How do alpha and beta armors work?

[The Lemon]

Looking at the wiki, Alpha armor is always better. Can you only get the beta armors at the start of high rank? Is beta just easier to get? I was kinda excited for some alpha pieces.

[Suzaku]

Alpha armor has more skills, but beta armor has more decoration slots. More deco slots means greater customizability of your desired skills.

[vXViper]

think off the beta armors as in general 90% of the time better then the alpha versions if you have alot of decos to put in your build to customize exacly how you want your skills more or less. And incase you don't know what decos are , then they are sort of gems you can farm that gives armor skills that you can slot in to your armor. for example an armor have a 4 slot gemslot and you want lets say 2 more attack skill, and there happend to be a 4 slot deco that gives +2 attack you can slot it in there and done. And that gives you more freedom to pick and choose your total skill build rather then be stuck with what the armor itself gives if you choose the Alpha version of the armor that in general allways have few and smaller deco slots to put in better gems.

[NoobMaster69]

I almost never use Alpha armour pieces because of how inflexible they are. The only time I will take an Alpha over a Beta set piece is if it has a specific ability that I don't have in my jewel collection and can still provide a level 1 or 2 slot for something else.

[vXViper]

right off the top off my mind in iceborne the only armor I would use a few of the alpha pieces would be zora magdaros MR armor for gunlance builds.

[General Jelly Jiggler]

Alpha and Beta Armors for the same monster require the same materials and amounts of materials to craft. Beta has lower skill levels than Alpha, but compensates with more deco slots so you can customize what skills you want. Generally Beta > Alpha, however there are situations where you'd wanna mix and match Alpha and Beta from sets to better match your desired build.

[Commander Jane Shepard]

引用自 The Lemon：

Looking at the wiki, Alpha armor is always better. Can you only get the beta armors at the start of high rank? Is beta just easier to get? I was kinda excited for some alpha pieces.

beside the visual/color customization difference

Alpha have more/higher level skill while Beta have more/better decoration slot than the other version,thats it really

same gold cost and material

[The Lemon]

In the case of early high rank, would you recommend going for Alpha for quick good skills or going for Beta and farming for the right jewels?

[Haggis]

Its worth noting that assuming you have the desired decorations, beta pieces will provide more value so long as you socket them (there might be one or two exceptions, but if there are they are VERY rare).

So say your alpha is:
2 attack
2 defense
1 decoration (rank 1 decoration)

The beta will often be:
2 attack
1 defense
2 decorations (rank 4 and rank 1 decoration)

The rank 4 decoration can give 2 defense, and the rank 1 for both alpha and beta provide an extra 1 defense. So overall your beta can give:

2 attack
5 defense

Whilst your alpha can give:

2 attack
3 defense

So essentially beta pieces are always better. There are a few potential exceptions, and obviously if you do not have the decorations for the stats which the alpha version provides, you may want to take that. In general though the beta version is just better.

IMO it should work the other way, with the alpha versions providing slightly more stats but with the downside of you not being able to choose what they are. Capcom disagrees though, so for now beta is better.

[Kimchi]

引用自 The Lemon：

In the case of early high rank, would you recommend going for Alpha for quick good skills or going for Beta and farming for the right jewels?

Personally, I would go for Alpha armors.
Since in early HR, you wouldn't get much good jewels unless way much later in the game.
Also Alpha sets just look too damn good compared to their Beta counterparts.

[Haggis]

引用自 The Lemon：

In the case of early high rank, would you recommend going for Alpha for quick good skills or going for Beta and farming for the right jewels?

If you are new to the game and do not have the desired decorations you should probably take the alpha version. By the time you finish Iceborne you will probably have picked up enough decorations to make beta better in 99% of situations (thats how it worked for me, though maybe I was lucky).

[The Lemon]

Yeah, I'm going for rathian alpha armor because it looks like it has really good defensive/tanky boosts, along with the chestpiece and gauntlets of Baan alpha armor for sleep attack. (I love putting things to sleep)

[baby_eater]

Gem slots are good for minmaxing when you have good gems, so Beta is usually better for endgame. With Iceborne HR is like LR used to be so it's better to build the armor you need to progress and not work on a perfect HR build. Grinding HR gems doesn't make sense when you can move up to MR gear.

[JanWar]

引用自 The Lemon：

Yeah, I'm going for rathian alpha armor because it looks like it has really good defensive/tanky boosts, along with the chestpiece and gauntlets of Baan alpha armor for sleep attack. (I love putting things to sleep)

If you play solo and want to put monster to sleep just equip your palico with radobaan weapon. It is enough to put monster to sleep twice for monster that are weak to sleep.

[The Lemon]

引用自 JanWar：

引用自 The Lemon：

Yeah, I'm going for rathian alpha armor because it looks like it has really good defensive/tanky boosts, along with the chestpiece and gauntlets of Baan alpha armor for sleep attack. (I love putting things to sleep)

If you play solo and want to put monster to sleep just equip your palico with radobaan weapon. It is enough to put monster to sleep twice for monster that are weak to sleep.

That's what I'm doing along with it! Love my palico pal