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Bioshock Hints
General Big Daddy Combat Tips
1 of 13: There are two basic types of big daddy. The bouncer types have no ranged attacks, but can run up to you very fast and deal a lot of up-close damage. The rosie types have powerful rivet guns to shoot you with and prox grenades to throw at you, so they don't try to charge you like the bouncers do.
2 of 13: The basic strategies for each type are necessarily very different. With bouncers, you'll want to do a lot of running and strafing to dodge their charges while shooting them with the shotgun or armor-piercing bullets. With rosies, you'll need to find cover to avoid getting shot, then strafe out quickly to do some shooting before hiding again.
3 of 13: Fortunately, all of the areas that have big-daddy-protected little sisters in them can be returned to via bathysphere after you've moved on. That means you can wait to kill the first few big daddies until after you've acquired some better weapons and plasmids in other areas.
4 of 13: The two best weapons to have are the grenade launcher (first gotten early in Neptune's Bounty) and the chemical thrower (first gotten in Arcadia).
5 of 13: If you just have the grenade launcher, you can use it along with the usual running and dodging to kill a big daddy (esp. the rosie variety) fairly quickly. Just make sure you have enough grenades to do the job before you start. (If you run out of grenades, some up-close blasts from the shotgun loaded with electric buck ammo will work pretty well.)
6 of 13: Also, if you've got several prox mines, you can lay a line of mines and then lead a big daddy down it while hitting him with the machine gun's armor-piercing rounds or the chemical thrower loaded with napalm.
7 of 13: If you've got liquid nitro for the chemical thrower, you can use it to freeze a big daddy solid and then bomb him with grenades. If you can't shatter him the first time, refreeze him and continue the grenading. However, remember that the damage done to frozen enemies is mostly done to the encasing ice, and much less damage is done to the enemy. If you know a big daddy will unfreeze before you can shatter him, you'd be better off not freezing him so that he takes the full damage from each grenade.
8 of 13: That's what makes the electric gel ammo for the chemical thrower a much better solution. You can "freeze" a big daddy with a continuous stream of it, and he'll be taking full damage from it. This is especially effective if you lure the big daddy into some water.
9 of 13: The trouble is that electric gel is very rare, and is usually only obtainable at U-Invent machines if you have enough of the right components. To maximize your use of it, get the "chemical thrower consumption rate" weapon upgrade as soon as possible, and splice in the Electric Flesh and Electric Flesh 2 Combat Tonics after you get them.
10 of 13: In some cases, it's possible to weaken a big daddy without making him hostile to you. Lead splicers and other enemies to him, and they may start attacking him instead of you. (If not, try using the Enrage plasmid on the splicers.)
11 of 13: Also, if a big daddy is in an area where you've hacked some gun or RPG turrets, they'll join in the battle as soon as you start attacking. If you freeze the big daddy as mentioned above, then both you and your turrets can get in a bunch of free shots.
12 of 13: If you've been rescuing little sisters instead of harvesting them, you'll have a Hypnotize Big Daddy plasmid that you can use on a big daddy to get him to follow you around and aid you in battle. In an area with multiple big daddies, use the hypnotize plasmid on one of them, then go start attacking another one. Your faithful follower will attack the other big daddy for you, and you can just stand and watch (or help out a bit with electric gel or whatever to make things go faster.)
13 of 13: And don't forget the Vita-Chamber Tips. If a big daddy kills you after you do him a lot of damage, you don't have to restore your save and try again. Instead, exit the Vita-Chamber you appear in and return to the big daddy to finish the job. (This fact also removes the need to constantly use first aid kits during the battle.)
