New Game+ on H:ZD is quite easy because you have all the gear, notably blastwires for early game scrappers and chargers, the war bow for anything with a cannister kill option, and the Banuk hunter bow for DPS on frozen enemies. You also have shield weaver and huge health, which makes random death very unlikely. Playing the regular game on Ultra Hard is a whole different story. Everything kills you in one hit until you're about level 20, and then 2 hits until you're level 40. It takes ages to get heavy armour and shadow weapons because everything is colossally expensive so you're not optimally equipped. And most enemies have so much health that even after blowing off their canisters they're still alive.
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| Aloy, my #1 waifu, ready to fuck shit up |
Avoid fights
Specifically, don't get into any fights that you don't have to. That means prioritising quest-related fights and only engaging other enemies when hunting for hearts. This rule is extremely important. Death is so easy in Ultra Hard. A single human chump accidentally spotting you because you got a silent strike mis-click will kill you in a single dive attack. I've died to chargers setting off tripwires while I was standing too close to them. Just don't fight things that you don't have to. This will encourage you to only pick fights you have methodically prepared for. I go out of my way to sequence quests in a way that reduces fights while still getting me the lenses, hearts, and trophies I need to progress (see below). I'm usually around level 40 before I get the Nora protector armour, which is the main thing that will stop you dying (5000 shards and 2 shellwalker hearts). Getting it earlier means not having relevant weaponry, and being able to kill things quickly and efficiently is the best form of protection. Until level 10, everything will kill you in a single hit. Until level 20, the small boys will instant kill you. Even at level 30, a full run from a lancehorn or a dive bomb from a glinthawk will put you borderline dead. This makes all encounters risky, and so you're best off avoiding encounters as much as possible. You don't need extra fights just to level up and very few enemies drop more loot than it costs to kill them (freeze bellowbacks are an exception). There are two more points worth making...
First, you should embrace Aloy's true nature and become the hunter. Stealth kills and traps are your friend. As you'll see below, I prioritise getting disarm traps and the shadow tripcaster in a no death run, and do a lot of my killing with traps. Ideally, you only ever want to fight enemies one-on-one. Pick off enemies one by one whenever possible using lure call and rocks into stealth kills and by laying traps along their patrol routes. Traps don't have a big trigger area the way tripwires do, so they are best against patrolling enemies. But with disarm traps and patience, you can put down all of your explosive and blast traps while enemies are unawares, initiate your best combo kill, and then hope that a weakened enemy charges into a blast radius. If they don't, you can always collect your traps afterwards. While the fire trap is a little weak damage wise, the blast trap kills all small enemies and is very cheap to make resource-wise.
Second, you can engage in fights where the enemies have an obvious cannister kill option that you can safely exploit, notably grazers, or you can easily sneak around getting instant kills and the enemies are in the way of you advancing. Farm grazers in the sacred land. Striders get protected cannisters pretty quickly, which makes hunting them dangerous, but sometimes it is safe to silent kill a herd of them. Same for snapmaws, whose freeze shot has a huge blast radius and does stupid damage. Lancehorns are more manageable but don't explode-die like grazers and can be hard to hit precisely without 2 handling MODs in your warbow so I just wouldn't bother. Lone ravagers are pretty easy to take out with tearblast arrows, ropes, and their own cannon, but this doesn't net you shards on average because echo shells are so expensive (15 shards each!), so don't bother.
Equipment sequencing
Usually you just go straight to shadow weapons, but you won't have the cash in Ultra Hard because everything is markedly more expensive, so you need to pick up a few Carja weapons first. You want tripcaster (free and necessary for safely killing the first sawtooth), Carja sharpshot bow, Carja Warbow, then Shadow tripcaster, Shadow Hunter Bow, Carja Sling (around about when I return to the sacred land), and then Shadow Ropecaster (to fight ravagers). The Rattler is unnecessary and you get the blast sling from the hunting grounds rewards.
Starting from scratch in Ultra Hard means that triple-shot precision arrow killing enemies is resource intensive (wires are the most precious resource in the game because all apex predators require a tonne of ropes to kill) and you don't have the relevant skills until mid-late game anyway, so you're better off using Hardpoint arrows for damage (indeed, I think outside of ultra-fast combo kills, hardpoint arrows are better than precision arrow for DPS). That means that a Carja Sharpshot is perfectly adequate. You use sharpshot arrows for stealth killing bandits at range and tearblast arrows for stalker camouflage, thunderjaw and ravager cannons, and shellwalkers. I usually have 2 tear MODs on this bow, though I swap out for damage MODs when I am fighting elite bandits because otherwise 1 arrow won't kill at range.
You get the carja warbow second so that you have an easier time killing scrappers, longlegs, and lancehorns (and eventually behemoths). It makes these fights much less of a hassle. One of the nice things about the Carja as opposed to shadow warbow is that it trades for glasses rather than hearts, so one bandit camp will get you the requisite goods. The shadow warbow, in contrast, trades for Trampler hearts, which are a pain to get because the Trampler stomp can instant kill you, they are always in packs of 4 or 5, and there is only 1 quest involving tramplers.
I get the shadow tripcaster and disarm traps ASAP on a no-death run, because laying lots of traps before fights makes many otherwise very hard fights quite safe, e.g. anything with lots of scrappers. Your first rare or very rare shock MOD should always go in your tripcaster so that it can efficiently down scrappers (1 wire) and sawtooths (2 wires).
You then get the hunter bow and ram three damage MODs in for DPS, while retaining your Carja bow with two fire MODs for glinthawk hunting until you get tinker.
The Carja sling with two frost mods is perfectly capable of freezing most enemies in two hits and apex predators in 4 hits (easy when tied down), and with 2 shock mods it can efficiently debilitate deathbringers other than the final boss, by which time you have a shadow sling. The carja sling is also quite cheap, whereas the shadow sling needs 2 crystal braiding that is only consistently found on apex predators. Using the sling for status effects rather than a Banuk warbow (which is otherwise super efficient because the charged-up shot seems to increase status effect intensity, not just damage) means that you can use your warbow just for cannister shots. So your warbow has only handling mods. You need the sling for Revenge of the Nora and the first cauldron to efficiently kill fire bellowbacks. You then also need it for ravagers and the apex predators.
The final weapon is the ropecaster, which is necessary for safely and efficiently killing ravagers and tramplers. All handling MODs. Tear does nothing. It is weird that you can put tear in it.
Now you prioritise the Nora Silent Hunter outfit, and maybe the ice hunter and/or Nora Protector (melee). The Banuk trailblazer that comes for free in the collectors edition is great against Glinthawks and Snapmaws with two freeze MODs in it, especially if you add a freeze potion in. The Brave outfit does something with a rare ranged or melee damage MOD, but is pretty useless. Get heavy stealth armour first because you need it for to do Olin's dig site (you cannot skirt the dig site undetected without it, and if you get detected before killing the snipers and getting into the pit, the corruptors will be incredibly hard to kill from up high). Then get Heavy Nora protector (the melee armour) and pack anti melee MODs into it. Even with Max melee MODs, the Nora protector is NOT enough to stop Frostclaws and Scorchers from occasionally one-shot killing you, so do not attempt Frozen Wilds until you have Shield Weaver. By the time you get the Nora protector you should have tinker and can use the Banuk trailblazer for any elemental protection you need, especially with resist potions, so the Blazon and Ice hunter are probably not worth it. Certainly you want the Banuk bows before you get elemental armour, and they cost a small fortune (~12000 each), especially because you need lenses and hearts from the tough Frozen Wilds apex predators. If you are a purist then don't use the trailblazer because it is sort of cheating, just use potions. But then do consider grabbing the heavy ice hunter when you can because it makes glinthawks and snapmaws much easier.
Quest sequencing is key
It is very important in a no-death run to avoid chaotic situations and any enemies that can one-shot you until you are about level 30, at which point you have enough health to take a hit. This includes glinthawks because of their talon dive bomb attack, which does insane damage. Chaotic situations are where you are fighting large numbers of enemies from multiple vectors (all glinthawk fights). You can get hit unexpectedly and die, and also get into weird jams where you can't dodge because some enemy is standing next to you. As a result of these rules, I leave a lot of quests in the sacred land and make a bee-line for the Sundom instead. But note that getting to Meridian is tricky because on Ultra Hard you can't avoid the two stormbirds at both borders because their sight lines are huge, they are very aggressive, and they pursue you a huge distance. The only way to get past is to take the back zipline out of the hunting grounds near the border fort and then circle around. But there are glinthawks and a shell-walker convoy here that can be hard to avoid. In any case, the quests I avoid are:
- Fire bellowback cauldron. The bellowback is a little too risky for one-shot kill. And even after you blow off both of its tanks (which requires icing it first), it still isn't dead.
- Corrupted zone with the bellowback near the start of Revenge of the Nora. You cannot instant kill the corrupted chargers with a silent strike, which makes this battle super hard until you have a tripcaster upgraded with damage coils.
- Corrupted zone with longlegs near the border fort. You need a warbow for this fight and you can't buy a carja warbow until you are in the sundom.
- Revenge of the Nora part II - the ring of metal. The third eclipse camp is too random and the final fight with corrupted bellowback is one of the most chaotic in the game. The bellowback's charge can also instant kill you, and in all the chaos it's not worth the chance.
- The merchant cart with the longlegs and stalker. Come back with a warbow and some health.
- The missing dreamwillow. That sawtooth can instant kill you. I just circle back once I am hunting for lodge trophies and kill both this sawtooth and...
- The two sawtooths with the missing hunters in Devil's Thirst - again, too much chance for an instant kill. Just come back later.
- Most of the hunting grounds quests. You need suns from three separate trials to kick off the hunters lodge quests. I do the log pile trap to blazing sun as soon as I reach the Nora hunting grounds. Then I do 'parts alone' but only get the half sun (i.e. the one you get 20 minutes to complete). The hunter arrows are very slow to remove blaze cannisters in ultra hard, but the grazers don't attack you so it is safe. I then do the fire trials at the valleymeet hunting grounds on the way through. The pace trial in the sundom is too risky because glinthawks are random and the last watcher is almost always being feasted on.
- Do all the quests in the sacred land except the ones I mentioned above and any of the stuff near the ring of metal/Banuk territories. You'll know you're in danger because you will start seeing bellowbacks. Basically, don't cross the longitudinal line of the first cauldron. Go to Meridian instead. Take the zipline out behind the Sundom hunting grounds to avoid the stormbird. Sneak through to the tallneck surrounded by snapmaws. You can kill the watchers with precision arrows to the eyes and the snapmaws with fire arrows to their blaze cannisters. +1 skill point.
- Circle up to the 3rd bandit camp, the one with Nil. There is only one elite bandit here and you can kill him last with 3 sharpshot arrows to the head with no risk. Save the glasses from the supply crates here to buy a warbow.
- Now go to Meridian for that warbow and to get the first lodge quest to collect trophies and the Moment's peace quest about the Banuk village.
- Do the tallneck that the cultists are trying to bring down. +1 skill point.
- Rescue Nakoa from Zaid
- Make your way over to Free Heap. You should be able to afford the shadow tripcaster now. Do the bandits and the scrappers (the scrappers is much easier with the warbow and the tripcaster).
- Head back to the sacred lands and do the missing patrol and the corrupt zone with the longlegs. Go back to the border fort and you should be able to buy the shadow hunter bow if you prioritised scavenger and expert carver as skills rather than combat abilities. You will likely have to sell resources. Sell echo shells, chillwater, metal vessels, keeping at least 20 of each. Try to avoid selling blaze and metalburn if you can. Blaze is your main ingredient for blast wires, traps, and fire arrows, which you use a lot (glinthawks!). You need a tonne of Metalburn for the Frozen Wilds fight with the 3 frostclaws, and it is very scarce because you mostly get it off the limited number of corrupt enemies. Yes, I think that far in advance.
- Fast travel to Rost's house and get the flower nearby if you haven't already, pay your respects, and then make your way to the Nora hunting grounds to get all the blazing suns, which you can now do because you have blastwires and hardpoint arrows. +1 skill point.
- Kill the sawtooth menacing the outcasts and finish the dreamwillow quest
- Rescue the missing hunters from Devil's thirst - all sawtooth trophies acquired.
- Buy a Carja sling from Mother's Gate and then head over to the valleymeet hunting ground and get all the trophies. +1 skill point. (Around about now you become a killing machine skill wise).
- Do the cauldron. Great opportunity to get the 'freeze enemies weak to fire sling' tutorial. +1 skill point.
- Rescue the merchant cart from the scrappers, longlegs, and stalker. A great opportunity to complete the shock sling tutorial. Make sure you lay a lot of traps before initiating this quest because the scrapper/longleg fight is very chaotic and risky. Get your stalker trophy.
- Clear the corrupted zone with the bellowback and chargers using blast wires.
- Do revenge of the Nora, making sure to collect all the vantages, banuk figures, flowers, and mugs along the way, and murder all the corrupt enemies for their metalburn. Use fire tripwires and stealth to kill the corrupt sawtooths without initiating combat - good opportunity to complete the fire wires tutorial.
- Clear the bandit camp above the ring of metal. This one is mostly about sharpshot arrows, and you will probably need one damage MOD to one-shot kill elites with headshots.
- Do the Banuk camp quest A Moment's Peace.
- Return to Mother's Gate to do the errand for Sona.
- Head to Meridian to get a Ropecaster and turn in the flowers, mugs, and banuk figures from the sacred land. Now you can kill ravagers and stalkers safely and get the last trophies you need for the Hunter's lodge. Do the estate quest with the ravager, and the ravager + snapmaw cauldron (+1 skill point).
- Go down into the Jewel and do the tallneck there (spurflints I think it is called).
- Do the cauldron overrun by eclipse quest nearby. There is usually a lone fire bellowback you can kill on the way and another bellowback that the eclipse heavies kill at the end. This should hopefully get you your 2nd bellowback heart for stealth armour. If not, there are 4 freeze bellowbacks nearby the cauldron that you can farm easily using all the deathbringer guns dropped at the end of the cauldron. Incidentally, there are so many opportunities to kill people using traps in this cauldron. When you first reach the core, lay traps all along the corridor you are in and then retreat back to the barrels. Pop a sharpshot arrow in the heavy's head and then everyone will run down the corridor and die. Now move over the pylon at the far end of the room and lay trip wires lead up to it and around the core. Put the deathbringer gun behind the pylon. Now override the core and then retreat to stealth behind the pylon. The traps will blow up most of the eclipse. Then the machines will fight them. As the ranks thin, pick up your deathbringer and use it to kill the ravager. If any machines come towards you that will die from the tripwires.
- Fast travel to Meridian and buy stealth armour (Nora Silent Hunter Heavy). I wear this for the rest of the game until I get shield weaver.
- Turn in your trophies. You should have enough health now to fight Glinthawks safely. So do the temple quest with the 3 pilgrims and Talanah's quest to save Lone Light.
- Do Erend's quest with the 2 ravagers, and the stolen sword quest.
- Do the thunderjaw cauldron nearby - you have all the relevant equipment and the +1 skill point is nice. The thunderjaw is easy 1-on-1 with preparation. There is an isolated shellwalker convoy outside that you can farm for the 2 shellwalker hearts you need to get Nora Protector armour. There aren't really any quests involving shellwalkers that you could do instead of farming, except for the convoy quest in freeheap, which is a bit risky without maximised equipment.
- Do Erend's loyalty quest with Dervahl. Use the ravager cannon and firestarter gun you get in Dervahl's camp to kill the stormbird just outside the camp. Very rare MODs!
- Save pitchcliff from the glinthawks. I would try to avoid killing the stormbird in the camp. On the one hand, you have the equipment for it. On the other hand, it hits so hard that you can just accidentally die and if you've come this far without dying, now is a very bad time to have to start again.
- Start Brin's quest line. He is hard to even reach without the stealth armour because his house is surrounded by glinthawks, ravagers and sawtooths. Get him the sawtooth blood (and maybe stalker too? I forget...) so that he now wants corruptor blood.
- Rescue Olin from the eclipse and do Maker's End (as well as the Bandit camp along the way). These will award the corruptor blood brin needs and bonus skill points. You should now have all relevant killing and scavenging skills and even most of the marginal stuff like herbalist.
Skill sequencing is key
This is obvious I guess, but what's not so obvious is that you want a different skill progression in Ultra Hard than regular mode. In particular, you want to prioritise disarm traps and the resource gathering skills. This is because traps and the tripcaster are the safest way to win fights, and the resource gathering skills increase your income, which allows you to buy super expensive shadow/heavy/banuk equipment. The extra spear damage skills are also much less useful because even fully maxed out they won't allow you to kill chargers and broadheads in a single silent strike, so you want to use blastwires instead. You can use lure early to complement rocks. All kills in the early game should be stealth kills. I usually take the following route:
- Silent strike, concentration (for hunting skins), lure call (starting skills)
- Critical strike
- Critical strike 2 (enough to kill shocked scrappers in 1 critical strike + 1 heavy strike)
- Gatherer
- Scavenger
- Disarm traps
- Silent drop (prevents accidentally alerting enemies while stealthing)
- Heavy lifter
- Double arrow
- Shard salvager
- Expert carver
- Strike from above (this is weirdly needed in the abandoned village for clean stealth kills)
- Hunter instinct (important for cannister kills on snapmaws, longlegs, & scrappers)
- Low profile (needed for stealth in sundom because grass is hard to find)
- Dodge prowess (helps vs bigger enemies)
- Concentrate II (helps make combo shots at fight start more reliable)
- Triple arrow
- Ammo crafter
- Scavenger +
- Strike from below
- Leader strike (makes Banuk bandit camp easier)
- Tinker
- Silent running
- Combat override
- Healer
- Herbalist
Use resistance potions:
All the time. About to fight some tramplers, bellowbacks, or longlegs? Fire potion. Stealth killing in a corrupted zone? Antitode. Glinthawks and snapmaws? Freeze potion. No death runs are all about insurance, and these potions are super cheap to make. Stormbirds barely hurt you with a potion and 2 shock resist MODs in armour.
Keep an eye out for supply crates
MOD sequencing is quite important
Put a shock MOD, even a green one, into your green tripcaster. This will make certain that it stuns scrappers, watchers, grazers, and striders in one hit, and sawtooths in 2 hits. All other green MODs should be sold.
Put any rare and ultra-rare fire MODs you come across into your starting Carja hunting bow. With a rare and very-rare fire MOD you can ignite a glinthawk with 2 single-shot arrows. That is sufficient, and then you don't need to swap MODs in your shadow bow, you just swap bows. When you get a shadow bow, stick damage MODs into it, but...
Prioritise damage MODs for your shadow tripcaster first. Blast wires are the main way to kill enemies in ultra-hard - safe, high damage, not so resource intensive because blaze is abundant on all the grazers you farm. By the time you get a shadow tripcaster, you will rarely be fighting enemies that are susceptible to shock wires anyway and can just kill scrappers and charging enemies with blast wires.
When you first get the sharpshot bow, you would ideally like to put 2 rare+ damage MODs or one rare+ damage and one rare+ handling MOD in it. This will allow you to use it as a sniper rifle for bandit camps and to kill things in the second half of the sacred land. However, you typically have to prioritise damage MODs into your tripcaster and handling MODs into your warbow. You only need a single rare damage MOD in the sharpshot to snipe elite bandits in the Hollow Fort camp (the one in the snow region north of the ring of metal), so get that in there when you finish Revenge of the Nora but otherwise don't stress. Around about when you start fighting ravagers back in the Sundom, I use tinker to swap out for tear MODs and deal death with my hunter bow instead.
The warbow gets handling MODs until it has at least 2 rare upgrades. It is too inaccurate otherwise for hunting longlegs and scrappers.
It is a nice bonus to throw a handling MOD into your ropecaster but it isn't strictly necessary. Hunter reflexes makes tying things down pretty easy even in a scrap.
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