Which Valor Surge is your favorite (or least favorite)?? Let me know! 👇 Thanks again to HonestCake for the assist breaking these down. Be sure to check out his channel: www.youtube.com/@honest_cake 🗣 Other videos mentioned in this Video 🗣 😡 How to Harness Berserk: ua-cam.com/video/xxOXdX08h3M/v-deo.html 😈 The Ultimate Guide to Plasma: ua-cam.com/video/LjKJK3Xq9BE/v-deo.html
Tier SS: The Valor Surge you actually activate and is not just stititng there, in case you "MIGHT" need it. Go to allrounder is Defy Death, that things boost Damage on so many things, including Traps, Melee, the Elemental Spear Damage AND can critically hit, unlike Stealth Stalker. The Cleanse effect at the end can be nice and the guranteed Second Chance (unlike with the coils) can prevent a reload, though it ends it early. Oh and you can heal with berries while it´s active, it wlll just not exceed the critical health range. S Tier for everyone using low health. Chainburst, nothing said, vs group, just King. For Melee...Melee Might.... one of the most important feature was omitted, knocking down heavy machine with Powerstrike. For Stealth...Defy Death, same damage bonus, can crit, last a long time and i know how stealth works. Some notes: Hunter´s Mark works like Powershot, sadly you can´t use a Hbow during it´s duration if you wanna keep it.. Also extra Damage on component revoable. Powershot can really tune up Boltblasters and Spikes besides preventing critical hits, you can easily mae a build with the Relentless Boltblaster to take out every Machine on VH within itßs 5 Shots,. It works with Drillspike and makes ADv. Explosive Spikes usuable due no ammo cost. Critical Boost is on of the others, which help with Tear Damage, due Crits also increasing Tear damage + the extra Crit Damage, other is Part Breaker (and Hutner´s Mark 30% crit chance also helps). Enough for now, Defy Death B Tier...what an atrocitiy...
😅 I'm a huge fan of playing in Low Health! By far one of the most powerful ways to play the game. I just think that you can basically get the same affect as Defy Death through weaves and armor skills and then you can use the Valor Surge for something else like RM. Good points on the other ones for sure. Definitely missed that about Melee Might. And yeah, powershots is becoming one of my favorites. works awesome with a boltblaster. I haven't used it with a spike thrower yet, but yeah that sounds like an awesome combination
@@chazmatazzgames No you can´t, or only in a very narrow area, like the first sustained burst, which does not push you over the LHR limit, because the whole burst count as 1 attack for healing.. So now we have Stealth Stalker (can´t crit) Part Breaker (duration to short, only weakspots), and Critical Boost (somewhat Hunters Mark / Powershot). Second Chance is also secondary..and with Outfit/weaves the max chance is only 66% while the VS provides 100% (sadly there are no benefical sideeffects to stack both *sad face* ) , so no, you can´t get it from "outfit and weaves". And the Cleanse effect at the end is free, just a nice bonus, this you can get for a cost, of using a cleanse potions. So B Tier is evil ;-) Rereading, just to make sure, you are aware the 50% bonus damage is not the same as the low health ranged damage bonus? First it applies to more stuff, and you keep the old bonus, which is also in a diffferent multiplier ("passive skills") while the Valor Surges usually follow in the "active" skill part? So it´s "Base Damage x Passive (x1,8 LHR) x Active (x1,5 DefyDeath) x Crit Dmg x Weakspot x Brittle"
I find Overshield to be useful when in the sort of fights that require Aloy to perform specific actions or hit targets other than her enemy. It gives me more ability to risk taking damage in order to get off a shot that sometimes is hard to time or line up exactly. There are at least two of these in Burning Shores that I won’t spoil.
Powershot is my main, with my sniper stealth playstyle it never feels like i am wasting it, the timing on other range Valor Surges are too short when you’re spending most of the fights evading,running and re-positioning by the time it ends you’re only able to land a few shot, that alone makes it at least A tier but for me is S since it helps with sniping
I’ve used it quite a bit since making this video.. I’d definitely put it up at A-tier now. I never knew what I was missing by not using it before. It’s a really great option
I feel like override overdrive should’ve been a projectile valor surge tbh. So you shoot an arrow or throw a bomb or something that overrides a machine, and that machine is affected by the override rather than the valor surge killing your mounts. I honestly wish it worked because the machine master play style is so cool on paper, but so unfun in game. Hope it gets some reworks next game
@@dontetank09You have roughly 25 items on hand that can refill health or other valor surges that also refill health. Want elemental resistance? Armor and coils. Theres no reason to waste a VS slot to get something you can get anywhere else.
Warriors Vigor is really strong. Warrior bows are quick firing and you get impressive critical damage often. Use rain of spark to procc burning and coil with burning damage +
I think warrior’s vigor is underrated here… I use the rain of sparks warrior bow and stack a lot of crit hit coils on it and let me tell you. This valor activated plus that’s weapon will melt just about anything. Far faster than any other weapon. It’s my all round favourite weapon to keep that sustain pressure on enemies too…. I mean ranged master is nice and all but I believe this one is more of an early to mid game type of valor surge. Once your start getting weapons like Iriv’s Downfall it’s already super powerful on its own without the surge. Where as warriors vigor in my eyes is basically that high dmg dealer plus health regen. If you play your cards right you get that same invincible feeling as you do with over shield. (And I like it even more because the face paint is much better than the others in my opinion 🤣🤣🤣)
Great tierlist by the way, I almost completely agree with all of this. Defy death in B seems a bit harsh and imo stealth stalker is pretty weak (as much as I love it) but great video nonetheless 👍
Have people realized you can pair powershot with weapon techniques that allow you to stack 2-3 arrows into one shot? It only counts as a single charge of power shot. Super powerful especially cuz all 10-15 of those arrows are for free
My two favorite valor surges have been the overshield and stealth stalker. I used to use overshield a bit more, but I’ve practically stuck to using stealth stalker only. When this game first came out, i thought i was going to use the trip caster a lot more due to how good it was in Zero Dawn, but was woefully disappointed with traps in Forbidden West due to the limitation on how many can be placed. Trip caster mines were my initial placement before engaging a fight in case the robot was stronger than I realized. Now, i just shoot and move, as needed. Rarely, if ever, does the spear come out.
I'm also not a fan of the spear. I hardly ever use it. I think it's more of a "last resort" if I'm really in a bind and don't have the right weapons equipped. I think though that the tripcaster gets more powerful later in the game. I didn't use it much either originally, but once you get to the Burning Shores, and get more legendary tripcasters, they become pretty useful again. Stealth Stalker is a good overall valor surge though. Definitely useful if you like more of that trapper/stealth playstyle!
What’s your opinion about melee combat in an anticipated H3 release? Should the spear still have some relevance in combat the way ranged weapons are, or should it be relegated to ONLY critical and silent strikes?
I’m not a huge fan of the melee combat in HFW so I’m definitely hoping they make some big improvements in H3. I’m sure they will. But also Horizon just isn’t same combat style as something like God of War or Ghosts of Tsushima. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t drastically different than it is now. So I think it’ll be relevant and improved in H3, but I still think ranged combat will be the primary combat style. That said, I’d love it if they added a shield/parry option
Honestly, i was GENUINELY surprised that there wasn’t ANYTHING like that when HFW came out! The only way to defend yourself is to DODGE!? What happened to this 5th generation of humans that the “5 D’s of dodgeball” were favored over blocking!? Clearly in the melee pits, people are using wooden shields, or clashing weapons to avoid an attack! The melee system needs a SIGNIFICANT overhaul for the next game, to be sure. Nothing for that kind of combat ever really felt right, until silent and critical strikes happened.
I think Critical Boost and Chainburst are my favorites. Like to use shredders alot and the surges arent always very tailored for them, but chainburst works really well. While critical boost isnt perfect i think its the most decent for a shredder against individual machines. Has good duration and relatively cheap and also boosts tear. And something that is not stated in the game but happens pretty consistently with CriticalBoost is that it causes knockdowns on enemies, even on shots that arent against the legs and with weapons that otherwise have weak or no KD power (e.g elemental shredders). Also great on my crit-coiled sharpshot and boltblaster, great damage for the high flexibility. Part-breaker is fun on a hunter bow. would be perfect on a shredder if it wasnt for the short duration that disfavors a bit since the cycling takes more time than being quick with a bow. Ranged Master is S-tier for sure, but has a major downside for me since i mostly play on Low Health and the healing from hits works against it.
Radial burst ended up being my go to just because it doesnt have the risk of activating it and getting tossed around by machines for a chunk of the duration of the valor surge. It is underwhelming though... Never messed with the defensive ones, might have to give one of those a try.
17:45 So about that My main damage dealing weapon in my ng+ loadout is carjas bane A warrior bow Using the spread shot weapon technique on brittle enemies Depletes health bars really fast Edit: doesnt mean warriors vigor is good Warrior bows have 2x critical damage So critical boost is definetly a better option (Unless you happen to have 5 elite crit chance coils)
Healing isn't "impactful" and you can heal in an abundance of different ways, health herbs, literal small and large healing potions and other valor surges that heal as well as giving some offensive edge. You want elemental resistances or defense thats what armor and coils are for. You don't need an entire valor surge to just heal. If you can't manage your healing items or aren't great at dodging sure this would be helpful for VERY NEW game but outside that you shouldn't be needing this to get you out of situations
Personally I disagree with the radial blast surge, to me its supposed to be used to get out of a pinch by disrupting machines and humans, providing you a whole node to get into cover, I normally hit with a shock arrow or two then activate the surge, which stuns them and give a chance to get back into stealth, but this is as a last resort, if you run out of stealth bombs
What does the valor surge do that normal healing items dont and armor/coils? You can hold countless healing items if you're getting hit enough to burn through them all theres another issue at play here. Want health? Other valor surges heal too and there's what, like 25 oh so consumables you can stack to heal, want elemental resistance? Armor and coils, having decent of both should counter any ONE element you may be struggling with but its rare to go against 3-4 different elements in one encounter so you really only need one main resistance. Get comfy with dodging and you won't need it
Thanks for the vid. I enjoy sneaking into rebel camps, hiding near large groups of rebels then using radial blast to take them all out at once :) Despite over 300 hours of Forbidden West I've still not used some of the other valour surges!
I'm pretty much the same way.. I have my couple favorites and tend to stick with those ones. This video definitely helped me branch out a bit. And I need to test that with radial blast! i can see that being a pretty effective way to clear out a camp for sure.
I started my first playthrough on ultra-hard and I gotta say, toughened was the only valor surge I used up till level 40 or so, since most of the time I just ignored it but against some bigger machines I had to use it not to be one shot. Now later I have been using Elemental fury against some big machines, part breaker every now and then just to pick some loot from machines I don't feel like fighting all the way to the end (thunderjaw tails for example) and stealth stalker to clear bandit outposts just by killing the leader. I've mostly learned to play the game without weapon techniques cos damage to Aloy reduces her stamina as well (I absolutely hate that) and for so long valor did build up so slowly I only used surges when I absolutely had to in order to win a fight. Most of my issues regarding my survivability came down to the fact that I always rolled away from the attack, but the hitbox still decided that nope FK you, you die anyway. Took me a long time to learn that the game is designed in a way that you have to use i-frames from rolling to avoid damage, which is another thing I really hate...When a thunderjaw swings it's tail at me, the correct thing to do is roll, engage the 6th dimension warpdrive and go throught the tail and come back alive, while on the wrong way is to have 10 feet distance from me to the tail, and the air current from the swing is enough to kill me instantly. This has led to a lot of frustration when the game punishes me, who's not mechanically a great player but I know how to position myself away from enemies attacks.. Early on I had countless deaths when scroungers jumped at me, landed behind me, channeled their inner mantis shrimp to snap their jaws together and I guess Aloys eardrums ruptured or something.
I'm on my first playthrough of Forbidden West on my PC. I'm using Keyboard and Mouse on normal difficulty, and I have yet to use anything but invisibility surge - occasionally on purpose, but mainly by accident. The tutorial on how to switch between surges and how to use the individual special attacks is horribly lacking for me. This has given me a big "Meh" feeling towards their inclusion in the game. I am not a twitch gamer, and these extra features seem to be built for those kinds of players. I don't want to be the artful dodger. I want to tank up to the baddies, shrug off most of their attacks, and put them down. Or sneak up to them and silent kill them one, by one. Something that was much easier to do with the control interface in Zero Dawn. I'm having to unlearn commands that should have been cut and pasted to Forbidden West because of the unnecessary tweaking to crowbar in additional "features" to the user interface. Just yesterday I finished off an APEX Bilegut by shooting it at long range, waiting for it to lose interest in me, and repeating as long as necessary. I've played all the way through Forbidden West and have completed all the side quests I've found in Burning Shores (BS), making it to just before the final BS boss battle without using surges 99% of the time (not even on the Forbidden West final boss battle). This just seems to prove to me that they were an unnecessary addition to the game. Why the developers had to throw everything they came up with during an ill-advised manager-induced whiteboard session into this game is beyond me. No, I don't want to play this game on my gamepad because my mouse has more precision. Even though precise shots feel to me like they were nerfed between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. Plus, the new monsters are much more twitchy.
You can also fight forever if you learn your dodges. You have small, medium, and large health potions, all stackable, and over a dozen healing herbs. How much healing do you require exactly 🧐 not to mention other valor surges that either heal or negate the need to even heal to begin with.
I remember seeing this video and decided to watch it after I finished my NG+ Ultra Hard playthrough. I just finished it not too long before watching and I have my own opinions about the Valor Surges. I really didn't need them. I rarely used them because I was constantly using the best weapons and armor in the game which was usually enough. I don't have the Burning Shores DLC so I can't say anything about that (sucks it's ps5 exclusive), however just using Sun Scourge with fost coils to freeze even the biggest machines in 3-5 hits then following up with Brawlbreaker loaded with impact coils using Sustained Fire could easily take down a Slaughterspine and Specter Prime. As for melee just using Oseram Artificer with Critical Strike +2 and Melee Damage +2 coils could wipe away massive groups of humans with ease. I'm not saying the surges are useless, but to me they became obsolete once I got better at the game. It's nice seeing others experianced opinions on them, and I appreciated seeing what you thought about them. Edit: More of an update, but I finally got a PS5 and the first thing I did was get Horizon on there and get the DLC, and at the time of wrighting this yet again I completed it on NG+ Ultra Hard, and got all the trophies to top it off. Again, just having good ammo management and making sure to use the right weapon for the right job did the trick, and the only time I used a valor surge was at the end when I used up every bit of healing in the final fight and needed just a bit more edge, which Defy Death paid off. Just like before, using valor surges aren't a necesity for casually playing, but they can help in tough spots. DLC was great tho, enjoyed every bit of it.
Interesting in a discussion on the tiers of valor surges do you straight up basically say dont use em ☠ its great if YOU didn't use em but weighing in on which ones are actually useful.. would have been more useful as a comment. Not asking people to challenge run the game by not using any because "you dont have to" There's few cases where you're forced to use a bow you can sit through the entire game and melee everything technically too. Doesnt mean we say go ahead and dont use ranged weapons cus you dont need em 😂 can you get through the game without a VS? Yes. Is that the point of the video? No.
“Warriors aren’t typically best used for pure damage” I’m sorry, I must disagree. I’ve taken out Apex machines, all the boss level machines mind you, with just warrior bows (on ultra hard). They can be a damage dealing behemoth with the right coils and techniques.
you're totally right. a crit build in particular with a warrior bow can be really powerful. But Warrior Bows are probably my least used weapon type.. I need to play around with them a lot more.
@@chazmatazzgames And they’re so cheap. I guess the big caveat is that you need the purple to legendary level warrior bows and coils to really see how insanely strong they can be. Meaning that you need to take them to their extremes to make them more reliable as high damage weapons.
@@svoidsofinfinitechaos9367So the original point of them "not typically being the best for pure damage" would be spot on considering you need to take these weapons to their utmost peak in order for them to shine brighter than other weapons. Just because they're good doesn't mean its faster, better, or easier to attain or setup. Why would I take my warrior to the max level when I can get the same or better results with another ranged option and save the resources from maxing it out earlier on. It only being useful near the end of its upgrade path is why it is where it is
If you're new to the game, going with Stalker is always the best choice. You can avoid so many fights and complete the mission when you're still weak (complete missions tend to give you a lot more exp than killing individual machines anyway). This game is designed so that you will have to fight machines no matter what, so having Stalker mode on allows you to get past so many machine ambushes. All other Valor Surge deals damage so they're only noticeably useful when maxed out. With Stalker, you can see the effect right away. With smoke to temporarily confuse them if the fight becomes too tough, quickly go cloaking, and find a nearby bush to hide in right after will reset the fight. You can then stealth kill additional enemies once again.
Wtf, critical boost B tier? If you put 3 coils 15% critical hit chance combined with this valor, you simply get all critical hits, for me it's the best.
Which Valor Surge is your favorite (or least favorite)?? Let me know! 👇
Thanks again to HonestCake for the assist breaking these down. Be sure to check out his channel: www.youtube.com/@honest_cake
🗣 Other videos mentioned in this Video 🗣
😡 How to Harness Berserk: ua-cam.com/video/xxOXdX08h3M/v-deo.html
😈 The Ultimate Guide to Plasma: ua-cam.com/video/LjKJK3Xq9BE/v-deo.html
It was awesome to be a part of this, thanks for having me on! All hail Chain Burst 🙇♂️🏹
Tier SS: The Valor Surge you actually activate and is not just stititng there, in case you "MIGHT" need it.
Go to allrounder is Defy Death, that things boost Damage on so many things, including Traps, Melee, the Elemental Spear Damage AND can critically hit, unlike Stealth Stalker. The Cleanse effect at the end can be nice and the guranteed Second Chance (unlike with the coils) can prevent a reload, though it ends it early. Oh and you can heal with berries while it´s active, it wlll just not exceed the critical health range. S Tier for everyone using low health.
Chainburst, nothing said, vs group, just King.
For Melee...Melee Might.... one of the most important feature was omitted, knocking down heavy machine with Powerstrike.
For Stealth...Defy Death, same damage bonus, can crit, last a long time and i know how stealth works.
Some notes: Hunter´s Mark works like Powershot, sadly you can´t use a Hbow during it´s duration if you wanna keep it.. Also extra Damage on component revoable.
Powershot can really tune up Boltblasters and Spikes besides preventing critical hits, you can easily mae a build with the Relentless Boltblaster to take out every Machine on VH within itßs 5 Shots,. It works with Drillspike and makes ADv. Explosive Spikes usuable due no ammo cost.
Critical Boost is on of the others, which help with Tear Damage, due Crits also increasing Tear damage + the extra Crit Damage, other is Part Breaker (and Hutner´s Mark 30% crit chance also helps).
Enough for now, Defy Death B Tier...what an atrocitiy...
😅 I'm a huge fan of playing in Low Health! By far one of the most powerful ways to play the game. I just think that you can basically get the same affect as Defy Death through weaves and armor skills and then you can use the Valor Surge for something else like RM.
Good points on the other ones for sure. Definitely missed that about Melee Might. And yeah, powershots is becoming one of my favorites. works awesome with a boltblaster. I haven't used it with a spike thrower yet, but yeah that sounds like an awesome combination
@@chazmatazzgames No you can´t, or only in a very narrow area, like the first sustained burst, which does not push you over the LHR limit, because the whole burst count as 1 attack for healing.. So now we have Stealth Stalker (can´t crit) Part Breaker (duration to short, only weakspots), and Critical Boost (somewhat Hunters Mark / Powershot).
Second Chance is also secondary..and with Outfit/weaves the max chance is only 66% while the VS provides 100% (sadly there are no benefical sideeffects to stack both *sad face* ) , so no, you can´t get it from "outfit and weaves".
And the Cleanse effect at the end is free, just a nice bonus, this you can get for a cost, of using a cleanse potions.
So B Tier is evil ;-)
Rereading, just to make sure, you are aware the 50% bonus damage is not the same as the low health ranged damage bonus? First it applies to more stuff, and you keep the old bonus, which is also in a diffferent multiplier ("passive skills") while the Valor Surges usually follow in the "active" skill part? So it´s "Base Damage x Passive (x1,8 LHR) x Active (x1,5 DefyDeath) x Crit Dmg x Weakspot x Brittle"
I just got this game a few months ago. Your videos are very helpful.
that's awesome! glad you're enjoying the content and hope you're enjoying the game! it's such a great game
I find Overshield to be useful when in the sort of fights that require Aloy to perform specific actions or hit targets other than her enemy. It gives me more ability to risk taking damage in order to get off a shot that sometimes is hard to time or line up exactly. There are at least two of these in Burning Shores that I won’t spoil.
Super good point! I can definitely think of some times (especially in the BS) where that would’ve been useful
Haven't watched the whole vid yet, but had to say that your thumbnail game is great 👌🏾
My favorite VS so far(about 50% through) is toughened
thanks so much! thumbnails are probably the hardest part about youtube, so i really appreciate that! 😅
Powershot is my main, with my sniper stealth playstyle it never feels like i am wasting it, the timing on other range Valor Surges are too short when you’re spending most of the fights evading,running and re-positioning by the time it ends you’re only able to land a few shot, that alone makes it at least A tier but for me is S since it helps with sniping
I’ve used it quite a bit since making this video.. I’d definitely put it up at A-tier now. I never knew what I was missing by not using it before. It’s a really great option
I feel like override overdrive should’ve been a projectile valor surge tbh. So you shoot an arrow or throw a bomb or something that overrides a machine, and that machine is affected by the override rather than the valor surge killing your mounts. I honestly wish it worked because the machine master play style is so cool on paper, but so unfun in game. Hope it gets some reworks next game
I'd disagree on toughen I'd put in the B tier at least
I need to know more! What do you like about it??
@chazmatazzgames it usually at getting out of sticky situations, and I that it refills health every 2 seconds
@@dontetank09You have roughly 25 items on hand that can refill health or other valor surges that also refill health. Want elemental resistance? Armor and coils. Theres no reason to waste a VS slot to get something you can get anywhere else.
Solid work guys 👌🏼 keep the tier lists coming!
Thanks Ahtano!
Warriors Vigor is really strong. Warrior bows are quick firing and you get impressive critical damage often. Use rain of spark to procc burning and coil with burning damage +
This is one I really need to play around with more. I can definitely see where that could be a pretty powerful combo
I think warrior’s vigor is underrated here… I use the rain of sparks warrior bow and stack a lot of crit hit coils on it and let me tell you. This valor activated plus that’s weapon will melt just about anything. Far faster than any other weapon. It’s my all round favourite weapon to keep that sustain pressure on enemies too….
I mean ranged master is nice and all but I believe this one is more of an early to mid game type of valor surge. Once your start getting weapons like Iriv’s Downfall it’s already super powerful on its own without the surge. Where as warriors vigor in my eyes is basically that high dmg dealer plus health regen. If you play your cards right you get that same invincible feeling as you do with over shield. (And I like it even more because the face paint is much better than the others in my opinion 🤣🤣🤣)
Great tierlist by the way, I almost completely agree with all of this. Defy death in B seems a bit harsh and imo stealth stalker is pretty weak (as much as I love it) but great video nonetheless 👍
Hah, out of all of the rankings, Defy Death at a B is the one I've gotten pushback about the most! Maybe I should rethink it!
Have people realized you can pair powershot with weapon techniques that allow you to stack 2-3 arrows into one shot? It only counts as a single charge of power shot. Super powerful especially cuz all 10-15 of those arrows are for free
radial blast is an S tier in early game just reset your skill tree if it falls off
My two favorite valor surges have been the overshield and stealth stalker. I used to use overshield a bit more, but I’ve practically stuck to using stealth stalker only.
When this game first came out, i thought i was going to use the trip caster a lot more due to how good it was in Zero Dawn, but was woefully disappointed with traps in Forbidden West due to the limitation on how many can be placed. Trip caster mines were my initial placement before engaging a fight in case the robot was stronger than I realized. Now, i just shoot and move, as needed. Rarely, if ever, does the spear come out.
I'm also not a fan of the spear. I hardly ever use it. I think it's more of a "last resort" if I'm really in a bind and don't have the right weapons equipped. I think though that the tripcaster gets more powerful later in the game. I didn't use it much either originally, but once you get to the Burning Shores, and get more legendary tripcasters, they become pretty useful again. Stealth Stalker is a good overall valor surge though. Definitely useful if you like more of that trapper/stealth playstyle!
What’s your opinion about melee combat in an anticipated H3 release? Should the spear still have some relevance in combat the way ranged weapons are, or should it be relegated to ONLY critical and silent strikes?
I’m not a huge fan of the melee combat in HFW so I’m definitely hoping they make some big improvements in H3. I’m sure they will. But also Horizon just isn’t same combat style as something like God of War or Ghosts of Tsushima. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t drastically different than it is now. So I think it’ll be relevant and improved in H3, but I still think ranged combat will be the primary combat style. That said, I’d love it if they added a shield/parry option
Honestly, i was GENUINELY surprised that there wasn’t ANYTHING like that when HFW came out! The only way to defend yourself is to DODGE!? What happened to this 5th generation of humans that the “5 D’s of dodgeball” were favored over blocking!? Clearly in the melee pits, people are using wooden shields, or clashing weapons to avoid an attack!
The melee system needs a SIGNIFICANT overhaul for the next game, to be sure. Nothing for that kind of combat ever really felt right, until silent and critical strikes happened.
Critical Boost with Sharpshot bows is S tier.
I think Critical Boost and Chainburst are my favorites. Like to use shredders alot and the surges arent always very tailored for them, but chainburst works really well. While critical boost isnt perfect i think its the most decent for a shredder against individual machines. Has good duration and relatively cheap and also boosts tear. And something that is not stated in the game but happens pretty consistently with CriticalBoost is that it causes knockdowns on enemies, even on shots that arent against the legs and with weapons that otherwise have weak or no KD power (e.g elemental shredders). Also great on my crit-coiled sharpshot and boltblaster, great damage for the high flexibility.
Part-breaker is fun on a hunter bow. would be perfect on a shredder if it wasnt for the short duration that disfavors a bit since the cycling takes more time than being quick with a bow.
Ranged Master is S-tier for sure, but has a major downside for me since i mostly play on Low Health and the healing from hits works against it.
Radial burst ended up being my go to just because it doesnt have the risk of activating it and getting tossed around by machines for a chunk of the duration of the valor surge. It is underwhelming though... Never messed with the defensive ones, might have to give one of those a try.
17:45
So about that
My main damage dealing weapon in my ng+ loadout is carjas bane
A warrior bow
Using the spread shot weapon technique on brittle enemies
Depletes health bars really fast
Edit: doesnt mean warriors vigor is good
Warrior bows have 2x critical damage
So critical boost is definetly a better option
(Unless you happen to have 5 elite crit chance coils)
My #1 is toughened. Super impactful and versatile.
Healing isn't "impactful" and you can heal in an abundance of different ways, health herbs, literal small and large healing potions and other valor surges that heal as well as giving some offensive edge. You want elemental resistances or defense thats what armor and coils are for. You don't need an entire valor surge to just heal. If you can't manage your healing items or aren't great at dodging sure this would be helpful for VERY NEW game but outside that you shouldn't be needing this to get you out of situations
Personally I disagree with the radial blast surge, to me its supposed to be used to get out of a pinch by disrupting machines and humans, providing you a whole node to get into cover, I normally hit with a shock arrow or two then activate the surge, which stuns them and give a chance to get back into stealth, but this is as a last resort, if you run out of stealth bombs
Defy Death + 2x Elite Low Health Ranged weaves makes Ultra Hard cakewalk.
Does anyone else agree that Part Breaker is the definitive surge for Part hunting?
I’m gonna disagree with toughened, personally, this valor surge has saved my ass loads of times and I think it deserves a higher ranking.
What does the valor surge do that normal healing items dont and armor/coils? You can hold countless healing items if you're getting hit enough to burn through them all theres another issue at play here. Want health? Other valor surges heal too and there's what, like 25 oh so consumables you can stack to heal, want elemental resistance? Armor and coils, having decent of both should counter any ONE element you may be struggling with but its rare to go against 3-4 different elements in one encounter so you really only need one main resistance. Get comfy with dodging and you won't need it
Thanks for the vid. I enjoy sneaking into rebel camps, hiding near large groups of rebels then using radial blast to take them all out at once :)
Despite over 300 hours of Forbidden West I've still not used some of the other valour surges!
I'm pretty much the same way.. I have my couple favorites and tend to stick with those ones. This video definitely helped me branch out a bit. And I need to test that with radial blast! i can see that being a pretty effective way to clear out a camp for sure.
17:48 those whiffs 😅
🤣 warrior bows aren't my specialty
@@chazmatazzgames i had to turn on motion controls for Ultra Hard. Decrease the vertical sens and is better than no aim assist.
I really like the one that makes you invisible sorta I can get into the rebel camps or out post without getting seens
Then I could throw a rock and silent strike them
I started my first playthrough on ultra-hard and I gotta say, toughened was the only valor surge I used up till level 40 or so, since most of the time I just ignored it but against some bigger machines I had to use it not to be one shot. Now later I have been using Elemental fury against some big machines, part breaker every now and then just to pick some loot from machines I don't feel like fighting all the way to the end (thunderjaw tails for example) and stealth stalker to clear bandit outposts just by killing the leader.
I've mostly learned to play the game without weapon techniques cos damage to Aloy reduces her stamina as well (I absolutely hate that) and for so long valor did build up so slowly I only used surges when I absolutely had to in order to win a fight.
Most of my issues regarding my survivability came down to the fact that I always rolled away from the attack, but the hitbox still decided that nope FK you, you die anyway. Took me a long time to learn that the game is designed in a way that you have to use i-frames from rolling to avoid damage, which is another thing I really hate...When a thunderjaw swings it's tail at me, the correct thing to do is roll, engage the 6th dimension warpdrive and go throught the tail and come back alive, while on the wrong way is to have 10 feet distance from me to the tail, and the air current from the swing is enough to kill me instantly. This has led to a lot of frustration when the game punishes me, who's not mechanically a great player but I know how to position myself away from enemies attacks.. Early on I had countless deaths when scroungers jumped at me, landed behind me, channeled their inner mantis shrimp to snap their jaws together and I guess Aloys eardrums ruptured or something.
I'm on my first playthrough of Forbidden West on my PC. I'm using Keyboard and Mouse on normal difficulty, and I have yet to use anything but invisibility surge - occasionally on purpose, but mainly by accident. The tutorial on how to switch between surges and how to use the individual special attacks is horribly lacking for me. This has given me a big "Meh" feeling towards their inclusion in the game.
I am not a twitch gamer, and these extra features seem to be built for those kinds of players. I don't want to be the artful dodger. I want to tank up to the baddies, shrug off most of their attacks, and put them down. Or sneak up to them and silent kill them one, by one. Something that was much easier to do with the control interface in Zero Dawn. I'm having to unlearn commands that should have been cut and pasted to Forbidden West because of the unnecessary tweaking to crowbar in additional "features" to the user interface.
Just yesterday I finished off an APEX Bilegut by shooting it at long range, waiting for it to lose interest in me, and repeating as long as necessary.
I've played all the way through Forbidden West and have completed all the side quests I've found in Burning Shores (BS), making it to just before the final BS boss battle without using surges 99% of the time (not even on the Forbidden West final boss battle). This just seems to prove to me that they were an unnecessary addition to the game.
Why the developers had to throw everything they came up with during an ill-advised manager-induced whiteboard session into this game is beyond me.
No, I don't want to play this game on my gamepad because my mouse has more precision. Even though precise shots feel to me like they were nerfed between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. Plus, the new monsters are much more twitchy.
Toughened is the best of all, with Toughened you can fight for ever
You can also fight forever if you learn your dodges. You have small, medium, and large health potions, all stackable, and over a dozen healing herbs. How much healing do you require exactly 🧐 not to mention other valor surges that either heal or negate the need to even heal to begin with.
I remember seeing this video and decided to watch it after I finished my NG+ Ultra Hard playthrough. I just finished it not too long before watching and I have my own opinions about the Valor Surges. I really didn't need them. I rarely used them because I was constantly using the best weapons and armor in the game which was usually enough. I don't have the Burning Shores DLC so I can't say anything about that (sucks it's ps5 exclusive), however just using Sun Scourge with fost coils to freeze even the biggest machines in 3-5 hits then following up with Brawlbreaker loaded with impact coils using Sustained Fire could easily take down a Slaughterspine and Specter Prime. As for melee just using Oseram Artificer with Critical Strike +2 and Melee Damage +2 coils could wipe away massive groups of humans with ease. I'm not saying the surges are useless, but to me they became obsolete once I got better at the game. It's nice seeing others experianced opinions on them, and I appreciated seeing what you thought about them.
Edit: More of an update, but I finally got a PS5 and the first thing I did was get Horizon on there and get the DLC, and at the time of wrighting this yet again I completed it on NG+ Ultra Hard, and got all the trophies to top it off. Again, just having good ammo management and making sure to use the right weapon for the right job did the trick, and the only time I used a valor surge was at the end when I used up every bit of healing in the final fight and needed just a bit more edge, which Defy Death paid off. Just like before, using valor surges aren't a necesity for casually playing, but they can help in tough spots. DLC was great tho, enjoyed every bit of it.
Interesting in a discussion on the tiers of valor surges do you straight up basically say dont use em ☠ its great if YOU didn't use em but weighing in on which ones are actually useful.. would have been more useful as a comment. Not asking people to challenge run the game by not using any because "you dont have to" There's few cases where you're forced to use a bow you can sit through the entire game and melee everything technically too. Doesnt mean we say go ahead and dont use ranged weapons cus you dont need em 😂 can you get through the game without a VS? Yes. Is that the point of the video? No.
“Warriors aren’t typically best used for pure damage”
I’m sorry, I must disagree. I’ve taken out Apex machines, all the boss level machines mind you, with just warrior bows (on ultra hard). They can be a damage dealing behemoth with the right coils and techniques.
you're totally right. a crit build in particular with a warrior bow can be really powerful. But Warrior Bows are probably my least used weapon type.. I need to play around with them a lot more.
@@chazmatazzgames And they’re so cheap. I guess the big caveat is that you need the purple to legendary level warrior bows and coils to really see how insanely strong they can be. Meaning that you need to take them to their extremes to make them more reliable as high damage weapons.
@@svoidsofinfinitechaos9367So the original point of them "not typically being the best for pure damage" would be spot on considering you need to take these weapons to their utmost peak in order for them to shine brighter than other weapons. Just because they're good doesn't mean its faster, better, or easier to attain or setup. Why would I take my warrior to the max level when I can get the same or better results with another ranged option and save the resources from maxing it out earlier on. It only being useful near the end of its upgrade path is why it is where it is
If you're new to the game, going with Stalker is always the best choice. You can avoid so many fights and complete the mission when you're still weak (complete missions tend to give you a lot more exp than killing individual machines anyway). This game is designed so that you will have to fight machines no matter what, so having Stalker mode on allows you to get past so many machine ambushes.
All other Valor Surge deals damage so they're only noticeably useful when maxed out. With Stalker, you can see the effect right away. With smoke to temporarily confuse them if the fight becomes too tough, quickly go cloaking, and find a nearby bush to hide in right after will reset the fight. You can then stealth kill additional enemies once again.
Wtf, critical boost B tier?
If you put 3 coils 15% critical hit chance combined with this valor, you simply get all critical hits, for me it's the best.
maaan i want the dlc so badly but i play on ps4 😭 dont have a ps5
Valor surge suckes they are useless they should've keep it like zero dawn and bring all the weapons and coils from zero dawn to forbidden west