A crystalisk is an enemy featured in Borderlands 2. These craggy, tri-pedal creatures sport a large crystalline structure on each leg and two additional ones on top.
Strategy
Crystalisks have several forms of attack.
Melee:
- Lifting up one of its legs and pounding the ground creating a small explosion.
- Continuously pounding the ground with a pile driver-like organ, creating several damaging shockwaves.
Long range:
- Launching a cloud of flechettes that hit over a wide area.
- Launching a large crystal that embeds on the ground or wall, which violently explodes a few seconds later. (Essentially a sticky grenade.)
The crystalisk can be killed by damaging anywhere on its body, but this requires high quantities of ammunition and time as the body is very resistant to damage and will reflect any bullets shot on the skin. However, the crystals on its legs and body are critical hit locations. Furthermore, each leg constitutes roughly one-third of the crystalisk's overall health, and are easily targeted.
Splash damage from explosive attacks will deal increased damage to these critical locations. However, a melee strike on a crystalisk's leg instantly shatters the crystals there and robs the crystalisk of one-third of its health on Normal difficulty. On True Vault Hunter Mode they take more punishment before breaking.
Sniper rifles or other long range weapons are also useful against crystalisks since their attacks take some time to reach the target and do have limited range. If quick enough, a high damaging sniper rifle can be used to destroy two or even all three of the crystals on their legs as they pull themselves out of the ground.
The crystalisk's giant explosive crystals are its most devastating attack. This can be especially problematic when there are multiple crystalisks in the area. However the explosive crystals can be destroyed harmlessly by shooting them before they explode.
Once the crystals on each leg are broken, the crystals on its back will light up and the crystalisk will explode (which can damage anything nearby), leaving behind valuable crystals that can be picked up by a character for money.
Melee Strategy
Melee strikes onto a crystalisk's leg will instantly shatter its crystals, and causes it to flinch. When the crystalisk flinches, the melee attacker can rush the two remaining legs, quickly killing the crystalisk. This strategy can also be applied when a crystalisk is un-burrowing, potentially killing it before it is even en-burrowed.
Zer0 can use Decepti0n to quickly take down a crystalisk with melee. One 'free' critical from stealth (while the crystalisk is attacking the hologram at range) will stun the creature long enough to allow time to run around and smash the other two legs before it can recover.
Maya can easily accomplish this while they are phaselocked.
Variants
Volatile Crystalisk
These are the most common form of crystalisk found on Pandora and are, aside from Blue, the strongest and toughest. Also, when two of their leg crystals are destroyed, they will actively try to hide their remaining critical location by turning away from their assailant.
Mini Crystalisk
Essentially these are young crystalisk who have not yet developed fully and as such, they are much weaker (and rarer) than the adult crystalisks. They attack by getting in close and doing a ground pound or self-destruct in a large explosion that deals heavy splash damage to everything nearby.
Volcanic Crystalisk
They are only encountered in the Vault of The Warrior, emerging from lava from time to time. Their defense and attack are both weaker than ordinary crystalisks at the same level, and destroying the crystals on two of its legs is enough to "kill it", instead of all three. This is due to when the second set of leg crystals are destroyed, they bury themselves in the ground and blow up. They can be dangerous if the explosive crystals they launch go unnoticed during the fight against The Warrior. They will continuously respawn as long as the Warrior is still active, but instantly dies upon the defeat of the Warrior. Unlike other crystalisks, they don't drop crystals as money.
Cave Crystalisk
These blue crystalisks are only encountered in Hayter's Folly in the Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty content. They are largely the same as Volatile Crystalisks, except for their attacks being able to inflict shock damage.
Unique Crystalisks
Notes
- Crystalisks do not have a badass variant.
- When broken their crystals can be gathered for an ample amount of money.
- Normal bullets may bounce off of their bodies.
- According to ECHO Logs scattered around Caustic Caverns, crystalisks were originally friendly to humans. This soon changed when Dahl attempted to mine the creatures, an act which caused the crystalisks to turn on them.
- It has been observed that Gaige's melee attacks require more hits to shatter the crystals on the legs of crystalisks [1]. This can be countered with any bladed melee weapon allowing her to shatter them in a single strike as well, her "With Claws" skill allows her to destroy the crystals with melee at the same speed as other characters.
- With their leg crystals as large critical hit locations, crystalisks may be ideal targets for completing weapon Challenges involving critical hits. To this end, Blue in particular is useful as its leg crystals regenerate after some time.
- Crystalisks can't be slagged or be under any elemental status effects.
- In Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, crystalisks are considerably more difficult to defeat as to they cannot be slagged, as well as being bulletproof on most body parts.
- Small formations of crystals with the same golden hue as crystalisks can be found near the creatures in their habitat. These can be shattered and picked up for money rewards in the same manner as the crystal shards from crystalisks themselves.
Trivia
- Originally, all crystalisks were supposed to have critical hit points behind the gems on their legs, the gems were supposed to regenerate when destroyed after a period of time, as seen in IGN's Gunzerker Preview
- Crystalisks have light blue blood.