Horizon Forbidden West is a massive, beautiful game filled with dozens of hours of machine-hunting goodness. There are new characters to meet, new enemies to face, and new mysteries to unravel, and it's all wrapped up in some serious improvements to the franchise's action-RPG mechanics.
In the early areas of the game, Aloy can find and equip a number of different, Uncommon rarity armor sets that boost her defenses and enhance her skills. While each of these five sets has its own advantages and is designed to suit a particular style of play, some are a bit more useful than others. It can be worthwhile to know which set is best when taking on some of Horizon Forbidden West's tougher enemies.
5 Carja Blazon
The Carja Blazon armor is a useful, situational armor set. It is best utilized when facing down enemy machines that use either frost or shock damage. It sports both of these elemental defenses without sacrificing resistance in any other category, a feature which all Uncommon armors share. The Carja Blazon outfit can be found in the Rebel Camp: Eastern Lie, which is the first Rebel Camp players will encounter after entering the Forbidden West.
The Carja Blazon is a trapper-style outfit that boosts specific skills from the Trapper skill tree. When fully upgraded, it can boost the Trap Limit skill, which increases the number of deployable traps Aloy can have out at once. It also provides a boost to the Skilled Salvager perk, which increases the number and quality of recovered resources when disarming a trap.
4 Nora Huntress
The Nora Huntress outfit suits a stealthy approach to combat, boosting two skills from the Infiltrator skill: Silent Strike Heal and Low Profile. Silent Strike Heal recovers some of Aloy's health whenever she uses her Silent Strike spear attack, while Low Profile reduces Aloy's visibility when using stealth to make her way through enemy encampments.
Nora Huntress is a classic outfit for Aloy, but some of its defenses don't make much sense when paired with its perk buffs. It has high resistance for both melee and frost damage, but the Silent Strike boost encourages players to get in close to their enemies. The Nora Huntress armor can be acquired from the weapons merchant in Chainscrape after the player resolves the work stoppage in the village.
3 Nora Champion
The Nora Champion is the most challenging Uncommon armor to find, as it requires players to complete a significant side quest arc against the Bristlebacks. This arc starts in the Daunt and can only be completed after entering the Forbidden West proper, meaning that the Nora Champion will take quite some time to earn. The outfit shares aesthetic similarity with the Nora Anointed set, but offers very different benefits.
The Nora Champion armor is an Infiltrator class outfit that boosts melee and frost defenses, and also offers a small gain in impact resistance when fully upgraded. Its perk benefits are good, but aren't well-paired to its defensive offerings. It boosts the Stealth Ranged+ skill, which increases ranged damage while in stealth, as well as the Concentration+ perk, which gives Aloy more slow-down time when aiming a bow.
2 Oseram Explorer
The Oseram Explorer is a well-rounded outfit, as it provides ample defense for both melee and acid damage types. When fully upgraded, these defenses go up even higher, and it even picks up some slight impact resistance as well.
The perk benefits for the Oseram Explorer armor synergize well with one another and with the outfit's defenses to shape Aloy into a powerful, close-quarters combatant. The Oseram Explorer's boosts affect the Critical Strike and Power Attack perks, giving Aloy more damage-dealing opportunities that can be easily chained together. Like the Nora Huntress outfit above, the Oseram Explorer outfit can be picked up from the Chainscrape weapons merchant after dealing with the town's work stoppage.
1 Nora Anointed
As odd as it might seem, the best all-around Uncommon armor in Horizon Forbidden West is the starting armor. It boasts solid defensive stats against shock and acid damage, making it useful against early-game machines as well as some tougher enemies later on. It also gains small resistances in other areas once upgraded.
The skills it buffs are where the Nora Anointed set really makes a case for itself, as they're among the most useful in the game. Concentration Regeneration gets a sharp boost when this outfit is equipped, so much so that it feels like Aloy can slow down time almost incessantly when aiming her bow. Potent Medicine increases the effectiveness of medicinal berries, making it a vital skill at every level, and Nora Anointed gives it a very useful additional rank. What's more, since it's the starting armor, players don't have to jump through any hoops to get their hands on it.