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[Sirian]

I started playing recently (solo), currently I'm at the point where I need to beat Rathalos and Diablos, and in terms of weapons, my favorites are dual dagger, hammer and longsword. Bow I find unwieldy, anything with a shield I end up never using the shield, and greatsword is interesting but ultimately too slow for my taste.

Dual dagger has pretty good dps and mobility, hammer is great to keep the monsters stunlocked and has high damage too, and longsword has pretty good reach and interesting moves, I started using it against Legiana and haven't been disappointed.

[nenjin]

I quit sometime before Iceborne but before completing absolutely all the content prior to it. (I think I was into Tempered Hunts for most of the end game monsters.)

Hearing that Iceborne pretty much invalidates all the previous content really put a damper on my desire to get it, because I have an unhealthy completionist streak. I've been meaning to get back to MHW and finish what's there for the most part so I can move on to Iceborne. Just too many games to play. TLDR: Longsword was also my jam. I've never even tried to use the other weapons.

[Ozyton]

I don't know what it is but I don't really get tired of poking monsters. Maybe the counterattacks are just really satisfying, especially with that snap sound it makes in this game compared to previous ones. The fact that you can do advancing guard in 4 directions plus the 3-hit poke with inherent Mind's Eye is also an incredible addition. When a monster is down I found the best thing to do is a charge+final thrust into 3 high pokes (or low ones if high pokes wouldn't connect) and repeat. Even with no startup the poke of the charge attack does pretty good damage.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Focus charges the double finisher poke faster... Maybe it would even charge the Guard Up portion of the super guard faster?

Hearing that Iceborne pretty much invalidates all the previous content really put a damper on my desire to get it, because I have an unhealthy completionist streak. I've been meaning to get back to MHW and finish what's there for the most part so I can move on to Iceborne.

This was also an issue in some of the older games though it was less prominent in the West where we always (usually) got the Ultimate version right from the start. In a way I'm glad that G Rank (or Master Rank) wasn't in World to begin with because it allowed them to reevaluate the augment system entirely.

[Dunamisdeos]

I'm a gunlance main, and also 100% down with helping people completle story stuff if anyone needs. I'm on PC tho.

[Ozyton]

I wouldn't be able to join until maybe Sunday or Monday. Moving to a new state and internet won't be installed until then. Helping lower rank players is also a good chance to try other weapons.

[Nighthawk]

I finally got around to updating Iceborne and making sure none of my mods crash the game, and boy howdy, is Fatalis a heck of a thing.

There's stuff I like about it, and stuff I don't like about it. Imma put my thoughts here.

I like:
- The massive fire-breath cone. If you stick relatively close to Fatalis, this attack rewards you with a big opening, but if you're far away, you're getting melted. Encourages aggression without being a DPS check. Cool.
- The focus on a single element. Bringing fire resistance to the Fatalis fight feels worthwhile. You don't need it, but unlike with Alatreon, who will hit you with every element under the sun, Fatalis is all fire and physical damage, and as such, a 20-25% reduction to fire damage can actually save your bacon. Add a fireproof mantle to that and you'll live even longer. Not long, really, but longer.
- The actually-telegraphed melee attacks. There are very few moves in Fatalis' arsenal that come out in the blink of an eye. Most of them give you ample time to react (but hit like a freight train). There are exceptions, but generally you won't see him spam fast moves back to back.
- He behaves when he gets knocked down. Let me tell you, trying to hit a monster's head when its flail animation moves the head ten feet in either direction is annoying as heck. Fatalis just lays there when it finally gets knocked down and lets you do the damage you earned. Thank you, Fatalis.

I don't like:
- Feeling like shields are terrible against him. I tried Lance first, and Guard 5 feels more like Guard 2 against Fatalis. Almost everything sends me flying backwards, which not only kills my ability to do damage with counters, but also sets me up to get blasted by follow-up attacks and take massive amounts of chip damage. Even with Recovery Up 3, Recovery Speed 3, and Super Recovery, I was taking more chip damage through my massive shield in a few seconds than I could heal. I switched to an evasion-focused weapon and the fight was immediately far more bearable. Why do you hate shields, Capcom?
- Silly "run for your life" moments. I get that the fight's supposed to be cinematic, but after the 3rd attempt it was just annoying to have to follow instructions like a good boy and stand behind the barricade so I didn't die to the instakill move. This stuff is formulaic and uninteresting, and worse yet, it's inconsistent; during one run my friend and I made it to the safe spot with more than half HP, were actively doing the lever-pull animation that would bring up the barricade, and a random gust of wind pressure stopped the process and got us killed. Why.
- The badly-meshing fight mechanics. Remember that massive fire-cone I praised earlier? Well, unfortunately, it's as much a problem as it is a boon to the fight. See, the game heavily encourages you to use artillery, and especially the Dragonator, during the fight. If you don't you're not dealing max damage, and you need to deal good damage to beat the fight within the 30-minute time limit. Trouble is, if you move toward the Dragonator to lure Fatalis to it and stab his scaly butt, half the time he'll just fill your half of the room with fire and end your life instantly. So, the game encourages you to use a mechanic, then actively punishes you for attempting to use it. Hm.

Bottom line: it's fun at times, and unnecessarily frustrating at others. I'm glad the big endgame fight isn't a cakewalk, and I'm super happy Fatalis feels genuinely imposing, but I hope Capcom stops the cinematic crap and just lets me have a straight fight in future titles. Dying to a gimmick is not a rewarding experience.

Also, stop screwing shield-centric weapons, Capcom. You made Alatreon awful for Lance with excessive knockback, too. Why have shields if you're just going to make using them pure suffering? Why does Longsword, which I barely play, make the fight 200% easier, and Lance, which is one of my mainstays, make it feel impossible? Whyyyy

[Dunamisdeos]

YO hang on, do you have guard up as well? Is it knocking people around even with guard 5 and guard up? Because that's my bread and bacon.

I aint done it yet.

[Nighthawk]

YO hang on, do you have guard up as well? Is it knocking people around even with guard 5 and guard up? Because that's my bread and bacon.

I aint done it yet.

Yeah, I always have Guard Up, too (of course, Guard Up only makes some unblockable attacks actually blockable; it doesn't protect you from chip damage and knockback). Guard 5 with Lance shield is the important thing to note, and I was still getting tossed around like a chickadee in a windstorm.

It's not uncommon to block a fireball and then be forced to block two or more subsequent fireballs because of the knockback-lock, losing roughly 1/6th of your HP, a huge chunk of stamina, and being propelled halfway across the battlefield right into the range where Fatalis starts spamming the horrible fire-cone of pain. That's actually blockable (you might need Guard Up), but it inflicts yet more chip damage and completely locks you in place while you're guarding it, wasting more time and slowly hacking away at your HP (and your desire continue).

While I'm sure the fight is doable with Lance, you'll have a much easier time doing the damage you need to do if you switch to an evasion-centric build.

[Dunamisdeos]

Wowee. Well my other primary is insect glaive, I might go with that.

[Ozyton]

I saw someone on Reddit who put on a single point of Evade up on hi lance, which allowed him to just hop through the quick fireballs. I haven't done the fight myself so I cannot vouch for how easy it is to do that.

Insect glaive, I heard you can just jump over the wall if someone closes the gate early, so there's that.

My computer's going to be out of commission for a while, it turns out half the electrical outlets in this new house are busted and need to be fixed and there's no ETA on when that will happen. So, hunting will have to wait. I'm really kicking myself for not getting MHGen when it was on sale the other week. I figured I wouldn't need it since I thought my computer would be up and running by now. RIP.

[Sirian]

My computer's going to be out of commission for a while, it turns out half the electrical outlets in this new house are busted and need to be fixed and there's no ETA on when that will happen.

Changing an outlet is super easy, all you need is a screwdriver and making sure you turn off the power, but if you're really not confident you could watch a youtube tutorial.

[Ozyton]

I would do that, but we got a warranty on the house. If I do anything myself it'll void the warranty.

[Cthulhu]

YO hang on, do you have guard up as well? Is it knocking people around even with guard 5 and guard up? Because that's my bread and bacon.

I aint done it yet.

Yeah, I always have Guard Up, too (of course, Guard Up only makes some unblockable attacks actually blockable; it doesn't protect you from chip damage and knockback). Guard 5 with Lance shield is the important thing to note, and I was still getting tossed around like a chickadee in a windstorm.

It's not uncommon to block a fireball and then be forced to block two or more subsequent fireballs because of the knockback-lock, losing roughly 1/6th of your HP, a huge chunk of stamina, and being propelled halfway across the battlefield right into the range where Fatalis starts spamming the horrible fire-cone of pain. That's actually blockable (you might need Guard Up), but it inflicts yet more chip damage and completely locks you in place while you're guarding it, wasting more time and slowly hacking away at your HP (and your desire continue).

While I'm sure the fight is doable with Lance, you'll have a much easier time doing the damage you need to do if you switch to an evasion-centric build.

Do you have the other one, I think it's Guard+ or Super Guard or something?  THere's two guard traits, and one of them allows for guarding normally unguardable moves like Vaal Hazak death ray.

[Nighthawk]

Do you have the other one, I think it's Guard+ or Super Guard or something?  THere's two guard traits, and one of them allows for guarding normally unguardable moves like Vaal Hazak death ray.

Yeah, that's Guard Up, and I did bring it, else I probably wouldn't have been able to block some of the breath attacks. As a rule I never run any shield-centric weapon without both Guard Up and Guard 5.

In other news, I'm back after beating Fatalis a few times with a friend. My suggestions to anyone who plans on fighting it are as follows:
- Don't depend on a shield. Just... don't. You might be able to survive, but the constant knockback will make doing enough damage to kill Fatalis within the time limit nigh impossible.
- DO bring Heavy Artillery 2. If you have it, and you're hitting a softened chest with the Roaming Ballista (the machine gun), you deal like 70-something damage per shot, and the thing has 100 shots. That's 6000-7000 HP shaved off in like 20 seconds. Use. It.
- Enter the arena with the Ghillie Mantle on and use the cannons (WITH HEAVY ARTILLERY 2) for a free knockdown at the start. I won't go into details on this; it's easy to look up a YouTube video to see how to do it, or to just experiment and figure it out yourself.
- Consider Fortify. Nobody wants to get carted, but it'll probably happen. Having a considerable percent boost to attack and defense each time you cart makes up for the DPS loss of having to schlep your way back to the arena, and might just save the run. Plus, it's super easy to get via decoration.
- You kinda have to build a set for it, but one of the best weapon options for this fight is Switch Axe, specifically spamming Zero Sum Discharge with Rocksteady and Temporal mantles. There are also a few moves in Fatalis' arsenal where it's safe to cling to its face even though it's actively breathing fire. You can get a free ZSD during these openings, and you want to get head breaks anyway, because they A) get you materials, B) weaken Fatalis' flame breath, and C) provide a lengthy knockdown for more damage.
- Another good option if you're playing with multiple people is Sword and Shield with a support/damage build. It's not too difficult to get Wide Range 5, Speed Eating 3 and Free Meal 3 along with lots of damage skills, and if you're not aware, Sword and Shield is broken strong in Iceborne.

As an aside: Sword and Shield's Perfect Rush has motion values that look like this: 45 + 45 + 60 + 55 + 65 + 70. That's 340 total motion value. For reference, the Greatsword's True Charged Slash (Power) has a total MV of 286. Yes, Sword and Shield can deal as much, if not more damage than Greatsword in roughly the same amount of time. On top of having very fast attacks and being able to chug potions to heal friends at a moment's notice. Capcom has truly forgotten what balance is.


In terms of how I feel about the fight after beating it... it's okay. Fatalis' attacks felt really unfair at first, but after enough practice it became apparent that there was a pretty reliable way to avoid basically everything. HOWEVER, I do feel like the overabundance of fire breath attacks makes it hard to tell which one it's doing sometimes, which occasionally led to my death as I dodged at the wrong time and instantly lost all my HP.

I think the fight would be 1000% better if you had the usual 50 minutes instead of 30. Fatalis already wastes 2 of those 30 minutes just doing unpunishable cinematic BS, which means it's actually a 28 minute fight, and more of that can easily disappear as it decides to slither across the arena while becoming a giant hitbox. Once you have the monster moveset down (which will take any number of attempts, but you'll probably get there) it starts to feel like you're fighting a timer instead of a monster. I've always hated DPS-dependent fights, and I don't know why Capcom has had such an obsession with adding DPS checks to Monster Hunter since World; fights like this encourage a boring damage-centric meta and discourage people who want to use more eccentric and creative builds from playing the way they want to, which is silly in a game with so many weapon options and armor skills.

In short, there are some questionable design decisions, but it's suitably difficult as a true final boss.