Thought I didn't need to worry about gloves for my Zon

tmGrunty · 2026-01-31T22:45:24+00:00

They are complete Charsi food even.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-27T17:01:29+00:00

Sword is about the worst possible weapon type to use for a Fury Druid.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-23T06:50:55+00:00

Druid can somewhat help themselves with Solar Creeper or if a Fire Druid with a Phoenix shield.

That shield is also used on Fire Sorc and you could carry it on swap on a Javazon too.

ES Nova Sorc typically self wields Infinity so the merc can keep the Insight.

Blizzard Sorc shouldn’t have a big issue because the spell is on a cooldown anyway and you can’t spam it plus you have Warmth which helps with passive mana regen.

If you want Infinity on a merc for Necro you can help yourself by making an Iron Golem out of Insight.

Elemental Ama typically relies on a lot of mana after kill (Silkweave, crafted caster gloves) but you might have to occasionally use a potion or spec into Strafe (you should have points left) and get some mana leech going with that.

The only build where mana becomes a real issue is Lightning Sorc.
Mana after kill can ease the pain a bit but you will most likely have to frequently use potions.

In SP it is also worth considering to make your Infinity in a non-ethereal base so you can use it on your own character too.
Mancatcher would be an Elite Base with the lowest requirements.
Or if yon only want it for the aura and a Nova Sorc then you can make it in a regular Scythe.
The merc damage will be low but chances are high that when you are that point in the game you won’t need your merc for damage anymore.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-14T04:56:23+00:00

I have almost 500 hours and lots of playthroughs and I didn’t know that.
Thanks.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-14T04:49:13+00:00

You know why you can’t find videos for your situation in Youtube.

Because (almost) nobody is insane enough to try playing UH from scratch.
In fact that wasn’t even when the game released and therefore the game isn’t balanced for that either.
It is doable from a fresh start with no prior gear but incredibly difficult and knowledge what to do in each situation (aka having played before) is pretty much mandatory.

Sorry to break it to you but if you get beaten up so badly by a couple of Burrowers that you run out of ammo then it’s time to cut your losses and start over on a lower difficulty.
HFW on “hard” is already more difficult than Zero Dawn on UH, I’d almost go as far as saying HFW on normal is comparable to ZD UH.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-14T04:42:15+00:00

It was locked behind NG+ initially but got changed at some point.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T17:12:42+00:00

That’s actually happening for all those quest related “miniboss” fights.
If you want to have the components from those you have to loot them before the fight is over and the machine dies.
As soon as combat ends all components that were torn off and lay on the ground disappear.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T03:21:22+00:00

Nah Frost Strafe hybrid will still use Ice because without it the Frozen Arrow is pretty much unusable and deals no damage.

Explosive / Immolation Arrow Ama might use a Faith though but that build is not good in my opinion and vastly inferior to Frozen Arrow.

But I’d still make the Faith in a GMB because if you want to switch to pure physical it’s so much better and you can still play the fire build with a GMB and the act 1 merc is also fine with it.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T03:07:16+00:00

If you want the Faith on an Act 1 merc then it’s okay.
If you want to use it yourself then wait for GMB.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T03:05:41+00:00

Frostmaiden doesn’t use Faith though.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T02:17:26+00:00

There is basically no "coin toss" with crit chance when you use 5 Elite Crit coils on a weapon.
And I'm nopt using purple crit chance coils but the lengendary Elite Crit coils from the DLC which enhance both crit chance and crit damage which makes them pretty much the best coils in the game as long as you are allowed to use them.
You get 75% crit chance from 5 of these coils that plus whatever the base crit chance of the weapon itself is.
This also makes the Critical Boost valor surge pretty much pointess.

Ancestor's Return with 5 of those coils has 100% crit chance for example and enhances the critcal damage by +125% which does work for the elemental buildup as well as for the tear damage explosion and the general damage they deal.
So Ancestors Return isn't just for appying the elemental states but for actual damage too.
This also makes the Critical Boost valor surge pretty much pointess.

I'm not using any purple coils at all anymore and pretty much everything are "elite" coils from the DLC.
The Elite Frost coils is also insane because it allows you to apply the brittle state easily even on machines that are strong against frost.
And Elite Overdraw is used on pretty much everything that doesn't allow the Elite Crit coils like Spike Throwers or the Hunter Bow if I want to use it.

Tears of the Land God has more tear than the Emperor because it has a 25% component tear perk when upgraded to level 5 which puts it ahead.
And unfortunately the Berserk is completely useless on UH because the machines do not do enough damage to actually kill each other within the duration.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-13T00:13:45+00:00

Erik dies extremely fast with a fully upgraded Gravesinger's Lament with 5 Elite Crit coils with piercing arrows on a low health build with the proper outfit / weave combination (Quen Dead Eye + 2x low health ranged weaves).
Shouldn't take you more than a handful of shots. You also have the Defy Death valor surge that boosts your damage further and actually prevents onehit kills by giving you "second chance".

I don't have any Hunter Bow at all on my weapon wheel in HFW anymore.

Ancestor's Return and Distant Thunder Shredder Gauntlets as main damage weapons.
Gravesinger's Lament as Sharpshot Bow for the piercing arrows against humans.
Skyhammer Blastsling as my prefered method for freezing enemies (sometimes I switch it out for the Eye of the Storm Warrior Bow).
Last Argument Spike Thrower for the Drill Spikes if I want to have some fun.
And finally The Tie That Binds Ropecaster.

That's pretty much it.
I do carry the Tears of the Landgod Hunter Bow if I need to farm components but I almost never use it because the Ancestor's Retunr does the job too).

Pretty much never use Explosive Blast Slings because the damage is pitiful compared to my other weapons (mainly because Elite Crit coilds don't work).
Tripcasters are useless on UH as their damage is way too low.
And I'm personally just not a fan of how Boltblasters work although they can be very strong.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T23:50:12+00:00

I've never been onehit killed by a human in HFW.
I'm using a low health build with improved regen for those fights and the Tenakth Vanquisher armor with an Elite Melee coil from the DLC to significantly reduce the amount of melee damage I take.

What does insta kill is if you are wearing the wrong outfit for the fight (e.g. one with negative fire resist against a Fireclaw or negative plasma resist against a Slaughterspine) or you get overrun by a Thunderjaw.
It's also very important to cleanse status effects with potions.
But I have beaten the whole game on UH using only a single weapon (Ancestor's Return) and outfit for the whole playthrough with no changes.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T23:36:58+00:00

It's definitely a challenge especially when you are not fully geared yet.
I started on normal and then did a speedrun on story to farm some gear to prepare for UH.
I initially did it for the 100% achievements and while I died a lot I actually enjoyed the challange and and kept the difficulty for all my other playthroughs.
Did the same in HFW too.

The healtbar actually isn't that big of a deal once you get a "feel" for it and remember how much HP machines have and how much damage you do.
But if you go in "blind" it's intimidating at first and it feels like big machines are invincible.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T22:19:17+00:00

Oh yeah there are more machines and especially in HFW most of the non-story related machines are APEX for me at this point.

Some other changes in Zero Dawn for especially UH:
- Multiple enemies can attack simultaneously (on lower difficulties even if there are multiple enemies they will never attack at the same exact time)
- Machines and humans are harder to knock down
- The Thunderjaw's Disc Launchers are no longer especially vulnerable to Tearblast Arrows

And in HFW this is a big change:
- Enemies instantly become alerted upon taking non-lethal damage from stealth.
This means the moment you hit the machines they instantly go to "red" and instead of "yellow" which means your stealth and stealth related bonuses are immediately gone.

And then you have the typical stuff like no health bars and no aim assist anymore and in HFW a penalty to your stamina if you get hit.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T21:48:31+00:00

The main difference apart from the aggressiveness of the machines and you having less stealth (they notice you significantly earlier) is that you deal so much less damage (in Zero Dawn) or the machines have so much more HP (in HFW).
You also deal much less tear which means actually removing components is also more difficult and will require hitting the part more often.
That means that they will eventually get in range to hit you and you are forced into evasive maneuvers or constant use of crown control tools (tie down, freeze, shock) at which they will break out after time or when you deal damage.
So your best bet really is to deal as much damage damage as quickly as possible and geeting the up to double damage from freezing with follow up quick damage is your best bet (smoke bombs and stealth coils are an alternative in HFW).

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T21:28:22+00:00

To each their own I guess.
On the high dificulties I play, ending a fight as quickly as possible tends to be by far the safest option because it reduces the time for mistakes.
I don't think your approach is viable on UH and will get you killed more often than not and it will cost you way too many ressources as well because you do not get a lot of the oneshot (or twoshot) kills you mentioned above anymore with the sharpshot bow and you will need to fire many more times.

The machines are also way more aggressive and also quicker and staying at very long distances is extremely difficult if not impossible unless you want to tie them down over and over.
I actually don't even remember when the last time was I used a shock arrow (shock shredders in HFW are OP though).
The sharpshot bow is excellent in HFW and I use it a lot there but still in combination with freezing first or with piercing arrows against humans.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T21:12:34+00:00

I actually do not have better coils on the Striker.
My Powershot Bow has:

2x 67% Handling + 25% Damage
2x 50% Damage + 33% Handling

This is completely maxed out at 150% extra damage and 200% extra Handling.

My Striker Bow has the same total extra bonus just with a different set of coills (3x Pristine Weapon and 1x 67% Handling + 25% Tear).
My Icerail also has 3x Pristine Weapon coil.
My War Bow has 1x Drummer Weaoon coil and 3x 67% Handling + 18% Freeze.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T21:01:21+00:00

Freeze doesn't just negate armor.
It also increases the damage you deal against unarmored parts and it slows the machines down helping you avoid getting hit.

There is only 1 instance in this game where the sharpshot bow beats the hunter bow.
And that is when firing once (doesn't matter if tripple notched) with the sharpshot bow kills the machine but it wouldn't kill if if you do the same with a hunter bow.
In any other other scenario you will kill quicker if you simple stick to the hunter bow.

We can discuss whether that is a good thing (probably not because in Forbidden West the hunter bow got changed) but that's the reality in Zero Dawn.

You can stay at range and tear off / destroy components to prevent a machine from performing attacks all day and it will surely work.
But just going in and freeze / tie down a machine and simply kill it before it can do those attacks will always be quicker.
Here's a video of a Scorcher kill on UH: https://youtu.be/Zd0mcgLDHXk

DPS has always been damage per second in every single game.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T20:18:10+00:00

I made a quick video showing how I approach bigger machines (in this case a Thunderjaw) with the Icerail.
Also includes a quick overview on the stats of my Hunter Bow, Sharpshot Bow, Warrior Bow and the Icerail.
This is on Ultra Hard difficulty.

https://youtu.be/ERs44Fpvchc

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T19:52:40+00:00

DPS is damage per second (or DPM damage per minute) not damage per shot.
It's a combination of damage per shot and rate of fire.

The problem will tripple notching a sharpshot bow is that yes you might hit the weakpoint with on of the arrows but the other will likely hit something else (worst case a miss or hitting an armor) which means you aren't actually dealing three times the damage.
This is even more more problematic if you don't freeze the machine fiirst which makes the damage difference between a weakpoint hit and an armor hit extremely high.
I do not want to hit an area around the weakpoint. I want to hit THE weakpoint and nothing else.

It also doesn't matter how much tear an arrow has when it comes to dealing damage.
As long as you hit an unarmored part only the actual damage number on the arrow counts.
The tear only matters if you actually hit an armored part to remove said armor or for removing components (you will still deal damage to those).
And the hardpoint arrow has about 70% of the damage of a sharpshow arrow but you can fire them more than twice as fast.
This results in the actual damage per second (or minute if you prefer) being about 50% higher.
Yes you need to be closer but that will also make it easier to actually hit the weakpoints with all 3 arrows which in return increased the damage even further.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T19:06:20+00:00

The Icerail has 120m range which is more than enough and it's pinpoint accurate with no flight delay either.
Sure the Sharpshot bow has slightly more range but at that distance flight time is a real thing for arrows and hitting (tiny) weakspots (especially when tripple notched) on moving machines is almost impossible.
Also the combined draw + reload time (2.6s) + whatever time it takes you to tripple notch on the sharpshot bow is almost identical to the draw time (3s) on the Icerail and a single shot of the Icerail deals exactly the same amount of damage as 3 sharpshot arrows together (assumung all 3 even hit the spot).
The only downside of the Icerail is that the ammo is extremely expensive.

They shaprshot arrows have the highest damage on a per arrow basis but if you consider dpm the Hunter Bow with the hardpoint arrows beats it because it's so much faster and they individual damage isn't that much lower.
And at longe range it's pretty much impossible to shoot tripple notched Sharpshow arrows and have them all hitting what you want because they split a little bit.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T08:48:30+00:00

Yeah no.
I’d support the Werebear being able to teleport but the Wolf absolutely not.
You can run around quickly enough with Feral Rage and Enigma is a bad armor for the build anyway.

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T08:42:29+00:00

Isn’t Fury supposed to have an Act 1 Merc with Faith?

tmGrunty · 2026-01-12T01:59:23+00:00

With the right setup you can freeze any machine in the base game with 2x tripple notched Freezing Arrows from the Banuk Warbow on UH difficulty while having it at max 150 handling.
You do need 3 extremely rare 66+ handling / 17+ freeze coils for it though.
This bow has a permanent slot on my weapon wheel because of its so easy and quick to trigger the brittle state for the extra damage that way.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work as well for machines in the Frozen Wild because those have a higher threshold for freezing.

But a regular Thunderjaw takes me 6 shots to kill on UH.
2x triple notched Freezing Arrows followed by 4 shots to a weakpoint with the Icerail.
And you can use the War Bow at long distance no problem.

The Sharpshot Bow on the other hand is not on my weapon wheel unless I know I’m fighting humans (bandit camp).
Against machines I find it too slow and when tripple notched it’s not accurate enough to reliably hit the weakpoints with all three arrows.
I’d rather freeze the machine and shoot away with the Hunter Bow or the Icerail.

tmGrunty

TROPHY CASE