Cross posting from the favorite machines thread:
I'm level 33 and really enjoying the game mostly for the visuals and the story, but I don't feel like the combat is very fair in the game once the shit hits the fan.
I feel like it requires you to do so much precision aiming to really excel at the combat and be a badass, but the systems just don't support that. Maybe I just suck, I don't know.
I find myself exploiting the terrain a lot of the time to just lob arrows at machines (usually catching them on fire first when possible and then spamming them with the hard-head arrows). Otherwise, some of the encounters just seem ridiculously unfair.
I'm most of the way through a hardcore run (very hard, only hunter/war bows and melee), and I can tell you combat is pretty fair. Yeah, it requires precision, it requires knowledge of the various weak points for the machines, constant movement and pretty good spatial awareness to be really, really good at the game. It pays off, though.
If you're not doing something insane like I am, the Ropecaster and Shock Bombs are very useful to disable the machines and give you a few instants to get a few good shots at weak points. Freeze Bombs can get them frozen pretty fast and massively improve your damage output. Savvy use of Concentration, having Concentration+ and Fast Reload will help immensely with hitting weak points - abuse Concentration, seriously. Also Triple Shot seems to hit a wider area, so it gives you a bit of leeway.
Plan your encounters. Observe from the bushes, know who you're going to take out first and why. Fliers are usually my priority targets because they get annoying really, really fast. If enemies are in tight formations, exploit exploding canisters. Laying traps isn't really my style, but I've seen it done to very good results, either with the Tripcaster or the consumable Traps.
