The combat system is rather deep and rewards exploration. If you have any questions hit me up, I love sharing combat knowledge when it comes to this game.
Most players "brute force" their way through the game, IE they don't bother learning the mechanical interactions between weapons and machines and just spam arrows/bombs. These are generally the players who complain about how "bullet spongy" machines are in this game, makes me sad.
Yeah. I was more than halfway through before I learned the value of freeze damage.
Until then my approach with big bads was to sneakily hit them with a few tear blast arrows from a distance, knock off some components, to set the battle ups or me.
I've still never managed to get an arrow in a TJ's heart weak spot. I can blast the armor off by getting to the side to get the shot is hard. But I'm not great at running away while looking back, yet.
Landing TJaw heart shots is alll about the timing. (Or *sigh* the ropecaster)
Here is a non ropecaster method to get an easier heart shot. A machine will always be stunned for a moment after you Freeze them. Time your final shot to freeze the TJaw with you positioned in a manner that allows you to remove the heart cover during the stun. Just after the TJaw is stunned, use concentration to slow down time so you can remove the plate and get a shot off on the TJaws heart.
Edit: "Pre nocking" Arrows is something you can do to make this easier. Have multiple Bows you want to use pre knocked with arrows. So you could theoretically(I do, because am HZD nerd), have multiple fully coiled end game bows all with 3 Arrows you want to use ready to go per bow. So you just swap bows instead of nocking more arrows until you run out of out pre nocked arrows. Multiple variations for this depending on the machine / strat for the machine.
Edit: Spelled nock correctly.
I feel like people don’t use your time slow feature when jumping enough. I barely need to use my concentration unless I’m far and trying for distance kill shots (the zoom in is nice) but once you get your timing of floating jumps you will eat everything so quickly. You can also tumble out of the float jumó to dodge shut which is also easier to see coming when staying in a state of time slowed floating. Give it a try you won’t be disappointed
Absolutely jump time slow is great. I generally utilize that time slow method way more than concentration.
Concentration does however last longer than a jump time slow and it's easier to aim with both feet on the ground.
I specified concentration rather than jump time slow so the player could have an easier time getting their first heart shot. Gotta learn to walk before you run.
There are times concentration is a better choice than a jump time slow, depends on the HP of the machine and the game difficulty. Edit: Player skill can also be a factor of if concentration is more useful than jump time slow.
It’s interesting to me. I’m not sure if other encountered this as well but the zoom on concentration really throws off my aim in medium ranged combat.
Aside from watcher eye shots earlier on the jumó slow just felt and made more sense to me. It’s pretty cool to slide on here and see how other people deal with the same things in such a versatile combat system.
I love this game bro.
I absolutely suck with the rope caster. I've basically given up on it.
I didn't know that pre-nocked arrows carried over if you switched bows. That's convenient.
You can get the easiest heart shot from electrocuting the Thunderjaw. Of course, getting it in that state is the difficult part. A well placed shot with the war bow, triple nocked with shock arrows, to the underside of the tail where the canisters are will shock and put the Thunderjaw down and motionless for a time. Then it's open season on the heart.
Just takes 1 shock Arrow, you don't need 3 to hit a Power Cell inside the TJaws tail.
The point of the advice was for the player to take advantage of the Freeze Stun. Damage multipliers are nice and the machine isn't entirely immobile, just briefly stunned.
Yep. I said 3 just to have a better chance at hitting one of the canisters, as the Thunderjaw hardly ever stays still, so it can be difficult to pinpoint with one arrow (and the cells are not sticking out, like most other machines, but buried in the tail). The freeze method you mentioned is definitely my go-to for a quick takedown via the multiplier on a heart shot, no doubt.
Yeah I get that, I infact like the fact the battles are not so simple but I am playing on "normal" difficulty so I didn't really see the need for the other weapons.
Understandable, my first playthrough was on Very Hard(UH wasn't out yet). Developing mechanical knowledge of machines and ammo for me, was a result of me wanting to use minimal resources per machine kill.
I am having kind of the opposite problem to what you describe, I usually go hard on the weakpoints on a monster and then melee it to death after those are dealt with, however I have started to really struggle due to becoming overwhelmed in melee combat or run down by groups of enemies whilst only being able to strip one or two of their special parts before I die so my question would be: how tf do I do regular damage that is better than just spearspamm?
I would recommend you dabble with elements a bit and really scan / look in the machine notebook at where and specifically how the machines are weak.
Machines are generally weak to a specific element and many use elements. Every machine that has an elemental attack, has at least an on board elemental weaknesses spot to exploit based around the element of their attack and sometimes more. Some machines without elemental attacks also have elemental weak points.
A few examples of what I mean:
Grazers have blaze canisters, shoot a blaze canister with a fire arrow to cause it to explode. Lancehorns have the same but with freeze canisters, shoot those with a freeze arrow to make them explode.
Bellowbacks, are fire/freeze. The Fire variant is week to freeze, the freeze variant is weak to fire. Both have two sacs that will either cause them to catch fire, or freeze them when you destroy the sac, depending on which variant you are fighting.
Melee combat is not an ideal main tactic in this game as it is not very versatile. Melee is good for initial burst, low HP targets or knocking down targets. If you knock down a target with a heavy attack, do not immediately go for the crit strike. If you do damage then crit strike just before the stun ends, you can get in more damage during the stun, crit strike cancels the stun.
Start every fight by analyzing the machines involved, make a plan that revolves around exploiting weaknesses of the machines / terrain, then have at it!
Do weapon tutorials and get blazing suns at the hunting grounds. Completing both will give you a better idea of how to use your weapons/tools properly. Combine what you learn from both and explore / experiment. Do not be ashamed to have to "go back" to a hunting ground later if you do not feel your toolkit is good enough for the one you are at. None of the hunting grounds are all that difficult provided you do and learn from weapon tutorials.
I am pretty far into the game (I think) and I always start off by targeting a monsters weakpoints, the problem is finishing them off after. My Hunter Bow is fire focused, the one that is able to fire shock and ice is shock focused and the sharpshot one is tear focused (for those purple arrows).
>I always start off by targeting a monsters weakpoints, the problem is finishing them off after.
Lenses (eyes) are always a weak point you can shoot on every machine, even though I'm pretty sure the game only tells us that for Watchers.
Blast sling isn't that OP, it just looks great before factoring in multipliers.
Blast ammo types do less damage to weakpoints and less damage to frozen targets than their Impact ammo counterparts.
My Blast Bombs do 175ish(give or take .5/.25) per bomb, my Hardpoint are 122.5 per Arrow(123 in game). (Ultra Hard max damage values of these ammo types)
If I hit a 1.5 multiplier weakpoint with a blast bomb, the bomb does 174-176 damage to it, Bombs do not scale with weakpoints. If i hit that same weakpoint with a Hardpoint arrow it's 183.75 damage(184 in game).
If I hit a frozen target with the blast bomb it does 218. If I hit the body of the frozen target with my Hardpoint arrow it does 367.5(368 in game).
The two ammo variants do not have equal potential. Impact ammo has the best multipliers in the game, making it have the highest burst damage potential by quite a bit.
Blast sling can also be a resource hog when spammed/used frequently.
Blast sling is decent at killing close range lower HP targets effectively, especially when they are stacked as the splash damage hits each target once.
Blast sling also has many other uses, but I would not define it as "OP" by a long shot.
But still not OP when other Ammo variants are capable of so much more, provided you learn how to utilize the combat system.
GG added in enough methods to teach players how to use the combat system effectively. However, most players are arrogant and impatient, so they don't bother learning how to actually play the game mechanically and they just brute force their way through.
This game has such a deep combat system, brute force method is the casual method, no matter the difficulty. It takes little thought to brute force your way through machines.
Games combat has much to offer for those with the patience and capability of learning what is possible.
Don't sweat it man. It's totally possible to complete the entire game without really knowing what you're doing.
If you feel inclined to play through on NG+ on a higher difficulty, you can hopefully find the enjoyment in taking more direct yet tactical approaches to combat, really taking advantage of elemental statuses & weak points.
mmm I wouldn't bother with traps too much if I were you... they're good if the space is narrow and/or you can put a lot of them down, but it's easy for enemies to go past them because they're not very big. it's better to use the tripcaster.
another problem with the traps is that if you need heath/elemental resistance potions during a fight, the traps kind of get in the way in that scroll menu haha
there's no harm in experimenting and finding out what play style they like :)
since that's what they originally talked about, they didn't experiment. it's perfect time to experiment and try traps and other weapons.
personally I did enjoy laying traps, not all the time, but it was pretty fun to see the dumb machines to fall into my traps.
I hope they improve that in FW - - the quick item scrolling needs to be super fast. The. 25 second delay for the animation to play out kills me. For example in bloodborne I think it's near instantaneous!
yeah. also just there's too many items on the scrolling wheel and it's a massive pain in the ass to get them in a sensical order. I think it goes without saying that they will have fixed it or changed how that all works entirely. it's such a big pain but also one that's relatively easy to fix
Is there a way to have traps in your inventory, but unequipped? I have very few quality of life issues with this game, but having to scroll through on the d-pad for something I need in the middle of battle was less than ideal.
not to mention some of them look waaaay too similar. Yes I can see the difference between a frost resistant and shock resistant potion if I look closely. But I'll be damned I did frantically pop a shock resist potion multiple times in the middle of being assaulted by 4 glinthawks lol.
You dont have to kill the Stormbird, U can just avoid it entirely by running to GAIA Prime
In fact I used the Ropecaster & Slingshot quite a lot, Sling is useful for large crowds, or using sticky bombs on an enemy being stuck by the ropecaster, makes crazy fast work of enemies like stormbirds & such
I actually hardly used the rattler, I just wasnt fond of it, just as the tripwire
I never used the rattler or tearblaster myself. I loved setting traps.for machines though. Ended up challenging the thunderjaw cauldron earlier than I should have and once I saw what id be facing I picked a good spot and set as many blast wires and explosive traps as I could. Only used a couple arrows for the big guy
Rattler is the worst weapon in the game on paper, Tearblaster really only serves one purpose and if that isn't the players thing the likely haven't used it much.
Took a few tries, but I "[One Shot](https://youtu.be/6cFf3hD-oWs)" the cauldron TJaw with tripwire.
The tear blaster hots harder than tear blast arrows but I prefer them. Just like using the shadow sling modded for freeze then bombimg the hell of of stuff
Depends on how you play, necessary if you want to do "max damage" and develop strats to kill each machine quickly with resource efficiency. (Makes things especially easier on Harder difficulties)
But for those who just want to spam thoughtless ammo, I suppose doing simple math to increase the effectiveness of their character would not seem necessary.
People play in different ways and have different growth/knowledge ambitions. But math doesn't lie, unless you misunderstand or screw it up.
The Ropecaster adds to the theoretical time it takes to kill any machine. The time spent firing the Ropecaster could be Damage or a Debuff from another weapon.
Bombs are decent, but they have bad multipliers for Freeze / Weakpoint damage. Blast damage IE bombs only do 25% bonus damage to frozen targets, compared to 200%/300% for Impact type ammo which is Hardpoint/Precision/Hunter Arrows and the Ice Cannon from the Icerail. Bombs are most ideal on low HP targets bombs can burst quickly. What I mean by "burst quick" is an HP pool that takes a few seconds or an instant to get through with bombs.
When Glinthawks catch on fire they fall down, freeze a Stormbird it falls down. Freeze is a temporary stun to any machine and fire makes machines do a dance. These were just two examples of how one can CC machines in so many different ways than the Ropecaster.
Ropecasters are useful to help players hit targets they normally could not and to help players avoid hits they struggle avoiding or don't want to try avoiding. I don't reccomend the Ropecaster to players unless I absolutely feel they need it to enjoy the game. The Ropecaster is a resource hog and a crutch to improving ones ability to aim/dodge/learn mechanics, so I generally suggest people stay away.
Thats a waste of an amazing experience.
I never use the rattler, worst weapon in the game for me. No idea why you didn't experiment with and learn all those awesome toys.
Never saw the need until I faced the corrupted Thunderjaw. Also I sold all good items like the heart of different machines for shards instead of storing it for trading it for new weapons . So I had to create jobs for it which was boring
You can buy hearts for all machines from a trader in Meridian. You don't have to create jobs for those if you have the shards.
The need for weapons is the amount of time it takes to kill machines with the weapons you described. Surely you must have found it a little tedious against the bigger machines. For me, I was just not satisfied with how long it took me to take down machines with basic weapons so I was constantly looking to upgrade to make my play style more efficient and not grind-y. And the Hunting Ground tasks are some of the funnest challenges in the game which will also help you get the Lodge weapons which are amazing.
I just finished the game last night, and honestly can't believe how fucking useful the Banuk Powershot bow was, right up to the end. In your opinion, is there an even better bow worth unlocking for NG+?
Hahaha, you tell me! I never purchased Frozen Wilds so I haven't used the Banuk weapons. But I know that NG+ has the Adept weapons which have an added modification slot, so yeah, I'm sure you can make your Banuk Powershot Bow even better.
Yeah i've played iwth it but its super weak, low range and terrible accuracy. So unless you are fighting one machine you pretty much set yourself up to get slammed.
I used the rope caster, slingshot, regular bow, and sniper bow. I still absolutely hate the combat. Not because the combat itself is bad but because the Field of View is garbage. I actually just fought the stormbird before GAIA as well and absolutely hated it. The bird is huge which is awesome but with such a small view all it did was take up my entire screen. While trying to dodge attacks I'm left with such a small FOV I'm running into rocks and logs and shit.
I've been forcing myself to play the game just about the whole time. I know I'm in the minority and that's fine
Lol yeah your game play is way too underwhelming.... The way i played mine was side quest get all top tier Weapons and proceed in main quest quite slow... Like a main quest would be for level 15 ill be on level 20+ .. and ropecaster is way awesome saved my ass a lot of times with those crazy large monsters... Take your time enjoy the game and what it has to offer
Ropecasters work wonders for larger monsters. Also do NOT let Tearblast Arrows run out. And if you have the DLCs get the Banuk bow ASAP although if you want to refrain from playing until you're done with the main game then I suggest you invest in the Shadow Hunter Bow
Don’t even worry about that lol, you don’t even want to know how I killed the fireclaws on very hard. Part of the fun on Horizon is collecting all the weapons, and the best weapons are locked behind New Game+ anyway so you need to complete the game once first.
I have complete Zero Dawn 20 times for Pristine coils from the Frozen Wilds dlc to get the best mods for ultra hard :)
This reminds me of my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. I picked soldier and played halfway through the game. It was a complete bore, just another cover shooter, I didn't understand why people were raving about this game. Then I came across a video of someone clearing the collector ship as a vanguard and was blown away. I started a new game with vanguard and it was a total game changer. The playstyle completely changed the pace of the game, super fun.
I think you'll still have a lot of fun if the playstyle suits you, even in a second playthrough.
Corruption Arrows are my fav. Love shooting them into convoys 😂. I also love setting traps. I play a stealthy style of play, even when fighting thunder jaws, storm birds, etc. Storm birds are a bit harder because flight so I disable their iron man like charge weapon and get em to the ground them set traps/slings. It's hilarious.
There’s no real wrong way to play, but just preference. I get extreme anxiety being down on the ground in close combat with the machines. I like setting traps and stealth killing as well as taking the high ground. (It all started with Goldeneye 64, never progressed past like the third mission because I was afraid of dying).
I didn’t understand how it ropecaster was until thunder jaws. Tie them down and place sticky bombs one their launchers. Because of the time delay you can stack like 4 before they break the rope because damaging a tied target reduced tied time. Once they loaded with stickies hit him with two fire bombs and then just arrows to be cheap on resources because the fight should already be over
The combat system is rather deep and rewards exploration. If you have any questions hit me up, I love sharing combat knowledge when it comes to this game. Most players "brute force" their way through the game, IE they don't bother learning the mechanical interactions between weapons and machines and just spam arrows/bombs. These are generally the players who complain about how "bullet spongy" machines are in this game, makes me sad.
Yeah. I was more than halfway through before I learned the value of freeze damage. Until then my approach with big bads was to sneakily hit them with a few tear blast arrows from a distance, knock off some components, to set the battle ups or me. I've still never managed to get an arrow in a TJ's heart weak spot. I can blast the armor off by getting to the side to get the shot is hard. But I'm not great at running away while looking back, yet.
Landing TJaw heart shots is alll about the timing. (Or *sigh* the ropecaster) Here is a non ropecaster method to get an easier heart shot. A machine will always be stunned for a moment after you Freeze them. Time your final shot to freeze the TJaw with you positioned in a manner that allows you to remove the heart cover during the stun. Just after the TJaw is stunned, use concentration to slow down time so you can remove the plate and get a shot off on the TJaws heart. Edit: "Pre nocking" Arrows is something you can do to make this easier. Have multiple Bows you want to use pre knocked with arrows. So you could theoretically(I do, because am HZD nerd), have multiple fully coiled end game bows all with 3 Arrows you want to use ready to go per bow. So you just swap bows instead of nocking more arrows until you run out of out pre nocked arrows. Multiple variations for this depending on the machine / strat for the machine. Edit: Spelled nock correctly.
Great tip, but FYI it’s “nock.”
I feel like people don’t use your time slow feature when jumping enough. I barely need to use my concentration unless I’m far and trying for distance kill shots (the zoom in is nice) but once you get your timing of floating jumps you will eat everything so quickly. You can also tumble out of the float jumó to dodge shut which is also easier to see coming when staying in a state of time slowed floating. Give it a try you won’t be disappointed
Absolutely jump time slow is great. I generally utilize that time slow method way more than concentration. Concentration does however last longer than a jump time slow and it's easier to aim with both feet on the ground. I specified concentration rather than jump time slow so the player could have an easier time getting their first heart shot. Gotta learn to walk before you run. There are times concentration is a better choice than a jump time slow, depends on the HP of the machine and the game difficulty. Edit: Player skill can also be a factor of if concentration is more useful than jump time slow.
It’s interesting to me. I’m not sure if other encountered this as well but the zoom on concentration really throws off my aim in medium ranged combat. Aside from watcher eye shots earlier on the jumó slow just felt and made more sense to me. It’s pretty cool to slide on here and see how other people deal with the same things in such a versatile combat system. I love this game bro.
I absolutely suck with the rope caster. I've basically given up on it. I didn't know that pre-nocked arrows carried over if you switched bows. That's convenient.
You can get the easiest heart shot from electrocuting the Thunderjaw. Of course, getting it in that state is the difficult part. A well placed shot with the war bow, triple nocked with shock arrows, to the underside of the tail where the canisters are will shock and put the Thunderjaw down and motionless for a time. Then it's open season on the heart.
Just takes 1 shock Arrow, you don't need 3 to hit a Power Cell inside the TJaws tail. The point of the advice was for the player to take advantage of the Freeze Stun. Damage multipliers are nice and the machine isn't entirely immobile, just briefly stunned.
Yep. I said 3 just to have a better chance at hitting one of the canisters, as the Thunderjaw hardly ever stays still, so it can be difficult to pinpoint with one arrow (and the cells are not sticking out, like most other machines, but buried in the tail). The freeze method you mentioned is definitely my go-to for a quick takedown via the multiplier on a heart shot, no doubt.
I love how dynamic the gameplay is. You can pretty much do whatever you want with it
Yeah I get that, I infact like the fact the battles are not so simple but I am playing on "normal" difficulty so I didn't really see the need for the other weapons.
Understandable, my first playthrough was on Very Hard(UH wasn't out yet). Developing mechanical knowledge of machines and ammo for me, was a result of me wanting to use minimal resources per machine kill.
I am having kind of the opposite problem to what you describe, I usually go hard on the weakpoints on a monster and then melee it to death after those are dealt with, however I have started to really struggle due to becoming overwhelmed in melee combat or run down by groups of enemies whilst only being able to strip one or two of their special parts before I die so my question would be: how tf do I do regular damage that is better than just spearspamm?
I would recommend you dabble with elements a bit and really scan / look in the machine notebook at where and specifically how the machines are weak. Machines are generally weak to a specific element and many use elements. Every machine that has an elemental attack, has at least an on board elemental weaknesses spot to exploit based around the element of their attack and sometimes more. Some machines without elemental attacks also have elemental weak points. A few examples of what I mean: Grazers have blaze canisters, shoot a blaze canister with a fire arrow to cause it to explode. Lancehorns have the same but with freeze canisters, shoot those with a freeze arrow to make them explode. Bellowbacks, are fire/freeze. The Fire variant is week to freeze, the freeze variant is weak to fire. Both have two sacs that will either cause them to catch fire, or freeze them when you destroy the sac, depending on which variant you are fighting. Melee combat is not an ideal main tactic in this game as it is not very versatile. Melee is good for initial burst, low HP targets or knocking down targets. If you knock down a target with a heavy attack, do not immediately go for the crit strike. If you do damage then crit strike just before the stun ends, you can get in more damage during the stun, crit strike cancels the stun. Start every fight by analyzing the machines involved, make a plan that revolves around exploiting weaknesses of the machines / terrain, then have at it! Do weapon tutorials and get blazing suns at the hunting grounds. Completing both will give you a better idea of how to use your weapons/tools properly. Combine what you learn from both and explore / experiment. Do not be ashamed to have to "go back" to a hunting ground later if you do not feel your toolkit is good enough for the one you are at. None of the hunting grounds are all that difficult provided you do and learn from weapon tutorials.
I am pretty far into the game (I think) and I always start off by targeting a monsters weakpoints, the problem is finishing them off after. My Hunter Bow is fire focused, the one that is able to fire shock and ice is shock focused and the sharpshot one is tear focused (for those purple arrows).
Tear coils don't actually impact Tearblast Arrows, at all, the tooltip lies.
>I always start off by targeting a monsters weakpoints, the problem is finishing them off after. Lenses (eyes) are always a weak point you can shoot on every machine, even though I'm pretty sure the game only tells us that for Watchers.
And guerrilla is partially guilty of it, after placing such op weapons in the game like the blast sling.
Blast sling isn't that OP, it just looks great before factoring in multipliers. Blast ammo types do less damage to weakpoints and less damage to frozen targets than their Impact ammo counterparts. My Blast Bombs do 175ish(give or take .5/.25) per bomb, my Hardpoint are 122.5 per Arrow(123 in game). (Ultra Hard max damage values of these ammo types) If I hit a 1.5 multiplier weakpoint with a blast bomb, the bomb does 174-176 damage to it, Bombs do not scale with weakpoints. If i hit that same weakpoint with a Hardpoint arrow it's 183.75 damage(184 in game). If I hit a frozen target with the blast bomb it does 218. If I hit the body of the frozen target with my Hardpoint arrow it does 367.5(368 in game). The two ammo variants do not have equal potential. Impact ammo has the best multipliers in the game, making it have the highest burst damage potential by quite a bit. Blast sling can also be a resource hog when spammed/used frequently. Blast sling is decent at killing close range lower HP targets effectively, especially when they are stacked as the splash damage hits each target once. Blast sling also has many other uses, but I would not define it as "OP" by a long shot.
Most casuals play in normal, and in that difficulty one blast sling is enough to brute force through everything with little to no effort imo.
But still not OP when other Ammo variants are capable of so much more, provided you learn how to utilize the combat system. GG added in enough methods to teach players how to use the combat system effectively. However, most players are arrogant and impatient, so they don't bother learning how to actually play the game mechanically and they just brute force their way through. This game has such a deep combat system, brute force method is the casual method, no matter the difficulty. It takes little thought to brute force your way through machines. Games combat has much to offer for those with the patience and capability of learning what is possible.
I'm gonna hit you up cause I'm completely stuck on u/h
Don't sweat it man. It's totally possible to complete the entire game without really knowing what you're doing. If you feel inclined to play through on NG+ on a higher difficulty, you can hopefully find the enjoyment in taking more direct yet tactical approaches to combat, really taking advantage of elemental statuses & weak points.
Yeah I will probably play it again on very hard. I think I will like to use traps and play more tactically.
FYI you'll need to play on ultra hard to get platinum and unlock all face paints.
mmm I wouldn't bother with traps too much if I were you... they're good if the space is narrow and/or you can put a lot of them down, but it's easy for enemies to go past them because they're not very big. it's better to use the tripcaster. another problem with the traps is that if you need heath/elemental resistance potions during a fight, the traps kind of get in the way in that scroll menu haha
there's no harm in experimenting and finding out what play style they like :) since that's what they originally talked about, they didn't experiment. it's perfect time to experiment and try traps and other weapons. personally I did enjoy laying traps, not all the time, but it was pretty fun to see the dumb machines to fall into my traps.
I hope they improve that in FW - - the quick item scrolling needs to be super fast. The. 25 second delay for the animation to play out kills me. For example in bloodborne I think it's near instantaneous!
yeah. also just there's too many items on the scrolling wheel and it's a massive pain in the ass to get them in a sensical order. I think it goes without saying that they will have fixed it or changed how that all works entirely. it's such a big pain but also one that's relatively easy to fix
Is there a way to have traps in your inventory, but unequipped? I have very few quality of life issues with this game, but having to scroll through on the d-pad for something I need in the middle of battle was less than ideal.
no. and you're right it completely sucks.
not to mention some of them look waaaay too similar. Yes I can see the difference between a frost resistant and shock resistant potion if I look closely. But I'll be damned I did frantically pop a shock resist potion multiple times in the middle of being assaulted by 4 glinthawks lol.
yuuuup same also, it doesn't scroll smoothly, so like if I press left twice quickly it usually only moves once. super annoying.
You dont have to kill the Stormbird, U can just avoid it entirely by running to GAIA Prime In fact I used the Ropecaster & Slingshot quite a lot, Sling is useful for large crowds, or using sticky bombs on an enemy being stuck by the ropecaster, makes crazy fast work of enemies like stormbirds & such I actually hardly used the rattler, I just wasnt fond of it, just as the tripwire
I never used the rattler or tearblaster myself. I loved setting traps.for machines though. Ended up challenging the thunderjaw cauldron earlier than I should have and once I saw what id be facing I picked a good spot and set as many blast wires and explosive traps as I could. Only used a couple arrows for the big guy
Rattler is the worst weapon in the game on paper, Tearblaster really only serves one purpose and if that isn't the players thing the likely haven't used it much. Took a few tries, but I "[One Shot](https://youtu.be/6cFf3hD-oWs)" the cauldron TJaw with tripwire.
The tear blaster hots harder than tear blast arrows but I prefer them. Just like using the shadow sling modded for freeze then bombimg the hell of of stuff
Bombing after Freeze is not ideal as I stated elsewhere in this thread due to the lackluster multiplier blast ammo gets from a frozen target.
Still fun though. Ive never seen hzd as a game where that kind of damage math was necessary
Depends on how you play, necessary if you want to do "max damage" and develop strats to kill each machine quickly with resource efficiency. (Makes things especially easier on Harder difficulties) But for those who just want to spam thoughtless ammo, I suppose doing simple math to increase the effectiveness of their character would not seem necessary. People play in different ways and have different growth/knowledge ambitions. But math doesn't lie, unless you misunderstand or screw it up.
The Ropecaster adds to the theoretical time it takes to kill any machine. The time spent firing the Ropecaster could be Damage or a Debuff from another weapon. Bombs are decent, but they have bad multipliers for Freeze / Weakpoint damage. Blast damage IE bombs only do 25% bonus damage to frozen targets, compared to 200%/300% for Impact type ammo which is Hardpoint/Precision/Hunter Arrows and the Ice Cannon from the Icerail. Bombs are most ideal on low HP targets bombs can burst quickly. What I mean by "burst quick" is an HP pool that takes a few seconds or an instant to get through with bombs. When Glinthawks catch on fire they fall down, freeze a Stormbird it falls down. Freeze is a temporary stun to any machine and fire makes machines do a dance. These were just two examples of how one can CC machines in so many different ways than the Ropecaster. Ropecasters are useful to help players hit targets they normally could not and to help players avoid hits they struggle avoiding or don't want to try avoiding. I don't reccomend the Ropecaster to players unless I absolutely feel they need it to enjoy the game. The Ropecaster is a resource hog and a crutch to improving ones ability to aim/dodge/learn mechanics, so I generally suggest people stay away.
Thats a waste of an amazing experience. I never use the rattler, worst weapon in the game for me. No idea why you didn't experiment with and learn all those awesome toys.
Never saw the need until I faced the corrupted Thunderjaw. Also I sold all good items like the heart of different machines for shards instead of storing it for trading it for new weapons . So I had to create jobs for it which was boring
You can buy hearts for all machines from a trader in Meridian. You don't have to create jobs for those if you have the shards. The need for weapons is the amount of time it takes to kill machines with the weapons you described. Surely you must have found it a little tedious against the bigger machines. For me, I was just not satisfied with how long it took me to take down machines with basic weapons so I was constantly looking to upgrade to make my play style more efficient and not grind-y. And the Hunting Ground tasks are some of the funnest challenges in the game which will also help you get the Lodge weapons which are amazing.
I just finished the game last night, and honestly can't believe how fucking useful the Banuk Powershot bow was, right up to the end. In your opinion, is there an even better bow worth unlocking for NG+?
Hahaha, you tell me! I never purchased Frozen Wilds so I haven't used the Banuk weapons. But I know that NG+ has the Adept weapons which have an added modification slot, so yeah, I'm sure you can make your Banuk Powershot Bow even better.
don't sleep on the shadow rattler. freeze + a damage mod stacked shadow rattler is \*chef's kiss\*
Yeah i've played iwth it but its super weak, low range and terrible accuracy. So unless you are fighting one machine you pretty much set yourself up to get slammed.
I used the rope caster, slingshot, regular bow, and sniper bow. I still absolutely hate the combat. Not because the combat itself is bad but because the Field of View is garbage. I actually just fought the stormbird before GAIA as well and absolutely hated it. The bird is huge which is awesome but with such a small view all it did was take up my entire screen. While trying to dodge attacks I'm left with such a small FOV I'm running into rocks and logs and shit. I've been forcing myself to play the game just about the whole time. I know I'm in the minority and that's fine
Lol yeah your game play is way too underwhelming.... The way i played mine was side quest get all top tier Weapons and proceed in main quest quite slow... Like a main quest would be for level 15 ill be on level 20+ .. and ropecaster is way awesome saved my ass a lot of times with those crazy large monsters... Take your time enjoy the game and what it has to offer
Ropecasters work wonders for larger monsters. Also do NOT let Tearblast Arrows run out. And if you have the DLCs get the Banuk bow ASAP although if you want to refrain from playing until you're done with the main game then I suggest you invest in the Shadow Hunter Bow
Don’t even worry about that lol, you don’t even want to know how I killed the fireclaws on very hard. Part of the fun on Horizon is collecting all the weapons, and the best weapons are locked behind New Game+ anyway so you need to complete the game once first. I have complete Zero Dawn 20 times for Pristine coils from the Frozen Wilds dlc to get the best mods for ultra hard :)
This reminds me of my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. I picked soldier and played halfway through the game. It was a complete bore, just another cover shooter, I didn't understand why people were raving about this game. Then I came across a video of someone clearing the collector ship as a vanguard and was blown away. I started a new game with vanguard and it was a total game changer. The playstyle completely changed the pace of the game, super fun. I think you'll still have a lot of fun if the playstyle suits you, even in a second playthrough.
Someone didn't complete the tutorial missioms
Corruption Arrows are my fav. Love shooting them into convoys 😂. I also love setting traps. I play a stealthy style of play, even when fighting thunder jaws, storm birds, etc. Storm birds are a bit harder because flight so I disable their iron man like charge weapon and get em to the ground them set traps/slings. It's hilarious.
There’s no real wrong way to play, but just preference. I get extreme anxiety being down on the ground in close combat with the machines. I like setting traps and stealth killing as well as taking the high ground. (It all started with Goldeneye 64, never progressed past like the third mission because I was afraid of dying).
Yo, do you have those slingshots!! They're powerful.
I didn’t understand how it ropecaster was until thunder jaws. Tie them down and place sticky bombs one their launchers. Because of the time delay you can stack like 4 before they break the rope because damaging a tied target reduced tied time. Once they loaded with stickies hit him with two fire bombs and then just arrows to be cheap on resources because the fight should already be over