Lethal Company Nutcracker Killing

If you want to learn about nutcrackers and how to kill them solo in Lethal Company, check out our guide.

A Comprehensive Guide to Killing Nutcrackers Solo

Are you tired of getting your nut’s slapped by the Nutcracker? Are you struggling to understand Nutcracker mechanics? Do you want to be the Nutcracker Slayer? Then this guide is for you.

Nutcracker Mechanics

The Nutcracker has 3 states: Patrol, Scanning, and Attack

Patrol

Becoming the Nutcracker Slayer (A Comprehensive Guide to Killing Nutcrackers Solo)

Blindly walks around and is able to open doors
If it runs into the player, it will instantly kill player by kicking them
Tip: The player should be able to sprint backwards and side step out of it’s way if it starts walking to where they are (not as fast as sprinting forward, but it’s better than nothing)
Even if the player manages to hit the Nutcracker in this state, it will ignore the player
Audio cue: Mechanical stomping noises

Scanning

The link above details specific conditions for when the Nutcracker enters this state. So if you are curious, check out the link above, but I won’t go into the details as it isn’t terribly important to know.
After patrolling for a couple seconds, it will stop walking and pop up it’s head to reveal an eye.
It will rotate randomly and scan for movement within it’s range of fire. Obviously, it only sees what it is looking at, so moving behind it is fine.
Audio cue: Mechanical whirring and clicking

Player within Nutcracker’s Eye sight

If the player stands completely still it will not detect them
This includes not looking around, so basically hands off mouse and keyboard/controller
After a couple seconds of not detecting movement, it will return to patrol state
If the player runs into the Nutcracker in the scanning state, it will instantly kill the player by kicking them.
If it detects player movement, it will enter it’s attack state.
If it receives damage, it will enter it’s attack state.
Doorways seem to mess with it’s sight, so moving in front of a scanning Nutcracker with an open door way or secure doors between the two might not trigger the Nutcracker. However, once it is in attack mode, it will see the player through door ways.

Attack

There are two sub states: Normal and Rage
Even in these states, if the player runs into the Nutcracker that does not see them and thus not preparing to shoot, they will die instantly via kick.
However, if the Nutcracker is cranking to shoot, the player will be able to run through the Nutcracker without being kicked.

Normal

It will always start this mode by cranking up to take a shot at the player.
From then on, it will chase the player and once it has them in its sight, it will stop walking and take another shot.
It’s sight no longer depends on movement. Just seeing the player is enough for the Nutcracker to shoot at them.
If the player does not find cover, it will snipe them with perfect aim.
The only way to survive without cover is to run away far enough that the damage fall off is lower than the player’s health.
The max damage is 100, which is the max health players have.
Using the mansion entrance as a rough estimate, if the Nutcracker is at the pillar on the right side and the player is at the pillar on the left side, the player will receive 100 damage.
If the player goes all the way to the left wall, they will receive about 40 damage.
If possible to go even further, the player will receive about 20 damage.
If Nutcracker detects the player when they are within shovel hitting distance, they will not be able to outrun the Nutcracker’s kill range even with 0 lbs.
If the player succeeds in breaking line of sight for about 8-12 seconds, the Nutcracker will switch back to the scanning then patrolling until it detects movement again.
After it shoots twice, it will take another step towards the player and reload.
This period of time is the safest for players to attack as it is the longest window of opportunity.
The Nutcracker’s shotgun blasts can harm other killable enemies including each other.
It’s possible to get a Nutcracker to kill the other Nutcracker, but it requires you to act as the bait.
You could potentially save ammo.
And one could also argue that it might be easier to bait two Nutcrackers instead of trying to attack one while ignoring the other one.
There is also a risk that the Nutcracker being damaged could go into Rage state (this has happened to me once).
Audio cue: Faint cranking sound indicating that it is winding up to shoot. While it is walking, the player hears mechanical walking, whistling and drums. Players should also be able to hear it reloading after the 2nd shot.

Rage

Once the Nutcracker is on it’s last shovel hit of health (after the 4th shovel hit), it will enter this state.
The Nutcracker will reload and shoot faster as well as move more aggressively making it 100% more lethal.
While it is technically still possible to avoid the shots, it will shoot the player a split second after it sees them.
Thus it is advised to leave if the Nutcracker does not die on what the player thought was the 5th hit as they will likely die 90% of the time if the player attempts to fight a Nutcracker in the rage state.
Audio cue: The only difference in audio cue is the absence of the cranking sound (before it shoots) and faster reload sound!!
Do not rely on the audio for detecting this state as the player will be shot before they hear the difference!

Soloing the Nutcracker

Location

Start by assessing the location. There are only three optimal locations ranked from best to worst.

Square loops

On the map, this is represented by an area where the player is able to get chased by Nutcracker in a square-like orientation.
This allows the player to essentially circle around the area while being chased without fearing that they will be corned at a dead end.
This is the most optimal area because the player is more likely to land their shovel hits. This will be explained later.
Mansion maps have better square loops compared to industrial complexes.
Most square loops in industrial complexes are within the “Piped Hallways” or what I like to call, “The maze.”
In this area, there are typically pipes sticking out of the walls that can hinder the player’s movement.
Running into these while kiting the Nutcracker will usually result in the players death by shotgun blast.
As a bonus, these pipes can also absorb the shovel hit, which will likely result in a Rage state Nutcracker, however, it is not too difficult to run away from the Nutcracker here.

Pillars

On the mansion map, pillars can be found at the main entrance.
On the industrial complex, pillars may be found as well but the rooms that have them are both randomly placed inside and might not spawn.
The danger with pillars is that the pillar seems to also absorb the shovel hits sometimes and result in the Nutcracker going into rage mode.
This seems to happen when the Nutcracker hugs the pillar too closely and the pillar takes the shovel hit instead of the Nutcracker.
Once in rage mode, there is nowhere to hide and run away to reset the Nutcracker. And unless the player has amazing reaction speed, they will not be able to hide behind the pillar once the Nutcracker sees them.

Bookshelves

In mansion maps, there are multiple rooms that have book shelves in the middle of the room.
Theoretically, this should be ranked number 1 as it is easier and faster to kite around a bookshelf and less likely for the shovel’s hit to be absorbed by other objects, however, there is currently a bug that sometimes allows the Nutcracker to shoot through the bookshelf. This has killed me a couple of times…

Strategy

The max amount of items the player should be holding are the pro-flashlight and the shovel. Anything more will slow them down too much.
Once the Nutcracker is in the perfect location (i.e. any of the locations above) and in the scanning state staring the other way, start by landing one hit and run back to cover
The cover must be close by, generally about 2 seconds away from the Nutcracker.
If It is not in the perfect location, attempt to bait it to a good location by getting detected via motion.
It will chase the player even if it does not see them, but it won’t chase very far after line of sight is broken, so this may end up taking a while…
Once it is in a good location, bait its shots and hit it once when it reloads
The Nutcracker will shoot once shortly after the player hides behind cover (assuming the cover was close by.) So bait it for another shot and run to cover again.
The sooner the player jumps out after the first shot, the less distance the Nutcracker will travel. This can be good if the Nutcracker is close to the corner but not close enough to peek past it to blast them.
Immediately after the second shot, rush the Nutcracker to land 2 shovel hits on it and run back to cover
Once again, the Nutcracker will shoot one shot shortly after
If the Nutcracker is still in a good position close to the corner, quickly bait a 2nd shot
Otherwise, kite back further around the 2nd corner and bait the 2nd shot there.
Immediately after the second shot, rush the Nutcracker to land 2 shovel hits on it
If all the player’s hits landed, then the Nutcracker should die.
Otherwise, the Nutcracker is, at worst, in Rage state, and the player will have two options for survival.
Either, try to hit for a third time (but most likely die, especially if they actually missed more than once)
Or, hide from the Nutcracker and wait for it go back into Scanning state (the player is less likely to die, but will still probably die as the Nutcracker will shoot almost immediately after the 2nd shovel hit if it is now in rage state.

TL;DR: Hit once, bait, hit twice, bait, hit twice, success. If no success, RIP.