Horizon Forbidden West - Ultra Hard (New Game) - Apex Fireclaw (no legendary weapons or armor)

This is arguably the toughest enemy in the entire game. He's level 60, and the top right now is the Slaughterspine at 64, but many players still find the Fireclaw more difficult because of its close-ranged nature. Either way, this is definitely one of the toughest encounters in the game. I don't have a reason to kill him here, it's just to see if I could before unlocking the Arena or collecting any Legendary gear.

I did have to go and upgrade my Spinthorn Spike Thrower. This wasn't strictly necessary, but it's extremely helpful. The Drill Spikes keep doing damage after they land, and this adds up to a lot of Knockdown potential. When things are going perfectly, I freeze the Fireclaw, then land a bunch of Drill Spikes on him, then as Brittle wears off he gets knocked down allowing me to apply most of the next round of freezing.

The location I'm fighting him at here is crucial. If you go to the other edges of this battlefield, or try to fight at the other Fireclaw Site to the north, you'll pull in a bunch more machines, which is way too much trouble. In ideal circumstances some of those could be overridden to help you, but I wasn't willing to use Overrides for this.

You'll notice I do break his chest here and lose my Fireclaw Sac Webbing. That's frustrating, but too hard to avoid on top of the other difficulties of this fight. Breaking his chest seems to disable the lava fountain attack, so for me it's preferable. To get my Sac Webbings I'll work on farming normal Fireclaws, not the Apex variety.