Elder Dragons and Endgame advice in general

[Shiranui]

(the usual jazz is clear -- git gud, pattern memorisation, gear update, MH vet here since Freedom on PSP)

TL:DR nade/snipespam/retreat = noob; improvement desired, question concerning approach

HBG: clunky, slow BUT nice damage. No issues so far, endgame I get rekd

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Setup:

Gear: Rathalos Alpha (max armor sphere)
Tool: Vitality Mantle
Weapon: Kadachi Lion II // Magda Gemitus (depending on monster)
Blessing III for guard
Buffs: Mega Demondrug/Mega Armorskin/Ancient Pot/Buff Food
Palico: Buff hown


Just on a general note:

Is it normal that elder dragon fights are resource intensive as hell or can you melee them somehow efficiently? I shelled Nergignate to oblivion with wyrmsnipe/mega barrel bombs and poison/exhaust ammo. I find myself using farcasters and pots way too often.

It feals cheap, weak and wrong. I want to improve.

How do you take these down? Melee/Ranged? Do you spam consumables or simply fight over and over until you have it memorised?

[Zelph]

Why wouldn't you be able to melee elder dragons? Most of them are just as easy with melee. If you are any good, you won't be taking hits very often even at point blank range.

[DaveJK]

Originally posted by Zelph:

Why wouldn't you be able to melee elder dragons? Most of them are just as easy with melee. If you are any good, you won't be taking hits very often even at point blank range.

Yup, this. Most of the time melee can just sit in the armpits of Elder Dragons and most of the attacks miss the player. Melee with long reach will probably prefer the tail region.

[Singrave]

Don't bind yourself to only one weapon type.

[DamZe]

Prepare for ♥♥♥♥ performance.

[langnao]

Augment weapon with health regen and u don't need to drink many potion since every hits give u health.
After lunastra is released for PC, temporal mantle will be available. Basically wear the mantle and u get "free hits" until the mantle runs out. I think a lot of people will complain OP ....

[Heaven's Devil]

wait u can melee with HBG?

[Lyote]

The problem is the gun, not necessarily you.

With Bowguns, Light and Heavy, each one specializes in particular ammo types. Magda Gemitus for example uses Clusters to great effect, while your Kadachi gun has a really good clip for both Slicing and Normal 2.

The goal with Bowguns is to examine the Ammo types each one can use and build your set around each ones specialties.
The Speciality of a Gun is denoted by Clip Size, Reload Speed and Recoil.
You want to look for an ammo type that has, or can reach via Mods a Recoil of +2 and a Normal or Fast Reload speed.

Free Element helps immensely with Clip Sizes that start large.

Examples of this are Guns like Legia Shattercryst. It has good clips of all 3 Pierce Shots while natrually having low Recoil and Fast reloads.
The Great Jagras Glutton HBG has similar properties for Spread Shot 1 and 2.

So if you want to improve your gunning, Start looking at specializing in Shot types.
With Spread, Normal and Pierce Shots, carry Gunpowder Level 2/3 and bind the craft option for Spread/Normal/Pierce etc to your Radial Menu to allow you to craft more shots on the fly.

With a full stack of Level 1 Shots and a full stack of Gunpowder 2/3. Each Combine produces 4 of the relevant Shot type, so you will have a near infinite amount of your required ammo without needing to return to camp.

From there, it's simply learning the target monsters weakest spots for each shot.

[Madame Greya]

How long you can play MH once you get well into the endgame depends on a number of variables.

Do you tend to lock yourself in on one or a small handful tops of weapon types? If you have at least 5-6 weapons you regularly swap between you'll find yourself squeezing dozens if not hundreds more hours out of the game just by the natural need to grind out the various versions of said weapons you want. If you allow yourself to migrate between most or all of the weapons.. well, you can go on up into the 1,000+ hour mark when you combine that with grinding decorations and armor sets.

Do you find hunts by themselves to be fun? If the answer is no, you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥ once the grind ends. If you can have a blast just by playing the game without any sort of set goal in mind, you can get dozens more hours of the game even after you've crafted all your desired sets. Friends coming into the game opens up the pathway immensely here.

Do you pay much mind to unlocking every little thing here and there and doing all the optional ♥♥♥♥? You can get lost for a lifetime in this aspect alone, I swear.

As long as you stick with the game for at least a few months, events, DLC and etc. will only add more. Elder Dragon hunts are just a tiny fraction of the endgame, they're not nearly enough on their own to hold people for the mythical play times (500-1,000+ hours) this series sends to result in. I know this is mostly unrelated to your post, but your description of what you take the endgame to be can be a little, less than ideal, if you want to get the most out of MH.

Improving in terms of skill happens naturally, though you can limit yourself by not understand some mechanics and such. It's possible to main a weapon for 50+ hours and completely miss that it has a move or something you didn't know about it. A lot of people completely fail to find out about CB shield charges.

[Shiranui]

Thanks for the input so far!

I usually try to stick to one weapon and get good with it. We used to play on the PSP back in the day and managed to kill Fatalis once but that's about it lol. I want to see all the game has to offer and slay the endgame monsters in a more honorable way rather than spamming.

I used to play longsword on PSP but here sharpness seemed to be an issue. I cannot capitalize the opening fully when sharpness drops, so I figured HBG might rack better performance.

Maybe I should try Ogdaron armor alpha for the mastery bonus. I might give it another shot.

Hitting weakspots constantly and breaking is way more convenient from a distance compared to LS where 20% of my swings do not hit the desired So I decided to switch to something ranged and it went surprisingly well.

Would you recommend twin swords? Back in the day, the common consensus was little range and you really need skill to capitalize on them. Quick hits and evasion might be interesting for a change^^

[Chewy102]

Originally posted by langnao:

Augment weapon with health regen and u don't need to drink many potion since every hits give u health.
After lunastra is released for PC, temporal mantle will be available. Basically wear the mantle and u get "free hits" until the mantle runs out. I think a lot of people will complain OP ....

Weapon augments are VERY rare. Depending on getting those alone is going to take a lot of RNG. Then once you get a weapon augment, it has to beat some odds to be the one you need for your weapon of choice. And the higher tier weapons need and even rarer version to have augments.

If you want HP regen. Just run with 3 parts of the Vaal Hazak armor. It gives unlimited HP regen while also sporting skills that boost regen rates and added attack power while full HP.

[Saraf]

What? I already beat all tempered ED with my HBG with one shield mod, almost feel like AFK farming.

A little tip, Guard Up and create multiple HBG for different hunts, each bosses got weakness to each ammo types depend on their body type.

[EvilMonk]

hit them with the pointy end (not if you use a hammer)

[Zelph]

Originally posted by Crimson Flame:

Thanks for the input so far!

Originally posted by Zelph:

Why wouldn't you be able to melee elder dragons? Most of them are just as easy with melee. If you are any good, you won't be taking hits very often even at point blank range.

I used to play longsword on PSP but here the sharpness is an issue. Constantly sharpening.

Maybe I should try Ogdaron armor alpha for the mastery bonus. I might give it another shot.

Hitting weakspots constantly and breaking is way more convenient from a distance compared to LS where 20% of my swings do not hit the desired So I decided to switch to something ranged and it went surprisingly well.

Would you recommend twin swords? Back in the day, the common consensus was little range and you really need skill to capitalize on them. Quick hits and evasion might be interesting for a change^^

I played long sword in gen. Sharpness wasn't really an issue at all. Yes, it goes down fast, but you also do a lot of damage with spirit combos. And hitting weak pots up close isn't hard on most things. Front legs and head are common, and are both usually pretty easy to hit. And all of your hits don't have to hit weak spots to be good. Yes, its optimal to, but nobody is hitting weak spots 100% of the time.

I've managed to get nergi down in under 7 minutes with a great sword. So yes, its user error more then lack of usefulness in a weapon.

[Vagrant]

HBG v. Elder Dragons has the fastest speedruns because you can pop Rocksteady, stand in a health booster, and then spam Cluster bombs on yourself and just deathrain the monster to pieces, then craft more and repeat. If you're not doing that it gets more complicated, and you generally want a shield and a couple points of Guard so you don't spend two seconds flinching/rolling every time the monster so much as gives you a hard look.

Bowguns in general are pretty resource intensive, but late game you can buy almost every ammo type and you can cultivate Blazenut in 3 lots of 60 every hunt, which lightens the load considerably. You really want to finish out your optional quests to max the Ancient Tree and make your life easier as a bowgun main.

Your bowgun choice is a huge part of what you're doing. For heavies, generally speaking, if you want to use Spread, Nergi line is best; Pierce goes to Legiana; Normal is probably Diablos (w/ Nonelemental); and support / status belongs to Zorah line, which also in base game has the best cluster spam.

[BurlsoL]

Originally posted by lameover:

Don't bind yourself to only one weapon type.

This is probably the big one.

HBG is good forsome stuff, don't get me wrong. But it has problems in endurance fights if you aren't at a tier above what you're killing. Although having a gun with 3rd tier ammo capacity can help, this is still a resource expensive venture.

For Nergie, you'll want to pick up part breaker from the Uragaan set. This will make it easier to break the quills with your spread shot at close range. 3 pieces of this will also let your bowgun guard defent a larger number of attacks easier so you can really take advantage of staying close. With lavasloth legs, this will enhance your spread shot making it even better at breaking quills.

Otherwise, invest some time learning a melee to use for farming hunts.