On my fourth playthrough of the game right now, rhc difficulty, has to be the most annoying part of the game? I find myself being unable to beat it with any weapon other than the Shambler; mostly because of the ammo limits. Sure, rhc difficulty makes the nosalises being able to kill you in a second or two, but running around like crazy and timing my reloads and medkits well seems to work out just fine. Running out of ammo halfway through (and no, I'm no sprayer, I try my best to conserve it) seems too much like a bad design choice to me. So why not just lug along a Shambler? Because I like using a creative, fun loadout. Of course you can just grab a Kalash and a shotgun and beat the game that way, what's the fun in that? So, have you guys got any tips for me? Sure, I've beaten it three times before, but mostly out of pure luck instead of a seemingly good strategy. All in all, a nice ammo limit rant for you guys to read.
The one where the boat comes for you? I mean, it's kinda of difficult, but hardly impossible. Pistols and MGR's will 2-shot them, and I passed it on Normal Hardcore (which honestly seems a bit more difficult than Ranger mode against mutants since they have way more health and you still die pretty quickly) with the quadlet you find there. I usually start by going up top, picking off the initial waves, sprinting past mutants to get time for reloads, and moving towards the boat area when he starts to approach. Lots of weapons can get the job done, an AK might actually be best because of its fast reload.
For me I just fight the nosalis on the overpass where you find the quad-barrel shotgun. So much easier than trying to hold them off where you get on the boat.
I hole up at the edge of the boat dock, to use it as a choke point. I have the Shambler and NV Bastard or AK at that point of the game. I also have incendiary grenades equipped. Shoot at their heads from a distance with the carbine weapon as soon as they start coming at you. Switch to shotty when they get close, but try to still aim at the head. Toss an incendiary about 10' in front of you if you get stuck reloading. The fire from it will linger there and kill or weaken them to the point of an easy melee kill.
