That’s interesting. Right now I’m running Defense II augment because that’s what I had the resources for (and I was struggling with raging brachy). I find with Vaal + Recovery Up it’s pretty significant but if I were getting good heals (from hitting with the weapon, or is it regen?) I could see me moving off of it. Or if I’m just taking too much damage too fast for the regen to matter, but that hasn’t been an issue for me yet with a shield.
When you say Defense augment adds a defense skill, is it along the lines of diving blessing? I’ve seen several “damage reduced” messages but was curious where it was coming from since I didn’t think I had Divine Blessing, maybe I was seeing that in action and not realizing where it was coming from.
Yes, I’d forgotten but the defense augment adds damage reduction skill that’s got different proc rates/reduction levels from blessing. I see a lot of mixed info, but I think it chooses the best proc rate (and then the better damage reduction if there’s a tie). I think there’s not a lot of info on it since it’s not a popular augment - probably more a bridge augment when you don’t have enough slots for the next level of affinity or health. Although shelling gunlance might use it since it doesn’t care much for affinity.
Any recommendations on how I can get Focus (Charged I think it’s called) and Guard Up (Shield 2) decos aside from grinding the Lavasioth event quest? Been running it 3 days straight and it’s getting awfully boring. It’s too bad these decos (or at least Guard Up, would need to double check Focus) aren’t in the drop tables for Master rank.
I’m sitting on piles of hundreds of decos at this point but nada for Focus or Guard Up. I did find a Magazine deco though so that fixed one of the three holes I currently have.
First outing against him proper got off to a great start - got a mount, charged SA sword mode, second elemental discharge, layed into him, was moving around nicely…batteries fail on the xbox controller. Godamn! Didn’t recover from that and triple carated.
Got him on the second attempt, but still carted twice getting unlucky with positioning and some stuns. A couple of his attacks hit hard, but I avoided the dive bombs for the most part.
There are some Master Rank level 4 decos that combine Charger/Focus with something else so you could check the size 4 decos in case you maybe already have some (and you could probably hunt the tempered Zinogre event for more)? Event festivals often have Gold and Silver melding tickets drop for lots of rarer decos. Maybe check the loot table for the Greatest Jagras if you need something different to hunt? Also the Damascus chest (I think that’s the name?) has two focus and lots of slots.
This game really is satisfying. I haven’t had any upgrades to my gear, but I’m 2 for 2 on Raging Brachydios this weekend. That’s after going… 1 for 9 or so earlier (although to be fair many of those were SOS suicide bombers that used up all the faints). I didn’t get better gear or outlevel him, just getting better at fighting him. It’s still a challenge for me but he’s farmable now.
Still no luck on either the Focus or Guard Up jewels after a week of farming, which is getting old. I did get a couple good ones aside from that like Mind’s Eye but ironically that’s not as important on gunlance as it is on other weapons, since shelling doesn’t have that issue. Still, nice to have. Not as nice as the Focus decos I need (three of them and I can’t find one, ugh) and most importantly Guard Up.
I don’t mind so much that they’re hard to get, but I wish there was a way to make progress towards it aside from repeated RNG level pulls with an infinitesimal chance. I wish I could buy it for a massive pile of zenny if needed, even if it meant weeks of farming. At least that way I feel like I’m making progress and not just spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere.
Aside from that, the only blemish (and it is a really bad one IMO) is how bad connectivity remains on PC. I’ve never seen a game this bad before, whether its AAA or indie. I really wish they could take some time to fix it because with how excellent most of the rest of the game is, it really sticks out like a sore thumb.
Yeah, decos are the worst. My friend installed some mod that adjusts the loot tables to make it less annoying. The drops don’t change, but the rarities within a certain kind of feystone were adjusted toward the mean.
I guess the other thing worth doing is mixing the farming up a little. Alternate between The Name’s Lavasioth and The Greatest Jagras, the efficiency of the latter isn’t too much worse as long as you understand how the system works. And maybe mix in some of the good MR deco farming, since you can get Focus on the combo decos, and it’s not ultra rare.
Yeah that’s kind of how I’ve been approaching it the past couple days. I’ll do a few runs of Lavasioth, do some MR stuff, then maybe back to him or Greatest Jagras for variety.
So the whole Safi’jiva thing seems to be a pain in the ass (haven’t tried it yet, to be clear)? It is recommended 4-player and I have to do it through the Gathering Hub instead of SOS or anything like that? If I don’t have 3 others to play with am I just SOL?
Special K support for MHW is dead, and Capcom’s anti-tamper is so CPU heavy that I won’t be picking up Iceborne or playing MHW again until I upgrade my system. SK was such a huge improvement after MHW launched. RIP.
What an amazing game. I think I’m finally “done” after… yikes, 368 hours. I probably shouldn’t admit that publicly.
Played the crap out of Iceborne. Went most of the game with Gunlance but at the end got proficient with Insect Glaive and the two bowguns. Farmed Safi’jiva (thanks for whomever pointed out that you can search for Safi sessions, that made it not bad at all. I thought I was gonna have to LFG for ages, yuck). I played some Charge Blade to finish off vanilla, enough to not be terrible at it if not excel. Farmed up every armor set, could maybe use a couple Deco combinations but for the most part I have everything I need. I did end up installing a slight Deco adjustment mod because to be frank I had no interest in going 800+ hours of farming HR content without finding Guard Up like I see a lot of other people dealing with on various forums. Still was a lot of work, but I eventually got it. Yay!
I’ll probably check out the new dragon they add this week, but I think for the most part I’ve put a bow on this game. Despite the multiplayer connectivity woes, I consider it a classic co-op game, had a ton of fun playing through it with a friend. Now my problem is it killed interest I have in a lot of other games, it just struck the right balance for me with gameplay, customization, longevity, etc.
I guess I’m ready for Monster Hunter World 2? I know there’s Dauntless out there but as far as I know it’s just “Monster Hunter, but less!” which doesn’t exactly excite me to play.
Dauntless just is not as good as MHW, sad to say. I reeeaaally want Iceborne to come down in price so I can get it for me and my brothers. We tried Dauntless, but man, it’s not the same.
Played the base game for about 120 hours (mostly getting carried by my son). Finally have Iceborn, but haven’t played in nearly a year. I wasn’t good before - this is really going to be brutal now. May just ‘start over’ effectively with a whole new weapon since I’m going to be relearning anyway…
