MonHun

[ban]

Though tbf the Vajra line is more distinct than say the Chi-You vs the reddish Chi-You. And don't expect me to remember differences in monster behavior from 5+ ranks ago

I see that someone didn't do the Perfect SSS+ ranks as if this was DMC3 on Dante Must Die

Ok, to be fair, neither did I, stopped at Rank 8 because I had to leave for the army.

Is there a reason all these monsters seem to have hindu or chink names?

Yes, it denotes basically which country found them first and which countries are destroyed by them.

Did I mention that in the GE universe, China, South America, India and a large part of the Middle East straight up don't exist anymore?

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

And the ones left aren't really "countries" in the traditional sense, just a couple hive cities surrounded by a desolate wasteland full of monsters.

I think the only confirmed places where humans still live are Japan, Europe, Russia, the USA and I think Singapore.

[ban]

Pretty much. The entire Asian branch basically consists of Japan only. So far the countries that still exist are Japan, Hong Kong(?), the USA in a very poor state, a lot of the smaller island nations that haven't been touched, Russia who were the first to encounter and repell the Aragami(I think?) and most of Europe. Eastern Europe got gigafucked because they were near the borders of Russia but the rest is fine and I don't think they live as badly as Japan does.

I think in GE2, the two new recruits from Europe, Scottish Sephiroth and some italian kid, mention that they got "promoted" to the Japanese branch because their abilities far exceed the necessary ones for the European Branch, implying that at most, every bozo with a gun can take care of the Aragami there. Even Alyssia, the big-tiddied russian mail-bride whore girlfriend and future waifu commented on how poor the Japanese's living conditions are after Kouta showed her his house and his family(mom and sister) in the GOOD parts of the slums. At least it's better than your player who, regardless of where you make him come from(yes, you cn customize his ethnicity, technically) goes :



Regarding his former housing situation though it can be assumed you're supposed to be an orphan and enlisted out of revenge more than anything. In both GE's.

In 3, EVERYONE is fucked, except for the speshul snowflakes of Code Vein who finally got to see the world :



Sparklies BTFO!

[Kugelfisch]

Back to MonHun.
GL changes seem fine so far. The Wyrmstake is back and there are now some more ways to combo into it. There is also the possibility to charge shells without doing anything else first and from a fully charged shot you can combo into a faster animation version of the stake.

So hold A, fire when charged fully, back + A I to fast Wyrmstake.
That's pretty good, as it was barely worth using it in World. It required too much setup for the damage it did.

Conversely, Wyverfire has a longer cool down. However, it now has a guard point. Light attacks are blocked, heavy ones cancel it but you don't lose it.

Full aerial burst is also back. Pretty fun if you jump off the dog's back. After landing you can slow WS, WF or just go into a normal combo.

All dodge hops are shorter than in World, back to normal. GL is less mobile but more powerful, as it should be.


Next, I'll try the Hunting Horn. It has been massively simplified. Songs now play automatically and at least the HH in the demo has all songs being two of the same note.
I'm fine with that. HH has always been the least played weapon.

[Kugelfisch]

Alright, I'm back. Facerolled the Arzuros and Great Izuchi real quick.
HH is ridiculous. Downright overpowered.
It's been super powerful for a few games now but now it's also trivially easy to get your songs activated. You can just focus on getting good hits and it hits hard!

The Mizu or Rathian will be the real test but it's looking stupid strong.

[rabidtictac]

Hunting Horn has been beastmode for ages, as you said. I love using it in 4U and Gen. Even without songs, the Hunting Horn would be good. The songs just tip it over the edge. Autoplay sounds broken as fuck.

[Kugelfisch]

It is! I guess the downside is supposed to be that you can't encore the buffs anymore.
But honestly, it's ridiculous. RT is recital, a short attack that plays the self-buff. If you have all three notes, you can play some recital/encore combo that deals what feels like 50 hits.
Additionally, there's some bar that fills up, that allows you to buff all songs if you press RT after the three note song.

So in a roundabout way you can encore somewhat. The classic recital and encore moves are gone, which one could see as a nerf.
But only until you play it. Since you can pretty much just focus on clobbering it fucking obliterates everything. Permanent exhaust and stun, all buffs all the time, occasionally you super charge them and the three note combo is insane. It's a bit difficult to hit well but since it's so easy to set up that hardly matters.

I'll go and see how I do against the Mizutsune or the Rathian now.

[rabidtictac]

Not being able to encore doesn't matter. I usually don't buff at all ANYWAY unless I'm in a boss fight and also know it's safe. Or right before a boss fight, if there's no cutscene intro. The damage and stun hunting horn has access to, when you consider how fucking fast and mobile it is (the only downside to the weapon is no blocking, and I do mean that is the ONLY downside) is why I use it. Hammer and Longsword are my mains, but Hunting Horn would be #3 for sure.

Hunting Horn has so many benefits people don't talk about:

It has both side swings and overhead swings, so you can always hit every monster type easily. High damage and high stun, on par with hammer or greatsword but faster than both. Fast enough to deal consistent damage even against raging monsters and fast monsters (which can be a problem with weapons like greatsword.) Better swing arcs and longer reach than Hammer, generally. Your mobility is normal when it is out, meaning you move about as fast with the weapon drawn as sheathed. It is probably the only weapon of its damage class (except maybe switch axe) this is true for, as most other weapons with comparable damage put you into slow movement when weapons are drawn. So you can keep your HH drawn during the entire hunt and only sheathe to pop heals.

Notice how I didn't mention buffs or say any tedious shit like "it's a great team weapon." Helping others, yawn. Lame. The reason to use Hunting Horn is to stunlock and kill a monster in 4 minutes, max. Certain monsters, like Barroth, have very few options against the Hunting Horn. A Hunting Horn user is both faster and stronger and even a raging Barroth can't do much against it. Tetsu is another who gets fucked hard by HH. The only time I'd advocate using a different weapon is for monsters where cutting their parts off dramatically eases the fight, like with Rathalos. Sure, you can stunlock Rathalos with the Hunting Horn, but Rathalos' tail is practically screaming for a greatsword iado slash.

Skills in Gen made HH even better, since the escape dodge that every weapon has access to lets you avoid raging monsters which can outspeed you sometimes. The Hunting Horn's inability to block does make it heavily reliant on either stunlocking (easy to do) or dodging (easy most of the time) everything.

I would predict based on past HH use that Mizu will be easy and Rathian might be a bit trickier. Monsters without a reliable 360-degree "get off me" move to spam can't keep a hunting horn away.

[Kugelfisch]

I went for the Mizutsune. Easy money, dude!
It helps that I don't misinput a lot anymore and yeah, I went and got buffs and some helpful stuff. But then that was true for HBG as well.
Considering that I have just about no experience with the HH and was still getting used to the swings and combos, it was a breeze.

The triple note combo is absolutely ridiculous. Any moment of stillness by the monster is free real estate.
Mizu is very agile in this game. But I just used his raging state to throw a Thunderblight bug at it and used the flinch to run up and KO it.

HH is an absolute blast in this game. It's not even as if it was brain dead but it's super powerful.
The buffs the one in the demo has are just attack, defence and health recovery, all S. But they pretty much happen automatically so of course they were active all the time.

HBG will rock as well, though. There is elemental pierce ammo. The demo one can't use it, otherwise Mizu would be another story.
The melee attack of it is hilariously powerful. I KO'd the Arzuros and Izuchi in the same hunt with it. Just bashed them in the head when they were down. Took three knocks.

GL is okay. A full burst doesn't do extra damage in the demo and I don't really like Normal type so I'll have to see about it in the next demo or the full game.

IG is good, as usual. Nothing much to say. Not overpowered, not weak, still a bit tedious. The kinsect in the demo is very slow.

Lance is okay, I guess. Not really my weapon. Same goes for GS.

I'll try LS next. Let's see how my first main is doing this time around.

[Kugelfisch]

Never mind. I have already done the 30 hunts. It said after those only local games work but it seems as if it just doesn't work at all after 30 hunts.

Back to GenU, I guess.