First of all welcome to my Run/Tutorial
Second: take all that you read with a grain of salt, as it might be outdated
Third: Always try new stuff, it might be faster.
GLHF
Timing starts upon pressing Square to skip the Cutscene (called CS from now on).
Pick up the heal herb and heal right after.
Skipping pick up animations can be done by rolling into pick up range
and releasing the left stick during the roll (neutral position) and spamming Triangle as the roll ends.
This can be done for heal herbs, wood, stones and shot off machine parts.
Wait right here before the grass ends for Rost to catch up, otherwise he stops walking.
When the quest updates you can savely roll into the high grass, make sure to be crouched.
As soon as the watcher leaves the screen you can roll to the next patch of grass, dont stand up.
Watch the Watcher on the other side of the rock, as soon as he turns you can continue.
Same for this Watcher, as soon as he starts walking you can roll around the left side of the rock.
Wait in this grass patch for Rost again.
As soon as Rost starts "You did well" you can roll on and pick up the ridge wood.
Make sure to wait here for Rost, otherwise the CS wont start
Collect one Stone and wait next to the rock
When the Quest updates you can continue, collect 2 more Stones on your way up the path
Head towards the high grass to trigger the CS asap
Aim at or near Rost, to get the watcher to walk over. Wait until you see his feet at the top of your screen
Roll over to the right and wait for the Quest update.
Pick up 2 ridgewood trees then head to the downed Watcher
and loot it. Head on to the high grass. Hold down L1 to craft arrows asap.
Shoot the strider as soon as Rost starts saying "Here stay low in the grass" Dont crouch!
This skips Rost having to walk over to you
Now scan the strider and kill it after. Then loot its body.
Right after start rolling ahead of Rost. Dont worry you cant really leave the quest area.
Throw a rock to the left to distract the first watcher.
Observe the second watcher as he might flick his head around. Go if he clearly looks the other way.
Throw a rock to the far end to distract the third watcher. Camera might be fucked after this.
After talking to Teb you can just continue in a straight line to the Quest objective.
Here i split when i skip the CS
Pick up the ridge wood here and continue to do so whenever some gets in your roll path.
Now for Skills i pick up Concentration and Lure Call. If you prefer Hunter Reflexes over Concentration you can choose it instead.
In any category that goes past Daytower you can pick another Skill instead of saving a Skillpoint.
But here we run the risk of beeing short a skillpoint after the proving, since we kill less watchers.
Let go of the rope a bit early and roll to the right. Follow the path i take down the rock so you discover the campfire.
In any run where you want to get the shadow hunter bow (Daytower and beyond) you want to kill all watchers you meet.
Take this rock as orientation and roll to the left of it.
Sometimes you find a grazer corpse down here, giving you all the shards and blaze that you need.
If you got the grazer corpse you can directly go to Karst and skip the following part of the route.
Here i only kill the watcher to not have him follow me, in Any% you want to kill them all and try to get a heart.
Going up here you find a herd of grazers of which you can get the blaze and shards.
Make sure you dont get noticed too early
Now we can go to Karst, the way to him is a good time to craft the fire arrows befor you forget.
Talk to him and get the Tripcaster as well as the free sample box.
Open the free sample right after and travel to the Northern Embrace Gate.
Loot the Sawtooth for extra shards and materials
Then roll off to the left and drop down the cliffs, you wont take fall damage.
Here you can also do a little trick and aim before you land, which skips the "hard landing" animation
On Story or NG+ you dont need to use the Tripcaster, just wait for him to stop and shoot his blaze. Also you should loot the treasure chest before jumping down.
I split when i press Triangle to loot the corpse.
After the dialogue go to your inventory and open the reward box, it always contains 2 Fasttravel packs (FT packs) and 3 health potions.
FT to the bonfire you discovered at the start.
Roll down the cliffs and meet Rost in front of Mothers heart.
Dont roll at the end of the bridge segments, you get stuck there easily.
Go to Teb and get your new Outfit as well as a free sample box of him.
Praise Jarg
Stop by Karst, who has restocked on a free sample box
Take a shortcut over the cliffs.
Careful that you dont talk to Vala here
If you are a bit slower, thats not a problem you cant overtake the other provelings anyway.
If you are feeling brave you can roll on the fallen trees as well.
Same with jumping to the third hold here, dangerous but possible. The second is much safer.
Jumping down the cliffs instead of rappeling down saves about 7-8 seconds.
On story bodyshots are enough to kill them in one arrow, above story you need headshots.
Take your time with aiming. A missed shot takes more time than fully drawing your bow.
Dont mind me trying to headshot those guys, getting the deathbringer gun would have been much fast and i recommend it since those dont die with a bodyshot.
I split on pressing Triangle to loot all.
To fully heal you can use a health potion, we will get another soon.
Now we get rid of the stones in our hotbar and open all the free samples and resource bags that we might have gotten.
Ideally we want blast traps in the free samples, FT packs are guaranteed. Then craft up to 3 blast traps.
You can also get rid of your resistance potions here.
Wait right here before the blast door.
As soon as Teersa starts saying "The other High Matriarchs" you can continue.
Hey another cliff to go down. You can die here, so be careful.
Take a look at your wood here, i aim for 50+ at this point. If i am below i buy some at the merchant after the fight.
Watch how i set up the tripwire here.
Watch how i set up the wires here. I am trying to ensure the quick kill on the Corrupter, but it can still go wrong.
Now put all three Blast traps on this snowy spot.
If no strider breaks through to the blast traps they have a high chance to kill the corrupter instantly.
I split on pressing Triangle to loot all.
Free sample and wood if needed.
Now take all the skills up to Call Mount. After that you are free to choose whichever Skills you prefer.
Call your mount and FT to the main Embrace Gate.
Loot the Sawtooth corpse for a chance of good mods/Metalburn/shards/heart.
Now watch my Path and enjoy the view.
It can be quite different to keep the mount on path here for some reason.
Ideally there are no bandits here. Just bad luck on my part.
Stop by this Merchant.
First sell everthing you dont need, hearts, useless mods, tripcaster, metalburn.
Then buy the Warbow(green), Sharpshot bow(green) and get the free sample.
Of course you can buy/sell different stuff, thats just what i do.
Assign the mods after buying. I prefer DMG + Handling on the Hunter bow, and Handling on the other two. Personal Preference of course.
Take the loot, no need to talk to the girl.
Theres a faster way up to the DLC just to the left, past some Snow and Ice rocks there are ledges to climb up.
You dont get to hear the horn with the other path tho ;)
I split when the DLC title comes up on Screen.
Careful where you drop here, can be deadly.....
Best to land on a tent.
Cant skip that one line of Burgrend.
Call mount as soon as you can, not possible while Aloy talks.
We are now collecting the parts to repair the Tallneck. We do this now so we dont have to later, proving our worth to the tribe beforehand.
Sharpshot on one of their weakspots instakills them. Its always the same that has the part.
While you are here loot everything thats purple or blue, except bluegleam.
Skyrim up this hill, a lot faster than climbing the holds.
Now we can go repair the Tallneck. Watch for Fall Damage.
Kill all the scavengers around the Tallneck,
Scan the Tallneck,
add the parts that we collected
and activate it.
Now we still need to override it.
Now onwards to Naltuk.
Ignore him at first tho and focus on killing the Tower (Sharpshot bow!) and the machines around it.
Now we need to talk to him, kill your mount if its still shocked.
By killing the Tower first we saved some lines of dialogue.
Dont bother with Frozen Wilds free sample boxes, they are not guaranteing a FT pack.
After crossing the bridge you can call your mount again.
Just to get off of it here again. Mounts usually cant enter here but can glitch in sometimes.
Now watch the path.
Just drop down and run past them.
Dont die anywhere on this path or it will put you back to the start of the cave.
Loot!
Here you can just run past the Tower and the Frost claw.
Skyrim up on the left, much faster than taking the intended path.
No need to get the trigger at the door first, go directly to the puzzle.
I split on activating the puzzle
For these puzzles its best to make some drawn notes. Or just improvise them if you like.
Try to stay at the left of this climbing path, saves a handle at the top.
Stay on the pipe, then jump.
I split when activating the puzzle.
Again really recommend some kind of drawing for solving this.
Pick um the Stormslinger and take the back exit.
And now follows another opening and modding session.
Shock coils preferably go on the Stormslinger.
Now we ride to the hunting grounds to complete the second task for proving ourselfs.
Get off early to avoid the mount struggling.
I recommend doing the control trial, of course it doesnt really matter which one you do.
FT back to the first village.
Aratak has loading problems, talk to him nonetheless.
Another FT, closer to the challenge Area.
You can call a mount here but its 50/50 if it comes fast enough.
Take the path you think is fastest up the mountain, we havent done any testing.
you can use up the rest of you stormslinger ammo here or use whatever weapon you are comfortable with.
Big amount of resources here.
More resources.
This fight can be a pain, even on story. Take out the first Frostclaw as fast as possible.
I split on skipping this CS.
More Inventory management,drop unused equipment, open Boxes, put on mods, equip weapons, craft useful stuff.
Another FT. Craft FT packs if needed. You want to have 2 left after this FT. If you cant craft enough you can buy some soon.
Dont call your mount quite yet, it will have difficulty in this terrain.
For these towers you should get off your mount and kill them, otherwise your mount will throw you off.
Use the sharpshot bow for this, as it will oneshot the towers.
Here you can get additional FT packs if you have less than two.
I also recommend getting some chillwater if you want to freeze the fireclaw. Or whatever resources you need.
If you dont have a lot of shards you can buy some of the bluegleam boxes and sell their contents.
Make sure you have some shards left tho.
Get off the mount early, since this is a no mount zone again.
I split when the door lock starts turning.
Activate the holo, then you can loot he surroundings.
To kill the scorcher as fast as possible shoot its blaze canisters with fire arrows.
Now freeze the TJ and go ham on it.
Also loot it for possible Damage or handling mods, if needed. Look for a freeze coil if you dont have one already.
I split when the Cauldron door is fully overwritten.
Dont try to rush this. Only go if the electricity just ended.
You can get the jump on one of the cargo pods from here.
While you wait for the override, shoot the shellwalker that can come out on the other side.
Loot the crates here, the door opens slow enough.
There might be better paths through here, you can test it out.
Also try not dying by fall.
Now override the bridge and help your companions to follow you.
Here you can drop down.
Try to stand directly on the light here.
Then drop straight down on this branch thingy.
Careful to not fall into the lava.
Small skip here, run directly towards the wall, dont jump or roll. After getting close to the end, jump to reach the platform.
Check the purple loot around here for good coils.
You can drop down as soon as the second column expands again.
I split when i activate the puzzle.
Again some drawing might be helpful.
Sharpshot for the tower.
Now freeze the fireclaw.
Now for the first time we will use shock arrows.
I think its possible to kill the fireclaw without any tower popping up, but when towers become active, use the sharpshot again.
FT to Ourea's Retreat.
Short FT to save some seconds.
Time is once you talk to the hovering weapon/Aratak.
Thanks for watching and good luck if you want to try some runs.
