The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Walkthrough - part 5 - Orichalcum Mine and Hauling Station

This post has general tips and tricks for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing played on the PC at Heroic Difficulty. For a list of all our Van Helsing posts, click here.

Part 5 - Orichalcum Mine and Hauling Station
(Hunter, Heroic Difficulty)
Starting with the Orichalcum Mine, combat shifts away from melee toward ranged because there are dangerous melee or close-range situations that can be suddenly lethal or difficult to escape. Watch for these and keep your distance when possible. Your basic level 1 shooting skill does not have to be enhanced with powerups or by choosing a higher-tier shooting skill, but obviously that can speed things up.

• Shrieking Gargantula: These shoot arcing bolts that inflict a brief but stacking vulnerability.
• They are not smart enough to keep their distance, but they are placed behind a lot of cannon fodder on the map.
• If you have a lot of vulnerabilities on you, your health can suddenly drain very quickly. If you have strong HP Regeneration, it is probably best to just run for it and avoid combat for a while, until your Health recovers and possibly until the vulnerability statuses clear.
• Mini-boss spiders
• These can be hard to spot because they aren't always the biggest, and can blend in with the rest of the swarm. Especially dangerous if you are unaware of them and you have a large stack of vulnerability.
• Webspinner Spiders: These shoot a beam of webbing that sticks to you and slows you down.
• They are not dangerous on their own, but the map placement tends to have them with a LARGE swarm of other monsters, plus Shrieking spiders.
• They typically get close enough to spin, then stand still, so you can just shoot back.
• If you see them or are hit by a couple, start retreating before you pull too many other opponents. Shoot them instead of closing for melee because a horde of monsters is likely right behind them and if you don't clear them quickly enough you'll have a hard time getting clear if you need to retreat.
• They are particularly dangerous when there are stalactite drops (caused by creatures with the Tremor special ability) because you might not clear the danger zone quickly enough, and a stalactite can be a one-hit-kill depending on your Health total.
• Kikimores: These drider lookalikes can cause Tremors to drop stalactites.
• Stalactite drops will hurt enemies as well, and generally kill anything it falls on, including Van Helsing.
• There is generally a lot of time to run out of the danger zone, unless you are webbed and too slow, or swarmed and surrounded with no way to push out. For this reason, it is generally safer to retreat and draw them out until you are clear of the main swarm and in no danger of being stuck.
• The Lightning spell generally has enough range that you can use the power-up to paralyze them, buying you time to kill them before they drop cause Tremors. Several Kikimores causing Tremors can be trouble, especially if you also pulled webbing spiders that slow your ability to get out.

Once you are used to these hazards, the Orichalcum Mine is actually an easy area. There is just one boss on this map: the Arachnid Leviathan.

• The cheesy way to kill it is to stand slightly behind the lamp to the south. Beyond a certain range, the Leviathan won't spit even though the poison bolt can follow you farther than this range. Your guns can shoot farther than that, so just shoot it to death. Periodically you will have to deal with the spiders erupting from the ground.
• If you run a ring around the Leviathan, you will draw the larger spiders that descend from the ceiling. Clear them first, then if you like you can melee the boss. It will no longer spit but will make a slam attack that is easily evaded by running out of the radius before it hits.
• It is recommended that you DO NOT kill the Arachnid Leviathan. There are spawn points for endless swarms of not-very-dangerous small spiders. These can be used to farm potions, or activate dormant powers on epic items. If you kill the Arachnid Leviathan, these spawn points will cease.
• Remember that for power-up use to unlock epic item powers, you do not need a target for the power-up use, so you can accumulate Rage however you like first.
• To trigger the Bloated Gargantula spawns, try shooting the Arachnid Leviathan a couple of times, then backing off out of range of its spit, but not too far.

Hauling Station (and Drill Worm)

Before you get to the Hauling Station, getting 1 level of Bash and the Crushing Blow power-up is advisable, even if only to get past this stage because the boss here is hard to cheese and will otherwise take forever. It can have over 7,000 Health and strong resistances: You will die of boredom if attrition from the spiders don't kill Van Helsing with frustration first.

The objective is to hit the boss with level 3 Crushing Blow power-ups until you can finish it off. As soon as it dies, all spiders vanish. The huge swarms of spiders chasing you are the main problem. You need to kill some to get your Rage up, but get clear of the rest so you don't get killed by the stacks of vulnerability from the spitters.
The Drill Worm periodically drills, sending out Tremors that in turn drop stalactites. This is actually helpful because the Worm drops several, always at Van Helsing's current location but with a short time delay before the stalactites actually drop. If you run Van Helsing into or past mobs of spiders, they get squashed, saving you the trouble of having to kill them, and releasing Van Helsing from any slowing webs as well. You just need Van Helsing to survive.

• Look for web spiders first, then shooting spiders. Start running away when you have too many vulnerability stacks or once you have enough Rage and are ready to hit the Drill Worm. Try not to get surrounded because you will have to avoid stalactite drops.
• Once the stalactites start dropping, head back to the boss. The spiders behind you will mostly be crushed by the stalactites, leaving you relatively free to land a few blows before repeating this process.
• If you get there early enough while the worm is still drilling, you can get in hits without the risk of getting slammed by the worm.

After the Hauling Station, you enter the next chapter of the game, which is the city of Borgova. You will not have access to the regular conveniences of storage, respec, and teleporting to previous places until you find the Secret Lair in Borgova (or unless you want to use Scenario Mode).