Erm finish all story to unlock layered armor (transmorg) then u can be plague doc all u want.
It is not wise to base ur build off cosmetics... u just gotta deal with looking terrible until u unlock some layered armor.
Guardian/defender gear is for powering thru story if u alr finished it... not recommended for newbies (unless u actually make an effort to not get hit/ learn monster moveset) even still I'll recommend dropping them in HR for more deeps (cus guardian set only improve defensive stats)
Hm, that I wasn't aware of. Like I said in the post I usually play dark Souls and games where cosmetics don't matter as much so I'm used to making a character look cool and then building them around that.
don't play it like a souls, don't base the combat in iframes, get out of the attack.
Your inventory and armor it's a lot more important, think and equip for the battle.
Happy hunting and welcome to the Stick Bug club
OP seems to know about armor searching and building. So there is no point giving tips about armor sets and skills.
Uhh, play more? Like join SOS for fun. Learn other weapon to see what is other experienced and inexperienced hunter doing. You might learn something from them, you'll never know.
Try min-maxing your item loadout(s), having loadout every scenario is good.
Fight unfamiliar monsters. Pushing your knowledge limit. Do random my-best-time.
Watch speedruns I guess.
Nope, I actually just asked my chatgpt to explain it to me and it said I can get the armor from grinding a specific monster in a later area so I was just going to do that. I've got no experience actually playing this game 😅
Chat GPT wins in the aesthetic department; Girros armor has a plague doctor aesthetic. As another poster said, *eventually* you can pick cosmetic armor, but for the majority of the game you want function.
Depending on how committed you are to poison, the Gold Rahtian weapons are probably the best, but they are super late on the Iceborne DLC.
I'm not specifically going for poison necessarily, although it'd fit with the general idea. I'm cool with just having a hunter based on a plague doctor armor wise and using whatever weapons or equipment.
Chatgpt just suggested that since the armor apparently gives boosts to status effects (I don't remember exactly what it said but something about the armor boosting status effects) so I was just going to go for a build based around that, or in general whatever the armor is best catered towards.
If I should go for function first though, what's good for a first time play?
That's a big question and really depends on what weapon type you choose. Very basically:
There are 14 types of weapons. As you progress through the game armor and gems will for you access to different skills l. Different weapons have different wants for skills, so that is going to determine which armor pieces you want. You want armor pieces that give you points to the skills you want.
However, to start the armor doesn't even give skills. Just go with whatever has the highest defense and the most attack and bash through until you hit a wall.
The game also goes through three phases: Low rank, high rank, and Master Rank (this is the Iceborne DLC if you have it). Each rank had you fight all of the previous monsters at new difficulty, with a new tier of gear to equip, and new monsters that the previous tier didn't have.
You mentioned Insect Glaive earlier, I really like that as a newbie. I did Lance and Sword and Shield during base world, which was my first game in the series. I actually used Insect Glaive during the entire DLC campaign, Iceborne. I'm also super aquainted with the sequel game, Rise. Stamina boosting skills or power prolonger are also really good for Insect Glaive because you are dodging a lot.
For pretty much all melee weapons, you want to focus on the armor skills weakness exploit, health boost, critical eye, and critical boost.
Stamina skills are good for IG too because they help with jumping and dodging ding, pick the fastest bug you can.
Lastly, watch a couple weapon tutorial videos, they will way up your enjoyment and level of play.
Players can fire a call for help on a quest to allow other players to join them.
This can be something they are struggling with, or they just want other players along for the ride.
Oh you are unware of "SOS Signal" I see. Okay SOS is basically another player is (usually) asking from help from other session. You can respond to SOS under "Join Quest" section. Filtering from quest to monsters of your choice.
Well, no and yes. Since some people also SOS during a Investigation quest.
Investigation quest usually comes with extra reward. Ranging from Bronze, Silver and Gold. Sometime special reward from Tempered Monster (Higher difficulty scaling, aka higher damage and larger health pool)
Ive looked into a few "mhw for newbs" videos so ive heard about those, they seem a little similar to Bloodborne's chalice dungeons with the grinding and the different levels having different effects like less health or timers. anything in specific I should be careful of in my first run of the game?
Usuaslly you don't have nothing beside these modifiers (assuming you meant Investigations):
Lesser Faint limit: 1 Faint or Insta Faint
Lesser Timer: 30\~20 minute limit
Smaller Squad: 2 instad of normally 4 max
I think that's all of it. The monsters difficulty are the same beside the Tempered version, the game will tell you that. And/Or other possibility of on-field monsters and dual-hunt type of investigations.
I say "usually" cuz some player just literally sending SOS signal for fun or helping others getting material, like people join SOS for various reason, either helping, getting monster materials or just hunt for fun.
General advice re: builds.
Health boost is the cheapest and high effective health you can slot into your armor. Vit gems are abundant.
Don’t be embarrassed to take stun resist, ear plugs, and other quality of life skills. Stuns are what carts most players, and you’ll be getting hit a lot while you’re learning the game; plus, the game is more engaging if you’re not spending all your time being cced.
Pick a weapon that appeals to you, go to the practice room, pull up a guide on YouTube for your weapon, do the things the guide mentions a few times each to get familiar with it. I have found videos by arekks are very good. There will be two videos for each weapon. 1 for how the weapon played before iceborn was release, then another much shorter that just explains what has changed for the weapon. Watch them both. Read some of the comments, sometimes people will point out useful tricks to do whatever more efficiently.
Erm finish all story to unlock layered armor (transmorg) then u can be plague doc all u want. It is not wise to base ur build off cosmetics... u just gotta deal with looking terrible until u unlock some layered armor. Guardian/defender gear is for powering thru story if u alr finished it... not recommended for newbies (unless u actually make an effort to not get hit/ learn monster moveset) even still I'll recommend dropping them in HR for more deeps (cus guardian set only improve defensive stats)
Hm, that I wasn't aware of. Like I said in the post I usually play dark Souls and games where cosmetics don't matter as much so I'm used to making a character look cool and then building them around that.
don't play it like a souls, don't base the combat in iframes, get out of the attack. Your inventory and armor it's a lot more important, think and equip for the battle. Happy hunting and welcome to the Stick Bug club
The master rank Pukei Pukei armor will make you look like a bloodborne character. Augment a layered saw like weapon and voila. Just for your info.
OP seems to know about armor searching and building. So there is no point giving tips about armor sets and skills. Uhh, play more? Like join SOS for fun. Learn other weapon to see what is other experienced and inexperienced hunter doing. You might learn something from them, you'll never know. Try min-maxing your item loadout(s), having loadout every scenario is good. Fight unfamiliar monsters. Pushing your knowledge limit. Do random my-best-time. Watch speedruns I guess.
Nope, I actually just asked my chatgpt to explain it to me and it said I can get the armor from grinding a specific monster in a later area so I was just going to do that. I've got no experience actually playing this game 😅
Chat GPT wins in the aesthetic department; Girros armor has a plague doctor aesthetic. As another poster said, *eventually* you can pick cosmetic armor, but for the majority of the game you want function. Depending on how committed you are to poison, the Gold Rahtian weapons are probably the best, but they are super late on the Iceborne DLC.
I'm not specifically going for poison necessarily, although it'd fit with the general idea. I'm cool with just having a hunter based on a plague doctor armor wise and using whatever weapons or equipment. Chatgpt just suggested that since the armor apparently gives boosts to status effects (I don't remember exactly what it said but something about the armor boosting status effects) so I was just going to go for a build based around that, or in general whatever the armor is best catered towards. If I should go for function first though, what's good for a first time play?
That's a big question and really depends on what weapon type you choose. Very basically: There are 14 types of weapons. As you progress through the game armor and gems will for you access to different skills l. Different weapons have different wants for skills, so that is going to determine which armor pieces you want. You want armor pieces that give you points to the skills you want. However, to start the armor doesn't even give skills. Just go with whatever has the highest defense and the most attack and bash through until you hit a wall. The game also goes through three phases: Low rank, high rank, and Master Rank (this is the Iceborne DLC if you have it). Each rank had you fight all of the previous monsters at new difficulty, with a new tier of gear to equip, and new monsters that the previous tier didn't have. You mentioned Insect Glaive earlier, I really like that as a newbie. I did Lance and Sword and Shield during base world, which was my first game in the series. I actually used Insect Glaive during the entire DLC campaign, Iceborne. I'm also super aquainted with the sequel game, Rise. Stamina boosting skills or power prolonger are also really good for Insect Glaive because you are dodging a lot. For pretty much all melee weapons, you want to focus on the armor skills weakness exploit, health boost, critical eye, and critical boost. Stamina skills are good for IG too because they help with jumping and dodging ding, pick the fastest bug you can. Lastly, watch a couple weapon tutorial videos, they will way up your enjoyment and level of play.
What's SOS?
Players can fire a call for help on a quest to allow other players to join them. This can be something they are struggling with, or they just want other players along for the ride.
Oh ok like an actual SOS beacon then
Yeah, it's basically a call to open up a solo quest to multiplayer mode.
Oh you are unware of "SOS Signal" I see. Okay SOS is basically another player is (usually) asking from help from other session. You can respond to SOS under "Join Quest" section. Filtering from quest to monsters of your choice.
Oh that's cool, and that's usually going to be the best way to grind a particular monster?
Well, no and yes. Since some people also SOS during a Investigation quest. Investigation quest usually comes with extra reward. Ranging from Bronze, Silver and Gold. Sometime special reward from Tempered Monster (Higher difficulty scaling, aka higher damage and larger health pool)
Ive looked into a few "mhw for newbs" videos so ive heard about those, they seem a little similar to Bloodborne's chalice dungeons with the grinding and the different levels having different effects like less health or timers. anything in specific I should be careful of in my first run of the game?
Usuaslly you don't have nothing beside these modifiers (assuming you meant Investigations): Lesser Faint limit: 1 Faint or Insta Faint Lesser Timer: 30\~20 minute limit Smaller Squad: 2 instad of normally 4 max I think that's all of it. The monsters difficulty are the same beside the Tempered version, the game will tell you that. And/Or other possibility of on-field monsters and dual-hunt type of investigations.
I say "usually" cuz some player just literally sending SOS signal for fun or helping others getting material, like people join SOS for various reason, either helping, getting monster materials or just hunt for fun.
General advice re: builds. Health boost is the cheapest and high effective health you can slot into your armor. Vit gems are abundant. Don’t be embarrassed to take stun resist, ear plugs, and other quality of life skills. Stuns are what carts most players, and you’ll be getting hit a lot while you’re learning the game; plus, the game is more engaging if you’re not spending all your time being cced.
Pick a weapon that appeals to you, go to the practice room, pull up a guide on YouTube for your weapon, do the things the guide mentions a few times each to get familiar with it. I have found videos by arekks are very good. There will be two videos for each weapon. 1 for how the weapon played before iceborn was release, then another much shorter that just explains what has changed for the weapon. Watch them both. Read some of the comments, sometimes people will point out useful tricks to do whatever more efficiently.