February 23, 2022

During your time in Horizon Forbidden West, you’ll come across countless pieces of armor to adorn Aloy. Of course, some of these pieces and sets of armor are far superior to others. There are three legendary sets that stand out above the rest, giving Aloy some unique benefits. Even including them, there’s one armor set that towers over them all. 

The good news is that you can score some of these sets relatively early on in the game, making your entire adventure far easier. Here’s how to find the best sets of armor in Horizon Forbidden West.

Oseram Artificer Outfit: The Best Armor in Horizon Forbidden West

You’ll need to complete Salvage Contracts to earn the best armor set in Horizon Forbidden West.

The Oseram Artificer Outfit is by far the best armor in the game. It’s a Warrior armor that is designed to augment your spear’s resonator damage, but also offers stellar defense even if the warrior tree isn’t your vibe. Being the best armor in the game, you’ll need to grind a fair bit to obtain it, however. If you start early, you can treat obtaining the Oseram Artificer Outfit as a sort of prolonged side quest.

First, you’ll need to speak with the Oseram armorer Larend. You’ll meet him a short way down the path to the right out of Barren Light as you first start off in the Forbidden West, but before you hit No Man’s Land ruins. Larend is part of the Salvage Hunters, a group seeking out machine parts to build the ultimate armor. Larend will have salvage contracts for you to complete which require hunting specific machines for certain parts. 

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Once you complete Larend’s missions, you’ll need to visit three other Salvage hunters who also need help with salvage contracts. One will be located just north of the Scalding Spear Vista Point, another will be slightly northwest of the ruins of Las Vegas, and the third will be slightly to the west of the Valley of the Fallen on the western side of the map.

After you’ve completed all the Salvage Hunter quests, you’ll need to head back to Larend and talk to the leader of the Salvage Hunters, Keruf. He’ll tell you to combine the armor pieces, and boom — you officially have the Oseram Artificer Outfit.

While the Oseram Artificer Outfit is certainly the best armor in Horizon Forbidden West, there are still a few more worth checking out during your playthrough.

Most of the best armor sets demand you earn medals in the arena.

Nora Thunder Warrior Outfit

The Nora Thunder Warrior outfit is a Hunter armor set designed for ranged combat. It gives some hefty buffs to stamina regen, concentration, and concentration regeneration. On top of that, it helps reduce incoming ranged and melee damage. Acquiring this armor is a relatively simple task — with an emphasis on relatively. You can buy it from the Arena prize master for a sum of 54 arena medals. You can start earning arena medals after Main Quest 9: The Kulrut. You’ll need to talk with Kalla at Memorial Grove to get the side quest to open up the arena, but after that, you’ll just need to win a few rounds to score this set.

Tenakth Vanquisher

The Tenakth Vanquisher armor set is all about giving you perks when you’re down to get you back up. It offers buffs to Aloy’s valor, melee, and defense when she’s low on health, as well as a buff to evade. It has some decent protection, and is a Survivor armor set. 

A word of warning though — it has a substantial weakness to both fire and plasma, at -40 each. This can be scaled back to just -5 when upgraded to level 5. You can get the Tenakth Vanquisher set from the Arena Master as well, for the same price as the Nora Thunder Warrior Outfit: 54 medals.

Carja Stalker Elite

Lastly, there is the Carja Stalker Elite armor, which serves as Horizon Forbidden West’s ultimate Trapper outfit. The Carja Stalker Elite outfit increases your trap crafting speed, trap placing speed, and your trap limit by two. If you’re a fan of utilizing traps in the game, this one’s for you. 

At its base level, it has a -38 in both fire and acid resistance, so you’ll definitely want to upgrade it to negate these effects. The Carja Stalker Elite outfit is also sold by the Arena Master for, you guessed it, 54 medals.

Unless you’re a fiend for fashion, these are the armor sets you should be using.

Which Legendary Arena Armor Set Should I Use?

All three legendary arena armor sets have their perks, but if none stand out then we suggest you go with the Nora Thunder Warrior outfit. Its stamina regeneration can come in handy in a variety of situations, while the Tenakth Vanquisher only really shines when you’re more likely to be on death’s door. The Carja Stalker Elite is almost exclusively useful to trap-heavy players. Of course, once you’ve completed the Salvage Hunters quest, run with the Oseram Artificer Outfit.

Read More: Everything We Know About The Elden Ring Classes

Elden Ring will be upon us soon when the game launches, every Tarnished embarking on their journey will have an important decision to make: which class to play.

Nicolas Perez is a journalist who has played way too much Civilization 5. He’s rambling on Twitter @Nic_Perez_.