Monster Hunter General Discussion Thread.

[GimmyJibbsJr]

Yeah, those sections could probably use some revision. I wager some bits in the Power of the Verse section is gonna be fixed when we eventually get to the CRT about item descriptions, right?

 

[Sigilavox]

Yeah, those sections could probably use some revision. I wager some bits in the Power of the Verse section is gonna be fixed when we eventually get to the CRT about item descriptions, right?

Probably. I'm honestly not super interested in material/item descriptions myself, so I'm not involved with figuring out powers and abilities for hunters beyond what we can physically do in game (i.e. Body Puppetry via Wirebugs or Light Manipulation via Flashpods), nor am I going to sift through materials for evidence on monster capabilities unless it's already something they can be observed doing.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Made a Brachydios CRT.

Just gonna bump this because Brachy's Profile bothers me.

 

[GimmyJibbsJr]

Hey so is it just me or is anyone having any trouble editing their Blog posts? Because I can do pretty much anything like usual over on these forums and stuff, but when I'm looking to update blogs and whatnot I'm just not able to

Can't even upload anything at all, IDK what's going on lol

EDIT: NVM I'm stupid, it logged me out for some reason and I didn't realize that was the issue initially

 

[Sigilavox]

Soul's recent Brachydios CRT got me thinking about tiering for top-order monsters such as Rathalos, Brachydios, and such.

Recalling the fact that tempered black diablos are said to be physically comparable to elder dragons and that even regular black diablos can drive off a deviljho in similar fashion (Dive Into World). Pink rathian can also send bazelgeuse packing with poison instead of just falling over - note that if pink rathian can fight bazelgeuse, they could probably survive a hit from them based on how much bazel dive bomb initiates and how frequently rathian is the defender, rather than the aggressor, in any turf conflict it is depicted in - it's far more likely a bazelgeuse approached the nest, attacked, and was repelled. Though one could chalk the situation up to poison hax, this isn't the kind of series where monster fights just happen without one belligerent even being touched, especially if said belligerent is naturally far weaker the one it defeats.

There's also the cutscene in Iceborne where a regular Yian Garuga stunned, pushed back, and knocked over a Deviljho, making it just up and leave rather than bother pressing. Yian Garuga has always been an apex-level monster, or slightly lower than that, being the same threat level as Uragaan, Duramboros, Zinogre, Rathalos, etc. in Generations, 4, 3U, and so on. One can argue that the Guiding Lands augmented that individual to be stronger than normal, that Deviljho was also an inhabitant of the Guiding Lands as well so eh.

And finally, Legends of the Guild has a Congalala smacking a Deviljho hard enough to disorient it and the bout definitely was a struggle, not the Congalala just falling over to a ninety-billion times multiplicative disadvantage.

While I believe these are primarily due to the series' philosophy that all monsters are a hell of a lot weaker and more comparable than what our profiles say, I also think that even within VS Battles boundaries, there is discussion to be had here about examples of monsters being comparable or able to harm/stagger ones that are considered here to be like, way out of their league.

Even discounting variants and deviants, CAPCOM has been leaning more and more towards having certain individuals of monster species just being "Elder Dragon level", so there may be a case for putting "At least High 8-C, at most High 6-C" in the profiles of apex tier monster species. These profiles aren't about individual characters, but rather for varying depictions of species across the series, and among our in-world populations there are definitely some that are capable of tangling with stronger stuff.

Thoughts?

 

[DMUA]

Pink rathian can also send bazelgeuse packing with poison instead of just falling over - note that if pink rathian can fight bazelgeuse, they could probably survive a hit from them based on how much bazel dive bomb initiates and how frequently rathian is the defender, rather than the aggressor, in any turf conflict it is depicted in - it's far more likely a bazelgeuse approached the nest, attacked, and was repelled. Though one could chalk the situation up to poison hax, this isn't the kind of series where monster fights just happen without one belligerent even being touched, especially if said belligerent is naturally far weaker the one it defeats.

Yeah, but Monster Hunter is one of those versus where genuine one-shots are pretty uncommon. Deviljho doesn't instantly kill apexes despite trouncing them in an outright fight (even when they have a disadvantage in terms of flight), and this is very specifically poison so seems more like "The pink rathian can break their skin and draw some blood, which is enough to make the Bazelgeuse figure it's not worth the effort" than "A pink rathian can fight a Bazelgeuse straight up until limps away almost dying of poison"

There's also the cutscene in Iceborne where a regular Yian Garuga stunned, pushed back, and knocked over a Deviljho, making it just up and leave rather than bother pressing. Yian Garuga has always been an apex-level monster, or slightly lower than that, being the same threat level as Uragaan, Duramboros, Zinogre, Rathalos, etc. in Generations, 4, 3U, and so on. One can argue that the Guiding Lands augmented that individual to be stronger than normal, that Deviljho was also an inhabitant of the Guiding Lands as well so eh.

Always found it weird that you can only ever encounter Savage Deviljhos in gameplay when this happens, but regardless...

Deviljho still utterly dominates them in a fight, the best Yian Garuga does is annoy them until they scream and make Deviljho relent. It doesn't do any real damage with it's pecks and a single grab from Deviljho sends Yian Garuga careening across the area, appearing incapacitated until they scream as a last ditch effort.

And finally, Legends of the Guild has a Congalala smacking a Deviljho hard enough to disorient it and the bout definitely was a struggle, not the Congalala just falling over to a ninety-billion times multiplicative disadvantage.

okay at this point I feel Deviljho may just be way weaker than we're giving them credit for

Like we went right past "maybe we need to think about scaling" and into Worf territory right here

Heck Congalala somehow does better than Rajang or really any of the Apexes here so like

I can't really counter the Black Diablos stuff, I just think it's weird and probably not consistent but at this point the Congalala showing genuinely makes me wonder if the opposite, that Deviljho is High 8-C likely High 6-C, can be argued

 

[The_Axiom_of_Virgo]

I mean canonically speaking monsters vary greatly in size, age and appearance. It doesn't take too much of a leap in logic to assume their power-levels would greatly vary too (Look no further than this guy).

 

[Sigilavox]

I can't really counter the Black Diablos stuff, I just think it's weird and probably not consistent but at this point the Congalala showing genuinely makes me wonder if the opposite, that Deviljho is High 8-C likely High 6-C, can be argued

I feel like this is really all due to CAPCOM's general design philosophy that monsters, even elder dragons, are roughly comparable to each other, despite some being clearly stronger than others in certain (or all) regards. Like, tyrannosaurs versus elephants versus hippos. This is why monsters can smack each other around and have actual fights. Like, wirebug riding is a straight-up lore power used by Kamura hunters, and you can hurt Magnamalo with Rathalos attacks - this is even implied with one of the main Rise trailers. If you want to get technical, you can hurt Kushala with Kulu-Ya-Ku. It's not a case of using wirebugs to allow monsters to hit harder than they would normally be able to, since they use elemental attacks as well.

Then there's also the fact that rocks can just be dropped on Elder Dragon heads (it's even stated in quest dialogue for Safi'jiiva that you can explicitly deal huge damage to it by dropping boulders on its head) and any monsters (barring Kushala, who's too heavy to be budged) can be thrown off of the Ancient Tree by a rush of water for huge damage. If you asked anyone at CAPCOM whether Kushala Daora could survive a thousand Tsar Bombas point blank, I really, really doubt they'd say yes, since they just never thought of them or their powers like that.

tbh consistency at this point is just whatever each person feels would best fit the situation since at this point you physically can't have every depiction of most monsters be simultaneously true and consistent with each other, just like how MTG planeswalkers can physically contend with city-razing abominations but then have trouble beating up some random thugs in an alley in the next arc.

Still, given the parameters of the site, the closest possible way to achieve this would probably be to throw on variable AP parameters.

I mean canonically speaking monsters vary greatly in size, age and appearance. It doesn't take too much of a leap in logic to assume their power-levels would greatly vary too (Look no further than this guy).

Hence the reasoning for suggesting "At least High 8-C, at most High 6-C".

 

[Sigilavox]

In other news, how have people enjoyed Title Update 1 of Sunbreak so far?

I've found the investigations to be fun in putting together quests of my favorite monsters, since now that gear grinding is basically done for me at this point, I'm mostly having fun fighting fun beasties.

I'm searching for that perfect Afflicted X + Kushala Daora + Silver Rathalos quest that I can lock in, since those two are my favorite hunts in Sunbreak.

 

[Sigilavox]

I just recalled, the Hell Hunters literally defeated a Lunastra and Ashen Lao-Shan Lung at the same time "effortlessly", and then lost to a Tigrex, and since then they have pretty much stopped taking on hunting quests due to being traumatized or something like that. Anyone wanna talk about that?

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

I just recalled, the Hell Hunters literally defeated a Lunastra and Ashen Lao-Shan Lung at the same time "effortlessly", and then lost to a Tigrex, and since then they have pretty much stopped taking on hunting quests due to being traumatized or something like that. Anyone wanna talk about that?

Bruh....

 

[GimmyJibbsJr]

Wait is it actually confirmed that they killed Luna and Ashen lao effortlessly, or is that just their own claim? I was always under the impression that it was all bluster, altho it's been a while since I played a game with them in it lmao

 

[Sigilavox]

Wait is it actually confirmed that they killed Luna and Ashen lao effortlessly, or is that just their own claim? I was always under the impression that it was all bluster, altho it's been a while since I played a game with them in it lmao

Well, the Felyne who had been tailing them when they actually did the deed certainly thinks so. Plus, you get the ability to trade for Ashen Lao Shan and Lunastra parts after the questline is done, so...

Also, the first time you hear about them in 4 Ultimate, a Gypceros scared them off, probably due to said trauma from losing badly to a Tigrex.

Edit: They trounced the Ashen Lao-Shan Lung and Lunastra after losing to the Tigrex, but that doesn't exactly change that they were once hugely skilled, famous hunters who flopped against a Tigrex and had been wallowing since; it's unlikely they "increased in power" in the time between their fall from grace and the time they went out to take down the two elder dragons, it's more likely they were always that skilled and just applied themselves again.

 

[DMUA]

I just recalled, the Hell Hunters literally defeated a Lunastra and Ashen Lao-Shan Lung at the same time "effortlessly", and then lost to a Tigrex, and since then they have pretty much stopped taking on hunting quests due to being traumatized or something like that. Anyone wanna talk about that?

I am going to become the joker

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Edit: They trounced the Ashen Lao-Shan Lung and Lunastra after losing to the Tigrex, but that doesn't exactly change that they were once hugely skilled, famous hunters who flopped against a Tigrex and had been wallowing since; it's unlikely they "increased in power" in the time between their fall from grace and the time they went out to take down the two elder dragons, it's more likely they were always that skilled and just applied themselves again.

Okay, that makes more sense. Still means a Tigrex was that damn strong though.

 

[Sigilavox]

Well, back to game talk: the Title Update 2 trailer is officially out. The update is slated for 9/29.

Spoiler

What the flip Risen Chameleos is so cool and it's locked behind MR 110 which means they have free reign with how bonkers it can be and it's got new armor and I can't wait for Risen Kushala and Risen Teostra and-

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Well, back to game talk: the Title Update 2 trailer is officially out. The update is slated for 9/29.

Spoiler

What the flip Risen Chameleos is so cool and it's locked behind MR 110 which means they have free reign with how bonkers it can be and it's got new armor and I can't wait for Risen Kushala and Risen Teostra and-

Cool. Btw, has anyone gotten around to getting any of the other Kinship Attacks Calc'd or getting those new LS Calcs added?

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Why are all the monsters like Great Jaggi, Velocidrome and Great Jagras only 8-C? I get they're weaker than Barroth but they should be at least 8-C+ from downloading, not full on 8-C, they aren't that much weaker.

Edit: Holy shit Velocidrome's profile is outdated as ****. The Velociprey are still 9-A from scaling to the old freezing people calc.

Edit 2: Holy shit, all the raptor-esque monsters are outdated as ****.

 

[DMUA]

Probably

 

[Sigilavox]

Why are all the monsters like Great Jaggi, Velocidrome and Great Jagras only 8-C? I get they're weaker than Barroth but they should be at least 8-C+ from downloading, not full on 8-C, they aren't that much weaker.

Probably a holdover from a previous calculation or something.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

We also need to fix all the monsters that are still 9-A too.

 

[Sigilavox]

As an aside, I feel like we could do better for the Barroth boulder crush feat. This anthill is what we can actually see Barroth crushing (albeit it's probably made of packed soil and sediment rather than straight stone), and last I checked, the stones used in the Barroth calc are not breakable by anything, even in-game. We might be able to use the boulder in the intersection area of the Wildspire Waste as a baseline, since even Kulu-Ya-Ku can break those, though those might again be anthills and hence would possibly come up with a far lower result than the current one - I estimate somewhere in 9-A.

Basically, yeah, we definitely have to re-evaluate the low-tier monsters overall.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

As an aside, I feel like we could do better for the Barroth boulder crush feat. This anthill is what we can actually see Barroth crushing (albeit it's probably made of packed soil and sediment rather than straight stone), and last I checked, the stones used in the Barroth calc are not breakable by anything, even in-game. We might be able to use the boulder in the intersection area of the Wildspire Waste as a baseline, since even Kulu-Ya-Ku can break those, though those might again be anthills and hence would possibly come up with a far lower result than the current one - I estimate somewhere in 9-A.

Basically, yeah, we definitely have to re-evaluate the low-tier monsters overall.

Sounds good to me, I just want them to be accurate.

 

[DMUA]

Yeah I think I did notice that as I was doing stuff

might need to do a bit more with that blog I made earlier

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Hey Sigilavox, how's that Safi'jiiva Sandbox coming along?

 

[Sigilavox]

Hey Sigilavox, how's that Safi'jiiva Sandbox coming along?

Fully updated to current CRTs and scaling. The abilities and powers could be made prettier but aside from that, everything functions.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Fully updated to current CRTs and scaling. The abilities and powers could be made prettier but aside from that, everything functions.

Shouldn't Xeno'jiiva scale to Dalamadur in speed since it's directly powered by two of them? We already have it scaled like that on its actual profile anyways.

 

[Sigilavox]

Shouldn't Xeno'jiiva scale to Dalamadur in speed since it's directly powered by two of them? We already have it scaled like that on its actual profile anyways.

Got it. Though I don’t agree with the idea that Xeno should scale to Dala, I will change it to fit the scaling standards we’ve set out.

 

[Sigilavox]

Just saying that if we ever get confirmation that the New World is, like, bigger than 100 km across, Zorah’s AP will shoot up immensely.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Just saying that if we ever get confirmation that the New World is, like, bigger than 100 km across, Zorah’s AP will shoot up immensely.

For real though. Btw, can we fix Nergigante's Intelligence? We're not allowed to use ratings that aren't in the intelligence page anymore plus Ruiner Nergigante has a weakness to the Dragon Element meaning it's smarter than normal Nergigante is.

 

[Sigilavox]

For real though. Btw, can we fix Nergigante's Intelligence? We're not allowed to use ratings that aren't in the intelligence page anymore plus Ruiner Nergigante has a weakness to the Dragon Element meaning it's smarter than normal Nergigante is.

Where's our source for dragon element attacking the mind? As far as I'm aware, that's only fanon until we actually get a statement on how dragon element is different from just "a mysterious form of energy" aka Energy Projection with a dash of Power Nullification.

And as far as intelligence goes, I really think we should just plop every monster in Animalistic or High Animalistic, aside from Safi'jiiva and Fatalis, the only two who are explicitly stated to be, like, far above human intelligence. Even Ibushi and Narwa were single-minded when they did resonate with Hinoa/Minoto, and in terms of actually displaying an ability to think and strategize they were both... pretty lacking.

 

[GimmyJibbsJr]

The one Pukei Pukei you save as Geralt in World seemed to be decently smart, as it recognized an ally, went to help, and formed an attachment to Geralt, it seems

Side note I woulda loved to see Pukei Pukei travel with Geralt lmao

 

[Sigilavox]

The one Pukei Pukei you save as Geralt in World seemed to be decently smart, as it recognized an ally, went to help, and formed an attachment to Geralt, it seems

Side note I woulda loved to see Pukei Pukei travel with Geralt lmao

Makes sense; forming attachments and such would be High Animalistic in my book given how real life animals can be thankful for people saving them and all.

Since the grimalkyne was there at the end when presenting the gift, it’s a little vague whether it was an already domesticated pukei or something of the sort, but I can see arguments for Below Average akin to Pokémon.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Makes sense; forming attachments and such would be High Animalistic in my book given how real life animals can be thankful for people saving them and all.

Since the grimalkyne was there at the end when presenting the gift, it’s a little vague whether it was an already domesticated pukei or something of the sort, but I can see arguments for Below Average akin to Pokémon.

There's also all the monster bonding shenanigans from Stories and how the monsties in those games seem to be able to be trained to do complicated fighting techniques for their Kinship Attacks like Pukei making an entire ******* storm cloud made of poison and shielding its rider with its tongue, Rajang smashing the ground and jumping from all the rubble it made to reach the biggest boulder in the rubble so it can grab it and infuse it with its element before chucking it like a bomb, Quarapeco literally knows how to light fuses for bombs and understands what a barrel bomb is in the first place, Brachydios doing an entire training montage where its also very clearly shown practicing boxing, I can keep going with stuff like this for awhile but the point is the Monsters have the capacity for high intelligence since they show emotional intelligence, general intelligence and combat intelligence beyond what any normal animal could manage outside of cartoons and movies aside from maybe Orcas or something.

 

[Sigilavox]

I'm really hesitant to put them at actual human-levels of intelligence, but I can definitely see Below Average a la Pokemon, since lots of stuff monsties do are basically what Pokemon do. I can make a CRT for all monsters (Great Jaggi level and up) to be put there perhaps?

 

[Rich987]

I was looking at some skills in the game and I saw that the Fencing skill fits a lot in "Ignore Durability". From what I've seen it's an ability that prevents attacks from being bounced, that is, in the case the blade or hammer edge (??) are not bounced by a greater resistance, or harder and thicker scales in the case of the game, thus doing the weapon cuts through the monster's durability inevitably, ignoring it.

I don't know if this affects probability, or just in some cases the attack doesn't bounce back. But I saw that there was nothing about the ability to ignore durability on the Hunter page, so I decided to bring it to know your opinion.

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

I was looking at some skills in the game and I saw that the Fencing skill fits a lot in "Ignore Durability". From what I've seen it's an ability that prevents attacks from being bounced, that is, in the case the blade or hammer edge (??) are not bounced by a greater resistance, or harder and thicker scales in the case of the game, thus doing the weapon cuts through the monster's durability inevitably, ignoring it.

I don't know if this affects probability, or just in some cases the attack doesn't bounce back. But I saw that there was nothing about the ability to ignore durability on the Hunter page, so I decided to bring it to know your opinion.

So The Hunter has Dura Neg? Sweet.

 

[DMUA]

I like... Don't really get it?

Something like Apex Monsters in 4U explicitly have their skin harden (read: become tougher, more durable) which causes everything to bounce off, needing a Wystone to counter it

It's more a limited form of either that or invunerablity negation than outright "if you're as strong as me I can just cut you in half"

Which does sort of brush against the ye olden problem of how swords and other sharp objects are technically durability negation since they hone force into a far more effective point, and logically if people share AP, the guy with the sword will definitely be able to just instantly kill the other upon a clean strike, but

 

[Sigilavox]

imo Mind's Eye is more like "I'm able to see and hit the weak points in even hard parts" than full-on durability negation.

 

[Sigilavox]

Title Update 2's out!

Spoiler: My thoughts on Flaming Espinas

Flaming Espinas is a bit disappointing; the fight just feels like Espinas but slightly harder and locked in a single arena. The nuke was a real let-down; I thought it'd track more, and aside from the one time it did a follow-up, I cannot for the life of me imagine how anyone could possibly get hit by that slow-ass move. Still, it's not a bad fight by any means, as Espinas itself is a unique and fun monster already. Holy shit that cutscene though. Teostra got straight Kinship Attack'd.

Spoiler: My thoughts on Violet Mizutsune

Violet Mizutsune far, far outperformed my expectations. I love its aesthetics, and it really felt like an elegant dance with an exceedingly difficult foe, hard by its moveset and not just by its damage numbers, like Flaming Espinas was. Its enhanced state(s) really knocked it out of the park with a variety of very punchy and learnable moves, and in particular, that moment when it first entered its flaming starlight mode, and the Mizutsune theme overtook Hot Blood Baths, from that point onwards I was just plain having fun.

Spoiler: My thoughts on Risen Chameleos

It's literally just Chameleos, but an enhanced rage state. Eh. I expected more invis shenigans, explosions, or at least aggression, rather than just bigger poison clouds. A decently tough fight for sure, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I'm more cautious, but still optimistic, about Risen Kushala.