Insect Glaive First-time Vaal Hazak

[Aerofare the Deranged Daedalist]

I say first time, but I have fought the normal High Rank Vaal Hazak three times now, and just can't beat him. All three those times were also because I had just joined someone in mp, then my connection did what it did best and kicked me, leaving me solo against Vaal with his mp-adjusted HP.

I can stay alive against it well enough, but for the life of me, I just can't cut off its tail or kill it. No matter how aggressive I play, I don't even see the skull icon on it after 30+min, so clearly my Insect Glaive does nothing more than tickle it.

I'd love to have some build recommendations, please, for the Glaive itself, the Kinsect, and armour. I do use the Great Girros B Coil for the resistance against the environmental damage. After a while of Googling, it's clear the internet can't help me, as EVERY build is made only for people in the meta game and fighting the Arch Tempered version.

[lexilogo]

Are you using an element, and if so, which one? Fire is ideal against Vaal.

The big thing though is that Insect Glaive is a hard weapon to get solid DPS with unless you know the weapon well. How long have your solo hunts up until now been taking? (eg. how long did it take to kill Nergigante, roughly)

The way to go with Insect Glaive damage is to rely on the ground combos because aerial combos, while sometimes quite useful and very safe, don't deal much damage. Getting an infinite loop with your ground combos while as many of your buffs are active as possible (at least red buff) as much as possible is generally how you do things.

[Good Night Owl]

I mean if you have 50 minutes to kill it, and he's got the skull at 30, you should still be able to kill it, right? What's causing you to fail, are you getting hit by his big breath attack, or is it the poison? The big breath attack can be avoided by just staying right on top of him, the vast majority of his attacks are either in front or behind, so if you stay next to him you won't get hit. Nullberry gets rid of that nasty blight. Also make sure to be getting your combos ready with the kinsect.

[Nope]

Just go with whatever you need until you get enough jewels to do proper build
Mostly advise getting Weakness exploit, Crit boost on the armors

Though gotta ask how you haven't be able to damaged him enough after 30 minutes, did you upgrade your weapons? Because first time I kill it, I went with whatever I have, mostly survival skill and kill it in around 15m (played solo)

[Aerofare the Deranged Daedalist]

Originally posted by lexilogo:

Are you using an element, and if so, which one? Fire is ideal against Vaal.

The big thing though is that Insect Glaive is a hard weapon to get solid DPS with unless you know the weapon well. How long have your solo hunts up until now been taking? (eg. how long did it take to kill Nergigante, roughly)

The way to go with Insect Glaive damage is to rely on the ground combos because aerial combos, while sometimes quite useful and very safe, don't deal much damage. Getting an infinite loop with your ground combos while as many of your buffs are active as possible (at least red buff) as much as possible is generally how you do things.

Yes, I am using Dragon. I changed the Kinsect's element to Dragon as well. I do have a Fire Glaive, called the Kaeff- forgot the complete spelling. But haven't used that yet as I focused a lot on trying to cut off the tail, but at this stage that feels borderline impossible with the gear I have and the damage I do at least.

And, err, I have never killed Nergigante solo. I don't even stand a chance to begin with. Most of my playtime has been done with a group of pals who know what they're doing, because this being my first ever MH game, it's one of the hardest I have ever played. I know people would laugh at that remark, but whether in solo or together in a group, I do 'meh' at best even with some decent gear they recommended to me and helped me farm for.

Originally posted by Sckolar:

I mean if you have 50 minutes to kill it, and he's got the skull at 30, you should still be able to kill it, right? What's causing you to fail, are you getting hit by his big breath attack, or is it the poison? The big breath attack can be avoided by just staying right on top of him, the vast majority of his attacks are either in front or behind, so if you stay next to him you won't get hit. Nullberry gets rid of that nasty blight. Also make sure to be getting your combos ready with the kinsect.

He didn't even have the skull at 30+min. :-S I will try to take him on solo offline tonight and see if it goes any better, but I am sceptical.

Only times he has killed me so far is with his breath attack. And as you say, it's easy to avoid, but now and then he still gets me because of my positioning. And it took some experimentation and came as a shock when I see that cover doesn't help at all. He one-shotted me with the breath attack twice straight through huge and very thick environmental terrain. So after that, I went straight back to staying on him all the time.

Originally posted by Nope:

Just go with whatever you need until you get enough jewels to do proper build
Mostly advise getting Weakness exploit, Crit boost on the armors

Though gotta ask how you haven't be able to damaged him enough after 30 minutes, did you upgrade your weapons? Because first time I kill it, I went with whatever I have, mostly survival skill and kill it in around 15m (played solo)

Yeah, my weapons are as upgraded as they can be. I have to check the exact names again because I keep forgetting, but I have a Dragon Glaive that's about three or four upgrades away from max, my armour is all maxed save for one piece that's one level away, and my Kinsect is the Pseudocath 1 or 2. I'm just THAT bad at solo play that I struggle to even farm anything for any of the high rank materials I need for things in the game, never mind to make progress in the campaign.

[mewlynx]

As soon as you see him start his sweeping beam, sheathe and run to his sides (I think he always goes from your left to right, so run to the right facing side). You could probably even use the vault + air dash to escape.

I wouldn't focus on cutting his tail, as you can still get a tail from body carves afaik, so it's not worth it at all. Stick to hitting his front paws/side, it's much safer.

There are also two giant teeth/boulders you can drop on him in the area just outside his nest. They're a little hard to see, but they do stand out with how far they hang down. Those do a solid chunk of damage and leave him on the ground for a bit.

[Good Night Owl]

Ok well you might already know this, but it's an effective tactic that a lot of people struggle with. Sprint towards your screen (not in the direction you're looking) and double tap space bar, and you'll leap onto the ground. You are totally invulnerable while doing this. You can only do it during combat. Sorry if I haven't helped so far, but I'm doing my best.

[lexilogo]

Originally posted by Aerofare the Deranged Daedalist:

Yes, I am using Dragon. I changed the Kinsect's element to Dragon as well. I do have a Fire Glaive, called the Kaeff- forgot the complete spelling. But haven't used that yet as I focused a lot on trying to cut off the tail, but at this stage that feels borderline impossible with the gear I have and the damage I do at least.

And, err, I have never killed Nergigante solo. I don't even stand a chance to begin with. Most of my playtime has been done with a group of pals who know what they're doing, because this being my first ever MH game, it's one of the hardest I have ever played. I know people would laugh at that remark, but whether in solo or together in a group, I do 'meh' at best even with some decent gear they recommended to me and helped me farm for.

Dragon also works well against Vaal, so no trouble there (at least in element choice. as for the weapon that actually does worry me). Not sure which you are using, but it'll probably work out for you better than the Anjanath glaive anyway, seeing as that one packs high inherent negative Affinity. (that's your critrate)

Also, yeah, it sounds very much like you've been carried by your pals. It's very much okay to play with friends even if they are a lot better than you, but hopefully through some advice and so on we can get you on your feet so you can play confidently alone.

Originally posted by Aerofare the Deranged Daedalist:

Yeah, my weapons are as upgraded as they can be. I have to check the exact names again because I keep forgetting, but I have a Dragon Glaive that's about three or four upgrades away from max

And, I think this is your culprit. If I'm right, you're using the Dragonbone Glaive, right?

Dragonbone (and Blacksteel) are actually pretty poor weapon trees with generally sub-par stats. Blacksteel especially, because it's actually designed to be bad and to be upgraded into better, different weapons.

If you aren't sure about a good equivalent I advise just progressing down either the Bone or Ore trees as those weapons are always very easy to grab. Theoretically, you can max them at this point in the game.

However, using a weapon at this point in the game that's 3-4 upgrades away from maxed? That's really, really not good and that weapon sounds pretty far behind. Like I said, at this point in the game your weapons should actually start reaching the end of their upgrade paths, Elder Dragon Blood/Bone is typically the last crafting piece needed for a lot of weapons.

[mewlynx]

Originally posted by Sckolar:

Ok well you might already know this, but it's an effective tactic that a lot of people struggle with. Sprint towards your screen (not in the direction you're looking) and double tap space bar, and you'll leap onto the ground. You are totally invulnerable while doing this. You can only do it during combat. Sorry if I haven't helped so far, but I'm doing my best.

Good tip, just wanted to add there is a minimum distance you need to be in for it to actually activate. Granted, you'd have to be very far away for the dive to not kick in, but it's something to be aware of.

[tag545]

insect glaive is a raw weapon in world and benefits little from element so element isnt really recommended for glaive outside of jho weapons (high raw with that little bit of dragon). for the glaive outside of a few kjarr variants the element just doesnt make up for the lost raw damage.

for endgame insect glaive you generally pick between jho or luna ruin as the glaives of choice with kjarr para getting swapped in for ruin when you want something different. until you get those you just kind of grab whichever ones have the highest attack you can find. yes its a game and you can do whatever you want (insert soap opera here) but if you want damage the numbers say that for insect glaive you go for raw damage.

for vaal in particular dragon is not a good element to use. its a bit of a hidden mechanic but vaal is completely immune to dragon for a good portion of the fight because his armor protects him similar to a spider enemy from previous titles that has the same gimmick.

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by tag545:

insect glaive is a raw weapon in world and benefits little from element so element isnt really recommended for glaive outside of jho weapons (high raw with that little bit of dragon). for the glaive outside of a few kjarr variants the element just doesnt make up for the lost raw damage.

for endgame insect glaive you generally pick between jho or luna ruin as the glaives of choice with kjarr para getting swapped in for ruin when you want something different. until you get those you just kind of grab whichever ones have the highest attack you can find. yes its a game and you can do whatever you want (insert soap opera here) but if you want damage the numbers say that for insect glaive you go for raw damage.

for vaal in particular dragon is not a good element to use. its a bit of a hidden mechanic but vaal is completely immune to dragon for a good portion of the fight because his armor protects him similar to a spider enemy from previous titles that has the same gimmick.

i mean in the metahemoth armor elemental glaive isnt so bad. granted you dont want to be airborne 100% of the time either. but for some monsters where they take better elemental damage on say their wings like lunastra, the elemental airborne helps a bit to keep your damage up when using airborne attacks to reposition.

but again its not a skill to bank on, just a skill to use when you can. i did this for my first AT Vaal back on console and it worked well. Fire glaive, fire bug with healing clouds and our group did quite well on the first few attempts. then my friends copied me and we basically overloaded the fight with heal clouds so we could never die. finished the quest in like 25 minutes on the first victory.

[IrisMachina]

vaal isn't a tough fight at all. just get effluvial resist 3 on your armor set and you are good to go. his attacks are really predictable, almost a punching bag. if you are mostly relying on aerial attacks and launching your bug at it for damage on IG then you aren't doing optimum damage. IG's ground combos do more damage. being airborne might offer a sense of safety, but being able to kill something faster means the less amount of time you'll have to deal with the monster's attacks and other shenanigans. also you won't have to breath in vaal's bad breath for 30mins+.