What armour to use against specific monsters?

[Venian]

Hi,

I was wondering if specific monsters like Rathalos, Diablos, Legiana etc. do physical damage with claw attack and elemental only when they use their special attacks or do they do elemental damage all the time?

What I am trying to figure out is if I need to use specific armour for each monster. For example if I use an armor with very high defence but not fire defence, will it be good as long as I never get hit by a special fire attack?

[Nine]

Take armor pieces for skills above all else. Armor sets upgrade to having similar defense and elemental resistances are arbitrary on most encounters.

[ArtificialQT]

Most damage is purely physical, and physical defense will also work against obviously elemental attacks.

Elemental attacks are usually things like fireballs, lightning strikes, mud balls, frost waves, etc. You know, things that clearly look like they have an element to them, and also things that inflict the element's associated blight.

Also, elemental resistance is technically a relatively weak defensive stat, unless you're able to hit 20 res in a specific element. When you reach 20 res, you become immune to that element's associated blight, so there is some merit to building like, say, 20 fire resistance against a monster that sets you on fire. You'll still take damage from a fireball, but you won't be set on fire.

[Venusgate]

it's more or less intuitive. if the attack looks flamey, it does fire damage. if it's a claw swipe, it's strictly physical.

Almost all armor, regardless of resistances, can be upgraded to the same defense, though. Jagras armor may give you 30, and xeno may give you 60, but they can both be upgraded up to 80-90.

unless you are facing a particularly nasty elemental monster, such as AT Kirin, you should prioritize the skills the armor pieces give you first.

Also, the armor formula is (80/(80+DEF))= incoming damage percentage. Which essentially means early on armor boosts are fantastic, but the difference between 450DEF and 500DEF is....

(80/(80+450))= 15.1%
(80/(80+500))= 13.8%

1.3% addative damage reduction!

[ArtificialQT]

Originally posted by Venusgate:

Also, the armor formula is (80/(80+DEF))= incoming damage percentage. Which essentially means early on armor boosts are fantastic, but the difference between 450DEF and 500DEF is....

(80/(80+450))= 15.1%
(80/(80+500))= 13.8%

1.3% addative damage reduction!

I still run 530+- defense though, along with Health Boost 3 and Divine Blessing 3, just because I love that sweet sweet tank

[Venian]

Thanks a lot guys! This was really useful. I expected most of the attacks to be physical, but I just wanted to double check. I didn't think about skills that much, but now I'll give them more concern.