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"The lesson will be taught in due time, Aloy. Until then, we wait." This article contains heavy spoilers. Read ahead with caution.
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The Fireclaw is a heavyweight machine introduced in The Frozen Wilds, with one serving as the final boss encounter of the DLC's story missions. They are a returning machine in Horizon Forbidden West and Horizon Call of the Mountain. Like its twin machine the Frostclaw, this huge, ursine machine is a member of the Acquisition Class. However, their main purpose is as a hunter-killer unit for deployment against humans. It is an extremely formidable combat-ready machine, capable of highly damaging fire-augmented ranged and melee attacks.
History[]
Fireclaws were created by the AI HEPHAESTUS at Cauldron EPSILON, in the Banuk region known as The Cut. Given that the Frostclaw is similar in appearance and design, they may have served as an inspiration or prototype for Fireclaw design. Like the Thunderjaw and Sawtooth, they were designed as anti-human hunter-killer machines. Apparently satisfied with their capabilities and suitability for this purpose, HEPHAESTUS began preparations to mass-produce thousands of them. However, it was only able to produce and release a small number of them before EPSILON's destruction.
A Daemonic Fireclaw was used by HEPHAESTUS as the primary defense of the cauldron's core against an expedition that infiltrated the cauldron. The expedition, composed of the Nora huntress Aloy, the Banuk shaman Ourea, and the erstwhile Banuk chieftain Aratak, prompted HEPHAESTUS to deploy the Fireclaw when Aloy attempted to access the core. The machine proved extremely effective against the three expert hunters. In addition to its highly formidable combat abilities, HEPHAESTUS spontaneously generated Control Towers to repair any damage the Fireclaw sustained mid-battle. While the party ultimately prevailed against it, their incursion was too late to prevent HEPHAESTUS from releasing the aforementioned small number of Fireclaws from the Cauldron into The Cut. Due to the extreme danger that they posed to the region's residents, Aloy hunted and destroyed five of them, engaging two in tandem with Aratak. While Fireclaws are still present in the Cut, only one or two can now be found in the region, both at remote sites. This significantly reduces the threat they pose.
Despite the destruction, HEPHAESTUS was able to escape, and had saved the Fireclaw's blueprints. Within a few months, Fireclaws were now across the world, mainly inhabiting forest areas, like the bear it was based on.
Aloy and Talanah would find Amadis fighting a Fireclaw when they searched for him in the Forbidden West. After Aloy reclaimed POSEIDEN, she would search the remaining "bloodchoked" river left that tarnished Thornmarsh's waters, finding a rebel dam guarded by rebels with an overridden Fireclaw. The rebels also used an overriden Fireclaw to guard their outpost in Bonewhite Tear.
Appearance[]
Like the Frostclaw, the Fireclaw is ursine in appearance, movement, and locomotion. Its chassis resembles the body and has the gait of a short-faced bear. HEPHAESTUS modeled the Fireclaw and Frostclaw after the long-extinct animal, which was native to the region during the time of the Old Ones. The head ends in a pointed, toothy snout with a three-mandible jaw containing a system of rollers. A pair of optical sensor arrays is located in the same position as a bear's eyes would be. Mounted on each forelimb are a pair of gear-like wheels. There is an armor-protected fire generation unit, known as a Fire Unit, on its chest, and power cells are located on its lower back. Fire Sacs, armored storage tanks containing Blaze, are built into its chassis, similar to Fire Bellowbacks. However, while the Fire Bellowback's tanks are prominently placed on its back and throat, the Fireclaw's tanks are seamlessly built into its shoulders and are much more damage resistant.
At first glance, Fireclaws and Frostclaws are identical in appearance aside from their difference in color palette and elements, however Fireclaws are slightly larger than Frostclaws, standing several feet taller on their hind legs. In Horizon: Forbidden West, it is confirmed that Fireclaw's are classified as heavyweight machines, while Frostclaws are classified as midweight. The two machines also have different icons in the machine catalogue.
Behavior[]
Like most large machines, Fireclaws are solitary and almost never seen in groups. In Horizon Zero Dawn, they are only known to be found in The Cut; the region's geography prevents them from entering nearby territories, such as the Nora Sacred Lands to the south. However, they can be found around forest regions in Horizon Forbidden West, notably near Thornmarsh.
As previously stated, Fireclaws have a secondary purpose as acquisition machines, and are classified as such. They can be frequently seen mining soil for mineral resources at their respective sites, in the same manner as Tramplers. They also scavenge destroyed machines, like Scrappers or Glinthawks.
Abilities[]
Like the short-faced bear, the Fireclaw is able to adopt both a Quadrupedal and Bipedal stance. In either stance it employs fast, relentless and deadly fire-based range attacks and fire-augmented melee attacks. Its capacity to sustain damage is rivaled only by four other known machines. Its damage resistance is even greater than that of these machines, particularly against explosives.[2] Even if one of its flammable liquid tanks is punctured and explodes, the blast damage is minimal. Furthermore, Daemonic Fireclaws share the immunity of all Daemonic Machines to Corruption and Override, as well as a high resistance to Shock. If they are put into a Freeze state, they can melt themselves free by creating a cloud of fire around themselves, provided that their Fire Unit is intact. Additionally, they are quite agile in spite of their size, able to run and jump with surprising speed. If given the opportunity, they can also rip off ropes attached to them from the Ropecaster if they haven't been fully tied down.
Stances[]
The Fireclaw can switch between Quadrupedal and Bipedal stances, each with different sets of unique melee and ranged attacks. The Quadrupedal stance is the default posture when roaming around undisturbed, with enhanced agility and traversal options to spring up lower cliffs and leap over gaps to chase Aloy across the environment. During combat, it will typically adopt this four-legged posture when far away, and make use of the improved mobility to close the distance. Most of its attacks while in this stance are melee-focused, repositioning itself with quick tumble-dodges to keep up the pressure, but it can also use two long-ranged terrestrial attacks of small clustered lava-spewing geysers or a single volcano which shoots out burning rocks in a radius.
The Bipedal stance severely limits the Fireclaw's mobility but adds enough ranged attacks to compensate for this drawback. The Fireclaw tends to adopt this upright two-legged posture at close to mid-range, aggressively chaining together multiple claw slashes in a row and weaponizing the Fire Unit mounted on its torso to spew out streams of burning flames. If Aloy is out of reach from the Fireclaw's close-range attacks, it can scrape at the ground with its wrist-mounted grinders to lob molten chunks of solidified dirt and rock in her direction or launch itself in the air and come crashing down back-first at Aloy's position to crush her under its massive weight.
Rock Shield[]
Once its maximum health has dropped to the 60% mark or below, the Fireclaw gains the ability to tear out a large circular slab of rock from the ground as a makeshift shield against incoming projectiles or bludgeon weapon. It's still possible to damage exposed limbs and potentially induce a Stagger state that forces it to drop the rock. There are three follow-up attacks that the Fireclaw tends to perform while it's currently holding a Rock Shield at different ranges: an advancing charge to close the gap, a descending overhead slam at close-range, and a long-distance hurling throw. The rock deals Fire damage and generates lingering Fire Patches upon impact, which can be permanently disabled by destroying the Fireclaw's Fire Unit.
Fire Storm[]
After sustaining enough damage, the Fireclaw ignites its chassis and generates a fiery aura around itself which damages upon contact and negates severity buildup or currently applied status effects. This frenzied state is automatically triggered once the Fireclaw's total health reaches 70% of its maximum value and then again at 25%. Destroying the Fire Unit permanently deactivates this special attack.
Weaknesses[]
As a fire-based machine, Fireclaws are naturally susceptible to Freeze attacks. However, their damage resistance renders subsequent attacks in this state much less effective than on other machines, and their size makes inflicting a Freeze state on it a lengthy process; even high-powered Freeze weapons, such as the Icerail, take several seconds to do so. Destroying the Fire Sacs located on its shoulders disables the fire augmentation of melee attacks, and destroying the Fire Unit located on its chest disables the ranged terrestrial attacks, exploding and inflicting a temporary Burn state, but this state causes minimal damage and quickly dissipates. Provided both Fire Sacs and Fire Unit have been destroyed, a permanent Burn state will be inflicted on the Fireclaw, eventually killing it. However the machine's tough armor plating makes this difficult, and its high capacity to sustain damage endures a lengthy period of time elapses before it is destroyed.
The power cells located on its upper and lower back have little protective armor, and can be overloaded via Shock Arrows, triggering an electrical explosion that stuns the machine; indeed this is the only possible way to electrically stun a Daemonic Fireclaw.
Attacks[]
Horizon Zero Dawn[]
Quadruped Stance[]
| Name | Damage Type | Primary Damage | Secondary Damage | Trigger Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lava Burst | Melee | 135 | 65 Melee/ Fire (Lava Burst)50 Fire per second (Groundfire) |
15m - 50m | Enemy is engulfed by lava geysers |
| Volcanic Meteor Shower | Explosion | 135 | 135 Melee/Fire (Lava Jet) 65 Fire/Explosion (Rocks) 50 Fire per second (Fire Pool) |
15m - 50m | Enemy is hit by a shower of burning rocks |
| Back Slash | Melee Fire
|
200/100 | - | 3m - 11m (front) 4m - 8m (back) |
Defensive Fire-augmented back-handed claw slash |
| Fury Slash | Melee Fire
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225/125 | - | 4m - 25m | Up to 3 consecutive Fire-augmented claw slashes |
| Lunge Dive | Melee Fire
|
250/125 | - | 4m - 25m | Lunging pounce with Fire-augmented claw slash |
| Back Crush | Explosion | 50 per rock | - | 11m - 15m | Crushing back-first dive on enemy |
Biped Stance[]
| Name | Damage Type | Primary Damage | Secondary Damage | Trigger Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Storm | Fire
|
150 per second | - | 10m - 20m | Flamethrower blast from chest unit that tracks enemy |
| Flame Blast | Fire Melee |
180/135 | - | 0m - 10m | Explosive radial blast of flame from chassis |
| Grinder Scrape | Fire Melee |
110 each | - | 15m - 50m | Molten chunks of dirt and rock scraped off the ground at enemy |
| Claw Slash | Fire Melee |
175/125 | - | 1m - 20m (front) 4m - 14m (back) |
Up to 6 consecutive Fire-augmented claw slashes |
| Inferno Dive | Fire Melee |
175 each | 60 Melee 100 Fire per second (Fire Patches) |
14m - 34m (front) 10m - 23m (back) |
Lunging dive with explosion of vertical flames on landing |
| Rock Shield - Charge | Fire Melee |
135 each | - | 5m - 60m | Large shield of rock blocks enemy attacks |
| Rock Shield - Throw | Fire Melee |
180 each | 50 Fire per second (Fire Patches) | 15m - 50m | Rock shield thrown at enemy; ignores the Shield-Weaver shield |
| Rock Shield - Smash | Fire Melee |
200 each | 200 Fire/Explosion 25 Melee 100 Fire per second (Fire Patches) |
0m - 7m | Rock shield used as bludgeon; ignores the Shield-Weaver shield |
Both Stances[]
| Name | Damage Type | Primary Damage | Secondary Damage | Trigger Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inferno Slam | Fire Melee |
175 each | 60 Melee 100 Fire per second (Fire Patches) |
0m - 7m | Large, radial explosion of flames on hammering ground |
| Fire Storm | Fire
|
50 per second | 50 Fire per second (Fire Patches) | - | Desperation defensive attack (employed upon sustaining 70% damage); fiery aura around chassis damages enemy on contact; negates severity buildup or current status effects applied |
Horizon Forbidden West[]
| Name | Windup Time | Stance | Damage | Damage Area | Trigger Range | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lava Burst | Medium | Quadruped | 15m - 50m | |||
| Volcanic Meteor Shower | Long | Quadruped | 15m - 50m | |||
| Backhand Slash | Short | Quadruped | 3m - 11m (front)
4m - 8m (back) |
|||
| Lunging Dive | Short | Quadruped | 4m - 25m | |||
| Back Crush | Short | Quadruped | 11m - 15m | |||
| Fury Slash | Short | Quadruped | 4m - 25m | |||
| Fire Spray | Short | Biped | 10m - 30m | |||
| Flame Blast | Medium | Biped | 0m - 10m | |||
| Grinder Scrape | Short | Biped | 15m - 50m | |||
| Claw Slash | Short | Biped | 1m - 20m (front)
4m - 14m (back) |
|||
| Inferno Dive | Medium | Biped | 14m - 34m (front)
4m - 14m (back) |
|||
| Inferno Slam | Medium | All | 0m - 7m | |||
| Rock Shield Charge | Short | Biped | 5m - 60m | |||
| Rock Shield Throw | Long | Biped | 15m - 50m | |||
| Rock Shield Smash | Long | Biped | 0m - 15m |
Components[]
Horizon Zero Dawn[]
| Component: | Image: | Information: | Weakness: | Strength: |
| Body | 
|
Hard outer casing to protect synthetic muscle and operational systems. |  Freeze
|
None |
| Fire Sac | 
|
Destruction triggers a Fire explosion, inflicts a temporary Burn state and disables all Fire-augmented claw attacks | All | None |
| Fire Unit | 
|
Destruction triggers a Fire explosion, inflicts a permanent Burn state (once Fire Sacs have been destroyed) and disables all Fire-based attacks other than claws. | All | None |
| Power Cell | 
|
Sparker resource can be looted from this component. Shooting this component with Shock arrows triggers an explosion, electrifying anything in the area. |  Shock Tear
|
None |
Horizon Forbidden West[]
| Name | Variant | Image | Description | Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Body | All | Hard outer casing to protect synthetic muscle and operational systems. | None | |
| Blaze Sac | All | Blaze storage. Destroy to disable Fire attacks or leave intact to add loot to the carcass. |
| |
| Blaze Unit | All | Destroy this unit along with its Blaze Sacs to inflict a permanent Burning state and disable all Fire attacks besides its claws. |
| |
| Purgewater Canister | Standard | Purgewater storage. Tear off to collect this resource or shoot with a Purgewater Arrow to detonate. |
| |
| Chillwater Canister | Apex | Chillwater storage. Tear off to collect this resource or shoot with a Frost Arrow to detonate. |
| |
| Sparker | Standard | Shock storage. Tear off to collect this resource or shoot with a Shock Arrow to detonate. |
| |
| Glowblast Canister | Apex | Glowblast storage. Tear off to collect this resource or shoot with a Plasma Arrow to detonate. |
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Loot[]
Horizon Zero Dawn[]
Horizon Forbidden West[]
Body
- Metal Shards (100%)
- Blaze (100%)
- Braided Wire (76%)
- Fireclaw Circulator (69%)
- Large Machine Core (68%)
- Fireclaw Primary Nerve (64%)
- Volatile Sludge (51%)
- Machine Muscle (45%)
- Metal Bone (28%)
- Luminous Brainstem (28%)
- Crystal Braiding (27%)
- Sturdy Hardplate (15%)
Blaze Sac
- Blaze (100%)
Blaze Unit
- Blaze (100%)
- Volatile Sludge (100%)
- Fireclaw Sac Webbing (100%)
Purgewater Canister
- Purgewater (100%)
Sparker
- Sparker (100%)
Body
- Blaze (100%)
- Metal Shards (100%)
- Luminous Brainstem (100%)
- Apex Fireclaw Heart (100%)
- Braided Wire (76%)
- Fireclaw Circulator (70%)
- Large Machine Core (69%)
- Fireclaw Primary Nerve (63%)
- Volatile Sludge (50%)
- Piercing Spike (50%)
- Machine Muscle (45%)
- Crystal Braiding (28%)
- Metal Bone (28%)
- Sturdy Hardplate (15%)
Blaze Unit
- Blaze (100%)
- Volatile Sludge (100%)
- Fireclaw Sac Webbing (100%)
Blaze Sac
- Blaze (100%)
Chillwater Canister
- Chillwater (100%)
Glowblast Canister
- Glowblast (100%)
Variants[]
| Variant | Weak Vs. | Strong Vs. |
|---|---|---|
| Fireclaw | Frost
|
Fire
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| Apex Fireclaw | Frost
|
Fire
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Trivia[]
- Depending on the player's progress in the game, Aloy could technically be the first known member of the Hunters Lodge to take down a Fireclaw, which is arguably a more worthy game than Redmaw, the latest Sunhawk trophy. However, since the the Lodge's custom only allows Hawks to be promoted to Sunhawk, the feat would not be likely to affect her rank.
- Before the first encounter with a Fireclaw, HEPHAESTUS can be heard chanting a series of orders. This is HEPHAESTUS constructing the Fireclaws.[3]
- During The Frozen Wilds' development, Fireclaws were referred to as LavaBears.[4]
- Adding onto this, footage of an out-of-bounds developer testing area shows that another name for the Fireclaw was InfernoBear.[5]
- The Fireclaw is the only machine seen to date with red armor plating. The exact significance of this is unclear, though it may be as simple as it just being the default appearance of its upgraded armor.
- During combat, Fireclaws can sometimes be spotted running a 'paw' across their face, as if wiping away blood or mucus.
Bugs[]
- When playing The Forge of Winter on PlayStation 4 Pro, there is a glitch that can occur while fighting the Fireclaw. After the first Control Tower is destroyed, the Fireclaw may freeze in place; the player is still able to damage it, however.
- Overriding a Fireclaw and having it kill another one will not count as Aloy killing a Fireclaw, so you may actually need to kill more than 6 for the trophy "Killed 6 Fireclaws".
Gallery[]
Videos[]
References[]
- ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds Collector's Edition Guide, page 18
- ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds Collector's Edition Guide, page 80
- ↑ https://youtu.be/hEIwLzL9rHE?t=72
- ↑ Rocky Schouten - Cinematics Reel - Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds
- ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn - Developer's Testing Area Footage
| Machines | |
|---|---|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | |
| Acquisition Class | Broadhead - Charger - Fireclaw - Frostclaw - Glinthawk - Grazer - Lancehorn - Rockbreaker - Scrapper - Snapmaw - Strider - Trampler |
| Chariot Class | Corruptor - Deathbringer - Metal Devil |
| Combat Class | Ravager - Sawtooth - Scorcher - Stalker - Stormbird - Thunderjaw |
| Communication Class | Tallneck |
| Recon Class | Longleg - Watcher (Redeye Watcher) |
| Transport Class | Behemoth - Bellowback - Shell-Walker |
| Unknown Class | Control Tower |
| Horizon Forbidden West | |
| Acquisition Class | Bilegut - Bristleback - Clamberjaw - Fanghorn - Plowhorn - Scrounger - Spikesnout - Stingspawn - Sunwing - Tideripper - Waterwing - Widemaw |
| Combat Class | Clawstrider - Dreadwing - Grimhorn - Shellsnapper - Slaughterspine - Slitherfang - Specter - Specter Prime - Tremortusk |
| Recon Class | Burrower - Skydrifter |
| Transport Class | Leaplasher - Rollerback |
| Unknown Class | Defense Drone |