Bearing more than a passing resemblance to Half Life 1's Gonarch, Boomer Bugs are large tripedal creatures whose sole purpose seems to be to act as a gigantic suicide bomber.
Description[]
Boomers will slowly advance towards marines and if they aren't inflating, they will attack with their legs for moderate damage. They can soak up a lot of punishment, potentially protecting more fragile swarm life forms.
If a Boomer is killed before it can inflate, it poses little threat to a team... but if it does inflate, killing it will result in the release of several "bomblet"-like projectiles that explode after several seconds, inflicting considerable damage to nearby marines in the process. However, if a boomer is killed before it "detonates", fewer bomblets are released, depending on how quickly it was killed.
Boomers can roll (or bounce) themselves across the area to quickly approach and block the marine's passage. This may not be a difficult problem, but if a marine activates Smart Bomb/Hornet Barrage or fire any weapons that cause explosions, he/she can get instantly killed by his/her own explosions if the boomer bounces and "block" directly at them.
On Normal difficulty with Onslaught mode disabled, Boomers are first encountered in Rydberg Reactor.
Strategy[]
- Boomers take quite a bit of firepower to take down; a squad needs to focus on one for a few seconds to kill it.
- If a Boomer dies after inflating, simply take a few steps away, out of range of the bomblets.
- Although their main tactic is exploding and releasing their bomblets, Boomers can still stab a marine with their legs at close range, which makes using weapons such as the Chainsaw dangerous. It is worthy to note, however, that they cannot directly attack marines while inflated.
- Once a Boomer has inflated, it has started its suicide countdown and will eventually explode whether the marines continue to shoot it or not. Whether or not ammo conservation is a concern, the marines may simply ignore already inflated Boomers.
- The bomblets created by Boomers can damage and sometimes destroy sentries. Try to draw Boomers away from any sentries or move the sentries away before killing them. This will also saves the sentry's valuable ammo for a greater, weaker threat such as drones and rangers.
- The bomblets can also deal heavy damage to the swarm if they happen to be caught in the blast. A clever marine would use this to his/her advantage.
- Boomers take little damage from flames and are not affected much by tesla-based weaponry so it is not recommended to shoot them with the Flamer or Tesla Cannon.
- The Boomer's weakness are stun grenades from the Prototype Rifle
Achievements[]
- The Quick and Dead Achievement is awarded for killing a Boomer before it can inflate.
Notes[]
- Boomer is also the name of an exploding, vomiting zombie enemy in another of Valve's games, Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.