Topic: Monster Hunter Rise

@DennisNOR
There’s no such thing as support in Monster Hunter. Everyone contributes damage.

You really can’t approach this through the typical lens of roles. You just have to find a weapon you like and then learn it like the back of your hand. Start with one you like, then move on to more satisfying weapons once you start getting the hang of things. Try all 14 weapons. See which one you like most. Look in the menu in Hunter’s Notes for combos, and try them out. After you’ve sampled all 14 weapon types, one will stand out more than the others. Go with that one for the time being. Sword and Shield is a pretty standard starting weapon. Once you make your weapon pick, you’ll want to watch a Gaijin Hunter YouTube video tutorial for that weapon to learn all the moves and how to properly use it.

MH is, imo, the greatest video game of all time. But it requires a commitment from the player. You’ve got to be willing to be patient and learn. It’ll come. It is a complex game, but you don’t need to understand everything to start having fun.

I understand that MH dosent use traditional roles, but it seems to me from gameplay videos that the different weapons gives u a variety of certain responsebility when in group ? @JaxonH

@JaxonH I think they'll just update the current demo to version 1.1.0 or 2.0.0 rather than release a completely separate demo.

@DennisNOR
Not really. The only role is "do damage". All 14 weapon types, same role. Just kill the monster.

Now. The Hunting Horn does apply buffs via the songs it plays, and those buffs apply to everyone in the near vicinity, but you're still expected to deal damage like everyone else, not be a corner horner.

There is only one role- damage dealer. It just becomes a question of how you prefer to deal damage via weapon of your liking.

11 of the weapons are melee, and 3 are ranged. I think ranged is for more advanced users and never recommend newcomers play ranged. There's a lot to learn with crafting ammo, coatings, critical distance, etc. Melee is usually the preferred weapon type for beginners. Even if you later decide to move on to a ranged weapon, that experience with melee weapons will serve you well.

Don't be intimidated. You can learn the game just as well as anyone else. And before you know it, you'll be rockin, sockin monsters left and right. Melee weapons in Monster Hunter are soooo satisfying.

@JaxonH Since you have a lot of experience with the Monster Hunter series, I was wondering if you would know of any traits/aspects in the series that could help figure out if trying out the Monster Hunter Rise is worth it or not?

Two questions for you guys. First, one reason I'm tempted back into Rise is the idea it's more short session suitable. What weapons do you guys recommend for working quicker through hunts? I adopted GL last game and loved it, but it doesn't do any favors for speed.... (I did SA in 3G, CB in the next one, and GL in 4HU, but also HH and HGB.). Considering hammer, maybe GS but that gets to frame-counting oriented which I've never loved.

Also, is it just me or is Mizu in the demo obnoxious? I can't kill him! With anything. Haven't gone ranged yet, and that might be the trick. Maybe i should adopt bow instead of HGB this time. He seems to avoid you at range but i can never close in for attacks on him, he just twirrels of, and then kills me over time. And heals way too fast.

I know it's tradition for mh demos to suck, but still...

Although I wasn't part of the betas, the first Beta for World had Ancient Forest, while the second was the Wildspire. So I could see the next demo for Rise being a different map.

@theepictorkoal
All I can say is- no game has ever given me more enjoyment, more addiction or more adrenaline rush thrills than Monster Hunter, and I’ve been gaming since the NES.

It’s a game that’s hard to explain the appeal of until you get into it yourself. It’s like the ultimate boss battle game where you’re fighting living, breathing, fantastical creatures that move, behave, think and act just like creatures you’d expect to find in the real world. The combat is the deepest and most rewarding combat of any game I’ve ever played, even now 2,000+ hours into the series, I’m still experimenting with new weapons I haven’t mastered and it makes the entire game feel different. Unlike most games, every weapon is incredibly fine tuned and balanced and requires a lot of dedication to master properly. That’s not to say you can’t get reasonably proficient with a weapon in a short time period though.

The thrill of the hunt, the challenge that really tests your skills, then being rewarded with carves and Monster parts to help craft new armor, weapons or upgrade is insane. And weapons and armor are everything in this game. There are no “levels” or anything like that. You only get more powerful through the armor and weapons you craft. As you beat more powerful monsters and make their weapons and armor you become more powerful as your weapons and armor inherit defense and treats consistent with the monster you hunted. If you choose to make Mizutsune armor, it may have the water element as damage since Mizutsune uses water attacks. And the armor looks so incredibly good and stylish, it’s a constant rush of seeing the next armor set for the new monster you just fought and instantly wanting to make a new armor set just a little bit more powerful. Because it looks so good. And it has a new skill that you might want.

The game offers hundreds of hours of content for both single player off-line and online with friends. The non-competitive nature of the game lends itself well and has resulted in the community being one of the absolute best in all of gaming, willing to help new players as they learn and give advice (although a bunch of new players did come into the series with World who are a little more rude and less cultured... there’s always been a small element of that in the community because, I don’t care how good your community is there’s always going to be a few people, right? But it definitely got worse with World).

I’ve never really met somebody who hated Monster Hunter World after properly learning the game. And for the most part I haven’t really met anybody who hated the previous games after they played enough to properly learn the mechanics, but the older games were a lot more archaic in some respects so there were a few, but as MH Rise follows in the footsteps of World, I feel confident in the fact that The overwhelming majority of people who pick up this game and learn how to play it properly will not only love it but will likely rank it is among their favorite games they’ve ever played. That’s obviously not a guarantee because there’s always going to be a few people. I’m just saying statistically speaking, I feel far more confident saying you are likely to love this game if you buy it and invest the time to learn it properly than I do for just about any other game series out there.

@Joeynator3000
I do believe those were only playable for a 4 day window though. And unlike the Rise demo, required online to play, so once the demo time ended, you couldn’t connect to play anymore. At least, that’s how the first demo was. I know because you had to be a PS plus member to partake of it and you could only partake for that one weekend.

That said, there’s a good chance they might give us a new area. We’ll see.

Yeah I was just pointing it out since Rise is being treated somewhat similar to World with how they're handling things. Even though Rise got a demo and not a beta thing.

@NEStalgia
You’re better off sticking with melee weapons until you learn the game properly. Ranged weapons are more complicated, more skill dependent, and you can get wrecked if you don’t know how to use them properly.

The Hunting Horn is my recommendation. They revamped the entire weapon for MH Rise. It’s super fast and simple to use. You could say they dumbed it down, and I wouldn’t really argue with that, but it’s so gosh dang fun to play now, and since it was the most unpopular weapon in MH World- dead last according to Capcom data, I am 100% in favor of the change, and frankly, it might be my main weapon in this game because it’s just an absolute delight, and, it’s easily one of the most powerful weapons in the game damage wise. I think they purposely tuned it to do a little more damage than the other weapons to encourage people to actually use it, given its previous unpopularity. It’s the most wicked, flashy, fast, combo-driven weapon in the entire game now. It’s so good!

I killed all 3 monsters in 34 minutes using the Hunting Horn, and that’s after spending 3-5 minutes collecting spiribirds in the beginning of the quest. Great Izuchi, then Rathian, then Mizutsune, all back to back to back. For comparison, I was only able to manage 37 minutes with Charge Blade to kill all 3, and that’s the weapon I’ve mained for the last 3 Monster Hunter games in a row. So I have well over 1000 hours experience with the weapon- more than any other in the series, and yet I was able to reduce my kill time by about 8% with Hunting Horn, using a brand new overhauled design I had no experience with. With Switch Axe- the other weapon I’ve considered maining, I did it in 40 minutes. Granted, I’m sure once I have experience with it like Charge Blade, I could at least match that 37 minute time. Now, these are just rough times- I didn’t play it back to back, over and over trying to get the best times, I just happened to look at my clear time after I beat them and these were the times I noticed.

The Horn no longer works as it did previously, where you play 3 to 4 notes in a specific sequence for a song, and then use a recital button to activate it. Now, each note played twice in a row auto activates a buff. So X is one colored note, A is another colored note, and X+A is the 3rd colored note. You only have those three colors. Play any two notes in a row (so use the same button to attack twice in a row), and it auto activates Defense Up (S), or Healing Recovery (S), or whatever. The songs will vary by horn of course. But basically, you don’t have to worry about remembering song sequences anymore. Just attack naturally and your songs will stay activated constantly. The exception is self-recovery (boosts speed with weapon drawn, and I think it gives fencing skill to not bounce as well), which only requires one green note (X+A) but needs ZR as a recital to activate. It’s the only one where you have to use ZR to activate it. There is one larger buff that activates all three at the same time, and for that you play one note of each color back to back to back, in any order. Your last 4 notes will show on screen. All you have to do is get a red, green and blue back to back to back in any order. The thing is, when you do all 3 like that, it stores a special attack on your HUD which you can then activate at will whenever you want with ZR+X. It’s a really powerful combo. Save it for when you have a good 5 second opening and let it loose. Then be sure to build one up in storage again so that you have one at the ready at all times. You should be trying to use them as much as possible because the combo does crazy damage. The ZR recital button, aside from activating self recovery, is also just a really cool breakdance move with more i-frames for evasion than Evasion +2 skill. It’s nuts (and yes, you can use it to i-frame through roars, attacks, anything you want it you time it right).

Aside from that, there is one last special move you can do, and it also gets stored on the HUD to be used at will whenever you want. But this one you have to build up over time by dealing damage. It’s just a little circle that starts filling up. When it’s all the way full you can do the move. But this particular move, you want to activate it after that special ZR+X combo, right at the very end by using ZR. So basically, if your circle is full then just spam ZR while you’re doing that special combo to pull it off. It spins the horn on the ground while sticking straight up in the air, balancing on its handle, and knocks the monster several times with crazy damage.

And that’s it. That’s the entire Hunting Horn. Obviously you’ll have to learn the best combos to use but the best thing about the Horn is that you can really use any sequence of attacks in any order, and it’s going to make a pretty good combo. You can kind of button mash, just making sure to use two attacks back to back of each color once in a while to ensure your buffs stay active, or just experiment which sequence of attacks work best for you, and you’ll be fine. There are also the two wirebug moves, One of which (ZL+X) I will describe momentarily. The other (ZL+A) sees the hunter spiking the end of the Horn into the monster, then jamming out a note on the horn to send a Sonic blast and do like 150+ damage. I like both of them, but the one I’m about to discuss in a minute allows you to close distance with a monster, even through roars and attacks.

As for Mizu, he’s tough. When I first played the demo, it took me 40 minutes to beat him alone. I was rusty of course, but keep in mind, I do have over 2000 hours of experience in the series, and it still took me 40 minutes to beat him. Now, I can kill all 3 in 34 minutes, but not at first. It took a few hours of playing the demo to get back in the swing of things, and I slowly started noticing my times improving. 40 min eventually dropped to 30 min, eventually dropped to 20 min, etc.

You have to understand, the demo is tough. You don’t have the advantage of armor skills or eating before a hunt, upgrading your armor for more defense if you need it, etc. What you can do to help yourself survive, however, is collect spiribirds to max out your health and stamina (or come close to maxing out) before you take on the monster. This makes a huge difference because Mizu hits hard. Really hard. And if you don’t have enough health to take a hit or two you’re going to struggle. If you don’t keep your stamina up, you’re going to struggle. Using endemic life to your advantage as mentioned by the other member, such as throwing fire beetles or thunder beetles to blight him, laying traps to get free damage in, etc, can also help.

You also have to learn it’s attack patterns so that you know how to dodge. You have to learn how to discern its tells so that you know what attack it’s going to use and where it’s going to use it before it does it. When you hear the sonic spin dash sound when he’s enraged, you know he’s going to jump and do a massive crash landing doing crazy damage that can one shot you, so when you hear that sound, run or dodge roll out of the way, because he’s going to target whatever location you were in when the sound was made. When he’s sliding around in the water, he lifts his tail up and slaps it down, but he always does it to one side- the same side every time. Take note of that so that you can position yourself with a good dodge roll to avoid it when the time comes. He uses that move fairly frequently. When he’s spinning around blowing his water beam, you can use a well-timed wire bug into the air (ZL+X with weapon sheathed) and press A while in the air to hang from a wirebug for 5-8 seconds until he’s done with the attack. If you have your weapon drawn, and a spare wirebug, and you think you have enough time to sheath it, go for that. If you’re out of wire bugs or you don’t have enough time to sheath your weapon, then you’ll want to try to dodge roll through it with a perfectly timed evasion. It’s hard to pull off but it can be done. HOWEVER, if you’re using Horn (wink wink), and have weapon drawn... just use the ZR recital move the moment before it hits you to i-frame right through it! Or, if you think you can run up close to him before he turns around in your direction, there’s a gap underneath the water beam that you can dodge roll underneath right in front of his mouth. Or, you can just hug his body as he spins around, or if you’re far enough away you can just run away so that you’re out of range.

Aside from that, it’s just getting your reflex skills improved and learning his attacks, because you really have to play aggressively with him to keep dealing damage. It can be dangerous playing aggressive with him because he never stops moving. One of my favorite tricks to close distance with Mizu when using Horn, is using the wirebug attack move with ZL+X when weapon is drawn. You sling your wire bug forward in the direction you’re facing, and then yank yourself forward to close the gap with a crazy spinning move that does nice damage at the end of it, and the best part is, the move has super armor until the end combo, meaning you can use the move right before a monster roars and you’ll go right through it and land a juicy combo at the end of it.

I also recommend plotting out a path for the beginning of the hunt to gather as many spiribirds as possible. I figured out a path that can basically max out my health and my stamina in like 3, maybe 4 minutes. I always follow this path and get the spiribirds because it also gives me the opportunity to collect the puppet spider, which is an automatic mount, it lets me collect at least 2 elemental beetles, and at least one antidobra which both negates water blight from Mizu and prevents it from occurring while the buff is active.

You should Google search best optimal route to max out health. Stamina, I wouldn’t worry about too much that, because you’ll naturally get stamina spiribugs along the way, and it’s not the end of the world if it’s not 100% maxed out, but your health you definitely want to get as close to maxed out as possible. At least if you’re struggling, which... you are.

Also remember, the full game eases you in. By the time you get to Mizu you’ll have better armor than in the demo, can upgrade the armor, you’ll have actual skills, you’ll be eating before the hunt, and you’ll have experience under your belt hunting less dangerous monsters as you progress. You’ll be more familiar with your weapon, and you’ll have the training room to take advantage of to spend all the time you need mastering your weapon of choice (eh hem... cough cough... Horn).

@DarthNocturnal

Hey... he asked 😁

The hunting horn felt weird to me, idk. But then again I only tried it out once before getting immediately repelled into trying some other weapon.

I'll just let others handle the hunting horn. I'm sure there will be plenty online.

I just can't wait for monster hunter story's 2 been waiting for it for a long time. As much As I want this game i'm going to hold off a little longer since I will be getting crash 4 it might be a lot on me.

So, updated demo incoming on the 11th where you can fight Magnamalo. A cool tower defense-ish mode where you install ballistas and have to defend your village from monsters. And you can take pictures while you're out on hunts!

Heck yeah the demo we all knew was coming......is coming!!

And I couldn't be happier!

Guys if anyone get the physical release, when the time comes, could you please tag me here with update if the whole game is on the cartridge (no downloads required to play or some stupid demo version on the cartridge like Bioshock Trilogy).

@Zuljaras the games listed as an 8.8gb download on the store so it will depend if Capcom want to cough up for a 16GB cart for less than 1gb extra of data.

@DarthNocturnal I hope so.
@Mr-Fuggles777 Well I do not trust a company to have a 8.8GB game and NOT cheap out on the cartridge size.

@Zuljaras me neither, I assume they will add the last bit in with the day 1 patch and have an 8gb cart - doubling the cart size would needlessly eat into their profit line