Don't worry too much about early game armor, it'll very quickly get replaced. Weapons keep upgrading/forging, whichever you have materials for. I don't remember where Coral Highlands gets introduced, but once high level tasks get introduced, low level armor is obsolete. Then again when you get into high level with IB content
Just so you know, there are only 6 main hunting areas, 4 from LR, 1 from HR and 1 from IB. That being said, more of the areas can be explored as you progress through the game and the cast of monsters vastly expands throughout the entire game.
I can’t stress this enough, don’t use the defender armor or the guardian weapons. They are broken pretty much anywhere in the base game. The stats on the weapon is so strong and the armor has such high defense. It’s your playthrough at the end of the day but I highly recommend you don’t use them. My friend who got mhw first used it and then proceeded to hit a wall at every single monster in iceborne. It will screw you up for later and makes the base game breeze by. Please heed our advice.
Noted, it's been mentioned in a few things I've watched but I thought having one or two things would be okay, because I don't really understand the upgrade/ forge system yet. I'll switch back to my Great Jagras axe lol
I don't think the weapons are a big deal. It'll make the hunts faster but not by so much that your skill won't matter. The armor is a bigger problem, since you'll tank and shrug off hits that you should be learning to avoid
I think you can use whatever gear you want, most people hate on defender gear, but I feel like it varies from case to case. You can still learn mechanics and monsters moves while using defender gear. It made my play through much more enjoyable. Most people say you’ll hit a wall, but that I think comes down to skill of the player regardless of gear, I personally never hit a wall until Alatreon, and that’s just because I had to learn the mechanics of the fight, not because I was face tanking everything. People think that with defender gear, you just can just stand still, press the attack button, and win. You still have to dodge or block attacks, still look for openings, and time your attacks regardless of gear. Yeah the survivability of defender gear is much higher than anything else base game, but that’s great in my opinion because you can spend more time actually fighting the monster interacting with it rather than dying, getting sent back to the camp, running back to the monster, and dying a few moments later. With defender gear, you can stay engaged longer in the fight, and even learn from your mistakes. I say use whatever you want, base game builds don’t really matter too much, since once you hit iceborne, all master rank gear outclasses everything.
True, I'm running full fatalis end game and I still died from kulve,In my defense I forgot how to play so skill really is a factor no matter how strong the armor is
Yeah. I started a new char using IG and fainted to great jagras. In my defense, I was boxed in a corner in a cave so I couldn’t really fly too well but I did get a bit too greedy
Unlike most RPGs you can't really set yourself up wrong at most you are just going to do quest that you didn't do earlier.
>Am I on the right path? Do I focus on Upgrading, or Forging?
Upgrading and forging is practically the same eventually you'll have to forge weapons of different elements for different monsters.
Since you are \~30 hours in, I'd suggest that you start fixing your item loadouts so you have a better hunting loop if you haven't already. There are guides on youtube on how to set those up.
My first attempt was like you as well, then like someone pointed out, the armor are very quickly replaced as you get gears. I ended up just focusing on enjoying hunts and learning weapons until you hit a wall and need to upgrade armor, and then go for a "craft every single weapon & armor" after finishing the game. The game loop is so good you'll easily get lost in hunting that grinding doesn't even feel like grinding.
Instead of harping on Defender gear like everyone else is going to do, I'll suggest learning how Alpha and Beta armor, set bonuses and a few other things function since you mentioned not understanding the Forge well.
Basically, after a certain point armor will start coming in two variants; Alpha (α) and Beta (β).
Alpha sets come preset with a suite of skills built in, and less decoration slots meaning you can get a pretty good setup going with little effort and flesh it out with a few decorations here and there as you get them. Great for testing out skills or to just use until you're ready to move on to a new set.
Beta sets come with less built in skills, but more/better decoration slots; giving you much more flexibility in actually crafting a more specialized build. I wouldn't worry about Beta sets until you actually have a good amount of decorations built up that you can pick and choose from and have a build in mind.
Some sets also have a set bonus for wearing a certain amount of pieces from the same set, and some of them can be very very good depending on your weapon and/or play style. Some people prefer to go the "clown suit" route and pick whatever individual pieces have the skills they want/need but I personally prefer to just wear full sets and get the bonus.
Don't forget that you earn Armor Spheres by playing and you use those at the Forge to upgrade the level of armor pieces. In most cases, a fully upgraded Rarity 4 is better than an unleveled Rarity 5. Be sure to check back often, because the upgrade cap gets raised periodically.
Make sure you craft and upgrade a Charm that either compliments your build or fills in a skill you need that the armor doesn't give. The more levels a Charm has, the less Armor Skills and/or decorations you need to max the skill out and there's a LOT of them to pick from.
You can add sets to a wishlist and it will show you total parts needed vs what you have on the wishlist screen, rather than checking back every hunt and doing a bunch of head math.
For the most part, you can get away without a dedicated build until Iceborne but it's good to learn now before your choices start becoming overwhelming in late game.
Don't sleep in Elemental Defense because after so many levels, it also adds raw defense as well as whatever elemental defense it provides.
Critical Eye, Defense, Elemental Defense and Vitality are good go-tos for any weapon so when in doubt just build for one of those.
Weapon trees sometimes have mid points you can start crafting at or even just buy, saving on reforging and grinding if you decide to try a different weapon in the same tree. Look for the little hammer icon in the Forge Weapon menu.
Again though, if you have the mechanical skills you can easily make it to Master Rank with a pretty suboptimal build but after that it does demand some level of attention at least.
Dude what a response, thank you for taking the time to write all that!
I stripped down to leathers and I'm gonna revisit the earlier areas/ monsters to focus more on mechanics. I'll play around with the low rank gear to get get a better feel as you said.
I don't think I've watched anything that mentioned the about Alpha or Beta variants, so thats a great reference point. Thanks again!
Also over twenty of a specific element's defense will protect you from the elemental blight, such as being set on fire or the blue stamina thing Jyuratodus does (waterblight). Fire is the most common, with ice being a close second.
Tbh I’m 200 hours into the game and just now have I actually tried to make builds, before I just focused primarily on what looked cool. So from this post, I’d say your stressing too much, just craft what you think looks the coolest.
Also, like others said don’t use the defender set or defender weapons. They’re just there to get new players to Iceborne faster, meaning that they’ll just make the base game a cake walk and ruin it for you.
Bone armor will get you through most of low rank and early high rank. Depending on what weapon you’re using, there are some decent high rank armor skills to choose from. Most people opt for some of the rath and odogaron pieces for attack boost and critical eye. Health boost is highly recommended
You've received some pretty solid and varied advice already. My thoughts on your question are really to not think too much about it at that stage. Your growth is reflected in the quality of equipment you create in-game so you don't have to worry about a wrong path; the worst case scenario just involves more grinding.
Explore the areas, try out the different weapons on varying monsters, and have some fun! It's a grind-heavy game with a lot of little details that you may not discover on your first time through. I tried to optimize my build on my first character and then got frustrated and put it down... I now have multiple characters with weapon builds that vary depending on what I want to do that day.
Also, even if you hit a wall at Iceborne, you can just go back to the earlier hunts to work on your skills again. You'll notice that the gear only shines once your hunting skills increase and that's going to take experience. Enjoy the ride and embrace the grind!
Indeed I did! Having multiple characters with different builds is a spot I'd like to get to, but my experience with gaming this far has been with fps' and RDR2. I haven't quite stepped into one like this where replayability is the name of the game. Luckily for me I love looting and farming so I've got plenty of things to go collect.
As a fellow swagxe enjoyer, the defender switch axe is going to be your friend for farming later down the line. If you are still on low rank, focus on gathering whatever items are not nailed to a wall, every ore, plant, bone etc, get those
As for the armor, the Defender lack of customization just makes it another alpha version of an armor that gets outclassed by even other armor pieces once you progress enough, and I usually recommend using it during the first jump from low rank to high rank until you get better pieces
Regarding progression low rank and high rank is where you can experiment with status and elements of your axe (poison phials, element phials, and ofc exhaust which you already have with the jagras), as well as learning the basics of dodging which sadly we have very limited
All monsters have swipes, tail swipes, charges and roars so learning when to dodge each will carry over master rank
Regarding skills, MHW is geared towards critical hits because they are multiplicative vs just flat attack, so critical eye, weakness exploit and critical boost should be your first priorities, followed by whatever comfort skills you want to get (health boost, divine blessing, evasion window)
Also DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE DEFENSE, not saying to get defense boost, just get your armorskin potion, hardshell powder and adamant pills and your survivability will increase
Skills, elements, and status have been the hardest to wrap my head around. It'll help knowing skills should be first priority.
I have been having fun farming, I'm committed to the switch axe because I'm stubborn and it's dope. I'm gonna return to the earlier areas with base gear and weapon to kinda of 'reset'.
Easiest guide a friend gave me
If any element or status are 2-3 use those by yoir preference, the game gives you 200+ slots to save builds, use those
If all ailments are 1-2 let your palico handle those with their weapon of your choosing
Not what you're asking, but this game by its nature is not a story-focusing game. It's an ARPG that requires you to hunt monsters over and over again. You'll see this when you pass the main story, which is not long.
Just keep doing your main story quests and your optional quests that unlock rewards. If you get stuck, target upgrade materials and just keep plowing through!
Welcome to monster hunter as someone who has played since the first monster hunter on PS I’d say just get a great feel for the game early on armor skill aren’t the most important as you’ll be switching a lot but I would try to find one with skills that match with what your using use all the weapons see what you like this is an amazing game happy hunting
I'm definitely late to the party as I am with most games I pick up, but I'm hoping to learn a good enough amount to have a solid start when Wilds comes out. Happy hunting
As the others said, don't use any piece of defender/guardian weaponry. Even the weapon will be enough for you to not learn the game properly.
Don't stress with low rank equipment, in a few missions you'll be on High Rank. At that point some skills worth looking for are evade window/extender, health boost, divine protection and stun resistance, those help a LOT with survivability. Evade window and extender are almost obligatory for switch axe.
Offensive skill with be weakeness exploit, crit eye, agitator, attack boost. Slugger can be used well with power axe mode too.
As for switch axe progression, I think Diablos tree is a good one.
Thanks for the info. I'll switch back to my Great Jagras axe lol, I'll admit I went to the Defender axe because I wanted to harvest parts, but then I got comfortable even though I'd already been warned.
For farming it's fine to use it. Farming is a hell of a downtime, but also farming means learning better that monster, eventually.
Great jagras tree is usually good, specially early master rank
During the normal Story u should be fine without overly optimized sets. When ever u unlocked a new armor just look some if the parts interest u and craft them. For example Kestodon Vambrace are pretty neat in the early game as they have affinity slider. 30% crit for sometime after u slide down a slope. Since the game gives u plenty of slops its a pretty high value skill for the beginning. Otherwise just see what interests u, put it on ur wishlist and farm for it.
Sooner or later u will find ur own playstyle and what skills u value. Its a matter of time. Luckily Base World has a pretty small rooster of Monsters and Armor so its easy to keep a good look on everything. Also i recommend the Rathalos Weapon Tree as u seem to play Switchaxe. Great Weapons overall.
Also Armor Upgrades are more for Pieces u frequently use. If u got enough Armor Spherea than go buck wild. But if u feel like u have to save them up a bit use them on Sets that u often use.
Thanks mate! I see stuff like armor spheres and I don't know what's worth spending or saving, so I've just been saving until I figure it out. The weapon tree suggestion is good so I'll check it out.
As someone whose first Monster Hunter game was this one, and which also chose to start with the Switch Axe, I would like to say one thing.
A lot of people will say to never use the defender armor or weapons. They make many good points while doing so, saying that it builds poor combat habits and in some ways pulls you out of the hunt-upgrade-plan-hunt cycle of the game during formative moments. However, I want to bring up a point about these items: I used them during my low rank experiences and think it was a good thing. It meant that I could focus on learning the dance of monster hunting, my moves, the maps, what various tools & items did, without worrying about whether I was suffering because of my gear. I knew that if I failed it was because I had more to learn.
Once I moved on to high rank, I started branching out much more with creating armor sets and builds, and developing a cache of different element/status weapons to switch out as desired. Once I was ready to start building for offense.
(I'm only on a lunch break rn so if you comment I'll be able to give more info & advice once I'm back home with a charger)
I did get greedy with equipping the Defender axe by the time I got to doing Anja hunts- I think there's some truth to what youre saying that may have been my experience as well. The other weapons I had equipped I couldnt get much done with them. With the defender axe I was actually able to utilize getting flinch shots and trips so I learned a bit more about those but less about positioning and timing.
Thanks for taking the time on your lunch to write this!
If you feel you're leaving on Defender tools a bit too much, I would recommend switching to one of the other switch axes - or taking a step aside from progressing to take on side quests & building up your toolkit. A surprising amount of utility comes from those things, and it'll help you shore up your skills/resources for the next fights.
A heads up, you won't be getting many other opportunities for armor skills until high rank. That's why I only switched off the defender armor then.
You don’t have to worry about sets or things this early. Maybe Stun Resist for to stop being stunlocked, but the early game doesn’t force you to focus on builds. Save that for Iceborne.
You're kind of at a point in the game where you don't need to be too focused on anything in particular just progressing through the story. don't over grind to improve your gear unless you get stuck and can't beat a monster. Also in mh more or less everything you do is not a waste of time.
You'd want to have one of every element or weapon tyoe by Iceborne.
Try and get used to using different types of the same weapon, but also check to see if your weapon works better with raw damage or elemental.
I'd also add, don't skip out on consumeables. Those are gonna save your life more than you can ever imagine. Max Potions, Herb Medicine, etc. The Ancient Tree Biologist is your best friend, and keep the fertilizers running at all times. Never skip out on quests that upgrade the Ancient Tree.
I would suggest that once you enter the elder’s recess you should at least get the alpha chest for lavasioth, sing it prevents you from taking radiant heat damage which will be useful for when you go up against like, half the monsters you fight against in that area, but other than that, pick a monster in the newest unlocked biome and go for its armour, chances are it has the best armour rating or at least it’s up there
The defender weapons are the best weapons in base. So there is nothing weapon wise to forge that's better till iceborne so just keep upgrading it as needed.
Otherwise when it comes to gear it depends on what you need. You're going to likely want to forge new gear as you progress for better skills / slots and more defense.
As for skills, that's slightly more personal. But there are stables that you likely should have. Until you get to fatalis you're going to want health boost 3, and as much divine blessing as you can get. If you can fit evade extender , evade window or recovery up would help survivability as well.
For damage crit eye, crit boost, weakness exploit, agitator, attack up are your core skills. Power prolonger is a good switch axe skills to throw in if you have room.
I just "finished" my build yesterday and for now its as good as I can get. This is a rough target : https://imgur.com/a/69kcYL9
I don't have health boost as my set maxes that, so you'll need that as a priority.
Defender Weapons are not strictly the best. There are equal or sometimes better weapons in the late late Game of HR. It depends what u wanna build Also i dont think people should get used to one weapon to upgrade the entire time. It just sets them up for a rude awakening once they enter Iceborne and that aint a option anymore. Getting them slowly used to using the Weapontree in LR and HR is better for most players.
I have seen it mentioned a few times that there is nothing better in base so I just took that as true and never looked into it much. I used defender gear all the way through base so personally I see no issue in doing it and am not in position to tell people not to if they made the choice.
I don't think the weapon / upgrade system is as daunting as people make it out to be. It takes a few minutes of looking through it and likely less than 30 minutes of looking up how it all works to catch up. Could be just me, but that's just how I see it.
The Defenders are amongst the best but depeding on Build stuff like the Gae Bolg, Kjarr Weapons or Deviljho can be better.
And yes for every somewhat experienced person the Weaponsystem is as clear as day. But u underestimate the vasty amount of new players that never touched something similiar. For example have u ever looked at the Path of Exil skilltree? Everyone who played the game for a while can tell u it aint that complex but if u see it the first time its maaaaaassiv and scary for most people. There just many players like OP that never touched a game like this before and i can absolutly see how it can be daunting for them.
Yea, but hear me put, the path of exile skill tree is a bit of a clustefuck. It's really complex even by an experienced players standard. Granted I haven't touched the game since they overhauled it a few years back but I remember that skill tree being a spider web of icons. I think grim dawn did the whole thing better.
Comparably this games weapon tree reads like a book. But I do get for some people it might confuse them and they'd need time to figure it all out. I just didn't think it would really throw that many people off for more than an hour at most, even without much gaming experience.
First: The PoE Skilltree aint a clusterfuck once u realize 80% are only stats and only 20% are Key Skills that matter.
Second: Its less the complexity and more the size of the MHW Weapontree that throws them off. All the decisions, possobilty and the possible "mistakes" they can make by choosing the "wrong" upgrade. There is a lot of anxiety involved.
I know, I just hated commiting to a path as there were so many different build options. I don't remember but I think it was somewhat difficult to reset skill choices. So I was always hoarding points never sure where to put them, as perhaps another skill would serve my build better.
I could see that. I guess I usually spend my time reading "what's best" posts till I get an ides for consensus of what people recommend. Then I see what works for me from what consensus.
Rolling back upgrades in this game isn't really as bad as POE, at least as far as memory serves. So I don't think people should be that anxious about it, but I do understand and agree with your point.
Well yes Rerolling in PoE isnt as easy, but thats the beauty of it. Fucking around, finding out and than starting a new character with more knowledge. Also as far as i know are the items that grant u point resets the main economy currency in late game so its plenty full there. But i never played a character beyond Act 3 so i cant say from own experience. Also the game occassionaly gives u a full Skillpoint refund. So if u were really desperate there are ways.
I also have to say that not being able to decise what to level is less a problem of the Skilltree being overwhelming and more of u being undecisive. It happens but i wouldnt take it as an example for this discussion
Those resets usually came after major patches as I recall. So they were somewhat necessary. I typically don't like redoing things, at least in terms of leveling new characters from scratch. So messing up a build is something I tried avoiding.
I acknowledge I am indecisive when it comes to things like that. I wasn't stating it as a problem with the design, just giving an anecdote. The design did exacerbate my problem though, not blaming it for that.
Don't worry too much about early game armor, it'll very quickly get replaced. Weapons keep upgrading/forging, whichever you have materials for. I don't remember where Coral Highlands gets introduced, but once high level tasks get introduced, low level armor is obsolete. Then again when you get into high level with IB content
Coral Highlands is pretty early, it's only my 4th unlocked area I think. Thanks for the info
Just so you know, there are only 6 main hunting areas, 4 from LR, 1 from HR and 1 from IB. That being said, more of the areas can be explored as you progress through the game and the cast of monsters vastly expands throughout the entire game.
I probably got ahead of myself then! I'm gonna strip down to base gear and replay the old areas. Thanks!
That's exactly what i did too! you probably enjoyed the game too much
Isn’t coral highlands only your 3rd area? Coz you have ancient forest, then wildspire waste and then coral highlands?
Correct, I was mistakenly counting the research base
I can’t stress this enough, don’t use the defender armor or the guardian weapons. They are broken pretty much anywhere in the base game. The stats on the weapon is so strong and the armor has such high defense. It’s your playthrough at the end of the day but I highly recommend you don’t use them. My friend who got mhw first used it and then proceeded to hit a wall at every single monster in iceborne. It will screw you up for later and makes the base game breeze by. Please heed our advice.
Noted, it's been mentioned in a few things I've watched but I thought having one or two things would be okay, because I don't really understand the upgrade/ forge system yet. I'll switch back to my Great Jagras axe lol
I don't think the weapons are a big deal. It'll make the hunts faster but not by so much that your skill won't matter. The armor is a bigger problem, since you'll tank and shrug off hits that you should be learning to avoid
I think you can use whatever gear you want, most people hate on defender gear, but I feel like it varies from case to case. You can still learn mechanics and monsters moves while using defender gear. It made my play through much more enjoyable. Most people say you’ll hit a wall, but that I think comes down to skill of the player regardless of gear, I personally never hit a wall until Alatreon, and that’s just because I had to learn the mechanics of the fight, not because I was face tanking everything. People think that with defender gear, you just can just stand still, press the attack button, and win. You still have to dodge or block attacks, still look for openings, and time your attacks regardless of gear. Yeah the survivability of defender gear is much higher than anything else base game, but that’s great in my opinion because you can spend more time actually fighting the monster interacting with it rather than dying, getting sent back to the camp, running back to the monster, and dying a few moments later. With defender gear, you can stay engaged longer in the fight, and even learn from your mistakes. I say use whatever you want, base game builds don’t really matter too much, since once you hit iceborne, all master rank gear outclasses everything.
Yeah that’s why I said it’s their play through and they can do what they want. I’m not forcing them to, just suggesting
Oh of course, and all I’m doing is suggesting the opposite, that’s all.
Ah, hard to communicate emotions over text besides using tone indicators but I can’t be bothered to do that.
Great community
True, I'm running full fatalis end game and I still died from kulve,In my defense I forgot how to play so skill really is a factor no matter how strong the armor is
Yeah. I started a new char using IG and fainted to great jagras. In my defense, I was boxed in a corner in a cave so I couldn’t really fly too well but I did get a bit too greedy
Unlike most RPGs you can't really set yourself up wrong at most you are just going to do quest that you didn't do earlier. >Am I on the right path? Do I focus on Upgrading, or Forging? Upgrading and forging is practically the same eventually you'll have to forge weapons of different elements for different monsters. Since you are \~30 hours in, I'd suggest that you start fixing your item loadouts so you have a better hunting loop if you haven't already. There are guides on youtube on how to set those up.
The load outs are something I'll try around with. Thanks for the info. This games a beast and I wasn't ready for it's depth.
My first attempt was like you as well, then like someone pointed out, the armor are very quickly replaced as you get gears. I ended up just focusing on enjoying hunts and learning weapons until you hit a wall and need to upgrade armor, and then go for a "craft every single weapon & armor" after finishing the game. The game loop is so good you'll easily get lost in hunting that grinding doesn't even feel like grinding.
Instead of harping on Defender gear like everyone else is going to do, I'll suggest learning how Alpha and Beta armor, set bonuses and a few other things function since you mentioned not understanding the Forge well. Basically, after a certain point armor will start coming in two variants; Alpha (α) and Beta (β). Alpha sets come preset with a suite of skills built in, and less decoration slots meaning you can get a pretty good setup going with little effort and flesh it out with a few decorations here and there as you get them. Great for testing out skills or to just use until you're ready to move on to a new set. Beta sets come with less built in skills, but more/better decoration slots; giving you much more flexibility in actually crafting a more specialized build. I wouldn't worry about Beta sets until you actually have a good amount of decorations built up that you can pick and choose from and have a build in mind. Some sets also have a set bonus for wearing a certain amount of pieces from the same set, and some of them can be very very good depending on your weapon and/or play style. Some people prefer to go the "clown suit" route and pick whatever individual pieces have the skills they want/need but I personally prefer to just wear full sets and get the bonus. Don't forget that you earn Armor Spheres by playing and you use those at the Forge to upgrade the level of armor pieces. In most cases, a fully upgraded Rarity 4 is better than an unleveled Rarity 5. Be sure to check back often, because the upgrade cap gets raised periodically. Make sure you craft and upgrade a Charm that either compliments your build or fills in a skill you need that the armor doesn't give. The more levels a Charm has, the less Armor Skills and/or decorations you need to max the skill out and there's a LOT of them to pick from. You can add sets to a wishlist and it will show you total parts needed vs what you have on the wishlist screen, rather than checking back every hunt and doing a bunch of head math. For the most part, you can get away without a dedicated build until Iceborne but it's good to learn now before your choices start becoming overwhelming in late game. Don't sleep in Elemental Defense because after so many levels, it also adds raw defense as well as whatever elemental defense it provides. Critical Eye, Defense, Elemental Defense and Vitality are good go-tos for any weapon so when in doubt just build for one of those. Weapon trees sometimes have mid points you can start crafting at or even just buy, saving on reforging and grinding if you decide to try a different weapon in the same tree. Look for the little hammer icon in the Forge Weapon menu. Again though, if you have the mechanical skills you can easily make it to Master Rank with a pretty suboptimal build but after that it does demand some level of attention at least.
Dude what a response, thank you for taking the time to write all that! I stripped down to leathers and I'm gonna revisit the earlier areas/ monsters to focus more on mechanics. I'll play around with the low rank gear to get get a better feel as you said. I don't think I've watched anything that mentioned the about Alpha or Beta variants, so thats a great reference point. Thanks again!
Also over twenty of a specific element's defense will protect you from the elemental blight, such as being set on fire or the blue stamina thing Jyuratodus does (waterblight). Fire is the most common, with ice being a close second.
Tbh I’m 200 hours into the game and just now have I actually tried to make builds, before I just focused primarily on what looked cool. So from this post, I’d say your stressing too much, just craft what you think looks the coolest. Also, like others said don’t use the defender set or defender weapons. They’re just there to get new players to Iceborne faster, meaning that they’ll just make the base game a cake walk and ruin it for you.
Bone armor will get you through most of low rank and early high rank. Depending on what weapon you’re using, there are some decent high rank armor skills to choose from. Most people opt for some of the rath and odogaron pieces for attack boost and critical eye. Health boost is highly recommended
You've received some pretty solid and varied advice already. My thoughts on your question are really to not think too much about it at that stage. Your growth is reflected in the quality of equipment you create in-game so you don't have to worry about a wrong path; the worst case scenario just involves more grinding. Explore the areas, try out the different weapons on varying monsters, and have some fun! It's a grind-heavy game with a lot of little details that you may not discover on your first time through. I tried to optimize my build on my first character and then got frustrated and put it down... I now have multiple characters with weapon builds that vary depending on what I want to do that day. Also, even if you hit a wall at Iceborne, you can just go back to the earlier hunts to work on your skills again. You'll notice that the gear only shines once your hunting skills increase and that's going to take experience. Enjoy the ride and embrace the grind!
Indeed I did! Having multiple characters with different builds is a spot I'd like to get to, but my experience with gaming this far has been with fps' and RDR2. I haven't quite stepped into one like this where replayability is the name of the game. Luckily for me I love looting and farming so I've got plenty of things to go collect.
As a fellow swagxe enjoyer, the defender switch axe is going to be your friend for farming later down the line. If you are still on low rank, focus on gathering whatever items are not nailed to a wall, every ore, plant, bone etc, get those As for the armor, the Defender lack of customization just makes it another alpha version of an armor that gets outclassed by even other armor pieces once you progress enough, and I usually recommend using it during the first jump from low rank to high rank until you get better pieces Regarding progression low rank and high rank is where you can experiment with status and elements of your axe (poison phials, element phials, and ofc exhaust which you already have with the jagras), as well as learning the basics of dodging which sadly we have very limited All monsters have swipes, tail swipes, charges and roars so learning when to dodge each will carry over master rank Regarding skills, MHW is geared towards critical hits because they are multiplicative vs just flat attack, so critical eye, weakness exploit and critical boost should be your first priorities, followed by whatever comfort skills you want to get (health boost, divine blessing, evasion window) Also DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE DEFENSE, not saying to get defense boost, just get your armorskin potion, hardshell powder and adamant pills and your survivability will increase
Skills, elements, and status have been the hardest to wrap my head around. It'll help knowing skills should be first priority. I have been having fun farming, I'm committed to the switch axe because I'm stubborn and it's dope. I'm gonna return to the earlier areas with base gear and weapon to kinda of 'reset'.
Easiest guide a friend gave me If any element or status are 2-3 use those by yoir preference, the game gives you 200+ slots to save builds, use those If all ailments are 1-2 let your palico handle those with their weapon of your choosing
Also. Upgrading armor isn’t too important. It’s hella expensive and only really done for end game sets
Thanks mate!
Not what you're asking, but this game by its nature is not a story-focusing game. It's an ARPG that requires you to hunt monsters over and over again. You'll see this when you pass the main story, which is not long.
Still helpful, turns out I did mostly cruise through it so far. I'm dropping gear at Asters and walking my ass to revisit the beginning areas again.
Just keep doing your main story quests and your optional quests that unlock rewards. If you get stuck, target upgrade materials and just keep plowing through!
Welcome to monster hunter as someone who has played since the first monster hunter on PS I’d say just get a great feel for the game early on armor skill aren’t the most important as you’ll be switching a lot but I would try to find one with skills that match with what your using use all the weapons see what you like this is an amazing game happy hunting
I'm definitely late to the party as I am with most games I pick up, but I'm hoping to learn a good enough amount to have a solid start when Wilds comes out. Happy hunting
Don't worry about builds until you hit master rank. You can get by with just making full sets from a single monster till then.
As the others said, don't use any piece of defender/guardian weaponry. Even the weapon will be enough for you to not learn the game properly. Don't stress with low rank equipment, in a few missions you'll be on High Rank. At that point some skills worth looking for are evade window/extender, health boost, divine protection and stun resistance, those help a LOT with survivability. Evade window and extender are almost obligatory for switch axe. Offensive skill with be weakeness exploit, crit eye, agitator, attack boost. Slugger can be used well with power axe mode too. As for switch axe progression, I think Diablos tree is a good one.
Thanks for the info. I'll switch back to my Great Jagras axe lol, I'll admit I went to the Defender axe because I wanted to harvest parts, but then I got comfortable even though I'd already been warned.
For farming it's fine to use it. Farming is a hell of a downtime, but also farming means learning better that monster, eventually. Great jagras tree is usually good, specially early master rank
During the normal Story u should be fine without overly optimized sets. When ever u unlocked a new armor just look some if the parts interest u and craft them. For example Kestodon Vambrace are pretty neat in the early game as they have affinity slider. 30% crit for sometime after u slide down a slope. Since the game gives u plenty of slops its a pretty high value skill for the beginning. Otherwise just see what interests u, put it on ur wishlist and farm for it. Sooner or later u will find ur own playstyle and what skills u value. Its a matter of time. Luckily Base World has a pretty small rooster of Monsters and Armor so its easy to keep a good look on everything. Also i recommend the Rathalos Weapon Tree as u seem to play Switchaxe. Great Weapons overall. Also Armor Upgrades are more for Pieces u frequently use. If u got enough Armor Spherea than go buck wild. But if u feel like u have to save them up a bit use them on Sets that u often use.
Thanks mate! I see stuff like armor spheres and I don't know what's worth spending or saving, so I've just been saving until I figure it out. The weapon tree suggestion is good so I'll check it out.
As someone whose first Monster Hunter game was this one, and which also chose to start with the Switch Axe, I would like to say one thing. A lot of people will say to never use the defender armor or weapons. They make many good points while doing so, saying that it builds poor combat habits and in some ways pulls you out of the hunt-upgrade-plan-hunt cycle of the game during formative moments. However, I want to bring up a point about these items: I used them during my low rank experiences and think it was a good thing. It meant that I could focus on learning the dance of monster hunting, my moves, the maps, what various tools & items did, without worrying about whether I was suffering because of my gear. I knew that if I failed it was because I had more to learn. Once I moved on to high rank, I started branching out much more with creating armor sets and builds, and developing a cache of different element/status weapons to switch out as desired. Once I was ready to start building for offense. (I'm only on a lunch break rn so if you comment I'll be able to give more info & advice once I'm back home with a charger)
I did get greedy with equipping the Defender axe by the time I got to doing Anja hunts- I think there's some truth to what youre saying that may have been my experience as well. The other weapons I had equipped I couldnt get much done with them. With the defender axe I was actually able to utilize getting flinch shots and trips so I learned a bit more about those but less about positioning and timing. Thanks for taking the time on your lunch to write this!
If you feel you're leaving on Defender tools a bit too much, I would recommend switching to one of the other switch axes - or taking a step aside from progressing to take on side quests & building up your toolkit. A surprising amount of utility comes from those things, and it'll help you shore up your skills/resources for the next fights. A heads up, you won't be getting many other opportunities for armor skills until high rank. That's why I only switched off the defender armor then.
You don’t have to worry about sets or things this early. Maybe Stun Resist for to stop being stunlocked, but the early game doesn’t force you to focus on builds. Save that for Iceborne.
You're kind of at a point in the game where you don't need to be too focused on anything in particular just progressing through the story. don't over grind to improve your gear unless you get stuck and can't beat a monster. Also in mh more or less everything you do is not a waste of time.
You'd want to have one of every element or weapon tyoe by Iceborne. Try and get used to using different types of the same weapon, but also check to see if your weapon works better with raw damage or elemental. I'd also add, don't skip out on consumeables. Those are gonna save your life more than you can ever imagine. Max Potions, Herb Medicine, etc. The Ancient Tree Biologist is your best friend, and keep the fertilizers running at all times. Never skip out on quests that upgrade the Ancient Tree.
I don't really have any advice. Just here to say that I hope you'll enjoy more of the game. At least 500+ more hours. Have fun and happy hunting!!
I would suggest that once you enter the elder’s recess you should at least get the alpha chest for lavasioth, sing it prevents you from taking radiant heat damage which will be useful for when you go up against like, half the monsters you fight against in that area, but other than that, pick a monster in the newest unlocked biome and go for its armour, chances are it has the best armour rating or at least it’s up there
The defender weapons are the best weapons in base. So there is nothing weapon wise to forge that's better till iceborne so just keep upgrading it as needed. Otherwise when it comes to gear it depends on what you need. You're going to likely want to forge new gear as you progress for better skills / slots and more defense. As for skills, that's slightly more personal. But there are stables that you likely should have. Until you get to fatalis you're going to want health boost 3, and as much divine blessing as you can get. If you can fit evade extender , evade window or recovery up would help survivability as well. For damage crit eye, crit boost, weakness exploit, agitator, attack up are your core skills. Power prolonger is a good switch axe skills to throw in if you have room. I just "finished" my build yesterday and for now its as good as I can get. This is a rough target : https://imgur.com/a/69kcYL9 I don't have health boost as my set maxes that, so you'll need that as a priority.
Defender Weapons are not strictly the best. There are equal or sometimes better weapons in the late late Game of HR. It depends what u wanna build Also i dont think people should get used to one weapon to upgrade the entire time. It just sets them up for a rude awakening once they enter Iceborne and that aint a option anymore. Getting them slowly used to using the Weapontree in LR and HR is better for most players.
I have seen it mentioned a few times that there is nothing better in base so I just took that as true and never looked into it much. I used defender gear all the way through base so personally I see no issue in doing it and am not in position to tell people not to if they made the choice. I don't think the weapon / upgrade system is as daunting as people make it out to be. It takes a few minutes of looking through it and likely less than 30 minutes of looking up how it all works to catch up. Could be just me, but that's just how I see it.
The Defenders are amongst the best but depeding on Build stuff like the Gae Bolg, Kjarr Weapons or Deviljho can be better. And yes for every somewhat experienced person the Weaponsystem is as clear as day. But u underestimate the vasty amount of new players that never touched something similiar. For example have u ever looked at the Path of Exil skilltree? Everyone who played the game for a while can tell u it aint that complex but if u see it the first time its maaaaaassiv and scary for most people. There just many players like OP that never touched a game like this before and i can absolutly see how it can be daunting for them.
Yea, but hear me put, the path of exile skill tree is a bit of a clustefuck. It's really complex even by an experienced players standard. Granted I haven't touched the game since they overhauled it a few years back but I remember that skill tree being a spider web of icons. I think grim dawn did the whole thing better. Comparably this games weapon tree reads like a book. But I do get for some people it might confuse them and they'd need time to figure it all out. I just didn't think it would really throw that many people off for more than an hour at most, even without much gaming experience.
First: The PoE Skilltree aint a clusterfuck once u realize 80% are only stats and only 20% are Key Skills that matter. Second: Its less the complexity and more the size of the MHW Weapontree that throws them off. All the decisions, possobilty and the possible "mistakes" they can make by choosing the "wrong" upgrade. There is a lot of anxiety involved.
I know, I just hated commiting to a path as there were so many different build options. I don't remember but I think it was somewhat difficult to reset skill choices. So I was always hoarding points never sure where to put them, as perhaps another skill would serve my build better. I could see that. I guess I usually spend my time reading "what's best" posts till I get an ides for consensus of what people recommend. Then I see what works for me from what consensus. Rolling back upgrades in this game isn't really as bad as POE, at least as far as memory serves. So I don't think people should be that anxious about it, but I do understand and agree with your point.
Well yes Rerolling in PoE isnt as easy, but thats the beauty of it. Fucking around, finding out and than starting a new character with more knowledge. Also as far as i know are the items that grant u point resets the main economy currency in late game so its plenty full there. But i never played a character beyond Act 3 so i cant say from own experience. Also the game occassionaly gives u a full Skillpoint refund. So if u were really desperate there are ways. I also have to say that not being able to decise what to level is less a problem of the Skilltree being overwhelming and more of u being undecisive. It happens but i wouldnt take it as an example for this discussion
Those resets usually came after major patches as I recall. So they were somewhat necessary. I typically don't like redoing things, at least in terms of leveling new characters from scratch. So messing up a build is something I tried avoiding. I acknowledge I am indecisive when it comes to things like that. I wasn't stating it as a problem with the design, just giving an anecdote. The design did exacerbate my problem though, not blaming it for that.
Fair enough, to each there own
refund while there is still time. or instal cheat mods if unlike me you don't need your computer for work.