Monster health seems way overtuned.

[Aldrenean]

I'm on rarity 4 gear in my first playthrough. I'm using the Garon Lance 1 currently.

I'm getting seriously fatigued by the ridiculously huge health bars on these monsters. I've seen plenty of advice that says people who think this are just not hitting the monster enough or other similar tips, but I'm using the lance and I'm basically spamming orange-damage-number attacks with about 80% uptime, using the optimal triple poke into the dash attack loop whenever possible. Sometimes the monster is able to run to the other side of the map and that obviously increases downtime, but we'll ignore that. I'm sure there are minor things I could do to optimize my damage output, but aside from upgrading my gear I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at outputting consistent damage. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that I regularly break most or all breakable monster parts by like 5 or maybe 10 minutes into the flight. But then the fight just drags on for another 10 minutes or even more. The monster can be crying and running away and it will still take what feels like a hundred more hits to actually fall.

Why is it like this? Why are the health bars so big that I contemplate just leaving the game instead of finishing a hunt I've been on for half an hour? It's honestly just boring lots of times. My expectation is that a monster with all its body parts broken that's limping around running from me is close to death, but it sometimes seems like this can start happening at half HP.

I assume I'm missing some big piece of the puzzle here, but I'm keeping my weapon in green sharpness, using a high affinity weapon, and trying my best to keep constantly hitting the target. I'm at a loss for what else to do.

[Suzaku]

Fight length is highly dependent on player skill and a bit about player gear. While still in low rank, your gear options are pretty limited. And without seeing you in action, it's hard to give any tips on how to improve your combat skills.

As much as I like lance, it probably doesn't help that you're using a weapon that's fighting for last place in dps.

[Liondrome]

There are attack and defense buff items you can gather and then cultivate to get more of them. Might Seeds and Adamant seeds can be gathered and used for a 3 minute buff. These can be used to craft Demondrug and Armorskin drinks that last until the quest is over or you faint. Also don't forget the food buff from the canteen.

Check what armor skills you have, as you have a lance, the Guard skill can be fairly useful. Upgrading armor with armor sphere's means the earlier armor pieces will remain useful.

Check out elemental weapons and which monsters are weak to them. Sometimes an elemental weapon would be the better option.

Clutch clawing onto the monster and attacking it will weaken that part allowing you to do more damage, the lance can do this as a counter to a monster's attack.

Lastly, when a monster starts limping away and you don't want to fight it anymore, capture it. If you find it asleep in it's nest, hit it with two Tranq Bombs and then put a Shock Trap or Pitfall Trap under it.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

As much as I like lance, it probably doesn't help that you're using a weapon that's fighting for last place in dps.

Would that make such a big difference? Recently I made a new character and most of my solo hunts are done in like 10 minutes without traps. (Mix of Gs, Cb, Ls, Hammer.)

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Zu:

Originally posted by Suzaku:

As much as I like lance, it probably doesn't help that you're using a weapon that's fighting for last place in dps.

Would that make such a big difference? Recently I made a new character and most of my solo hunts are done in like 10 minutes without traps. (Mix of Gs, Cb, Ls, Hammer.)

Somewhat. It's equal parts depending on the player, and the weapon itself. As a returning player, your prior knowledge and experience greatly reduces the time to complete a hunt, even with weaker weapons.

But it's also a fact, no matter how good you are, some weapons simply deal more damage than others. If OP is both inexperienced and using one of the weakest weapons in the game, then hunt times are expected to be higher than normal.

[Liondrome]

Another idea is to drop the dash attack. It eats into your sharpness which means you'll have to put the lance away to sharpen more often.

[Omnicide]

If you don't like 10-15 minute hunts then you probably don't wanna main Lance.

If you wanna play counter poke lance you need to actually focus on baiting attacks you can counter spam with your positioning, think about leaving your palico behind to make that easier.

There's other ways of playing though, I have 0 guard in my main build and a 20 minute hunt usually means I just played like ass and got hit too much.

[cruste]

What is rarity4? transition from lowrank into high rank
meanwhile most of good stuff is unlocked in late high rank which helps shrinking the number and than the usual powercreep in rarity12 endgame

no access to all the fancy mantle like impact, evade, rocksteady until you finished mhw story and killed some tempered beast, some of them require up to hr50

lack of decos is the next thing, lr armor have literally 0 decos, than you can build some decend armor in hr lategame and overkill with fatalis gear to get access to every secret
good old deco grind awaits you

still no access to fancy stuff like offensive guard etc

ask the bow guys or gunners who suffer similiar issues, while relying on lots of decos for decent dps

meanwhile the hammer or greatsword boys don't know what your are talking about simply bong the head with the blunt or sharp stick until it is dead

fortify is probably the best skill in early game, simply cart twice asap to get the juicy 20% atck and 30%def bonus
death stench chest or jagras waist
deco is also common, so you can easily obtain it early

[LastTourniquet]

I am not a Lance main, in fact I generally don't enjoy that weapon, so I can't give you Lance specific advice. However I can put into perspective a few things.

Firstly, and I am not saying this to demean you, I would say that on any given average hunt a skilled player that is familiar with both the weapon they are using and the monster they are fighting won't take longer than 10 minutes to finish the hunt (assuming their gear is of an appropriate level). If you are consistently seeing 30+ minute hunt times there is almost definitely something you could do to improve.

Armor:
You are still in low rank so you don't really have a ton of options to work with. However the Bone Mail and Rathalos Helm both provide you with +1 level of Attack Boost. If you have access to Charms (I can't remember when you get them) you can also craft an Attack Charm I for another level in Attack Boost. Once you reach High Rank you will also get a free lv1 Attack Boost Decoration which nets you 4 levels of attack boost. I am not saying that this is purely optimal to go for, especially since you will start getting access to set bonuses more frequently once you reach high rank, but its just an example of how you can optimize your gear to better influence your damage output.

Weapons:
I want to preface this by once again saying that I am not a lance main so I could be wrong here, however I believe that the Hard Bone Lance II might be better than the Garon Lance I simply due to having higher raw damage. Affinity is nice but its not as useful until you can stack more into your build (once you get access to Weakness Exploit 3 and Agitator affinities value skyrockets) so early game its usually better to focus on the raw number for consistent damage output.

Consumables:
This isn't really something you should be worrying about too much rite now, but there are a handful of consumables (some craftable, some able to be consumed rite after gathering) that increase your combat effectiveness. For example I am sure you have figured out how to capture monsters by now, but have you thought about bringing additional traps for the sole purpose of locking a monster down for a few seconds to wail on its face? Or bringing Flash Pods to stun flying monsters? (this makes them drop onto the floor and gives you a big opening for damage). Or even bringing Poison Smoke Bombs for a little bit of extra damage?

Weakspots:
You say you are getting orange numbers when you hit the monster so I assume you at least have a basic understand of how weakspots function, but just keep in mind that monsters can have more than 1 weakspot each with their own specific damage resistances. Often times hitting a monster directly in its face will deal more damage than hitting it in the neck, even if both are weak spots. This is a fairly minor dps bump in the grand scheme of things though.

Environment:
There are environmental traps in every biome (including the special arenas). Some are easier to use than others and some do more damage than others, but they are all worth using if you get the opportunity. These can easily help you shave a good chunk of health off of any monster unfortunate enough to get caught in them (especially the rock trap in Ancient Forest).

I would also like to point out that Lance is probably the lowest dps weapon in the game, but it makes up for it with its extreme level of defense. If you feel that you have a good grasp on the game mechanics and can dodge well enough while weaving attacks in you might want to try out a different weapon that maybe does a bit more dps.

Iceborne Exclusive:
If you own the Iceborne Expansion you can (from the very start of the game) use the Clutch Claw mechanic. There is a 1 star quest called "Learning The Clutch" (or something similar to that, I can never remember exactly) that teaches you the basics of how to use it. Proper use of the Clutch Claw can dramatically speed up hunts.

[𝓚𝔂𝓸𝔂𝓪]

if ur using rarity 4 wpn against HR monster, then ur on the LR --> HR transition. it makes sense since in HR the monster HP are scaled up once again, especially lance in general have pretty low dps for a stable damage.

medium monster like Great Jagras in LR have only like 1400+ Hp (Solo) and then when u enter HR it turns to 3800+ Hp (Solo)
so in short the monster hp kinda balanced to the weapon progression so when u reaches the final tier of the weapon, its not way overpowered beyond the monster HP. so ofcourse if u use HR weapon later on againts LR ur absolutely gonna slap em (especially MR Gear)

also there are some weapon tress that sucks in general, might wanna avoid that unless u are relying on like the Ailment/element of that Tree. the existence of so many Monster Weapon Tree is there for options.

in lance case tho since most of the weapon Tree already ranked as low Dps than most of other LR-HR weapon type, so its kinda a Lance thing tbh (most of ur moves rely on counter guard and Guarding in general, which is not really offensive. again, its Lance so..) i must say tho, shield Rush actly deal a prty high damage, especially when u fully boost the speed and thrust the monster after that.

also if u have like Decorations that boost ur Damage and crits, might wanna use that if u wanna focus more on maintaining good damage rather than other skills. focus on skills that boost ur raw dmg Value.

(since LR-HR have a prty limited choices especially on Deco's Slot, ur biggest bet is going to rely on the Armor skills, assuming ur not Using Defender Armor or gear that is)

[Cyber Von Cyberus]

To be fair, you're still at the start of HR so you're playing with very limited gear for now, no damage skills and such.

A couple of things that might help you speed up a bit despite that:

-Tenderize whatever monster part you're trying to hit : Only works if you have the Iceborne DLC since you need the clutch claw. The lance has access to a clutch counter (With weapon drawn press the slinger aiming button and then the heavy attack button (B or circle if you're on controller) which allows you to latch on the monster quickly and safely to tenderize after being hit.

-Flinch shot into walls: Also requires Iceborne, when you claw onto the monster head without it being enraged, you can hit it with the clutch claw to rotate it and then fire all of your slinger ammo to send it reeling into a wall, cliff or other monster to knock it down and deal good damage.

-Mega Demondrug and Might Pills and seed : You can gather the materials and craft them, the demondrug last until you die so drink it at the very start of the hunt, might seed lasts for 3 minutes so eat it before entering combat and might pill lasts for 20 seconds to eat it once the monster is immobilized. All 3 of them stack.

-Traps, Barrel bombs... etc : craftable traps, flash and screamer pods, mega barrel bombs and environmental hazards can all be used to create openings to deal a lot of damage.

[Propheta Mortis]

That's just how it is with hunts in these games. Monsters are expected to be fought at around 10 to 15 minutes on average, more if you're new to the game. Lance is a decent option to start with, and does pretty well through Low and High Rank, but it struggles immensely damage-wise once you get to Master Rank. Most of your damage has to come from skills like Guard, Guard Up, and Offensive Guard to really dish out the bigger numbers, meaning you need to play counter attack Lance: block at just the right moment, then punish.

The more you get to know how the monsters fight, the less time you'll spend as you perfect your build. Unfortunately, that's all you can do with Lance. Your times are going to average over 10 minutes per hunt, longer depending on the monster. And Master Rank will just beef them up even more. I'd recommend using a couple other weapons to help reduce your times a bit, like Greatsword, Longsword, Dual Blades, or Sword & Shield even. Weapons that don't require too much micromanagement on top of tenderizing and flinch shotting with the Clutch Claw you gotta do later on. Hope this helps.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Liondrome:

Another idea is to drop the dash attack. It eats into your sharpness which means you'll have to put the lance away to sharpen more often.

You know, that's something that I totally forgot to mention in a different thread recently.
You can now use whetstones with your weapon out!
Considering how long it takes to sheath a lance, all that downtime on top of sharpening really adds up, especially because you only have access to speed sharpening and felyne polisher (from 2 red foods) at this point.
And if you haven't bothered setting up a few basic hotkeys in those 4 very useful radial menus, you also lose some time cycling through your items because it's not like you can do this blind unlike pressing 2 hotkeys in a row.

So if you also happen to be in this awkward phase

Originally posted by cruste:

What is rarity4? transition from lowrank into high rank

then I can totally see why hunts take notably longer than usual.

[Aldrenean]

I'm not transitioning into high rank yet, I'm still doing the first low rank progression. The monsters that were giving me trouble at the time of the post were Rathalos, Diablos, and Odogaron.

Thanks for the tips; I did try the Hard Bone Lance II, and I also switched my gear around a bit to focus on attack boost. I was using the Guard skill before, but I can't get more than a single level of it so it was pretty irrelevant. I also started abusing the clutch claw mechanics and am killing monsters a bit faster now, though knowing that Tenderizing is not a base game mechanism makes it feel a bit cheap.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Aldrenean:

Rathalos, Diablos, and Odogaron.

Well, I mean, you know, at least the former 2 are supposed to be on the stronk side of things. They're sorta iconic.

Still, some timely use of items and you'll be ok. Have you figured out when to use those sonic bombs and flash bombs that you tend to get for free against them?

[Johnny Casey]

I'm not sure if this'll help, but don't be discouraged about the hunts taking too long. The goal of every quest is to complete the objectives without feinting.