N1njaSquirrel

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

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Wow, useful post. My play style favours dodging rather than tanking - I don't like that you can't move while putting up a shield, and I'd rather stay mobile.

 

I guess getting to know the gimmicks of each weapon is important, as I really liked the dual blade's damage buff as a cooldown you can pop when there's a chance to dish out some serious damage. I did tend to hack my way into a monster with them though, which was kinda annoying.

I think long sword, insect glaive and dual blades are my best options. I'll have to play around with them to see which I like the most.

 

The lances let you move while the shield is up, but they're definitely not the weapons you want if you want to stay highly mobile.

If you want to get some impact damage, which would definitely be valuable, into your rotation while using a weapon that encourages a great deal of mobility, i'd recommend trying out the hammers. (General advice: Your level 3 neutral-input charge is the strongest attack, and you can use the level 1 charge to link normal combos.)

 

I haven't used the bug staff myself much at all, but i'm told that active red essences modify and improve its moveset in addition to giving it more damage, so basically you always want to get those red essences up. (I assume it's probably similar to the effect a full meter has on the dual blade's normal stance.) There's also the sort of brokenly overpowered pole vault, where when you're holding R, you hit B. Then hit X in the air and you've got an airborne mounting attack without launching from any environmental features, and it's way easier to set up than the lance's own anywhere-jump. (The only other weapon that can do something similar.)

 

The general thing about the dual blades is that you use the right trigger stance, which has its own moves and combos, to build meter. When you fill that meter, it modifies the normal stance with better attacks and a few additional moves, such as X&A when executed mid-combo. (In addition to letting you use the flashstep evade outside of the right trigger stance.) The dual blades are also just about the best weapons in the game for inflicting statuses and elemental damage since elements and statuses are not subject to individual move scaling and deal flat values against the enemy's resistances. So more hits in a shorter time = better.

 

For the longsword, you can modify the X&A fadeslash with a direction input to turn it into a sidestep attack, but only after another attack. (You can fadeslash out of almost any attack.) From that sidestep fadeslash, you can do your spirit combo or an A attack. (With X-X-A being something that can repeat into itself. Also, you can't do the A attack from a normal backstep fadeslash.) From this, you have incredible freedom to build combos any way you want while simultaneously being highly evasive. (Also, it's the last hit on the spirit combo that upgrades your Long Sword's damage, and starting the spirit combo from a fadeslash makes it complete in fewer, faster moves.)

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There's so much depth that I can't even understand yet. Is there any way to look at the combos in-game, or do you have to figure them out yourself (or look up on a wiki)?

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In game, there's the Guildmarm's caravan 1 tutorials, and under hunter info on your start menu, you can access more specific movelists. Both of those are seriously incomplete though, and while that information might get you through low rank, without better information you'll probably feel hopelessly outclassed by the time you get to high rank.

 

The thing is though, given that Monster Hunter has just never taken off in the west the way a game like Dark Souls kind of exploded, the more detailed community-provided information that is out there can be fairly sparse, but i've been finding some good resources. For weapon guides, i learned a lot from Gaijin Hunter's tutorial videos on youtube. For drops, enemy resistances, and gear info, i highly recommend this place, which has yet to lead me astray. (Some drops i simply would have never been able to find without it.)

 

Those two might sound like you'd have your bases covered, but there's a ton of underlying systems that are poorly understood by the english-speaking fanbase, with different resources presenting different information. Even those youtube weapon guides, looking back on them, i think there's some erroneous details in them, but they're a terrific starting point. Beyond those, there wasn't anything better i could find, so i ended up figuring a lot of stuff out purely through experimentation. It's crazy how much arcane bullshit is in this game, there's a lot of things i'm still trying to figure out, but i feel like i have a fairly solid grasp of things at this point. Many things, however, there's just not really any good way to figure out, like the very many opaquely presented damage types and the distinct damage zones and resistances on monsters. I've presented in this thread a lot of these things as i have been led by various sources to understand them, and i'm sure i've gotten lots of things wrong, but it's probably better than nothing.

 

You know, but also don't expect to understand it all right away. These games are absolutely vast, and built to be played over a long time. (Hell, Capcom has like a year's worth of free DLC's planned for the game.)

 

If you find yourself feeling driven to keep trying to figure it out though, and are able to set goals for yourself inside of this sandbox you're presented with, you'll probably have a pretty good time with it.

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Wow, useful post. My play style favours dodging rather than tanking - I don't like that you can't move while putting up a shield, and I'd rather stay mobile.

 

I guess getting to know the gimmicks of each weapon is important, as I really liked the dual blade's damage buff as a cooldown you can pop when there's a chance to dish out some serious damage. I did tend to hack my way into a monster with them though, which was kinda annoying.

I think long sword, insect glaive and dual blades are my best options. I'll have to play around with them to see which I like the most.

 

Back in MH Freedom Unite, I used the double blades and chugged a potion that gives you unlimited stamina, and went to town with the Demon Dance.

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I hunted a couple of monsters today! A big bug and a great jaggi. Real fun. However, there's just collection quests left, how do I progress from level 2 missions? Is it just a case of doing them all?

Also, how can I farm items? I want to make a jaggi set, but it I can't repeat the great jaggi quest again as far as I know.

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Yeah, there's no real need to do collection quests unless you want to. To progress to level 2, you just have to meet a minimum amount of quests to unlock urgent requests. Fufill the urgent requests and you're onto level 2 missions. Also listen to the Caravaneer, as there's a point where you have to undergo an expedition to continue the story/levels.

 

I know you were complaining about the non-hunting missions. You can just do all the hunt/capture quests to fufill the quota to get to level 2. I haven't needed to do a non hunting mission, apart from to fufill villager requests.

 

finally, you can repeat missions, if they have a tick next to it, that just shows you've completed it. You can re-do the mission as many times as you want.

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I have played 270 hours of MH4U since release! HAHAhaha... i really need a life...
To be fair i have a friend i have been playing online with like every night :P

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Yeah, there's no real need to do collection quests unless you want to. To progress to level 2, you just have to meet a minimum amount of quests to unlock urgent requests. Fufill the urgent requests and you're onto level 2 missions. Also listen to the Caravaneer, as there's a point where you have to undergo an expedition to continue the story/levels.

 

I know you were complaining about the non-hunting missions. You can just do all the hunt/capture quests to fufill the quota to get to level 2. I haven't needed to do a non hunting mission, apart from to fufill villager requests.

 

finally, you can repeat missions, if they have a tick next to it, that just shows you've completed it. You can re-do the mission as many times as you want.

 

 

Ah ok, fuck the collection quests then, they're not fun at all. I'm on 2 star missions and can't seem to progress without doing collection quests, but I'm probably missing something...

 

I don't really get the expedition. Which is probably what I'm missing. Maybe there's shit to do there. Also I skip through dialogue like nobody's business. Maybe not a good idea.

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I really like the dialogue! It's pretty funny, and the characters feel unique and interesting, more than in the 3rd game. Generally you can skip the text, unless there's a yellow speech bubble above guys.

 

talk to the guildmarm, she'll usually say what you should be doing to progress. 

 

If you haven't done the expedition yet, you should go and do that. It's basically a randomly generated level with enemies, on the expedition screen, it'll tell you what to expect, in terms of monsters, weapons, and more importantly, poogie costumes.

 

Expeditions also give you guild quests and some monsters (like the basarios or the Yian Kut-tu) can only be found in expeditions.

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I have played 270 hours of MH4U since release! HAHAhaha... i really need a life...

To be fair i have a friend i have been playing online with like every night :P

I have almost exactly the same amount of time clocked on the game, heh. I'm fortunate to be playing with a group of people who are all going through the game at more or less a similar pace, makes for a great time.

 

 

I hunted a couple of monsters today! A big bug and a great jaggi. Real fun. However, there's just collection quests left, how do I progress from level 2 missions? Is it just a case of doing them all?

 

Ninja's a bit wrong on some of his details. How it works is that there's normally a handful of unmarked "key quests" for each caravan or gathering hall level that will unlock progress to the next level in each, and they are usually not things like gathering or egg-carrying missions, they're usually the big hunts. That said, early in the caravan progression, I think you have to do expeditions a couple times to progress further in the story, and that's probably where you're at. (Gathering quests, by the way, exist solely so you can have safe environments to gather general supplies in.)

 

Expeditions are randomized zones with a bunch of unique monsters and drops. (As well as a bunch of other weird shit like rewarding you with guild quests and gear drops that have completely randomized stats, which aren't things you should necessarily concern yourself with early on.)

 

Expeditions have no hard time limit, but once you start a fight with a monster, if will eventually flee completely if you take too long, acting as a different kind of time limit.

 

Also, the map will seem a bit confusing, but if you have it on the touchscreen, you can tap it to move between seeing the specific area and an overview of the connections between all of the so-far explored areas. Doing this, you can still do paintball tracking as normal, because monsters will still move between areas as normal. (Unless they "escape" because you took too long.)

 

Also, how can I farm items? I want to make a jaggi set, but it I can't repeat the great jaggi quest again as far as I know.

 

So you can just repeat the mission, even once it's checked off.

 

Farming items, though... So here's the most obtuse part of the game, probably. Luckily, it's the part of the game where there are some pretty great fan resources to help out. Without those, you'll probably never have a clear sense of why or when things drop, and it would just be a colossal, aimless grind.

So you want jaggi armor, right? Jaggi armor isn't great, but it's usually the first armor everybody builds. Now, with that armor, you'll likely get everything you need just by fighting the great jaggi repeatedly, very simple easy drops. You'll run into big problems if you expect that to hold up over the long run though, there are tons of conditional drops where you need to, say, break a monster's tusks to get a drop chance for its fangs, or capture it instead of killing it for a chance at something else. Or you could even be aiming for something that has a greater chance of appearing as a quest reward during specific missions, or only appears from high-rank or g-rank versions of the monsters. Trying to brute force the game for drops without that special outside knowledge will just make you miserable and make you hate the game. Even normal resources from gathering points might only appear in certain areas and in certain ranks.

 

This place is awesome, it's what i've been using.

 

Figure out what you want, set goals for yourself, and have at it.

 

Also: Don't get too caught up in armor early on though, build yourself a few nice sets with good skils and upgrade them a handful of times, but once you're into high rank and g rank, know that you'll most likely be discarding them for sets with more slots and skills. (Though, oddly enough, if you keep pumping armor gems into low-rank armors, they can stay relatively competitive in terms of defense, but skills and slots are more important.) It's the weapons that will be your long-term invesments, with their big branching upgrade trees carrying through into the end-game.

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I really like the dialogue! It's pretty funny, and the characters feel unique and interesting, more than in the 3rd game. Generally you can skip the text, unless there's a yellow speech bubble above guys.

 

The localization is really pretty funny, i've laughed out loud a few times. Apparently it was those 8-4 guys on it again?

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I don't get this game. I find the camera utterly unmanageable. I fought that great jaggi like twenty times or whatever for all the different weapon types and every time I just lost him all the time and had to reorient with L and it was a pain because he'd immediately move to the side and I'd have to do it again and oh look he's charging at me now better roll out of the way and reorient the camera again wait why's he way over there yelling at the clouds...

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I've not really built more than one armour set. It didn't seem to make much difference to my survivability and now I've not really bothered making any more, instead just focussing on weapons.

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I don't get this game. I find the camera utterly unmanageable. I fought that great jaggi like twenty times or whatever for all the different weapon types and every time I just lost him all the time and had to reorient with L and it was a pain because he'd immediately move to the side and I'd have to do it again and oh look he's charging at me now better roll out of the way and reorient the camera again wait why's he way over there yelling at the clouds...

 

Now, i'm actually playing with only the lock-on for camera control, but if you want more than that, there's three good varieties of free-look. Two are the second stick offered by both the N3DS and the Circle Pad Pro being supported, in addition to the third of being able to swap out one of the touchscreen tiles with a virtual d-pad for another avenue of camera control. (The physical d-pad is also bound to camera control, but... Yeah, you don't want to do the Monster Hunter claw.)

 

Beyond that though, in what context are you fighting the Great Jaggi, and what are you trying to do with the weapons you've used?

 

 

I've not really built more than one armour set. It didn't seem to make much difference to my survivability and now I've not really bothered making any more, instead just focussing on weapons.

 

Unless you're looking at a gain in the area of 70+ defense, the extra durability won't really feel like much. Elemental defenses are more important, and even more than that, skills and gem slots are the most important. The built-in skills should primarily be the things that determine why and when you use a set of armor. (While you still definitely want to be mindful of your elemental defenses, you can modify those with meals.)

If you want a good early set that gives you some pretty reasonable tankiness to rely on while you figure out other mechanics, the tetsucabra armor is pretty decent for a large chunk of the early game. (It's good starter armor since what it offers, lots of durability and health, is largely free from weapon-specific considerations.)

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I've fought the great jaggi in the arena for the training missions with every weapon type and I'm trying to damage the great jaggi with said weapons.

 

I mean any weapon that requires aiming I am predisposed to hate because non-mouse controls are not made for this shit. So ignoring those, I am... attacking the monster.

 

I've used the virtual D-pad and it's awful. I can't be buying a N3DS for this. And I don't want that dumb attachment. ):

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Huh... Really? Great Jaggi, hey?

You know, I don't remember if the training missions start you with anything in your inventory, are you missing the supply box, perhaps? That could probably make it needlessly brutal.

 

You're coming at this from the Souls series right? Monster Hunter relies on a lot of similar skills, positioning and timing and all that, so I don't understand why you'd be having trouble with the Great Jaggi of all things.

 

Also, are you just taking about the bowguns with the aiming comment, or are you taking umbrage with the lack of a functioning lock-on? I could see that being a bit of hurdle, having to aim the physical attacks manually. Still, even in Souls, fighting without a lock-on is a fairly common tactic in bossfights, and with Monster Hunter's emphasis on damage zones with variable resistances, even theoretically it would be the only option and it makes complete sense after a time.

 

You can tweak the size and shape of the virtual d-pad, if that's an issue.

 

Okay, okay though. Is there a specific weapon that seemed more appealing than others? What were you doing with it?

 

Edit: Blah, i think i misread your initial post. Regardless, most of this is probably still relevant.

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Yes, the training missions start you with the weapons for which they're training you. There is no supply box.

 

It's not that the fight is hard - I've never died or even dropped below 3/4 of my health, except for maybe once because I was trying to use the bowgun. It's that I'm always having to adjust my camera and it's completely unfun when half of the fight is me making sure I can actually see the monster. My issues are not with the positioning or with the weapons or with anything other than the camera. It is easily the worst camera I've ever used in a game like this. Between the starting tutorial missions and all of the weapons training missions and the one mission I did after that, I figured I'd be used to it by now. But I just find it more and more frustrating.

 

I lock on in Dark Souls and Bloodborne all the time! But even when I don't, enemies in that game tend to be slow, lumbering beasts. Also, even when they aren't, the camera in Bloodborne (and Dark Souls, too, I'm sure, but I've played Bloodborne more recently) feels much less... claustrophobic? Which is awkard because Souls' environments are designed to feel that way more often than not, Monster Hunter's environments are the complete opposite. 

 

I don't find any of the weapons more appealing than any of the other weapons, besides never wanting to have to aim a shot without a mouse ever again in my life ever. I guess I like the great sword and the long sword and the dual blades and the hammer? At least, those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head (besides the endlessly infuriating insect glaive, bow, bowgun, and heavy bowgun), so clearly they stuck with me.

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Yeah, i misread your post. Anyways...

 

I was initially playing with a circle pad pro and it definitely strikes me as the way the game should probably be played, the game benefits hugely from free look. I mean, hell, Monster Hunter is actually the reason that dumb thing exists in the first place. That said, i got so used to just constantly swinging the camera around with the left-trigger lock-on that i ended up just taking off that big cumbersome thing and playing purely with the lock-on.

I'm not necessarily advocating that though, so if either the CPP or the N3DS are not options, probably play around with the virtual d-pad more. Like i said, beyond just moving around its tile, you can tweak the size and shape of the touch hotspots with some other options in the touchscreen customization.

 

Regarding the Great Jaggi and a small handful of similar monsters, they are unusual in the degree of unpredictable mobility they display. They're hard to keep track of because that's kind of the point, they bark to call in packs of smaller monsters, and then they all collectively leap around you taking cheap shots. That said, fighting one and taking literally no damage is not unusual when you get used to their patterns, but more importantly, they're not actually super representative of what the broader game is about. MH4U has a roster of some 90+ large monsters, and virtually none of them move as erratically as the Great Jaggi and its ilk.

 

Bowguns and Bows are weird, even if you have a CPP or an N3DS for dual-analog control, because it quickly becomes clear that the game very specifically doesn't want you to use them the way you would intuitively think they should be used. It's hard to explain, and it's honestly not really an advisable starting point for a new player. (Definitely worth figuring out if you stick with the game, gunners are highly valued in MP.)

 

Great Sword, Long Sword, Dual Blades, and Hammer are all very good, very popular starting points. (Great Sword gives enormous physical damage, Dual Blades build statuses and elemental damage like crazy, Hammer gets unique knockout and exhaustion effects, and the Long Sword is primarily set apart by the tremendous mobility of its moveset.)

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I've gotten used to the camera now. The lock on coupled with minute adjustments with the virtual dpad works well enough. It makes small monsters hard to deal with though.

I found a switch axe that is way more powerful than anything I had. I just do not understand how to use it. Seems super weird. I should probably do the tutorial with it.

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I'm speaking as somebody who doesn't use the switchaxe, nor do any of the people i play with, but in my mind, it fills a similar role to the Long Sword, but without the mobility while instead benefiting from a greater range of useful secondary effects through its phials gimmick. (Which are innate to each weapon and basically work as an additional element or status effect applied specifically to the sword mode. The game does a terrible job explaining this, it's really not as complicated as it makes it seem.)

 

In terms of moveset, there's not a whole lot to say about it as per my understanding of it.

There's variable combos of course, but the important thing is that, while in the axe mode, you can spend stamina to mash A repeatedly after any upward swing for a huge repeating wide-arc attack, and that can combo back into the normal X string. (The upward swing can be done by either an XA input, or it will show up as the last hit of the X string.) Hitting R transforms into the sword, even during the A-mash if pressed repeatedly, or refills its charge if it's low. (With further recharge just happening over time, or instead depleting while in sword mode.)

The sword mode can more or less just be button mashed, as far as i can tell. There's probably variable combos of some significance there, but they all seem the same to me. Hitting XA while in the sword mode does a super that you can charge up by mashing X immediately afterwards.

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Yeah I'm sure the camera is something I CAN get used to it's just really frustrating at the moment. I like most everything else about the game (I mean, so far, I've not played THAT much), but it really hurts when a single dysfunctional mechanic brings it down like this.

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As is often the case with these kinds of things, once I get my whining out of the way I suddenly find myself more willing to engage. Shut up you don't know me!

Anyway how come I can't always lock on to monsters? What do I have to do to unlock lock-on? For example, when I was fighting konchus, it was never an option.

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For the first time I feel stuck. I crafted the tetsucabra set, and went to kill a dragon thing for the blacksmith. It wrecked me. I have no idea how to defend against its stuns, I have no way to upgrade my favourite weapon to try and out dps the monster either.

Is there something I can do? Or do I just have to git gud?

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