What's the deal With Nargacuga armor?

[TuskSpin]

Is it good, bad, or cringe cheese? Wondering if it's worth farming for, or just a waste of time. I'm not so worried about the mats as I am about getting too comfortable with the evade distance.

[Gundamn]

it's fine, it's not "meta" or anything but if you like evade distance and what not go for it

[Maverick81PL]

evade thing is the key ;-)

[CookedMeat]

Depends on what you want.

In base game, the meta has less freedom of customization, and is mostly filled up by offensive skills like affinity-based skills and attack boosting skills. There aren't much room for QoL skills like evade distance without sacrificing some parts of DPS.

However if you aren't trying to maximizing DPS, then it would make your life easier by having some QoL skills like evade distance. It might however, give you too much comfort and adapted to them.

Also, monster hunter games usually have their meta formed by equipment from end-game monster that only unlocks after beating story and post-story content. Swapping and replacing equipment is one of the 'traditional routine' when playing a new MH game. However, equipment is not a hard gatekeeping factor for progression. The game is like souls-like where player skill matters much more than what you wore. So, you can choose to grind periodically to replace equipment for a smoother difficulty curve, or you can choose to grind less but overcome a steeper difficulty curve by playing better.

[Bobucles]

Evade extender is extremely powerful and pays off right away. It works well with most weapons by providing defense, mobility, and more chances to land good attacks. Have you ever cried out "I wish I were FASTER"? EE is the skill for you. A top tier skill.

Evade window is decent, but requires a bit more player investment to pay off. It requires knowing when to time iframes to begin with, and makes those timings easier, but has no utility if you have no idea when to actually dodge. It takes many many hunts and tons of practice to be at a point where evade window matters.

[Mika gunhild]

the only thing you need to farm from nargacuga is the weapon for HR, when it hit MR nargacuga only good for certain build, not to mention how easy it is to slot skill to your jewel

[Emerald Lance]

It's good if you use a bow. It was my bow build while in high rank, and evade extender was really nice.

Most other weapons... eh. Take it or leave it. It isn't so bad that it's worthless, but I wouldn't say it's great either.

[Alpha-methyl]

With dual blades in feral demon mode, the evade distance is a little TOO high, but if I slot 1 or 2 decorations for the skill into any other armor set, it's pretty damn powerful.

I almost feel like I'm cheating, actually, maybe it's just because I never played dual blades until now, but it seems like just 2 points makes feral demon mode pretty much untouchable and EXTREMELY easy to target the parts you want to target. Unless I get careless and a little too dash-happy.

[Haggis]

The only weapon I wouldn't use a minimum of evade extender 2 on is the hammer. For everything else, evade extender is such a huge QoL bonus that it will almost certainly lead to better kill times. I'd be VERY surprised if evade extender 2/3 wasn't the 'meta' for most weapons.

The other evade skill, evade window, is not so useful though, but it can be fun with some of the other late game skills (there's stuff that gives you increased damage and status damage if you dodge attacks, but its still kind of meme-y because this isn't dark souls. Monster hitboxes linger so that even if you do perfectly time a dodge, you will quite frequently still get hit, and that is even with the invincibility frames evade skill at 5; and getting hit is never worth it).

[Bobucles]

Monster hitboxes linger so that even if you do perfectly time a dodge, you will quite frequently still get hit,

It doesn't quite work that way. Try equipping a shield. Once a shield taps, there is a gap until the next tap where you don't get hit. Dodging works pretty much the same way, once you iframe the "tap" you won't get hit until the next "tap". The issue is that players tend to dodge early, which misses the iframe window, so only your physical position can avoid the attack. An early evade still gives more time to move out of the way, and that's where evade extender saves the day.

That's generally why EE works better for new players. The attacks are well telegraphed and easy to anticipate, so there's plenty of opportunity to evade. It's just hard to nail down the iframe part of the evade.