General Discussion

@Zenzic

Oh that sounds horrible, I'm so sorry for your pain... I did start playing the first game on an emulator and got up to the 3rd area I think. I don't remember if I fought Rathalos, only Rathian maybe. To think of fighting it in older games hurts my soul and I'd never wanna put myself through that pain...
The fact Rathalos' fight is considered better now scares me, thinking about just how much worse it was.

Also gonna say something super controversial in this thread as a whole for any eyes brave enough. I think I kind of like fighting Blackveil Vaal Hazak >-> With an Insect Glaive.
I never thought I'd say those words, that thing used to be my bane and I only fought it once with a longsword... Yet just 5 minutes ago I wrapped up my hunt with it for a 2nd time to double check and yeah, I do actually like fighting it with the Glaive. It feels like blasphemy to say I like the thing's battle but it's pretty easy to avoid the worst attacks by flinging yourself in the air and bouncing between its wings.
This fight ran me down to 10m because I failed to land the boulders on it and fainted because an attack hit me when I was way above its head, but the first fight with the Glaive only took 30-40m which surprised me. Didn't cart in the first one with it either.
With a Glaive it becomes a battle of stepping and springing across a minefield which is actually really exciting!

[quote name="Zenzic" date="2023-10-22 10:35:39" ] I cry a single tear every time I remember That One Rathalos hunt I had in Tri. Back then, you had to tag a monster with a paintball to be able see it on the map when it was in any load zone that you were not currently in, and that meant... you had to actually find the monster first before you could track it so you could... find it. (and the paint would wear off after some time, which means always at the worst moment.) [/quote] Man. This and the cool/hot drinks situation can really make an already stressful hunt into an absolute nightmare. At one point I think I could memorise the shadow/movement patterns of flying monsters in quite a few areas. And that narrow corridor in Verdant hills? Pain.

Thankfully, hunting Rathalos in general wasn't always like that, but I'll never forget how the mechanics of that fight/gen combined to make me suffer. XD

Rathalos being able to be just nonstop flying and out of reach for more than half the battle was just a poor design decision back then, but other than that, I found both Raths pretty fun to fight.

World did so many quality of life changes, it's hard to go back. Even simple things like being able to move while gathering is a huge change for the better.


Oh, is Vaal an unpopular fight? I love fighting both versions! Just slap a Miasma Charm III on and go ham. I find him to be the easiest elder because he really only has the one gimmick that's rendered null by a single charm.

Glaive is a great weapon! I main it, myself. It has a lot of utility and isn't too needy for specific decos/skills to get the best out of it.
I find that bouncing around between the wings (while your kinsect pokes at the face with ice) is a great way to go about Lunastra if you want to just totally avoid stepping in the blue fire pools she leaves everywhere.

Of course, with the Glaive you can just boop everything to death with just the kinsect alone, but that's some pretty extreme levels of cheese, so some might not find it fun. XD

@Zenzic (I hope you don't mind pings- I don't myself if you want to ping me anytime)

From what I'm aware Blackveil Vaal Hazak is a pretty hated fight because of that ability. For some reason I thought that nothing could give you immunity to Blackveil's miasma but I guess I must've read wrong or misinterpreted words. Either way I honestly prefer fighting it without the charm. That constant minefield is so fun to have to watch out for!

That's such a cheese but it feels like it'd take forever with my kinsect. Damage is its lowest output, speed its max. I love that thing getting me the monster essence I need at full speed. Zooming all over.

It's actually got me a couple final blows on Elder Dragons before, when I was trying to recall it. It'd fly through them and hit them instead which would slay them. Kill stealing bug </3

@QuetzalMuse
(Pings are absolutely fine!)

Ahh. Yeah, the effluvia can't do the "cut your HP max" thing when you're wearing the Miasma III charm, so it makes the fight much less stressful.
The effluvia minefield still damages you, and Vaal's flu beams are just as deadly.


Booping the monster with just the Kinsect is actually a pretty solid cheese strategy. Works on any monster in the game, too. XD
Definitely not faster than fighting a monster you've mastered combat against, but hilarious.

The kinsect alone can do some pretty decent constant damage - all you need is a Glaive that gives "Spirit & Strength Boost" (which makes your Kinsect do more raw and elemental damage with its boops), and a Kinsect that has been nurtured in an element that the monster you're fighting is weak to.

Get your extracts, then feed your bug any red coloured slinger ammo to power it up, and then aim at the monster's weakest point (best if that part is also softened) and manually boop the monster with your bug over and over.

I took down Alatreon this way, haha. (I soloed the entire game due to having no PSN sub, and some monsters just aren't solo friendly. Kinsect victory felt so delightfully vengeful.)

My favourite bug is Foliacath III Forz. I have a small army of them, one in each element to switch out between hunts.

@Zenzic

You can feed them slinger ammo?? I had no idea... All I knew was get essence! That's crazy, I should try it if not just 'cause feeding bug friend :]
Honestly I don't use the kinsect for fighting at all, it's too fun flinging around and whirlwind slashing everything.

I played fully solo too, through World and Rise, because I'm too nervous to bother with any strangers in game. I also capture monsters, never kill. I'd be upset if I did a hunt with someone else and they killed the monster. Personal thing of mine, refuse to kill any monsters that I can catch with a trap.
Haven't solo'd past Alatreon though, the mechanics for its judgement attack feel so frustrating to mitigate alone so I don't bother with it. Let alone thinking about Fatalis' fight of all things.
I play for fashion when it comes to armor, I'd hate having to optimize and wear the strongest stuff just because it gets me past a monster. I'd rather fight Fatalis with my mismatched fashion hunter gear 20 times over out of nothing but spite until I win, than switch into the strongest armor imaginable.

I use the Foliacath too! Except the Medis version because I prefer healing over damage since I don't bother using it to fight. I love getting those cheeky heals from monsters during fights. Especially good if I'm in a super tough spot with no time to potion, can just fling the kinsect at the tail and get a quick heal.
The little healing clouds it makes are also really great since I love to use that high power downstrike attack a lot. With my weapon choice (maxed out glavenus glaive) it does a solid 111-105 damage which is soooo nice.

@QuetzalMuse

Yeah! Grab some ammo, draw your weapon,
Playstation: Hold L2, then press Triangle and Circle at the same time
Xbox: Hold LT, then press Y and B at the same time

... to give your bug friend a power-up snack!
(No idea what the PC controls are, unfortunately.)
It was added in the Iceborne update!

I do feel bad killing Dodogama, so it's my least hunted monster. X'D but I don't really have any reservations about killing them in general... Ever since coming across the horrible implications in the older games about what they do with the captured monsters... e_e;

So I like to pretend that they respawn just like the hunters do. (When we run out of faints, we just respawn back at base perfectly okay, even if Deviljho was last seen munching on our KO'd body. I figure the monsters and endemics must enjoy the same game rules. This is why we can hunt that one Zorah Magdaros/Kulve Taroth/Xeno'jiva repeatedly! This is why we never run out of monsters despite massive overhunting and why when you accidentally poke an endemic creature it just eventually respawns again in the same spot every time.)


One great thing that was added with Iceborne was the ability to play for both fashion and stats at the same time!
Layered Armour!
Something I wish had been in Tri, because I always ended up with rainbow clown gear. XD

I'm in full Fatalis gear, but my hunter looks like she's wearing the capey commission top and girros pants.
Go make yourself the layered armour of your dreams, hunter!!

Noice!
My bugs all do blast. BOOM! 300 extra damage!

I've never used a heal Kinsect before, but I got to play online a little during the most recent free weekend for PS+, and one random match had someone using healsect and it was pretty helpful. Little green clouds of free healing all over the map! XD
My Glaive is kitted out with heal augments, so I heal while doing damage. The green clouds were nice top offs.

@Zenzic

I actually believe that in World/Iceborne all/most of the caught monsters are released back into the wild! This is implied early on where they say they catch monsters for study and nothing else since they're not attempting to throw the environment out of balance. Gear and things I only imagine being made by the parts you break and get a hold of during the fight, not killing the entire monster as a whole. That's what I think anyway. Like people irl who catch and release wild animals they want to study.
Rise is a different story, somewhat. Hard to say what happens to most there. Some are used for parts but I also like to think that my hunter refuses to let them kill what's unnecessary.

I use PC so I don't know if I can actually feed the kinsect if there's a specific control, a shame.

There's probably a lot of tiny things that can be done to augment my weapon or fix up my armor but I honestly can't be bothered. Not really here to play the game perfectly and if me being too confused by all the tiny details means I get a solid challenge out of the game? I'll take it!
I forgot layered armor exists but even then I make gear that never puts me in negative elemental resistances, necessary or not. I don't like seeing the lil' - in front of them. Hate having one set of matching gear that plunges a resistance into the negatives and I hate constantly swapping out armor too. I get by the game with one set alone, that gets upgraded at new ranks and fits my look until I can get layered armor.
At the point layered armor is a thing though, my armor is already tweaked to fit and all the decorations I like slotted in so I don't see a point in changing it all. Does me just fine.

I play the game stubbornly, I think. I did play through all of rise with the base headband, not upgraded once, just because it was the only thing that looked good but also spite. I loved fighting stuff in master rank with the starter headband while my friends kept telling me to change it >:D
Done something similar in my Glaive playthrough now too. Got to master rank but still have the high rank Radobaan helmet on because nothing else looks good (layered armor not unlocked). Beat Shara yesterday and didn't faint once! Not on Ruiner either. So fun... Self imposed challenge, even though Ruiner is a frustrating fight with that damn hitbox.

@QuetzalMuse

World's story is a bit contradictory in a few places, but I do like the research and ecology angle. We're also a hunter-gatherer society, so it makes sense that we still need to hunt things for survival, at least. A good balance between the usual "We found something new, go kill it!" and "Let's learn about the world and be careful not to disturb the natural balance."

In Tri, it was implied that Arena battles were supplied via captures...
Actually, now that I think about it, that same thing is kinda implied in World, too, because the only way to unlock a specific monster type in the Arena is to... capture one. e_e
But it also seems that the monster is carved up after capture due to all of the parts you get in your reward box (and capturing actually gives bonus monster parts for... reasons?). o_o;

I'm glad that the details are so open to interpretation, either way, because I too prefer to imagine that we're just studying and releasing captured monsters, and that the guild canonically doesn't allow overhunting. (I personally tend to think of all arena quests as non-canon, otherwise it makes me feel a bit icky.)


Ahh, PC. There's a specific combo of buttons to perform it, just like in the console versions. I just don't know about PC version's controls.
Maybe the "button display" thing that shows the available controls in the top corner of the screen would show it, if that's not already enabled?

Totally valid way to play the game!
We're all here to have fun, whatever that may look like for each of us.
I like to switch sets and use different weapons, so I have my layered armour to keep my preferred look no matter what I wear.

Self-imposed challenges are often my go-to when I'm replaying a well-loved game. XD
I haven't tried starting a new character in MHW, though, because I'm trying to complete as much as I can on my first character. It's slow, but I'm still having fun, so I'm still continuing on!

@Zenzic

I'm glad you're having fun :D That's always what matters. I've replayed before 100% completing the game just 'cause I love reliving progression in games and stuff. Wanted to try the glaive out as well.

I'd love to know what part is contradictory. I've been a fan of the game, but like only the monsters and the music. I've paid far less attention to the story aspect of any of them.

I actually never do arena quests for that reason. I don't touch them at all knowing you're more likely to kill the monsters. To me they simply don't exist. I think the reason why is because I really do genuinely feel bad killing creatures when they're merely existing. I even feel this way about the tiniest bugs irl. It makes me sad that you can't capture Elder Dragons for this reason too.
I'd imagine the only reason you get more materials for catching monsters is because of the fact that it's harder to do than straight up slaying monsters gameplay wise. You have to make traps, wear the monster down and follow it. Whereas if you slay one that's it. Beat it down, slay, win. You're rewarded for spending time getting more materials and buying trap tools and the like.
Canonically I don't see why killing a monster would give less than capturing one when both have the same surface area and materials, nothing's been destroyed beyond use more than the other.

Sometimes you just have to self impose off the bat. I think keeping the 1 defense headband for all of my Rise playthrough was good because low rank and half of high rank are such pushover fights. I know that's experience talking but still, they were so easy.
The first monster I fought I accidentally killed (and therefore hard quit the game to erase the timeline) because I got 0 indication that it was weak at all.