Bracken. Hazard level A, they take 3 hits to kill, they'll insta kill you, open doors in 1 second, and are most commonly found on Vow. Bracken have 3 phases, hunting, retreating, and aggro.
As soon as a bracken spawns, it will begin hunting. In this phase, it will crawl around making no sound, it always knows where all players are and what direction they're looking, and it will target the closest player. Once it has chosen a player, it will follow them until it finds an opportunity to kill them. You are slower than the Bracken if you're walking, but you're faster than them if you're sprinting, so if you're sprinting while you're exploring, you'll create distance between you and the Bracken, but the Bracken will continuously close this gap until it gets close enough to snap your neck and kill you. Bracken can be following you for a really long time without you knowing it.
It doesn't seem like they get any more aggressive the longer they follow you, but... If you know there's a Bracken on your map, it's a good idea to constantly be checking your back just in case. Make sure you don't stop moving and make sure you don't back up because if you do, you're giving the Bracken a very good chance to kill you.
They're really smart when there's two levels. This room in particular, they'll hide on the top or bottom level depending on where you are and try to sneak up on you. In this example, the Bracken knows I'm standing right here, so he's going to post up right on these stairs and wait for me to walk through this room. Now if I were to just walk through without checking the stairs, I wouldn't know he's there and that's when he's going to continue following me. Here's another example.
So I walk through the room and the bracken comes down the stairs to follow me. If I would have kept walking, the bracken would have followed me. But since I stopped and there's a second floor, he's going to go back up to that second floor and see if I walk back through this room. As soon as I do walk back through this room, as long as I have my back to him, he's going to come down the stairs and continue following me. They're also very smart in the sewage system.
You can see his red dot coming towards me right now, and since I'm looking this way, he doesn't turn the corner, he hides from me. And as soon as I continue to explore, that's when he jumps on me. As I said earlier, brackens always know what direction you're looking.
In this example, the bracken is right behind me. I turn around to check, and he immediately changes direction to sneak up behind me. If he can find another way to come up behind me, he will, but if he can't find a different way, then he will just hide behind the wall. As soon as you look at a Bracken, this will trigger phase two.
When this phase is triggered, you'll hear a sound cue. The Bracken will stand up, growl, flail its flowers, and begin backing up while looking at you. This phase won't be triggered unless the Bracken is within this part of your screen, which is why sometimes you can see the Bracken trying to sneak up on you on the sides of your screen. This retreating phase lasts 23 seconds, where you can hear the Bracken's footsteps as he backs pretty much as far away from you as he can. As soon as that 23 second timer is up, he will go right back into phase one.
Also, the 23 second timer begins the moment you have last broken eye contact with the Bracken. So if you trigger this phase and chase him down looking at him, the moment you turn away, that's when the timer will start. Or if you trigger this phase, look away and then look at him again, this will reset the timer.
This is super important. When the Bracken is in this phase, he will never attack you and never kill you. The millisecond you send him into this phase, no matter how close he is, you can turn your back to him.
The only time he'll kill you in this phase is if you get too close. Looking at the Bracken too long will send him into phase 3. This phase is really complex. Shoutout to Agmus from my Discord. He read through a ton of code for the Bracken and basically translated it for me, so everything I'm about to say is backed by code. I wouldn't have this information if it wasn't for him.
Links to his socials in the description. Go blow him up. This phase works based off the Bracken's anger meter, which works kind of like a timer and can be increased through a variety of things.
The moment you look at a Bracken and send him into phase 2, this will immediately add to his anger meter. This number increases based on how many times you sent him into phase 2. So, the first time you send him into phase 2, it will add a little bit to his anger meter. The second time it will add a little more to his anger meter. The third time will add more and so on and so forth. You'll also add to the Bracken's anger meter if you look at him while he's in what's called the stare down mode.
This mode happens when you're looking at a Bracken while he's retreating. He has basically a random chance of entering stare down mode where he will stop and stare at you. And for every millisecond you're looking at him while he's standing still. this is adding to his anger meter just to clarify looking at the bracken while he's retreating does not add to his anger meter it's only when he's in the stare down mode you're adding to his anger meter when the bracken is in stare down mode this is when there's a chance of him getting aggroed onto you the higher his anger meter is the higher the chance he is to get aggroed when a bracken does get aggroed he'll chase you until he either kills you or his anger meter completely depletes so if his anger meter is low he won't chase you for very long, but if it's high, he can chase you for up to 10 or 11 seconds.
So here's an in-game example of how the Anger Meter works. When I first turn around and look at the Bracken, this immediately adds to his Anger Meter. Now, as long as he's walking, even if I'm looking at him, this is not adding to his Anger Meter, but as soon as he enters Stare Down mode, then I am.
So he should enter there's Stare Down mode, and I was just adding to his Anger Meter. Now, the higher his anger meter is, the more likely he is to aggro onto me. So this next time he enters stare down, I have a...
Pretty high chance of him aggroing onto me, and as you can see, he does. And he chases me until his aggro meter completely depletes, and now it starts back at zero. Keep in mind that the progress on the anger meter saves, so right there he just went into stare down mode and I increased his anger meter. If I were to walk away and continue exploring, that progress on his anger meter saves.
A couple things you should note is that if you stun, zap, or hit a Bracken, this will automatically aggro them and max out their anger meter at 11 seconds, and if they are aggroed, they will always go for the closest player. When a Bracken does kill someone, he pretty much goes back into his retreating phase, but he'll drag the body with him going at twice the speed. Once the 23 seconds is over, he'll drop the body and go back into phase 1. If you're chasing the Bracken in this phase, he can drop the body early and try to kill you. If you are playing against a Bracken, just make sure you're checking your back often, make sure you're clearing rooms, especially rooms with two floors, and make sure you're closing doors because if a Bracken is following you, you'll hear it open doors.
I wouldn't recommend trying to kill a Bracken, but if you are, you can one-shot him with a shotgun, or you can hit him three times with a shovel. The best way to kill him with a shovel is to lure him near a big room, hit him once, and then sprint backwards in a circular motion as you hit him the second and third time. I just started a TikTok for this channel. I haven't even posted anything. So go blow that up.
It'll be the first link in the description. And if you're interested in being or contributing to future videos, join the discord. It'll be the second link.
Thumpers coming out next.