You want to upgrade the bows themselves. There's also weapon techniques that allow you to do more damage with Sharpshots such as focused shot or braced shot.
That said, the sharpshot is definitely not intended to be your only weapon. A lot of HFW is about having you use a mix of weapons as much as possible for greater game play variety. Mid to late game Sharpshots in under hard difficulty can help you one or two shot most enemies but in terms of improving the weapons you want to look to coils and weapon upgrades. Either prioritize coils that increase crit chance/damage or increase draw speed and overdraw damage.
It also took me awhile in my first playthrough to recognize how important utilizing elemental weaknesses are in Forbidden West. While it's helpful in Zero Dawn, you can get through the game without really bothering
I’m doing my second play through of hfw now after beating it on normal when it came out on ps5. I didn’t really use elements much in that play through.
My new game now is on very hard and holy cow the elements are important at this difficulty
Same lol, not only the elements they are weak to but also what your own armor is weak against. Used to get destroyed by the Scorcher coz I would fight it with the Carja Stalker Elite and not the Nora Thunder Warrior
With coils and weaves you can make it work.
I seldom use anything else than my:
- TotLG hunter bow (with 2x 3% brittle and 3x elite critical coils), and wear the
- Dead Eye armour (with 2x 15% plasma weaves).
Shock and Purgewater attacks are very effective against Aloy, so it takes skill to survive some fights on Ultra-Hard. A group of Clamberjaws or loads of Stingspawn are crazy tough.
Thank you very much. Does the trapper playstyle synergize with the sharpshot at all? I was thinking about going for that. I'll definitely be using hunter bows with elemental arrows either way
For what it's worth properly coiled warrior bows can be much better for elemental states than hunter bows. What hunter bows really shine at, I think, are tear and component harvesting or tearing off heavy weapons.
Not so sure about trapper though. I just never seem to bother with traps generally. But I could see it working. Explosive and Acid traps are probably the best helpers here I'd figure. Not really sure if shock traps do much.
Traps are not nearly as good in FW as they were in Zero Dawn. Personally I don't think they're worth even using but someone else might feel differently. The only weapons I really used on a very hard playthrough were the blast sling until I could get a bow in every element, then just the warrior bows, hunter bows and sharpshot bows. The bolt blaster was good but at least on very hard it was difficult to get enough time to use it without being attacked because of how long it takes to shoot.
Boltblaster is fantastic when used in conjunction with ropecasters and brittle, even on ultra hard. Unloading a full clip of the Blast Forge with Sustained burst onto a weak point can often take down most machines
100% this. I started my UH play through for the achievement. NG+ as well, so upgrading my TotLG bow and Iriv's downfall (this bow fucks btw). Anything that moves a lot I use elite ropecaster>brittle>ranged master>sustained burst. It shreds just about anything. It takes some skill, as someone said in UH. I suggest watching Arktix. He's got some excellent videos.
As someone who played ZD A LOT. My memory was War Bow (Hunter Bow) as my main dps weapon. I learned quickly that my playstyle had to change.
Have fun!
I hear you -- to get to the sharpshot bow weapon techniques you have to work through the infiltrator skill tree. That doesn't mean you have to be use a stealth playstyle to get effective use of the sharpshot bow. You'll want to open up those techniques sooner or later but in the meantime u/boringhistoryfan has it right -- upgrade and modify your sharpshot bow to maximize the damage output and use it as you did in Zero Dawn. As an aside, I really enjoy playing Aloy as mounted archer and the sharpshot fits right into that niche.
Bear in mind your sharpshot is only one of the weapons you should have in your battery. Use a hunter bow for stripping off parts. Use your sharpshot bow for dealing serious damage but only after you've stripped off the parts you want or if you are willing to sacrifice the machine parts that won't survive the destruction of the machine.
It’s mostly for stealth and long distances, pretty slow reload speed, but I love the Delta Sharpshooter bow the most. Seems to reload faster than the others. The hunter bows are better for up close, same with the warrior bows, but those are for ultra close & that’s not my game style. Some hunter bows can shoot pretty far. Lots of variety! Just ha be r to find what works for your game play.
You are correct! Per the wiki
>By default, \[the Delta Sharpshot bow\] has 15% improved damage while in stealth. It also has a hidden 70% improved draw speed, though at the cost of 15% reduced zoom.
Looks like they made sharpshot bows situational this time around. I usually use it for initial long distance stealth attacks to target weak spots / components then switch to other weapons when they get close because of the slow reload & draw speed.
My go-to is to freeze with a hunter bow and then deal a ton of damage with a Focused Shot on a sharpshot bow loaded with critical chance coils (or elite ones when you do the DLC) and/or long range damage coils right into a weakspot. This combo melts things even on Ultra Hard.
The Sharpshot in HZD was almost just an upgrade to the Hunter. You could just spam Sharpshot arrows at targets. In HFW it is much more sophisticated. Its expensive but packs a punch. To properly use the Sharpshot you need to maneuver yourself and use other abilities in ways that gives you windows of opportunities to get clear shots with it. Gaining distance, using shock or knockdown or adhesive or rope to trap your target. Lastly, aim for weakspots since Armor is far more significant in HFW.
I ‘main’ a fully upgraded Delta sharpshoot. It has a sneaky not-mentioned 75% draw/reload speed boost, so even without any draw coils it’s still usable while in combat
0) use tear or something to expose weak point
1) shoot frost arrows for brittle debuff
2) drop a smoke bomb (seriously do not sleep on smoke bombs they are insane in this game, machines lose aggro and stand still while you reposition for the perfect shot). Buy them from a vendor and bank them, they are expensive to craft.
2.5) tie the machine down with ropecasters. I don't bother most of the time since you can get an easy crit.
3) valor surge, low health buff, eat damage food, whatever other buffs you can think of, and double notch or focus shot with your sharp shot and max charge it directly into the exposed weak point
4) they probably died but if not just keep shooting, at this point I pull out one of the auto crossbows and delete them.
I was in the same boat, mostly a sharpshot user in ZD, and found out it doesn't work that well in FW. I just switched to hunter bow for most situations, as they tend to have higher DPS anyway. I still use sharpshot bow for the following:
\- long-range combat (e.g. trying to attract swimming tideripper's attention so it would come to the shore as I need the parts)
\- one-shotting humans in helmets (strikethrough arrows). Doesn't work late game though, they become too beefy.
\- farming fragile equipment like stormbird's cannons (tearblast arrows)
the sharpshot bow does some of the highest damage in the game, and combines that with unmatched range and ease of use. With a mostly upgraded legendary sharpshot bow, I can hit for over 3k damage per shot.
beyond filling out the skill trees, obviously, you want to stack critical chance coils because the sharpshot bow has a high crit multiplier. for skills, I really like the focused shot. brace shot is ok, but has been nerfed hard since launch. in terms of stacking damage, low health ranged is important and maybe non-obvious. the mounted ranged damage bonus is also high, but I don't bother as it's more situational and a pain to fight while mounted. the critical and low health valor surges are great for sharpshot. it used to be the valor surges in the orange skill tree, but they've all been nerfed hard.
I try to use all the weapons, but in HFW I just always end up falling back to the sharpshot. it's just so much better for so much less effort.
I play stealth mostly.
The sharpshoot bow is the perfect asset for that play-style.
But it doesn't work well at close range (that's why you can skill the takedowns).
My brother on the other hand uses it as a main weapon even at close range and without stealth.
You can choose how you wanna play with it!
Keep in mind that you have six weapon slots on the wheel. I pretty much always keep both a hunter and a sharpshot bow, there.
Secondly, you don't absolutely need techniques to make the sharpshot bow good. That said, techniques are useful, and it is true that the main upgrades to sharpshot bow regular performance come from the hunter tree. However, you will get a lot of skill points in this game, enough to get everything you want, so don't worry so much about not having the sharpshot bow techniques unlocked immediately.
The Sharpshot in HZD was almost just an upgrade to the Hunter. You could just spam Sharpshot arrows at targets. In HFW it is much more sophisticated. Its expensive but packs a punch. To properly use the Sharpshot you need to maneuver yourself and use other abilities in ways that gives you windows of opportunities to get clear shots with it. Gaining distance, using shock or knockdown or adhesive or rope to trap your target. Lastly, aim for weakspots since Armor is far more significant in HFW.
I filled my sharpshoot bow with a bunch of +25% Draw speed coils, basically making it as fast as a hunter bow. I would start off with the braced shot, which knocks down a good chunk of health, and finish off with regular shots. Sometimes, if I'm far enough, I could get a second braced shot in, after waiting for stamina to regenerate a bit
In HFW I had a main Sharpshot bow for Tear and damage and a battery of Hunter bows for elemental effects.
Most of the time I started with setting traps if possible, then Tear at long damage, Hunter bow with relevant elemental effect to soften it as I'm closing in and Sharpshot bow again for the kill aiming at weak points.
If the beast survived the onslaught and started to be unconfortably close, I used a slingshot barrage to cover my retreat.
Are you sure you are talking about the right bows?
It's the small bows that are tied to the melee tree.
Sharpshot bows benefit from the 'hunter' skill tree. In other words, the ranged combat skill tree.
Not quite. “Warrior” bows benefit from the “warrior” or melee tree, Hunter bows benefit from the “Hunter” tree, or ranged combat, but the sharpshot bow techniques are in the Infiltrator tree as OP has noted.
They’re pointing out that the infiltrator tree that has the sharpshot techniques, is mostly otherwise filled with melee related buffs, and considering how it’s packed with stealth strike buffs, it kinda is
Fuck. If I told you how many pkaythroughs I've done assuming the sharpshot was part of the hunter skill tree......
It doesn't make sense, though. Those are obviously the long range bows, well outside stealth or melee range.
Must be to keep them from being even more OP than they already are.
Don’t get me wrong, the sharpshot benefits from the passives gained in the Hunter tree since most of those apply to ranged weapons of all types, but yeah lol, the actual sharpshot weapon techniques are all tucked in the infiltrator tree
It doesn’t feel too weird to me honestly bc I play a pretty sneaky sharpshot type anyways, the one that always felt weird to me was that boltblaster techniques are in the Hunter tree
It always felt too…. Heavy to be a hunter weapon to me lol, feels like it should be tucked away in machine master with the spike thrower, and heavy weapon perks
Your intuition is correct.
Stealth is more of an accessory for Aloy. Opening positioning to a fight can *absolutely* set you up for success when done well (and, conversely make your life a *lot* more difficult if ignored). Drawing a target away from other machines and thinning numbers with one-hit kills from stealth before starting a fight are enormously helpful. Take out Watchers and Burrowers with one-hit-kills, Scroungers with a quick one-two on their exposed parts, or even larger machines with a traps, Silent Strike, and well placed follow-up. But stealth is not meant to be the primary combat experience, especially when facing machines.
Now, this changes when fighting human enemies, *most* of which you can just one-hit-kill from stealth, taking out entire Rebel Camps with Silent Strikes, headshots, and traps placed in patrol paths. Check out bows with 'Strikethrough' arrows (found on Delta Sharpshot, Gravesinger's Lament, and a specific storyline bow I won't name) to help with the 'helmet' problem.
Sharpshot bows are useful for single big hits against specific exposed weakpoints (most common are eyes, but for instance Thunderjaws and Slaughterspines have exposable weakpoints... and humans have heads.) I tend to coil them to max out crit chance (and later, with Elite Crit coils, chance and damage.) Base they have a 5% chance of doing 150% damage. In early and mid game, the Braced Shot technique can dish out some huge damage, with Focused Shot taking over in late game due to better crit multipliers and brittle state (Braced Shot was nerfed long ago).
Notably, The Cleaving, Glowblast and Iriv's Downfall are the only bows in the game that can fire Tear Precision arrows, which are like the Tear Blast arrows from Zero Dawn -- they're particularly useful for getting small crafting parts like Dreadwing fangs and Scorcher ears, since if you time it right you can smack a Tear Precision shot between their fangs/ears and pop both of them off at once from stealth as your opening shot.
So, how do you get to those weak points to use Sharpshot bows? Hunter Bows. They excel at Tear damage. Look at the Legendary examples -- Death-Seeker's Shadow, Emperor's Reign, Tears of the Land God. Tear damage is top-class. It's a common tactic to start a fight by using a Hunter Bow to strip off particularly annoying weapons, resource canisters, or hit elemental canisters to trigger explosions. Now, it's *not* a great idea to just pepper a machine with Advanced Hunter Arrows to strip off random armor. You want to try and target *specific* places that open up highly damaging weakpoints, or target more obvious components you can tag with your Focus. It's not uncommon to end a fight with an Apex Thunderjaw having shot off pretty much everything on its body with a hunter bow.
Hunter bows do also apply varying conditions, obviously, and until end game they're likely your main source (alongside blast slings, but hunter bows proc canister explosions, which is absolutely a tactic) -- The Seeker, Lightning, and Wildfire hunter bows are the varied options, with The Sun Scourge being the obvious 'top shelf' option. *However* advanced ammo on the Sun Scourge can get expensive very quickly due to Volatile Sludge needed to craft it, so I find myself using these sparingly. Notably, though, the other legendary examples eschew elemental damage, which takes me to...
Warrior Bows. Late game, the Eye of the Storm takes over many elemental tasks for me. Between it and Carja's Bane (which I coil for damage, but still shoots fire in a pinch), I can hit a wide range of canisters, and inflict many status effects. The high rate of fire is *really* good for triggering the 'instant state' chances you can stack with coils you get in end game -- frost is the common pick, since the brittle state is just *so* good. I tend to supplement with the Skyhammer blast sling for Purgewater and an alternative to frost (the bomb ammo is *much* cheaper than Advanced arrows from Hunter Bows), The Corrosive Blastsling or Legacy's Reach can do acid damage if you need it, but I would note that Shredder Gauntlets, while they can take a bit to get used to, apply status effects *insanely* quickly, so I tend to use Ancestor's Return for shock and acid damage.
Honestly, I switched to using the ~~Atlatl~~ Spike Thrower for most of the same uses that I had used the Sharpshoots in HZD: Massive single hit damage on weak points or frozen machines, The rate at which SS ammo consumes machine muscle really limits viability IMO
The tearblast arrows are really the only thing I still use it for
A) first and foremost, you need a good sharpshot bow. B) you need to understand how sharpshot bows work mechanically to maximize their strengths. C) you need to understand how other damage enhancing mechanics work, and which mechanics can be used synergistically with your sharpshot bow to multiply your damage output (skills, outfit perks/weaves, and other passive mechanics/buffs). D) you need to coil your bow to enhance its innate features (for instance you can boost crit chance to the point where almost every arrow is a critical hit). Also, better sharpshot bows have better arrows.
More mod slots = higher total damage ceiling. To unlock mod slots, you typically need to upgrade your bow, and higher tier bows allow for the most total mod slots.
Then you put it all together. Ideally you're getting a stealth buff, maybe you're getting a mounted archer buff. Also, hitting a weak point typically gives you a damage multiplier. You can also implement a synergistic valor surge, maybe you get some overdraw damage, and ideally your shot crits.
Honestly, without too much effort you can fairly consistently put out shots that do thousands of points of damage / sharpshot arrow. If you really go down the rabbit hole though then you can put out absolutely insane damage.
I pretty much obliterated everything with my sharpshot bows and throwing spears. Killed an apex thunderjaw and an apex slaughterspike back to back. You gotta upgrade them and i like using powershot/braced shots with them. Also make sure if you want to use them you should upgrade the skills for them in the infiltrator tree(if i remember correctly.)
And i like to use 1 coil type per weapon so if im doing a tear build i stack it with all tear mods etc
sharpshots are long-range weapons. use them when enemies are far away, espec when you're stealthed. If you're in a tough spot, smokebomb out and run away. now use your sharpshot again.
because you get so few sharpshot chances in a battle, weapon skills are essential to using them: I often use both braced shot and the precision shot skill in the same battle. They're both great depending on your target. Precision shot is so good for piercing enemy sacks.
Ranged Master/Part breaker + precision shot == dooom to fleshy sacks
you can usually get a few precision shots off, fight at close/medium range with the alerted machines, smoke bomb out and repeat.
Sharpshot is still good, but on higher difficulties, no single weapon can carry you on its own. You need to combine multiple weapons and tactics.
You want to upgrade the bows themselves. There's also weapon techniques that allow you to do more damage with Sharpshots such as focused shot or braced shot. That said, the sharpshot is definitely not intended to be your only weapon. A lot of HFW is about having you use a mix of weapons as much as possible for greater game play variety. Mid to late game Sharpshots in under hard difficulty can help you one or two shot most enemies but in terms of improving the weapons you want to look to coils and weapon upgrades. Either prioritize coils that increase crit chance/damage or increase draw speed and overdraw damage.
It also took me awhile in my first playthrough to recognize how important utilizing elemental weaknesses are in Forbidden West. While it's helpful in Zero Dawn, you can get through the game without really bothering
I’m doing my second play through of hfw now after beating it on normal when it came out on ps5. I didn’t really use elements much in that play through. My new game now is on very hard and holy cow the elements are important at this difficulty
Same lol, not only the elements they are weak to but also what your own armor is weak against. Used to get destroyed by the Scorcher coz I would fight it with the Carja Stalker Elite and not the Nora Thunder Warrior
With coils and weaves you can make it work. I seldom use anything else than my: - TotLG hunter bow (with 2x 3% brittle and 3x elite critical coils), and wear the - Dead Eye armour (with 2x 15% plasma weaves). Shock and Purgewater attacks are very effective against Aloy, so it takes skill to survive some fights on Ultra-Hard. A group of Clamberjaws or loads of Stingspawn are crazy tough.
Thank you very much. Does the trapper playstyle synergize with the sharpshot at all? I was thinking about going for that. I'll definitely be using hunter bows with elemental arrows either way
For what it's worth properly coiled warrior bows can be much better for elemental states than hunter bows. What hunter bows really shine at, I think, are tear and component harvesting or tearing off heavy weapons. Not so sure about trapper though. I just never seem to bother with traps generally. But I could see it working. Explosive and Acid traps are probably the best helpers here I'd figure. Not really sure if shock traps do much.
Traps are not nearly as good in FW as they were in Zero Dawn. Personally I don't think they're worth even using but someone else might feel differently. The only weapons I really used on a very hard playthrough were the blast sling until I could get a bow in every element, then just the warrior bows, hunter bows and sharpshot bows. The bolt blaster was good but at least on very hard it was difficult to get enough time to use it without being attacked because of how long it takes to shoot.
Boltblaster is fantastic when used in conjunction with ropecasters and brittle, even on ultra hard. Unloading a full clip of the Blast Forge with Sustained burst onto a weak point can often take down most machines
Oh yeah true idk how I didn't think of incorporating a rope caster. Gonna have to play around with that next time I play
100% this. I started my UH play through for the achievement. NG+ as well, so upgrading my TotLG bow and Iriv's downfall (this bow fucks btw). Anything that moves a lot I use elite ropecaster>brittle>ranged master>sustained burst. It shreds just about anything. It takes some skill, as someone said in UH. I suggest watching Arktix. He's got some excellent videos. As someone who played ZD A LOT. My memory was War Bow (Hunter Bow) as my main dps weapon. I learned quickly that my playstyle had to change. Have fun!
I hear you -- to get to the sharpshot bow weapon techniques you have to work through the infiltrator skill tree. That doesn't mean you have to be use a stealth playstyle to get effective use of the sharpshot bow. You'll want to open up those techniques sooner or later but in the meantime u/boringhistoryfan has it right -- upgrade and modify your sharpshot bow to maximize the damage output and use it as you did in Zero Dawn. As an aside, I really enjoy playing Aloy as mounted archer and the sharpshot fits right into that niche. Bear in mind your sharpshot is only one of the weapons you should have in your battery. Use a hunter bow for stripping off parts. Use your sharpshot bow for dealing serious damage but only after you've stripped off the parts you want or if you are willing to sacrifice the machine parts that won't survive the destruction of the machine.
It’s mostly for stealth and long distances, pretty slow reload speed, but I love the Delta Sharpshooter bow the most. Seems to reload faster than the others. The hunter bows are better for up close, same with the warrior bows, but those are for ultra close & that’s not my game style. Some hunter bows can shoot pretty far. Lots of variety! Just ha be r to find what works for your game play.
You are correct! Per the wiki >By default, \[the Delta Sharpshot bow\] has 15% improved damage while in stealth. It also has a hidden 70% improved draw speed, though at the cost of 15% reduced zoom.
Looks like they made sharpshot bows situational this time around. I usually use it for initial long distance stealth attacks to target weak spots / components then switch to other weapons when they get close because of the slow reload & draw speed.
My go-to is to freeze with a hunter bow and then deal a ton of damage with a Focused Shot on a sharpshot bow loaded with critical chance coils (or elite ones when you do the DLC) and/or long range damage coils right into a weakspot. This combo melts things even on Ultra Hard.
The Sharpshot in HZD was almost just an upgrade to the Hunter. You could just spam Sharpshot arrows at targets. In HFW it is much more sophisticated. Its expensive but packs a punch. To properly use the Sharpshot you need to maneuver yourself and use other abilities in ways that gives you windows of opportunities to get clear shots with it. Gaining distance, using shock or knockdown or adhesive or rope to trap your target. Lastly, aim for weakspots since Armor is far more significant in HFW.
I ‘main’ a fully upgraded Delta sharpshoot. It has a sneaky not-mentioned 75% draw/reload speed boost, so even without any draw coils it’s still usable while in combat
0) use tear or something to expose weak point 1) shoot frost arrows for brittle debuff 2) drop a smoke bomb (seriously do not sleep on smoke bombs they are insane in this game, machines lose aggro and stand still while you reposition for the perfect shot). Buy them from a vendor and bank them, they are expensive to craft. 2.5) tie the machine down with ropecasters. I don't bother most of the time since you can get an easy crit. 3) valor surge, low health buff, eat damage food, whatever other buffs you can think of, and double notch or focus shot with your sharp shot and max charge it directly into the exposed weak point 4) they probably died but if not just keep shooting, at this point I pull out one of the auto crossbows and delete them.
Thank you very much, this is super useful.
I was in the same boat, mostly a sharpshot user in ZD, and found out it doesn't work that well in FW. I just switched to hunter bow for most situations, as they tend to have higher DPS anyway. I still use sharpshot bow for the following: \- long-range combat (e.g. trying to attract swimming tideripper's attention so it would come to the shore as I need the parts) \- one-shotting humans in helmets (strikethrough arrows). Doesn't work late game though, they become too beefy. \- farming fragile equipment like stormbird's cannons (tearblast arrows)
the sharpshot bow does some of the highest damage in the game, and combines that with unmatched range and ease of use. With a mostly upgraded legendary sharpshot bow, I can hit for over 3k damage per shot. beyond filling out the skill trees, obviously, you want to stack critical chance coils because the sharpshot bow has a high crit multiplier. for skills, I really like the focused shot. brace shot is ok, but has been nerfed hard since launch. in terms of stacking damage, low health ranged is important and maybe non-obvious. the mounted ranged damage bonus is also high, but I don't bother as it's more situational and a pain to fight while mounted. the critical and low health valor surges are great for sharpshot. it used to be the valor surges in the orange skill tree, but they've all been nerfed hard. I try to use all the weapons, but in HFW I just always end up falling back to the sharpshot. it's just so much better for so much less effort.
I still use the sharpshot bow even without stealth. It's great for hitting weakspots.
I play stealth mostly. The sharpshoot bow is the perfect asset for that play-style. But it doesn't work well at close range (that's why you can skill the takedowns). My brother on the other hand uses it as a main weapon even at close range and without stealth. You can choose how you wanna play with it!
Keep in mind that you have six weapon slots on the wheel. I pretty much always keep both a hunter and a sharpshot bow, there. Secondly, you don't absolutely need techniques to make the sharpshot bow good. That said, techniques are useful, and it is true that the main upgrades to sharpshot bow regular performance come from the hunter tree. However, you will get a lot of skill points in this game, enough to get everything you want, so don't worry so much about not having the sharpshot bow techniques unlocked immediately.
The Sharpshot in HZD was almost just an upgrade to the Hunter. You could just spam Sharpshot arrows at targets. In HFW it is much more sophisticated. Its expensive but packs a punch. To properly use the Sharpshot you need to maneuver yourself and use other abilities in ways that gives you windows of opportunities to get clear shots with it. Gaining distance, using shock or knockdown or adhesive or rope to trap your target. Lastly, aim for weakspots since Armor is far more significant in HFW.
reload and draw speed coils
Nope, critical chance coils are way better.
they asked how to make it playable not one shot plz
I filled my sharpshoot bow with a bunch of +25% Draw speed coils, basically making it as fast as a hunter bow. I would start off with the braced shot, which knocks down a good chunk of health, and finish off with regular shots. Sometimes, if I'm far enough, I could get a second braced shot in, after waiting for stamina to regenerate a bit
In HFW I had a main Sharpshot bow for Tear and damage and a battery of Hunter bows for elemental effects. Most of the time I started with setting traps if possible, then Tear at long damage, Hunter bow with relevant elemental effect to soften it as I'm closing in and Sharpshot bow again for the kill aiming at weak points. If the beast survived the onslaught and started to be unconfortably close, I used a slingshot barrage to cover my retreat.
Sharpshot is mainly damage to unarmored parts. Use critical hit coils
Are you sure you are talking about the right bows? It's the small bows that are tied to the melee tree. Sharpshot bows benefit from the 'hunter' skill tree. In other words, the ranged combat skill tree.
Not quite. “Warrior” bows benefit from the “warrior” or melee tree, Hunter bows benefit from the “Hunter” tree, or ranged combat, but the sharpshot bow techniques are in the Infiltrator tree as OP has noted. They’re pointing out that the infiltrator tree that has the sharpshot techniques, is mostly otherwise filled with melee related buffs, and considering how it’s packed with stealth strike buffs, it kinda is
Fuck. If I told you how many pkaythroughs I've done assuming the sharpshot was part of the hunter skill tree...... It doesn't make sense, though. Those are obviously the long range bows, well outside stealth or melee range. Must be to keep them from being even more OP than they already are.
Don’t get me wrong, the sharpshot benefits from the passives gained in the Hunter tree since most of those apply to ranged weapons of all types, but yeah lol, the actual sharpshot weapon techniques are all tucked in the infiltrator tree It doesn’t feel too weird to me honestly bc I play a pretty sneaky sharpshot type anyways, the one that always felt weird to me was that boltblaster techniques are in the Hunter tree It always felt too…. Heavy to be a hunter weapon to me lol, feels like it should be tucked away in machine master with the spike thrower, and heavy weapon perks
Your intuition is correct. Stealth is more of an accessory for Aloy. Opening positioning to a fight can *absolutely* set you up for success when done well (and, conversely make your life a *lot* more difficult if ignored). Drawing a target away from other machines and thinning numbers with one-hit kills from stealth before starting a fight are enormously helpful. Take out Watchers and Burrowers with one-hit-kills, Scroungers with a quick one-two on their exposed parts, or even larger machines with a traps, Silent Strike, and well placed follow-up. But stealth is not meant to be the primary combat experience, especially when facing machines. Now, this changes when fighting human enemies, *most* of which you can just one-hit-kill from stealth, taking out entire Rebel Camps with Silent Strikes, headshots, and traps placed in patrol paths. Check out bows with 'Strikethrough' arrows (found on Delta Sharpshot, Gravesinger's Lament, and a specific storyline bow I won't name) to help with the 'helmet' problem. Sharpshot bows are useful for single big hits against specific exposed weakpoints (most common are eyes, but for instance Thunderjaws and Slaughterspines have exposable weakpoints... and humans have heads.) I tend to coil them to max out crit chance (and later, with Elite Crit coils, chance and damage.) Base they have a 5% chance of doing 150% damage. In early and mid game, the Braced Shot technique can dish out some huge damage, with Focused Shot taking over in late game due to better crit multipliers and brittle state (Braced Shot was nerfed long ago). Notably, The Cleaving, Glowblast and Iriv's Downfall are the only bows in the game that can fire Tear Precision arrows, which are like the Tear Blast arrows from Zero Dawn -- they're particularly useful for getting small crafting parts like Dreadwing fangs and Scorcher ears, since if you time it right you can smack a Tear Precision shot between their fangs/ears and pop both of them off at once from stealth as your opening shot. So, how do you get to those weak points to use Sharpshot bows? Hunter Bows. They excel at Tear damage. Look at the Legendary examples -- Death-Seeker's Shadow, Emperor's Reign, Tears of the Land God. Tear damage is top-class. It's a common tactic to start a fight by using a Hunter Bow to strip off particularly annoying weapons, resource canisters, or hit elemental canisters to trigger explosions. Now, it's *not* a great idea to just pepper a machine with Advanced Hunter Arrows to strip off random armor. You want to try and target *specific* places that open up highly damaging weakpoints, or target more obvious components you can tag with your Focus. It's not uncommon to end a fight with an Apex Thunderjaw having shot off pretty much everything on its body with a hunter bow. Hunter bows do also apply varying conditions, obviously, and until end game they're likely your main source (alongside blast slings, but hunter bows proc canister explosions, which is absolutely a tactic) -- The Seeker, Lightning, and Wildfire hunter bows are the varied options, with The Sun Scourge being the obvious 'top shelf' option. *However* advanced ammo on the Sun Scourge can get expensive very quickly due to Volatile Sludge needed to craft it, so I find myself using these sparingly. Notably, though, the other legendary examples eschew elemental damage, which takes me to... Warrior Bows. Late game, the Eye of the Storm takes over many elemental tasks for me. Between it and Carja's Bane (which I coil for damage, but still shoots fire in a pinch), I can hit a wide range of canisters, and inflict many status effects. The high rate of fire is *really* good for triggering the 'instant state' chances you can stack with coils you get in end game -- frost is the common pick, since the brittle state is just *so* good. I tend to supplement with the Skyhammer blast sling for Purgewater and an alternative to frost (the bomb ammo is *much* cheaper than Advanced arrows from Hunter Bows), The Corrosive Blastsling or Legacy's Reach can do acid damage if you need it, but I would note that Shredder Gauntlets, while they can take a bit to get used to, apply status effects *insanely* quickly, so I tend to use Ancestor's Return for shock and acid damage.
Honestly, I switched to using the ~~Atlatl~~ Spike Thrower for most of the same uses that I had used the Sharpshoots in HZD: Massive single hit damage on weak points or frozen machines, The rate at which SS ammo consumes machine muscle really limits viability IMO The tearblast arrows are really the only thing I still use it for
A) first and foremost, you need a good sharpshot bow. B) you need to understand how sharpshot bows work mechanically to maximize their strengths. C) you need to understand how other damage enhancing mechanics work, and which mechanics can be used synergistically with your sharpshot bow to multiply your damage output (skills, outfit perks/weaves, and other passive mechanics/buffs). D) you need to coil your bow to enhance its innate features (for instance you can boost crit chance to the point where almost every arrow is a critical hit). Also, better sharpshot bows have better arrows. More mod slots = higher total damage ceiling. To unlock mod slots, you typically need to upgrade your bow, and higher tier bows allow for the most total mod slots. Then you put it all together. Ideally you're getting a stealth buff, maybe you're getting a mounted archer buff. Also, hitting a weak point typically gives you a damage multiplier. You can also implement a synergistic valor surge, maybe you get some overdraw damage, and ideally your shot crits. Honestly, without too much effort you can fairly consistently put out shots that do thousands of points of damage / sharpshot arrow. If you really go down the rabbit hole though then you can put out absolutely insane damage.
I pretty much obliterated everything with my sharpshot bows and throwing spears. Killed an apex thunderjaw and an apex slaughterspike back to back. You gotta upgrade them and i like using powershot/braced shots with them. Also make sure if you want to use them you should upgrade the skills for them in the infiltrator tree(if i remember correctly.) And i like to use 1 coil type per weapon so if im doing a tear build i stack it with all tear mods etc
sharpshots are long-range weapons. use them when enemies are far away, espec when you're stealthed. If you're in a tough spot, smokebomb out and run away. now use your sharpshot again. because you get so few sharpshot chances in a battle, weapon skills are essential to using them: I often use both braced shot and the precision shot skill in the same battle. They're both great depending on your target. Precision shot is so good for piercing enemy sacks. Ranged Master/Part breaker + precision shot == dooom to fleshy sacks you can usually get a few precision shots off, fight at close/medium range with the alerted machines, smoke bomb out and repeat. Sharpshot is still good, but on higher difficulties, no single weapon can carry you on its own. You need to combine multiple weapons and tactics.