I can definitely see the uses of him, I just hate when he’s being useful and then immediately decides to help kill me. :)
I finally get away from the monster to heal and he’s got aggro. His plan? Run to me while I try to heal, dragging the monster with him, who then hits me and kills me or makes me dive out of the way cancelling my heal.
He’s gotten a little better now that he doesn’t have the heal. I suspect something in his AI decides to run to try to heal you even if he can’t, which results in him trying to kill me repeatedly. I do sort of miss the extra healing, since I keep forgetting to restock and then have to walk back to camp to do it, but at least now he doesn’t bring angry dragons at me very often.
I wonder if there’s a better way to get monster tailriders. My current strategy is to run into a pack of the monsters and start swinging. Become my palico’s friend or die!!! The beatings continue until one of you volunteers as tribute!
At which point I’ll just usually just leave unless it’s one of my bounties. It is pretty cool when your palico starts riding one though! Wait, is there a way to tame a Great Jagras? I want a mount too!
I actually found the “tree fort” campsite because of the wild palicos - I also found the rathalos nest nearby and was pretty wowed that the ancient forest was actually quite a lot larger than I had thought. I love how they fit like three or four biomes in every map! I used that site a lot in the Rathalos fight - I ended up giving up chasing the rathalos around and mostly restocked and hung out at its nest most of the time, except when it got hungry.
So… I love the Hunting Horn. I’m completely unable to play it properly, but it’s oh-so-satisfying to just hit a monster in the head and then blow music that buffs me while I whack the monster around.
Also, pretty impressed with the Charge Blade. It reminds me a bit of the Switch Axe, only more flexible and fiddly. I’ll have to try it later properly.
A friend gifted this one to me and I’m trying to get a handle on it. Maybe you all wouldn’t mind answering a few dumb-ass newbie questions?
I don’t have a tremendously clear sense of the progression - do characters improve, or is progression purely a function of equipment and crafting?
I’ve tried the dual blades and the insect glaive. I like the latter (the former feels weirdly clunky) but feel woefully incompetent in light of some of the possible moves. How many encounters should, say, that rock carrying bird thing when you first go to the ancient forest require?
Do monsters heal if you let them get away from you for awhile?
Here’s what I’ve seen (pretty new at the monst hunting here too so I’d love to hear others’ tips too!)
I think the only progression is better gear - crafting new weapons and upgrading the armour. Character leveling seems to mainly unlock better meals? I don’t think you get more HP otherwise so making sure you defense keeps up is important unless you’re untouchable… Palicos levelup separate from their weapon as well.
Encounters? I generally find most hunts involve chasing down the monster to four or five places. Although some monsters actually do a fakeout, run away and are back in like thirty seconds. Almost all of them go take a nap before the final fight.
I don’t think they heal a huge amount - I’m always pretty stressed and chase them pretty hard, but I’m also terrible at directions so I get lost a lot even with the scout flies. I hear the first hit when you wake them up when they are sleeping does double damage, and I have blown a monster away on that hit.
I think they have more hit points (double?) with 2 people, but you get to bring your palicos. With more hunters you have more humans but no palicos. Solo seems pretty viable so actually having a human draw aggro on purpose sounds probably even better?
Just equipment. Palicos gain levels and skills, but you’re just a frame for gear.
Depends, early on your weapons are weak and you’re learning, so you’re probably doing fine. Hit up youtube for videos on a given weapon once you get a handle on the basics so you can see what does “max damage” for when they’re stunned/downed/asleep or the like.
Yes, but not enough to really worry about it.
A lot of people recommend playing it that way over any other, so very. coughs in @Scotch_Lufkin
As weapons go, the insect glaive is somewhat complicated - managing kinsects and extracting fluids to unlock your full combos can be a bit overwhelming for beginners, so at least try the other weapons to see if something else feels comfortable.
As for the rock carrying bird (Kulu-Ya-Ku), it’s a somewhat annoying monster to hunt, but not too hard. If you’re using the insect glaive, mounting is very effective against it. Otherwise, just avoid frontal attacks when it’s carrying that rock and you should be fine.
It’s about your equipment/crafting as well as doing your quests to get that Hunter Rank up.
It’s perfectly normal for monsters to run away. As long as you finish in time and don’t see the timer warning too often you’re probably doing fine.
They can go eat and go rest up at their nest, so sort of. Like if you see one limping or showing the skull icon but the next time it’s not there it can delay things a bit. they don’t really go back to full health and if you whacked a tale or some other body part I don’t believe it just grows back.
It’s great two player. I love max parties but two people with their Palicos… you don’t even have to be that great at it, Heck you can have one person who is just competent and the other struggling and usually do fine so long as you are properly geared and learning the monster attacks. The biggest downside for MP are those stupid cut-scene interruptions which mostly go away after some time.
I play almost exclusively 2-player, and enjoy it immensely. I’m usually the ‘struggling’ or lesser member of the duo and we do just fine most of the time, so long as I keep up in gear. I prefer 2 player to 3+, just because of the palicos (they help me, whereas other players are going to be helping themselves!).
Do note that sometimes solo will be easier than 2 player. In a multiplayer match, monsters are scaled to 2.6x their HPs as they would have solo. Regardless of number of players! So if you get really stuck in a 2player session trying to defeat something, go at it solo and see if you can brute force past it (or obviously, go the other way and fire off an SOS and get 3-4 players going).
Yeah this is true. There is a SP version of the monster and an MP version. It doesn’t scale based on the number of actual players. My experience so far with my partner in crime, who doesn’t play often enough and won’t do MP with others, she’s convinced she sucks but that’s not really true, is if you are both geared well you can usually do it.
There a couple of monsters we haven’t gotten to yet that might test that a bit, mostly the dog in constant pissed off state. He deals a fair amount of damage but if you take him down quickly not so bad, and nergigante. It’s still very doable though, I think, and those were also ones that keyed me in to the time to gear up status.
By the time you start hitting those though your Palicos should be geared up to and probably two different gadgets going on which can be some fun. You also get to play with some monster on monster action which can help or hinder but just equates to more fun!
Whoever designed the “Carry Heavy Shit” quests needs to find a job in accounting.
The one in Rotten Vale is… basically impossible. Everything that hits you down there knocks you down and then you lose the meat.
These missions and the Zora Magdaros crap are like they’re made by a completely different team.
“People love slowly walking with heavy objects for long periods of time!”
“Uh… no, no Steve they fucking hate it.”
“So I’m putting more of those things in.”
“Steve.”
“Let it go man, it’s boss’s kid, we can’t do anything about it.”
Well, I tried Charge Blade and I doubt I’ll be using anything else for a loooooong time. I kinda fell in love with it. I just love versatility, and the Charge Blade is probably the most versatile weapon of them all.
I might invest some time on the Hunting Horn at some point if I decide to try multiplayer, if only to support the team. We’ll see.
I knew I was forgetting something. I’ve been swapping between Hammer, Longsword and Gunlance of late. I find between the 3 I can find something that works for any given problem. My go-to is the Longsword most of the time though. There isn’t much it can’t deal with.
Charge Blade is kind of an all-in-one package in a lot of ways and I did want to get good with it because of that. It’s pretty great.
I’ve… never seen someone link anything other than an Arekks/GaijinHunter video before (or maybe Hijek if your’re an SnS main). I’ll check that one out too! I tried it a bit last night. The concepts mostly make sense now, but my button-mashing-fu is still pretty weak. I also seem to have issues consistently hitting Y+B together and getting it recognized. It seems to trigger just Y or just B a bunch, which really wreaks havoc with CB combos.
I do enjoy that in the default form, it still feels a lot like regular SnS. But when the monster is flopping on the floor, I now feel useful.
