what is the deal with the difficulty?

[Ponypony]

I am playing on normal and im level 32. I got a handgun, but anything over level 25~, the handgun is useless pretty much, it does like 30-40ish damage (with 2 vanguard monsters).

And defensively, one monster attacking nukes my shield in 1 hit (I currently have the mega shield (second shield you can get). even if i get the upgrade to the third shield, itll last what... 2 hits?

I don't understand how your supposed to power up to match the curve

[Ponypony]

bump

[alan0n]

You are a normal human trying to face tank brightly colored and cute supernatural killing machines. Utilize dodge.

Also anything over your level will just giggle at your weapons. Use your killing machines for the main attackers.

[Kashra Fall]

You're not the main damage dealer, least you're not suppose to be. Your pals do the damage because they have damage types. You however have 1 damage type, but it can change based on the mount you're riding. Hopping on Chillet's back for instance makes your damage dragontype.

[LegacyXI]

You find schematics that increase in rarity or you put points in attack. I'm level 45 and just put away the rare crossbow for something else. That thing worked even in the level 45 dungeons in the snow area. The curve is fine.

[DarkFenix]

The handgun has a short range, you need to be close and hit weak spots to do significant damage. Even then, it's not a weapon designed to do high per-shot damage, its strength is in having a decent sized mag to dump into an enemy.

Finding a higher rarity blueprint also helps, one of my most used weapons even at level 45 is a legendary handgun, whose base attack is 625 with a 16 round mag. It hits like a truck.

[TyresTyco]

Without any schematics the very first "good" gun is the pump action shotgun. Takes a while to get there lol. Dont bother wasting mats for bullets unless you have the higher rarity handguns.

You need tons of ore, coal and gunpowder.

[GustavoM]

Someone posted in this forums once that you deal zero damage until you get a legendary weapon schematic. So yep. Get to dungeon farming.

[eskuriax]

Originally posted by Trademark2:

And defensively, one monster attacking nukes my shield in 1 hit (I currently have the mega shield (second shield you can get). even if i get the upgrade to the third shield, itll last what... 2 hits?

No don't worry the 3rd shield take one hit too , and you get one shoot after.
And don't forget to repair the destroy armor after they one hit destroy

I love the game but "meh"

[Xandor]

It is very easy to out level the wild pals. So that is one way to deal with it. You get full xp for catching pals no matter what level they are, you don't need to catch pals that are your level. In total you need to catch maybe 80% of all pals 10/10 to reach max level so you can reach 50 about the time you get to 40+ enemies.
I think catching a pal gives ~3 times as much xp as killing a boss and you can catch pals really quickly, sometimes with a few seconds between each catch.

You can find some pals you want and breed them, this is doable as soon as you catch a bee. Then you can get 4 yellow passives of your choice on each pal.
Breeding is op. I have 515% attack at level 50. My Beakon have 1518-2106 (+65-129% modifier) attack (depending on what pals I use).

You can dodge most attack. Shield regen after a little while so you can play defensively when it breaks.

Once you upgrade to the late game armor and shield you almost don't take any damage anymore. I only put 9 stat points into health and I feel like I almost can't die anymore and not much have been dangerous late game (except end game bosses still hit hard). Although at mid game I was squishy.

You can get legendary recipes if you want, you are within level range of 3 of the weapons.
Legendary recipes:
Suzaku 45 = Shotgun
Paladius 50 = armor
Frostallion 50 = helm
Jetragon 50 = rocket launcher
Blazamut 49 = AR
Beakon 29 = Pistol
Bushi 23 = crossbow
Kingpaca 23 = bow