I never noticed much difference with elderseal, I would say to consider it like a bonus and not something to shoot for. It's a hard thing to determine how much effect it has. I have the Nerg great sword which has high elderseal, but I can't really say how much it helps when compared to the Wyvern Ignition, because the Wyvern Ignition outclasses it in damage. If you haven't beaten the elder dragons and are struggling with them, it might help you survive a bit more, but my gut feeling is that it's probably not that noticeable.

Got through all 4 of the elder dragons last night in about 2 hours. Got to the cut scenes of the first three then abandoned the quests. Then found and joined and SOS for each of them. Different pickup group of 4 for each, but everyone was done in one shot with maybe only one faint for the group. For Xeno, started it up and sent out the SOS, had one person join and we fought Xeno cautiously. After about ten minutes, a couple other guys joined and we finished him off. Good to finally beat the story line and get to HR16 so I can try out the Kulve Taroth stuff. Figured I would miss out since it had been taking me a while to get through everything.

Elderseal (I think but don't quote me) is really about keeping their rage at bay. It doesn't do much else. And how it's applied I'm not sure. But it helped with Tempered Kirin and I use the DevilJho Bow for everything which is 100% Elderseal.

Agsports - just picked up the Devilijo bow last night. So far I'm loving it. Any idea what the first crafting item is on its upgrade? Can't seem to find that online.

Dcaggie - think I'm going to try that tonight. I tried to solo Teostra, it did not go well. Any pointers for group play on elders? Maybe take the health booster and drop it for everyone? And dumb question, I hate voice chat, when you SOS do people care if you don't talk?

I haven't talked in an SOS group yet. As long as you have a general idea of the monster's move set, you should be good. Health boosters help alot. Also helps to have a good stock of consumables. Potions, Mega Potions, Nulberrys (good to have for Vaal Hazak), cool drinks (for teostra), might seeds (or demon drugs), adamant seeds, and I typically keep a max potion handy just in case. Otherwise, be patient and don't put yourself in bad positions. Before last night, most SOS groups I were in had trouble with Doala at the end and Teostra. I spent those runs learning the attack patterns and best places to be for my attacks to get most DPS. I use a hammer so in a few locations in the Elder's Recess, I can do a charged sliding attack which gives me about 5 or 6 crit hits in a row.

Heck yeah! Managed to solo Vaal Hazak and Kushala. Love me some Devilijo bow. May give Teostra another go tomorrow.

Nice job! Teostra is probably my worst fight of the elder dragons, for some reason I just have a hard time dealing with the way he moves. It's counter intuitive, but for most of the fight the safest place to be is right in front of his face. A lot of his attack hitboxes have a hole there. Just remember to have a flash bomb ready or be ready to GTFO when he is in his full rage mode and flies up in the air for the supernova.

See I hate Vaal. I know there's trick to him like Diablos has that trick with the Screamer Pods.

With Vaal I just stayed on his sides and peppered him with the Devilijo bow. Mainly I shot his belly with an occasional head shot. The hardest part for me was staying out of the blue acid goo.

As long as you negate the effluvia, Vaal is EZPZ, There are two stones you can drop on him in the first area for a lot of damage and a long knockdown.

Teostra is down! That leaves Xeno. Any tips? I'm hoping to solo him with Devilijo bow (then I plan to actually start hunting with people) . The interwebs say use poison, so I put a poison weapon on my Palico.

Sq1dvm said:

---

Teostra is down! That leaves Xeno. Any tips? I'm hoping to solo him with Devilijo bow (then I plan to actually start hunting with people) . The interwebs say use poison, so I put a poison weapon on my Palico.

---

Xeno is easy. Just stay under its feet and watch out for charge move. When it starts to fly, shoot it with the Piercing Pods that drop from breaking things. Don't bother with flash pods and bring lots of health potions and things to craft health potions. And if you cut off its tail, note that it will guard its tail with its life. Otherwise, if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a Xeno;

How the heck do you find a Kulve Taroth quest to join? I found the tracks, got the mission and went to the hub, but I can't find anyone doing the seige.

Sq1dvm said:

---

How the heck do you find a Kulve Taroth quest to join? I found the tracks, got the mission and went to the hub, but I can't find anyone doing the seige.

---

You have to jump into someone else's session and pray they actually are going to do it. I have solo'd it a couple times. Kulve really doesn't pay attention to you and there's a timer. I wish you could SoS into the event. =(

Go to session, search, filter by preference kulve, join one with 14+ members

Still having a ton of fun with this game. I'm up to HR48 and have been joining a lot of SOS missions. Quick question, I was trying for a Devilijo gem and got bored with him so I decided to meld one. It was 300pts, then a few days later it was 100, so I bought it, now it's back to 300. Do gems go on "sale"?

Been playing this since it's on xbgp, I'm not very far but I'm pretty addicted already. I haven't settled on a favorite weapon yet. Started dual blades, then tried long sword and currently trialing charge blade. I've only fought the first two monsters in the second region... I'm scared of the trex hunt coming up!

bbattbq01 said:

---

Been playing this since it's on xbgp, I'm not very far but I'm pretty addicted already. I haven't settled on a favorite weapon yet. Started dual blades, then tried long sword and currently trialing charge blade. I've only fought the first two monsters in the second region... I'm scared of the trex hunt coming up!

---

Just in time for the expansion!

Stop playing last September but will pick it back up when Iceborne fully releases. They buffed the horn, so I can be even more awesome!

Killed the first couple monsters in coral highlands tonight. Getting distracted by too many side quests

Hit a speed bump on pink rathian, switched to hammer then hit a wall on nergigante.

Spent some time building some health boost armor and made diablos shatterer 2 last night and then smashed nerg without carting.

Got the dragon king eye patch after killng him... looking forward to no longer seeing blue hits when I'm pounding on a monsters head!

Yeah, weakness exploit OP. Beat the rest of the elder dragons on first attempts. Now onto the real game!

It will be interesting to see how the new clutch claw mechanics in Iceborne interact with weakness exploit. From what I have seen it appears that using the claw attacks will create weak zones where you hit. Could be nice for monsters that don't normally have weak zones in convenient places.

Red Five said:

---

It will be interesting to see how the new clutch claw mechanics in Iceborne interact with weakness exploit. From what I have seen it appears that using the claw attacks will create weak zones where you hit. Could be nice for monsters that don't normally have weak zones in convenient places.

---

The head is always convenient

Looking forward to IB, need to finish off the hunter rank walls before it drops!

Iceborne releases tomorrow! Anybody else jumping back in?

I've jumped back into MHW over the past week or so to prep. Very excited.

About to check if it preloaded. Got to HR50-something and shelved it a few weeks ago to play divinity until Iceborne released!

First two new monsters were fun. One is like an ice lavasioth and the other is basically a moose.

Verified the download this morning but can't play until done with work

Still early but monsters so far seem to throwing up a bit more a challenge and look to encourage more monster specific builds.

I'm liking everything so far.

Beotodus for me was very annoying. Banbaro was more of a fun fight and not too difficult. I appreciate that your encounters with them are in expeditions so you can faint as many times as you need. Also, since that is the case, I reccomend bringing you palico with the plunderblade instead of the vigorwasp spray or shield gadget. I got enough mats to craft a full beotodus armor set after the initial encounter with him. I ended up doing a mix with bone armor to get a set with attack 3, health boost 3, and earplugs 4, and added a couple of attack jewels and the +2 crit eye jewel you get at the start of iceborne to get a set with pretty good skills and 600 def. I had pretty decent armor at the end of world and was only at 400 def. The extra armor makes a huge difference against MR monsters.

No trouble with the first two monsters, but Viper Katamari Damachi owned me over and over again. I specifically went to make MR armor after that and cried now that all my gamma gear is trash

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

No trouble with the first two monsters, but Viper Katamari Damachi owned me over and over again. I specifically went to make MR armor after that and cried now that all my gamma gear is trash

---

He's been the worst for me so far. I think I fainted 4 or 5 times, poison + paralysis is a bad combo and I didn't change from just ice resist jewels. Next two were easy and then Barioth who got me first time but then I did a 2 man group and we beat him without either of us fainting.

I haven't made any MR armor yet, I'm irrationally attached to the skills I have currently, plus as long as I'm still able to advance I figure if I can get to higher rarity before giving in and making new armor the better off I'll be with suboptimal skill loadout. Love the new jewels with 2 skills on them.

Good job on Barioth! He has been the biggest road block I have encountered thus far. He's borderline kamikaze in his aggressiveness.