How is the weapon balance?

[Blindfire187]

I'm completely new to MH games and decided to give this one a shot since several of my friends are playing and because of how good it looks. But I'm not quite sure what weapon I'm going to run. Of the ones I've tried that I like are the Dual Blades, Bow, Gun Lance and Hammer. I haven't tried the Bowguns, Lance, or sword and shield because they didn't interest me, and I skipped over the Charge Blade and Long Sword because they seemed hard to use. The insect Glaive I really wanted to like but I just couldn't figure out how to use it in testing.

I'm wondering how the weapon balance is in the game and if any of the weapons are over/underpowered. I don't want to use anything that is way underpowered because I'm still learning the mechanics and don't want to make things even harder, and conversely I don't necessarily want to use something that is WAY overpowered so that everything isn't too easy. What weapons are harder/easier to use?

As of right now I'm thinking of running Dual Blades and if I play with friends on another character then possibly the Bow.

Side question: is it possible to have different weapon setups on one character eventually or would you need to "respec" (if such an option is available) or make a new character to run a different weapon setup?

[Draescan]

Honestly all the weapons are insanely well tuned in this monster hunter. I haven't experienced a single category that I haven't been pleasantly surprised by. Especially under performers in previous games like the hunting horn. Lance's glow up has been absolutely INSANE this go around too. By far the best Lance has ever been.

To answer your final question, you can use as many setups as you like. No need to restart.

[Nyxtus]

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

[Osteichthyes]

Balance doesn't exist as everything gets deleted faster than my internet history when the parents come over.

[DaxiraxJr]

Everything destroys. The monsters are very easy.

[Draescan]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

You're comparing normal gameplay to speedruns. That's insanely silly. Dude is brand new to Monster Hunter. I don't think he's going to be speedrunning tempered Jin Dahaad in his next session XD

For normal play, they're all lovely. Also Hunting Horn has never felt stronger. I dropped it back in 4u and picked it back up a bit in Iceborne and once again in Wilds, never felt better. Topping the DPS charts doesn't mean anything, it's fun to use and it does its job well. Stamina thief and stuns all day every day along with LOADS of buffs ^_^ love it.

[fynx]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Should HBG be killing things in a minute and a half, and Gunlance in 3-4? It's always been like this. Weapons are not equal, but you can make anything die in under 5-10 minutes with any weapon, so it doesn't really matter. Hunts are shorter than ever.

[BlairiesTTV]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Hunting horn at its worst incarnation? This your first MH my guy?

[HoneyDrake]

Depends on what kind of experience you look for.

Balancing, in the current patch, does not exist.

Weapons are overtuned, monsters are overtuned.

Add in the wound mechanic and how easy it is to topple and stun lock most monsters and it becomes an even bigger issue.

Right now we have some weapons which are straight up better and some weapons which are just straight up worse in every regard.

Not a single weapon is unable to solo the current content.

[Nyxtus]

Originally posted by fynx:

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Should HBG be killing things in a minute and a half, and Gunlance in 3-4? It's always been like this. Weapons are not equal, but you can make anything die in under 5-10 minutes with any weapon, so it doesn't really matter. Hunts are faster than ever.

Nothing will ever be completely balanced. It probably shouldn't be, but HBG has been way over tuned for most of the series and things like gunlance have been way undertuned. Regardless of that we shouldn't just be happy when a weapon like hammer takes 3 times (I'm not kidding) the amount of time of another weapon.

Not going to argue about difficulty and hunt times. You're right, it's a problem.

[Nyxtus]

Originally posted by BlairiesTTV:

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Hunting horn at its worst incarnation? This your first MH my guy?

Yeah? The tools hunting horn got in Wilds versus the tools other weapons got - It's not even close. I mean maybe Rise was worse because of how ♥♥♥♥ it felt to play there? But what are you arguing? It's dead last in any observable metric by a magnitude of 2-3 times. It's taking people two times the amount of time to clear a hunt than a mid-tier weapon. You think that's good? By all means play it all you want.

[Akasha]

Originally posted by Blindfire187:

I'm completely new to MH games and decided to give this one a shot since several of my friends are playing and because of how good it looks. But I'm not quite sure what weapon I'm going to run. Of the ones I've tried that I like are the Dual Blades, Bow, Gun Lance and Hammer. I haven't tried the Bowguns, Lance, or sword and shield because they didn't interest me, and I skipped over the Charge Blade and Long Sword because they seemed hard to use. The insect Glaive I really wanted to like but I just couldn't figure out how to use it in testing.

I'm wondering how the weapon balance is in the game and if any of the weapons are over/underpowered. I don't want to use anything that is way underpowered because I'm still learning the mechanics and don't want to make things even harder, and conversely I don't necessarily want to use something that is WAY overpowered so that everything isn't too easy. What weapons are harder/easier to use?

As of right now I'm thinking of running Dual Blades and if I play with friends on another character then possibly the Bow.

Side question: is it possible to have different weapon setups on one character eventually or would you need to "respec" (if such an option is available) or make a new character to run a different weapon setup?

TLDR is the game is too easy for it to matter, the truth, yeah some weapons perform better than others by double and maybe even triple the metric. It's just a mix of hit zones sharing weaknesses to that damage type, elemental vs raw base of that weapon type, and overall stagger/motion value. On top of all that, it's playing to the weapon's strengths and knowing when to abuse those strengths like longswords various parries or switch axe's discharge they all jumble the numbers.

[dgresevfan]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Disagree. A hammer is a hammer.

A gunlance is basically unleashing point blank punt gun blasts into the monster. It SHOULD be deadlier.

[robruckus65]

Insect glaive is kind of weird control wise in this one it's really good though once you get used to it.

[BlairiesTTV]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

I don't know what the guy above me is thinking. The weapon balance is terrible. Hammer of all weapons is several minutes behind Gunlance. Hunting Horn is dead last below hammer and it's perhaps the weakest incarnation of the weapon we've ever seen in the series in relation to the other weapons performance. How a weapon may FEEL to an individual is cool and all but it has nothing to do with objective performance. How a weapon "Feels" is not balance.

Yeah, the weapons doing well are doing well. Should Gunlance be killing things in a minute and thirty seconds and hammer in 3-4? No, probably not.

Disagree. A hammer is a hammer.

A gunlance is basically unleashing point blank punt gun blasts into the monster. It SHOULD be deadlier.

Speaking of hammers. Looks like kid got one himself

[fynx]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

Originally posted by fynx:

Should HBG be killing things in a minute and a half, and Gunlance in 3-4? It's always been like this. Weapons are not equal, but you can make anything die in under 5-10 minutes with any weapon, so it doesn't really matter. Hunts are faster than ever.

Nothing will ever be completely balanced. It probably shouldn't be, but HBG has been way over tuned for most of the series and things like gunlance have been way undertuned. Regardless of that we shouldn't just be happy when a weapon like hammer takes 3 times (I'm not kidding) the amount of time of another weapon.

Not going to argue about difficulty and hunt times. You're right, it's a problem.

What I mean is although the weapon roaster is not balanced, it shouldn't bother the OP: there are no "underpowered" weapons, only overpowered ones.