How to get Clean Kills in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora closely follows and expands upon the Na’vi culture established in the films, which means that hunting isn’t quite as simple as aiming and releasing an arrow.

There are a few different systems and bonuses that will increase the quality of materials earned by hunting in this game, and the most important of those is earning the Clean Kill bonus. This guide will explain exactly what that bonus is and how you can consistently get Clean Kills while hunting in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora: Hunting bonuses, explained

Similarly to how ingredient gathering has two criteria that affect the quality of the acquired item (Pristine and Ideal Condition), hunting also has the Clean Kill and Merciful bonuses. If you meet one or both of these conditions when hunting, you have a much better chance of getting higher quality ingredients from the animal, which in turn translates to better food or gear from those resources. While you should always aim to get both bonuses when hunting, they don’t guarantee the highest quality of ingredients—the animal’s age and RNG both also contribute.

Of the two hunting bonuses, Merciful is the easiest to understand and obtain. To get the Merciful bonus, all you need to do is ensure that you kill an animal quickly after first harming it. Clean Kill isn’t too difficult either, but there’s an interesting catch that can make it feel more complex. At face value, it would be easy to assume that all you need to do is kill an animal in a single shot, but that isn’t the case. To get the Clean Kill hunting bonus, you must kill an animal in one single shot, but you must also hit an animal’s Weak Spot. Until you complete the Aranahe quest where So’lek teaches you how to hunt, this isn’t possible, as Weak Spots don’t appear on animals until after that point. Thankfully, this quest comes very early on in the game and is a main story quest that begins just after you first reach the Aranahe Home Tree. The quest where you learn about Weak Spots is called Eywa’s Blessing.

How to identify Weak Spots in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Once you’ve accompanied So’lek on his hunting voyage outside of the Aranahe Home Tree, Weak Spots become available on all animals. To identify a Weak Spot, all you must do is Inspect an animal using your Na’vi Senses. When you Inspect an animal with Na’vi Senses, Weak Spots will be highlighted in either red or yellow, depending on what the regular highlight color is (yellow for docile animals, red for predators). Usually, Weak Spots are around the neck area where animals have their strange air gill vent things (there’s probably a word for those).

If you hit a Weak Spot with any Na’vi weapon, it greatly increases the damage that the shot deals. However, simply hitting a Weak Spot isn’t enough to get the Clean Kill bonus—you must also kill the animal in a single shot. In summary, to get a Clean Kill, you must kill an animal in a single shot by hitting its Weak Spot.