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[DeKaFu]

One skill I've been seriously loving (as SnS) is Free Meal. 25% chance to not expend a consumable item upon use. Works for all potions, armorskins/demondrugs, antidotes, mushrooms (with Mushroomancer), etc... It feels great activating on things like Mega Demondrugs and Ancient Potions, but mainly it means stuff like getting 11-15 Mega Potion uses out of a stack of 10. Extra nice combined with Speed Eating and Wide Range.

There's a way in Iceborne to up its effectiveness to 75% activation with a certain armour set, too. Though it's ugly, so I probably won't...

[etgfrog]

There actually isn't a single skill that I constantly use for every fight. I will almost always bring some sort of elemental protection to counter what I'm going up against. Earplugs tends to take up too much slots to make it work, which used to be my go to skill in previous games. I do like evade extender +3 when using the heavy bowgun. Focus and quick sheath when using the greatsword.

[Cthulhu]

Turns out the best way to deal with Behemoth is to pick a weapon that doesn't use Drachen armor.  Played most of the game with Lance, then switched back to my original Greatsword after Nergigante, then hit a brick wall trying to get my shearclaws and said fuck it, bow time.

Bow's pretty fun.  Easy to get locked down though if you're not careful, if you don't input your attacks precisely you won't be able to dodge on command and you can get whacked.  Mostly hunting tempered monsters now so there's very little room for error with a lot of fights.  I've got a tempered rathian investigation with one life and a pink rathian on the same map.  It's almost impossible to separate them, often they'll follow each other from zone to zone, and it's really easy to get stunlocked when the rathian starts doing her charge at you over and over move.  It's also tough to maintain ammo, the botanical facility can do 8 per quest maximum unless I'm missing something, power shot especially burns way faster than it's easy to replenish.  But it's fun, and easier than the bowguns.

Really want some drain decorations, the rock-shot move is brutal on monster stamina if you hit the legs with it.  That's my contribution to the favorite skills thing. 

I'm using mostly rathalos with some other stuff, like lavasioth legs for the spread shot boost.  Got the sealed eyepatch and halloween layered armor, which is a good bow look until Iceborne where I can get the real good shit, girros or tzitzi ya-ku armor with Shamos head. 

For greatsword, I really wish there was damascus layered armor.  Damascus armor with dragonking eyepatch looks amazing on a greatsword, grizzled veteran knight kind of vibe.

[Ozyton]

it's really easy to get stunlocked when the rathian starts doing her charge at you over and over move.

I'm not sure if this is useful info since I play lance, but when I was farming for gold/mini crowns I fought a bunch of rathian/pink rathian. I noticed that as she's charging (it has to be the looping 'charge' animation, it can't be the turn-around or the finishing bite) if I managed to poke her in the head it would topple her over as if you knocked her out of the air. Deviljho has a very similar "counter" where after he gets staggered he will go in for an attack. If you hit him in the head during the animation he'll topple over. I've noticed similar things for other monsters but I haven't tried it out enough to consistently do it.

[Cthulhu]

I don't think that works for bow, it may depend on the kind of damage being done.  Greatsword can do that shit all day with the busted shoulder-charge move, it wrecks the commit-heavy monsters like diablos and rolly-boys, though I've noticed unless I'm missing something that Uragaan doesn't stagger from it when you hit his roll, he just doesn't do much damage.  Radobaan goes into his floppy thing if you beat his rolling move, and then if you hit him while he's flopping it KOs him.

[Dunamisdeos]

So watchu guys think of the new expac?

[forsaken1111]

So watchu guys think of the new expac?

I won't get to see it for a while since I play on PC

[nenjin]

So watchu guys think of the new expac?

I won't get to see it for a while since I play on PC

Ditto.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah I'm on PC.  I like the new layered armors, and I love all the monsters being added, rajang and zinogre and brachydios are all great.  Though I don't like the MHW zinogre theme as much, feels less electric.  A lot of the new monster themes don't really feel like they fit well with the monster, especially Vaal Hazak

[Dunamisdeos]

Hang on they added new PC monsters too? I missed that.

[Nighthawk]

A lot of the new monster themes don't really feel like they fit well with the monster, especially Vaal Hazak

I was supremely sad when I heard MHW's rendition of Deviljho's theme. It's just so... weak. The old theme was oppressive and terrifying, but the strings in this new one just don't have that punchy sound that made the music stand out. It sounds like a high school orchestra (albeit a very good one) tried to play the original Deviljho theme with seemingly no understanding of what made it great in the first place.

Listening to the new Zinogre theme, I see exactly what you're talking about, and it feels like the same thing; that punchy, percussive sound has disappeared from so many of the new tracks. It's like they decided to take all of the electric and/or synth-esque sounds from the previous themes and either subdue them, or turn them into natural orchestral sounds, and it makes all of the music less potent.

Edit - Credit given where it's due, though, I think the new Glavenus theme is excellent and an improvement on the old one, even if it has a very different sound to it (it's a lot more ominous).

[forsaken1111]

It's all pretty new to me as I've not played any prior monster hunter games before, but I will say that either I am supremely unlucky or the game has really cunning timing built in. Both the Deviljho and the Bazelgeuse seem to randomly 'show up' right when I least expect or want them. I had nearly killed a HR black diablos when a Deviljho strolled in and flipped out on both of us. I managed to finish the kill but only just, and got stunlocked and fainted once when I would have been fine.

I've since started carrying dung pods.

[DeKaFu]

Bazelgeuse and (less commonly in MHW but more traditionally in other games) Deviljho's whole shtick is showing up at the least opportune possible moment and crashing the party. That's legitimately their role: Spawning partway through hunts for other monsters and just completely interrupting whatever you were trying to do.

Enjoy Bazel's annoying hijinks while you can, because Jho takes over the job again in Master Rank and my first run-in with him there was moderately traumatizing...

---

I'm on PS4 so I've actually been playing the hell out of Iceborne, though I have yet to complete the main story or see all the monsters. Happy to leave some disorganized impressions, though:

- I'm in love with the new town/base/place that you can optionally use instead of Astera. Apart from looking nice, everything is placed so much closer together and more conveniently. You can change your cat's gear and deal with the Tailraider Safari without having to go into your room, too!

- The new room you get there looks awesome and has customizable unlockable decorations with way more depth than I was expecting or will reasonably use. (Material and fabric print choices?)

- Love the new ice area. Lots of really nice-looking areas and a surprising amount of interactive features.

- There's a pretty massive jump in weapon/armour stats from High Rank to Master Rank (the DLC levels). I suspect even AT High Rank stuff is going to be substantially easier with my new gear. Haven't done any multiplayer yet (trying to beat the story first) but I'm expecting a pretty major power level difference between the "haves and have-nots". Not entirely sure how to feel about that, but I guess it's not a competitive game...

- Even with the new gear, the difficulty level of the MR content seems to be much higher. For me, wearing my usual hodgepodge of whatever garbage armour I think looks most stylish, I found the base game content to be a bit too easy, but the new MR content is very much more in line with the difficulty of older Monster Hunter titles. That is, I'll sometimes actually cart a couple times or find myself down to the wire on time, but rarely actually fail a quest. It's a nice level for me, though I'm sure other people will have varying experiences.

- The new "Level 4" decoration gems are handed out like candy in MR and are a huge deal for skill builds. They each either raise a single skill by 2-3 levels or two different skills by one level each. Not all MR gear has level four slots, but a ton of it does, so you can cram pretty much twice as many skills onto a given build.

- I've been using the new "Clutch Claw" much more than I initially expecting to. The mechanics took a little bit to get used to, but in practice it's all about forcing the monster to crash into walls for huge damage and 1-3 extra knockdowns per fight. Pretty fun and makes you pay a bit more attention to your surroundings.

- The selection of monsters available has actually really impressed me. I avoided spoilers as much as possible beforehand (and still am, since I know I still haven't seen everything) but there's already been about 2-3x as many brand new species as I was expecting, not to mention the interesting new variants on a bunch of the pre-existing monsters. All the old guys get slightly modified movesets as well, which in a few cases makes a surprisingly big difference.

- Endemic life comes in different sizes with gold crowns and miniature crowns now, and the difference is visibly obvious in the field and in your room. Hope you're looking forward to having fun hunting down gold crown downy crakes! I know I am......

- Not entirely sure how niche this is, but as an SnS-user I now have access to the new "Slinger Burst" mechanic. The controls to switch to it are a bit of a pain in the ass in the heat of battle, but it gives me a slinger mode where all the ammo types have a different, more powerful effect. My favourites so far are "pierce pods" turning into a staggering shotgun blast and "slinger bomb" turning into a slightly time-delayed exploding cloud that deals >100 damage instead of 40. Again, another feature that I'm finding myself using more than I thought I would.

Overall extremely happy with Iceborne so far. It adds just a ton of stuff and feels like a really organic extension of the original game. Basically like buying the second "Ultimate" version, except you get to keep your original save. They've already done a free post-release additional content patch, too, which added a new monster and some other stuff (like more room decor). Promising for future support.

[forsaken1111]

Bazelgeuse and (less commonly in MHW but more traditionally in other games) Deviljho's whole shtick is showing up at the least opportune possible moment and crashing the party. That's legitimately their role: Spawning partway through hunts for other monsters and just completely interrupting whatever you were trying to do.

Enjoy Bazel's annoying hijinks while you can, because Jho takes over the job again in Master Rank and my first run-in with him there was moderately traumatizing...

Are the dung pods not effective in MR? Now that I have started carrying them Jho and Bazel are no issue, I pop a pod in their face and they scurry off. Helps me control turf wars as well, separating monsters that would otherwise be a pain to fight together.

[DeKaFu]

Are the dung pods not effective in MR? Now that I have started carrying them Jho and Bazel are no issue, I pop a pod in their face and they scurry off. Helps me control turf wars as well, separating monsters that would otherwise be a pain to fight together.

Dung pods are still effective in MR for the most part (I never leave home without them), but this particular Jho subtype is/was uncommonly relentless and was basically ignoring them. I'm not sure I've ever felt like I was being hunted across the entire map before.... Not even the gillie mantle could shake it...

Luckily I've only run into it twice so far, so maybe it's not that common.