{
"post": {
"title": "Zero Dawn combat tips",
"selftext": "Hi!!\n\nI find easier the original Dark Souls than this game... Fighting stealthy against Sawtooth, Bellowback, even scrappers, is pretty boring as I make very little damage. But fighting directly its very hard, specially against múltiple enemies and evasión its a little bit useless as most enemies use circle attacks or fire/frozen area attacks... And I am starting to get bored because I have to go steatlhy and slow to every place as its just to hard fight a more than one enemy.\n\nI am lvl 18 using a carja might bow with all my weapons blue with modifications. I use tripcaster, ropecaster, sling, etcétera... But I am close to leave the Sacred Lands into Carja Lands and I start to see pairs of Sawtooths and gruops of Bellowback and its boring fighting stealthy one by one and imposible (to me) fighting directly against one of this big enemies or more than two small ones...\n\nAny tip?\n\nThank you so much!",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/1bwsblw/zero_dawn_combat_tips/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "Honestly, leveling up and repeating engagements with smaller enemies to learn what does and doesn't work for you is your best bet. \n\nI totally get the want, the NEED, to advance the story and get answers, but really the best way to enjoy this game is to saver it slowly. Trust me, we've all had our asses handed to us by an enemy that we were NOT prepared for. But once you do have that level, that experience, taking them out is SO satisfying.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Leveling increase the damage? Becausey problem is that I barely make damage and the Sawtooths kill me by two hits...",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Really the only things that affect damage with level are\n\nA) double and triple shot\n\nB) critical hit skills\n\nC) sneak attack modifiers\n\nD) armor weaves/weapon mods\n\nE) Different ammo types on more advanced weapons (for instance hard point arrows on the hunters bow do more damage than the regular arrows)\n\nOther than that damage doesn't really scale with level. That's why starting a NG+ play-through with endgame loot is so much fun. You one-shot everything in the beginning."
},
{
"body": "You need to read the entries for each machine type after scanning them. It shows you the weak spots and what elements to use against them. You can't just shoot wherever, you have to go for weak spots. The sawtooth for example is weak to fire. A single fire arrow or fire trap can ignite it and blow the blaze canister on it's chest. It also has antenna and some parts on the flank you can shoot off to do extra damage.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yeah, and I use It: fire tonthe back to gazer, freeze to Fire Bellowback... But Sawtooths and others... And weakness against one ok, but against several... Thats my problem. Now I have to fight against two Sawtooths and... And Dodge on this Game has not invisible frames and most attacks are of área or circles that hit you even dodging when you must (Dark Souls learning haha)",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Dodge has I-frames"
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Go to Meridian and get the purple weapons as soon as you can. Also using fire arrows on Sawtooths can stun lock them and deal a lot of damage. Breaking the Bellowback sacks will also deal tons of damage. Try using your focus to learn more about the machine's weaknesses.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Meridian not yet, I like to take my time exploring hahaha\nYeah, first thing I always do is Focus haha, but I find myself in problems against Sawtooths, even against the mechanics horse when they come three haha"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Obvious suggestion is to lower from Ultra Hard to at least Very Hard. UH is NG+ worthy, but doable on NG. That is if you are running UH. T",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I didn't know you could lower the difficult, but I would prefer not haha"
}
]
},
{
"body": "A handful of things I find helpful, as somebody who has beaten the game at least 7 times including at least one on Ultra Hard, you can pick and choose which to try out, if any (or all, if you want!):\n\nScan enemy machines! This will show you weak areas as well as what to use against them. Focus on elemental damage where you can, and using tear as needed to remove armor to get at elemental canisters. If you can hit the canister with the right element and set off the explosion it'll heavily damage the machine, and deal elemental buildup and damage to machines that are within the blast radius. For weaker machines this can wipe many out with little effort (a few fire arrows placed well in a heard of Grazers will take most or all of them out via Blaze explosions, for example)\n\nFrozen (Brittle) state is good for dealing damage, and fire in general is pretty OP. Make sure to switch away from your elemental arrow to a damage one instead after they enter their elemental state or you won't see any real benefit. Also since you can only have one elemental state inflicted at a time, make sure to wait for it to run out before inflicting another.\n\nFeel free to drop the difficulty down to a lower setting while you study attack patterns so you can get a feel for dodge timing and what direction to dodge! You can always raise it again later. (As a tip: When Sawtooths and a very similar machine I don't think you would have encountered yet do that \"charge you and slash with their paws\" thing, dodge TOWARDS them and slightly to the side to basically pass next to them. This brings you inside their reach before they can get you and keeps them from being able to hit you until they turn to face you. This doesn't work with all machines, but there's a handful it works on. I have better luck with this than trying to dodge back or only to the side.)\n\nKeep your distance--melee combat really only works on small machine enemies like Watchers or Striders and human enemies but becomes increasingly useless against medium then large machines, Sawtooth and Bellowback are medium-sized. Arrows and bombs are good for them.\n\nTake smaller enemies out first, if possible. It'll make it easier to focus on the bigger ones.\n\nBacktrack a ways and focus on leveling up. While this on its own doesn't cause you to deal more damage, it grants skill points and it might be that some skills you don't have yet will make things easier for you. It also means you'll probably have more resources for crafting ammo as needed, or selling for shards to get better armor or weapons as you go.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Most of that I do. I guess my problem is that I am a souls player and I look the close combat starting with stealthy, traps and vulnerable points... Maybe time to change to a more bow-style haha\n\n\nAnd Dodge towards I do It (for the dodge-attack) but against the two f****** Sawtooths where I am now... And I have no more resources to create the electric wire thing.\n\n\nI didn't know Frozen works on general, I thought only on freeze weakness, so I will use It more!!! Thanks!!!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yeah, it plays differently than games that have a lot of close-combat focus. While there's melee combos and such, the focus really isn't on using it for the most part. I personally like spike throwers, especially explosive spikes though those are bad for collecting machine parts like the sac webbing. I hear shredder gauntlets are pretty good for a lot of stuff, though. Usually I just use a variety of bows and sometimes slings, myself.\n\nAh, yeah... When you've got multiple enemies in close range of each other, it gets hard. I usually try to use the landscape to my advantage and find somewhere I can duck behind for cover or have high ground they can't reach me at (and with cover for dodging fire). Doesn't work great on everything (Thunderjaws unless you take out the disc launchers are a big pain), but helps with a lot of enemies.\n\nElemental effects will work on pretty much any enemy, it's mostly how fast you can build it up to get them into the elemental state that's impacted by being strong/weak/neutral towards an element. So an enemy that's weak to Fire, for example, will be easier to get into a burning state than an enemy that's neutral, and an enemy that's strong against fire will be incredibly difficult to get into a burning state (unless they have a part you can destroy to immediately trigger that elemental state)."
}
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]
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{
"body": ">evasión its a little bit useless as most enemies use circle attacks or fire/frozen area attacks...\n\n\nNot at all. Dodging actually makes you invincible for a short while. You can dive head first into an explosion and take no damage at all IF you time your dodge. In fact, dodging into an attack is actually safer than dodging backwards or sideway, since the attack will have passed through Aloy by the time you finished the animation.\n\n\nCharging your shot won't increase damage at all (unless you use Banuk bows from Frozen Wilds expansion). That said, it's better to charge your shot because hitting machines on their armor will drastically reduce your damage. Hitting components will deal more damage than hitting armor; and when they fall off, they will also take some health of the machine. Tearing them will give you extra loot, but more often than not, it's easier to simply destroy them. \n\n\nThe easiest way to farm money is actually in the first hunting ground. Kill the grazers by setting off a blaze explosions. At lower difficulty, the explosion would be enough to take out the entire herd. Once they're dead, shoot the blaze canister on their back with Harvest Arrow. This will increase the yield drop from 1 to a whopping 6 blaze per canister (24 blaze per grazer). After that, just quicksave at the nearest campfire and reload from last save/restart trial to immediately respawn the herd. Sell the blaze if you run out of inventory space, but keep some to craft the fire arrows.\n\n\nMeet a tough enemy? Burn them or freeze them. Since the two elements are in direct opposite of each other, there's no enemy that could resist them both. Burning damage is overpowered, don't waste your fire arrow once the meter is filled, it won't extend the duration or amplify the effect; while Brittle status will negate armor damage resistance *and* double impact damage from all source.\n\n\nStealth armor + stealth weaves is the best protection you can have. Even better than Shield Weaver on Ultra Hard. They allow you to clear bandit camps much more easily and sneak past machines. They could even hide you from Rockbreakers.\n\n\nSpeaking of rockbreakers (one of the most annoying enemy types), the fastest and easiest way to deal with them is by freezing them first and then hitting their weakpoint--the exhaust vent on their back--with your strongest impact damage. Don't bother targeting the digging claws first, since they can still burrow underground as long as they have one working claw.\n\n\nFor reference sake, my ultimate loadout is:\n\n\n* Adept Striker Bow (fire arrows, for applying Burn)\n* Adept War Bow (frost arrows, for applying Brittle)\n* Adept Powershot Bow (precision arrows, for burst damage)\n* Ropecaster (crowd control, to tie down other machines so I could focus on the main target first).\n* Nora Silent Hunter outfit.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Dodge has invencible frames in this game? I try test It and didn't be able to notice the invisible frame. Great to know, thanks!! More trying then\n\n\nI don't have yet haven't Arrow, how do you get more types of arrows?\n\n\nYeah, I am trying to get the Bellowback thing to the purple heavy shadow Hunter or something like that. But I have beaten almost 10 Bellowbacks and yet It hasn't dropped It... And they are pretty hard right now haha\n\n\nThanks for the great armor guide! I will be paying attention to buy those bows!!\n\n\nHow to get the nora silent Hunter?\n\n\nThank you so much!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yes, dodging gives you invincibilty frames. This apply to both HZD and HFW. I've tested it many times and can confirm with 100% certainty. Acquire the Dodge Prowess skill and you'll be able to extend the range--as well as invincibility frames--of your dodge.\n\n\nYou can obtain from Harvest Arrow by buying higher tier Sharpshot bow.\n\n\nThere's a skill that allows you to slow down time while falling. Unlike Concentration, this skill is permanent and can be activated as many times as you want simply by jumping. Use this to a precision arrow/fire arrow on the Bellowback sac for quick kill.\n\n\nCan't remember the exact merchant, but I believe you can buy the outfit from the merchant at Meridian entrance. The heavy version only has 2 mod slots, but you can get a 3 mod version from the Song's Edge (Frozen Wilds' Banuk tribe) merchant. Later in NG+, you can buy the Adept (enhanced) version of all weapons and armor.\n\n\nIt is worth mentioning that you can only get 1 set of Unique Mods from Frozen Wilds, so try to obtain them all before jumping to NG+."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "it's a different game."
},
{
"body": "Killing everything from stealth can be time consuming and a little boring. You'll want to thin the herd a bit, stealth kill the small enemies first, then bumrush the big bois :D That will erradicate feelings of boredom in an instant!"
}
]
}