Originally posted by Ptolemy:

Originally posted by abrannick:

Okay, so it's not just me - they changed the stamina usage.

As per Amaoto, I definitely noticed that it started burning through stamina when the mob was trying to pull away. So, I carefully navigated close to the shore with the serpent following at paddle speed (yeah, longboat - karve can't take the constant chomping for too long). I actually got to the shore with my stamina bar pretty much full.

And that's where it all went south. As soon as I hopped out of the boat and started trying to drag the serpent up onto the shore, I burned through my stamina bar in less than five seconds. Like, completely. And I was decently food-buffed at the time. I tried to re-harpoon the sucker, but my stamina hadn't recovered enough to make it worth it. Same thing with trying to hit the damn thing - I had no stamina to attack it, and it just slithered off into the waves.

I just hate to have to wait until I'm nearly capped out with top tier food buffs and Draugr Fang bow and frost arrows and black metal sword before I can start hunting these things again. I can understand them wanting to nerf the exploit, but I really hope they re-adjust that stamina usage. It feels like they seriously over-corrected.

What food were you using, out of curiosity? I've managed to land and kill a few using bread, carrot soup and turnip stew without very much difficulty. Although I was using a draugr fang with a high bow skill, and it took four shots and next to no stamina to kill them once they were on the beach. Might try with a huntsman bow and see how much harder it makes it.

I had Serpent Soup, sausages, and Queen's Jam (which had given me more than enough stamina prior to this nerf). And once my stamina ran out, the serpent swam off before I had recovered enough stamina to make any attacks, bow or otherwise. Simply put, I am currently unable to kill the serpent on land - unless I get extremely lucky and encounter a war party of greydwarfs just as I make landfall *and* they aggro on the serpent *and* it decides to fight back instead of swim away.

Now, yeah...like some others stated in this thread, I could just kill it in open water with my bow and a few good arrows. But at this stage in the game, the scale shield is quite an upgrade to my iron banded shield and I can't get the scales (or the trophy, for that matter) unless I'm able to kill it on land or in extremely shallow water. If I have to wait until I have completely top-tier food (which would include Plains-level food) before I have enough stamina to kill the serpent on land, I'd already have a better shield than the scale one, which makes getting the scales completely pointless to begin with.