More Horizon Forbidden West talk v. Noob Gamer:
I picked up a shiny new, Very Rare, Glow Blast Sharp Shot Bow last night. It just so happened that I had enough upgrade mats to immediately bump it up to level four. So I sold my old reliable Slicing Sharp Shot Bow, went to the workbench, upgraded the new bow, and skipped out into the wilds to put it through its paces. Nearby was a herd of Fire Bristlebacks, so I crouched down in the grass from decent distance, smiled evilly, and grabbed the new bow for my favorite opening move from cover, Braced Shot...but Aloy simply loaded another arrow. What the hell? Why is she doing the Double Notch skill when I'm clearly pressing the combination of buttons for Braced Shot?
I sorted through all the information in the skill tree, the weapon descriptions, anything in the game I could find. Nothing. I did notice that
all of the special moves in the skill trees use the same button combination though (that should have been my first clue). Eventually, I actually went back to the vendor and bought back the Slicing Sharp Shot Bow, went back out to the herd, and blew them all up with the old bow. Mrs. P was quietly chuckling at the string of expletives leaking out of my mouth. I decided to put the game away for the evening and figure it out some other time.
So, this morning I did an internet search for my problem and found a Reddit post asking the same question I had. The first response was, "Uuuh, you have to use the D Pad to select what skill you want to use with that weapon. It always defaults to the left most option until you make a different selection." What? What is this magical formula? I fired up the game, hit the weapon wheel, selected the new bow, and sure enough, right there in the middle of the wheel are small emblems showing what skills are available to use with this bow. I pressed right on the D Pad and braced shot was ready to rock. Who new? I've only been playing the game for about 50 hours now.