Horizon Zero Dawn Catch-All

I found my FPS skills to be lacking so I eventually graduated to the "sticky bombs". With stealth, I'd sneak up to a creature, override them, then drop three stickies on the creature I actually wanted to take down in quick succession.

As the first blew up, the second and third added massive damage to an already bewildered beast (I also had tear mods in place). Now ear marked as an active threat, my controlled great would leap into combat, allowing me to add further arrow damage with a safety margin in place.

As Even E points out, the are so many unique ways to engage with this game. Hope you find one that clicks for you Farley.

I am getting better. I just needed to stop brute forcing by being a higher level and think a bit.

Such a great game.

farley3k wrote:

I am getting better. I just needed to stop brute forcing by being a higher level and think a bit.

Such a great game.

I, too, am working on getting the hang of the subtleties of the game vice brute Force approach. Anyone have a favorite guide that walks you through the various weapons, arrows and thoughts on modding them? For example, it seems like my sniper bow does less damage than my standard bow even though both have mods.
Also, for example, is the only value of tear mods to shoot off attachments on creatures?

Thanks,
Chad

You can also shoot them at humans. I kept doing it to it Helis. It was fun to watch him fly towards a wall.

I hit level 23. I have 4 skill points banked and trying to decide between working towards scavenger + and ammo crafter (6 points total) or fast reload first. Thinking fast reload as I use concentration a lot. Appreciate suggestions or alternatives.

Chad

Both are marginal benefits. Fast Reload only matters if you need to get off that second or third shot after your double or triple shot. If you need to reposition, reasssess the situation, load a triple or double shot, or any of a number of other tactical necessities, Fast Reload simply won't come into play. On the other hand, it will allow you to pull off things like massacre a bunch of Grazers or fast-kill a Thunderjaw. If you can't imagine a specific set of situations where you will definitely use it and nothing else will do, then keep the points banked. It's okay.

Scavenger and Ammo Crafter are largely useful for speed runs where every pick up is of the essence, or if you don't like hunting machines for parts that much. They also incidentally "expand" your inventory because each stack of resources is worth more in terms of ammo. It's a marginal gain, IMO.

chooka1 wrote:
farley3k wrote:

I am getting better. I just needed to stop brute forcing by being a higher level and think a bit.

Such a great game.

I, too, am working on getting the hang of the subtleties of the game vice brute Force approach. Anyone have a favorite guide that walks you through the various weapons, arrows and thoughts on modding them? For example, it seems like my sniper bow does less damage than my standard bow even though both have mods.
Also, for example, is the only value of tear mods to shoot off attachments on creatures?

Thanks,
Chad

Don't know of any guide, unfortunately. Most do not cover subtleties like the Sharpshot Bow having a longer range than both the War Bow and the Hunter Bow or that Ropecasters limit machine movement even without applying the status effect.

I tend to mod by emphasizing one element or aspect. I have both a Tear-modded Sharpshot Bow and a Damage-modded one. The damage ammo on the Sharpshot bow is the Precision Arrow, and it should do more damage than a Hard Point provided that they are modded similarly. A Tear-modded Sharpshot Bow will possibly do less damage with its Precision Arrows than a Damage-modded Hunter Bow with Hard Point arrows.

I do have double-element weapons like a Corruption/Freeze War Bow because I use a self-imposed rule of never swapping weapon loadouts mid-combat, so having two element mods on a single weapon actually makes sense.

Exactly what does the corruption mod do?
Is there arrow that has a sonic boom main purpose to knock off machines' equipment?

The proposed skill purchases don't sound like a good idea. Critical hit tree? Something else?

Thank you,
Chad

Corruption Arrows make machines hostile to other machines once the status effect is active. Corruption mods improve the rate at which a Corruption Arrow fills the status meter per shot. Note that machines affected by Corruption status effects are STILL hostile to Aloy, so not very useful in a 1v1 situation. It is useful for turning the tables when you're grossly outnumbered.

The Tearblast Arrow's main effect is a small AoE component-stripping effect. It does knock off equipment from machines, which disables certain attack routines, but it also removes armor, which improves damage from regular arrows, or exposes weak points.

I always found Tearblast arrows to be essential tools for some of the bigger zoids machines! E.g: Quickly expose those covered vents on the sides of a Thunderjaw's neck and you can hit them for significant damage per arrow shot.

pyxistyx wrote:

I always found Tearblast arrows to be essential tools for some of the bigger zoids machines! E.g: Quickly expose those covered vents on the sides of a Thunderjaw's neck and you can hit them for significant damage per arrow shot.

Zoids. Nice. I knew those machines reminded me of something.

I've kept to kept to one weapon of each type but it seems like I should buy multiples and mod them.
I'm level 24 and haven't purchased any notable outfits nor the sling. Hmm.

chooka1 wrote:

I hit level 23. I have 4 skill points banked and trying to decide between working towards scavenger + and ammo crafter (6 points total) or fast reload first. Thinking fast reload as I use concentration a lot. Appreciate suggestions or alternatives.

Chad

Scavenger is much better at the start. The effects are marginal but noticeable (I generally have everything I need), I think of it as an near unlimited ammo skill because you'll pick up everything. That path I use primarily for the traps as I set at least 25 tripwires for an encounter then I can pick up the extras.

If you are like me and have problems aiming with the sticks then I find concentration nice because I still miss the first shot enough that a second shot is needed, it also gives you enough shots to get the fire effect from the hunting bow.

Honestly, the blast sling modded with purple damage enhancer is the cure for almost everything.

slazev wrote:

Honestly, the blast sling modded with purple damage enhancer is the cure for almost everything.

Counterpoint: the quick-firing bow with fire arrow, modded with +120 fire will also do the job.

Especially for corrupted machines and glintawks, I gather.
Wouldn't say that's a counterpoint, just a very viable alternative.

Well. They wouldn't do the job very well against Tramplers and Longlegs. I don't even like them for Ravagers because they preclude the Frozen status and take too long to do their damage.

Well, how about that.

As of today, you can download patch 1.30 which includes additional fixes to progression issues which some of you may have encountered. However, it also includes the highly anticipated New Game+ option.

With New Game+ you will be able to relive the adventures of Aloy without losing your character progression and your collected inventory. You won’t be able to progress beyond the level cap of 50, but you can still collect XP during your adventure.

We have also added updated versions of existing weapons and outfits with an extra modification slot at your disposal. These will not come cheap and will set you back some extra shards.

Before embarking on a new quest you can manually adjust the difficulty level to your liking. For players who seek an extra challenge, we are also introducing an ‘Ultra Hard’ difficulty. This new setting will enhance machine senses and behavior and will limit player health regen and other additional smaller tweaks. Players who decide to embark on the Ultra Hard path will not have the option to switch it to a less difficult setting.

Said earlier that for some reason this game didn't really made me want to ever replay it, as much as I loved it.
Adding NG+ is a good attempt at making it more interesting though. Likely still wont happen.
It seems a bit barebone. Could have been nice with a meatier NG+ like Witcher 3 did it.

Hm, the language is a bit unclear about the new gear. I find myself wondering if those are only available in new game+, or if I can I find them in my first (current) play through.

One of the few things that's been even a mild disappointment for me as I've been playing is that I was able to very quickly acquire the best possible gear, and other than the item locked behind power cells I'm kind of out of new toys to look forward to despite having tons of stuff left to do in game. It would be pretty cool to come home today and find that there's a whole new set of gear for me to hunt and save up for though.

See, that might make me repurchase a couple months before Frozen Wilds releases. By then I reckon I'd be up for a NG+ run.

I guess that's my weekend, then!

Ok. Just got the game. It's rather good.

zeroKFE wrote:

One of the few things that's been even a mild disappointment for me as I've been playing is that I was able to very quickly acquire the best possible gear, and other than the item locked behind power cells I'm kind of out of new toys to look forward to despite having tons of stuff left to do in game.

There is always trying new play styles. I've been doing stealth but it got a little easy so I'm switching to more direct methods.

It's also not true that you can easily get the best possible gear. You can easily get the best possible ammos, but the best gear? Nope. You need the best gear to try to kill a Rock Breaker in 11 seconds. If you can't even imagine how that's possible, then you don't have the best gear.

Well, if there's something past shadow/lodge weapons, the various purple armors, and the power cell reward, the game's doing a bad job of letting me know seeing as I'm now quite close to done. But yeah, I got everything but the power cell armor first thing upon having access to Carja territory, and that was quite early on. Granted, I have been picking up very incremental improvements to mods since then, and the power cell reward was a pretty nice upgrade when I finally reached the point where I could get it, but other than that the gear plateaued for me around the midpoint of the game.

The mod effect should be fairly dramatic, since all of the bonuses are in them!

There is a dramatic difference between three blue +Damage mods at about +20% damage each, and three purple +Damage mods at +40+% each, plus a secondary +20% bonus to Tear or Handling.

LarryC wrote:

It's also not true that you can easily get the best possible gear.

zeroKFE wrote:

Well, if there's something past shadow/lodge weapons, the various purple armors, and the power cell reward, the game's doing a bad job of letting me know seeing as I'm now quite close to done.

I think the disconnect here is the LarryC is counting mods as "gear" but zeroKFE is not. I think just as a matter of terminology. You can buy the best (non-mod) gear a while before the endgame, but the good mods are going to take a little machine farming.

Mods can get into the low to mid 40%'s, and that makes a HUGE difference. I'm still not good enough to kill a Rockbreaker in seconds I don't think, but I think there's a Hunting Lodge challenge that requires taking down a Thunderjaw in like 30 seconds or something, and that requires some incredible raw power.

The best mods are 50+% plus secondary and tertiary bonuses. Just saying.

I think the disconnect here is the LarryC is counting mods as "gear" but zeroKFE is not.

Yeah, pretty much.

There WAS actually one more toy waiting for me (in addition to the power cell item) when I wrote that original post, though, locked behind a story mission. It wasn't quite as thrilling as getting other new items was earlier in the game, since it didn't exactly open up new tactical spaces the way other items did, but (especially combined with the power cell item) it did serve to make it much more trivial to fight easier, cannon fodder type enemies in a way that was definitely welcome at that point in the story.

Mods can get into the low to mid 40%'s, and that makes a HUGE difference. I'm still not good enough to kill a Rockbreaker in seconds I don't think, but I think there's a Hunting Lodge challenge that requires taking down a Thunderjaw in like 30 seconds or something, and that requires some incredible raw power.

Actually, while you can probably brute force most of the lodge trials, the fun of them to me was that they were designed to teach you that raw numbers don't matter nearly as much as a clever approach.

I did them all as early as possible (because once I know powerful new tools are available to me in a game like this, I generally focus on getting them as early as I can) and the thunderjaw challenge you are talking about is a great example of what I mean. At that point I had most of the shadow weapons and the purple melee resist armor, but mostly green and blue mods because I hadn't yet attempted to fight any of the easy purple mod farming enemies — mostly because I hadn't done these challenges yet to learn how easy they can be to take down.

The time limit was actually a much more reasonable 2:30 or 2:40 or something, but the real challenge there was that you had to override both of the ravagers and have the final hit be done by either one of them or with one of their guns. The trick is that thunderjaws aren't actually all that tough if you've got tearblast arrows and an ice weapon, because each and every one is carrying enough firepower on their backs to very, very quickly overcome their significant health pool. As one of the other challenges at the same hunting ground teaches you, one tearblast arrow each is all it takes to steal their two strongest weapons, and when you turn those around on them or anything else, (especially if they are taking extra damage from being frozen) nearly any size health pool melts away.

Edit: Raw numbers definitely are nice too, though. Once you've got a lodge blast sling with three purple mods and at least one good elemental effect weapon, most other tactics become much less necessary. (Disarming powerful weapons and wearing appropriate defenses always helps too, of course, but still. :P)

zeroKFE wrote:

The time limit was actually a much more reasonable 2:30 or 2:40 or something, but the real challenge there was that you had to override both of the ravagers and have the final hit be done by either one of them or with one of their guns. The trick is that thunderjaws aren't actually all that tough if you've got tearblast arrows and an ice weapon, because each and every one is carrying enough firepower on their backs to very, very quickly overcome their significant health pool. As one of the other challenges at the same hunting ground teaches you, one tearblast arrow each is all it takes to steal their two strongest weapons, and when you turn those around on them or anything else, (especially if they are taking extra damage from being frozen) nearly any size health pool melts away.

Did you have to override them?
I remember using corrupted arrows during those area trials, but could have been for the other 2 trials.

zeroKFE wrote:

Edit: Raw numbers definitely are nice too, though. Once you've got a lodge blast sling with three purple mods and at least one good elemental effect weapon, most other tactics become much less necessary. (Disarming powerful weapons and wearing appropriate defenses always helps too, of course, but still. :P)

Bast sling with purple damage mods is so OP.

Did you have to override them?
I remember using corrupted arrows during those area trials, but could have been for the other 2 trials.

Two of them don't require overriding, but the thunderjaw one won't even let you start unless you have the ability to override ravagers, and has a mission objective of "override 2 ravagers." I'm not 100% certain they have to have the last hit on the thuderjaw, but I'm pretty sure that's the case too.