Topic: Monster Hunter Thwii

[rbtr]

There's also a skill that makes capturing a little easier.  Its called capture guru, bone armor gives it to you, and if you have the monster paintballed the icon on the map blinks when they are ready for capture.  Sometimes its tough to know when they are limping, because they only limp when they are gonna run away.  The best place to put traps is closer to exits, in case they try to take it.  Some areas make that tough though, And a lot of monsters fly away, so it really makes no difference.

Lots of times on capture quests if you complete the other objectives they usually give you another trap, so you sort of have one chance to screw up.

[Mop it up]

Isn't there an item which gives a similar effect to the Perception skill? I forget what it is called...

[KDR_11k]

I had a pitfall time out (or at least disappear with no discernible cause) a second before the Qurupeco stepped on it (he went down in two more shots so he was definitely wounded enough).

I think it was IGN who talked in so much detail about the preparations for fighting the Barroth... I killed that thing on my first try, the big leviathan with the sponge neck took me two tries because the first time I ran out of time (I went through my entire stockpile of regular lv3 ammo...).

Those monsters have crazy high HP, takes forever to kill them (at least with the bowgun and going from that to melee weapons is difficult because you need a whole new armor set).

[Mop it up]

The bowgun is a pretty difficult (and expensive!) weapon to use in the single player, because it is weaker than every other weapon type, especially if you're down to using the standard weak normal shots that you have an infinite amount. It is much better as a support weapon in four-player online quests. Barroth isn't much threat to a bowgunner because his charges are easy to spot when you're standing a distance away, but he's dangerous with close-range weapons. Ludroth (the sponge neck dude) is a pain no matter what you use.

It's too bad the game is region-restricted so you can't play with most of us.

[rbtr]

I'm using a bowgun, and while it seems to take more effort I'm enjoying it much more than the melee weapons. If you pay attention to elemental damages you deal a little extra that way.  I think the bowgun offers a lot of flexibility, both in combat, and in preparation.  Since you can bring so many different types of ammo with you, its easy to adapt to the situation.  If you plan ahead you can figure out which ammo types will be the most useful, crag ammo for the barroth to knock is mud armour off,  pellet shots for the great jaggi to kill the crowd, and so on and so forth.

I feel much safer 40 ft away from the monster, while my friends bat at it with swords.  Its also a great team asset, if you shoot team mates you can unstun them, knock mud of them, and if you have healing shots heal them.

I'm not having a terrible amount of trouble with it in single player, its just a slow and steady sort of thing.

[Mop it up]

If you're 40ft away from a monster, your shots aren't going to do much damage (and do no damage if it is an elemental shot). Range affects power, and the best distance is to be 2-3 dodge roll lengths away from the target. Also, power will be halved underwater, except for sub shots.

Never use the pellet shots if there are players near the monster, you'll end up hitting them and stopping their attacks.

[rbtr]

The more you know  ------*

I had an inkling that distance affected power, thanks for confirming!  Does it still affect it with crag shots?  I ask because i dont think it should because the damage is done by the explosion?

[Mop it up]

Good question! The range only affects the power of the initial hit (which causes a bit of damage), not the explosion. However, I'm not sure if there is a range where the explosion doesn't cause damage, or doesn't go off. I haven't really used them very much.

[Stratos]

I'm considering experimenting with the Switch Axe. Looks like it has the ability to make elemental attacks.

[that Baby guy]

I believe all the switch axes have elemental attacks in Sword mode, with a discharge attack via the shoulder button, too.  Just remember that it's idiotic to chase a boss monster around while you're in sword mode, since your character is about as fast as molasses.

[rbtr]

Good question! The range only affects the power of the initial hit (which causes a bit of damage), not the explosion. However, I'm not sure if there is a range where the explosion doesn't cause damage, or doesn't go off. I haven't really used them very much.

I was making some long distance shots with them when me and some friends fought the barroth, and they always exploded.  Neat, I guess I need to close my gap up some for everything else.  Another neat thing I've found is that if you use pierce shots, and you hit the monster in the head while its facing you, it has a chance to damage it multiple times while it travels through their body.

Its gonna be like playing a whole different game when I start using a blade.

[Stratos]

Sounds like guns are a great way to finish sub quests where you have to damage a specific body part of a boss.

[rbtr]

Sort of?  I find that the monsters move fairly erratically, and that coupled with travel speed of the darts makes it easier just to aim a the biggest part of them.  Also to cut tails, or what have you off, you have to use slice shots.

There was an awesome moment against the barrioth where I fired a slice shot, and my friend swung at his tail hitting it the same time my dart did, cutting it off.

[Kytim89]

I am getting ready to take on a quest where I must capture th Great Jaggi. Does anyone have an advice on how to capture the monster? Has anyone faced off against Lagiacrus? I went up against him in one misson where I had to collect guts and he nearly killed me.

[Stratos]

I am getting ready to take on a quest where I must capture th Great Jaggi. Does anyone have an advice on how to capture the monster? Has anyone faced off against Lagiacrus? I went up against him in one misson where I had to collect guts and he nearly killed me.

Weaken the Jaggi until it hobbles off. Leave it alone for a few moments and it will fall asleep. Then run in and plant the shock trap right next to him while he is asleep healing and he'll be stunned. Then throw the tranqs at him.

I went back to that mission after I got stronger and he still was pretty strong. I'll probably try again once I get a complete new set of armor and the next level spear. I really want the Lagicross spear.

[KDR_11k]

The Jaggi isn't all that hard once you get used to his patterns, I've even casually captured a Great Jaggi in the forest (gives only 200 resource points, not really worth the effort, shark hunting gives 190p for the shark skin drop and while it's not a guaranteed drop it takes much less time to farm than the Jaggi).

especially if you're down to using the standard weak normal shots that you have an infinite amount

It's not all that bad with a medium bowgun shaft since that gives you a 3 round burst, I think that elevates the DPS over higher level ammo.

Sounds like guns are a great way to finish sub quests where you have to damage a specific body part of a boss.

Not really, to aim anywhere you have to stop moving, hold down R and use the d-pad for aiming (worst config ever and using the scope prevents you from doing quick dodges). Underwater you can use dual analog aim but on land you can forget about aimed shots, they take way too long and you aren't outputting enough damage to do the job quickly. I suppose shotgun ammo could work but it's so low damage that it should be reserved for getting rid of smaller support creatures (pretty good for dealing with the Qurupeco's reinforcements). If you need aimed attacks try a lance, that lets you stab low and high.

For elemental damage I think I'll have to get much deeper into the game than I am, the parts I can access have almost no elemental ammo storage and I'm pretty sure reloading after each shot gives a terrible DPS (and even then I managed to burn through my whole stockpile of fire ammo against the Ludroth). Currently I rely on the burst normal shot, considering reload times and everything it seems to be my best option.

I want to try the melee options but my whole armor is bowgun-only and I'd need to forge a whole new set. I suppose I could farm some Rhinoplos (need some Great Jaggi and wet forest parts too), that seems to be the easiest approach for getting a decent armor.

[Mop it up]

The elemental bowguns don't become available until later. All of them can only hold one or two different types of element shots. There isn't a gun that can use everything, so it is best to have multiple guns.

Like I said, bowgunning is expensive. I can't imagine starting with one, that would have been so slow and even more boring than this game already is, which is hard to believe it can get more boring.

[Stratos]

This game is anything but boring. I have fun all the time in it with both single and online play.

[Mop it up]

It's still new to you. There's way too much grinding to keep it interesting for very long.

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, seems so, neither the Barroth nor the Qurupeco gave me a decent number of drops. I got me a second set of Rhinoplos armor for melee, that was fairly easy. Now I've tried the morph ax, definitely a massive difference between that and the bowgun in terms of damage (the standing vertical slash in ax mode will kill a small Jaggi in one hit) but fighting a King Ludroth still takes forever (killed one in the forest).

[Stratos]

Hey, KDR, when you say 'King' Ludroth and 'Morph' Axe are those the actual terms used in your region's version of the game versus 'Royal' Ludroth and 'Switch' Axe in NA? The differences in terms between different localizations of games is a curiosity of mine.

[KDR_11k]

Yeah. Royal and King is ambiguous and I suppose they just picked the shorter noun because there's been a ton of places where they ran out of space for text. The first Barroth subgoal is extremely truncated ("remove the sch..." with sch being a valid abbreviation for shield, mud or tail) and the abilities are completely unintelligible until you learn about pointing at them for more info. Still nowhere close to the confusion that the Warhammer 40k names cause in translation. The bowgun is only called a crossbow here BTW, makes it very silly that the thing fires sabot munitions.

[noname2200]

I went back to that mission after I got stronger and he still was pretty strong. I'll probably try again once I get a complete new set of armor and the next level spear. I really want the Lagicross spear.

You should consider getting the Gobul spears: paralysis is fantastic.

[KDR_11k]

Hm, in the Qurupeco capture mission a Rathian runs around, should I evade that thing or try to kill it?

[Armak88]

When I was trying to capture Qurupeco, Rathian showed up after I had already weakened Qurupeco enough to capture so I decided to paint ball Rathian and try to kill it. I chased it all over the place and actually got it to drop a claw once while it fled. Also it had started feeding on the herbivores in the woods. I think I was close to killing him, but I quit trying with 5 minutes left so I could go capture Qurupeco.