Rattlers: Battle Tips and Strategy

The Rattlers are a group of humans hunting for survivors in The Last of Us Part II. Read on to learn how to deal with Rattlers, and tips for combat with them.

Who are The Rattlers?

Rattlers are a group of hostile humans in Santa Barbara who imprison wandering survivors using traps to turn them into slaves to do work for them. They are first encountered while playing as Abby during Chapter 10: Santa Barbara - 2425 Constance.

Afterward, the control will shift back to Ellie, who will have to journey through Santa Barbara and battle many Rattlers during this time.

Rattlers Battle Tips

Try to remain hidden when hunting down Rattlers. It will be difficult to escape or to fight back if you get overwhelmed, since some of the Rattlers will have a helmet and bulletproof vest to protect themselves during combat. Because of this, they can be difficult to pick off, especially in large groups. It is recommended that you use a Stealth Kill to finish off the armored Rattlers and the Silenced Submachine Gun (or other silent weapons like the pistol with a silencer, or the bow) to execute the ones who are not wearing a helmet.

Much like the WLF, Rattlers use dogs to sniff out your scent trail, and alerting them will draw all Rattlers in the area after you. You will need to try and take the dog / dog owner out before they give your position away to everyone else.

How to Deal With Dogs

If you are spotted and they come after you, the shotgun will do wonders against any Rattler that gets to close to you. If your cover is blown but there are not too many Rattlers still roaming, going to a closed in area (such as inside a building), setting up landminds, then using the shotgun to take care of any who get up too close is a very effective strategy.

Also note that by the time you encounter the Rattlers, the game is almost over. There will be about 4 or 5 sections where you need to deal with them, and those will be the last battles using firearms, so you don't need to worry about conserving ammo too much in these parts, especially because you can restock easily after taking them all out.

The Rattlers also have the Infected chained up in different areas of their base to fortify their defenses. Getting spotted by an infected will alarm the Rattlers giving away your position. Be careful not to get spotted by the Infected and try not to make too much noise when moving around the base while hunting for Rattlers.

Carefully sneak up behind the infected without alerting them or the rattlers, then set them all free, which will cause an uproar. You can either wait it out and hope that they will kill each other off, or use the uproar as a diversion and take out the preoccupied human enemies. As long as you don't alarm the infected, they will continue to go after the Rattlers.

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