is the iceborne dlc too hard to solo?

[cote]

i'd like to buy the dlc because its on discount, but im not planning on playing with friends. According to multiple reviews, iceborne is only enjoyable with friends using multiplayer because of the difficulty.

Without using any defender armor and weapons, I just reached rotten vale and i have not failed a quest yet, only died to anjanth (one of the first bosses, looks like a t rex?) and the dragon you encounter during the first escort quest in the desert region.
Will the game get harder until iceborne, or will i be "good" enough to have the chance of beating iceborne solo?

[Suzaku]

The entire game can be solo'd. Only you can tell us if you have what it takes to beat it.

It sounds to me like you're doing just fine so far.

[Ember]

It's really not that bad. The real difficulty comes out once you finish the story in Iceborne. The walls you have faced are completely normal, especially since this is your first time in the series.

Everything before getting to endgame can be considered as a tutorial, since the pacing is not as bad as it was in the older games. You could legit be skill gated at LOW RANK back then. It can still happen here if you legitmately lack patience to play a videogame or just weren't interested on it, but it's not really as difficult.

Better pacing like this allows casual players to stop at the right time, instead of the early stages of the playthrough like mentioned above.

The reviews you described are from people who refuse to learn and improve themselves, which you didn't after facing Anjanath and Rathian. Since you have not been using the OP gear that was provided beforehand, you have been improving yourself for quite some time now and that most likely won't be changed in Iceborne.

You will be fine. The difficulty exists, but it's not something that requires people to join you. It's actually better to do it solo, since you will have more control over the AI.

[RiptheBlood]

Iceborne is pretty simple to solo, but you will hit more walls than in HR/LR. Partly because of learning the new monsters, partly because of power creep. Just take your time and invest in armor sets every now and then. If you feel like you are dying a lot, time to upgrade. The DLC monsters do give amazing armor, but that's the start of end-game content.

My first time playing i solo/duo -ed most content and it was pretty simple. the biggest challenge will be learning how to abuse the clutch claw, which is VERY important end-game. You should be fine until the 'final' (story) monster which will hit like a truck. Until you get to MR 100 and can augment, like you can in HR, most monsters will hurt a LOT, that's why its important to take your time to rank up. Especially the DLC monsters that assume you have augmented gear.

There's only a handful of end-game monsters you need to be online for, one of which is a siege like Kulve Taroth and the other couple are just insane to fight for your first time, but every monster can be soloed. My weapon I used is Insect Glaive, so you do not need meta gear for solo play, just whatever you're comfortable with. Fights will take longer, but its not an insane jump in difficulty.

From this point on health boost and at least one defense skill depending on the weapon (evade extender, guard, evade window, etc) is mandatory to avoid being punted like a chew toy, especially for your first time. Defense Boost or Recovery Up are solid skills if you find yourself being hit too much, because most fights will feel on par with tempered monsters being able to kill you in 2 or 3 hits until you unlock better upgrade levels.

[kukukachu]

Not at all. In fact, I'd encourage you to finish the story by yourself first before playing with others. You really get a better understanding of the dance between hunter and monster.

Just a little edit here, but I actually completed the game solo and I didn't ever really think that upgrading my weapons or armor was worth it. I kept the same Barioth armor with the same poison insect glaive that did 450 poison. I was actually kinda bummed that the new armors or weapons didn't give me any incentive to upgrade my gear. It made the monsters feel like a slog, instead of a reward, but I'll tell you what, slogging through all of those monsters was so worth it for the final story monster. That monster is so damn cool and intimidating, that Iceborne is worth the money, just for that fight alone.

[Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant]

Originally posted by RiptheBlood:

...the biggest challenge will be learning how to abuse the clutch claw, which is VERY important end-game...

Agree with everything but crutch claw. It's neither necessary nor particularly impactful. Use it if you want to climb around on the monster more for the cool factor, but otherwise it's just one more thing to try to remember with no real benefit.

[Hariman]

No it is not.

I have played through both the base game and Iceborne beating each monster solo for the first time.

The ONLY exceptions are Behemoth/Extreme Behemoth, Kulve Taroth, Safi Jiiva, and Ancient Leshen, because they're special event monsters tuned to be fought by four players.

Otherwise, it's entirely doable solo.

[Deathwing1306]

You can solo it if you are patient and careful enough, I have reached Barioth in Iceborne and that is where the difficulty started for me, the game is difficult because most of the bosses have nonsensensely HUGE amount of HP and they are unstoppable stamina wise... if they keep focusing you, you might have trouble hitting them for a minute because they keep doing their attacks and won't really give you a chance to even get closer to them because some of the bosses are coated in wind or fire so if you get close you either get thrown away by the wind or start burning because of the fire...

That is what I really hate about this game, if you want to upgrade your armor or weapon, you have to FARM those high level "bosses", the thing is that farming one "boss" might take you even 25+ minutes and you have to farm them like 4-5 times to get everything you need for new weapon or armor.

Also, another thing is that you might faint during the farming so you basically lose 15+ minutes for nothing.

If at least there was some kind of invincibility during dodges, at least if you time it perfectly, the game would have been much better because the dodge will actually be useful, now if you dodge, you might get hit anyways because of some monsters' stupid hitboxes, especially during tail attacks.

The next thing that might fix this annoying farming is that after you defeat the boss in the main quest, the boss' HP will be reduced in optional quests. Let's say, you defeat a boss with 15k HP in main quest, if you then want to farm this boss again in investigation or optional mission, the boss' HP will be 10-12k.

Bosses shouldn't be farmable imo, boss should only be one and that is it, like in Souls games.

[Ember]

Originally posted by Deathwing1306:

If at least there was some kind of invincibility during dodges, at least if you time it perfectly, the game would have been much better because the dodge will actually be useful, now if you dodge, you might get hit anyways because of some monsters' stupid hitboxes, especially during tail attacks.

Dodges do have iframes, they are just not as generous. I can dodge roars without evade window just fine. They are definitely useful even in dodging through small attacks if you time it correctly.

You are not supposed to dodge through other attacks like in souls games. You should be using the roll to reposition yourself out of them. Ever wondered why some attacks have insanely bad tracking? The game rewards you for proper positioning. People have even killed one of the endgame monsters without rolling once.

Get the souls mindset out of your head. You are playing a game completely different. Once you do, your experience will get a lot better.

Learn how your weapon and clutch claw works. Your hunt times will get faster and you'll be clearing stuff quickly enough once you master them. All that will be left is for you to be more aggressive as you learn monsters patterns.

You can also try running Evade Window to get some of the souls iframes if you are hard struggling to adapt. Might help you out.

[Caspian]

It's doable solo, but keeping your steam might be difficult. I properly got started in March 2021, played over two hundred hours over the course of a few months, got to Iceborne, had a blast with that "story" campaign, and lost a lot of steam after hitting the Guiding Lands, and the last few monsters are rough when you're not feeling the fun as much.

I dunno, maybe I should hit the steamworks again

[DaBa]

The game was made specifically so it scales (nearly) all the content to solo play. So no, it's not too difficult to play solo. That's not saying it won't be a challenge, but that depends on your personal skill level.