monster hunter world Archives - Page 2 of 6

SOS Failures

April 24, 2018 by Belghast

The thing about SOS Roulette is that sometimes you win big… other times you fail miserably. Last night was more in the fail miserably column as I decided to attempt to farm some of the gems I need to create the full Kulve Taroth set of gear. That means I will need a Kulve Taroth Gem, a Val Hazaak Gem, a Xeno’jiiva Gem and a Nergigante Gem. As a result I spent most of the night joining in on Nergi and Hazaak fights without much luck. The truth is these are not the best things to queue into because the elder dragons represent a steep climb in difficulty. More often than not last night we carted out of the fight with someone taking a faint and finishing things out without getting any measurable loot.

The night did however make me realize how desperately I need one more Miasma gem so I can become immune to Effluvial build up and just wreck that fight without much issue. The truth is Hazaak is way easier than I remembered him being, which seems to be a common theme I am feeling as I go back and redo these fights. The truth is I have mostly been in a mindset of fighting tempered or similar things over the last few weeks and as a result all of those high rank “tough” fights feel a lot easier as a result. The truth is I should just be doing these solo where I can predict what is going to happen better…. but that just always feels so lonely. I admit most of the time I do the SOS Roulette thing just because it feels like I am doing things with people… without the need for actual human interaction. I realize I am not normal.

I did manage to get in a really good run of Kulve Taroth where I walked away with two decent items that represent weapons I had not really gotten before. First up is the Taroth “Blitz” Erupter which appears to be pattered off of the Deviljho Light Bowgun… and I have no clue at all if it is even a reasonable weapon but it does give me at least a Rank 7 one to play with. Next up you have the above image of the Taroth Buster “Water” which lets me start playing around with Gunlance, another weapon I have not so much as even equipped. I think more than anything that is what this event represents for me… a way to get a bunch of decent versions of weapons to start playing with and testing out. Sure I could have crafted likely better versions of all of these things… but I feel like I sorta need to know what types of weapons I like before I sink a lot of resources into them.

I think tonight I might start getting used to soloing things again, either that or see what Ashgar is up to because I know he needs Nergi parts as well. I need to get serious about trying to farm that last Kulve gem because when the event is over my opportunity closes there. Shiana has somehow managed to get four of the gems already so has enough to craft both the alpha and beta sets. For me… I am mostly just focused on crafting a single set and unfortunately I only have one gold ticket waiting in the wings to fill out whatever gem I have the hardest time getting. I think I blew my luck the other night when I managed to carve a Wyvern Gem and then get two more from the end of mission loot window…. for a total of three that night.

Gold Dust Woman

April 20, 2018 by Belghast

Right now in Monster Hunter World there is a brand new type of event happening called a Siege. The idea is that an entire 18 player session is working towards one objective… taking down a Zorah Magdaros style massive elder dragon. In order to start the process you need to find a gold pile somewhere out in the wilds. By default this should be somewhere near the start of any of the outdoor zones. In talking to the AggroChat crew last night I was told to do an investigation… which absolutely worked… but I believe that Tam originally intended to tell me to do an Expedition which according to Ash also works. The pile will be very obvious and very out of place and by looting it you will then have a quest as soon as you zone into Astera. From there the quest takes place in the Gathering Hub and will show up as a unique quest type called Siege at the bottom of the quest givers list.

From there you join a party in progress or start your own. There is no SOS Roulette for this so my standard practice of joining a clan session to hang out only really works if you are all focused on doing the event. The AggroChat crew apparently did this with only four players on Wednesday night when it opened, but I largely just kept joining public sessions until I found one with players actively doing the quest. For the most part every instance I joined had two active groups so a total of eight players chipping away at the progress meter for the event. Functionally all groups are working in their own separate instances with progress made each time you meet a milestone… like knocking off a specific part of the body.

There are functionally four phases that I am aware of in the fight. In the first phase Kulve Taroth moves around the zone completely oblivious to the players allowing you to hit it with canon fire perched atop cliffs much like the Zorah Magdaros fight. During the second phase she is still covered in the gold plating but begins to take notice of your actions and will actively but very slowly attack you. During the forth phase she enters a room where there are some magma eruptions that heat the gold up making her go significantly faster as well as allowing for better damage to knock parts off. During the final phase she goes into a room where magma is dripping down from the ceiling and all of her armor is knocked off making her extremely fast and very Nergigante like in damage when she hits you.

Ultimately the goal is to survive until one of two things happens… either she gets bored and wanders off “leaving the area” which counts as success weirdly enough. The other option is that through the actions of all teams that her horns are broken… which allows the team that broke them the ability to carve them for all sorts of tasty loot. The other thing that makes this fight extremely interesting is that she is constantly dropping parts on the ground so you have to juggle fighting with looting on a regular basis. Additionally there is a tribe Gajalaka that will constantly be getting in the way, throwing things at you, knocking you down… so you will be dealing with this in additional to avoiding very wide sweeping attacks. You can take them out however and the ones with gold shielding on their back drop Kulve Taroth bits… and the others have a reasonable chance to do the same.

This is a massive time sink, given that it often takes a full instance two or three attempts to take down the dragon. What makes it worth it however is the interesting semi-randomized loot drops that introduce the relic system that has existed in other games. While you are in the fight picking up drops, there is a chance that you can get a relic weapon. These then are appraised at the quest giver after you have exited the instance in a fashion similar to decorations. Last night I ran three complete Kulve Taroth fights and walked away at the end of the night with 22 blue rank 6 weapons, 5 purple rank 7 weapons and 3 orange rank 8 weapons. The above screenshot is an amalgam of all of the best items that I got from the fights. Apparently that Insect Glaive is good enough to make Tam our resident Glaive master general drool a bit over it.

What I am more interested in however is the fact that this is giving me an infusion of weapons that I might have not actually tried on my own. The truth is I have played with a very small subset of weapons in the game and there are others like lance that I have wanted to try… but had no clue which one to work towards. Last night I got myself a reasonable sleep lance to start taking down things like everyone’s favorite target dummy… Great Jagras. More than this, it is giving me a smattering of different elemental damage types which gives me more leverage when we start looking at other fights in the game. The other big thing I am working towards is being able to craft a full set of the Kulve armor because it too is really nice… but will involve a lot of elder dragon farming since each piece requires a gem.

Lastly there is both new layered armor and palico gear associated with this quest and I am wearing two pieces of the set… shoulders and waist in the above screenshot. Kenzie my palico is wearing the full set of her gear. This is crafted by combining Bushi Tickets that drop upon turning in the Kulve Taroth quest when your instance had defeated it and combining them with a bunch of varied monster parts. I am working towards the Bushi Homare set which involves a bunch of elder dragon bits… whereas the Bushi Sabi set has a broken down battle worn appearance and requires a bunch of parts from alternate high rank mobs like Black Diablos. All in all I love the feel of this event because it is essentially Monster Hunter World doing a raid. I’ve been extremely impressed with the sort of things they are continuing to patch into this game giving us reasons to keep coming back and interacting with content. The event itself runs for a few weeks and I can already tell I will be spending at least some time each night farming Kulve Taroth for interesting weapon options.

Boosh and Barroth

April 16, 2018 by Belghast

It was a pretty great weekend as far as gaming goals go. Saturday I largely roamed around aimlessly in Everquest while hanging out with my wife downstairs watching various stuff on the television. Then at some point before the podcast I headed upstairs to see if I could knock out the megaman event. This entails fighting the most laughably small Odogoron you have ever seen… and one that is slightly larger than normal. In truth I am not completely sure it is larger than normal… or if it just seems massive compared to the tiny tiny one you fight first. Ultimately you need to get five tickets to get your full palico armor and I managed to finish mine up in three events… with the last one dropping three event tickets… something I was not sure could actually happen.

After the Podcast Thalen and I wound up hanging out and working on our Ryu costumes, which entails doing a challenge arena where you fight a massive Barroth. This thing is so large that really your only option is to wail away on the legs until it falls over…. then start scoring hits on other parts of the body. This event scores event tickets based on how fast you get the kill… if I am remembering right getting it in less than 5 minutes nets you a gold and three tickets, less than 9 minutes a silver and 2 tickets, and finally finishing at all before the 50 minute timer is up earns you bronze and a single ticket. You need seven tickets in total so we wound up running it four times in a row allowing us to craft the Ryu suit… that in all honesty we will probably never actually wear.

When Thalen and I both got on I created an open chat channel and we both joined the Greysky Armanda clan session, and at some point during our Barroth nonsense our good friend Shiana joined us in both. Thalen and I were talking for a bit about both needing Kirin and what sort of gear we were prepping for the fight. It was around about this point that Shiana offered to help us get some attempts in seeing as he was in the 90s rank wise himself. Granted this is like at 11 pm we are starting this madness… but my desire to kill the stupid unicorn was greater than my desire for sleep. So we continued forth with me wearing my mostly Xeno’jiiva set that nets 40 lightning resist with a veggie platter buff. In truth with multiple people the fight already seemed way easier because I was not having to spend my entire time trying to shed aggro from the lunatic horse.

One by one we each got carted… with me taking the last hit and closing out our first attempt somewhere around the 25 minute mark. On our second attempt we managed to get feline insurance, and in truth only managed to get carted the one time if I am remembering correctly. We had better luck as far as where exactly Kirin decided to fight us, shifting back and forth between two relatively open areas. When we managed to whittle it down to enough hitpoints to make it run back to it’s “nest” we barrel bombed it into oblivion then threw on our thunderproof mantles and proceeded to wale away on it. All the while this was going on… I was still very much on edge… afraid something would go terribly wrong and we would fail the fight once again. So when I saw the above screenshot… crediting a kill for Kirin I was ecstatic… making getting to sleep when I finally crawled into bed a little after midnight a bit harder than normal.

Sunday I spent the day swapping laundry and hanging out upstairs playing Monster Hunter while watching The Mighty Boosh on my second monitor. I am not exactly sure what prompted me, but for some reason I fired up Hulu to see what was available and it suggested to me this show. Now I had watched most of it some time ago when reruns were being played as part of the adult swim block late at night. This was back during my wow raiding days… and many of the sayings from the “Old Gregg” episode became constant quotation fodder during fights… especially “Fuzzy Little Man Peach”. So yesterday I hung out watching the Hulu feed of the episodes while doing random nonsense in Monster Hunter World. It was a day truly well spent.

I’ve been slowly adding weapons to my repertoire and then learning how to use them. It seems extremely bizarre but I have been crafting purple and orange versions of weapons that I have maybe never actually used… because I figure as I learn them I at least have an “end game” version to get used to rather than mess with all of the steps in between. For the moment I have solid versions of Charge Blade, Switch Axe, Great Sword and of course the Longsword of which I have developed quite the collection. One of the weapons that I have kept wanting to try is the Dual Blades which seem really cool when I see someone using them, but for whatever reason I have never actually tried.

I really really like the look of the Sin dual Chain Kama looking weapons, and thanks to farming the Odogoron quest I managed to get not only one but two gems. This allowed me to craft the weapon and the complete set of Alpha Odog gear to go with it. Sure it might seem weird that I have a full set of gear largely because I think its cool looking… but whatever. Now I am setting my sights on getting the Zorah blast lance… before giving that weapon a go. Sure I could just go into the training room… but as I keep being reminded I am the patron saint of bad decisions and that simply would not be my way.

Another project for this weekend was finishing farming the Anjanath claws needed to upgrade my weapon I can’t pronounce into the final form of said weapon I can’t pronounce. I then took the firey axe and shield out on a few test runs having really great luck with it. It could use a few more ranks of handicraft to give me more time in the blue zone, because it takes an awful lot of sharpness loss as you use it… but it also dishes out a lot of damage and is crazy fun to use. I am sure there are probably better options for sword and shield, but I like this one and it at least gives me an end game suitable weapon in that category. All in all it was a pretty great weekend… apart from one incident… but that is a tale for another day.

Rocket-Swords and Pig-Bees

April 6, 2018 by Belghast

Last night I spent some time in Monster Hunter World because the Spring Blossom festival launched about halfway through my evening offering up a ton of things to do. It is this weird blended festival that includes a ton of repeat chances to get items that were offered before as well as several new items including the Greatsword I am rocking in this image and the Megaman/Rockman Pallico Armor that I will ultimately have to get my hands on. I will talk more about the Greatsword a little further down the list… but first I want to talk about how generally happy I am with the pacing of events in this game. It feels like every single week there is a reason for me to log in and do content, and while I am largely stalled out at 49 behind Tempered Kirin there seems to still be a constant deluge of things to do. Granted I have pulled back my playtime a bit given my recent infatuation with Project Gorgon and the return to doing stuff with people in World of Warcraft… but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am completely disconnected.

I really love the flow of this game because it feels like I can log in any night and feel like I have interesting options to do. There are also things on the horizon that I have to look forward to, like the Devil May Cry collaboration that brings a brand new Charge Blade into the mix. This week however was all about the new fan designed Greatsword and helping me to fill in a weapon slot that I really had not put any effort into. While I don’t think they necessarily have the intention of giving us an event weapon for every slot… so far I have gotten a really nice Bow and a really nice Greatsword with what felt like minimal effort when it comes to farming all of the missing bits I need to get from point a to point b in the crafting tree. Sure the Greatsword and Bow both require a Wyvern Gem which is annoying to farm… but that is one part out of a whole list of parts that might be a pain to get. I wound up using the Gold Wyverian print I had laying around to craft the Greatsword last night.

Like I said before I was ultimately missing a decent Greatsword from my weapon lineup, and while it is an extremely cumbersome weapon… it is one I want to learn how to use because it seems very much a “me” weapon. In order to get this weapon you need to start running the low rank 5 star quest… Every Hunter’s Dream. This involves taking down a Paolumu and a Rathalos… which enter the fight staggered a bit so you can get a significant amount of damage in on the Lumu before having to deal with the poison and fire asshole. I ran the first one of these solo and then grouped up with Thalen who also happened to be on to get the last few kills. I think in total it took us four attempts to get the five Master Craftsman’s Blueprints needed to craft both steps of the weapon. As far as the other items needed… here is a list form breakout even though I crudely photo-shopped it all together above.

Master Craftsman’s Blueprint – 5 – Event Only Item
Dragonite Ore – 7 – I believe any zone after Low Rank Coral Highlands but not 100% sure
Paolumu Webbing – 2 – Low Rank Paolumu
Rathalos Marrow – 2 – Low Rank Rathalos – Green First Wyverian Print
Elder Dragon Blood – 2 – Kill an Elder Dragon – Nergigante, Vaal Hazak, Kushala Daora, Teostra, Xeno’jiiva
Firecell Stone – 2 – Found in Elder’s Recess
Wyvern Gem – 1 – Most High Rank Paolumu, Tobi-Kadachi, Lavasioth, Jyuratodus, Barroth, Radobaan, Diablos
40,000 Zenny – yeah…. you are going to want to farm some cash

I have not really done anything serious with this weapon… but in theory were I to use it regularly I would wear my fire longsword set of gear… make sure I have some Handicraft and figure out a decent item to wear that gives me the hidden elemental damage. 510 is a lot of fire damage to leave sitting on the table with this weapon, so I need to sort out a decent item to slot to give me that back since I am no longer regularly wearing the Zorah Magdaros gloves. I did a few minor quests last night with the weapon and really dig it… even though it is just about the slowest thing in the world. I had already started getting into the practice of sheathing my longsword anytime I was going to be moving for awhile just because the draw attack is really nice. This training has served me pretty well for the greatsword given that you cannot move at more than a snails pace with it drawn.

If you are interested in the timing of everything going on you can check out the official Capcom PDF of events… or better yet check out this site called 28 Games Later that has a really nice full breakout of everything.