New to HZD - how do I kill the Sawtooth?

[wmgibsonfan]

OK, so it's really early in the game and Aloy has no serious weaponry. She's supposed to kill this machine called a Sawtooth. The scanner shows its weak point as the Blaze Canister that is situated under its belly. So far, so good.

From the voice-over, it seems that she is supposed to use her electrical trap thingy to stun it so it won't just stomp her into jelly as soon as it sees her (which it invariably does if she attacks it).Great - trap placed, Sawtooth walks into it, falls down. Now all I have to do is shoot it in the Blaze Canister, right?

WRONG! Every time, the thing collapses right on top of its Blaze Canister! None of her (let's face it) lame little arrows has any appreciable effect on other parts of it.

Question: How does Aloy kill the Sawtooth? If she doesn't use the trap, she will be relentlessly tracked and slammed. If she does, she can't hit the weak spot.

What's the trick here? What am I missing?

[zuntan2002]

Did not having to gather materials for and craft fire arrows give you a clue? Doing damage to a stunned machine quickly removes the stun so it will likely take more than one tripwire + being set on fire to finish off the sawtooth. Technically being on fire (or under the influence of any elemental state) doesn't take effect until the fire circle is filled (will take two or more arrows to accomplish, note: to add to the effect each additional elemental arrow has a six second window) at which point another fire arrow doesn't add to the effect. If that's not enough go to youtube and watch just about any part 1 walkthrough for HZD.

[wmgibsonfan]

Originally posted by zuntan2002:

Did not having to gather materials for and craft fire arrows give you a clue?

I did craft Fire Arrows, which are as useless as the standard ones against any part of the machine except its Blaze Canister.

Did you read the question? Or are you (not helpfully) hinting that there is some other target at which Aloy should be aiming with Fire Arrows?

[boxinabox]

Set up multiple traps before it spots you, then keep luring it into different ones. Hit it with the spear or arrows each time, and should eventually take it down.

[Roccondil]

The body is weak to fire, so if you can remove its armor your fire arrows will be more effective than standard arrows.

[NitroBucket]

That fire canister should already be exposed at an angle higher up slightly. If not, then its armor plate is protecting it. Shoot it off and it will be exposed. then RUN!

[zuntan2002]

Having followed this thread from the beginning got me interested so I have been pondering the various ways the one could go about skinning this Sawtooth. As it turned out my Aloy was currently saved at the nearby campfire so it was easy to go and scout the battlefield. (Until this moment I had no idea this battlefield was so close to that campfire across the river from the Nora Hunting Grounds.)

Up to this point I had only considered how one might make use of the various weapons Aloy has available (shock traps, detonating blast traps and blast traps) and those available from Karst (rope caster, sling, Carja Sling, tripcaster, War Bow, Sharpshot Bow) in addition to her Carja Hunter Bow. But in any encounter my first choice is to look for a location to snipe the target from, so the first thing I did upon arriving at the battlefield was scout for sniper locations. As it turns out there is potential to use a strategy that makes it impossible for the Sawtooth to close to melee range. I identified four locations from which Aloy can snipe the Sawtooth with impunity as a Sawtooth doesn't have a ranged attack like a Scrapper.

1) When the cut scene ends in front of Aloy and to the right is a rock outcropping that can be readily scaled by first jumping on the boulder between it and the road.

2) Beyond that is another larger rock outcropping with climb points. Which turns out to be one of the locations one has to visit to complete the Quest "Insult to Injury."

3) On top on that outcropping is a slip wire that will take you to a shooting platform. It may be possible for the Sawtooth to "shake" Aloy off the platform, IDK. This is one of two Brave Trail locations one has to visit to complete "Insult to Injury."

4) Near the shooting platform is another rock outcropping that can be readily scaled. It's not entirely certain this location is as secure from melee attack by the Sawtooth as the other three.

It's a shame the quest is always at night as all these sniper locations are easily identified from one's position (when the cut scene ends) in daylight.

Wounded machines unable to close to melee range will run off till out of range of a Hunter Bow but will often still be in range of a Sharpshot Bow. Eventually they'll return but this will take a while. Using freeze bombs from either of the two slings available from Karst would speed the process by increasing the amount of damage done but considering how limited is the supply of chillwater for crafting the bombs at this point I'd chose not to use freeze bombs just to conserve crafting materials.

From any of these locations Aloy can snipe the Sawtooth to her heart's content with no risk of personal injury. That is assuming there isn't some quest specific prohibition that prevents reaching any one of the the sniper positions.

In the matter of the Sawtooth's Blaze container. Shooting it off would be nice, detonating it would be better. To actually hit the container one would have to be lucky or close enough to place an accurate shot, and being close means immobilizing the Sawtooth with either shock wires, shock arrows, shock traps, or a ropecaster. Even after the canister is hit by a fire arrow there is no guarantee that one will be enough to get it to burn long enough to detonate.

In the matter of detonating Blaze canisters. For some reason the canisters on Striders are hard to detonate. Often they burn and the fire goes out before doing enough damage to detonate the canister. This may be due to the way they are coded in the Sacred Lands as later one encounters a Hunting Grounds quest where it is easy. OTOH the Grazers one encounters after leaving the Embrace blow up real good.

I could go but this is enough ...

[Boboscus]

Go into a bush, place a trap in between you two, then shoot it, preferably into a weak spot, lure it into the trap, run to it then SHIFT+LMB to hit with a heavy attack, before it gets out of stun, run back to a different bush, repeat. This was very easy, even tho he can probably 1 shot you on higher difficulty.

[River Victor]

Fire arrows are good for only damage overtime and igniting Blaze Cannisters. You can't rely solely on one tool. Neither is enough to kill the Sawtooth alone. If you don't have easy angles to get to the cannisters, and you're not good at aiming (like using controller instead of mouse), then you can just ignore the fire arrows in this case. Do also note that the game encourages you to get Shock Tripwire, which is a major clue. Sawtooth is really easy to shock and stun, and it takes VERY long time to recover from stun.

The key of the fight is to be prepared. Set a lot of traps around you and lure it to you. Once it's shocked, (the blue lightning icon totally filled) you have a lot of time to hit it with the hardest attack, like 4-5 times and use the last possible hit you have left to hit it with a finisher. That will deal devastating damage and leave it almost dead. Once it starts recovering, you can spam fire arrows and fill the fire icon to ignite it. It will flail around and give you room to set up more trip wires.

Sawtooth is the first big enemy you're going to face. It's the first fight in which there's no single solution that works alone. You must use a combination of what you have. The rest of the game is going to be like this.

For instance, a Thunderjaw:

Tear off big weapons to keep yourself safe, tear off components to expose engines, tie it up for easy aim, shoot the engine for major boom.

OR

Tear off all big weapons and engine cover, tie it up for easy aim, shoot the coolant with ice arrows to get coolant blast to make it crispy, shoot the engine for major damage.

Etc.

There's no right way to approach the problem. This is why HZD is such a good game. You can play it anyway you want.

[-CASTRADOMIS-]

When all else fails, set up 10 tripwires in one spot. Whistle. Boom. Mission complete.

[wmgibsonfan]

I can see that my perspective on this game was way off. I've gotten stuck in a mindset that limits my perception of what I can or can't do. For instance, it never occurred to me to go scout out the terrain while it was still daylight while waiting for the quest to begin! The notion that I could spend some time scavenging shards and then trade them for crafting components didn't occur to me, either. I've never played a game that offered the player such latitude in terms of actions available during combat. This sure ain't Dark Souls - for which I am deeply grateful!

I haven't had much gaming experience, since I just got into it after I retired. I only spend a couple hours a day at the PC (if that) so I still have a lot to learn.

My sincere thanks to all who replied, especially zuntan2002 and River Victor. I now have a whole new way to look at HZD.

[✪ FOXY]

I also just started playing, what i did was i set the traps and when he was down, i just hit him with melee attacks

[Scolas]

I literally set up 3 shock traps along the straight away, stood at the end of the straight away firing fire arrows as it ran towards me. it shocked itself into a downed position 3 times and died to my fire arrows of death during the 3rd trap

[Zander117]

play on story mode then

[verboten999]

Originally posted by wmgibsonfan:

I can see that my perspective on this game was way off. I've gotten stuck in a mindset that limits my perception of what I can or can't do. For instance, it never occurred to me to go scout out the terrain while it was still daylight while waiting for the quest to begin! The notion that I could spend some time scavenging shards and then trade them for crafting components didn't occur to me, either. I've never played a game that offered the player such latitude in terms of actions available during combat. This sure ain't Dark Souls - for which I am deeply grateful!

I haven't had much gaming experience, since I just got into it after I retired. I only spend a couple hours a day at the PC (if that) so I still have a lot to learn.

My sincere thanks to all who replied, especially zuntan2002 and River Victor. I now have a whole new way to look at HZD.

I'm sorry I couldn't be of help due to the tardiness I was to seeing this thread. But I think there is no more I can add and the advice you have is great.

Great thing that you are enjoying this game and that it actually gives you something new and expand your view of it.

Hope you have a great time with it. Cheers :)

[Eye of Newt]

hooting it off would be nice, detonating it would be better.

I actually managed to ignite the blaze container on that Sawtooth, but it required me to be very close to its trail and have good timing. The resulting BLAM a few seconds later was absolutely worth it. :P