So... High rank questions

[Nexus]

okay so long story short, i went out and beat the second zora magnaros mission. thus it unlocked high rank mode for me and just slapped a metric boat load of new things on me and im kinda lost cause im not good with overloaded information to process.

and i couldnt really find any youtube videos on the subject.

and also i was still trying to figure out a lot of things during low rank and now all of this is just i dont even anymore

so the main question i have is: what should i do? like where do i start items wise and armor and weapons and all that (im a charge blade user) cause i am incredibly lost.

its bad enough im stuck with just taking whichever weapons and armor have the highest raw defence/attack stats (cause i have no clue what anything else does or means cause im an idiot) and now their throwing in decorations for weapons and alpha and beta sets and... you get the point.

any sort of advice or tutoring would be greatly appreciated.

honestly id settle for just some basic tips.

[Dragux]

Welcome to End of Tutorial mode, High Rank = Normal game... Tempered Rank = Real High Rank, Arch Tempered = Pro Hunter mode.

Most would recommend you just do Investigations and stockpile some materials.

Alpha armor = Preset stats and decorations built in, Great for starting players

Beta Armor = Decoration slotted items, you can customize it how you see fit by slotting in different gems (decorations). This is great for hunters who are in stockpiles of decorations to change loadouts on the fly and stats ie: Defense buffs, Ailment defenses etc.

Gamma armor = Beta just changed up a bit, only acquired through ARCH TEMPERED QUESTS (events currently)

Weapons in High rank are basically same thing but you only have to craft them and that's it, no Alpha/Beta/Gamma versions of them.

Just upgrade and go...


Now a real recommendation is just go do the missions involving Zorah Mag and build yourself her set of armor/weapons so you have a Blast proc build, works very well because of the inherent 120 damage when it procs off, it also has bonuses to the Explosion for the set.

(Edit: farm the Crystals off her body, you will eventually get enough to make a full set very quickly)

I used that armor when i first started high rank and it was sufficient to survive through till i hit Elder dragons.

[Stormsong]

Well, I can't claim this is the best way, nor even good, but at that point I went and grabbed the full odogaron alpha set (didnt have any jewels to make use of beta anything). From there kept on top of assignments and optionals and just kept playing keeping an eye on what skills and slots various armors had. Keep hunting to 29, then at 29 stomp the bazels. And start takimg advantage of tempered opportunities. Keep going to 49, same concept but a kirin and by then you'll probably have made sense of things.

[ArtificialQT]

HR is when you start paying attention to the skills you get from your armor rather than just highest base stat value.

Alpha armours have more built-in skills with fewer decoration slots, so they're better for newbies.
Beta armours have fewer built-in skills, but more/better deco slots, so they're better for end-game once you've built up a nice cache of useful decos.
There are Gamma armours, but those can only be acquired from extra tough end-game monsters which you don't have access to yet, although they're currently available due to the Appreciation Event.

You can try to look up builds and armor lists online, or you can learn what each armor does manually, which I will describe in the following.

Start by killing at least one of each the "easy" monsters at high rank. You'll get the mats to craft the high rank versions of those armors and see what skill they have.

As you progress through high-rank and prepare to hunt Elders, just settle for the best armour skill set you can make and upgrade it to max defense. You'll need it to help survive Elders unless you ask people to help you farm them.

Once you're able to kill and farm Elders, you'll be able to start putting together armour that's geared towards end-game.

Decoration farming only really starts after you finish the game's story and you reach and unlock HR30. There's also weapon augmenting, but you'll likely only unlock it once you reach and unlock HR 50.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by Dragux:

Welcome to End of Tutorial mode, High Rank = Normal game... Tempered Rank = Real High Rank, Arch Tempered = Pro Hunter mode.

Most would recommend you just do Investigations and stockpile some materials.

Alpha armor = Preset stats and decorations built in, Great for starting players

Beta Armor = Decoration slotted items, you can customize it how you see fit by slotting in different gems (decorations). This is great for hunters who are in stockpiles of decorations to change loadouts on the fly and stats ie: Defense buffs, Ailment defenses etc.

Gamma armor = Beta just changed up a bit, only acquired through ARCH TEMPERED QUESTS (events currently)

Weapons in High rank are basically same thing but you only have to craft them and that's it, no Alpha/Beta/Gamma versions of them.

Just upgrade and go...


Now a real recommendation is just go do the missions involving Zorah Mag and build yourself her set of armor/weapons so you have a Blast proc build, works very well because of the inherent 120 damage when it procs off, it also has bonuses to the Explosion for the set.

(Edit: farm the Crystals off her body, you will eventually get enough to make a full set very quickly)

I used that armor when i first started high rank and it was sufficient to survive through till i hit Elder dragons.

Gamma is a mix of Alpha and Beta, except for Luna Y, which is just crap

[Legato Bluesummers]

HR basically just restarts the game for you. Ideally, you want to run through this section as fast as possible, HR monsters aren't that much more difficult, they just have slightly different moves (occaisionally) and more HP. After this initial section is when you get to tempered monsters. that is where the high level weapons and armor are.

As far as your builds, you should use the loadout system in the inventory to create builds for most monsters. this will make fighting them much easier. and make the game more enjoyable while you grind out the same monsters again. anything in your book that is three stars is weak to that. you can focus on just the elemental damage (the greyed out elementals on weapons need a special perk to unlock i wouldn't worry about those yet), so if you fight Kirin for example, he's weak to fire. make an armor set with as many slots as possible while maximizing defense against thunder and have your weapon do the highest amount of elemental fire damage. elemental damage is better than raw damage. Affinity % is how often your raw hits do max damage. affinity -10% for example means you'll rarely do max damage. so high affinity is good but not necessary if you're going for full on elemental damage.

There should be more main quests and optional quests for you to do until you get to the tempered monsters. The ideal hunt is keeping the monster in one arena, if possible, using all of your tools available. traps, flash pods (screamer pods for Diablos), demon and defense drinks/powders. There's not really a right or wrong way to hunt, but you should be dealing with most monsters in under 10 minutes. lower level HR should take you under 5. if it's taking too long, work on your gear and your tactics, it's better to fight smarter than harder. good luck.

[Suzaku]

Short and simple: for your weapon, just try to get the best one you can. The further along in the tree you are, the more damage the weapon does. For Charge Blades, the Diablos tree is the strongest.

For armor, you're now going to want to concentrate on skills. Defense doesn't matter much since all armor reaches around the same defense in the end as you upgrade them (and make sure you're upgrading them a lot, because it really does matter). Make sure you keep registering bounties so you can bring in lots of armor spheres for upgrading your armor.

You now have access to Alpha and Beta sets. Alpha sets have more skills, but Beta sets have more decoration slots. Beta is good for when you have useful decorations to put in them, so they're the more flexible armor for end-game. For now, focus on Alpha sets.

Decorations are something you'll start acquiring from high-rank monsters. They add 1 point to the associated skill, and fit into any slot of equal or greater value (notice the small triangles under the gem image; they indicate if it's a rank 1/2/3 slot).

For skills, you may want to focus on useful ones to help you survive. Health Boost, Divine Protection, Evade Extender, Evade Window, etc.. For Charge Blade, you might also look into things like Focus and Capacity Boost, as these can improve your offensive capabilities.

[Varkhal]

Ok so basically, you get to fight all the monsters you've beaten before (and more!), but stronger this time. Your weapons and armor should be fine for now, going for a Zorah Magdoros or HR anjanath set is what most players do after getting here.
Raw defense and attack can carry you all the way through high rank, just keep elemental weaknesses in mind, and you'll be fine.
Alpha and Beta sets are for a bit later, when you can actually get decorations. These will come into play after high rank, with tempered monsters, but thats still quite a ways away.
For now, Alpha sets are more complete, and have more skills out of the box. Beta gear has less skills immediately, but have slots so you can create your own personalized sets. Don't bother with any of this for now.
As for items, monsters now give HR specific materials, such as MonsterNameHere talon+.
These will be used in crafting new gear.
Best course of action? Just get to questing. Do everything, fight everything and upgrade if you're having trouble. This will get you very far, and you can always ask for more details if you're up against a wall.

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by Legato Bluesummers:

anything in your book that is three stars is weak to that. you can focus on just the elemental damage (the greyed out elementals on weapons need a special perk to unlock i wouldn't worry about those yet), so if you fight Kirin for example, he's weak to fire. make an armor set with as many slots as possible while maximizing defense against thunder and have your weapon do the highest amount of elemental fire damage. elemental damage is better than raw damage. Affinity % is how often your raw hits do max damage. affinity -10% for example means you'll rarely do max damage. so high affinity is good but not necessary if you're going for full on elemental damage.

There's a few points I want to hit on here.

1. Elemental is only king on certain weapon types and CB is not one of those for the time being on PC. Raw scales better than elemental with the exception being kulve taroth for some weapons.

2. Affinity -10% doesn't mean you will rarely do max dmg. You will max dmg 90% of the time and 10% you will do -25% dmg. +affinity means you will do +25% dmg.

3. You absolutely want high affinity for any elemental build b/c you will always want to have the elemental crit armor skill.

[Nexus]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Short and simple: for your weapon, just try to get the best one you can. The further along in the tree you are, the more damage the weapon does. For Charge Blades, the Diablos tree is the strongest.

For armor, you're now going to want to concentrate on skills. Defense doesn't matter much since all armor reaches around the same defense in the end as you upgrade them (and make sure you're upgrading them a lot, because it really does matter). Make sure you keep registering bounties so you can bring in lots of armor spheres for upgrading your armor.

You now have access to Alpha and Beta sets. Alpha sets have more skills, but Beta sets have more decoration slots. Beta is good for when you have useful decorations to put in them, so they're the more flexible armor for end-game. For now, focus on Alpha sets.

Decorations are something you'll start acquiring from high-rank monsters. They add 1 point to the associated skill, and fit into any slot of equal or greater value (notice the small triangles under the gem image; they indicate if it's a rank 1/2/3 slot).

For skills, you may want to focus on useful ones to help you survive. Health Boost, Divine Protection, Evade Extender, Evade Window, etc.. For Charge Blade, you might also look into things like Focus and Capacity Boost, as these can improve your offensive capabilities.

so diablos is better then zora mag?

[Nexus]

Also, what about palico equipment? whats that all about

[ArtificialQT]

Originally posted by Nexus:

Also, what about palico equipment? whats that all about

Palico equipment is more basic outside of gadgets.

For armor, more defense = better.
For weapons, consider giving your Palico a status weapon. Para or Sleep for set-ups, and Blast for straight damage. Against Elder dragons, give him something with High Elderseal.

Palico Gadgets are how you customize your Palico's support ability. You'll probably want to look up how to unlock all the Palico Gadgets.

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Nexus:

so diablos is better then zora mag?

I won't get into the math behind it all (you can youtube that stuff), but Diablos simply has the highest damage, and also uses impact phials, so they're good for knocking out monsters.

Originally posted by Nexus:

Also, what about palico equipment? whats that all about

I'm not sure how important their armor is, but the weapon and gadget is important. I often go for a paralysis weapon since having a monster stunned for 10 seconds a couple times per fight is wonderful. The gadget is more based on your preference, but I love the Coral Orchestra gadget, as it gives you a ton of buffs that can really improve the quality of your hunts.

[♋Phenex]

Try to get rathalos helm B and rathalos chest B from high rank rathalos.
Use odogaron A for the rest of your armor set. This should easily get you through the elders with some armor upgrades here and there.

[Bodhsativa]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Originally posted by Nexus:

so diablos is better then zora mag?

I won't get into the math behind it all (you can youtube that stuff), but Diablos simply has the highest damage, and also uses impact phials, so they're good for knocking out monsters.

Originally posted by Nexus:

Also, what about palico equipment? whats that all about

I'm not sure how important their armor is, but the weapon and gadget is important. I often go for a paralysis weapon since having a monster stunned for 10 seconds a couple times per fight is wonderful. The gadget is more based on your preference, but I love the Coral Orchestra gadget, as it gives you a ton of buffs that can really improve the quality of your hunts.

+1 on both. I also use blast in my Palico when I want some help breaking parts
Coral cheerhorn is the best Palico gadget IMO. when it is upgraded it can do nearly everything a hunting horn can do. Heal, boost attack and defense, divine protection, stamina boost, recovery up, no stun, etc. Fantastic for solo hunts or even with two players.

[tag545]

for palico i go for a sleep weapon and the moltov weapon you get after unlocking all the others
that combo lets you get a free sleep bomb or two with the palico (+ gaja) placing some exta bombs and its just a hard hitting tool in general.

for starting out high rank i always recommend building some bone armor for the health and attack up and just continue from there. the priority is to progress as much as you can to unlock more armor choices and start building your final sets of armor.

the things you are looking for are the set bonus, abilities, and deco slots on the armor to decide which one you want. the defense isnt that important since you upgrade the armor to have similar stats. once you make some progress and your comfortable check online for some meta builds for your weapon of choice and modify them to your needs. mainly adjusting for decos you dont have and sacrificing some dps for health and quality of life decos. dps doesnt matter if you die or need to heal all the time.

something useful to get as early as you can are the charms from the item shop once they unlock. they are expensive but they boost your attack and defense as long as you keep them in your inventory. they can be upgraded in the future through crafting which lets you buy two more and have their effects stack for a nice boost in your base stats.