will spawn from Killer Bee Hives when the characters approaches them.

Bees do not have actively kiting mechanics but they tend to fly away a short distance after every attack, stop a second or two, then return to attack again.

Best way to deal with bees is to use a Bug Net instead of normal weapons since you need just to land one "hit", instead of the normal 2-3 you need with most other weapons. Caught bees may be used as materials for several structures, or murdered for components (commonly Honey and Stingers).

Beefalos
Beefalos are neutral creatures that roam around Savanna biomes (and sometimes Grassland biomes, specially in Adventure Mode) in herds. They are normally neutral to your character and will not be frightened by his/her presence. Beefalos only become aggressive during their mating seasons with an aggro radius of about two berry bushes. Beefalos will immediately aggro anything that crosses their aggro radius, even rabbits and birds unfortunate enough to spawn or land near a mating beefalo. You may know when beefalos are in their mating season because their backsides are colored red, wave their tails making a distinctive sound, and buck from time to time while mooing.

Beefalos always help each other and fight in packs; If your character or any other creature attacks any beefalo by mistake, all nearby beefalos will immediately engage the offender in combat (this includes other beefalos the offender may stumble upon while running away or kiting the beefalos); most of them will lose interest in the offender relatively quickly except the one damaged, that will chase the offender a much longer distance.

Fighting a herd is extremely difficult and damaging since you will usually be severely overwhelmed. If you plan to kill a beefalo the best idea is to land a hit in your target (a ranged weapon is preferred), run away to a place you actually know there are no beefalos until all beefalos but the one damaged leave the chase, then kill the now isolated beefalo with standard kiting mechanics.

If you plan on murdering an entire beefalo herd, the best mechanic is by far the "Wool BBQ" method: Wait near the chosen herd until night (the more clustered the herd is, the better results), place a campfire nearby so the Grue doesn't attack you, then quickly use a Razor to shave the beefalos (you need to act fast); finally, set the dropped Beefalo wool on fire with a Torch or any other means. The fire should spread amongst all the dropped shaved wool, killing most (if not all) beefalos while still sleeping; you may also enclose them in hay walls for even better results.

Chess Pieces
Chess pieces are medium to high health, high damaging creatures that usually guard the Teleportato. If the character approaches they will stand up and stare at the player. If the character comes closer they will start attacking  (but still, there's some time before they engage so your character will almost always be able to land one or two free hits). Chess pieces have an aggro radius of about three berry bushes.

Nearby Chess Pieces will join the attack but will only chase for a very short distance while the attacked piece will chase you for much longer; this way you may easily isolate pieces and deal with them one by one.

Currently, there are two types of pieces:
 * 1) Clockwork Bishops: Bishops throw laser beams from their eyes about one screen away from their location. The beam travels very fast and is difficult to avoid, even by running in zig-zag. They are slow moving and do not kite, but their attack animation is very fast, thus making difficult to predict their attacks.
 * 2) Clockwork Knights: Knights are melee attackers with a small defensive kiting mechanic, knights will headbutt their enemy, then jump a small distance away from them. Usually, they will whinny/battle cry for some seconds right after they kite and just before they close in for another attack, making that the perfect moment for landing some hits. The standard tactic to deal with them is to kite their attack, then target and chase them while counting their jumps, if after two or three jumps they stop and whinny, attack them once or twice, during the whinny animation, then run away; if they don't seem to stop, halt the chase and wait for their next attack.

Deerclops
Deerclops is arguably the most difficult enemy to deal with in the game. Deerclops has an extremely huge aggro radius, often targeting you while still outside of the game screen; while you may effectively use the default kiting mechanic against a Deerclops you must be aware of several issues while fighting one. Your best option to deal with a Deerclops is to lure him to other boss type monsters, then run around his back while engaged with the other boss and hit him as hard as possible, watching closely if he decides to retarget you. Treeguards are the best option by far since they usually are alone and can withstand a good beating (still, you usually do not have Treeguards at hand when you need them). Spider Queens are the second best option (and usually a much viable one since you can actually "farm" Spider Eggs and control if a level 3 hive hatches a queen), but most spawned spiders will fall very fast to the Deerclops AoE damage thus leaving only the queen herself to tackle the Deerclops.
 * 1) Deerclops attacks deal AoE damage in a wide angle in the direction he is facing (Deerclop attacks do not hit just his main target, but eveything in range) and the attack range is much larger than most other enemies, so you must move farther away than expected while kiting to outrange him.
 * 2) Deerclops has a heavy sanity drain aura. This, coupled with his enormous health pool, make long battles easily drain all your sanity before you're able to finish him off, thus making yourself a target for Hallucinations
 * 3) Deerclops attacks do count as hammer strikes if a structure is on his attack range. Also, Deerclops movement may trample down structures. Fighting a Deerclops near your base camp will probably end with your entire base destroyed by the Deerclops attacks and movement.

Leading a Deerclops to a swamp is also a good idea, since nearby Tentacles hit in AoE, thus easily aggroing Deerclops. Also, nearby Spiders and Merms may actually join the party.

Creatures with kiting mechanics (specially Mactusk & Son) are another good option. While Pigs may be used, take note that they tend to fight near their houses and in a long enough battle the Deerclops may "accidentally" hit or trample their houses while engaged; finally, pigs may even eat the dropped Pig Skins from the houses, thus leaving you without components to reconstruct.

Do NOT lure a Deerclops into a Beefalo herd unless you want most of that herd destroyed. Since Beefalos attack in groups and do not kite, they will usually cluster in a tight pack around the Deerclops while attacking, and three or four Deerclops attacks will make short work of several clustered beefalos.

Frogs
Frogs are slightly aggressive creatures that spawn from green Ponds, and sometimes may occasionally fall from the sky on heavy rain scenarios (Specially on the A Cold Reception adventure world). Killed or captured frogs will respawn from their pond some days later.

Frogs are more annoying than damaging. While initially being a slow moving creature, frogs will double their speed when chasing an enemy. Frogs aggro radius is relatively small (of about a single berry bush) and thus, you may move near them without them engaging you. Still, since frogs tend to hop araound in random patterns, they may easily jump near enough and become aggravated. Nearby frogs will help an attacked frog, thus making a 1vs1 engagement quickly turn into several frogs chasing for a long distance.

Frogs attack with their tongue over a medium distance, dealing a small amount of damage and knoking off a random inventory slot to the ground (if stackable, a random number of items from the stack will fall) from your character each time they land a hit. Frogs do not seem to knock off worn/equipped items, only items on your inventory and backpack. Frogs will also knock off chester's items, provided they attack him.

Since their attack period is somewhat fast and several frogs may attack at once, frogs may easily make you drop some items if caught unaware, and drop even more if you try to recover them since frogs will usually stand near them. Frogs will return to their ponds at dusk, allowing you to recover any dropped items

Best way to deal with frogs is to lure them into Traps instead of attacking, since traps will instakill a caught frog, place a trap near a frog, move towards the frog and/or hit it to aggro, then move towards the trap while the frog chases you..

Ghosts
Ghost are difficult creatures to deal with without taking damage. They do not have an attack animation, but instead ghosts make AoE (area of effect) damage "pulses" with a quick attack period (just a little more than one second per "pulse"), thus making offensive kiting almost impossible. Ghost are not found normally, but instead must be startled by digging graves. A ghost will automatically aggro the gravedigger.

Since ghosts deal AoE damage, you may defensively kite them around other creatures (best done with neutrals as beefaloes) and wait until the ghost pulses once, the ghost's AoE attack will also hit the nearby creatures and they will target the ghost.

Still, since their relatively small life pool, low damage, fast attack rate and insanity aura, most of the time is best to just equip some kind of defensive equipment and deal with them head on. Kiting a ghost until a suitable creature is found may actually cause more sanity damage than health damage.

Hallucinations
Hallucinations are creatures that can only be seen and attacked depending on your character's sanity. They are initially neutral to your character and cannot be normally attacked unless manually commanded to (by holding CTRL key). Once your character reaches 30 sanity or less, Hallucinations become fully tangible and become aggressive towards your character.

Only two Hallucination types are aggressive towards your character: Crawling Horrors and Terrorbeaks. While both can be kiteable, when they are damaged will "poof" away and reform in a nearby location. This means you cannot hit them repeatedly, instead you have to kite their attack, attack them once (will "poof" away and reform), then wait for their next attack and repeat.

Hallucinations have a high sanity drain aura, but because of their "poof" mechanic sanity damage is actually low or negligible as long as you hit them as fast as you can after kiting. Also, killing a hallucination grants you some sanity back, so you can actually use hallucinations to regain some sanity, specially if attacking them with ranged weapons like boomerangs.

Hounds (including Fire Hounds and Ice Hounds)
Hounds are enemies that commonly attack in packs. While in summer, there's a chance for a fire hound to be spawned instead of a normal hound; and while in winter there is a chance for an Ice hound to be spawned instead of a normal one.

In Sandbox Mode your character will have to face hound waves from time to time, each one increasing in numbers (and thus, difficulty) up to a cap. A warning will be issued to your character before the hounds actually attack, so you can prepare accordingly. Hound waves will chase your character forever, unless distracted by other nearby creatures; still, hounds distracted by other creatures will resume their attack against your character if they survive their engagement. Hounds in sandbox mode automatically aggro your character when spawned off-screen.

Spawned fire hounds have lesser health than their normal counterparts, but have a chance to set attacked enemies on fire, and will explode when killed, again with a chance to set on fire nearby flammable creatures and objects. Also, their explosion will damage stone walls (hay and log walls may be damaged also, but more probably will be set on fire instead).

Spawned ice hounds also do have lesser health than normal ones, but currently do not seem to have any special ability themselves.

Hounds are highly aggressive against other creatures and can be easily distracted an lured towards attacking other enemies if you outrun them for enough distance (most commonly done if you keep running while they bark). Pigs and Merms will attack hounds at plain sight, and hounds tend to bite Beefalos if they are closer than you after a they bark (thus making nearby beefalos slaughter the unfortunate hound, and usually making nearby hounds to stop their chasing and engage the herd instead)

Mactusk & Son hunting party includes two ice hounds that act as if MacTusk is their spawning mound, and Wee MacTusk afterwards if MacTusk is killed. They will follow MacTusk/WeeTusk and retreat with them at dusk unless directly engaged in combat. Still, if for some reason they disengage, they will take priorinty on returning to MacTusk's location instead of reengaging other nearby enemies. When the MacTusks are locked in their Igloo, hounds will stay outside and become territorial and protective until they leave the igloo next day.

In Adventure Mode hounds will spawn near Hound Mounds (usually located guarding a natural bridge), becoming territorial and chasing your character only a short distance away from their spawning mound before retreating back to it. These hounds have an aggro radius of about five berry bushes.

Hounds are more dangerous because of their numbers than because of their  attacks, they are easily kiteable, but since they move faster than your character and attack in packs, is extremely difficult to use the standard kiting mechanics without being dealt damage since you commonly are attacked from several angles. On 1 vs 1 combat you may normally kite a hound and kill it without many issues. Hounds tend to stand still between attack and lose extra time barking at your character and other creatures; while this allows your character to land extra hits, since their barking mechanic is random you may easily lose track of their attack period.

Krampus
Krampus is a low healt, fast moving, high damage unique neutral creature that cannot be found normally on the world. Instead, Krampus is "summoned" automatically when the player reaches a certain "naughtiness" threshold. Each time the player performs an evil deed (killing and/or murdering territorial, neutral and passive creatures like Tallbirds, bunnies, pigs, beefalos, birds and the like) a hidden "naughtiness rating" increases by one or more points (the bigger the creature you murder, the more points are added to your rating; bunnies increase your rating by 1 point each, while beefalos add 4 points; for more, in depth info, check Krampus - Naughtiness Rating). Take note than you must directly kill or murder those creatures, collateral damage (like shaving and setting a beefalo herd on fire) doesn't cound towards your rating. Once that rating reaches a certain threshold, 1-3 Krampus will appear (depending on how many days have passed). Not performing evil deeds for some time will slowly decrease your character's naughtiness rating.

A warning is usually issued when nearing the threshold, as long as the last evil deed performed doesn't actually break the threshold (ex. killing bunnies will issue a warnign since each murder increases the rating by 1, but killing a Tallbird may make your rating exceed the threshold without a warning, since each Talbird murder increases your rating by 6)

Krampus is initially neutral to your character; the only way to make Krampus engage you in combat is by hiting him with a ranged attack (hitting him with a boomerang, blow darts and/or staves). Otherwhise, Krampus will actively avoid your character and concentrate on stripping you of your loot; he will run towards one or more nearby chests or items, break the chests, grab one or several items, finally hiding in his own sack and disappearing. Still, you may recover those items if you're able to kill him before he disappears. An easy way (but space consuming) to force Krampus to stay and fight, even if unprepared, is to bobby trap all your chests with a pair of killer bees. Bees will immediately aggro Krampus when the chest they are held in is destroyed, thus giving you some time to land one or several hits on Krampus (or maybe even kill him) while distracted with the bees.

If directly engaged, krampus has high damage and a very fast attack period (a little more than one second), making him almost impossible to kite; still, because of his relatively small life pool, 4-6 spear hits are usually enough to down him. Tackling krampus without armor is almost suicidal or extremely damaging to your character, unless he is severely wounded beforehand. Still, once you have damaged Krampus you may easily lead him to traps or other creatures for them to deal with him.

Since you more or less know when Krampus will spawn, you may easily prepare the battlefield beforehand and even force Krampus spawning. Best way is to capture a lot of bunnies (easily done in savannah biomes), keep them alive in isolated chests enclosed by hay walls with a single entrance until you think you have enough, clutter up the entrance with traps  (4 tooth traps will do), then start murdering them one by one until Krampus spawns. Krampus will then move towards the chests, getting himself killed by the traps. You may also set bee mines, place killer bees in the chests that will immediately be angerend when Krampus destroys the chest they're held in, or my favorite method: make a hay wall maze and set the whole thing on fire once Krampus enters the maze.

Koalefant
Koalefant is a neutral, "frightened" mob that must be tracked down by finding Suspicious Dirt Piles found in the World. Each dirt pile found will guide your character towards another dirt pile, getting near the Koalefant's location. After following several tracks, the last dirt will actually spawn the Koalefant in a nearby location (thus, you cannot just find a pile and just search around for the Koalefant's location, you must patiently find all tracks that spawn the Koalefant). Koalefants are one of the best sources of meat in the game.

Once a Koalefant is found, will actively run away from your character if you try to get too close. While difficult to corner, it can be done after some chasing, and you can chase him this way towards traps or other dangers.

Best way to engage a Koalefant is to use a ranged weapon; once damaged the Koalefant will stop fleeing and engage the attacker. Koalefants can be killed by standard kiting mechanics, being one of the easiest creatures to be killed this way since his attack period is rather long, allowing you to land about 5-6 attacks between one of theirs.

MacTusk
MacTusk is an initially neutral creature that can become aggressive, which can be found roaming near a Walrus Camp at winter (the camp will be transformed into an Igloo). He is followed by his son WeeTusk and two Ice Hounds. MacTusk is not initially aggressive towards the player, but will keep his distance and threaten you. MacTusk will not attack your character initially if you stand still, but will engage if your character gets too close.

MacTusk attacks with a Blow Dart with endless ammunition and a very large range, actively trying to keep his distance from your character while commanding his two ice hounds to attack you at melee distance. WeeTusk will not attack; both Tusks will defend themselves by punching if an enemy gets too close to them. Hounds will initially follow and defend MacTusk, then proceed to follow and defend WeeTusk if MacTusk is dead.

Attacking the Tusks head on is suicidal since they will actively run away from you while sending their Ice Hounds to distract you. If you keep fighting the hounds MacTusk will keep pelting you with darts, and if you try to get near MacTusk the hounds will get clean hits from the sides or back while the Tusks kite you. Ranged attacks are specially useful against MacTusk, Blow Darts being able to down him in two shots.

If you plan on attacking MacTusk, you have several choices:
 * 1) Bring some Pigs along to engage and distract MacTusk and the hounds. While darts are highly damaging to pigs, they will be able to stand about 8 hits before going down. Also because of their kiting mechanic, hounds usually have a hard time hitting them.
 * 2) Wait till dusk or night so you can engage the hounds alone without MacTusk interfering. The hounds will stay outside the Igloo and will even sleep during the night, so you can approach with a torch, place a campfire and arrange the battleground on your terms, then, you have the rest of the night to prepare for the Tusks to leave the Igloo.
 * 3) You may enclose the igloo (or even better, the Walrus Cap, if you find it in summer) with hay or log walls, then set the walls on fire once the Tusks leave. They will be trapped and unable to move and will die quickly to the fire.
 * 4)  Lure an enemy to the MacTusks (if you try to lure the MacTusks to an enemy, they'll get some free hits at your back meanwhile). MacTusks are aggressive, territorial creatures an you can make them fight other enemies while staying neutral to them.

Merms
Merms are an aggressive abomination, with a resemblance to pigs that can be found in Marsh biomes. Their behavior is the same as the pigs, but with an aggro range of about four berry bushes. Merms are territorial and will only chase you a small distance from their Rundown Houses, structures that serve as their spawn points each one holding up to four merms. Merms will respawn every fews days as long as their house is left intact (houses can be deconstructed with a hammer). Usually only one merm will be outside their house at day, but all merms will leave home at dusk and roam around.

Merms are extremely aggressive towards other swamp denizens (Spiders and Tentacles) and most other creatures that may move near them, and will attack them at plain sight; thus, is extremely common to find traces and loot of old battles around their houses, or even find them engaged in combat against those creatures. You can take advantage of this by placing Spider Eggs near merm houses, since spiders won't attack rundown houses and merms will not attack eggs; while somewhat risky, this is an easy way to obtain an almost infinite source of both merm and spider loot since both merms and spiders will keep respawning from their respective structures and will keep engaging each other. It's best to scavenge the spoils in the morning since spiders will return to ther dens or sleep if caught outside, and usually only one merm per house will roam around..

When fighting Merms you must be aware that they have a defensive kiting mechanic. After every attack, merms will actively run away from their chosen enemy until their attack period is recharged, then running back to the enemy for another hit. This makes standard kiting mechanic impossible against merms, unless they are fighting another enemy that is not your character.

A good idea to fight merms is to bring Tooth Traps with you. Since merms continually move back and forth you may lay a trap in the merm's path, and after kiting yourself  their attack use merm's defensive kiting time to rearm the trap. Once their attack period resets the merm will walk again towards you and will get hit by the trap again.

Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are fast moving creatures that spawn at dusk and night from Mosquito Ponds, ponds with a purplish color usually found in Marsh biomes. While only slightly damaging, each mosquito attack will make a red sack in their belly to grow in size, finally making the mosquito explode or a medium amount of damage. They have an aggro radius of about two berry bushes.

Mosquitoes are rarely seen unless an isolated pound is found, since tentacles, spiders and merms will attack them at plain sight, usually killing them extremely fast.

Pigs and Guardian Pigs
Pigs are neutral creatures that can be even befriended by your character for some time if given any source of Meat. Killed pigs spawn from Pig Houses every three days, as long as their house is left intact (can be deconstructed with a hammer); pig houses can sometimes be found isolated in Forest and Grassland biomes, or clustered in pig villages. Your character may even construct pig houses (found in the Structures tab) to create villages for defensive purposes, or isolated houses for pig farming. If your character or the pig gets too close to each other, the pig will quickly fall back a short distance, still there is enough time to land a hit if you're planning to aggro a pig.

Pigs are highly aggressive against most hostile enemies in the game, commonly fighting Spiders, Hounds, Merms and Boss-type monsters at plain sight. Nearby pigs will also engage enemies attacking another pig. Pigs will only stay outside during daylight, and will immediately return to their houses at dusk unless actively engaged in battle.

Pigs will eat nearby food laying on the ground, most commonly Seeds and any Meats dropped by other pigs and enemies. Pigs will also eat Pig Skins dropped by other pigs or from deconstructed pig houses. Meat eaten this way will not befriend a pig, your character must manually give a pig a piece of meat to befriend them. Also, in long enough battles with many enemies (specially against hounds and spiders), care must be taken if a pig eats four Monster meats (See Werepigs below)

Like Merms (and probably Bunnymen, unless changes are made from the pre-alpha Caves stream), Pigs have a defensive kiting mechanic against their selected target. Once they perform their attack animation, pigs will actively run away from their target until their attack period is reset, then will return to try to land another attack. This behavior makes kiting mechanics against pigs unsuccessful as long as your character is the target. Still, same as merms, the Tooth Trap tactic (See Merms above) works the same way, with the advantage that, unless directly attacked, a pig will stay neutral to your character, thus, you may place several traps in front of pig houses, and even set walled passageways to farm pigs for their skins and meat. You need 5 tooth trap hits (Each trap deals 60 damage, and pigs have 250 life) to kill a pig, or 4 trap hits (making a total of 240 damage) and a single attack with most tools or weapons.

Guardian pigs are an aggressive variation of pigs with higher health and damage that spawn from Pig Torches (will respawn every few days as long as their torch is left intact) and commonly protect the Pig King, some sort of loot (grass, saplings or berry bushes being the most common), or a bridge, passageway or Pig Fortress in Adventure Mode. Guardians protecting the pig king will reluctantly allow to trade with the king as long as you character does not get too close to them, while on all other situations they will always be hostile towards your character.

Guardian Pigs (specially in adventure mode) are less aggressive towards your character during daytime. You may usually get closer without them attacking you. Guardian Pigs during daytime may block your way and warn you (by saying things like "you no stay" or "go away"), but may not attack unless you try to get too close. You may use that warning to land one hit, then run away to "reset" the Guardian Pig. This way you can slowly kill them without taking damage in return.

Guardian pigs aggro radius equals the light radius from their spawning pig torch (guardian pigs will continually refuel their torches unless killed, in that case the pig torch will eventually extinguish until a new guardian pig is spawned and relights it again), thus, depending on the torch fuel, sometimes you will be able to get closer to them and other times they will aggro you from more than one screen away. Guardian pigs will not chase you past their guardian torch light radius, so you can safely make a camp just outside their maximum light radius; since Guardian Pigs have more life than normal pigs and never sleep, you may use them as a perfect defense against other creatures as long as you keep track of the Moon cycle (see Werepigs below).

If a pig eats or is fed 4x Monster meat or during full moon nights, both pigs and guardian pigs will transform into Werepigs, an extremely aggressive variation of pig.

Spiders and Spider Warriors
Spiders are aggressive creatures that can be found roaming around Spider dens at dusk and night. During the day spiders will retreat to their den until dusk, when at least one spider per den will start roaming around. Roaming spiders have an aggro radius of about one berry bush at dusk, and two berry bushes during the night. Homeless spiders (for example, an evacuated spider from a burning den) will roam around their former house location and will usually be found sleeping outside during the day.

Spider dens are sized in three tiers,  each den size holding an increasing number of spiders, ranging from six spiders (T1 dens) to twelve spiders (T3 dens). Usually, only one spider per den will roam at dusk and night, but more spiders will exit the den, until emptied, if a spider is attacked.

When a creature touches the Sticky Webbing surrounding a den, up to three spiders will exit the den and move towards the place the creature touched the webbing to investigate. Spiders investigating this way will move until they reach the end of the webbing, either returning afterwards if they do not detect anything, or aggroing nearby enemies if any is found. The bigger the den tier, the larger the webbing around it. Be careful in high clustered den areas (usually in forest biomes and in adventure mode), several dens may lay their webing on the same location, and thus, touching the webbing may spawn spiders from several dens.

A good way to easily empty dens is to place several Traps near the edges of the webbing (standing just outside), then touch it so spiders come to investigate. A spider or spider warrior caught by a trap will be instakilled. This way you may recover the traps, reset them then repeat the procedure until the den no longer spawns spider when the webbing is touched. A den still holding spiders under direct attack or if it is set on fire will evacuate up to six spiders at the same time with a chance for them to become spider warriors instead of normal spiders. Spider warriors have a fast leaping strike with a medium range that is somewhat difficult to avoid.

If you prefer burning dens instead of destroying them for their materials, the fastest way to avoid clearing the entire den of spiders beforehand is to touch the webbing, move away from the webbing then reenter it from another angle before the scouting spiders return to the den. The scouting spiders will only check the first location you touched the webbing, but the den itself will not spawn more spiders as long as you reentered the webbing before the last of them return to the den finding nothing; thais way, as long as you do not leave the webbing, you can now move freely around the den without it spawning more scouting spiders (still, the den will normally spawn spiders when the game time changes to dusk or night). Then you can simply set the den on fire and move away quickly because of the evacuated spiders. You may even plant some saplings or walls around and clear both the den and the evacuated spiders at the same time.

Spiders can be stunlocked while spider warriors cannot, but care must be taken since nearby spiders will help an attacked one and the den that spider belongs will spawn other spiders (as if the den was attacked) to defend if still holding some inside.

Spider dens may be normally attacked and destroyed (will drop several Silk, and a destroyed T3 den will always drop a Spider Egg) or set on fire (dropping only Ash). T3 spider dens have a chance to spawn a Spider Queen, leaving a T1 or T2 den in its place.

If you feel like spider farming, you may actually set a walled "room" first, then "plant" a spider egg inside with a single trapped exit thus creating a spider farm for all your monster meat, spider gland and silk needs.

Spider Queen
Spider queens are boss-type monsters that can transform from a Tier 3 Spider den. The T3 den will "grow" legs and a head with the den serving as her body, leaving behind either a T1 or a T2 den. Spider queens have a high aggro range of about 6 berry bushes, but since they're slow moving, outruning a queen is an easy task and queens leave the chase easily. After several days roaming, queens may decide to "replant" themselves as a Tier 1 den if they find a suitable location away from other queens or dens.

Several spiders will follow the queen everywhere she goes and attack any enemy that's gets too close or is aggroed by the queen. Since spiders hove faster and thus chase farther away than the queen herself, when the queen's spiders leave chase you know that the queen has disengaged long ago. Queen's are able to spawn more spiders from time to time up to a maximum cap, and can keep spawning spiders during combat if needed.

Your character may lure the queen's spiders to traps and other dangers to clear most of them before engaging the queen herself, but be aware that, since the queen will keep spawning spiders from time to time, you will have to plan in advance how to engage them so you are not overwhelmed. Littering the planned battleground with some traps is a decent idea, but it will require some farming beforehand. The queen herself, while dealing high damage, can be killed with the usual kiting mechanics landing about two hits each time before retreating. Still, will require a lot of hits to be killed

Pigs and several other creatures will attack the queen at plain sight, so luring her to the usual defenses (pigs, beefalos, maybe even merms if near a swap) can be used against the queen. Also, since many queen's spawn in forest biomes and are slow moving you may just set on fire a nearby tree and soon enough the whole thing will be burning; this will easily burn to death (or severely damage) the queen, her spiders, nearby dens, lone pigs and probably half of the biome. While a painful task, you may replant later most of the evergreens, since big ones net two pinecones when chopped down (one to replant the chopped tree, and an extra one). Must be aware though, that killed queens drop a decent amount of silk (that will burn away if you felt pyromaniac) and a spider egg that you can use to create your own "spider farms".

You may actually set evergreen traps this way, with a mix of evergreens and burnable walls (hay walls being the easiest to obtain, and fully replenishable), and lure the queen inside it before setting the trap on fire; you may even leave some unplaced wall stacks walls at the entrances to lock the queen inside.

Tallbirds
Tallbirds are highly territorial creatures usually found in Rockyland biomes guarding their Tallbird Nests. Tallbirds will attack any creature that gets too close to their nests (about an eight berry bush aggro radius around the nest), specially if a Tallbird Egg is spawned. Will chase away for a medium distance unless the character picks their egg, in which case they will chase for a much larger distance. Tallbirds will commonly warn you in advance when you've entered their aggro range by chirping at your character while scratching the ground with their legs; you may use that warning to move away, avoiding the Tallbird's chase.

Tallbirds are kiteable, but your character may actually find more difficult to target them than to kite them since they tend to wave their heads back and forth in awkward ways (if you find that targeting tallbirds is too difficult, best option here is to place yourself so the tallbird is directly over or beneath you - so you kite either by moving straight up or straight down - since that way their head waving will be almost negligible); also, your attack window is somewhat small being only able to land two hits if perfectly timed and retargeted after a defensive kite; commonly, you will only be able to attack the tallbird once.

Since they spawn mainly in rockyland biomes (usually devoided from other creatures) and will retreat after some chasing, there are usually no other ways to deal with them than head-on unless you bring a befriended pig with you, In adventure mode spider dens and hound mounds may spawn in rockyland biomes, but luring a tallbird there may be even more dangerous.

Tentacles
Tentacles are motionless creatures that hide in Marsh biomes. They are initially hidden from sight, but a small purple spot emerges from time to time thus pointing their location. Tentacles are hostile towards all marsh creatures (spiders and merms) and will immediately attack them provided those creatures get close enough to the tentacle. Not only do tentacles hit hard, but each tentacle attack lashes back and forth hitting their enemy twice. Tentacles will hide again on the ground if your character moves too far away from them so you cannot use ranged weapons unless you're at melee range (and, since most ranged weapons deal less damage than melee ones - except Blow Darts - using ranged weapons is subpar).

Tentacles are kiteable, but their attack range is large enough and their attack period fast enough (you can only land one attack before their attack period resets) to make kiting very difficult to master (and, since tentacles strike twice per attack, mistakes do cost a lot). Unless you master tentacle kiting the only way to kill an isolated tentacle is head-on with the best armor you can wear.

Obviously, Tentacles cannot be lured towards other enemies but you can actually lure swamp denizens towards nearby tentacles, then backstab the tentacle once it engages the lured enemy. Tentacles spawning near other swamp denizens will eventually be killed by them, since merms and spiders do have spawning structures while tentacles do not.

Treeguards
Treeguards are boss-type monsters that have a small chance to spawn from a nearby evergreen (as long as there is one) each time a tree is chopped down, if you cut a lone evergreen and there are no other trees on screen, Treeguards cannot spawn, thus, you may actually place evergreen farms in grasslands and other available biomes enough separated so that you can chop them off without risking spawning a Treeguard. Initially only one treeguard will spawn from a nearby tree, but as the game progresses, up to three treeguards can spawn provided there are enough evergreens nearby.

Since Treeguards spawn from trees, they come in three sizes depending on the evergreen size they spawned from. The bigger the evergreen a Treeguard spawns from, the more life, attack damage and range the Treeguard will have.

Treeguards will immediately aggro the creature that landed the hit that actually chopped the tree down. While most of the time will be your character, if your character has befriended a pig, both of you start chopping a tree and the pig is the one who lands the "chopping blow" in the tree that actually spawns a Treeguard, the Treeguard will aggro the pig instead of your character (actually, the pig will also aggro the Treeguard the moment it spawns since pigs consider treeguards as enemies).

Treeguards have a chance of being pacified by planting pinecones nearby. A pacified Treeguard will lose aggro towards your character but will still roam the world as a creature. Treeguards will then be considered neutral towards your character and will not reengage unless attacked first.

You can use standard kiting mechanics against a Treeguard, but must be aware or their size when kiting, because of the different attack ranges, the bigger the treeguard, the farther you will have to move to outrange them.

Werepigs
Werepigs are highly hostile creatures with a large aggro radius (about six berry bushes) that will attack most hostile creatures at plain sight, even other pigs. Normal Pigs will change into werepigs when they eat or are fed 4x Monster Meat; also, both Pigs and Guardian Pigs will change into werepigs if they're caught outside during full moon nights. Keeping track of the Moon cycle is extremely important while befriending pigs, or moving near guardian pigs.

Werepigs will revert to their former status the next morning, usually found sleeping for some hours.

Since Guardian Pigs will always stay outside they will always change into werepigs in full-moon nights; normal pigs will run to their houses at dusk and won't leave them till the next day, so there are only three ways for a normal pig to turn into a werepig because of a full moon night:

If you plan to transform a werepig you must know that the transformation itself takes some time that you can actually use to start attacking without retaliation, even being able to kill the pig before he finishes the transformation.
 * 1) When they are involved in a long enough battle that lasts for the entire dusk until nighttime; in Two Worlds Adventure scenario (Paradise half) and if you set the Day-Night Cycle to Long Days in survival mode, dusk and night only have one segment each thus making easier for pigs to stay in battle until nighttime (but actually, wereping transformation takes long enough so the wereping will only be able to roam for a small amount of time before the next morning).
 * 2) When a pig house is deconstructed while his pig owner is still alive (so they become homeless pigs). Homeless pigs will roam around their former house location, but will run towards you if you light a fire at dusk, since they're more afraid of the dark than they're afraid of your character.
 * 3)  When you befriend one or several pigs that stay with you until nighttime. Be very careful in this situation, specially if you like to roam and explore with several befriended pigs. Placing a campfire for the night and suddenly finding yourself accompanied by several hostile werepigs is not very nice.

Werepigs are kiteable but have a fast attack period, so you are only able to land one or two attacks at most between each one of theirs.