Saturday, August 01, 2020
Are you feeling minty fresh? Your enemies will when you get this weapon.
Grounded is an awesome survival title, currently in early access among the best games on Xbox Game Pass. However, it can be pretty tough, so we've built a beginner's guide to all things Grounded to help you get started. If you're a little more advanced, though, you may be wondering how to get some of the more powerful weapons towards the higher-end.
Currently, the most powerful weapon by a mile seems to be the Mint Mallet, with high stun ratings and maxed-out damage. The downside is that it's a two-hander, which isn't ideal if you need a light source, but for daylight close-quarters combat there are few better options.
However, getting this mighty mint mace requires quite a large amount of effort to uncover, and requires you to do battle with some of the toughest creatures in the yard. Here's the step by step guide to nabbing this hefty hammer.
Microscopic survival
Grounded
It's a big(ger) world out there.
Obsidian Entertainment makes its exclusive debut on Xbox One and PC with Grounded, a unique survival experience that literally makes all of your problems much, much bigger. Join your friends as you're shrunk down to the size of an ant and are forced to survive in a dangerous backyard.
Grounded: How to get the Mint Mallet
The Mint Mallet is unlocked by mining Ice Caps breath mints, found near the starting area. Mining the mints requires an Insect Hammer, which is a Rank 2 weapon needed to squish mints, as well as some Spider Silk and Flower Petals. Getting an Insect Hammer can be tough off the bat, since it requires Stinkbug and Bombadier Beetle parts, which can be quite hard to kill without some upgrades. Let's run through it step by step.
Mint Mallet materials: 5x Mint Chunk, 9x Spider Silk, 8x Flower Petal Insect Hammer materials: 4x Stinkbug Part, 12x Berry Chunk (into 4x Berry Leather), 1x Bombardier Beetle Boiling Gland
Crafting an Insect Hammer
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Your first point of call is an Insect Hammer, which is crafted from Stinkbug parts, Berry Leather, and a Bombardier Beetle Boiling Gland.
- Before doing this, you may want to craft Acorn Armor, which provides the best possible defensive bonus before Rank 2 armor sets. You can craft Acorn Armor using basic items like Clover Leaf, Mite Fuzz, and Acorn Shells. Acorn Shells can be found at the base of the big tree with red leaves you can typically see by looking up above the grass canopy.
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Stinkbug parts are found on Stinkbugs, which can be found on the Western side of the map, north of the rake in a wasteland-ish looking area. They can also be found slightly east of the rake, roaming around. Stinkbugs charge up and spray a noxious gas in an area around them, typically when you first engage them. They can't do it again for a fairly long time, giving you an opener to beat them down. They do a huge amount of damage with their bites too, though, so you'll want to time your blocks carefully and strafe around left and right to avoid their attacks.
- Next up, you need a Bombardier Beetle Explosive Gland. This is notably more difficult than getting Stinkbug parts, as Bombardier Beetles hit like a truck and spray acid patches all over the place. It's also not a guaranteed drop, so you might need to kill a couple of them. Bombardier Beetles can be found near the head of the rake on the South West side of the map, climbing on top of the rock where the rake is leaning on to. You can kill them cheesily using arrows from a distance while perched on a blade of grass, but if they have a good angle they will spray acid on you, which isn't fun. Make sure to save before trying to take on one of these boys.
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Finally, you need Berry Leather which is easy to get. On the southern side of the map in the middle, you can climb beneath the berry hedge, and throw rocks at berries in the canopy to make them fall. Simply chop them with an axe to get the berry bits, then craft them into berry leather using a workbench. This area is swarming with Orb Weaver Spiders, however, so be wary.
- Once you have analyzed your parts at a research station, you should unlock the pattern for the Insect Hammer. Use a workbench to turn 4x Stinkbug parts, 4x Berry Leather, and 1x Bombardier Beetle Boiling Gland into an Insect Hammer.
Crafting the Mint Mallet
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Now that you have the Insect Hammer, you can smash Ice Cap mints, found near the start of the game right in the middle of the map.
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Open the Ice Cap mints container by slapping the lid. Now you can simply smash the mints with the Insect Hammer you crafted earlier to retrieve mint parts. The pattern for the Mint Mallet should unlock either after mining, or when you analyze the mints in one of the research tents.
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You'll also need Flower Petals, which can be found littering the floor in the flower patches in the north east part of the map, to the north east of the big oak tree with the red leaves.
- Spider Silk can be a bit trickier to get. You can try to smush some Orb Weaver Spiders near the flower beds. Beating them requires aggression and precise block timing. Move into them while blocking their telegraphed attacks (they back up a bit before lunging), and swing for the head. Don't panic, and take it slow, and if things go bad you can always run. For an example of how the blocking patterns work while fighting spiders, see the video below. Note that Orb Weavers don't do the plunging attack Wolf Spiders do, and they deal far less damage, making them easier to deal with. Orb Weavers have a striped black and yellow abdomen. You can also get Spider Silk from Spiderlings, but Spiderlings are often protected by a mama spider very nearby.
- Once you have all the materials, head to a workbench, and build your shiny new Mint Mallet!
Smash bugs
Grounded is an awesome game that has already hit 1 million players just a few days after launch, with a promise of monthly content updates as Obsidian fleshes out some of the game's core systems. You can grab the game in Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC, or via Steam for PC.
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