KevinC
1864
Yeah, unless I missed a higher tier of Defender armor, which is possible. I did look for it, but never underestimate my ability to miss something obvious. :)
The Defender weapon did remain a tier above its peers for my playthrough to the end of the story. I haven’t had time for the endgame grind though, so don’t know if I could have eventually unlocked better weapons.
My guess is they are worried that when Iceborne hits, the bulk of the population is going to be doing the Master rank stuff and there won’t be many around to help with the earlier parts of the game. This will give those people a leg up and help them get through to where the bell curve is. I do get what you’re saying, though. We’ll see if I slam into the Iceborne wall, since I did use the Defender weapon from Nergi onwards. :)
As previously documented I got through Nerg but then stopped. I’d certainly be interested to hear your experience, since on the one hand I’d be interested in getting to Iceborne so the defender weapon might help, but on the other I’m concerned it’s just going to teach me bad habits! :)
The defender weapons are nothing but a good thing. A lot of people who played MHW either quit before or right after Nergigante. That means they didn’t farm tempered dragons, tempered elders, didn’t farm augments, didn’t farm the siege monster, Kulve Taroth, and they didn’t craft meta sets.
Defender weapons are far from an easy mode or a crutch. They are a foot in the door that allows you to stand a chance against the first monsters you’ll face in Iceborne.
As soon as you’re able, you’ll be making a Master Rank armor set with whatever monster parts you can cobble together. And the base level Iceborne metal weapons you can craft as soon as you farm a few nodes are way better than defender.
Kolbex
1867
None of that applies to people who don’t have Iceborne (me). Even if it did, they seem to give you access to them too early (HR11) for what you’re saying to make total sense. For some weapon classes they are just better than anything else you get access to at HR11, maybe for all of them, I’m not doing the math.
You can agree or disagree, I’m just letting you know why they added them to the game. They were patched in prior to iceborne as a way to help players finish off the base game and enter iceborne without a huge disadvantage.
They were not around when the game released, and they were only recently added to PC due to the imminent arrival of iceborne.
Edit: and just looking at a few, Great Sword, Long Sword, Hammer, Charge Blade, they are all very good, but not the absolute best.
Huh. I played over 150+ hours and I didn’t do any of that. I mean, I faced tempered dragons/elders, but no farming. No augments so far. Never tried Kulve Taroth. Don’t even know what meta sets are.
Game is great though! ;)
Thraeg
1870
Yep, this is me too. I’ve made some of the elder dragon gear, and am up to HR 48, but haven’t done any real farming, and don’t remember even seeing Defender stuff as an option. Was it added in the last week or two?
KevinC
1871
Yeah, they were only added a couple weeks ago or so. So basically giving people a month to finish the story and be able to access Iceborne.
HR 82 in my case, I think? Defender weapons were added very recently, and they are awesome. ;)
Iceborne PC week incoming. Hope to see more action in this thread. Clutch Claw is good. Don’t forget to make new MR weapons/armor. Get those hot drinks ready.
Kolbex
1874
I’m still playing regularly. Pink Rathian is a bastard.
Bateau
1875
I wonder how bad the foresight slash change is. LS was my favourite weapon by far because of it.
I’ve been practicing a bit with the Hunting Horn because it got a significant buff in Iceborne and I love playing with it. Also getting reacquainted with the Charge Blade, because the new axe mode is awesome.
Thursday won’t get here fast enough. ;)
I don’t think they changed the foresight slash, but they added a Iai mode that’s pretty awesome.
Bateau
1878
There was some talk that you’d only be able to use it if you had spirit gauge at least partially filled but I haven’t followed the game at all so I do not know if it was implemented or not. I also vaguely recall something mentioned about less frames for counter and less reach on LS in general.
Hmmm I’m not aware of any serious changes to foresight slash, but I only dabbled in LS, so I really don’t have any concrete info.
From my experience of the weapons I do play a lot of (GS, CB, SA, L, H) all the changes to the weapons were welcome. The GS changes elevate that weapon in incredibly subtle, but amazing ways. The Switch Axe is just freaking fantastic in Iceborne. And aerial hammer is a thing now.
The balance/tuning team on MHW have a great track record, and I’ve come to trust them with all the changes they make.
I consider myself a Switch Axe main currently, but Iceborne could change that. We’ll see. ;)
I hope Longsword hasn’t been nerfed since I plan to switch to that. I need to play some this week to practice. I already have a high rank one, maybe Nerg tree? Can’t remember.
If it sucks then I can always destroy everything with Insect Glaive.
Definitely not the case. If anything, it’s even better now.
Yeah like as far as I know, no weapon has been nerfed. From what i’ve read that’s not really how the MH team goes about balancing weapons. Every weapon has at least one new move in addition to a clutch claw attack. Some back-end math has been tweaked, but this is mainly to make elemental damage more effective.
The only “nerf” in the classic sense is to NEB (non-elemental boost) which has been changed from a 10% damage increase to 5%. But that was long overdue.
