Frostclaw

The Frostclaw is a huge acquisition machine that circulates cryogenic fluids for its attacks and defensive capabilities. Despite its size, it is quick and deadly. Like its twin the Fireclaw, the Frostclaw is classed as an Acquisition Class machine despite its main purpose being combat. It is an extremely formidable combat-ready machine, capable of highly damaging Freeze-augmented ranged and melee attacks.

Utility

Like the grizzly bear, the Frostclaw is able to adopt both a quadrupedal and bipedal stance. In either stance, it employs several fast, relentless, and extremely damaging Freeze-based ranged attacks and Freeze-augmented melee attacks. While their capacity to sustain damage is substantially less than that of Fireclaws, it is still formidable. Despite their huge size, Frostclaws are quite fast and agile, able to run at high speed and easily spring up high embankments. Being Freeze-based machines, they are extremely resistant to attacks from weapons that utilize Freeze. Additionally, Daemonic Frostclaws also have all of the abilities of Daemonic Machines: considerably more durable armor and damage resistance, immunity to Corruption, and they cannot be overridden.
If given the opportunity, Frostclaws can rip off ropes attached to them by a Ropecaster if they haven't been fully tied down.
The Frostclaw can switch between quadrupedal and bipedal stances, each with different sets of unique melee and ranged attacks. The Quadrupedal stance is the default posture when roaming around undisturbed, affording greater agility and traversal options to jump up small cliffs and leap over gaps to chase Aloy across the environment. During combat, it will typically adopt this four-legged posture when far away, and make use of the improved mobility to close the distance. Most of its attacks while in this stance are melee-focused, repositioning itself with quick tumble-dodges to keep up the pressure, but it can use a long-ranged terrestrial attack of tunneling Icicles that track a person's position across different elevations or behind cover and erupt directly beneath her feet.
In the Bipedal stance, the Frostclaw's mobility is severely limited but adds enough ranged attacks to compensate for this drawback. The Frostclaw tends to adopt this upright two-legged posture at close to mid-range, aggressively chaining together multiple claw slashes in a row and weaponizing the Freeze Unit on its torso to spew out streams of ice fragments. If Aloy retreats out of range of the Frostclaw's close-quarters attacks, it can scrape at the ground with its wrist-mounted grinders to lob frozen chunks of solidified dirt and rock in her direction or launch itself in the air and come crashing down back-first at a person's position to crush her under its massive weight.
Freeze Blades enhance the majority of the Frostclaw's melee-based attacks with extended range and additional Freeze damage per hit. These Blades are formed during the attack's start-up animation, and dissolve immediately once the move ends. Lingering Ice Patches are left behind and cover the ground whenever Freeze Blades are active, slowing down Aloy's movement and dealing residual Freeze damage when stepped on. Destroying the shoulder-mounted Freeze Sacs permanently disables the ability to generate Freeze Blades on the corresponding arm.
The Frostclaw can summon Icicles as part of certain attacks which generate a small explosion as they erupt from the ground. The Icicles are surrounded by icy mist which damages upon contact but dissipates after a short period of time, while the Icicles themselves remain standing indefinitely and impair movement until shattered by Aloy's attacks or the Frostclaw itself. Destroying the Frostclaw's Freeze Unit removes the ability to produce Icicles entirely.
After sustaining enough damage, the Frostclaw briefly encases its chassis in a protective ice coating and generates a freezing aura around itself which damages upon contact and negates severity build-up or currently applied status effects. This frenzied state is automatically triggered once the Frostclaw's total health reaches 70% of its maximum value and then again at 25%. Destroying the Freeze Unit permanently deactivates this special attack.

Complexity

Like the Fireclaw, the Frostclaw is somewhat ursine (bear-like) in appearance, movement, and locomotion. Its chassis resembles the body and has the gait of a grizzly bear. Presumably, HEPHAESTUS modeled the two huge machines after the long-extinct animal, which was native to the region during the time of the Old Ones. However, while they are extremely formidable and deadly, Frostclaws are not as large as Fireclaws, and have considerably less capacity to sustain damage. The head ends in a pointed, toothy snout with a three-mandible jaw housing a system of grinders. A pair of optical sensor arrays is located in the same position as a bear's eyes would be. Mounted on each forelimb are a pair of gear-like wheels. There is an armor-protected cryogeneration unit called a Freeze Unit on its chest, and two power cells are located on its upper back. Freeze Sacs, armored storage tanks containing Chillwater are built into its chassis, similar to Freeze Bellowbacks. However, while the Freeze Bellowback's tanks are prominently placed on its back and throat, the Frostclaw's Freeze Sacs are seamlessly built into its shoulders, are much more damage-resistant, and generally have more armor.
Like all Freeze-based machines, Frostclaws are particularly susceptible to attacks from weapons that utilize Fire. However, if a Burn state is inflicted on them, they are able to surround themselves with an icy aura that instantly dissipates it. Furthermore, though they are extremely resistant to Freeze, they can in fact be frozen by a sufficiently powerful Freeze explosion. This can be triggered by destroying their Freeze Sacs or their Freeze Units. Additionally, destroying the Freeze Sacs located on its shoulders weakens the claw slash attacks and disables the Frostclaw's ability to augment them with Freeze, and destroying the Freeze Unit located on its chest disables the ranged terrestrial attacks. Provided both its Freeze Sacs and Freeze Unit have been destroyed, a permanent frozen state will be inflicted on the Frostclaw. Their power cells can be overloaded via strikes from Shock Arrows, triggering an electrical explosion that stuns them. This is the only way to electrically stun a Daemonic Frostclaw, given its high innate resistance to Shock damage.

Discovery

Frostclaws were created by AI HEPHAESTUS at its R&D cauldron, Cauldron EPSILON, in The Cut. These machines were made superior to other machines in terms of armor and damage resistance, and are referred to as Daemonic machines.