If these baddies came at you one at a time it would be a lot more fun killing them.

What are they most sensitive to dying quickly from please? Missiles, grenades, fire?

Shooting from long distance doesn't seem very effective with the aiming system unless the percentage is high (90+) or is that untrue?

When I finally venture into the quarry I read that there were some high palces to use including from the hills but Deathclaws seem to be able to climb and follow my character along a ridge (different location from quarry) and kill Alice (PC) in pretty short order--just like the damn bugs. I better take a look at YouTube on this.

Thanks.

The best weapons to kill deathclaws are ones with high base damage and AP rounds or abilities, and a good critical chance / damage.
For example.

Guns.
The Anti material rifle.
The Sniper rifle with AP rounds.
The hunting rifle with AP rounds.
The marksman carabine with AP rounds.
The Brush gun with normal rounds.
The 12.7 pistol with normal rounds.
The 12.7 with normal rounds.
The Light machine gun with AP rounds.
Hunting shotgun, slug rounds and shotgun surgeon as a perk.
Riot shotgun, slug rounds and shotgun surgeon as a perk.

Energy weapons.
Gauss rifle, especially with max charge ammo.
Plasma defender, MC ammo.
Plasma caster the same.
Multiplas the same.
Tesla cannon.

Melee any two handed heavy hitter.
Sledge hammer.
Supersledge.

Unarmed.
A ballistic fist is best.

For cazadore' you need a fast firing fully automatic, then if possible put in HP rounds.

This is how one person chose to deal with those pesky creatures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAzJXAivwvA&feature=player_embedded

Thank you for the list. I have not spent any time in the game so far to come up with the best weapon to use for Deathclaws. So far I'm still using Vance's 9mm Submachine Gun that does 10/133 damage. I need to take this more seriously as the PC is carrying around a lot of weight that is not being utilized at all at any given time. So far my two companions, ED-E and Boone do a great job picking off creatures sometimes before I even see them--but Deathclaws have been overwhelming for all so far.

Is the order of your list significant? Is the Anti Material or Gauss rifles considered tops the easiest to defeat Deathclaws? What about explosives?

I've noticed the Over-charge and Max-charge energy ammo. The Over-charge energy ammo and Max to a lesser degree wear down the guns condition more. Is this considered a detriment/disadvantage or just a minor inconvenience?

If you had the Anti Material and Gauss rifles as described which one would you be inclined to use and why?

When a problem comes along, you must whip it.

Whip it good.

Which you use depends on which skill is best. Guns, or Energy weapons.

I use a sniper rifle with JSP rounds. (you have to make your own.) I can one shot deathclaws at rather extreme ranges. I do not use vats at all. Having a silencer (which the AMR can't have....) makes sure that other DC's in the area aren't instantly alerted to your presence, and come over and have you for lunch. Instead, they run over to the newly dead body..... and you have another target to plink at.

Got Deathclaws? Get an AMR, Problem Solved.

As for Cazadors, hate hate hate those things. I never have enough Anitvenom. I find lobbing as many HE Missles as I can at them from a distance and then using what ever gun gives me the highest rate of fire as they get closer. They are about the only thing that I am tempted to use VATS on.

For cazadors I have discovered the grenade rifle/launcher loaded with incendiary grenades is extremely good even with a low explosives skill. Don't use VATS, eyeball it - practice with normal rounds to learn how to guage it. My fav practice target is the glowing one that spawns west of Novac on the road to the REPCONN Test Site, and then the mole rats in the ditch/crater near Gibsons.

If not that, use a smg on them. The 9mm full modded or the 10mm. The 12.7 is over kill and the ammo is expensive and hard to find. I've never tried the .22 smg so I can't say how good it is against them.

I snipe Deathclaws with a modded sniper rifle w/JSP rounds.

Holy Cr*p!!! That was Awesome!!!

It depends on skill level, if a higher energy weapons skill a gauss, if guns the anti material rifle.

For convenience I'll just go over damage threshold ( DT ), base damage ( dam ) and damage per seonds ( dps ).

Say a deathclaw has 15 DT this means that it absorbs 15 points of damage.
If your weapons Dam is below this you deal far less damage than normal.
If above it takes that amount of Dam - the DT 15.
So you need to attack a creature with higher DT with a strong Dam weapon, like the anti material rifle.

Then you have armour piercing ( AP ) or damage threshold reducing ( -DT ) ammo.
This subtracts that amount of DT from the creatures DT.
Example a 5.57 AP round ( -15 DT ) will subtract all the deathclaws armour and deal full damage ( well 95% due to the ammo being weaker than the normal ammo type. )

Another example is Max Charge this removes 10 DT from the deathclaw, but also adds damage at the same time.
So it's stronger than the AP round, it will ruin your gun quicker but makes up for it by killing creatures quicker too.

Now damage per seconds ( DPS ), is how fast the gun fires in total.
Mostly the higher the number the lower the base damage ( DAM ).
So against deathclaws it is not really the best choice, unless you equip AP or max charge rounds in it.
Then the weapon may make it easy to kill a deathclaw.
These high DPS weapons are best used against fast and light foes, cazadore's, gecko's and nightstalkers for example.

The weapons were in no particular order, but do best with the ammo types provided against deathclaws.
Otherwise you'll still not be doing max damage with them.
I hope this helps.

Damn 360 Forget deathclaws that would beat my nemisis... Invisible walls...

This is how you kill deathclaws.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNhR_UHgqM


As for cazadors I find All American most effective.

i found the holy frag granade with a + 70 explosives skill and 2nd explosives expert perk works well