softtack

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,650
I need some critique on my current loadout and advice on what I can do improve it please. I don't have many decorations yet so I'm still using Alpha armor.
20180828063035_1onek7.jpg
 
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.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,789
I need some critique on my current loadout and advice on what I can do improve it when I reach HR49. I don't have many decorations yet so I'm still using Alpha armor.

Crit draw is not that important on GS unless you go full-on classic build with maxed out Crit Draw and Focus. Handicraft is good, but with Leviathan's Fury you realistically don't really need more than 4 imo. Handicraft +3 can be enough as well, but that's if you're landing your true charge often enough to minimize sharpness loss from regular attacks -- not realistic for most players and MP sessions. Spec some more into Attack (4 minimum to get the affinity boost, e.g. from dober legs/chest (+2) and nergigante coil (+2)) and, even better, get Weakness Exploit 3 (e.g. from eyepatch (+2), teostra arms(+1/2), rath chest (+?)). Those are the essentials. In addition to that, you can add more situational stuff like earplugs, maximum might, focus, etc. Don't bother too much with elemental attack up; optimizing raw damage is better for GS.
 
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Deleted member 1594

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,762
So... tried Val Hazak last night. I learned the hardway that you NEED some Effluvia Resistance to survive that fight.

I only had a single miasma decoration so... the fight was very tricky but I managed to get him on my 2nd try. Good thing his attacks don't do the most damage.

Is he the easiest of the elder dragons? Which should I fight next out of the 2 remaining (from the special investigations)?
 

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,789
So... tried Val Hazak last night. I learned the hardway that you NEED some Effluvia Resistance to survive that fight.

I only had a single miasma decoration so... the fight was very tricky but I managed to get him on my 2nd try. Good thing his attacks don't do the most damage.

Is he the easiest of the elder dragons? Which should I fight next out of the 2 remaining (from the special investigations)?

Vaal is ok as long as you bring 10 nullberries, I think. Manageable anyway. No OHKO like Nergi at lower armor.

I think Kushala Daora is the easiest of the bunch. Flash bomb him when he's in the air (but not inside one of those gusts) and get a bunch of free hits. Repeat that a few times and he'll be limping away. The frame rate is the real enemy in this fight.

Bring those armor and attack up claws. You should also be able to upgrade them either now or soon. It adds up. Don't forget to upgrade your Palico's loadout too. And, most importantly perhaps, pet your Poogie.
 
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Pyros Eien

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,974
So... tried Val Hazak last night. I learned the hardway that you NEED some Effluvia Resistance to survive that fight.

I only had a single miasma decoration so... the fight was very tricky but I managed to get him on my 2nd try. Good thing his attacks don't do the most damage.

Is he the easiest of the elder dragons? Which should I fight next out of the 2 remaining (from the special investigations)?
The normal one you don't really need miasma, I had 0. Just have to wait for him to move out of his clouds. If you do get the debuff, use a nulberry, there's a ton in the areas where you fight him too so you can't really run out. It's pretty annoying having to wait outside the circles but it works well enough for the story kill. Kill him a couple of times and you can craft his pants, which have 2 effluvia resistance on it, then a single miasma jewel will do the trick, and if you don't have one you can craft his belt too. Iirc both use simple mats that you can get in only a few kills(no gem, no fang, I think). That's what I did before I got the jewels, hell I still use the boots on my vaal hazak hunt set because they have 2 effluvia AND 2 sockets on the beta, so you can get the 3 effluvia and still have 1 socket for attack or health or whatever, making it a really nice piece to fight him.

And yes he's the easiest imo. Once you have effluvia 3/3, you can more or less stand in the cloud if you have vitality mantle or health booster(both of which are some of the easier accessories you can get early on), and later once you augment your weapon if you do a health regen augment you can just sit there even without any of them even on tempered(higher damage). His moves otherwise are super slow and not that strong(other than the beam but this one you should see coming, and it's free damage time if you're not in front of him) and he stagger a lot, has a lot of weak spots and one of his "attacks" is fake death where he basically just falls down and does nothing for a few seconds, so more free damage.

You have to fight them all so order doesn't matter too much, just need some preparations for the other. Some tips:
Fire mantle is nice for Teostra, as is eating for resist so you have 20+ fire to be immune to burning(sadly not blast blight), and for Kushala just bring a lot of flash pods+flashbugs to make more cause he likes staying in the air for 1-2minutes straight sometimes.
 

Deleted member 1594

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,762
Thanks for the tips! Val Hazak really did seem kinda easy for all the reasons you said. Just a lot of standing around and letting me swing away. The first time I got too greedy though and my health depleted to nothing without me even realizing it. But he was like a punching bag. Kind of a strange fight after stuggling endlessly against Nergi (that damn dive move I can not fucking dodge for the life of me, so I just stack armor and pray).
 

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,789
Thanks for the tips! Val Hazak really did seem kinda easy for all the reasons you said. Just a lot of standing around and letting me swing away. The first time I got too greedy though and my health depleted to nothing without me even realizing it. But he was like a punching bag. Kind of a strange fight after stuggling endlessly against Nergi (that damn dive move I can not fucking dodge for the life of me, so I just stack armor and pray).

Running away (literally with your back turned) from the monster with your weapon sheathed and then pressing the roll button (A/cross/space) will make your character perform a dive. During this (long!) animation you are completely invulnerable, so the dive can't hurt you. Once you have that down, the Nergigante fight gets a lot easier.

You can also tell when he does his dive. It's when he has his spikes extended and they are all black. At that point, he will roar and do the dive. When you spot these tells, you know you need to back off and be ready to own invulnerable dive.

The only exception to this pattern is when you wake him up after he goes to his lair. He will always dive to break one of the walls. If he has black spikes at this point, he can even follow it up immediately with a second dive.
 
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Richardi

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,670
Vaal is ok as long as you bring 10 nullberries, I think. Manageable anyway. No OHKO like Nergi at lower armor.

I think Kushala Daora is the easiest of the bunch. Flash bomb him when he's in the air (but not inside one of those gusts) and get a bunch of free hits. Repeat that a few times and he'll be limping away. The frame rate is the real enemy in this fight.

Bring those armor and attack up claws. You should also be able to upgrade them either now or soon. It adds up. Don't forget to upgrade your Palico's loadout too. And, most importantly perhaps, pet your Poogie.
So that pet nonsense for drop rates is real?
 

softtack

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,650
Crit draw is not that important on GS unless you go full-on classic build with maxed out Crit Draw and Focus. Handicraft is good, but with Leviathan's Fury you realistically don't really need more than 4 imo. Handicraft +3 can be enough as well, but that's if you're landing your true charge often enough to minimize sharpness loss from regular attacks -- not realistic for most players and MP sessions. Spec some more into Attack (4 minimum to get the affinity boost, e.g. from dober legs/chest (+2) and nergigante coil (+2)) and, even better, get Weakness Exploit 3 (e.g. from eyepatch (+2), teostra arms(+1/2), rath chest (+?)). Those are the essentials. In addition to that, you can add more situational stuff like earplugs, maximum might, focus, etc. Don't bother too much with elemental attack up; optimizing raw damage is better for GS.
Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. Critical draw is one of the perks attached to Bazel Vambraces which I desperately need for earplugs. I'll give that build a go when I get home and see what kind of numbers I'm working with.
 
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Bladelaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,937
Anybody else feel like they need to bring 3x stun resist and 5x earplugs to (almost) every fight? I can't stand being unable to defend myself so those two skills mean the world to me. The problem of course is it really hinders my build options. I have all the gear that provides those perks as well as enough decorations and maxed out charms for both so I have all possible options to maintain both skills but as a result I'm having trouble fitting some more interesting skills/sets into my loadouts.

This keeps me alive but really gets boring when I'm using at least one of 3 pieces of gear on every mixed set.
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,579
Anybody else feel like they need to bring 3x stun resist and 5x earplugs to (almost) every fight? I can't stand being unable to defend myself so those two skills mean the world to me. The problem of course is it really hinders my build options. I have all the gear that provides those perks as well as enough decorations and maxed out charms for both so I have all possible options to maintain both skills but as a result I'm having trouble fitting some more interesting skills/sets into my loadouts.

This keeps me alive but really gets boring when I'm using at least one of 3 pieces of gear on every mixed set.
You don't need 5 earplugs for half of the monsters. Loadout-sets are your friend.
 

Deleted member 1594

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,762
Anybody else feel like they need to bring 3x stun resist and 5x earplugs to (almost) every fight?
I feel the same way. Stun resistance is an absolute must. Earplugs is a luxury I can't afford yet due to a lack of decorations. But FFS, I'm tired of constantly standing still for 5 seconds straight in fights. Could be dealing damage. Or healing. Worst is when it interrupts my long sword combo to increase my sword buff :(
 

Dijital_Majik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
399
So... tried Val Hazak last night. I learned the hardway that you NEED some Effluvia Resistance to survive that fight.

I only had a single miasma decoration so... the fight was very tricky but I managed to get him on my 2nd try. Good thing his attacks don't do the most damage.

Is he the easiest of the elder dragons? Which should I fight next out of the 2 remaining (from the special investigations)?

If you afford to swap out your waist to the Girros coil, it trivialities that fight with effluvia resist. And yes, I'd say he's the easiest of the Elders; he's the only one I didn't cart to first time, despite having farmed the other two many, many times before in previous games. I think I knocked back one nulberry (wasn't expecting that half-health attack) and one mega pot, and was surprised just how easily and quickly he went down, poor thing didn't even have get a chance to sleep it off. Kind of reminds me of Chemelos in past games, just not as much of a damage sponge.

Anybody else feel like they need to bring 3x stun resist and 5x earplugs to (almost) every fight?

Might be wrong, but I feel like the stun duration in world is longer than previous games, and definitely feels more annoying. Earplugs really depend on weapon; with a charge blade it can be easy to guardpoint through it, and with lance, counter is king. Definitely nice having earplugs though to keep up the dps.
 

Euler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,230
If you afford to swap out your waist to the Girros coil, it trivialities that fight with effluvia resist. And yes, I'd say he's the easiest of the Elders; he's the only one I didn't cart to first time, despite having farmed the other two many, many times before in previous games. I think I knocked back one nulberry (wasn't expecting that half-health attack) and one mega pot, and was surprised just how easily and quickly he went down, poor thing didn't even have get a chance to sleep it off. Kind of reminds me of Chemelos in past games, just not as much of a damage sponge.



Might be wrong, but I feel like the stun duration in world is longer than previous games, and definitely feels more annoying. Earplugs really depend on weapon; with a charge blade it can be easy to guardpoint through it, and with lance, counter is king. Definitely nice having earplugs though to keep up the dps.
Yeah, stun is super annoying in world since it doesn't seem that waggling your sticks around shorten the duration like in previous games.
 

Kaguya

Member
Jun 19, 2018
6,574
I need some critique on my current loadout and advice on what I can do improve it please. I don't have many decorations yet so I'm still using Alpha armor.
Isn't 5 handicraft too much(do you run out of white sharpness before the monster changes areas?), might be able to change that Kush piece with something that would give you Weakness Exploit, same thing for the piece that give you Crit Draw, Weakness Exploit is more valuable.
 

softtack

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,650
It's a good loadout daxy but not one that I would use versus elder dragons. Had too many interruptions by roars and one that resulted in a faint. I am dishing out higher damage though. I've only tested this versus Nergigante.
Isn't 5 handicraft too much(do you run out of white sharpness before the monster changes areas?), might be able to change that Kush piece with something that would give you Weakness Exploit, same thing for the piece that give you Crit Draw, Weakness Exploit is more valuable.
I have a bit of white sharpness left before entering the third area. That Kush piece gives me a bit of Focus which is what I need for GS.
 
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Pendas

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,415
I feel the same way. Stun resistance is an absolute must. Earplugs is a luxury I can't afford yet due to a lack of decorations. But FFS, I'm tired of constantly standing still for 5 seconds straight in fights. Could be dealing damage. Or healing. Worst is when it interrupts my long sword combo to increase my sword buff :(

Earplugs I agree with, but Stun is easily avoidable. Everyone has a hidden "Stun Meter" that gradually fills as you get hit and depletes when you don't. If you get hit twice in a row back off and play safe for a bit until the meter goes down then run back in. Getting stunned is something that is avoidable and stun resistance is basically a fail safe for bad aggressive play.
 

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,789
It's a good loadout daxy but not one that I would use versus elder dragons. Had too many interruptions by roars and one that resulted in a faint. I've only tested this versus Nergigante to be honest.

I'd slot in some more handicraft at the expense of attack (e.g. Kushala chest gives +2), but that's imo a solid setup. I run something very similar. Once you get used to anticipating roars and can even tackle or dive through the odd one, they become less of an issue. While you're still figuring out a monster's patterns, it's perhaps a bit too risky. Ultimately, these builds are a matter of preference really. So whatever gives you the best results is the best build for you!
 

Banzai

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
2,756
I'm kinda souring on multiplayer in this game. At first it felt like it made the game too easy, now it's just making it harder.

First case: It took me almost 10 tries to beat Nergigante solo the first time, even broke one of his horns in the process. I needed just one more horn for the Diablos Tyrannis 2, and my own pride finally allowed me to play the fight in mp. I know I shouldnt be too arrogant about it considering how long it took me, but so many people died in the first phase and messed up the hunt every single time. People waking it up before I could place bombs to break the horns and then dying to the dive aiming for the wall...After another 10 failed hunts that were out of my control I went back in solo, fucking SLAUGHTERED Nergigante and got 2 horns for it. So much time that could have been saved.

Second case: This one is just super annoying: three times in a row I send out an SOS for the quest where you have to kill a Rathalos and an Azure Rathalos. All three times the Randos somehow got caught up in a fight with the Pink Rathian instead and got carted once or twice without even killing it. I tried telling them it's the wrong dragon via chat but noone cared.

I'm sticking to solo from now on.
 

CountAntonio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,989
Big moment for me. Just solo'd Tempered Teostra. This is a huge moment in my gaming life. I am BAD at games and old. I felt like I would never be able to solo a tempred monster.

qTOg8ss.png
 

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,789
I'm kinda souring on multiplayer in this game. At first it felt like it made the game too easy, now it's just making it harder.

First case: It took me almost 10 tries to beat Nergigante solo the first time, even broke one of his horns in the process. I needed just one more horn for the Diablos Tyrannis 2, and my own pride finally allowed me to play the fight in mp. I know I shouldnt be too arrogant about it considering how long it took me, but so many people died in the first phase and messed up the hunt every single time. People waking it up before I could place bombs to break the horns and then dying to the dive aiming for the wall...After another 10 failed hunts that were out of my control I went back in solo, fucking SLAUGHTERED Nergigante and got 2 horns for it. So much time that could have been saved.

Second case: This one is just super annoying: three times in a row I send out an SOS for the quest where you have to kill a Rathalos and an Azure Rathalos. All three times the Randos somehow got caught up in a fight with the Pink Rathian instead and got carted once or twice without even killing it. I tried telling them it's the wrong dragon via chat but noone cared.

I'm sticking to solo from now on.

Yeah MP can be a chore sometimes. I've had more good sessions than bad once I learned to avoid Assigned Missions. Turns out it's a bad idea to join Assigned Missions in MP if you just want to do a quick quest and don't want to potentially carry someone.

Big moment for me. Just solo'd Tempered Teostra. This is a huge moment in my gaming life. I am BAD at games and old. I felt like I would never be able to solo a tempred monster.

qTOg8ss.png

Congrats! Haven't gotten to tempered elders yet, but I bet they're a real challenge -- especially Teostra.
 

CountAntonio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,989
Congrats! Haven't gotten to tempered elders yet, but I bet they're a real challenge -- especially Teostra.
Well now I just did it again in 12 minutes with one death. I guess I just had to be more aggressive. I get in this loop where I get scared when I take a few hits and start running away trying to heal and get hit. Also I think GS is now officially my weapon.
 

Ada

Member
Nov 28, 2017
3,999
Kirin is a cake walk with slicing ammo, range and weak points go out the window when you can spam those from anywhere. Easiest elder to farm.