Monsters, animals and noise

The data covers 25 monster and animal families, with health and raw damage profiles for their variants. Those profiles are sparse. A damage type missing from a profile means unknown, not immune, and armor, hit location and state can all change the result. So I don't publish a numeric "weakness ranking" from the profiles alone.

Monsters

Family	How I'd handle it
Grunt	A quiet melee hit to the head where it's safe. Check for doctor, torch, pistol and miner variants first: they can poison, burn or fire a loud shot.
Armored	Piercing and fire work. Its wire armor punishes careless close contact, so keep room to back off.
Hive	Hit the exposed human head to stop the swarm. Avoid fighting it in the open while other Hunters are around.
Meathead	Avoid its leeches, which detect you through poison. Poison or a suitable explosive clears it, but weigh the time, noise and ammo against the trait it drops.
Leech	Small detectors tied to bigger monsters. Remove or avoid them before getting close.
Hellhound	Control the pack and aim for the head. Masked heads block hits; the armor isn't decorative.
Immolator	Use blunt hits, water or choke. Piercing or shooting can trigger its dangerous fire state. Poison bullets and poison clouds don't share the same immunity.
Water Devil	Pick a crossing with an exit. Clearing one patch of water is temporary.
Firebreather	It pauses before breathing fire. A direct hit with water or choke is especially effective; timed blunt hits or ranged head shots avoid risky close contact.
Weavers	Availability depends on the event. Bileweavers and Bloodweavers behave differently; the red Blood Moon variant belongs to the announced Chapter 2 event.
Brute	Hit exposed weak points and don't commit into a charge. Ursa Mortis is a tougher variant. Poison got stronger against both in 2.7.

Since 2.7, Meatheads, Brutes and Ursa Mortis are guaranteed to drop a Trait Spur. Immolators are still immune to poison clouds even though poison bullets now affect them, so the old blanket "Immolators are poison-immune" is out of date. (2.7 notes)

Animals are alarms

Animals don't fight you, but they tell everyone nearby where you are.

Animal	What to know
Horse	A hurt horse raises an alarm; some carry a lootable saddle. A live one works for Chupacabra.
Cow	Same alarm behavior, including bell variants. A live one works for Chupacabra.
Crows	Route around flocks where you can. Setting them off leaves evidence for other teams.
Ducks	Water flocks act as alarms and mark routes.
Bats	A Mammon's Gulch sound trap. Look up at rock routes, not just the ground.
Chickens	A cage is an alarm and a possible Chupacabra resource. Its lantern can start a fire.
Trapped Dogs	Caged dogs alarm as a group. Each live dog is a separate Chupacabra interaction.

Beastface makes animals less sensitive to you; it doesn't protect you from monsters. Silencing an animal can still give you away through the hit or the shot. See world interactions for every noise trap, and the maps for where animals spawn.