Well I think I've got my legs under me now. Done the story up through the Rotten Vale, and slain every monster I know about with the exception of Kirin, who I just got the quest for.
Diablos and Rathalos were by far the hardest to learn how to beat, surprising probably no one. Rathalos because I wasn't using Flash Pods pretty much the whole game up until now. Being able to flash the monster and put them on the ground for 40 seconds to a minute is the difference between winning and losing, I've found.
Diablos....just took a lot of resources and a few faints. I had to capture him because, honestly, the "I'm about to die" rage mode makes him an unbelievable pain in the ass. Even though I know capturing is ideal compared to slaying, I dunno, I prefer to slay. Capturing to avoid the end of the fight somehow feels like cheating, most other bosses once you've gotten them down that far the fight is usually in the bag. Not with him. He can two shot you pretty easily even right near the end of the fight. You also gotta time your rolls and dodges really well in conjunction with sprinting, because he's so fucking big that if you dodge from the center line of his charge, you're going to get hit more often than not. Really he's just one of those fights you have to do everything right; get a little sloppy when trying to avoid his ground pop up attack, you're going to get wrecked. Snooze a little bit when he's about to emerge from the sandfall, you're gonna get wrecked. Spend half the fight chasing him across the arena and end up doing little to no damage and taking plenty of hits? You're gonna get wrecked or run out of time.
Pretty much every other monster in the game, once the learning phase is over, I've steamrolled.
I <3 this game very much. I think I'm at like 60 hours already and haven't finished the story because I just keep nancing around doing the optional quests, or doing expeditions to find all the hidden camps and Palico tribes and what not in each region. I'm doing a lot of farming now for stuff like Whetfish Scales, Honey, Flash Bugs and all that other stuff. I figure farming now will make HR a little less tedious since I'll have most things I need to hunt and hunt and hunt without having to stop to fill up on essentials. I'm also basically making sure to craft every weapon I know the full recipe for, before I move on to the next big thing. It took me a while to learn that, unlike most games, consumables and optimization aren't REALLY optional in MHW. Sure, you CAN win without appropriately matched gear and tons of consumables, but it's like playing Dark Souls naked and doing a no-hit run: it CAN be done but it doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. Once I started using Demon Drugs, Armor Skins, the mantles, Flash Pods, traps and the best elementally matched weapon for the monster I'm hunting, the game got easy enough I could start paying attention to what the monster actually does instead of constantly just rolling and healing to barely stay in the fight. I've also progressed enough with using the Long Sword I'm starting to look in to the finesse side of the weapon, with the dodge strikes and what not.
I guess I've also learned that putting damage on vulnerable areas consistently is how you win fights. If you're not stacking multiple hits against their weak points, they won't ever get stunned. If they don't ever get stunned, you never really get the chance to go ham on them. Trading a couple hits here and there is fine for weapon resource building but you always have to be working toward that knock down and the big combo if you want to beat the tough monsters. Little else will do, at least for melee.
Tried to get a friend in to the game but right now he's hung up on the tedium of fights. He went with Dual Blades and I don't have the heart to tell him that his weapon choice probably made the game harder initially for him than it could be. Played through all of Dark Souls 3 with the guy and got him to love it, but he's still on the fence with MHW despite basically getting up to the same part of the story as I am. He gets why the game is good but can't escape the impression that monster fights are time consuming and you don't have great feedback that you're doing damage or making progress. I know this isn't actually the case with the game but for him the subtleties are too subtle, and the moments where the AI is like "I'm gonna fuck ya" really get under his skin. I can't blame him honestly, it is pretty goddamn frustrating to have spent 15 minutes fighting a monster and chasing them to three different places, only to have them turn around and break out an industrial sized can of whoopass on you with no warning. The flying monster types like Paolumu really piss him off because he has no range, and despite knowing that Flash Pods are a thing and using them, he still pretty much hates the amount of dancing around you have to do with monsters like that.
Question: I just unlocked the Melding lady. On the surface it seems like a very easy way to get what you want versus growing or harvesting it. Yet in all the tips videos I've watched, not one person has mentioned her. Is melding a bad deal resource wise or.....? Because being able to turn 40 Monster Bone S in to Flash Pods seems pretty amazing. There's a lot of garbage in game you eventually won't need anymore (I think I'v got like 40 Great Jagras manes) and the Melder seems like a great way to turn it all in to something useful. A lot of noise was made about Zenni in tips videos, how the cash requirements go way up in High Rank. So far that doesn't seem to be the case in low rank. Does it make more sense to sell everything later on, rather than meld it in to something useful?
Author
Topic: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (Read 52802 times)