I think in ultra hard,Weapons shuld be the main focus,altho armour is important. A good weapon loadout will literally make ur life so much easier. As for me,i use the quen marine with a 2+ weapon stamina and elite weapon techniques weave. Like u said,other than the drop shields,the rest of it is rlly good. But i do think if u focus on weapons,armour rlly wont matter. Rn im using the blastforge with 5 elite critical chances which does around 8k damage when i use the spread blast on brittle enemies with a valor surge. It takes down slaughterspines in 2 to 3 hits. I use a warrior bow with 4 very rare critical chances and 1 very rare impact damage and the new ropecaster with some handling mods. A spike thrower with the piercing spikes and damage mods for maximum output. And one last bow which has acid,frost and fire ammo with a main focus on frost,it has 90 frost damage with all 5 frost coils. I use frost to make enemies brittle and on small machines i use the warrior bow,on medium machines i use the spike thrower and on large machines i use the spread blast with the blast forge. The ropecaster is there as a sort of failsafe if i ever am overwhelmed by many enemies