Sharpness bugged?

[Xilent]

First time MH player here and I had a question about sharpness. I'm using bone III weapons and the sharpness fades from green to orange in about 30 seconds of attacking. Once the sharpness hits orange 75% of my attacks are deflected much like hitting a rock and knocking me back. Is this working as intended or am i doing something wrong? am i undergeared for the red t rex or what??

[ImHelping]

It's a combination of-

A: Early game weapons have garbage sharpness.

B: Bone weapons on average have worse sharpness than metal weapons. (Which is a 'google it' problem, compared to the more obvious appeal of 'Hey this bone weapon has higher damage numbers!)

Even Green can still bounce of tougher bits. But orange will bounce off even more things. So you try to attack weak points when you can rather than head on at big boy armor unless you know you are using an attack that can handle directly attacking such durable monster bits. Be it a strong enough weapon, or EXPLOSIONS.

Also various weapons just shred your sharpness much faster than others. Something like a switch axe will practically have the you whetstone glued to it in the early game, compared to a sword n shield.

Sharpness woes are NOT a case of "Git Gud lol", and mock anyone who tries to present it as such.

it's simple grind, both for better meters, and for easier meter managment.

[Wowenz]

Working as intended. You need to sharpen it using whetstone in your items you see in the lower right. It's not shown in your inventory.

[Sneppy]

how long sharpness lasts is based on how long that color is on the sharpness indicator on the weapons stats. If its running out that quickly, i suggest upgrading your weapon or side grading to one with more sharpness for that fight.

Gear in low rank and early high rank wont make a huge difference. As you progress further into the game, you will probably have specific gear setups for certain fights. Certain monsters have resistances to types of damage and can be immune to certain elemental effects. Fire wont hurt anjanath, lightning wont hurt tobi-kadachi, ect. When the fights get hard in the end game, you will need different gear to appropriately fight different monsters. Youre experiencing one of those situations now with your weapon not being sharp enough for the fight.

[Duxa]

Early weapons wear through sharpness VERY fast, later on it wont be as much of a problem. Also sharpness tends to be per hit (which makes sense as every hit you are making it more dull) so faster weapons will lose sharpness faster (like dual blades), something like a great sword will lose sharpness slower since you dont hit as much. When looking at weapon stats note how each color segment on the sharpness bar is different length. That correlates how long that sharpness lasts. Like in this image - https://imgur.com/a/xEVCDOT

Sharpness doesnt only help with bouncing, but also affects the damage:
Multipliers for raw dmg. There is also elemental multiplier.

Red 0.50
Orange 0.75
Yellow 1.00
Green 1.05
Blue 1.20
White 1.32

[Mako Ruu]

Are you hacking and slashing and hitting sh't in the environment like trees and rocks? Cause that can eat up your sharpness, too.

[Xilent]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

It's a combination of-

A: Early game weapons have garbage sharpness.

B: Bone weapons on average have worse sharpness than metal weapons. (Which is a 'google it' problem, compared to the more obvious appeal of 'Hey this bone weapon has higher damage numbers!)

Even Green can still bounce of tougher bits. But orange will bounce off even more things. So you try to attack weak points when you can rather than head on at big boy armor unless you know you are using an attack that can handle directly attacking such durable monster bits. Be it a strong enough weapon, or EXPLOSIONS.

Also various weapons just shred your sharpness much faster than others. Something like a switch axe will practically have the you whetstone glued to it in the early game, compared to a sword n shield.

Sharpness woes are NOT a case of "Git Gud lol", and mock anyone who tries to present it as such.

it's simple grind, both for better meters, and for easier meter managment.

Ohhh i think it clicked a bit. I noticed the iron katanas have 50 less attack points but tripple sharpness. I don't understand why bone weapons are even a thing. Why would anyone prefer AP over weapon durability.

[ImHelping]

It becomes a much more interesting decision later once the item trees start to open up.

Not simply for basic Damage/Sharpness stat reasons. But elements, status effects, decoration slots, and other gimmicks reliant on what specific weapon you are making.

Some more broad than others depending on weapon type. like how bow/sbowguns vary your allowed ammo types.

But to start with it can easily (and justifiably) feel like a newbie trap yes. Particularly with weapons where the difference isn't that large so you don't feel like it's a valid trade off. (small weapon with a small amount of green for a tiny damage number boost. Vs "Still no green, but literally +100 damage!")

It gets better. Much better. But that's a matter of gear unlocks rather than any problems on your end.

[kameltoes]

well I feel lame.... I just upgraded my dual swords to bone +2 UGH and yes, I'm a noob

[Koi-Chan of the Blue クラゲ]

Originally posted by Xilent:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

It's a combination of-

A: Early game weapons have garbage sharpness.

B: Bone weapons on average have worse sharpness than metal weapons. (Which is a 'google it' problem, compared to the more obvious appeal of 'Hey this bone weapon has higher damage numbers!)

Even Green can still bounce of tougher bits. But orange will bounce off even more things. So you try to attack weak points when you can rather than head on at big boy armor unless you know you are using an attack that can handle directly attacking such durable monster bits. Be it a strong enough weapon, or EXPLOSIONS.

Also various weapons just shred your sharpness much faster than others. Something like a switch axe will practically have the you whetstone glued to it in the early game, compared to a sword n shield.

Sharpness woes are NOT a case of "Git Gud lol", and mock anyone who tries to present it as such.

it's simple grind, both for better meters, and for easier meter managment.

Ohhh i think it clicked a bit. I noticed the iron katanas have 50 less attack points but tripple sharpness. I don't understand why bone weapons are even a thing. Why would anyone prefer AP over weapon durability.

Bone have better elemental properties. (usually)

[Mattrex]

Bone weapons have their place, just as metal weapons do. In particular, they benefit from Handicraft (which mitigates the lower base sharpness) and the Protective Polish armor skill from the Odogaron set. The lower base sharpness and higher base damage also benefits slower, heavier weapons over lighter ones.

They're also, theoretically, better when using Bludgeoner from the Diablos set, but Bludgeoner is an awful skill that no one should ever use.

[!?!]

Don't bother with anja until you got good gear.
I'd recommend a water weapon and don't forget to bring poop, something else will very likely butt into your fight.

Originally posted by It's OK to be White:

well I feel lame.... I just upgraded my dual swords to bone +2 UGH and yes, I'm a noob

The bone half isn't really bad.
It leads to electricity weapons which almost nothing resists.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by chris:

Don't bother with anja until you got good gear.
I'd recommend a water weapon and don't forget to bring poop, something else will very likely butt into your fight.

Originally posted by It's OK to be White:

well I feel lame.... I just upgraded my dual swords to bone +2 UGH and yes, I'm a noob

The bone half isn't really bad.
It leads to electricity weapons which almost nothing resists.

Which is exactly the legitimate hurdle that causes these threads.

"Well, LATER it-" is of no use to new players before they have ACCESS to later. Even those very first early bits like your first water weapon will take a new player quite a while to work up to.

When you are just staring out, and "Bone MK III" the most exciting thing you can readily make? Not so much.

[NecromancyBlack]

To be fair though in the early game you can muck around with anything and try stuff out. You should never specialise with a single weapon, and later on you can buy certain higher level weapons rather then doing the full upgrades up to them.

[dgresevfan]

I have a related question. Do Whetstones only add on a few sharpness bars? Because right now it goes from zero to green with one use. And yet I'm finding fish scales that say they are single use but sharpen really well... Are those required to sharpen better weapons quickly?

[Mattrex]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

I have a related question. Do Whetstones only add on a few sharpness bars? Because right now it goes from zero to green with one use. And yet I'm finding fish scales that say they are single use but sharpen really well... Are those required to sharpen better weapons quickly?

In my experience, a single use of your normal whetstone is enough to completely sharpen any weapon. I don't actually know what makes the whetfish fin distinct in World. In past games, whetstones were consumables, so the whetfish fins were just supplementary whetstones.