Why is my health and stamina bar so depleted?

[Ω]

I am a big noob with the big dumb, but I find more often than not when I load into a quest my stamina and health bars always seem to start off super small. I normally eat as soon as I get into a map to get my stamina back but recently my health bar has been getting smaller and smaller and I don't know how to fix that.

I do my best to remember to eat at the cantina before I leave for a mission but I don't think missing a meal or two explains why my health bar looks a little less than half it's normal size.

[Ω]

It's steaks I cook as soon as I get in. It's probably the armour. I changed out of the set the game gave me when I started it which is the only thing I can really think of that changed.

[Emerald Lance]

Eating at the cantina before a mission can allows you to double your health and stamina. However, this only lasts for a single mission; you have to eat before every mission to keep your health up. Pay attention to the green and yellow numbers when deciding a meal: 50 is the highest you can get.

[Nikana]

*deleted* I pressed wrong

If the food isn't fresh, No health bonus. some of the armors give you health boost, Maybe you change to something else.

If ingredient has green effect on it. It's fresh.

[FiliPrex]

I mean the normal size is the one you get without eating. The bonus from eating is what you call "normal". The max health and stamina you can get is +50. The health and stamina you recieve depends on the meal you eat. Most of the time, the Chef's Platter is the one that gets you the most. Hope this helps.

[Ω]

I'm pretty sure my health dip happened from taking off my gaurdian armour after reading what you guys said.

[K]

Originally posted by Emerald Lance:

Eating before a mission can allows you to double your health and stamina. However, this only lasts for a single mission; you have to eat before every mission to keep your health up.

It doesn't double, it adds 50 health and stamina. (you start off at 100).
Also to get health increase, you need to use all fresh ingredients, and to get all fresh ingredients, you would use a gourmet voucher.

[Emerald Lance]

Originally posted by fake dead aussie:

Originally posted by Emerald Lance:

Eating before a mission can allows you to double your health and stamina. However, this only lasts for a single mission; you have to eat before every mission to keep your health up.

It doesn't double, it adds 50 health and stamina. (you start off at 100).
Also to get health increase, you need to use all fresh ingredients, and to get all fresh ingredients, you would use a gourmet voucher.

Yes, my mistake. You can bring it up to half again the amount; double with health boost skills.

You do not need a gourmet voucher for fresh imgredients though. I can't remember if you have to unlock the ingredients first, but the chef's choice meal will always give a full health and stamina buff.

[K]

Originally posted by Ω:

I'm pretty sure my health dip happened from taking off my gaurdian armour after reading what you guys said.

Yea, guardian armor offers health boost 3 (adds 50 hp to your cap), of course your health would dip.

[Nikana]

normally you have 100 HP
Food gives you 10-50
Health Boost skill gives you 15-30-50

Food and skill are different.

[Ω]

So if you guys care to explain it to me, why would I ever take the gaurdian armor off? I'm still pretty new and to be fair I do have the big dumb most of the time as well. I haven't poured through the armour skills, but so far from what I can tell the guardian armour is just outright better than anything else I have access to. Like I was willing to take the DR hit down to 30 from 50 to have something different on my body, but what's the point of ever using any of the armour sets I can craft if the gaurdian armour is going to have better DR AND give me more health?

For reference the armour I switched out was the legiana armour.

[Nikana]

it supposed to boost you through the game to Iceborne faster. not good for beginner because things will be too easy for you.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by Ω:

So if you guys care to explain it to me, why would I ever take the gaurdian armor off? I'm still pretty new and to be fair I do have the big dumb most of the time as well. I haven't poured through the armour skills, but so far from what I can tell the guardian armour is just outright better than anything else I have access to. Like I was willing to take the DR hit down to 30 from 50 to have something different on my body, but what's the point of ever using any of the armour sets I can craft if the gaurdian armour is going to have better DR AND give me more health?

For reference the armour I switched out was the legiana armour.

The Guardian Armor gives you a false sense of ease early on in the game, as it makes you way more resilient than you should be at this point in the game. It can cause you to rush through the entire base game (A shame, by the way, because it's an awesome experience) while missing out on getting the special tools and ingredients you should while doing your optionals. By the way, even if you don't want to play to 100% completion, I recommend doing at least the optionals that have a speech bubble next to them, as they give you something in return.

Now the real problem is that, when you arrive in Master Rank, you have always had an armor that was too strong for your progression and that you didn't need to farm for. In the DLC, you won't have that and you actually need to work for your equipment. It can be discouraging to, all of the sudden, go from an easygoing experience where playing just the story was good enough, to having to grind monsters to get the materials for the weapons and armor necessary to progress. That's why at least I recommend against Guardian and Defender gear.

Now as to your question about your HP and Stamina: Steak will only fill up your Stamina Bar; you need to eat at the cantina or at camp in a mission to gain the health bonus. When you order a meal, you can see the bonuses to Stamina and Health that it gives and until you get further on in the game, Chef's choice, which should be a full health and stamina boost, provided you unlocked enough ingredients, is good enough.

[Emerald Lance]

Originally posted by Tresh:

quote

This. Guardian armor is not how the game was meant to be played. It was added in later when Iceborne came out, and it exists entirely as a way to make the game super easy. It's like playing Contra with the konami code; this is fine-ish if you never to play Iceborne, but otherwise master rank will strip down guardian's security and will expose your bad habits.

It's best to craft gear and struggle against your circumstances as you get better and better gear. Yes it is more difficult. But it also means you will have materials ready to craft weapons and armor when you'll need them later in Iceborne.

I 100% would recommend you ditch guardian and defender gear while you're still early in the game.

[Ω]

Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it. Not gonna lie, I kinda feel like this guardian armour ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my experience with the game so far. I was coming into the game with my friend expecting it to be grindy and hard, like a pseudo Dark Souls: The Bosses - The Game if that makes sense.

I guess what boggles me the most about this armour is that neither me nor my friend bought iceborne to start with. I bought it today, but we both started the game without the DLC that this armour is apparently speeding us towards. We used it because we assumed it'd get phased out pretty early since we thought we only had the base game, but I guess we were wrong which kinda sucks.

[Emerald Lance]

Dark Soul boss rush isn't too far from what this game is. You're still plenty early enough to leave defender behind. Spend a couple hunts grinding for a nice weapon, maybe a little armor, and you'll get back into the swing if things quickly. It'll be like you never missed a beat.