HFW Ultimate Arena Guide | Ultra Hard — Level 12: Tremortusk Tussle

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Before entering the Arena, open your hunter kit and craft five Elite Purgewater Traps. Then make sure you have your smoke bombs and ropecaster selected. If you want, you can tag the enemies to help you keep track of them. You may also want to tag the antenna on the Tremortusk (see the tip below).

Now you're ready to begin. I like to think of this fight in two parts: First, tie down the Tremortusk and kill the Clawstriders. Second, kill the Tremortusk.

Part 1: The first step is to get the Tremortusk tied down. You can slide to increase the draw speed on your ropecaster. Remember that you need at least a full draw for the ropes to stick to armor. You can also use the Penetrating Rope weapon technique to speed things up. I like to use smoke bombs and the structures in the Arena to keep the Clawstriders off my tail and to help avoid the annoying cannon shots from the Tremortusk.

Once the Tremortusk is immobilized, you can focus on the Clawstriders. Use the ropecaster to tie them down next to one another. Once the first Clawstrider is tied down, lure the second one toward it and then tie it down, too. This takes a little bit of practice, but it's not as hard as it sounds—Clawstriders like to get up close and personal. You can also use a smoke bomb to instantly freeze the Clawstrider in place next to its buddy.

Now that they are tied down next to one another, set two Elite Purgewater Traps in between them so that the trap explosion will hit both Clawstriders. You can set off the traps with any of your weapons or with an I-Frame Explosion. The traps alone should be enough to kill both machines. If they are still alive, use Drill Spikes or Shock Bolts to clean them up.

Part 2: At this point, it should be just you and a Tremortusk. Depending on how long it took to kill the Clawstriders, you may need to tie the Tremortusk down again. Remember to use smoke bombs to avoid the scarier attack animations and to prevent the Tremortusk from moving away from the rope anchor points and pulling them out of the ground.

With the Tremortusk tied down, place three Elite Purgewater Traps on the back side between the legs. Be very careful when setting these traps—the Tremortusk has a huge trap hitbox and traps often explode even when it doesn't look like they're touching anything. Then walk at least 20 or so steps away; you don't want to be hit by the explosion if the Tremortusk's belly blows up.

Activate your Powershots valor surge. Now use the Sustained Burst weapon technique with the Frost Bolts on the boltblaster to explode the traps and freeze the Tremortusk. (Note that this doesn't use any valor because Powershots doesn't work with weapon techniques.) It's important to shoot the traps directly rather than waiting for the Tremortusk to set them off—you want to leave the Tremortusk in the brittle state, not the drenched state. You may need to use a smoke bomb, reload your boltblaster, and shoot a couple more times to fully freeze the Tremortusk.

With the Tremortusk frozen, you should be able to throw 3-5 Powershot-boosted Drill Spikes into the machine's body. Aim for weakspots or for areas that are not covered with armor. Even though the brittle state means the armor will take full damage, the Drill Spikes will not continue to deal damage over time if they are attached to a piece of armor that falls off the machine's body. You can also aim for the legs in order to induce a knockdown. If the Tremortusk is still alive after you have used all your Powershots, the Splitting Spike weapon technique on your spike thrower should be enough to finish it off.

If the Tremortusk looks like it's going to call for backup, use any remaining smoke bombs to interrupt the animation (usually the stagger caused by the Drill Spikes is sufficient to prevent this from happening). If you do end up with Burrowers to contend with, spikes are still your best bet. Shredder ammo is also effective against them (and allows you to be a bit more mobile to avoid their attacks), but I know that weapon type isn't for everyone.

Tip: If you’re not confident about your ability to take the Tremortusk down quickly enough, you can remove the antenna from its back while it’s tied down. That will prevent it from calling in reinforcements. Tear Shredders or Drill Spikes are the best weapons for this task.