------------------------------------------------------------ Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate - Beginner�s Guide and Walkthrough ------------------------------------------------------------ Game: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate System: Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS Author: Steve Edwards Contact: [email protected] Current Version 1.00 Submitted on 6/28/13 Original Version 0.40 Submitted on: 4/20/13 This guide is the copyrighted property of Steve Edwards. Licenced for use on GameFAQs.com, neoseeker.com, and cheatcc.com ................. ***************** TABLE OF CONTENTS ***************** ................. 1. Introduction.................................................[100] 2. Useful Notes and Tips and Tricks.............................[200] Weapons and Weapon Types.....................................[201] The Item Box.................................................[202] Combining Items..............................................[203] In-game Menus ...............................................[204] How to Prepare for a Fight ..................................[205] How to Fight Large Monsters .................................[206] How to Capture Monsters .....................................[207] Skills: Food and Armor.......................................[208] Hunting Grounds..............................................[209] The Forge....................................................[210] 3. Shakalaka Companions...[contributed by heavyacademic]........[300] Fondness.....................................................[301] Shakalaka Menu Options.......................................[302] Dances.......................................................[303] Masks........................................................[304] FAQs.........................................................[305] 4. Walkthrough Part 1 - Moga Village and Moga Woods.............[400] Moga Village ................................................[401] Freehunting in Moga Woods....................................[402] 5. 1-Star Quests - Small Monsters...............................[500] Questing ....................................................[501] 6. 2-Star Quests - Monsters.....................................[600] Great Jaggi..................................................[601] Arzuros .....................................................[602] 7. 3-Star Quests - Big Monsters.................................[700] Qurupeco.....................................................[701] Royal Ludroth................................................[702] Barroth......................................................[703] Gobul........................................................[704] Great Wroggi.................................................[705] 8. 4-Star Quests - Bigger Monsters............................. [800] Great Baggi..................................................[801] Rathian......................................................[802] Lagiacrus....................................................[803] Lagombi .....................................................[804] Gigginox.....................................................[805] 9. 5-Star Quests - Even Bigger Monsters.........................[900] Duramboros...................................................[901] Nibelsnarf...................................................[902] Volvidon.....................................................[903] Rathalos.....................................................[904] Barioth......................................................[905] Uragaan......................................................[906] Ceadeus......................................................[907] Purple Ludroth...............................................[908] Diablos......................................................[909] Agnaktor.....................................................[910] 10. 6-Star Quests - Very Big Monsters...........................[1000] Crimson Qurupeco............................................[1001] Pink Rathian................................................[1002] Plesioth....................................................[1003] 11. 7-Star Quests - Incredibly Big Monsters.....................[1100] Jade Barroth................................................[1101] Baleful Gigginox............................................[1102] Jhen Mohran.................................................[1103] 12. 8-Star Quests - Ridiculously Big Monsters.................. [1200] Brachydios..................................................[1201] Zinogre.....................................................[1202] 13. 9-Star Quests - The Biggest Monsters........................[1300] Sand Barioth................................................[1301] Nargacuga...................................................[1302] Azure Rathalos..............................................[1303] Black Diablos...............................................[1304] Steel Uragaan...............................................[1305] Glacial Agnaktor............................................[1306] Ivory Lagiacrus.............................................[1307] Deviljho....................................................[1308] Alatreon....................................................[1309] 14. Port Tanzia and the Arena...................................[1400] The Marina and Tavern.......................................[1401] Port Quests.................................................[1402] Goldbeard Ceadeus...........................................[1403] Green Plesioth..............................................[1404] Rust Duramboros.............................................[1405] Green Nargacuga.............................................[1406] Stygian Zinogre.............................................[1407] Dire Miralis................................................[1408] Gold Rathian................................................[1409] Silver Rathalos.............................................[1410] Lucent Nargacuga............................................[1411] Abyssal Lagiacrus...........................................[1412] Hallowed Jhen Mohran........................................[1413] Savage Deviljho.............................................[1414] Event Quests................................................[1415] The Arena...................................................[1416] 15. Online Etiquette............................................[1500] 16. Version History and Contact Info and Special Thanks.........[1600] ..................... ********************* 1. INTRODUCTION [100] ********************* ..................... Well hello, dear reader. Welcome to my Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Ultimate walkthrough and beginner�s guide. Now I�ve never written one of these before but I felt that I had to do this to help all of the new players out there who may not know all everything that veterans take for granted and don't bother to explain even thought the success of this series depends on getting new players. I think the veteran monster hunter players tend to assume that everyone already knows everything or else is an unredeemable noob. Let�s try to bridge that gap, shall we? This guide assumes that you are new to Monster Hunter, a �beginner� if you will, and aims to walk you through the single-player mode (the MOGA VILLAGE quests) by familiarizing you with the different functions of your home base, helping you prepare for battles by suggesting armor and items, and giving you tips for dealing with the dozens of big bad boss monsters you will have to fight. I am using the WiiU version of the game to collect info for this game, but the games are completely identical in solo content so this guide is perfectly capable of guiding you through the 3DS version of the game. But let�s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. A little context is called for. Here are some hypothetical frequently asked questions a new player may want to ask: a. What is Monster Hunter? Monster Hunter is a video game series created by Capcom. It is said to be very popular in Japan and less popular overseas. These games have you play as a HUNTER who lives in a fantastical hunter-gatherer society made up of small human villages surrounded by a large wilderness populated with fierce MONSTERS. It�s an eat-or-be-eaten sort of world. Your goal is to hunt monsters because they threaten your village. You kill monsters, carve open their flesh, use their bones and skin to make weapons and armor, and then use those weapons and armor to hunt bigger monsters. b. What is Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Ultimate? Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is the �ultimate� version of the third generation of Monster Hunter. It was released for Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo WiiU on March 21, 2013. It is built on the foundation laid out by Monster Hunter Tri (Wii 2010) and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP 2010, Japan-only). c. What is new in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate that wasn�t in Monster Hunter Tri? Well that�s not what this guide is meant to cover, but the gist is that there are some new monsters, a lot of new MONSTER SUBSPECIES, some new weapon types, some new items, some new armors, and some updated graphics including HD textures on the WiiU, 3D on the 3DS, and dynamic shadows in both versions. Also there are new control methods and inputs based on the second screens of the WiiU and 3DS. Unfortunately the motion controls from the Wii version have been scrapped, which I think is too bad because I enjoyed swinging my controller as a sword to bring the pain down on some monster. d. What is the difference between the 3DS and the WiiU versions? Both versions feature all of the same single player content... hell, they even have the same multiplayer content. In fact the WiiU version is a port of the 3DS game. The WiiU version has the ability to connect to the internet so you can hunt online with 3 people, friends or strangers, and this is super fun. The 3DS version is able to connect with 3DSs or WiiUs in close proximity for LOCAL PLAY, which could be even more fun that playing online with strangers, so long as you have some friends with their own systems and their own copy of the game and can meet up with them. The WiiU gamepad also has a couple more buttons than the 3DS, including a second analogue stick for controlling the camera. Both versions have a second screen which can use a virtual d-pad to control the camera. The 3DS version does have a 3D depth of field effect, which is actually a bit useful when you are fighting underwater and depth is otherwise hard to judge. e. Why is this game so difficult and frustrating? It's doing that on purpose. This game wants you to fail. It's sort of self- defeating for the game to do this, after all, nothing stands in the way of getting fans more than turning off those people who have already bought the game. On the other hand, this difficulty is also a subtle trap to get you hooked to this game forever. For those people who take this difficulty as a personal challenge to their skills and find a way to overcome it will experience a sense of triumph and satisfaction which is sorely lacking in today's contemporary hand-holding interactive movie-ish games. Monster Hunter is not shy about throwing you out in the wilderness and leaving you on your own to succeed or fail. It has no problem with making you fight a difficult battle for fifty minutes and then saying 'time's up, you are a failure!' and making all of that effort and time a total waste. You are fighting a game that wants to defeat you as much as you are fighting a particular monster that wants to defeat you. Again, this is all intentional, and the game is slyly trying to get you to look into its rpg item and armor systems, all the while lying down hooks to capture your interest. The basic lesson in all of the difficulty is that any challenge can be overcome with some preparation. Even if your weapon is weak, you can still wear down and defeat monsters if you brought enough health items to keep you in the fight long enough. If you go out of your way to buy some trap tools and find some thunderbugs, you can make shock traps that will give you a small chance to turn a losing fight around, or capture a monster just before time expires. Eventually your efforts outside of battle will reward you with items and armors and skills that make even the toughest fights trivial, and that is probably what makes this game so infinitely satisfying. If you apply yourself to this game and uncover all of its little details and secrets, you can turn the whole game inside out. Those monsters that used to be unfathomly difficult or those game systems that used to be cruelly restrictive will be brought under heel and become your slaves. Eventually you and your friends will be gang-shaving monsters in five or ten minutes without breaking a sweat, and you will feel satisfied because you still have that dim memory of when these fights could overwhelm you. And you just can't get that feeling if the fights and the game were never difficult to begin with. This guide is written for those people who still find the game difficult, whose every battle goes down to the wire, who are constantly clining to life and depleting their stock of items in every battle. I want to make YOU into a monster hunting machine. And believe me, it can be done, IF you have a the dedication and the will. f. That sounds hard. What is so fun about Monster Hunter, anyway? I�ll be honest: this game is about grinding. It is about repeating the same fights over and over again to collect the pieces to make new weapons and armor that do nothing but make those same fights easier. What could be so appealing about such tedium? The short answer is that the combat is fun. The long answer is... longer. Monster Hunter is set in a small village surrounded by a wilderness filled with giant, man-eating monsters. The survival of your village depends on YOU going out into the chaos and kicking its ass and bringing home whatever resources you can find. You are the archetypal hero in the world your animal brain still thinks it lives in; the world you unconsciously wish you live in. You will start out small and be awed and humbled by giant dinosaurs and dragons, and then you will experience a satisfying sense of progression, power, and mastery as you overcome one seemingly insurmountable challenge after another. You will feel the pleasure that comes with developing a skill through practice as you become more and more adept at the always-fun action-packed combat. You will become a GOD; a whirlwind of terror sweeps over the land killing everything that looks at you funny, and you will strike fear into Mother Nature herself. You will desire to broadcast your awesomeness to the world by equipping evermore outrageous weapons and armor, and along the way the game will addict you to item gathering by way of an intermittent reward schedule. You will lose yourself in this game and become someone... better. g. What qualifies you to write a guide about Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate? Not much. I�ve never written a guide before and the only Monster Hunter game I�ve ever played was Tri on the Nintendo Wii. That said, I thought Tri was a great game and I put about one thousand hours into it. I�m currently doing the same with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Really, I�m only writing this guide because it seems to me to be dreadfully needed. Someone needs to give all of the new players some tips and suggestions for what items to bring along or how to deal with the bosses. Helping new players is how this game acquires fans and fans in turn help the game series continue. I�m creating this guide to stand in between a manual and the more expert knowledge that you can find easily on the world wide web. First things first, the game�s manual can be found by opening up your in-game menu and looking into the section marked HUNTER�S NOTES. There you will find all of the information on controls, the Heads-Up Display (HUD), and the game sytems. One of the bad habits this game has is mentioning important details like �where the darned menu is at� only once in a flood of otherwise colorful but useless text, and then never mentioning it again. So I�ll say it again: this game has a manual that explains the controls and how to use your weapons! It�s amazing how many players never find this. But then again, much of this game is deliberately designed to be obtuse and frustrating as an extra layer of challenge. Remember when games were challenging and they just dropped you off in the middle of nowhere without a goal or a prayer? Well this game isn't that bad, but its definintely 'hardcore' in the sense that if you hope to progress you're going to have to dedicate yourself to learning about it. The very basic sort of information that the manual provides won�t be in this guide. I will give you some tips on some of the game systems, though, like how to handle your item box, or tips on skills, or just how this game is usually played and how to prepare for quest (pro-tip: preparation is the key to success!). I don�t know... maybe I could go over decorations and charms... but that might be too in-depth for a walkthrough. If you need to know anything more complex or specific than what is in this guide, check the MONSTER HUNTER WIKI, which is a great resource for veteran hunters, but again, not so friendly to newcomers. This guide was made by writing down everything I know about Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate, which is a lot because I play it a lot and I�ve explained it to a couple of people before and try to help people from time to time with questions online and on the Miiverse. To remind myself of how the game progressed I made a new character and re-did the Lower-Rank Village quests to get a feel for how the game introduces things to the player. The walkthrough thus adheres to how the game actually goes, but it's taking me some time to play through all of the content again. h. I�m looking for a certain item. Where can I find it? This guide will NOT, absolutely NOT tell you where to get certain items. That information would just be too much of a pain for me to list here, and lists like that are certainly easy enough to find elsewhere. If you need to know where to find items, or find out how to unlock particular weapons or armors, I recommend the Monster Hunter Wiki. Just search that phrase in a search engine. It�s very useful, but again, most of the information is only useful to those people who don�t give up at this game because it is too obtuse. Oh, here's another useful little website if you want to find something: http://www.kiranico.com/item/ That's what I'm using now. It's quick and simple and seems to work. i. How do I read this guide? If you�re looking for tips for a certain quest or a certain monster, check the table of contents to find what you�re looking for, and then get that bracketed number [xxx] and search for it [ctrl-f] to skip to that spot. The walkthrough will cover all of the Moga Village quests. They are grouped by tier, and this guide covers the KEY QUESTS and then the URGENT QUEST before covering whatever is leftover for that tier. The key quests and the urgent quests are the ones you have to do to proceed, but some of the other quests involve different and fun monster fights so you might as well check them out too. For every quest I will tell give you some information that you could find yourself in the QUEST INFO, like the objective and where it will be (if there is an �N� next to the location this means the quest takes place at NIGHT). I will also give you my appraisal of the difficulty of the quest (which is just my opinion) and a list of items you should bring with you. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. They are just suggestions. Obviously any quest can be made a little easier with bombs or traps if you feel like it. If there is an important TERM or SYSTEM you need to know about that I'm just introducing I will probably CAPITALIZE it to draw it to your attention. I will also try to direct you by telling you which AREAS on the MAP you need to go to. If you need to learn where all of the areas are, make sure to pick up a MAP from the BLUE BOX at the start of every quest. Funny story, though: as a veteran of Tri I have long since fallen out of the habit of taking a map along or even displaying it on-screen, so my references to areas are based on memory and guesswork. If any of the areas I tell you to go to just aren't right, I apologize. They're probably mostly right sometimes though... maybe. ...................... ********************** 2. USEFUL NOTES [200] ********************** ...................... A lot of this information can be found in the in-game manual or will be explained during the tutorials of the single-player mode. Unfortunately, the in-game text is small and fleeting and easily skipped. SO I've provided this information I thought was most useful for beginners right here. Take a look! .............................. WEAPONS AND WEAPON TYPES [201] .............................. This game features 12 weapon types. Each of these weapons takes some practice in order to be used efficiently. The weapons can also be upgraded through an expensive FORGING system. Give all of the weapon types a try and see which ones suit your play-style. But because the weapons need practice and are expensive to upgrade, it is best to pick a weapon type and stick with it for a while. If you get a little ways into the game and have grown tired of your weapon type and you have a little money and parts to spare, feel encouraged to forge yourself a nice weapon of a new type. Broadly, weapons are divided into BLADEMASTER weapons and BOWGUNNER weapons. The first type are those ones that you use by running right up to monsters to attack. They can be roughly divided up into blades (cuts) and blunts (impact). Swords are for cutting tails. Hammers attack the head for massive damage and inflict stun. Lances are more rounded and consistent. The bows and guns, on the other hand, are ranged weapons, and they have their own system for making and using ammo. They have unique abilities and can do a range of different kinds of attack in a single battle. Personally I prefer the action and reaction of up-close combat and I find guns slow and boring and expensive. Some weapons come with SHIELDS while others expect that you will EVADE any attacks that come your way. I recommend that true beginners get themselves a shielded weapon just to keep them alive until they know monsters' attack patterns well enough to dodge attacks. If you need to know about a certain weapon and how it works, check the HUNTER MANUAL in your in-game pause menu! .................. THE ITEM BOX [202] .................. The ITEM BOX is your most important asset in this game. You can find two copies of it in PORT TANZIA, but in the single player mode the box is located in YOUR HOUSE. You will be returning to this box between every hunt to store items you have gathered and to get items you will need. Let�s look at it in some detail. The ITEM BOX is a chest, like a treasure chest. It is a bright blue color to distinguish it from the surroundings. It is longer than meter wide, half a meter deep, maybe a meter tall. It has decorated edges. It has a curved lid. It�s a very impressive box but it doesn�t look like the resolution was improved from the old version of the game. But seriously, press A and have a look at some important BOX FUNCTIONS: STORE ITEMS You can store items from your blademaster�s or gunner�s POUCH. When you go out on quests you will acquire items to take back to your box for storage so that later you can forge with them or sell them or combine them or use them later. Your pouch can only carry 24 or 32 items so believe me when I say that this extra storage is very handy. REMOVE ITEMS You can take items out of your BOX to have them with you during a hunt. You will need some items on every hunt, some items on some hunts, and some other items are not necessary to take but are just nice to have. Be sure to replenish your pouch before every quest. COMBINE/MANAGE ITEMS You have a number of options here. You can combine items in your item box. If you select an item all those items it can combine with will be highlighted. You can also press X to SORT the BOX. You should become accustomed to the order the game puts these items in so you can find stuff quickly. You also have the option of SELLING ITEMS, but I would advise against this at first. Items are more important than money, IMO. You need items for COMBINING, COMMODITY TRADES, and for FORGING new weapons and armor, so don�t sell items unless you are sure they cannot be used for any of the above. That said, if you have like, 20 pieces of a certain monster�s buttcheek that are worth 1000z each, and you don�t want to make that particular kind of armor, then go ahead and sell them and pocket the 20,000z. The item box is also where you MANAGE EQUIPMENT. You can EQUIP WEAPONS, ARMOR, and TALISMANS. You will want to match your weapons and armor to whatever you are fighting. As for talismens/charms, I'll just briefly say that they can enhance your SKILLS and that this menu gives you an easy way to compare your charms. You can set DECORATIONS HERE (they are FORGED at the FORGE, though). You can REORDER and SELL EQUIPMENT. You can REGISTER EQUIPMENT SETS and EQUIP the sets you have already REGISTERED. This is a very handy feature later in the game when you have made a couple of different sets of armor and want to be able to switch between them quickly. Unfortunately when you name your set you are only given 6 character spaces to do so. Really, six? Come on. At the item box you can also VIEW your character up close using zoom and rotate commands to make sure you are looking dope and fly before your hunt. For a little while this will be unimportant to you because you will be more concerned about survival, but in a little while surviving will be second nature to you (if it wasn't your first nature) and you will want to show off how cool you are while doing it. Show off your flair and style! ..................... COMBINING ITEMS [203] ..................... Combining is a system that takes two items and turns them into one new, better item. You will be using this system to make yourself a whole bunch of necessary and/or handy items. As I previous explained, after selecting COMBINE ITEMS (in your ITEM BOX) and selecting an item, all of the items it can combine with are highlighted for your convenience. If you�ve accomplished this combination before the game will remind you of what the combination will result in. Your success rate can be improved by purchasing BOOKS OF COMBOS. There are some important combinations you�ll be doing quite frequently, such as: Herb + blue mushroom = potion Potion + honey = mega potion sap plant + paintberry = paintball Sap plant + stone or iron ore = bomb casing Bomb casing + flashbug = flash bomb Bomb casing + dung = dung bomb Screamer + gunpowder = sonic bomb fire herb + nitroshroom = gunpowder sleep herb + parashroom = tranquilizer Tranquilizer + bomb casing = tranq bomb Trap tool + thunderbug = shock trap Trap tool + net = pitfall trap Spider web + ivy = net Net + bone = bug net Stone + bone = pickaxe Cactus flower + bitterbug = herbal medicine Honey + bitterbug = catalyst Bitterbug + blue mushroom = antidote And so on and so on. All of the above items can be (more or less) commonly obtained by foraging out in the various hunting grounds. All, that is, except for the TRAP TOOLS, which must be bought. Some of these items can be bought, too, but why buy them when you can make them yourself and use the farm to produce infinite copies of the ingredients? Well, later in the game you will not want to bother to go get resources for the farm and you will have lots of cash, so feel free to just buy some of this stuff. By the way, the item shop in PORT TANZIA has better items if you want to check it out. There are some other very important combinations that gunners use to make ammo, using husks and fish and other items to make their ammo. Being a gunner is an incredible drain on your item collection. Being a gunner is also about the only reason for using the combine menu while you are out in the field as it is a way of circumventing the ammo limits. Why is combinging with the item box better than combining in the field? Because of a little system known as RATE OF SUCCESS. Combining with the box gives you a better chance that the combination won't just FAIL and produce garbage (wasting your ingredients). Not that the chances of failure are very high anyways. When you get some money and some RARE COMMODITIES, you are advised you pick up the five BOOKS OF COMBOS so that your item box combining rate of success gets maximized. Anyways play around with combining items in your book and you will be able to open up some really neat items that are not strickly necessary to beat any quest but can be really helpful nonetheless. You can check your combo list to find out things to try or things you already know. Oh, and if you hold down the A button while combining you will combine lots of items very quickly, which is useful if you are ever trying to make 50 mega pots or whatever. ................... IN-GAME MENUS [204] ................... Press SELECT on your gamepad, or START or SELECT on your 3DS, to open up the menu. When you are playing offline you�ll see two tabs, each containing about five menu options for you to choose from. Beginners should absolutely familiarize themselves with the following things before they get very far into the game. ITEM POUCH You have a pouch for items. If you�ve ever played Role Playing Games you probably have a good idea of what to expect to carry around: healing potions, antidotes, item drops from your downed enemies, etc. You know the drill. You can hold 24 items at a time. You have an item box in your house that can hold hundreds of items in storage, so you only have to carry with you what you actually need for the mission you are on. Bowgunners have a fourth page in their item pouch because they have to bring different types of ammo with them. Bowgunners� and Blademasters� item pouches are exclusive for some reason, so if you�re going to switch weapons you should first empty your item pouch. COMBINE You can combine items in your item pouch using this menu. This is the menu you use to combine items when out on a quest. Ordinarily, you will want to do your combining through the item box in your house, because that has a better RATE OF SUCCESS. Failed combinations produce garbage, and I encourage you to just throw your garbage on the ground and forget about it. Combining out in the field is mostly useful for gunners who need to make more ammo than they are permitted to carry, but everyone can use this to take along extra traps or potions for a very dangerous fight. COMBO LIST This is a list of things that can be combined. Personally, I never read it, and I had a whole lot of fun randomly mixing items together just to see what would come out. I think this thing is a bit of a spoilsport. HUNTER�S NOTES THIS IS THE GAME�S MANUAL THAT TELLS YOU HOW TO PLAY. It contains the MONSTER LIST and HUNTER INFO. The monster list in this version of the game needs to be filled in by purchasing books from the item shop. It is not terribly important. The HUNTER INFO is actually this game�s MANUAL. All of the CONTROLS can be found inside, as well as the different attacks each weapon has. This is a great resource for new hunters. Unfortunately, like most everything in this game, it is mentioned once or twice in a great wave of text that you�ll probably ignore, and many novices never even find the game�s manual. GESTURES Open this screen and you�ll find a button to make your character dance or lament or cheer. Kinda fun. Gesturing is a fun little thing to do when playing multiplayer and waiting for some tardy ally. QUIT GAME You can save and quit using this menu option. STATUS This is a quick way to see your current stats: your defence, attack, your resistance to various elements, your current funds and resource points, and perhaps most importantly, your food and armor skills. If you ever want a quick glimpse of these stats, this is where to look. You�ll have to frequently change your armor and weapons to match the element and strength of the monster you want to hunt, so you�ll be checking this menu every so often. On this screen you will also find that having a full set of matching armor provides you with a number of SKILLS. Skills are super important in this game. Check the second and third sub-screens to check out your SKILLS in detail. EQUIPMENT This is a more in-depth look at your equipment... and it�s mainly used for finding out what sort of bullets your bowgun can shoot (if you�re using a bowgun) or what your horn can toot or finding out how many decoration slots your armor has (this is a more advanced game system so if you really are a beginning you can probably just not bother with this). GUILD CARD This is a little summary of who you are and what you�ve done in Monster Hunter that you can send to other players. I believe that the 3DS versions sends this out using STREETPASS. You can CHECK, EDIT, SEND, and view a CARD LIST. Make sure that you give yourself a dope title and that you buy all the monster books so people can see what you�ve hunted. Most importantly, head on over to the ARENA in PORT TANZIA to get some arena times on your card so you can join the LEADERBOARDS. MOGA VILLAGE This screen can tell you when your crops are ready down on the farm. OPTIONS Here we have various options you may be interested in tinkering with. There are more menu screens that only come into play when you are online, so I won�t bother with them in this section. However, you should be made aware of some other options that pop up when you are out hunting: QUEST INFO When you are on a quest this menu will tell you everything you need to know about it. You can find out what the victory conditions are (Hunt, Capture, or delivering X number of items usually) and what the failure conditions are (3 deaths, the time limit). You can read some of this information ahead of time at the QUEST BOARD to figure out if it is going to be day or night during the quest (which is important to know in the SANDY PLAINS at least). PAUSE If you�re playing single player, you have the option of PAUSING the game: stopping the quest timer and preventing you from being attacked. RETURN TO VILLAGE This option appears when you are out FREE HUNTING in MOGA WOODS. It allows you to return to MOGA VILLAGE without having to walk back to AREA 1. It�s very handy. ABANDON QUEST This option appears when you are on an official GUILD QUEST. You can give up; forfeiting the money you paid to accept the quest. You will be returned to MOGA VILLAGE as a failure. ................................ HOW TO PREPARE FOR A FIGHT [205] ................................ First things first, you want to know what you are going to fight before you are fighting it. Go to the quest counter or to the moga forecast and pick out your target. Read up on all of the quest info but DON'T select the quest yet. Return to your house and equip appropriate armor and weapons. Usually this means you want an armor set with helpful skills that is also resistant to the element of your prey, and you want a weapon that does elemental damage that your prey is weak to (If you need to quickly check what a monster is weak to, run to the forge and look at the armor that monster makes and somewhere in those many pages of information will be that monster's elemental resistances). Open your item box and store all the items you have but won�t need and then take out all of the items you don't have but will need. There are some items you need for every quest and some that you need for certain quests and some that are just helpful on certain quests. Make sure you have everything you NEED at least: hot or cool drinks (for cold or hot areas, respectively) traps and tranqs for cap quests (bring extras even) paintballs and dungbombs (to keep you sane) 10 potions and/or mega potions at all times whetstones for blademasters, ammo for gunners meat (for high rank quests) pickaxes and bug nets (for down-time item gathering) At the beginning of LOW RANK QUESTS you will be provided with some helpful items, but when you get to HIGH RANK these are no longer handed out, so you will have to be even more prepared. Also in high rank you will have to keep dung bombs with you at all times to keep your from being devoured by THE DEVIL. Hopefully the process of getting your items replenished between quests quickly becomes routine for you. Once you are equipped run over to the RESTAURANT and eat something so that your health and stamina bars will be expanded at the start of the quest. Get extra defense for tough monsters and extra attack for easier ones. Be on the lookout for applicable skills. Some foodskills lend themselves to particular quests but I�ll let you fiddle about with that system on your own. Preparation is the key to victory so going about all of this runaround is really half of the battle. If you know yourself and your enemy you can predict the outome of one hundred battles. The actual fighting is less critical (but more fun) than all this preparation. Show that monster that you came prepared. Then it will die and you can carve it up for parts, and take QUEST rewards and put them in your box, and then maybe someday you will have enough parts to make a new belt. Return to Moga Village, deposit the extra items you picked up during the quest, and repeat the cycle over again for the next quest. ................................. HOW TO FIGHT LARGE MONSTERS [206] ................................. The best way to deal with monsters is to be already familiar with how they move and attack. That may not be very helpful advice to the rookie player so here are some other things to be aware of. Overpreparation is the key to success. If you don't know how to deal with a monster, come prepared for anything. Bring an excessive number of potions and mega potions. Bring a bunch of NULBERRIES in case it has an attack that debilitates you. Bring extra WELL-DONE STEAKS in case the fight drags on. Bring traps and tranqs in case you need to turn around a losing battle or make a desperate capture attempt in the final minutes of a timed quest. One technique for getting to know monsters is to fight them without fighting. Sounds zen, I know, but it can really help you get a feel for your opponent. Attack the monster once and then put your weapon away. Spend two minutes or so just dodging it attacks. After a little time spent in a closed arena with a rampaging tiger you should have a good idea of how it behaves, assuming you survive. You will start to notice openings in between its attacks. Keep a mental note of all those times in your head and put them to use later. You will notice that monsters get commited to attacks and cannot break out of them until they are completed. Usually this means they will not even be able to change direction once they have started their attack. You can run around monsters during this time to position yourself to your advantage. When monsters have commited to an attack you have already dodged you also have time to use healing items or sharpen your weapon if it is dull. If you ever take a lot of damage, put your weapon away and run a little bit until you see the monster leave you an opportunity to heal. You should also familiarize yourself with the basics of EVADING and SHIELDING before you even think about attacking. What sort of options you have for moving or defending yourself depend on the weapon you brought and if you have it SHEATHED or not. With your weapon out, usually 'B' will give you a roll move to get out of the way of attacks, but sometimes it is just a sidestep (which can sometimes go through attacks unharmed). Your shield is on the 'R' button if you have one, and with it attacks can still damage your health but the brunt of the damage will go to your quickly-recovering stamina points. Your shield can get overwhelmed if it takes a lot of attacks in succession. When you are running around with your weapon put away you should consider yourelf relatively invulnerable. This is because you have access to a DIVE move that replaces your roll whenever you are running away from a monster. During your dive you are completely immune to damage and you can use this to get through anything that would otherwise kill you. It can even prevent you from being STUNNED by flashes or immobilized by ROARS. The dive is great but unfortunately your weapon needs to be put away for you to use it. Practice with it and learn to love it. Keep an eye on your stamina guage in battle so you don't suddenly become able to roll or dive to shield or run away. Oh yeah, your dive doesn't work underwater. When you attack monsters you want to do it and then quickly move out of the way of their next attack. Monsters in this game decide on an attack and then execute it, and then they have a brief window before they make their next move. Usually they have a little TELL or SIGN for what attack they are about to do. You want to anticipate the monster's moves and get out of the way but also position yourself so that you will be able to attack the monster when they are finishing their attack. See, after attacking, monsters usually spend a second or two recovering from the attack or reorienting themselves for their next move. This is your chance to land 3 hits or so and then get out of the way. A little ways into the game you will get a companion character who is meant to approximate what it is like to play multiplayer mode. What this means is that whenever you have this AI sidekick the monsters will not just be attacking you, they will have to split their attention between you and your ally. This means between attacks they will have to turn in a different direction while you are free to run up behind them and land some hits. It's very convenient. Take advantage of this by putting the monster between you and Cha-Cha (or Kayamba). What you don't want to do is have both of you on one side of the monster so it can attack you both at once. Monsters can be made vulnerable using items, too. It varies from monster to monster, but traps and flashbombs and sonic bombs can sometimes leave your foe completely immobile and helpless. These items are not necessary in a fight but if you have the items and need to make things easier for yourself then bring them along. There are other opportunities you should be aware of. Monsters in this game have a STAMINA SYSTEM and sometimes they will become visably TIRED. Usually this means that they just stand still for a couple of seconds and you should attack them. When you land a lot of attacks on a monster it can FLINCH or even FALL OVER. This is a great opportunity to expand on your combos, which otherwise should be kept short so the monster doesn't attack you while you're doing some complicated three-step attack. On the flip side of the stamina system is something monsters have called RAGE MODE. When a monster goes into rage mode it will usually ROAR (this can freeze you in your tracks) and become more agressive and chain its attacks together instead of letting you attack it. Sometimes monsters have a puff of smoke in front of their faces to let you know they are mad. Rage mode can really make things more difficult for you and you may find yourself suddenly overwhelmed by a monster you were previously dominating. Don't worry about it, it happens, and if you suddenly on the receiving end of three big hits and stunned and in bad shape or whatever, there is no shame in leaving the area you are in if you need to take a bunch of potions and sharpen your sword and eat some meat and really just collect yourself. Maybe you can even go take a little nap or do some gathering if you feel that you'd be better off waiting for the monster to calm down abit. You can be a little more proactive in your approach to rage mode, though. If you save your traps and bombs for this point you can sometimes snap monsters right out of rage mode and demoralize them. Monsters can leave the area they are in to get away from you, too. They can go find something to eat to regain stamina. Don't let them. They can go to sleep if they are really injured. You want to use an item called a PAINTBALL to keep track of those monsters who move around a lot or who move in unpredictable ways. Some monsters have a clear path they take through certain areas and are easy enough to follow on their own. Some monsters can fly or dig their way to far off-areas and make tracking them without paintballs hard or impossible. Unless you are in some contrived condition you usually won't be fighting large monsters one-on-one. There will be all sorts of other things around to attack you. Small monsters can try to inflict status conditions like sleep or paralysis on you while you aren't looking. You should seriously think about killing the more annoying ones before focusing on your real opponent. Sometimes other large monsters will show up in the same area. Large monsters can fight each other but mostly they will be double-teaming you. You can sometimes know this will happen ahead of time (through the quest info saying the area is 'dangerous' or 'unstable') so bring DUNG BOMBS to make one of the monsters leave the area. These don't always work and you can run out so be prepared to just leave the area and wait for those monsters to go their separate ways. Fighting two monsters at once is not a good idea at all. Here's another good piece of advice that not enough hunters use: don't fight monsters in corners or near walls or in other small, cramped areas. You want room to run around so you don't get pinned against against a wall where monsters can chain attacks together on you. Another thing you should know about large monsters is that they have different ELEMENTAL WEAKNESSES and different WEAK POINTS. When you need help with a certain monster you can search this guide (or just go to the monster hunter wiki) to find out what elemental weapons will deal the most damage and where. Usually it is something obvious like the head which is weakest spot, but do yourself a favor and look it up anyways, and bring a weapon that can exploit your target's weakness. The different monsters sometimes have even more esoteric weaknesses to various items... like how gobul is weak to frogs. Get to know these sorts of things, too. Besides exploiting weaknesses, you also want to be aware that certain parts of monsters can be BROKEN. Not only does this usually make them flinch, it also gives you more rewards when the battle is over. You will want to pursue certain breakable points to get certain items for certain weapons and armors. Again, that kind of information can be searched for online but not in this guide. When you kill a large monster while you are on a quest you will be given one minute to CARVE the monster for item drops. Use the remaining time to gather whatever items you can see in your immediate vicinity. Use this downtime as your primary item-gathering time so you don't have waste time doing it some other time. When your quest ends you will get even more items: send them to your item box forever. If you've been out hunting for like 30 or 50 minutes you may have to pee really bad but don't run off just yet because those quest rewards have a two minute timer for you to collect them before they are gone forever. And then take two seconds to save before you run off. ................................... HOW TO CAPTURE LARGE MONSTERS [207] ................................... Capturing monsters is a QUEST VICTORY CONDITION that comes up sometimes. Thankfully it doesn't come up very often. Oh sure, capturing is simple once you get the hang of it, but newbies have the hardest time putting it together, and even with care trapping can be mucked up in all sorts of ways and cost you the quest and waste your time. Read this section if you don't want to be frustrated and disheartened by an errant cap quest. Capturing is a straightforward business. You fight the monster like normal until it is really beaten up and broken. When it goes to leave the area it will display a highly recognizable LIMP as a sign that it can be captured. A special armor skill called CAPTURE GURU will also inform you of this, if you really need help with it. Follow the monster to wherever it limps to and lay down your trap. Lure the monster into the trap and then hit it with two tranqs. Preso! Captured. It seems so simple, but it can go so horribly screwy. The key to success in this game is overpreparation and redundancy. When the game sends you out on a low-rank capture quest it will provide you with an EZ trap and some tranq bombs/ammo. Don't let it make you complacent! Before going on any cap quest, make sure you bring along your own traps and tranqs. Get them out of your item box, or else go to the item shop and buy some trap tools and tranquilizer and go out to moga woods to gather some spider's webs and thunderbugs and ivy and parashrooms and sleep herbs. You need to be prepared in case your EZ trap fails or your tranqs miss. How can traps fail? The EZest way for them to fail is for the monster to limp past them without stepping on them. These traps can't be picked up after they are put down and if the monster just gets up and leaves the area then your trap is wasted and will most likely disappear before the monster comes back. Traps also only hold the monster for a short time so if something prevents you from tranqing the monster in time, or if the monster was never weak enough to be captured in the first place, then you've wasted that trap. Some monsters can just fly away without getting trapped, and rathalos especially seems to be too smart to fall into traps. ***Pro-tip: If you've run out of traps there is still a slim chance of getting some more. If you're on a map that happens to have some cats you can go and kill them: they have a 3% chance of dropping EZ traps. It's better than nothing I guess*** Tranqs can fail you to. If you aim is false then you can throw them all away. Worse still some small or large monster can get between you and your quarry and take the bullet for them, like that porpoise in that BATMAN MOVIE. You know the one. There is yet another way to fail capture quests, and that is if your prey up and drops dead before you can capture it. The first two capture quests in the game are good examples of this. Arzuros and great jaggi are weak monsters and easily killed even with the worst weapons. You'll have to be really nice to them and give them lots of chances to tell you that they want to be captured. With all of that out of the way I have some more bad news: there are certain monster parts (needed for making sweet armor and weapons) that you can only get by capturing monsters. And even then you don't always get them. That means you're going to have to do this unpleasant thing and not get carves from time to time. The good news is that when you are out on a regular old hunting quest or even freehunting, captures are totally allowable victory conditions so if you have the opportunity to do it with no hassle you can go ahead, and if it goes SNAFU it doesn't matter you can just kill the sucker. ............................. SKILLS - FOOD AND ARMOR [208] ............................. Skills are a game system of huge importance. Going into each battle you will have the option of having some unique abilities that can totally tilt the odds in your favor. You can get skills to make certain of your attacks more deadly, or certian monsters' attacks weaker. You can get skills to ignore roars or status conditions, or currents and winds. You can manipulate your health and stamina or sharpness systems. There are all sorts of little tweaks you can do to your character if you have the will to do so, and these will be the difference between being a hunter subject the whims of fate and being a hunter who subjects the game to his will. Skills come in two distinct forms: armor and food. Armor skills are harder to get and change because they are loosely tied to your armor and it can take a lot of battles to get the items you need to make more armor or decorations or talismans. Food skills are much easier to get because you get them from the restaurant before each battle (assuming you eat before every quest, and you absolutely should) and they only last for one battle (or one life). I'll cover food skills first. When you eat at the restaurant you order a dish by selecting two items from six different types of food: meat, fish, grains, veggies, dairy, and drinks. Different combinations of these types of dishes give you different skills. Most importantly, eating lets you go into battle with expanded health bars and stamina bars so that you don't have to bring along NUTRIENTS or MAX POTIONS to get your health bar expanded (you still have to bring meat because your stamina bar's length decreases over time). You can also get an attack up boost for monsters you want to kill quickly or a defence up boost for monsters you think might be able to kill you. Beyond that you will also get a FIXED SKILL (which is tied to the food types) and a DAILY SKILL (which changes). Switch between a preparation method by pressing LEFT and RIGHT and press UP and DOWN to get a look at the skills you'll get and then just pick whatever suits your fancy. I know that sounds like a lot of information but really navigating the food menu is something you do super quickly just before each battle for a quick bonus. To make things easier for you I'll just tell you to get meat and grains for the attack boost, and fish and grains if you want the defence boost. Don't fret too much over getting the right skills they are sort of secondary when it comes to food. One more thing you should know about the restaurant is that the food you get there can be upgraded by completing villager requests and by doing port quests that are marked as 'CANTEEN QUESTS'. Upgraded food is better. Armor skills are where you want to get your most useful skills from, the skills that define what kind of hunter you are and give you your special edge in battle. Take a look through all of the armor the forge can make for you and look through the various options to see the skills and what they do. Just pick a set that would give you an advantage you like and then dedicate yourself to getting all of the peices of that set. Armor skills come in pieces with each piece of armor, so you'll typically have to collect the whole set of armor to activate the skill. Later in the game you'll be able to mix and match and use DECORATIONS to fill in some gaps to make truly unique armor, but for the people this guide is intended for just knowing that you want a full set of some kind of armor is enough. ..................... HUNTING GROUNDS [209] ..................... If you want to hunt monsters you're going to have to go out into the wilderness (if you don't want to hunt monsters then you are playing the wrong game). This game provides you six main HUNTING GROUNDS that serve as the settings for your hunts. You get to these areas by accepting QUESTS and each quest sends you to a certain hunting ground (this guide lists them as LOCALES). The six locales are, in the order they are unlocked: the DESERTED ISLAND (also known as moga woods), the SANDY PLAINS, the FLOODED FOREST, the TUNDRA, the VOLCANO, and the MISTY PEAKS. Each locale has its own ecosystem and its own set of monsters big and small you will encounter there. The locales are more than static backdrops (at least, until you are super-powered); they are living worlds with unique effects on how you will hunt and so it is important to know them as well as you know whatever your specific prey du jour is. After all, everything takes place within a CONTEXT and you would be smart to take that into consideration. Like everything else in this game: the environment is subtlely or overtly waiting to kill you and make you quit in frustration if you act without thought. The environment is the natural home of the monsters and they will be able to move between AREAS to try and escape from you if you get too powerful. The environment may allow the monsters to go underwater for a fight where you are much less mobile than your fishy foes. The environment may just outright drain your health or stamina over time just because it is hostile and cruel. You will have to take all of these things into consideration before the quest starts and bring items with you to neutralize these ill effects, bringing order to the natural chaos and turning these hunting grounds into sterile areas for you to more easily (or with less difficulty) hunt monsters. Here are some more practical differences between the hunting grounds. Different locations have different monsters, and this also includes SMALL MONSTERS better known as PESTS. These things will try to attack you while your attention is otherwise engaged fighting massive dragons. They vary from location to location and so where you are will be the difference between getting charged by a bullfango or being afflicted with some horrible status effect. The other noteworthy practical difference between locations is that they have different items for you to gather. If you need to get certain items you are going to have to go to those areas that have them. Because your access to areas is staggered with the unlocking of difficulty tiers, the game is able to give you access to new items as you progress and the newer items will be able to make slightly better weapons and armor. Hunting grounds are divided up into discrete AREAS. You and monsters can move between these with a negliable amount of LOADING TIME. Monsters won't usually pursue you to different areas so you can excuse yourself for a moment to heal yourself. In low-rank mode you will have easy access to a MAP of the area you are in and you have the option of having this map displayed on-screen at all times (I don't recommend this because it takes up a lot of screen space. And hey, this is why we have two screens now that we are in the future). I'll be referring the numbered areas on these maps from time to time. The other thing common to all hunting grounds is a rest area known as the CAMP where you will be free from monsters and able to pick up items, drop off items you are charged with delivering, or heal yourself completely using the BED. Oh yeah, and all of the locations have a secret area with good items that you can get to in high-rank mode using the FELYNE EXPLORER skill. Like I said before monsters move between areas. What I didn't say is that some of them move in such a way that you cannot easily watch where they go (either because they fly or dig or teleport or whatnot). You want to have an item called a PAINTBALL to track them. Besides that you will eventually accumulate a little bit of knowledge about where the different monsters hang-out in the different locations. Most of them stick to a certain sub-group of areas that are relatively similar and suitable for fighting them in. For instance, the leviathans stay in or near water, and land monsters still on or near land. Well its more subtle than that but I think you get the idea. Let's look over the hunting grounds one by one, shall we? The first loacation is the DESERTED ISLAND/MOGA WOODS and it is something completely unique. It is a special case in that you have access to it in two completely identical instances. I'll cover the differences in the walkthrough later. Anyways, this location has 12 areas divided up between a land-locked LOWER CIRCUIT and some water areas to highlight the underwater combat which is unique to the third generation of Monster Hunter. Areas 2 and 3 are good places to gather honey and mushrooms and bugs. Area 3 gets narrow in the middle so have your fights at either end and not in the middle. There is a cave in area 4 that you'll rarely visit because no large monsters go in there. Area 5 is a large area where you can fight land and water monsters. Area 6 is the JAGGI'S DEN where gjaggi goes to sleep. Area 8 is at the top of a cliff and you can get knocked off or use it as a shortcut to areas 5 or 11. Area 11 is entirely underwater and so is part of area 10. Area 12 is where the water monsters go to sleep. It is a small area so the fights there might be sudden death. As for small monsters, well the woods gets more and more of them as you advance. It has cats in some areas and some bnahabra and jaggi everywhere. And next we have the SANDY PLAINS. This is one of the most deadly areas in that it has this TEMPERATURE SYSTEM so that during the day it is hot (and you'll need to bring cool drinks) and during the night it is cold (and you'll need hot drinks). This only applies to the outlying desert areas 8, 9, and 10. Area 8 is the most narrow of these and it is your usual location for fighting DIABLOS and it has a couple of places for him to get his horns stuck. Area 3 is the BARROTH'S WATERING HOLE and that's where you'll be fighting him. Area 5 is another jaggi's den and almost exclusive to him. Area 6 is another one of those caves that you can mine nice stuff in but you never fight large monsters in. The rhenopolos is a common pest in this locale. Did you know you can get stolen items back from cats in the cave? That's a real thing but it's not something that comes up ever. The sandy plains give you access to ice crystals and carpenterbugs and nitroshrooms and fire herbs and cactus flowers and such. And then there is the FLOODED FOREST. It's green and muddy. Areas 3,4,5,6, and 8 are underwater and a good source of pelagicite and bathycite ores. You can fish gobul out of area 4 using the frogs in area 2. Area 8 is where lagi and luddy go to sleep. The whole forest is full of bnahabra and aggressive altaroth and wroggi. You can also get killer beetles here. And hey, have you ever heard of this guy called the VEGGIE ELDER? He's not important, but areas 5 and 7 have a nice waterfall shortcut to area 6. I don't know, this area is not that special. Oh yeah and the base camp has a secret path out to area six. It's great for getting out in the water to fight lagi, but otherwise it just strands you far out in the deep muddy muck. The TUNDRA is cold so you have to bring hot drinks. It has a large cave network through areas 4, 5, and 7. It is sometimes dark in there. Area 7 is where BAGGIS hang out and area 5 is where GIGGINOX breeds. Area 6 is where the BARIOTH'S PLATEAU is. The tundra is home to new ores called isisium and gracium (in high rank). And finally the tundra has two secret areas branching off of area 1 that get unlocked when JADE BARROTH or DEVILJHO get injured and try to hide there. And then there is the VOLCANO which is hot in areas 5 thru 10. It also is a great spot to mine dragonite ore. Area 6 is where URAGAAN has his ramp. Area 10 is where AGNAKTOR sleeps and you can get powederstones for the powderstone quest. Oh yeah, bring cool drinks here. And finally we have the MISTY PEAKS which I don't understand or know my way around because it is new from Monster Hunter Tri. Don't ever go there under any circumstances. Actually, those aren't all of the hunting grounds. There are a couple of special areas that only come up in certain special quests, like the GREAT DESERT where you fight JHEN MOHRAN or the SACRED GROUNDS where ALATREON lives or the UNDERWATER RUINS where CEADEUS lives. These things are not worth my time to cover, and neither are the land and sea arenas which are afterall just plain old places (with dragonators((?))). ............... THE FORGE [210] ............... It's important for you new players to know the ins and outs of the forge because that is where all of your weapons and armor will come from... and since this game doesn't include a typical rpg level-up stat system for your character, gear is EVERYTHING. The first thing you need to know about getting new gear is that THE FORGE is the only place to go. There is an armor and weapons shop but the stuff they sell there is ridiculously overpowered and aside from getting maybe your first armor upgrade or buying the bone version of your starter weapon, it has nothing worth getting. So let's learn all about the forge. The forge can be found in the upper left corner of MOGA VILLAGE, and there is an identical forge in the MARINA of PORT TANZIA. When you talk to the WYVERN ARTISAN there you will be given three choices: WEAPONCRAFT, ARMORCRAFT, and DECORATIONS. I'll cover these three things in turn. When you click on WEAPONCRAFT you go into a submenu with two other options: FORGE WEAPONS and UPGRADE WEAPONS. If you click on the former you will be given the option to create a weapon of whatever weapon type you desire. Weapons made at the forge require a sum of money (Zenny) and a few MATERIALS that are typically DROPPED by the large monsters you hunt. Weapons here are ranked by a RARITY system and new potential weapons are added to this list as you kill new monsters. You can gets lots of info on weapons if you know how to read what is displayed here. You can see RAW ATTACK POWER, ELEMENTAL ATTACK POWER, and AFFINITY, which is another sort of power that might be linked to critical hits but who really knows. The colorful spectrum you see (assuming you are looking at BLADEMASTER weapons) is the weapons SHARPNESS. Having large green, blue, white, and pink bars on this spectrum is good. If you are looking at BOWS then instead of this you will have to shift through some screens to see what ammo your weapon uses, and you will be given lots of gun specific stats like RELOAD, RECOIL, DEVIATION... all that bowgun gobbledygook. If your weapon has SLOTS for DECORATIONS (see below) then it will say so. You can compare the stats of all available weapons to the weapon you currently have equipped. Fiddling around with buttons will also allow you to find some FLAVOR TEXT about the weapon, check out the materials needs to forge it, and view the weapon to see if it looks cool or not. Anyways, check back here when you kill a new large monster to see if you can make a new weapon. Try and make a weapon of every element early on and then move on to UPGRADING them after that. UPGRADING WEAPONS is where you want to focus your attention after you've made starter weapons. You will be taken to your EQUIPMENT BOX to look and see if anything you own can be upgraded. Weapons and materials will be greyed out if they aren't available, but anything that can be upgraded right now will be bright and colorful. You can take the weapons you have now and make them more powerful if you bring the required materials and money. You should do an internet search for WEAPON TREES to see what weapons can be upgraded to what and what materials you will need. You will be moving your weapons up the RARITY SCALE in sync with your progression through the game. ARMORCRAFT also allows you to forge or upgrade, but these both work in different ways than they did with weapons. For starters, you should know that you have FIVE pieces of armor you can wear at all times: head, arm, chest, waist, and legs. You will be forging and upgrading each of these seperately. When you see the large list of armors you can forge, you will notice that there are certain redundancies in the list that may confuse you at first. You will notice that every piece of armor comes in two flavors: one with higher defence and one with higher elemental resistances. The higher defence is meant for BLADEMASTERS and the weaker armor is for GUNNERS. So from now on you can just ignore every other piece of armor depending on your weapon type. You can see the materials and money needed to make armor, but more importantly with a press of a button you can see how that armor will look on you. If you are the kind of person who cares about SKILLS over looks, well there are a couple of submenues here that will let you check on the skills you will get from these armor pieces. Finally, when you get to HIGH RANK and G RANK armors you will notice that there are new verions of all of the armors with slightly different skills, and also that there are S/U and Z/X versions of armors which are just armor pieces for different SUBSPECIES of the same monsters. I hope some of that makes sense. UPGRADING ARMOR is much more straightforward than upgrading weapons was. Armor upgrades just involve adding small amounts of defence but otherwise keeping armor exactly the same. Armor upgrades cost money and ARMOR SPHERES, which are items you have to mine out in the fields. The successive layers of armor spheres are made available as you unlock higher level instances of the various HUNTING GROUNDS, so you will only be able to upgrade your armor a couple of times before the next upgrade requires an armor sphere you can't get to yet, and then you'll be better off forging a new set of armor. But later on you can go back and upgrade old armors with armor spheres from much later in the game, and you will be able to OVERFORGE armor, which makes low rank armor into high rank, or high into G, and lets you keep the skills the armor had before. When you get into the endgame and you are doing SKILL TWEEKS that require specific armor skills and whatnot, this may be important to you. If you're not bothering with this stuff then don't worry about overforging at all. DECORATIONS can be FORGED and SET here. Decorations are items that are set into armor SLOTS to increase your skill points to try and get you over the thresholds to activate skills. You can make decorations using JEWELS and materials. There is a nice button you can press to hide the decoration names and just tell you the skills the influence... very helpful when you are looking through 27 pages of skill names trying to find a certain one. You don't have to worry about decorations at the beginning of the game. Just get yourself a matching set of armor and use the skills it makes available to you, and if you feel you understand the skill system enough to tweek these stats, then dive in here and do it. ***************************** ............................. 3. SHAKALAKA COMPANIONS [300] ............................. ***************************** This section was contributed by Mr. I Noble, aka heavyacademic. Questions or comments for him can be sent to [email protected] ............ INTRODUCTION ............ Although the 3DS version of MH3U has limited multiplayer options, you will spend most of your time questing alone. So it is nice to know that the game provides you with 2 companions in the form of "Shakalakas." As well as keeping you company and making amusing comments, they can carve monsters, gather materials, attack monsters and help out in many other ways. You meet Cha-Cha during one of the 3* Village Quests in the Moga Woods. You meet Kayamba in one of the 5* Village Quests. Cha-Cha leaves after the Fell the Lagiacrus! quest but he does return later in the game. Getting his Ancient Mask is the key to progressing beyond the 5* Village Quests and accessing the Urgent Quest to fight the Ceadeus. To unlock the remaining 5* quests, the delivery quest, Ancient Mask will need to be completed, by delivering the following items: x2 Lagiacrus Scale - Hunt Lagiacrus x1 Sharqskin - Weaken and harpoon Sharqs in area 11 of the Deserted Island x4 Pelagicite Ore - Mine in areas 3, 5 & 6 of the Flooded Forest After delivering the required items above, head to Moga Farm with Cha-Cha. Examine the statue behind the waterfall to obtain Cha-Cha's Ancient Mask. You retrieve an "Unfortunate" Mask for Kayamba but by completing further quests you can transform it into the "Ultimate" Mask. .................... FONDNESS LEVEL [301] .................... Cha-Cha and Kayamba have a fondness counter called 'Chum-Chum' which represents the friendliness between them. This affects their likelihood of dancing at the same time during quests. There are 5 ranks, and at max rank they are more likely than not to dance with each other, exceptions being if one is gathering or fighting. Chum Chum tickets are given out by the Savvy Tabby in the marina area of Tanzia port. He will give you one after Cha-Chas and Kayambas chum chum stat increases level. The tickets are needed for the Shaka Scarecrows Dual Sword branch of the weapon tree http://www.gamefaqs.com/3ds/642342-monster-hunter-3-ultimate/faqs/66688 ............................ SHAKALAKA MENU OPTIONS [302] ............................ To interact with one of your Shakalaka pals, press A when near them. You are then presented a screen with the following options: Invite on Quest/Leave Behind - Selecting this option determines whether or not you bring Cha- Cha or Kayamba on a Quest. By default, they're set to not join you. Be sure to select this option to ensure they are there when you go on a Quest! Change Mask - This allows you to change Cha-Cha's or Kayamba's Mask. Different Masks give the Shakalakas brand new abilities, like lighting up an area or even breathing fire! Select Dances - Change the Shakalaka's Dances and special songs they can play to perform actions, such as taunting monsters, increasing your attack, or even restoring your Health! Select Abilities - This option allows you to set a Shakalaka ability onto a Mask. Use skills to add an Elemental attribute to their attack or give them the ability to focus only on gathering. View Stats - This option takes you to a screen that displays information about Cha-Cha's or Kayamba's level, their attack power, and how much Stamina they have. Multi: Take Along/Leave Behind - This option selects whether or not you take one of the Shakalakas with you in multiplayer. You can only bring one of them at a time. Try to pick the Shakalaka with the lowest level so you can make them both stronger! When you select View Stats, you're taken to a screen that shows all of Cha-Cha's or Kayamba's information at a glance. The following explains the features found on this screen: Lv - This displays the Shakalaka's experience level. Shakalakas gain levels when you defeat monsters; stronger monsters in difficult Quests are worth more than weaker monsters in easier Quests. Leveling up a Shakalaka gives them access to new abilities and also increases their other stats. Valor - This stat determines how likely the Shakalaka is to fight large monsters or stay in battle. Valor increases as the Shakalaka gains levels and Chum-Chum levels. Health - This display the Shakalaka's Health. The more Health they have, the longer they can fight! Attack - This displays the Shakalaka's attack power. Elem - This displays the Shakalaka's Elemental or Abnormal attack power. The only way they can get special attack values is by equipping an ability that grants them. Defense - This displays the Shakalaka's Defense. Masks - This shows the Shakalaka's currently equipped Mask. Mastery - This value increases as the Shakalaka completes Quests while wearing a Mask. Mastery determines what bonuses are given by a Mask, as well as how well they can use its abilities. Abilities - This displays what abilities the Shakalaka has equipped. Stamina - This is the maximum Stamina the Shakalaka has at the beginning of a mission. Stamina is consumed whenever the Shakalaka Dances and is restored over time. Different Dances consume different amounts of Stamina. Recovery - Recovery is how quickly the Shakalaka's Stamina regenerates after a Dance is performed. Recovery changes depending on which Mask the Shakalaka has equipped. Dance Effects - This is a list of the possible Dance Effects the Shakalaka can perform with their equipped Dances. Chum-Chum Level - A visual representation of how close the two Shakalakas are as friends. Their Chum-Chum level increases as they go on Quests together and as you fight stronger monsters. ............ DANCES [303] ............ At all times, Cha-Cha and Kayamba are equipped with two separate Dances. When combined, these Dances allow the two Shakalaka to Dance and bestow special effects onto you, usually in the form of Health recovery! To change a Shakalaka's Dance, talk to them and choose the Select Dances menu. Pick two of the available Dances to create a table of possible effects. Each dance has a note attached to it, and each combination of notes creates a different table of effects. Each Dance has a Stamina cost attached to it, displayed in terms of High, Medium, and Low. The higher the Stamina cost, the less often they can Dance. Keep this in mind when selecting Dances. There are five Dances in total. Cha-Cha knows two and learns an additional Dance after Kayamba becomes your ally. The other two Dances can be traded for from the Argosy Captain after specific Quests have been completed. UNLOCKABLE DANCES DANCE UNLOCK CONDITIONS Default Rah-Rah Dance - Complete the Village 3* Quest Shakalaka Savior Default Ooga-Boo Dance Waka-Waka Dance - Argosy Rare Goods from the Hunter Realm Boom-Boom Dance - Complete either Village 5* Quest The Desert Gourmand or Walk and Roll, Argosy Rare Goods from the Wyverian Realm Woo-Hoo Dance - Kayamba knows it by Default DANCE ABILITIES Each Dance Ability has several features. The accompanying list provides information on the following: Chum-Chum Dance: The effect when both Shakalakas perform the Dance together. This only occurs if Cha-Cha and Kayamba's Chum- Chum level is high enough. Duration: How long the Dance's effect lasts. Dances with no Duration occur immediately. Delay: The longer the Delay, the longer it takes for a Shakalaka to perform the Dance again. Stamina Consumption: How much Stamina is consumed when the Dance is performed. Stamina regenerates slowly over time. DANCE ABILITIES DANCE NAME/EFFECT/CHUM-CHUM DANCE/DURATION/DELAY/STAMINA CONSUMPTION Taunt - Diverts monster's attention to Shakalaka. Used when discovered. Short Small Attack Boost (S) - Slightly boosts Attack of Shakalakas and Hunters. Used when fighting large monsters. Increases Attack even more. Short Long Med. Attack Boost (L) - Significantly boosts Attack of Shakalakas and Hunters. Used when fighting large monsters. Increases Attack even more. Short Long Large Defense Boost (S) - Slightly boosts Defense of Shakalakas and Hunters. Used when fighting large monsters or when Hunter is afflicted with Defense Down. Increases Defense even more. Short Long Med. Defense Boost (L) - Significantly boosts Defense of Shakalakas and Hunters. Used when fighting large monsters or when Hunter is afflicted with Defense Down. Increases Defense even more. Short Long Large Antidote - Removes Poison status. Is almost always used when Hunter is poisoned and is sometimes used when Shakalakas are poisoned. Removes Poison and slightly restores Health. Small Health Recovery (S) - Slightly restores Health of Hunters and Shakalakas. Use possibility is increased the lower the Hunter's Health. Recovers more Health. Med. Health Recovery (L) - Significantly restores Health of Hunters and Shakalakas. Use possibility is increased the lower the Hunter�s Health. Recovers more Health. Large Hot & Cool - Grants Hot or Cold Drink effect on Hunter. Used when in an Area that requires a drink but will not be used if Hunter is already under Drink effect. Increases duration of Hot/Cold resistance effect. Long Small Stamina - Stops Stamina from decreasing for a short period of time. Used when fighting large monsters. Stops Stamina for decreasing even longer. Short Long Large Weatherbreaker - Grants immunity to low Wind Pressure and Currents. Used when fighting large monsters. Grants immunity to high Wind Pressure and Currents. Short Long Med. Flash - Functions the same as a Flash Bomb. Used when discovered. � � � Large Sonic Bomb - Functions the same as a Sonic Bomb. Used when discovered. � � � Med. Blight Res Boost - Slightly increases resistance to Elemental Blights. Used when fighting large monsters or when Hunter is afflicted with Blight Res Down. Resist all Blights. Short Long Med. Natural Recovery Up - Doubles rate that red Health is converted to Green Health. Used when fighting large monsters. Red Health recovery rate is increased even higher. Long Med. Small Hearing - Grants immunity to low- powered roar attacks. Used when fighting large monsters. Grants immunity to high-powered roar attacks. Short Long Long Item Effect Up - Increases duration of positive status effect items. Used when fighting large monsters. Significantly increases duration of items. Short Med. Med. Elemental Atk Boost - Increases Elemental Attack values and increases Slime resistance. Used when discovered. Significantly increases Elemental Attack values and grants immunity to Slime. Short Long Long ........... MASKS [304] ........... Kayamba is able to share all of the masks with Cha-Cha except their main masks, the Acorn Mask and the Pincer Mask which can only be worn by Cha-Cha and Kayamba, respectively. Go here for more info on them: http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Kayamba Name: Acorn Mask Ability Slots: 1-3 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: High Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Rapid Attacks Special Ability: None Stat Modifiers: Attack and Defense Up Name: Lamp Mask Ability Slots: 2-3 Attack Range: Close Only Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Low Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Fireball Throwing Special Ability: Lights the Area when you call him Stat Modifiers: Attack Up Name: Ancient Mask Ability Slots: 2-3 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Knife Throwing Special Ability: Oxygen Supply When you Call him Stat Modifiers: Health and Defense Up Name: Mystery Pot Mask Ability Slots: 2-3 Attack Range: Mostly Long Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Spreads Poison Smoke Bombs Special Ability: Item change --> Check http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/MH3:_Cha-Cha_Guide for the list of items you give/can receive Stat Modifiers: Attack and Defense Up More on the Mystery Pot Mask posted by OldDirtyCR on GAMEFAQs "I use mystery pot mask which is ridiculously amazing and underappreciated. And fluffy mask. I'll change to melynx or false felyne once I get them. Mystery Pot mask I can essentially turn 5 herbs into 1 ancient potion, 1 max potion, 1 demonic horn, 1 armor horn, and 1 LBB+ in the span of one mission. Even if you run out of pitfall traps or tranq bombs, you can easily convert herbs or bitterbugs or other basic gathering things into them. So you'll never worry about missing a capture quest. http://i47.tinypic.com/9ruelw.jpg Here's a snapshot of the guide. It lists a table. You essentially give the chacha the items from the previous row on the table, and it'll convert them to the items on the next row. So Row A converts to B. B to C. C to D. The color smoke the shakalaka is showing tells you which item you will get if you signal the shakalaka. Just play around it with and you'll understand it more than my description. The table is quite helpful in that picture though. To give an example, if you bring 5 iron pickaxe and give all 5 to the mystery pot shaka. Wait for the smoke to cycle back to white (It'll start as white, but you have to wait for it to change to a different color and then change back). Signal the shaka and you'll get 5 mega pickaxe back. It's truly amazing" Name: Fluffy Mask Ability Slots: 1 Attack Range: Doesn't Attack Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: High Gathering Odds: Extremely High Chance Anger Rate: Hard to Anger Anger Attack: Throws Dung Bombs Special Ability: Will Show Location of Large Monsters When You Call Him Stat Modifiers: Health and Defense Down Name: Grill Mask Ability Slots: 2-3 Attack Range: Long-Range Only Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Hard to Anger Anger Attack: Spreads Flames Special Ability: Acts as a Double BBQ in items, Can also give him a raw meat and he'll cook it for you. Higher Mastery = Better Results Stat Modifiers: Attack Down, Stamina Recovery Speed Up Name: False Felyne Mask Ability Slots: 0-2 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Very Low Gathering Odds: Low Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Uses Large Barrel Bombs Special Ability: Uses Bombs Stat Modifiers: Health Up, Stamina Recovery Speed Down Name: Pincer Mask Ability Slots: 1-3 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Easily Angered Anger Attack: Rapid Attacks Special Ability: None Stat Modifiers: Attack and Defense Up Name: Mock Melynxe Mask Ability Slots: 0-2 Attack Range: Close Only Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Very Low Gathering Odds: Low Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Throws Large Felvine Bombs Special Ability: Steals Items From Monsters Stat Modifiers: Defense Down, Stamina Recovery Speed Up Name: Stink Mask Ability Slots: 2-3 Attack Range: Long Range Only Target Preference: Large monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: High Chance Anger Rate: Hard to Anger Anger Attack: Throws Dung Bombs if you get grabbed, when there are 2 large monsters in one area. Stat Modifiers: Attack Down, Stamina Recovery Speed Up Name: Whetstone Mask Ability Slots: 1-2 Attack Range: Close Only Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Low Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Throwing Knives Special Ability: Acts as a Whetstone in Items Stat Modifiers: Health and Attack Up Name: Pitfall Mask Ability Slots: 0 Attack Range: Extra-Long Range Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Hard to Anger Anger Attack: Throws Fireballs Special Ability: Makes a Pitfall Trap when you call him, call him again to have him remove it Stat Modifiers: Health Up Name: Nulberry Mask Ability Slots: 1-2 Attack Range: Doesn't Attack Target Preference: Small Monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: Extremely High Chance Anger Rate: Hard to Anger Anger Attack: Scatters Paralysis Special Ability: Uses nulberries When you call him Stat Modifiers: Health Down Name: Gag Gargwa Mask Ability Slots: 1-3 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: High Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Rapid Attacks Special Ability: Flees when hit by a monster, leaving behind an item. At Mastery 5: 20% chance for Small Golden Egg (sells for 5,000) Stat Modifiers: Attack and Defense Up Name: Rathalos Mask Ability Slots: 1-2 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Low Gathering Odds: Extremely Low Chance Anger Rate: Easily Angered Anger Attack: Spews Fireballs Special Ability: Roar Stat Modifiers: Attack Up, Stamina Recovery Speed Down Name: Ultimate Mask Ability Slots: 1 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Very Low Gathering Odds: Doesn't Gather Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: King's Anger (Once he becomes angry, he will attack nonstop while his HP lowers, retreats when all HP is gone) Special Ability: Style of King (Will guard all monster attacks, taking zero damage until he becomes angry) Stat Modifiers: Health Up, Stamina Recovery Speed Down Name: Idol Mask Ability Slots: 0-2 Attack Range: Mostly Close Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: Low Chance Anger Rate: Easily Angered Anger Attack: Spreads Flames Special Ability: Farcaster (Warps you to Base Camp) Stat Modifiers: Attack and Defense Up Name: Artillery Mask Ability Slots: 0-2 Attack Range: Extra-Long range Target Preference: Large Monsters Retreat Health: Medium Gathering Odds: Average Chance Anger Rate: Average Anger Attack: Throws Large Cannonballs Special Ability: Artillery (Launches partner at Monster sacrificing all of their HP) Stat Modifiers: Attack down, Defense Up Name: Kebab-boo/Fake Keroro Ability Slots: Attack Range: Target Preference: Retreat Health: Gathering Odds: Anger Rate: Anger Attack: Special Ability: Like the Whetstone Mask and Double BBQ Spit, this adds the Frog to the usable items list, and the wearer can be used as fishing bait like the regular Frog item. If you set up a trap before fishing out Gobul, Plesioth or Green Plesioth, the monster will go directly into the trap if within reach. Due to legal issues, this mask was changed to a stick of mutton with very small holes for eyes and a mouth. Will also focus close range attacks on large monsters. Name: Pirate J Mask Special Ability: When the hunter has low HP, the wearer will enter a state of rage and a glowing aura surrounds them. While in this state, the wearer of themask will attack relentlessy with increased attack power. If the hunter's health is raised back aboive the specific level, the aura will disappear. Quite likely to gather or carve. INCREASING MASK MASTERY First posted here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/683294-monster-hunter-3- ultimate/65899606 Thanks to some new info, here is a better mask leveling guide that requires the minimal amount of Well-done steaks. HOW TO FEED THEM 1) Open your inventory in free hunt or on a mission 2) Find the meat you want to feed them 3) Select said meat and choose GIVE 4) Choose 1 (because it's all you can select) 5) Select the Shakalaka you want to feed if both are with you 1 MEAT PER HUNT There are greatly diminished returns for each feeding past the first per hunt.Unless your box is overflowing with well-done steaks, you'll save a lot of raw meat grinding doing it just 1 at a time. Rations, Rare Steaks, Pink Livers, and Ethnic Wyvern Meat also work, but are less effective or accessible than Well-Done Steaks. GET THE FELYNE TRAINER BUFF Fish+Veggies always has a chance to give this buff. Using Fresh ingredients increases the odds. If you don't get the buff, run out to free hunt and immediately go back into town. This will let you eat again (but does -NOT- make a day pass). Checking your status on the menu will show Feline Trainer if you miss the pop-up after eating. I can't stress how helpful this is. It will cut the amount of steaks you need in half, possibly in thirds. POWER LEVEL THOSE MASKS! 1) Have Cha-Cha and Kayamba in the mask you need leveled up. 2) Get the Felyne Trainer Buff 3) Step outside of Moga Village (free hunt) 4) Feed each of them a Well-Done Steak 5) Return to Moga and check mask level (talk to them) Repeat as needed. Doing this, the Nullberry mask only took 17 Steaks to max out. The Whetstone mask needed 22. ................................ Frequently Asked Questions [305] ................................ a. Does each mask require a different number of Well-Done Steaks? Yes. At this time I believe 22 is the average, with a select few masks needing more (or less), but most of my masks are past level 1 now, so I'm not able to test it accurately at this time. b. Is there a better way to do this? Yes! Instead of get buff / feed / repeat, get the felyne trainer buff and feed them while going through the game. This works best from the start of a new file. If you're low on steaks, the free rations from early missions are a great substitute and can easily lead to having several masks maxed out by the time you reach 6 star single player missions. c. Where can I get all this meat? Look at your Moga Forcast (touch screen while in town). When the Southern area says "Herbivore Breeding", it's go time. Put Gatherer on your Shakalas. Acorn and Pincer masks gave me the best resultsas far as them carving extra raw meat. 1) Bring your BBQ spit and NO meat 2) Go to area 2. 3) Kill and Carve 4) Cook up 10 well-done steaks 5) get 10 more raw meat Repeat as needed Leave area 2 and come back to reset the Aptonoth. You could also combine this with feeding them and cook up 2 extra steaks while you're doing this, make sure you snag Feline Trainer if you do. Otherwise Feline Carver or Supercarver can speed up the gathering. d. Won't the masks level themselves up? Yes, but the amount of XP gained during a hunt is -very- small. Supposedly it is based on time spent, and it takes 30 minutes to get the same amount of XP for a mask as 1 well-done steak gives. e. Where do I get money to keep getting Felyne Trainer? Grow Nullberries are your farm with dung and sell the crop. Sources: Original Post: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/683294-monster-hunter-3- ultimate/65892569 Helpful Link (thanks PDelta): http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/683294-monster-hunter-3- ultimate/65889731 XP over time: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/943655-monster-hunter- tri/64398951 Hope this helps! f. What are the "Best" Masks? What are the "Best" Mask/Ability Combinations? A Search of the Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate message boards on GameFAQs for topics under "mask" retrieves a lot of discussion on these questions. From what I have read there doesn't seem to be total agreement (which should come as no surprise!) However some of these answers may prove useful: "pretty much the generic super strong setup lamp mask with quick recovery, seven lives, and hunter artillery mask with quick recovery and blood brothers" "Pitfall mask, Artillery and Lamp mask pair, Idol mask (if you want to get to camp). Mock Melynx and False Felyne aren't that great as they just straight up throw bombs anywhere (Melynx mask throws felvine bombs when mad and can possible get you, which can be irritating.) Melynx mask does get monster parts for you more than any other mask. Slime and Bombardier is great, but only use it if you want to break some parts. Elementals if else. Use Rocketeer and Blood Brothers for the Artillery and Lamp mask pair." ........................................................................ Most of this information has been collected from elsewhere but I thought it might be a good idea to collate it together in one place. I welcome additions, amendments and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism at [email protected] ......................................................... ********************************************************* 3. Walkthrough Part 1 - Moga Village and Moga Woods [400] ********************************************************* ......................................................... Note: this walkthrough was made using the WiiU version of the game but should be perfectly fine for guiding you through the 3DS version. The quests are all the same in both versions of the game. When you boot this game up, you�ll be taken to a menu with a couple of options: - New Game - Continue - Options - Data Transfer - DLC Go ahead and fiddle with the OPTIONS if you want to change your controller or the screen brightness or disable the blood (don�t disable the blood). There is an important option here for WiiU users: the option to enable OFF-SCREEN PLAY. The DATA TRANSFER and DLC can probably wait for later: since you�re just starting the game, select NEW GAME. First things first: you character needs to exist. You can give yourself a name (for the purposes of this walkthrough, your name is MUD) and a gender. Gender is one of the biggest choices you�ll make because the male and female armors look different and collecting the different armor sets is part of the fun. But yes, all of the choices you can make here are purely cosmetic: voice, facial features, clothing colour. You are meant to be a generic hunter, and your distinctiveness in a hunting party (in multiplayer mode) comes through the armor you wear, the weapon you use, and how well you handle yourself. So don�t fret over these little things. Don�t worry that your face is low-res and looks bad because you won�t be zoomed in like this for most of the game. Pick a cool name and just go with it. *** Pro-tip: When selecting your name, press the ENG button and bring up the SYMBOL menu for cool characters to spice up your name *** You will then be prompted to choose the initial setting for the second screen. Standard mode displays your health bars and map onscreen, dynamic mode doesn�t. Personally, I like my tv screen to be uncluttered so I can enjoy the scenery, but you are free to choose as you like. .................. MOGA VILLAGE [401] .................. Welcome to the world of Monster Hunter. You are treated to a short video that displays the communal life of the fishing village of MOGA. This raft of a village is your new home. As you can see for yourself, and as the VILLAGE CHIEF explains afterwards: monsters are causing earthquakes in town and you have been hired to hunt said monsters. This is what is known as an EXCUSE PLOT for you to go out and kill everything that isn�t human. First things first, the CHIEF (the white-haired brown-skinned man with the green cape) gives you some money asks you to go look for his son, JUNIOR. After the CHIEF stops talking you�ll be in the game proper and able to move around and open up the menus. Behind you there is a red and yellow cloth. This is the door to YOUR HOUSE. You do not have much privacy here. Inside your house is a BED for saving the game and the all-important ITEM BOX (explained in section 2). If you are just beginning then when you check the STATUS MENU SCREEN you will notice that you are wearing five pieces of LEATHER ARMOR. This is the weakest ARMOR but the game is actually being generous by giving it to you. In the original Monster Hunter Tri you started out naked and only had a Sword and Shield. Well you have a Sword and Shield now too but if you go in your house and check your item box you will see that you start out with the weakest version of all twelve WEAPON TYPES. Maybe you want to consider switching before getting too attached to the weak little Sword and Shield? Oh yeah, I wanted to say something about that leather armor. I want you to see how having all five pieces of it gives you certain SKILLS. Because you are wearing a full set of leather armor you have abilities that will help you GATHER ITEMS more efficiently. You will soon want to make sturdier armor, but keep this armor onhand for when you will inevitably have to go gathering in the future. Your second screen has a map of MOGA VILLAGE. You will see that there are numerous YELLOW SPEECH BUBBLES with ELLIPSES inside. This indicates a VILLAGER who wants to speak to you. Sometimes they will give you items, sometimes they will advance the plot, but usually they will just jest in a small font and you will just skim over it. The GUILD SWEETHEART in the red skirt will tell you that JUNIOR went out into MOGA WOODS. There are a couple of CATS that you can talk to because this game is from JAPAN. One of these cats is named CHAMBERLYNE and he is your pet and looks after your furniture. He gives you a PRISMSHROOM LAMP. He's not really important but later in the game he will help you customize your residence. Outside on one of the piers you will find a cat named NEKO who can connect you to PORT TANZIA or the NETWORK MODE. The MUTLI MODE is for local multiplayer with 3DSs. NETWORK MODE connects you to the World Wide Web version of tanzia, and as far as I can tell the WiiU can jump online right from the get-go. However, if you are a NOOB I advise you to practice offline first, so you are not a BURDEN to your PARTY. In multiplayer, LIVES are shared between your team, so if you die enough the whole team will FAIL. Furthermore, your attacks can TRIP, STAGGER, and LAUNCH your allies, which is detrimental to their performance in combat. Neko also gives you the option of going to a SOLO version of tanzia if that�s what you want to do. There�s a better item shop there and that is where ARENA quests are at... but the quests there are a bit more difficult than they are here in Moga. Other villagers want to talk to you too, however their specific functions are temporarily disabled (due to the earthquake) so they are not terribly useful to you right now. Heck, the FISHMONGRESS and the ITEM SHOP and the WEAPON SHOP aren't even that important when they are working. If you go to the bottom part of MOGA VILLAGE you will find the path to THE FARM. The HEAD FARMER will tell you all his FARMHANDS have run away, but he will give you 5 BLUE MUSHROOMS and give you an opportunity to name a PIG. Back in the main part of MOGA VILLAGE you can talk to the CAREFREE LAD to get 5 WHETSTONES, which are the item that BLADEMASTERS use to keep their weapons SHARP. He is standing next to the path to MOGA WOODS, on the far right side of the village. If you are ready to move this game along, go out into MOGA WOODS. ............................ MOGA WOODS TUTORIAL PART ONE ............................ Before getting to the meat and potatoes of the game you must first run some laps between the village and the woods. Only when the villagers are convinced that you can fight, swim, and follow simple instructions will they let you hunt the big monsters that are this game�s main appeal. If this is your first visit to Moga Woods you may notice that it is not much of a �woods� at all. You may also notice that the game is blocking off your access to a large portion of the map under the guise of earthquake damage. Anyways, the Chief will pop-up to give you messages from time to time. He tells you how to read the map and how to run and how to use the WiiU Gamepad. He gives you the MISSION to kill an APTONOTH and CARVE out some RAW MEAT from its dead body. Go straight through the first area and into AREA 2. The aptonoth are those quadruped black and grey dinosaurs in front of you. Walk up to these gentle creatures and KILL THEM. When they are dead, press A to RIP OUT THEIR FLESH. I know it looks delicious but don�t eat it just yet. You have been asked to DELIVER this RAW MEAT to JUNIOR. Remember to be quick about carving up your kills because they do disappear after about ten or twenty seconds. Head to the right side of the map (east?) and you will go into the RUINED BASE CAMP where JUNIOR is standing around looking at the rubble. Talk to him a couple of times to DEVLIER THE MEAT. He promises to REWARD you later. Turn around and run back the way you came until you are back in Moga Village. Feel free to gather any herbs or mushrooms or honey along the way. Item gathering is best done on the side during real missions. Back in Moga Village there are a number of people who want to talk to you. You will soon get a SWELLED HEAD over how IMPORTANT and POPULAR you are in this little village. Talk to JUNIOR in his now permanent post in the very centre of the village. He asks you to go get him some RESOURCES. He gives you a BBQ SPIT. You can use this tool when you are out hunting to play a minigame that transforms RAW MEAT into RARE STEAKS, WELL-DONE STEAKS, or BURNT MEAT, depending on your timing. You should practice this later. I recommend taking the BBQ with you whenever you are FREE HUNTING. You can talk to the WYVERN ARTISAN to learn about FORGING. The GAL WITH THE GOODS over at the ITEM SHOP now sells BBQs for some reason. Talk to the Chief to get some more money. Consider purchasing nets and pickaxes to help you gather items. .......................... MOGA WOODS TUTORIAL PART 2 .......................... Return to the woods and Junior will pop-up to tell you that the map has been expanded to cover 6 AREAS. He wants you to hunt some CARNIVORES, but feel free to collect some herbs or do some bbqing along the way. Take the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the various types of GATHERING POINTS: plants, mushrooms, honey hives, bugs, rocks, bones, gold sparkles, etc. You will be unable to get bugs or rocks until you obtain certain TOOLS from the item shop (or make those tools yourself by COMBINING items). You need to collect 30 RESOURCE POINTS by killing things. A running tally of your score will be displayed on your screen every time you make a kill. When you get to AREA 6, a cut-scene plays showing off the deadly JAGGI, a human-sized dinosaur of pink, orange, and purple. Junior advises you to attack, evade, and heal as necessary. The jaggi can be killed in 1 or more strikes depending on your WEAPON TYPE. Kill them until you accumulate 30 points. If you run out of jaggis to kill you can wait around for them to RE-SPAWN, or exit and re-enter the area. Return to Moga Village and make your HUNT REPORT to Junior. This is how you capitalize on your FREE HUNTING. Junior will give you some COMMODITIES and I advise you to send them to your box in case you need them later for TRADING or whatnot. Use your RESOURCE POINTS to fulfil the VILLAGER REQUEST �Fix up the Camp!� With the camp restored, you would think you would be able to start doing QUESTS for the GUILD. Unfortunately, you still have some minor errands to execute. The WYVERN ARTISAN wants to talk to you. He can be found in the upper right corner of the village. He asks you to go find some IRON ORE and he gives you a MEGA PICKAXE with which to do so. If you talk to the VILLAGE CHIEF he will give you even more money and tell you about the TORCH. What he doesn�t tell you is that the caves are much brighter than they were in Tri so the TORCH is no longer necessary to see down there and will do nothing but get you pestered by bugs. .......................... MOGA WOODS TUTORIAL PART 3 .......................... Return to the WOODS and the CHIEF will direct you to AREA 4. Look for the blue/purple/green/grey rocks inside the cave and press Y to PICKAXE them and get IRON. If your axe breaks you�ll have to go buy a new one, or so they say, but I�ve never had an axe break before getting 1 IRON ORE in this tutorial. Return to the village when you are done. The WYVERN ARTISAN gives you a quick lesson in UPGRADING your ARMOR well before you need to know about it. Try not to forget though, like I did. On a side-note, the GREAT SWORD you start with only needs iron ore to upgrade, so if you have some left over you could conceivably start upgrading now. The other weapons have more strenuous requirements that you may need to keep searching for first. Anyways, as always, everyone wants to speak to you. A CAREFREE LAD will give you a MEGA BUG NET. Down on the FARM, one of the FELYNES has returned and you can use him to FARM ITEMS in exchange for RESOURCE POINTS. This is a convenient system to save you from the grunt-work of foraging for items, but right now you don�t really have enough RESOURCES to make proper use of it. The cat will also give you a SUSHIFISH for some reason. Feel free to name the cat something stupid. .......................... MOGA WOODS TUTORIAL PART 4 .......................... Talk to some more villagers to get the impression that they want you to go jump in a lake. At some point you will be given FISHING HARPOONS and told to hunt a MOLID... whatever that is. Go back to Moga Woods to learn that a MOLID is a big flat fish and can be found in AREA 11 of your map. Incidentally, the whole of Moga Woods is open to you now, so if you haven�t been to AREA 11 before, the quickest way to get there is to run up the left side of the map and jump off of the left-side of the cliff in AREA 8. You will be underwater and treated to a video of what appears to be a large leviathan coming around a spire, but turns out to only be two of those fish you�re here to hunt. Lucky you. The key to carving fish (sharqs, jellyfish, molids) is to injure them a bit and then stab them with the FISHING HARPOON until they are dead. Depending on your weapon type they may take one or more hits to be injured. I recommend hitting them only once before busting out the harpoon. Anyways, you don�t need to hunt fish very often in this game. Just do it now and do it again later for a VILLAGER REQUEST that requires a sharqskin... and maybe if you ever want to build a sharq weapon you can do it a third time. It�s not very important. What is important is that your �Return to Village� button now works. Use it to spare yourself the long trek back to the village. The Chief will give you even more money. If you haven�t already, use some of that money to buy yourself 5 IRON PICKAXES and 5 BUG NETS. Don�t bother with the �old� versions of these items: they will fall apart even with your �Spirit�s Whim� skill keeping them together. You�ll get more money later. You can also buy Combo Books now if you are combining a lot of items. Go have a look at my list of useful combinations if you don�t know what to do with your herbs and blue mushrooms. ............................... FREEHUNTING IN MOGA WOODS [402] ............................... From now on you are perfectly free to just head out in the moods and goof around out there if you wish. Consider it a form of �downtime� or �relaxed hunting�. You can�t fail by dying and there are no time limits. It�s sort of a practice ground for the more structured official quests. When you want to go FREEHUNTING make sure you talk to Junior in the center of the village before and after you go: he is the guy who handles all of the systems related to freehunting and resources. As it was in the tutorial, to go freehunting you just go to the right side of the village and take the path to the woods. There's another path in the farm. You will have the opportunity to gather whatever items you want out there. Make sure you go out with a bare-bones item pouch. You�ll still need bug nets, pickaxes, and maybe potions and BBQs and whetstones. Go out there and get any items you may need to stock up on: you are a hunter-gatherer after all. You can use the items from these practice grounds to make a lot of the items you�ll need in the future: potions, mega potions, different kinds of bombs, and even weapons and armor! Consider killing some monsters and grilling them into WELL-DONE STEAKS. While freehunting the game will keep a running count of your kills and give you RESOURCE POINTS for them. You can also collect resource points by finding account items or trading in other items to junior back in the village. What do you need resources for? Lots of things, actually. Resource points pay for farm upgrades, upgrading your sidekicks, and item farming. Getting resources is really the big point of freehunting. The best way to get lots of resources while freehunting is to kill a big monster. Only certain monsters show up in freehunting, and they only show up after you beat them in the official quests. Ask Junior for a forecast and plan your trip accordingly. Hunting down a qurupeco or rathian in the woods is not only good practice, it�ll probably help you fulfill a villager request or two. Killing (or capping) large monsters in the woods is how you get certain items called RARE COMMODITIES and later in the game you will be able to trade these things for unique items and abilities. The woods have changing conditions junior will inform you of so you know what�s out there to be hunted. A condition like �herbivores breeding� is how you get rare items like �super-sized dung.� Much later in the game you will be able to press 'X' to switch between daytime and nightime freehunting. Nighttime is the HIGH-RANK version of the woods, so the monsters are tougher and there are rarer items to be gathered. I can tell you're excited. You'll see soon enough that freehunting is kind of boring and that what you really want is some new places to go to get new items and monsters and lots and lots of money. You, my friend, want QUESTS! ....................................... *************************************** 5. 1-STAR QUESTS - SMALL MONSTERS [500] *************************************** ....................................... The GUILD SWEETHEART has good news for you: you can now go on an official GUILD QUEST. The bad news is that the quest is dull and involves no monster hunting. It�s another hoop for you to jump through though before you unlock the fun battles: so hurry up and jump. Didn't anyone tell you that the first couple hours of this game could be a game called HOOP JUMPER? .............. QUESTING [501] .............. Quests have their own rulebook. The most arbitrary and annoying part of quests is that you can�t return to your item box after selecting one but before departing. Make sure you have everything you need from your house before selecting your quest. Another condition is that you can't leave the quest area until you have succeeded or failed (or given up), so if your quest sends you out to moga woods don't bother trying to get into the village from there. Quests (or missions) are given and accepted through the QUEST COUNTER. You sign up for one of these and then head out onto the dock on the left side of the village. Press �A� at the gap in the fence and you will be whisked away on your quest which will take place in one of many HUNTING GROUNDS. You will be given an objective and a time limit. If you fail to complete the objective in time, or if you die three times, the quest is failed and you should feel bad and read this walkthrough more. Quests have victory conditions that must be fulfilled and failure conditions that must be avoided. There are three main types of victory condition that will give you a different colored square over your head when you chose them: red quests are HUNTING quests, which means that to win you must EITHER KILL OR CAPTURE the target monster(s). Grey squares are for CAPTURE quests and if you kill the monster on these quests then you have failed. Green squares are for DELIVERY quests and they charge you with bringing X number of a certain item back to the RED BOX. These are not very difficult. You can refresh yourself on the specifics of your quest by opening up the QUEST INFO MENU SCREEN. When a quest begins you will start out in the BASE CAMP AREA of the hunting ground. This area is a safe-zone and monsters cannot get in for some reason that probably involves wizards. Anyways, base camps have beds you can use to recover your health and status. They also have BLUE BOXES for getting items and RED BOXES for you to deliver items to. Low Rank quests provide you with many helpful items at the beginning of quests but once you get to high rank you won't be starting out at the base camp and those nice items won't be around at the start of quests anyways (again, wizards). If you ever pick up ACCOUNT ITEMS during quests you might as well deliver them to the red box because you can't take them back home with you. ***Pro-tip: The base camps in the DESERTED ISLAND, SANDY PLAINS, and FLOODED FOREST all have secret passages to far-off areas. Use them to save yourself some time getting to the fun combat parts of the game*** Completing quests is your primary method for earning money in this game. Quests also reward you for success with QUEST REWARD ITEMS in addition to the items you gathered or carved during the quest. These quest rewards are a big part of quests and usually consist of even more parts of the monster you were hunting. The quest rewards are somewhat luck based but you can improve your odds of getting certain monster pieces by capturing monsters and/or breaking off their vulnerable parts. The information on monster drops and quest rewards can be found through online searches so I won't be covering it here. To unlock more quests and progress through the game you need to complete KEY QUESTS. This is not a term that can be found in-game. The villagers will only hint at which quests actually need doing and which are just for fun and profit. Moving quickly through the early KEY QUESTS will get you to the fun monster fights deeper in the game, but playing broadly by completing all of the quests will help you build up the item collection you need to make armor and items for those harder battles. This guide assumes you will be rushing madly through key quests so you can progress, and for this reason I am listing them first rather than following the order the game lays them out for you. WARNING: To unlock the final two single player quests in this game you are going to have to complete EVERY village quest, not just the KEY QUESTS. You may want to take care of all of the boring stuff now so you don't have to come back for it later. ---------------------------------- 1-STAR KEY QUEST - HARVEST �SHROOM ---------------------------------- Deliver 3 Unique Mushrooms Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 You will find yourself transported to the exotic DESERTED ISLAND. You will feel cheated and lied to when you realize that it is the very same place as the Moga Woods except with a different and deceptive name (if you are living on the island it can�t be deserted now can it?). You cannot return to Moga Village through the ordinary path while on a quest here. You have to fulfill the conditions of the quest to get back. In this case, you need three UNIQUE MUSHROOMS. Where are these unique mushrooms, you ask? Go over to AREA 2 and look for those big red mushroom patches on the ground. That is a very good place to start looking, no? If you don�t find 3 of them there, look in AREAS 3, 6, and 7. You did grab a map from the BLUE BOX, right? I'll be giving directions using the AREA NUMBERS so bring a map if you are not familiar with them. While you�re looking at mushrooms you may notice some bugs around you. These are called ALTAROTH (not to be confused with the Aptonoth from earlier). When they eat mushrooms or honey or berries their stomachs swell up and they can be attacked for carves. Sometimes they even ripen mushrooms for you. You don�t really have to worry about this though, it�s just a little tip. When you have 3 UNIQUE MUSHROOMS (I believe that CHOICE and RIPENED MUSHROOMS count towards this total), return to the RED BOX in the BASE CAMP and press A. You will get a big red QUEST COMPLETED! STAMP on your screen and you will feel satisfaction flowing out from your VENTRAL TEGMENTAL AREA. When you complete a quest a screen will come up with your QUEST REWARDS. For this quest you will get a nice collection of mushrooms. It is my opinion that you should always SEND TO BOX all of your rewards so you can deal with them later. ***Pro-tip: The DRAGON TOADSTOOLS you get as a reward for this quest can be combined with other rare items to make great and powerful rare items. You should hold onto these mushrooms and when you have a lot of extra resources take them to your farm and make a bunch of them. Until then, consider repeating this quest every so often just for these tasty babies*** With your first quest completed you will return to MOGA VILLAGE. A FUTURE ALPHA MALE will give you 2 MEGA FISHING FLY. Stuff this away in your item box and don�t think about it. A bunch of new quests are unlocked. Have a look at them and see what catches your fancy. If you listen to what the GUILD SWEETHEART has to say, she will tell you that �Farm Aid� and �Guts, It�s What�s For Dinner� are the KEY QUESTS that unlock the next level of quests. Of course, the game never uses such a term, but if you ever want to know which quests you�re supposed to be doing just ask the villagers and see if they give you tips on killing certain monsters as a subtle hint of what you need to be doing. --------------------------- 1-STAR KEY QUEST - FARM AID --------------------------- Slay 5 Jaggia Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 You are tasked with killing 5 JAGGIA. Jaggia are like jaggi but can take and deal out a little more damage. It�s not really a significant enough difference to warrant any concern. You can find them in AREAS 5, 6, and 7. They shouldn�t give you much trouble. Take them out one at a time or more if you have a weapon with a wide range. After completing this quest a CAREFREE LAD will give you 2 SNAKEBEE LARVA. These can be combined with those MEGA FISHING FLIES you received earlier to make GOLDENFISH BAIT. The game is subtly hinting that it wants you to go on a boring fishing quest. Feel free to do so, but it might not be a bad idea to first get some more bait ingredients (from bugs and from honey foraging points). ----------------------------------------------- 1-STAR KEY QUEST - GUTS, IT�S WHAT'S FOR DINNER ----------------------------------------------- Deliver 3 Monster Guts Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 This time you are sent out to get three MONSTER GUTS. When you accept the quest you will get a green square over your head. This means it is a delivery quest and you have to take whatever you were sent out to get to the RED BOX in the base camp. MONSTER GUTS can be found inside a sea monster called the EPIOTH. At the base camp you can hop into the water and take a shortcut out to AREA 9, and then go up to AREA 10. The Epioth is that ugly four-legged green thing floating in the water. Carve up the beast and see if you get any guts (you don�t even need to use a harpoon on these losers). They don�t always drop, so you may be hunting a lot of these. Head on over to AREA 11 to discover why you had to go on this quest. It�s the LAGIACRUS! OMG! OH NOES!! You will be advised to just turn tail and run away. However, as far as I can tell you are still obliged to get those three guts. Some Epioth will have spawned back in AREA 10 so hunt them before the LAGIACRUS shows up. When he does use your swimming skills to sneak by him and go back to AREA 11 where you can find some more Epioth. Once you have three guts, go up to the water�s surface in AREA 11 and look towards the land. See those green vines there? You can climb up those vines to AREA 8, and the lagiacrus will be unable to follow you. Once you are in AREA 8, the other side of the cliff is a quick way to get to AREA 5 and from there to AREA 2 and from there to the BASE CAMP and the RED BOX and another completed quest. You don't really have to take the route I gave you but I thought you might like to know that such shortcuts exist. When you get back to town a cutscene will play to let you know that the FLEET CAPTAIN�S BOAT is up and running. If you have resources to spare and need fish for some reason you can do it through the FISHMONGRESS. I don�t advise wasting your resources on fish. Use your resources in the farm to grow sap plants and blue mushrooms and whatnot. There�s a new VILLAGER REQUEST up that requires 80points, too. Now that you�ve completed the KEY QUESTS, a new URGENT QUEST will be available. Urgent quests are the ones that unlock the next TIER of quests. They are usually of a difficulty representative of the next tier, but not in this case. -------------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - NO LOVE FOR THE LUDROTH -------------------------------------- Slay 6 Ludroth Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 The Ludroth aren�t very tough. They are ugly though. From the base camp take the secret underwater passage up to AREA 9. Go north to AREA 10 and you�ll see a little scene showcasing the ludroth. Kill them mercilessly and head out into the water and go to AREA 11 to find enough of the beasts to fill your quota. Completing this URGENT QUEST unlocks a new TIER of quests: the 2-star quests! Yeah! Right on! 2-star quests actually have large monsters to fight, and that is what this game is all about. It�s a pity that it takes an hour or three to get to this point. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section of the walkthrough while my professionalism compels me to complete my exposition of the boring 1-star quests. ----------------------------------- 1-STAR QUEST - PRESCRIPTION PICK UP ----------------------------------- Deliver 2 Kelbi Horns Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Kelbi horns are pretty easy to get in this game. They used to require some skill back in the good old days. Anyways, kelbi are little deer in AREA 3 who become stunned with single hit. Carve their horns while they are stunned and then make your way back to the RED BOX in the base camp. Someday you�ll be able to mix kelbi horns into powerful potions with honey, bitterbugs, and dragon toadstools, but not today. Let�s move on. ------------------------------------- 1-STAR QUEST - GOLDENFISH OPPORTUNITY ------------------------------------- Deliver 3 Goldenfish Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 I�ll give you my opinion straight-up: fishing is boring and pointless. Remember those two kids who gave you two snakebee larvas and two mega fishing flies? Well that was the game�s way of suggesting that you go on this quest. See those items can be combined together to make GOLDENFISH BAIT, which you�ll need to catch goldenfish, which you�ll need to do to complete this quest. The BLUE BOX will have another goldenfish bait for you, giving you a bait total equal to the the number of fish you need to deliver. Don�t let any of those fish run off with you bait or you�ll be a total failure. Like I always say, a couple of minutes of preparation can save you a lot of minutes of desperation and a lifetime of regret. Don�t bother with this quest until you have stumbled across some extra snakebee larva (in honey hives) and mega fishing flies (bugs). Hell, don�t bother with this quest at all. Why would you? Anyways, you have to fish for these things in AREA 10. You�ll see a small collection of fish. If you press the A button like you are prompted to do you�ll send out generic bait and catch generic fish. Instead you want to select your goldenfish bait and press Y. That�ll fill the water with the good stuff. Watch the fish in the water and pay close attention when they take a bite of your bait. That is the time to reel �em in. Nothin� to it. Once you�ve wrangled three of the things, head on back to the RED BOX. You�ll get some small goldenfish as a reward, and I guess they sell for an okay amount of money for the time invested. Meh. ------------------------------ 1-STAR QUEST - SUNKEN TREASURE ------------------------------ Deliver 8 Red Coral Stones Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 You�ve seen those bone-like gathering spots at the bottom of the water AREAS 10 and 11, right? That�s where you�ll find red coral stones, which are an ACCOUNT ITEM and therefore mostly useless outside of this one quest. Head on out there and grab them. Make sure to take the fishing harpoon from the blue box because harpooning sharks is something you�ll do only rarely and you might as well do it now while you�re out there since you�ll be needing a sharqskin or two eventually. Just hit the sharks once (or less, depending on how strong your weapon is) and then harpoon it to death. When I did this quest my weapon was overpowered but I had Cha-Cha with me and he was pretty reliable at hitting those sharqs for me. Gather 8 red coral stones and head on back to the red box. The quest rewards you pretty nicely with ores of the sort you�ll be needing for making better armor. ................................. ********************************* 6. 2-STAR QUESTS - MONSTERS [600] ********************************* ................................. This is where the game starts getting good. From now on, the monsters will actually be capable of injuring you. They may even kill you! The three FIRST-AID MEDS you get at the beginning of every quest may not be enough to treat your wounds anymore. If you haven�t already, go out to Moga Woods and get a bunch of herbs and blue mushrooms. Take them back to your item box and COMBINE them to make POTIONS. From now on you should have 10 potions with you at all times just in case. Use the farm to grow more herbs and mushrooms so you don�t always have to go scrounge around for them. If you are rich and don�t like being rich I suppose you can throw your money away by buying herbs and mushrooms and potions at the item shop like a sucker. A lot of new activity is going on in the village now. Along with the newly re-established FLEET, the village has resumed trade with the ARGOSY, a trading ship that shows up in town every-so-often. Talk to the ARGOSY CAPTAIN and the villagers to get a sense of how trading works and receive a CURVED FANG. At this point you don�t have much to trade with or for, but that will change pretty quickly. More interesting is the fact that the cat known as the ITINERANT COOK is now in town and he�ll be opening up a restaurant. From now on you�ll want to give him some of your money before every quest. Aside from FOOD SKILLS, which are a nice bonus, FOOD allows you to go into battle with a longer health bar, a longer stamina bar, and attack and defence up bonuses. It�s like item boosts without the waste and the clogging up of your ever-insufficient item pouch. Make sure you are this restaurant�s best customer. The cat will give you a VOUCHER for one free meal. Junior has a new villager request up: 150points and a monster fluid will get you a better insect box. Monster fluid, by the way, can be found inside Giggi, Altaroth, and Bnahabra; all those little blood-sucking buggies. The Wyvern Artisan wants to talk to you about charms. He�ll give you a PAWN TALISMEN. Go home and equip it and if you have a weapon with a shield you can make use of it. If you understand how skills work and you happen to find some talismans later on, feel free to customize your character with them. ***Pro-tip: That auto-guard talisman is another insidious trap. Relying on it to protect you will ultimately weaken your ability to use your shield properly. Just sell the thing.) The item shop will be holding a sale whenever the Argosy is in town. Use the occasion to stock up on pickaxes and bug nets. You may want to invest in a few TRAP TOOLS and TRANQUILIZERS since you�ll be engaging in CAPTURE QUESTS soon enough. The game will provide you with the necessary items at the beginning of capture quests, but things can go awry out there in the field and having a back-up trap and some extra tranqs can be the difference between a successful quest and fifty minutes of futility, desperation, and regret. Preparation is the key to victory! Have I said this already? The Guild Sweetheart has some good news for you: the SANDY PLAINS have been unlocked. The plains are a strange level and you have to know ahead of time where you are going to be fighting on the map and whether it will be day or night there. This is because the temperature can change wildly out in the far reaches of the desert and you will require either a hot or cool drink to keep you from burning or freezing to death. This game really gets its jollies by punishing the unprepared, and it is a jolly, jolly game. You also have the option of doing HUNTING TOURS now. Hunting tours are kind of dull and not terribly necessary to do. What is necessary to get through the second tier are the key quests �Pain in the Plains� and �Bear Trap�. They are also the most fun quests at this level. There are some other quests now available to you and I�d like to take this opportunity to convince you that they may be worth your while. There is a 2 star quest called �Secret of the Crystal Bones� that will give you the opportunity to mine the Sandy Plains for the MACHILITE ORE and EARTH CRYSTALS that you might be needing to upgrade your starter iron weapon. What makes this quest more profitable than a simple hunting tour is that it will reward you with a few of these nifty materials regardless of your mining success. In addition to upgrading your iron weapon you might consider buying the bone version of your weapon type, which will open up another tree of weapon advancement that may be an easier upgrade path. At this stage in the game I would say that upgrading your weapon is more important than upgrading your armor. The Great Jaggi and the Arzuros are not particularly deadly so killing them quickly is the best way to speed through this section. ------------------------------------------- 2-STAR KEY QUEST - PAIN IN THE PLAINS [601] ------------------------------------------- Hunt a Great Jaggi Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: potions Head on up to AREA 6 (the Jaggi�s den) to be introduced to the Great Jaggi. As you can see, he�s just a pretty big jaggi. AREA 6 is close-quarters and filled with jaggis who will try to nip at you while you are preoccupied so do yourself a favor and clear them out. Great Jaggi�s special ability is to direct Jaggi around. This is also his greatest weakness. When he stops to call out to them you are free to attack him without reprisal. Smack him upside the head why don�t you? You can expect him to pester you with tail-swipes, hip-checks, and straight on biting. Your best avenue of attack is to let him initiate a move, dodge it, and attack him while he is reorienting himself after his attack. For instance, when he swipes his tail he tends to do it twice, and if you avoid the first swipe you�re free to attack while he is committed to his second swipe. Since this is the first large monster in the game I�ll be generous and re-iterate some of the general tips I wrote out above. The Great Jaggi will try to run away after a little while. Hit him with a paintball because he has a cave network that can take him to many different areas. He will try to eat or sleep if he takes a lot of damage: this is a good opportunity to get a few hits on him. If things are going badly and you need to heal or sharpen your weapon, leave the area you are in so the jaggis don�t attack you while you are vulnerable. Move around a lot and don�t get yourself committed to long combos that leave you vulnerable. Sometimes he�ll go into a rage indicated by a little white puff in front of his face, and his attacks will be faster and link together more. Do your best to avoid them or just leave and come back when he is less upset. His more devastating moves have a distinct �tell� for when he is about to perform them. If you see him position himself for a hip-check, move out of the way or raise your shield. Honestly, it�s hard to give advice for fighting Great Jaggi. Anyone even remotely accustomed to this game can run circles around this guy and destroy him within a few minutes. Once you get your weapon upgraded even a little bit and get some practice, you�ll be crushing Great Jaggis like it�s no big thing too. With the Great Jaggi in the bag you�ll get some more of its parts as a quest reward. If you broke off the frill around its head you�ll get even more rewards. This will be your first time seeing the SCORECARD, which records the size of the monster you killed and compares it to your all-time scores. Once you get back to the village, Junior will tell you that Great Jaggi can now be FREEHUNTED in Moga Woods. Check the forecast if you ever want to go out and hunt these guys for resources. The Guild Sweetheart now wants you to go CAPTURE the ARZUROS, and the people around town will give you advice on how to capture things. Like I said above, now might be a good time to make your own traps and tranqs in case something goes awry in the next quest. Awry. Ever look at a word and just like... fixate on it until it loses all meaning? Awry is a good word for that. So is salsa. ---------------------------------- 2-STAR KEY QUEST - BEAR TRAP [602] ---------------------------------- Capture an Arzuros Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: potions, traps, tranqs Capturing monsters is not really that complicated. If you�ve ever played POKEMON you�ll be happy to know that your skills are totally transferrable. You just have to weaken the monster, put it in a TRAP, and hit it with TWO TRANQ BOMBS. It sounds easy in theory, and with practice it is easy as pie, but noobies seem to have the hardest time working it out. Actually, there are all sorts of things that can go wrong in capturing and this particular quest is a good example of one type of problem. The Arzuros, it turns out, can�t take a lot of punishment and it is entirely possible that you will kill it before it ever lets you know that it is weak enough to capture. The Arzuros is a GLASS CANNON: it can dish out a lot of damage, but it can�t take damage for squat. You�ll have to be gentle with it. Attack it for a couple of minutes but then ease WAY back and let it run (or limp) away. Even if it runs away don�t be too mean to it when you catch back up with it. Seriously, treat this thing like you would a baby: just cut it up a little. BTW, the Arzuros is in AREA 3 eating honey. He�s big on honey. He�ll even steal it from you if you have any and he pins you down (usually being pinned by monsters will get you pretty banged up, but the Arzuros just licks you and tosses you away). The Arzuros is not too deadly. His forearms are reinforced and if you attack them your attacks will probably be defected. All the same you should attack them because breaking them is how you get �Arzuros Braces� which are used for making his armor/weapons. But you�re probably safest attacking him from behind after he�s charged or swung at you and missed. This monster has a backside as big as a barn so you shouldn�t have any problem landing hits on it. His head, however, will usually be out of reach as he likes to stand tall on his hind legs and pretend he�s people. His attacks consist of a forward charge which can curve towards you a little bit. He also will stand on his hind legs and try to claw you 1 or 3 to 4 times. You should run away and get yourself in a position to attack him when he is finishing his third or fourth strike. Just attacking him from behind is probably your best avenue. Once he�s LIMPED off, follow him, lay down your EZ SHOCK TRAP, and maneuver yourself so that it is between you and the beast. Lure him into the trap and throw two tranqs at him. If the area is full of Jaggis maybe you should clear them out or at least stand really close to the trapped Arzuros so that the jaggis don�t get in the way of your tranqs. Was that clear? If so, then congratulations on capturing an Arzuros! You're welcome! With this quest completed, a new key quest opens up. The kids in the village claim to have seen a mysterious creature in the woods. Junior thinks it�s a SHAKALAKA, whatever that means. You�ll have to accept the URGENT QUEST to go investigate the matter. ------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - SHAKALAKA SAVIOR ------------------------------- Protect the Shakalaka Child Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 You don�t need to bring anything particular on this quest. Once you go out on the quest a text box will pop up. Someone asks for help and a symbol will appear on your map (if you grab a map from the box) pointing to where the Shakalaka child is. You need to go to where he is (AREA 6) and kill all of the monsters that are attacking him. The QUEST INFO claims that you can fail the quest by letting the Shakalaka kid (his name is ChaCha, by the way) get killed. I�ve never seen that happen myself. ChaCha can take some punishment in this quest so don�t worry too much if he gets knocked around. The monsters you have to fight are nothing special. In AREA 6 its 4 Jaggia. Then ChaCha will run to AREA 9 and you�ll fight 3 ludroth. Finally you�ll be led back to AREA 2 and have to fight 8 Jaggi. Surely you can handle this, right? I mean, I�m writing this for beginners, but by this point small monsters are nothing to you, right? Right? Oh goddess I hope I'm right. I�m just going to assume that you could handle it. Congratulations on reaching the third tier of quests! Now you can fight lots of big, fun monsters! Things are about to get real fun up in this game! But before you go on to the third tier, why not take a look at these other 2 star quests, hmm? They're... fun.... ------------------------------------------ 2-STAR QUEST - SECRET OF THE CRYSTAL BONES ------------------------------------------ Deliver 4 Crystal Bones Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: 5 pickaxes Crystal Bones are more crystal than bone: they have to be mined from rock. Bring a bunch of pickaxes as these kinds are kind of rare, sometimes. You can do some mining in AREA 4, and north of there is a cave full of mining spots and MELYNES, the black cats who try to steal from you. If they spot you you�d better kill them. There is another mining spot in a cave way out past the desert but hopefully you won�t have to trouble with going that far. This is a good quest for getting neat materials since you�ll be both mining them AND you�ll get some as quest rewards. Heck, while you�re out there, do some bug catching. Sandy Plains has THUNDERBUGS and CARPENTERBUGS: both very nice specimens. Maybe look for some CACTUS FLOWERS as they are specific to this area maybe. ------------------------------- 2-STAR QUEST - MY LORD�S ERRAND ------------------------------- Hunt an Arzuros Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 You don�t have to worry about failing the quest by killing this weakling this time. Run on out to AREA 5 and show this guy who�s boss. If you need tips for killing this guy, go find the info from my coverage of �Bear Trap�. Personally I repeated this guest four or five times because I wanted the Arzuros armor. It looks cool and has the �defence� skill. That stuff carried me past the Ceadeus. ----------------------------------------- 2-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: SANDY PLAINS ----------------------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 You can go hang around the Sandy Plains if you want. The Paw Pass ticket shows up in your blue box after only two minutes. Kinda pointless if you ask me. Most people don�t. ----------------------- 2-STAR QUEST - BUG HUNT ----------------------- Slay 12 Altaroth Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended Items: Poison smoke bombs Altaroth are those big insects that crawl around on the ground picking up mushrooms. Have you seen them fill up their bellies on resources? If they do that and you kill them, they drop unique items you may well need. Oh, the box gives you 2 poison bombs. You can use these on the bugs to make them carve-able even before they eat. Try to use one bomb on a group of them, for efficiency�s sake. Anyways, check AREAS 2, 3, and 7 for the bugs. They re-spawn in AREA 7 if you need more of them. ------------------------------ 2-STAR QUEST - WHO�S THE BOSS? ------------------------------ Capture a Great Jaggi Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 10/10 Recommended Items: Bring your own traps! Bring two! Also, bring 6 Tranqs and whatever potions you�ll need. This quest caused me all kinds of frustration. I must have failed it three times in a row. That stinking Great Jaggi just doesn�t know when to run away. Seriously, you can give him all the space in the world, and yet even on the verge of death he won�t run off. It makes capturing him into a bit of guesswork, and guesswork is the mother of Wasted Traps and her ugly sister: Failed Quest. GJaggi starts off in his den in AREA 6 and he will defend it to his last breath. Take care to kill off all of his allies when he summons them and then wail on him for a minute or two. When he goes to eat... he MAY be ready to be captured. If you have the money or resources to spare, you can buy or forge some BONE ARMOR to get the lovely CAPTURE-GURU SKILL. If you paintball a monster while you have this skill active, the pink indicator on the map will flash to let you know when the monster is weak enough to be captured. Very informative, but as for me I don�t capture monsters very often or ever have my map onscreen so I don�t use this skill or make this armor, and the only real downside is that this particular quest becomes so aggravating. Like I�ve always said, this game wants you to fail and it will try to frustrate you into doing so, but you can overcome this by being prepared. You�ll have to guess when this great jaggi is ready to be captured, and if you guess wrong your trap will be wasted. Do yourself a favor and bring a trap of your own. Bring two. Bring two and two trap tools and a thunderbug and a net. Overpreparation is the key to success! -------------------------------- 2-STAR QUEST - NO GUTS, NO GLORY -------------------------------- Deliver 3 monster guts Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: sonic bombs This time you�ll be fetching monster guts from little fish monsters that swim out in the sands on the far side of the Sandy Plains. Take the EZ SONIC BOMBS from the box because these monsters are vulnerable to sonic bombs. And by vulnerable I mean that they can dive down into the sand and are hard to attack, but if a sonic bomb goes off near them they are ejected from the sand and they will flop around on the surface for a few seconds while you rack up some kills. Did you know that your base camp in the sandy plains has a secret path to the cave that is AREA 7, and that from there you�re right next to one of the areas these monsters (they�re called DELEX) are in? You don�t have to thank me. If the delex aren�t there try the next area over. They�ll show up. Just wander around in the desert until they do. By the way, you did take those COOL DRINKS from the box, didn�t you? Oh boy, you�re gonna need those. Soooooo essential. If you didn�t grab them, you�ll have to just run all the way back to the base camp to get them. Man, that would suck. Monster guts are quite common carves from these guys, I�ve found. They have other items that can be carved from them: most notably the BIG FIN, which you�ll be needing for a villager request somewhere down the line. You�ll get some of those as quest rewards anyways. And that�s all the two star quests. Good riddance, I say. Bring on the big monsters! ..................................... ************************************* 7. 3-STAR QUESTS - BIG MONSTERS [700] ************************************* ..................................... You�ve upgraded your weapon by now, right? Maybe you got a bone weapon and upgraded that, too? I know what you want next: you want a weapon that does elemental damage! Hell, I�ll just tell you what you really want: you a fire weapon to fight water monsters and a water weapon to fight fire monsters. Well then, you�re in luck! This tier has a fire element monster you can use to make a fire weapon, and a water element monster you can use to make a water weapon! Whatever you end up doing weapon-wise, if you are using a sword or lance type weapon make sure its upgraded up to GREEN SHARPNESS by the time you are fighting the Barroth and Royal Ludroth. First things first, though. Those monsters can do a decent amount of damage, and if you want to take them down you�ll need some better armor. That leather armor you started with was nice enough for gathering items and fighting weak monsters, but if you go and look at the DEFENSE STATS of the armors you can potentially buy or forge at this point, you will notice that each bit of leather armor has a DEF of 1, while Jaggi armor, for example, has a defence of 10. Five pieces of Jaggi armor would then be 50 times better than five pieces of leather armor! Well, that�s not strictly true, but there will be a noticeable decline in the damage you take from attacks if you get better armor. As an aside, bowgunning armor is weaker than blademaster armor so that faulty math up above is even less true. Jaggi armor is a good set to pursue. To forge it all you have to do is hunt a couple of great jaggis and their underlings. Maybe you could use the practice? There are other options though. You could just buy a set of chainmail or steel armor if you�re feeling lazy. The Arzuros armor looks neat and has good defense (unlike the Arzuros), but you�ll have to break a lot of braces to get that. Whatever you decide to go with, make sure you get the full set because it just looks better. Also, that�s how to get ARMOR SKILLS. There are some other things you should consider at this stage. You should probably take a few FREEHUNTING trips into the Woods so you can build up resources for all of the requests you�ll be getting. You can carve up great jaggi for armor while you�re at it, and stock up on herbs and mushrooms and honey while you�re out there. Kill a couple of great jaggis out in Moga Woods and give your HUNT REPORT to Junior and you might just receive a 1 STAR RARE COMMODITY that you can trade to the Argosy Captain for unique items. I suggest that you get your hands on a DOUBLE BBQ, and then BOOK OF COMBOS 4. The other things you can trade for are less important: upgrading the FLEET CAPTAIN�S FISHING BOAT, and then getting furniture, pig clothing, treasure trackers and spare spears. You also have a new sidekick at your side... to kick. Talk to him and familiarize yourself with him and his menu. First you should select �take along� and select an ability for him. Maybe a water or ice attack? Qurupecos are weak to ice, right? You can look that kind of information up online if you need to. Chacha is actually quite useful if you give him a chance. From now on, you�ll be able to attack monsters freely every so often while they are focusing on Cha-cha. Get into the habit of talking to Cha-cha after every quest to see if he�s picked up any items. Also you might want to consider giving him any extra rations because they might help him level up maybe. If you�ve stuck around this long, you�ll be happy to hear that I have more advice for you. If you haven�t spent all your money on armor, then head on over to the item shop and pick yourself up a copy of those books that improve your combination success rate. Hell, while you�re there, grab all of the books that fill out your Monster List. It makes you GUILD CARD look better, at any rate. And last but not least I have some advice about the farm. You�ll get a second farmhand at some point in the near future, and if you go freehunting and fulfill some of the villager requests you�ll be able to upgrade and use the farm quite a bit. Aside from using it to get a steady supply of herbs, blue mushrooms, and honey, you should now also be looking at growing sap plants to make bombs, and more specifically nitroshrooms and fire herbs, which combine to make gunpowder. What do you need gunpowder for? Why, you can combine that with the screamers you�ve been ripping out of great jaggis to make SONIC BOMBS, which will make your dealings with the QURUPECO so much smoother. If only the farm grew dung too... it would be paradise. Is that enough advice? No? Well then you should also be made aware that there is a new hunting ground called the FLOODED FOREST to check out, and that there is a new villager request that requires another 200points. These things are really going to start piling up now. Anyways, let�s have a look at the third tier quests: Harvest Tour: Flooded Forest Playing with Fire - Hunt a Qurupeco ***KEY QUEST*** Rhenopolous Rampage - Slay 6 Rhenos Herbivore Egg Hunt - Deliver 2 eggs Toxic Troublemaker - Hunt a Great Wroggi Pest Control - Slay 12 Bnahabra The Deadliest Catch - Slay 7 ludroth Only the Qurupeco quest needs to be done to unlock the other key quests, so that's what I'm covering first. ------------------------------------------ 3-STAR KEY QUEST - PLAYING WITH FIRE [701] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a QURUPECO Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended Items: Sonic bombs, dung bombs, 10 Potions, paintballs, and a cool drink Take a look in your item box and grab the necessary gear, that is, the EZ SONIC BOMBS and the COOL DRINKS. Head on up to AREA 8 for a video to introduce you to the QURUPECO even though this is not Qurupeco�s usual spot. He�ll run off to AREA 4 soon enough. Anyways, there�s a Great Jaggi around and Qurupeco�s special move is to mimic the calls of other monsters and summon them to the battlefield to make your life a living hell. You can interrupt Quru�s calling with sonic bombs, but if your weapon is drawn you�ll have a hard time putting it away in time to bomb him. If another monster does show up, you can make it or Quru run away using a dung bomb. In this case though my advice would be to find this great jaggi and kill it dead before you seriously start fighting Qurupeco. It should take you like five minutes and it�ll save you a lot of harassment later on. Here are my tips for taking on the Qurupeco. First things first: hit him with a paintball and hit him again every 8 or 9 minutes because the things wear off. Quru has a nasty habit of flying off to far-away locations, and if you don�t have a paintball on him you�ll have to watch which way his shadow moves and just guess where he went, and even then he can fake you out and change direction mid-flight. Losing track of monsters is one of those annoyances the game burdens players with if they don�t come prepared. Now let�s talk about actually fighting the Qurupeco. Well, he�s not a very tough customer. He has �flints� on the tips of his wings that can do a fire attack that can do some damage. Most of the armor available at this point is weak to fire, too, so that�s a problem. Qurupeco has two ways of doing his fire attack: one is slow and has an obvious tell. The other is instant and unexpected. There�s not much to say about the latter except don�t stand in front of him when he�s between moves. About the former though, there is a really easy way to dodge it. He attacks two or three times, each time looking at where you are and lunging towards it. You can walk sideways and avoid this, turning each time he reorients and is about to attack. You can literally just walk closely around this attack in a triangular pattern, and then run up behind him when he�s finished and attack him. You can break those flints if you put some pressure on them, but they are tough and will probably bounce your attacks. His head is weak but is usually out of reach. Familiarize yourself with those occasions when he will lower his head and punish him for it. Breaking his beak will get you more cool stuff. Sometime he pecks you with his beak. Sometimes he just runs forward and tramples you. Sometimes he does a move that is standard for large monsters where he spins around to swing his tail at you. He spins 180 degrees in one jump and then is committed to swinging around again, so if you can avoid the tail it�s a good opportunity to hit him. The Qurupeco can spit big green snot balls at you. These don�t go a lot of damage but they do inflict a defence down status effect. He seems to spit to his right. Also, did you know that Qurupeco can fly? It�s true. Sometimes he�ll go up into the air to spit at you, or peck at you; sometimes he just flies to get some space between him and you. When he lifts and lands there will be a gust of wind that stops you briefly and keeps you from attacking him, which is a shame. Try pausing a second while he lands before rushing in. Really your best chance to land a satisfying combo on this guy is when he�s calling out for help and dancing around like an idiot, which is why in this case I recommend going and killing the great jaggi he�ll call for help. This will not be an option in future missions when you've got to sonic bomb Qurupeco when he�s calling in Rathians and Deviljhos to help or kill him. Yeah, sometimes when you�re on a mission to capture Qurupeco and he�s about to die, he�ll call a monster to come in and kill him. Can you believe that? Messed up, I know. Hey, but that also means that other monsters can hurt Quru, so if you�re having a tough time killing one maybe you can let some big monster do some of the work for you ;) ***protip: When another monster comes into the area to help Qurupeco, the music will change a bit, giving you a bit of a warning that something is about to walk up behind you and bite you in the ass*** Hopefully you took my advice about killing the jaggi first and you had no trouble with the bird (if you did have trouble, consider making better armor). After completing the quest Cha-cha will have a new, fluffier mask idea that needs 400points and 2 Quru feathers and 2 warm pelts and 2 velvety hides. The Wyvern Artisan will tell you that DECORATIONS are a thing and he gives you an aquaglow gem so you can start making these things. IMO decorations are nice for tweaking a mature character to get a nice skill spread but are not so important early in the game and you don�t really have the items to spare. Also another felyne returns to the farm and the Qurupeco will start showing up in Moga Woods. The Guild Sweetheart will ask you to talk to the Fleet Captain about the Royal Ludroth, and this opens up your next KEY QUEST: �Save our Boat�. Before going on this quest you�ll want to upgrade your weapon to have green sharpness (if you�re using one of those swords or lances). The Ludroth is vulnerable to fire so maybe you should be looking to making a fire type weapon out of qurupeco�s corpse. Consider grinding out a few battles with Qurupeco before advancing, and taking care to aim for those flints on the tips of his wings because breaking them rewards you with the item to make fire weaponry. -------------------------------------- 3-STAR KEY QUEST - SAVE OUR BOAT [702] -------------------------------------- Hunt a Royal Ludroth Locale: Flooded Forest (N) Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: 10 potions. Welcome to the flooded forest. By day it�s brown and the water is dirty, but by night it�s awful pretty, isn�t it? The Royal Ludroth is over in AREA 4 and he�s going to start the battle on land. Most of the water monsters are easier to fight on land because being in the sea puts you out of your element, but the Royal Ludroth has a lot of powerful movies with a long range to make his land sections actually more difficult than the underwater ones. Well, at least in my opinion (the correct opinion). Grab the nice items the blue box has for you. See those five POISON KNIVES? They�re supply items that you can�t keep so you might as well stick them in the Royal Ludroth. It�s easier this to do on land and only takes four of them. Also grab the MINI OXY SUPPLY and the NULBERRIES. Maybe you�ll be underwater enough to need oxygen, or maybe not. As for the nulberries, Ludroth can spit water at you and that causes a condition called WATERBLIGHT which is... not a very serious condition. It affects stamina but it�s not a game-ending sort of condition. But if you are worried about it that�s what the nulberries are for. On land the ludroth is surprisingly mobile. He can take a lot of punishment and dish it out to, so I hope you�ve made a better weapon and replaced your leather armor. Luddy (which is the term I�ll be using for the Royal Ludroth from now on) can charge you and jump at you and swipe at you with his claws. Those attacks aren�t so bad. He has a long tail that he�ll be using to swat at you if you get behind him. If you have one of the sword weapons you should be focusing on chopping that tail off. Cutting tails is your job, swordsman, and you should know that before going online. Luddy�s biggest attacks are those painful rolls he does. Fortunately they all have tells, that is, if you watch Luddy closely you can see him wind up and prepare for these devastating moves. He can brace himself for a forward roll that is quick and has a large range. Sometimes he coils up and spins around to flick you with his tail. And then there is the attack that you�ll hate the most: his sideways roll. This thing can squish novices pretty easily. Even if you see him wind up and point his head in the direction he will roll and you are next to his head attacking his �mane� or near his tail, this roll can still sweep you up. It doesn�t always go straight sideways either, so if you try to roll towards the head or tail to get out of the way, you may still be caught. Just beware and try to attack him straight on or from behind. No, straight-on isn�t much better. Attack him from the side but near to one end of him so you can move out of the way of this roll in time. Oh yeah and luddy has this thing where he shoots water bubbles at you. He can spit these in three different directions in front of him but in doing so he is commited to standing still and completing that attack so you should be free to attack him many times while he does it. He has this other spit attack where he runs around blindly and spits from side to side. He can trample you or spit on you so you should just keep your distance and watch out for the bubbles because they cause waterblight even when they are puddles on the ground. In the water the Ludroth is part different, part the same. He moves around a bit, like he swims off to the side, looks at you, and then charges at you. You can pause for a moment to make him lock on to where you are, and then move out of the way in time to attack him when he gets there. He�ll probably be tired out from your fight on the land so he may also stop still between attacks and let you get a lot of hits in. Most of the hits you should be taking underwater will be those ones where you are up close to him and attacking away and he pivots around and slashes you with his claw as he does so. Don�t let him hit you with his charge attack because that�s a slow attack and easily avoided and it does a lot of damage. You know how to maneuver yourself underwater, don�t you? How the camera controls the direction you go in? Don�t fall unto two-dimensional thinking. It may be difficult to move or evade up/down, but dodging that way is a great way to get away from underwater monsters. They usually have to take a second or two to follow you to a different depth level. By the way, these big water monsters can sweep you up in CURRENTS that can prevent you from attacking them. You might as well hang back a moment while they subside. The progression of this fight is to push him into the water and up through those water areas towards his lair. It�s a pretty lair. He goes in there to sleep. In my opinion when monsters limp off to sleep you�re better off letting them do so. If you follow Luddy immediately into his lair you be fighting him and a whole bunch of ludroths in the water, but if you give him a minute you can take out the small ones out while he�s asleep and then fight (or even capture him) on land. It�ll be a long fight but you�ll probably succeed thanks to my invaluable advice. You�re welcome. Take your spoils from the quest rewards. Did you get any DASH EXTRACT? That�s an item you can combine to make neat things. For instance, you can combine it with Well-Done Steaks to make Mega Dash Juice, which is stamina increasing AND prevents it from decreasing. Wow! Anyways, you�ll unlock a second (useless) fishing boat and Junior will tell you that the Royal Ludroth are in Moga Woods looking for revenge (and they provide plenty of resources). There�s a request for another Insect Box: it needs 400points, 4 Funky Pheromones, and 3 carpenterbugs. Talk to the Guild Sweetheart to unlock the next KEY QUEST: the Barroth! You can talk to the Village Chief for some useless advice on dealing with this creature. ------------------------------------------- 3-STAR KEY QUEST - LEADING THE CHARGE [703] ------------------------------------------- Hunt a Barroth Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended item: 10 potions, cool drinks, cleanser, paintballs. I�ve heard that Barroth is the first WALL in this game: the first monster that new players find difficult to overcome. When I first played Monster Hunter Tri it was the Royal Ludroth that first got to me and the Barroth wasn�t so bad. Oh well. I still don�t think Barroth is any tougher than luddy and quru so I�m rating it the same difficulty as them. Barroth has tough skin and does a lot of damage, though, so I hope you have some good weapons and armor. First things first, Barroth is the first monster that can stop you in your tracks with his roar. He won�t usually take advantage of this but it�s something to watch out for. Later on he�ll roar again when going into rage mode and he�ll become faster and more aggressive. Barroth has a weird ability to change his elemental weakness. He�ll roll around in the mud and coat himself with the stuff. When he�s muddy he�s weak to WATER. When the mud is off, he�s weak to FIRE. It doesn�t really matter which kind of weapon you bring. You have both options available to you at this point. I guess I�d say that he�s covered in mud more often than not, so maybe you should kill a few ludroths and make yourself a water weapon. Or don't whatever none of the things I'm saying are important. You�ll notice quickly that Barroth�s signature attack is to stop for a second, lower his head, and charge at you from across the map. This attack is a powerful one and if at all possible JUST DON�T GET HIT BY IT. Really, he makes it clear that he�s going to do it and gives you a chance to put your weapon away and run or roll SIDEWAYS to get away from it. Even in rage mode, when he does this attack and few times in a row, you should be able to get around it. Sometimes, though, he does this sort of attack quickly and from a short range and there is a lot less you can do to get away from that. Make sure you keep your health up just in case. By the way, after Barroth does his charge, he�ll swing his tail as he stops to try and keep you from attacking him when he�s vulnerable. Just look out for this and then make him pay. Barroth likes to attack with his head in other ways. Sometimes he�ll just smack his head to the ground if you�re under it. This attack also throws up mud just to be difficult. He has another mud attack he does more often when he�s mad and covered in mud. He�ll stop and shake and mud will fly everywhere, and you�ll have lots of opportunity to attack him but if that mud hits you (it mostly flies forward but can hit you anywhere around him) it�ll do a lot of damage and encase you in mud and take you super vulnerable. A cleanser will clean you up, but even that takes some time. Just roll around if you don�t want to be beaten up. Barroth�s head can be broken off, you know. It�s a good feeling and a bit of poetic justice to take that thing off. However, his head is tough and any blade attacks will probably bounce off of it, and attacking him head on and bouncing attacks is a good way to make yourself vulnerable to be charged. This is the first battle where hammer users can really shine. Barroth has a tail to cut off, too, but it�s kind of high off of the ground most of the time. His tail swing move is one of those two step processes where he spins halfway around and then has to spin some more. You know what I mean, all the monsters do it, and it�s a good chance to beat him up. By the way, if your timing is good you can dodge right through this tail swing, so take advantage of that. Sometimes he�ll just chase you around and try to bite you. This is more comical than deadly. But if at any point Barroth has beaten you up or your weapon needs to be sharpened, don�t be afraid to step out of the area to heal yourself, unless you like being charged from across the map while you sharpen your sticks. Oh, and be sure to paintball the jerk 'cause he can dig underground and move into far off areas. Beating the Barroth unlocks the next URGENT QUEST: the Gobul. Oh and Cha-cha has yet another mask idea, a BBQ mask that needs a double BBQ and a flinstone and 3 fire herbs. These requests are really piling up, aren�t they? I don�t suggest letting go of your BBQ just so Chacha can abscond with it when he inevitably deserts you like the coward he is. ------------------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION [704] ------------------------------------------- Hunt a Gobul Locale: Flooded Forest Steve�s difficulty rating: 3/10 Recommended items: paintballs, sonic bombs, potions To start off this fight you have to go to AREA 6. This is not how you usually want to start a fight with the gobul. Usually you want to start the fight with gobuls by taking a frog over to AREA 4 and fishing gobul right out of the water. As I�m sure you�ve figured out for yourself, fighting on the land is just easier, especially when you are fighting giant fish monsters. With that said, you have to start out this fight in the water of area 6. Gobul is a big old fish when he puffs ups, so he�ll be hard to dodge. Another thing you�ll notice when he puffs up is that his back will get covered in spikes and that these things hurt a lot if he goes and rolls on you or does his forward somersault thing. Most importantly you�ll notice that when gobul puffs up that his backside gets tougher and can start bouncing your attacks, but his white underbelly is soft and squishy and vulnerable. Gobul can dive underground to escape to another area. Make sure to paintball him so you know where he�s gone. When Gobul is hiding underground after moving to another area he will try to camouflage himself as one of those underwater plants you can gather Airweed and sleep herbs from, you know the ones: those phallic shaped pink and purple things with the red spades on the tip. Gobul is one of those things: he�s the one with the air bubbles nearby. You can harvest his �whiskers� or attack him or sonic bomb him. All sorts of options. Gobul sometimes dives into the mud to either sneak around and attack you or just to run off and hide. For the latter, make sure you paint it. For the former, some sonic bombs are recommended. They�ll pop that gobul out of the mud like a dart pops a trapped hamster out of a balloon. When he�s in the mud, you can see his outline if you look closely, so don�t be caught unawares. Be careful that he doesn�t jump up at you or jump up and then fall on you. Also, sometimes he just pokes his head out of the ground to try to suck you in, you know, like he does to that epioth in that introductory video. He turns around a little when the does this, but otherwise it�s a good opportunity to attack his stupid little lantern. You�ve seen that lantern hanging off of the gobul�s head, right? That stupid thing that he lights up sometimes to blind and stun you? You know that spinning the control stick cures stun super-fast, right? Well it does. Anyways, when you�re underwater the lantern is within reach and you should make a point of smashing it to show that fish who�s boss. Gobul has a big mouth and likes to bite people like you. He will also charge at you like the Luddy and the other underwater monsters. So yeah, fighting him underwater is a pain, but do it for a little bit and he�ll eventually hop on up to the land where he is about as deadly as a fish out of water. Up on the surface he still rolls and flops and charges at you, but it is all kind of pathetic and you should punish him for presuming to fight you on your turf. Oh, and he has a tail. Cut it off. If you are near his tail (or his sides even) he will swing it at you and paralyze you. That�s not terribly pleasant. Once you�re paralyzed (or stunned for that matter) you�re helpless and gobul may attack you, and there�s not too much to do about it except hope that you had been keeping your health high beforehand. There is probably armor you can wear to protect yourself from stun or paralysis, but it�s not really worth the effort to go and make some for a fight like this. Tough it out! When the gobul is really damaged he goes to hide in the water of Luddy�s cave, so even if you didn�t take my oft repeated advice to paintball him repeatedly, you now know to look there. Follow him and kill him dead, and then turn his skin into a hat. After killing gobul you�ll open up the next tier of quests... and it�s the tier where you fight lagiacrus to save the village! Sweet! Also there will be like three new villager requests for improving the village. I hope you have 1400 extra resource points lying around. Let your forward momentum carry you to the next section of this guide: The 4-Star Quests. The Lagi is calling for you! For now I�m going to talk to the air about the rest of the 3-star quests. ---------------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - RHENOPOLOUS RAMPAGE ---------------------------------- Kill 6 rhenos Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s difficulty rating: 1/10 A bunch of rhenos can be found in area 8. They respawn there, too. You�ll need a cool drink from the blue box. This quest rewards you with a lot of �bone� items and rheno parts. Here�s an interesting bit of info: you�ll need rheno scalps to make Barroth armor, an effective set of armor for the lagi and the next leg of the game. That just something to think about. --------------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - HERBIVORE EGG HUNT --------------------------------- Deliver 2 Herivore Eggs Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 If you check the quest info, it�ll tell you that the eggs can be found under the tree in AREA 7. Good info. You can take the shortcut from your base camp straight there, and then investigate the pile of bones next to that big old tree. Congrats, you are now carrying an egg! Egg carrying has its own special bit of mechanics that you need to worry about. If you get hit, or if you exhaust your stamina to the point that your character gets tired, you will drop the egg and have to start over. You don�t want that. You can run, but keep an eye on the stamina guage. Also keep an eye on the cats and rhenopolouses and jaggis and altaroths who will try to assault you on your way back to the red box (you have to carry the eggs one by one to the red box, you know). Your best way to proceed to go from area 7 to area 2, which is full of cats, to area 1, to the base camp. Just dodge between the enemies and make sure not to get tired. You can complete this quest in less than two minutes if you are efficient... and believe me, efficiency is the name of the game in egg carrying quests. Your two minutes of effort will net you 1500z and an egg item worth even more money. If you really want to be efficient: invest in some LocLac armor, which has the special TRANSPORTER skill which makes you run better while carrying. There is also a food skill to protect your from being attacked, but I forget the name of it. Supercat maybe? Who cares. Practice your dodging skills. --------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - PEST CONTROL --------------------------- Slay 12 Bnahabra Locale: Flooded Forest Steve�s difficulty rating: 1/10 Recommended items: Poison smoke bombs Bnahabra are those big red flying bugs. The ones that paralyze you while you are busy fighting bigger monsters? Ring any bells? Well, now it�s your job to kill them. They fly around out of reach a lot of the time but with a little patience they�ll eventually come to you. If you grab the TORCH from the blue box you can draw you to them that much faster. The Bnahabra are spread across the map, in areas 2 and 4 and 7 and 8... there�s a lot of them in 8. As with the altaroth, poisoning the bnahabra will cause them to become carve-able. You�ll be given two POISON SMOKE BOMBS, but you are encouraged to bring your own. Bnahabra armor is extremely suave and if you want some you�ll need to poison a whole bunch of these buggers. You can make the poison bombs out of toadstools (found in this forest) and bomb casings. Bring 8 of them with you and intoxicate those bugs. Oh, here�s one thing to watch out for: after they are poisoned they can still fly a short distance, and sometimes they will fly and die over a spot you can�t get to, robbing you of your reward. Make sure to lure them out into the center of an area so this doesn�t occur. Oh, and be careful that Cha-cha doesn�t just kill these things behind your back. You�ll get some bnahabra parts as quest rewards so even if you don�t poison them you�ll get something. So make that armor and go online and show everyone how a psychedelic gentleman hunter fights! --------------------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - TOXIC TROUBLEMAKER [705] --------------------------------------- Hunt a Great Wroggi Locale: Flooded Forest Steve�s difficulty rating: 2/10 Recommended items: potions, antidotes Go all the way out to area 10 for your first meeting with the wroogi leader. You will quickly come to understand that he is a GREAT JAGGI SUBSPECIES under another name. Wroogis are for all intents and purposes jaggis who can breathe poison clouds straight ahead. The clouds travel forward and have a bit of a volume, but they are slow and easily maneuvered around. Furthermore, while breathing poison the great wroggi will stop to prepare for it, and he will be immobilized during it, so you have plenty of opportunity to attack him from the side. Otherwise, you can treat him like a regular old great jaggi. Make sure to kill all of his underlings so they don�t poison you. Run around him and cut him up and hopefully you have enough experience with great jaggis that you can apply to this very similar foe. Wroggi armor is poison resistant, so if you hate to spend a lot of time using antidotes, this may be the armor for you. Specifically, there is a monster in the next tier named Gigginox who will probably poison you ten or twenty times over the course of a battle, so being immune will most certainly be to your advantage. It�s not like this wroggi fight is going to take so long that grinding for the armor will take you eight years or anything. Oh, here's something I was surprised to learn: gwroggis aren't weak to fire like the gjaggi and gbaggi are. Yeah, they're actually resistant to fire. Boy, do I feel silly for all of those hundreds and thousands of hours I've spent inefficiently attacking gwroggis with fire weapons. You want an ice or water weapon for this guy. I mean, he'll drop dead quickly enough regardless, but if you're farming this guy for items then you're going to want to be efficient about it. ----------------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - TRAPPING A TRICKSTER ----------------------------------- Capture a Qurupeco Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s difficulty rating: 4/10 Recommended items: dungbombs, sonic bombs, potions, traps, tranqs You�ll be given a dungbomb and 2 EZ sonic bombs, as well as an EZ trap and some tranqs. These may not be enough. This is the sort of quest that can muck up what should be an otherwise straightforward undertaking. Peco could just fly away from your trap, or some other monster could step in it, or even just kill Peco dead. It never hurts to be overprepared. Qurupeco might call in a Great Jaggi to help him, or it might be the dreaded RATHIAN. If it�s the former, kill it first and get back to Qurupeco later. If it�s the latter, well, you had better have a lot of extra sonic and/or dung bombs. Rathian is probably stronger than you at this point, unless you went out of your way to make peco or barroth armor. Still, it would be a monumental waste of time to kill the rathian and the qurupeco in one quest. For tips on fighting qurupeco, check up on my �Playing with Fire� guide. If you�re looking to make qurupeco armor, capture quests offer a chance to get rare items. It�s just something to consider. ---------------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - THE DEADLIEST CATCH ---------------------------------- Slay 7 Ludroths Locale: Flooded Forest (N) Steve�s difficulty rating: 1/10 Hey, wasn�t there already a ludroth killing quest a while ago? What is the point of this? Well, these things might help you make ludroth armor, if that�s what you want. I think luddy armor is pretty damned ugly though. You might as well go into battle wearing a lifejacket. Anyways, there are like half a dozen of these things in Luddy�s lair, in case you didn�t know where to find them. --------------------------- 3-STAR QUEST - A ROYAL PAIN --------------------------- Capture a Royal Ludroth Locale: Flooded Forest Recommended items: pickaxes and potions and traps and tranqs Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 See above for my royal ludroth hunting tips. When capping him he�ll try to sleep in his cave in area 9. Let him fall asleep and clear the area out of ludroths before waking him. It�ll do you a world of good. And when you complete the quest you�ll unlock another hunting boat. Whoop-de-doo. ........................................ **************************************** 8. 4-STAR QUESTS - BIGGER MONSTERS [800] **************************************** ........................................ It is the day of destiny. Your fight with the lagiacrus is upon you. The fate of Moga Village is in your hands, and if you fail and shut off the game, these virtual people might as well have never existed! I won�t let that happen and neither should you! Don�t you care about Junior succeeding his father and becoming head of the village? Don�t you care about the Village Chief�s dream to re-establish the city of his ancestors? Don�t you want to see if the Guild Sweetheart ever finds someone to end her chronic loneliness? All of these people are depending on you to save their home! Don�t let them down! As you may have noticed, the villager requests are starting to pile up. I�m not even going to list them anymore. There are just too many and you can get the info from Junior just as easy. If you�ve ventured into the multiplayer modes, you may start suspecting that Moga Village is only valuable as a farm, but to get that farm up to scratch you�re going to need to go out freehunting an awful lot to cover the point spread. There are bigger monsters in the woods now, like qurupeco and royal ludroth, whose carcasses are worth a lot of points. Hunting these beasts out in the woods may not provide a lot of quest rewards but it can still help you to make armor or weapons out of them, and while you�re at it you may also find some 2-STAR RARE COMMODITIES. When the Argosy Captain is in town you can trade these for (in descending order of importance): WakaWaka Dance, Combo Book 5, Redspear Plus, Bindshrooms, or two 1star items. There are a whole bunch of new monsters for you to fight at this level: Great Baggi, Lagombi, and Gigginox out in the Tundra, and the Rathian and the Lagiacrus in your older stomping grounds. With all of these new monsters come a whole bunch of new options for weapons and armor, so it�s hard for me to make suggestions at this point. You'll have the opportunity to add lightning and ice weapons to your collection, but they are not totally necessary, since fire and water more or less suffice. You could start experimenting with status attacks like paralysis and poison damage from Gobul and Wroggi/Giggi bits. You could even take up SLEEPBOMBING if you kill enough Baggis. You even have the option of making rathian armor now, the armor of true noobs. I don�t recommend it: health is a skill you should be getting through food bonuses, not armor. And fire attack plus is useless too... and you don't want to be using fire weapons on the monsters you need fire armor for... yes... everything about this armor is pure fail. I�m going to assume that what you are after at this point in the game is a way to defeat the Lagiacrus, since that is the point of this stage and he is a fast and strong opponent (at least in the water). You should have gathered by now that he is weak to fire. You did make a fire weapon from the qurupeco, right? As for armor, you�ll want to make something pretty sturdy. Pick whatever monster you can stand to fight a couple of times and make some nice armor from it. I recommend Barroth armor for the nice skills and the thunder resistance, but you are free to choose whatever appeals to you. If you�re not worried about lightning and just want to make underwater fighting more bearable, gobul and ludroth armors will help you not get tired when swimming and dodging about. Or you could just go for pure defence. In that case I would advise you to UPGRADE whatever set of armor you chose at the forge using ARMOR SPHERES. You can get stronger spheres from mining spots in the tundra. By the way, you have access to the TUNDRA now. The tundra is punishing and brutal if you have to spend any amount of time there. I remember when I first stepped out there and ran out of hot drinks and meat and I was so cold and whatever I was supposed to be hunting hadn�t respawned and I ran out of stamina and I was living kill-to-kill to just get some stamina to make it to the next area. The tundra will bleed you dry if you do not come prepared. This is just a warm-up (so to speak) for the VOLCANO, which will actually inflict damage on you over time if you�re not ready for it. On the bright side, the tundra does have some unique materials to mine, stuff like lightstones and isisium and armor sphere+ that�ll be needed in the making of stronger armor. Hopefully some of these tips have been helpful. You may want to consider mixing up some mega potions these days if the fights are too much for you. And try to build up a steady supply of hot and cool drinks from the extras you get from quests in the sandy plains and the tundra. By the way, the shop has new items, not that I suggest frequenting it very often. If you�re a gunner, though, you won�t have much of a choice unless you are blessed with thousands of extra items. You poor, poor gunners. Always poor. One final note about quest progression at this level. The KEY QUESTS here are sort of optional, that is, there are four of them but only two of them are actually needed to advance, one to unlock the first LAGIACRUS fight and another to unlock the next lagi fight. What I�m going to do is cover the first set of key quests, then the first Lagi quest, then the key quests that unlocks, then the URGENT quest against lagi, and then whatever is leftover. What I�m trying to say is that from the immediately following quests you can pick the ones that appeal to you the most. I'm not explaining this well, but that doesn't matter. Just go do stuff until more stuff gets unlocked. Heck those nine words could replace this whole walkthrough. ---------------------------------------------- 4-STAR KEY QUEST - LEADER OF THE ICEPACK [801] ---------------------------------------------- Hunt a Great Baggi Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: paintballs, hot drinks, potions Hopefully you won�t be out here very long and won�t need extra hot drinks. The BAGGI is really a Jaggi subspecies under another name... and you can handle jaggi like they�re nothing, right? If not, you need more practice in the Moga Woods. Bring your fire weapon and waste this sucker like the upstart jaggi he is. Baggis and great baggis will try to put you to sleep. This is annoying, but they don�t really have any devastating attacks to take advantage your vulnerability. Maybe the great baggi will hipcheck you, but you should be able to survive it. Hell, Cha-cha may be nice enough to knock you out of it before any damage is done. Just do yourself a favor and slay all of the baggis around you before focusing on their leader. I don�t want to give advice on this guy... he�s a friggin� jaggi and jaggis are this games� lowest common denominator. Make sure to tag him in case he scarpers. You can find the great baggi in areas pretty much every area of this map, but try areas 1,2,and 3 before venturing into the caves at the top. You'll find him eventually if you follow the trail of baggis. There is a food skill called insomniac that I don't remember how to get but if you stumble across it it will make this already trivial fight into a farce by preventing you from being put to sleep. Gbaggi's head can be smashed up for an extra reward item. Consider his head to be his weak point and give yourself some practice trying to hit that tiny moving target. --------------------------------------- UREGENT QUEST - TRIAL OF THE SEA DRAGON --------------------------------------- Repel a Lagiacrus Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: 10 potions The lagiacrus is sleepy and slow on land. You should be able to run circles around him and cut him up in the process. He might try to bite or claw you if you are in front of him. He might turn around to try and bite you over his shoulder and then flick you with his tail. He might just run you down. He�s not that deadly or mobile on land. He can get down on his belly and move across the ground fairly quickly like that, but easy enough to see coming and avoid. You�ll find him in area 5 and soon enough drive him into area 9, which is a cramped space to give the lagi a better chance of injuring you. But don�t fret it. On land, the lagi is as harmless as a dead kitten. Soon enough you�ll drive him up to area 10 and then into the water, which is your victory condition this time around. Just use a fire weapon and it won�t be a problem. Completing this quest unlocks more quests: the rathian fight, a gigginox quest, and a wyvern egg quest, and of course evermore villager requests. -------------------------------- 4 STAR QUEST - DRAGON LADY [802] -------------------------------- Hunt a Rathian Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: Herbal Medicine (or just antidotes), paintballs, potions. Rathian is one of those monsters you�ll be fighting over and over and in six or seven different variations, so maybe you should get used to it. Here�s what you need to know about rathian: it can shoot fire at you, it can poison you with its tail, and it can fly. If you can deal with all of those things you shouldn�t have a problem. But the single most important thing to know about rathian is that I will be calling her ian from now on. You can find her in AREA 3, but she�ll quickly fly over to AREA 7. First things first: the fire. Rathian can breathe fire in a couple of different ways, but it always comes out of its mouth so you only have to watch out for fire in front of her. It can shoot fireballs, sometimes one straight forward but typically three at time and in different directions, forward and to each side. A bit of practice will get you familiar with this pattern and then you�ll be able to land lots and lots of hits while ian is committed to her futile attack. Hell, sometimes she�ll try to use this attack and nothing will happen. Her other fire attack is an explosive field attack in a triangular shape in front of her. It�s not as expansive as it looks, but all the same beginners should just steer clear. Here�s some other things about fire you should know: you can put out fireblight by rolling a couple of times or rolling once in water. If you�re getting beat up by rathian�s fire, maybe you should consider wearing some fire resistant qurupeco armor. Oh, and don�t use a fire weapon against ian because she�s resistant to it. She�s weak to everything else though. If you�ve made a weapon out of Royal Ludroth or Lagombi then you�ll have something you can use to waste Rathian. Rathian has poison barbs on her tail, but not all of her tail attacks cause you to become poisoned. She saves that for her most power and deadly attack: the forward tail flip thing. You�ll know it when you see it. If she�s on the ground for this attack she�ll step back a bit before launching it. It attacks just in front and behind her in a narrow line, but boy howdy does it ever hurt, and with the poison on top of the damage you�ll be hard pressed to heal from this attack. You�ll have to choose between an antidote and a potion, and you can be sure that ian will take advantage of your indisposition. Here�s a tip: make some HERBAL MEDICINE out of CACTUS FLOWERS and BITTERBUGS. Oh, and watch out when ian is in the air, she can go into this attack and any time, and sometimes she does it twice in a row. Maybe just don�t stand under her along her spinal axis because it can hit behind and it front of her. She has some other tail attacks too. Remember that attack where the monster spins around in two moves, the one I�ve pointed out as leaving the monsters extremely vulnerable? Rathian does that. Mostly her tail be up in the air and out of reach but do your best to cut it off anyways. There are rare items in that there tail. Sometimes when she does her little bite attack her tail swing at you too, so be on the lookout. Oh, and one last tail-related thing: even when her tail is cut off she can still hit you with that poisonous flip move even with its reduced range. Standing right in front of a rathian is dangerous, what with the fire and the tail spin. She also can just charge forward and run you over. For all of that her head is rather squishy and breakable so maybe you should attack it if she is tired and not moving around. Otherwise your best avenue of attack is to attack her legs and groin. Maybe she�ll run you over when she dashes forward, or maybe she�ll knock you over while she�s pivoting, but otherwise it�s a good way to attack her. Her wings are less viable for attacking because they are harder than they look and may bounce you attacks. Sometimes rathian will jump up in the air and do some flying... but not as much as rathalos does. That�s one of their differences. Still, ian can fly around if she wants. She can fly off to other areas to pounce on aptomoth and recover stamina. Remember to paint her. If she does stay in the air for any length of time, punish her will a flashbomb right in front of her face. She�ll fall to the ground and be confused and vulnerable for a while. Otherwise she may pounce or dive at you from the air. Rathian has another attack to look out for when she in the air. She may kick up her legs and then pounce at you with them, pinning you to the ground. She�ll trap you under her while she pecks away at you and you�ll have to scramble to get out of her grip. If you don�t get out in time she�ll finish you off with her devastating tail attack. Don�t let her. Just don�t. You�ll regret it. Use a dung bomb to escape. ***pro-tip*** if you�re playing multiplayer and an ian pins you, just let it have its way with you so that your teammates can land lots and lots of free hits. Dung bomb your way our just before the tail swipe. This advice is for all pin attacks.*** ***funny-story: so this one time I was fighting a rathian out in the desert and it had me pinned on the ground so I am all like 'this is no problem I'll just use a dung bomb to escape' and so that's what I do, and I swear this is true: as I'm throwing the dung-bomb a delex swims up out of nowhere and jumps out of the sand between me and the rathian and it gets hit by the dung bomb and shields the rathian. So I just sqiurm there going 'WHAAAAAA?' and I put down down the gamepad in disbelief while rathian has her way with me and kills me. It just goes to show you that this game is conspiring to kill you in evermore ridiculous ways.*** Mostly rathian will be trying to bite you or run over you. She is really hindered by her lack of forearms. She can run around the map as much as she wants, but you can dog her every step of the way. If she gets mad and she�s too lively for you, consider bringing some traps along. When rathian gets injured she�ll eventually make her way back to her nest in AREA 8. By the way, did you know that you can lure her there, or to any location, by picking up the WYVERN EGGS there? You can see this for yourself in the Wyvern Egg quest. If you ever lose track of ian and don�t want to look around, just steal some eggs and lure her to wherever you want to fight her (in my opinion, area 2 is too big and area 3 is too narrow. Area 8 is nice but watch out you don�t get thrown off of a cliff). Congratulations on killing a rathian. You can hunt them in the Moga Woods now and get lots of resources and commodities, which you will need for the villager requests that keep on popping up. Sheesh, so friggin many. As I�ve said before I don�t recommend ian armor. Are you ready for a real fight with the lagiacrus? Did you make that barroth armor I recommended? Or at least UPGRADE whatever armor you have with ARMOR SPHERES? And you have a fire weapon, and some potions, and some practice fighting underwater? Then let�s save this freakin� village already! --------------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - FELL THE LAGIACRUS [803] --------------------------------------- Hunt a Lagiacrus Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s difficulty factor: 4/10 Recommended items: 10 potions, 10 mega-potions, nulberries You�ll find the lagi up in area 10. Are you psyched up for this? You�ll need to be. Remember what I said about having good armor. Lagi packs a punch. Check up above for my tips for fighting him on land (short version: hit him with your weapon). Here are some tips for your underwater battle. Lagiacrus can move around a bit underwater. He can move around much better than you can. He is also a giant monster. Consider yourself to be at a disadvantage. That said, he orients himself and moves around a lot like royal ludroth do, so if you have practiced against them you should be feeling confident. Lagiacrus has the same attack where he swims off to the side and then looks at you and then charges. He also has a more powerful version of the attack where he swims upwards, curls up, builds up some electricity, and then charges at you very quickly. This is a deadly attack but it has a long and obvious windup so put your weapon away and do some evading. You�ll be doing a lot of dodging and swimming down there so I hope you ate a big meal just before the quest. Maybe you should mix up some DASH JUICE. Lagiacrus can generate electricity, you know. It makes it out of those crystals on its back. You can smash those things, but it can still make some electricity. Anyways, lagi has like three or so different lightning attacks you should know about. Sometimes when he�s facing you he with rear his head back and then spit a ball of lightning at you. If he�s mad he�ll do it twice. As with rathian�s fireball attack, this will leave lagi vulnerable for a while. Sometimes lagi will stay still and build up electricity. You can see it do this easily enough, take it as your cue to get away from the lagi because it will be unleashing electricity around its body in a second or two. It�s a pretty small charged field though, and you can still attack from the front or from behind. When lagi is mad the electricity attack will be different. The charge up will involve a lot more twisting up of lagi�s body, and the attack will be much more deadly. Get REALLY far away. This is a deadly attack and you want to keep your dang distance. Put your weapon away and dodge away and then dodge some more. Keep moving away. If you don�t know it already, thunderblight is a condition caused by electricity and it makes you more susceptible to being stunned. And the last thing in the world you want to happen to you after taking a bit hit is to be stunned and to take another big hit. If you go get thunderblight, consider curing it with a nulberry if you don�t want to die. Aside from the electricity, lagiacrus is a big and mobile water monster who will try to eat you and smack you around with his claws and flick you with his tail while he�s turning around. But his attack pattern is very similar to luddy�s so I would say just go back and practice if you�re having trouble. You can make lagi come to you by staying far away and then hit him when his charge misses (remember to mind the currents). If lagi gets into a rage and he�s overwhelming you, bust out a shock trap to really mess with him. Lagi is also very vulnerable to flash bombs and sometimes it is easy to tell where he will be looking and therefore to put a bomb there. Lagiacrus has a number of weak points that can be broken if you so desire. Try aiming for his head to get precious lagiacrus horns. You can break up his chest and claws and back and tail, too. Lagiacrus armor is pretty popular. It�s cool looking and has amazing skills. And in this game (unlike tri) there are actually other lightning mons around you can be resistant to. Wow! Congratulations on saving the village! You now possess the TIDAL NECKLACE AWARD. Also, the earthquakes return in force and it turns out that it was never lagiacrus that were responsible... and Moga Woods are now crawling with lagiacrus you�ll have to freehunt. Huh. I guess you accomplished nothing. Everything you have done has been completely pointless. In fact, you�ve actually made the village worse. Nice going. ----------------------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - THE SNOWBOUND SLIDER [804] ----------------------------------------- Hunt a Lagombi Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: potions, cleansers, hot drinks Lagombi is over in area two. It�s not super tough. It�s pretty similar to the Arzuros, except with a snow attack. Sometimes it reaches down to the ground and throws snowballs at you, either one or two at a time. If you get hit you�ll be encased in snow and need to dodge around or use a cleanser to get free. Lagombi has four legs but it likes to stand on two of them so you�ll have a hard time attacking his head. Try it anyways since its cute little koala ears are breakable. Mostly you�ll just be attacking its belly or its backside or its legs. When it�s standing on two legs its front paws are free to swipe at you. Sometimes it�ll do that three-step attack process the Arzuros did, sometimes it does a single claw attack that moves it forwards a little ways. Lagombi�s most distinctive move is how it can slide around to cover a lot of ground really fast. It moves around a lot so you�ll probably be playing catch up. Lagombi likes to move around and then attack you from afar, or get behind you and attack. It�s a real jerk. Sometimes it slides right at you. It�ll do it once and then get tired, unless it gets enraged in which case at the end of the slide it�ll dig in its paws and launch itself again, and then a third time. Lagombi�s other kind of slide move is a circular move. It may only do a 180 circuit to get behind you and attack, or it may complete a full 360 degree spin. The thing about this attack is that it makes a donut space so the space right in front of the Lagombi (ie, where you are probably attacking it from) is safe, but if you try to dodge in any direction you�ll be hit and swept off your feet. Weird. It's nothing too deadly, though. Lagombi is a weak little fluffy thing. Don�t fret to hard about fighting it. Don�t even worry about ice resistance. Just dodge those snowballs before they hit you. Oh, and one more thing. The Lagombi has a funny little buttcheck attack it can hit you with when you are directly behind it. How comical. Oh... here's something else you should know about Lagombi: it is an icy monster and it can be made into icy weapons. Well, there's not a whole lot of monsters who are super vulnerable to ice right now... but I guess you could use one of these things against rathians if you really wanted. ---------------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - POACHED WYVERN EGGS ---------------------------------- Deliver 2 Wyvern Eggs Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: dash juice, dung bomb, paintball Delivering eggs is grunt work but it pays well. It is worth your time if you can do it efficiently. Mostly that means getting a hold of the food skill FELYNE LANDER. I think dairy and fish is the recipe you want. Lander lets you shave a good minute or two off of your time while also allowing you to skip over a lot of the dangers you will have to face. If you do get lander, when you get your egg in area 8 you can just jump off of the cliff to area 5 and the egg will be perfectly alright. If you want to do some running, remember that if your stamina drops too low that you will drop the egg (and have to start over). Some dash juice will prevent your stamina from falling, so that�s nice but not necessary. And then there is the ARMOR SKILL TRANSPORTR which helps your character move faster while transporting eggs. Pick whatever aid you desire, but none of them are essential. Anyways, you want to run from the base camp up to the top of area 8. That is where the rathian�s nest is, right in the center you find some eggs. Clear out any jaggis that may be in your way before grabbing the egg. Ian might show up in area 8. You can either use the dungbomb that was in the blue box to get her to bugger off or you can try to grab the egg and slip away before she roars or runs you down. She shouldn�t be able to keep up with you once you start moving the egg from area to area. Carry that egg through area 7 and watch out for the jaggis there. They will run after you but even with that egg you can outrun them. I suggest making your way all the way over to area 6, the jaggi�s nest, which rathian cannot go to. It�s only full of giggi, and besides that one on the wall that will jump at you, they pose no threat. Area 5 has some slow moving jaggia, and then area 2 is short and jaggied. Keep one eye on your enemies and another on your stamina and find the balance between them. If you ever have the opportunity to meet rathian without an egg in your hands, consider paintballing her so you can keep an eye on her whereabouts using your map. Very handy, but you might be better off just getting lander and ending this quest quickly and without incident. Get in, get out, and pocket the money and the eggs and the charms you get as rewards. ----------------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: TUNDRA ----------------------------------- Deliver a PawPass Ticket Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, pickaxes, bugnets You can hang around in the tundra if you want. There�s not a lot to see. Mostly snow, ice, and darkness. Bring a hot drink. Be on the lookout for nice bugs and rocks and things. --------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - LOST IN BLUE --------------------------- Slay 20 baggi Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, pickaxes, bugnets, meat, paintball You�ll have plenty of time to get to know your new hunting grounds on this case. The jaggis are spread out across the map and you�ll have to wipe them all out, wait for more to respawn, and then kill some more. Make sure you�re ready to survive out there for a time. There�s a gigginox out there, too, and it can be scary, but a paintball will keep you one step ahead of it. As for the baggis you are here to kill, they are just blue jaggi, and you can kill jaggis, right? ---------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - HUNTER KILLER ---------------------------- Hunt a Great Jaggi AND a Barroth Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: potions, cleansers, cool drinks, paintballs Some practice fighting barroth is never a bad thing, right? The great jaggi does not really add anything to the battle. You should just take him out of the fight as soon as you find him and only then turn your attention to the barroth. From that point on the quest is identical to the barroth quest and all of the advice I gave out above is still valid. When the quest starts the barroth will be in area 3 and the jaggi in area 5. If you dawdle in area 4 they will both come to you. Fighting them both at the same time disadvantages you, but sometimes the two of them will fight each other. Either get to area 5 before this happens or bring a dung bomb along. -------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - COLD STONES -------------------------- Deliver 8 Bloodstones Locale: Tundra Steve�s difficulty rating: 2/10 Recommended items: 5 iron pickaxes AND five mega pickaxes. And hot drinks and meat. The game is nice enough to give you 1 OLD PICKAXE. It is cruel enough to break that and all of your axes before it gives you the 8 bloodstones that you�ll need. I found myself with 6 broken axes and 7 stones, but luckily I was able to cobble together more axes out of stones and bones. Do yourself a favour and bring 10 axes. The stones are slow to respawn and this is another one of those quests designed to wear down and weed out the uncommitted. The dedicated will end up with a couple of those unique materials the tundra has to offer and some stronger armor spheres. Super good. -------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - A ROYAL RUMBLE -------------------------- Capture a rathian Locale: flooded forest Steve�s difficulty rating: 3/10 Recommended items: antidotes, flash bombs, traps, tranqs, paintballs This quest is unlocked by first completing the 'dragon lady' key quest. You can read up above for my tips on fighting ian. You should get used to her because you'll be fighting her a lot. Fighting her the flooded forest is no different than fighting her anywhere else. She usually starts in area 2 and then moves into that center land area and then when she's injured she makes her way up to that narrow area and then to that end area where there is a nest and she'll go to sleep there and while she's asleep you can set up a trap and then hit her with two tranq bombs/tranq shots. Easy as pie. My thanks to Cassie Sun for pointing out to me that this quest exists. --------------------------------------- 4-STAR QUEST - THE CREEPING VENOM [805] --------------------------------------- Hunt a Gigginox Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: 10 antidotes, 10 herbal medicine, 10 potions, hot drinks and meat Gigginox is a tough little cutie. She changes color when she's mad and can make her head and backside thicker. I wasn't really expecting it to be so difficult. Fighting this thing online is a bit of a cakewalk but when you're alone in a dark room with this thing you're in for a hell of a battle. You'll probably be fighting her in a cave. She usually only goes outside to die. For the most part she sticks to those three cave areas (4,5,7). Area 5 is her home and for that reason I hearby dub it 'Noxi's Den'. Gigginox can poison you. No, she WILL poison you. A lot. She has a lot of poison attacks and she uses them frequently. Bring antidotes and herbal medicines. Noxi's (gigginox) most common poison attack is to spit a purple cloud straight forward. It can cover a lot of ground. Because noxi jumps around a lot she'll often be far away and you'll be running towards her, only to find yourself running face first into this miasma. My advice is to let noxi have her space and make her come to you. When she charges at you she can run you right over, but usually she will have jumped so far away that its easy to run around her and hit her in the side. Poor noxi can't turn while running: exploit that. Noxi's moves start getting serious with her bodyslam. She sort of arches a bit and then just flops down, hitting you if you're anywhere next to her. Worse still, she has a new move that looks sort of like this move or her birthing posture but then becomes a big poison gas cloud that comes out of her in all directions. She'll probably get you with this a few times, too. Sheesh. Remember you can quit the area she's in momentarily to use an antidote. She won't be offended if you do. Her most insidious attack is when she stretches out her neck and bites at you. She can do this whenever she's standing still, and it seems like she waits for you to get in so close that you have no chance of escaping. This attack has a huge area and its bigger than you think. It goes really far to one side, so far it can even get you behind where her head would usually be. This attack is a beast and you'll have little choice but a superman dive, assuming you were running towards her with your weapon away. Otherwise, I hope you kept your health high. Oh, and she can do this with her backside (cloaca?) too. Did you know that Gigginox's flabby arms are also wings and that she can fly? Good news: it won't be flying around during the fight. It will jump behind you to try and get the drop on you, or it will just jump on you. Sometimes she jumps up onto the walls and the ceiling (if she's in a cave. She usually is). From the ceiling she can try to pin you and suck you to death, or she can jump on you, or she can (you guessed it) spit poison at you. When she's on the ceiling her poison can go even further than usual and seems to follow you a little bit, so maybe you should do your sharpening in another room. Oh, by the way, when Noxi is on the ceiling gunners are still able to attack her, so feel free to clust her. When she's running towards me on the ceiling I like to run past her. That usually confuses her a bit. Noxi has another move when she's on the ceiling. She can reach down and swing her head around and if she catches you with it you'll be pinned to the ground as she sucks on you and (you guessed it) spits poison at you as a finisher. You can escape with a dung bomb, but really, just keep your distance from her when she's up there and don't get caught. Noxi will be preoccupied during your fight because she is constantly giving birth to little giggis. They shouldn't bother you, but if for some reason a couple of them are sucking on you while you are poisoned, do something about that. When noxi is giving birth she is vulnerable (duh), but sometimes she lures you in with fake birth pangs only to get you with a ball of poison that explodes in a wide radius . Sheesh. The poison thing gets old fast. Here's some more miscellaneous Gigginox information. She has no eyes and therefore she cannot be flashed. Her head and tail and underside can be broken. To attack her underside most effectively you will need to attack when she is flipped over on her back. Noxi is a tough fight. I think she's tougher than Lagiacrus. Don't worry if you can't beat her because you don't have to beat her until later when you will need her parts for a villager request. On the other hand, her armor looks hella cool so maybe you should fight her a lot. ............................................. ********************************************* 9. 5-STAR QUESTS - EVEN BIGGER MONSTERS [900] ********************************************* ............................................. So you've wrecked the village. I bet they wish they had never even hired you. The woods are crawling with lagiacrus and you haven't done a thing to stop the earthquakes. And that little shakalaka side kick you had? Yeah, he died from injuries sustained in the lagi fight. Way to get that kid killed. I hope you feel bad. Okay, so that's not true. Cha-cha is gone but he'll come back if you complete more quests. And you'll soon enough have a spare shakalaka anyways. For the present though, you may have the opportunity to realize just how lucky you were to have that little distraction around. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. In the meantime this would be a good opportunity for you to head on over to PORT TANZIA and try some of those port quests. See, they are just like the village quests except a little bit more difficult but you get to do them with friends or those wierdos you find online. The first tier of port quests covers the first four village tiers, ending with the lagiacrus fight, so it would be a good idea to have at least done these quests in the village first. All of the information I gave above about the monsters is still valid in port tanzia so I won't be repeating myself by covering the port quests. Best of luck but I'm staying in Moga Village. At the (sort of) end of this tier is the god of the seas: the Ceadeus. It is a long underwater battle but not particularly challenging. The game will even let you carry over damage from fight to fight so you can wear it down over several battles if you are a big weakling. Consider it the game's way of making sure you make it to the 6-star quests where this game starts distinguishing itself from Tri with its high-rank quests and the monster subspecies. That's right, things are about to get crazy up in this game, like somebody modded Tri and turned up the difficulty and switched all of the monsters elements and colors around. Hey wait... this game is practically just a mod! Whoa. When you first unlock this tier you have only a few dull quests available to you: Harvest Tour: Volcano Fell the Lagiacrus! (complete) The Lord of the Seas (capture lagi) Heat Exhaustion (deliver powderstones) You have to do either 'Lord of the Seas' or 'Heat Exhaustion' to unlock the URGENT QUEST - SHAKALAKA SAVIOR II, which involves a new monster and introduces you to your new companion (same as the old companion). You will also unlock some new quests with new (portable 3rd) monsters: The Desert Gourmand (Nibelsnarf) Hammer Time (Duramboros) Walk 'N' Roll (Volvidion) Hunt either Nibels or Volvi to advance the story. Chacha will come back and he'll have news about the true source of the quakes. You'll get another villager request that is actually necessary to complete: you need to make an ANCIENT MASK for one of your sidekicks. The materials you'll need are not too hard to come by and the game is not terribly oblique in hinting that you'll have to go behind the waterfall in the farm to find a secret item, as if this were some kind of adventure game or something. Once you complete that you'll find out there are lagiacrus in the woods and your unlock even more quests with Rathalos, Barioth, Diablos, Uragaan, and Agnaktor. From the above list you need to kill rathalos AND barioth to unlock the next villager request. Junior needs some giggi claws and rath talons and machelite ore and 1500 resource points to make you a new base camp in the UNDERWATER RUIN. And if you do that you'll unlock more quests, including the Uragaan KEY QUEST you need to complete to get the URGENT QUEST to fight the Ceadeus and save the village. And if you do that you'll get the URGENT quest to fight a Purple Ludroth and unlock the next tier of quests. Sheesh, this sure is a complicated tier! They couldn't have divided this up better? All of these monsters mean that you can make pretty much whatever weapon or armor you want at this point. I suggest making a few sets so you can pick whatever is best suited to your next fight. Find whatever skills you like best and make some armor out of them. Now is the time to really experiment with these skills and customize your hunter into an unspottable force. If I had to recommend anything armor-wise at this point it would be to get some armor that is resistant to fire because you'll be facing a bunch of fire-breathers (and whatever Uragaan does for his fire attack). Now I guess rathian armor would be the easiest way to do that... just don't let anyone see you in such a shabby get-up. These monsters all have different elemental weaknesses so you'll need a few different weapons on hand to exploit each monster. The forge should be able to just up and make you some advanced weapons so you don't have to start from the lowest weapon and upgrade it into what you need, but if you have to do that take a look at the weapon trees available on Gamefaqs.com and the Monster Hunter Wiki to chart out what you are looking for and how to obtain it. You'll need a good fire weapon for Duramboros and a good water weapon for all of those volcano creatures. A lightning weapon wouldn't hurt for rathalos and ceadeus: lucky for you then that you just killed that lightning infused lagiacrus. Why don't you make him into a cool looking weapon? Ice weapons also have their uses and can be made out of lagombi or barioth. Dragon weapons are of course super-sweet but where are you gonna find a dragon to make a weapon out of at this point in the game? ------------------------------------ 5-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: VOLCANO ------------------------------------ Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: Cool Drink, pickaxe, bug net Oh yeah, you can go to the VOLCANO now. It has a lot of sweet items for you. The first couple of wooded areas have great bugs and mushrooms to gather. When you get into the volcano proper (bring a cool drink) you'll be able to mine for new ores that will allow you to make even more durable armor. You'll be needing it, I'm sure. The best mining areas are 5,9, and 10. There is also a new small monster here called Uroktor or something and if you ever need some of his skin to make something, now you know where to look. The pp ticket shows up after two minutes. Move it from the blue box to the red box to complete the quest. You don't have to do this quest but hey why the hell not at least its only two minutes and you get some DRAGONITE ORE and KILLER BEETLES and whatnot. ---------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - HEAT EXHAUSTION ---------------------------------- Deliver Two Powderstones Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, paintballs, nutrients, dash juice Do you remember all of that advice I gave you about carrying quests? Up above in the quest named 'Wyvern Eggs something or other'? Well maybe you should go and look that up if you need a refresher. Maybe you should make yourself some LocLac shawls and whatnot to get the TRANSPORTER SKILL too. It's not strictly necessary. There's a special difficulty to this quest in that the things you are transporting are very hot and will be draining your health throughout. It's a real ordeal. You'll have to be direct in going from area 10 down back to the red box. The powderstones are in that spot in area 10 between those two mining points. Before you grab them make sure your health bar is big by eating well or ingesting some nutrients. And cool drinks and dash juice will keep you from getting destroyed halfway through this trek. You're going to be constantly running out of health and constantly endangered. If a rheno tries to charge at you make sure you are watching it and can lure it away from your most direct path. And make sure you always have stamina available to run away from cats. And if you ever enter an area with an Uragaan, just turn and find a new path so it doesn't roar and explode that volatile bomb in your hand. When you are free between the 1st and 2nd deliveries try and find Uragaan and paintball him so you can avoid him later. Remember that felyne skill LANDER? It might help you arrive alive. Of course when you jump from area 10 down to area 5 there will be an Uragaan there and you'll have to turn around so you don't get exploded!!! Otherwise your path will probably be 10,9,8,7,4,2,1. Don't dawdle or you will die. When you deliver the stone you will have a very red health bar so take a quick nap between runs. Anyways this quest is partially optional. Either do this one or the other Lagiacrus quest to unlock the next urgent quest. --------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - THE LORD OF THE SEAS --------------------------------------- Capture a Lagiacrus Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: potions, traps, tranqs, paint, pickaxes You know the drill about capturing monsters by now, don't you? How it is sometimes simple but sometimes goes horribly awry if you don't overprepare? Anyways this will be familiar ground after your urgent quest against lagi. Capturing him is no more difficult. He'll try to run away when he's injured and you'll either let him and trap him while he rests, or you will put an EZ shock trap in his path before he runs away. Most of the battle with the lagiacrus in the flooded forest will take place in the muddy and low-visibility water, which is just too bad for you. Area 5 is a bit more cramped than area 6 so you had better be ready for close-quaters underwater combat. Maybe bring a shield around? If he goes up on land in area 4 take advantage of it, but if his tail and horns fall off lay back on the attacks and see if he is limping. When he's ready to cap he'll have to make a long trek to the luddy's cave so you'll have lots of opportunities to get him. Lagi armor has great skills and are very popular in Port Tanzia. Lagi weapons are also your first chance at making thunder weapons and you'll probably want one of these for this tier's boss: ceadeus. Do yourself a favor then and get some extra rewards from capturing lagiacrus. ---------------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - SHAKALAKA SAVIOR II [901] ---------------------------------------- Hunt a Duramboros Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended Items: 10 potions, 10 mega potions, herbs and blue mushrooms, paintballs, meat Duramboros is a long, long fight. This guy is like made out of hitpoints. Even if you have a sweet top-of-the-line fire weapon you could still find yourself locked in this battle for forty or fifty minutes. He can do a lot of damage when he attacks, too, but mostly he is just a slow or still bump on a log for you to whittle down to death. Now I'm of the opinion that poison weapons may be better for draining this hulk's hit points than traditional elemental fire damage. If you're having trouble with this guy that can't be solved with traps and bombs and whatnot than consider taking the time to waste a few gigginoxes and making a strong poison weapon. You may wonder (as I did) if you are not supposed to do something with the shakalaka (named Kayamba) in order to progress the fight. You aren't. Just ignore that loser. He doesn't seem interested in making a good first impression. Just wail away on Duramboros until Kayamba tells you he's nearly dead. That means you can capture him if you so choose. Dura (that's its name now) can take a lot of punishment. Its attacks do a whole ton of damage too... and why shouldn't they? The thing is massive. The thing is its still not a tough fight. It's never really 'intense'. Dura is slow and lazy and for the most part it won't mind you wailing away on it. It will try to attack you, probably miss, and then it will lie around while you attack it some more. It is a long fight though, and so Dura is probably bound to hit you a few times throughout and do massive damage. Make sure you come into this fight prepared to heal yourself for the full fifty minutes worth of fight. If you run out of potions your bed can heal you, but try to only run back there from a fight in area 1: anywhere else would just take too much time. Dura attacks with his head and with his tail. His head is the lesser danger so I'll start there. Sometimes he puts his head down and charges at you from far away. It's slow and not very deadly. His horns can be broken off with just a a little bit of pressure. Otherwise his head is not a very soft target. His tail is his main weapon which should be no surprise considering the size. He will turn his back on you and shuffle around and then smack his massive tail down on you one or two times. If it hits you it will hurt. If it just misses you, you'll be staggered and might be hit next time. Try not to get hit by this. You should be attacking the tail if you are using a blade but you also should have time to get away if it decides to attack you. I think blunt weapons can even take out this tail given all of the time involved. Dura's signature attack is to spin around in a circle, swining its tail out around it as it does so, and then letting itself be launched high into the air only to come crashing down, prehaps on you. This is a long attack and there are a lot of ways it can turn out. For starters, if you are in close to Dura while it is twirling its tail will go right over you and you will have immunity to land some attacks. If you are further away when this attack starts winding up, you can try to sneak in next to it when the tail is moving away, or you can just hang back. When Dura launches, sometimes it will be a shallow jump and sometimes it will go so high you will lose track of where it's going. Consider diving if you don't know if you're going to be squished or not because this attack hurts. When Dura lands it'll be immobile for an extended period and you can attack with impunity. You can trip or blind Dura with a flashbomb while it's winding up, too. Sometimes, when Dura is tired, this attack will fail and it'll just fall over. This is your best chance to attack its weak point: the humps on its back. Dura's humps are breakable weak-points, but for most of the battle they are atop his massive frame and out of reach. Whenever he falls on his side, say in the above-mentioned failure to launch, or when it is stunned, you will be able to land some hits on this thing. Do your best to take advantage of it. Any opportunity to shorten this fight will be welcome to you. If you feel like wasting time (or you are overpowered) you can use these opportunities to mine his tail or stumps instead (you can also mine his tail after its cut off, so that might be a much better idea). The Dura quest is a good warm up for the Ceadeus quest in that they are both long and boring. Get used to attacking for a long stretch of time and then only occasionally having to dodge something. By completing this quest you get yourself a Cha-cha replacement clone named Kayamba. Your days of not having someone else to take monster hits are over! Talk to Kayamba and when you get back to town and switch his status so that he'll accompany you on quests. He should level up and learn everything Cha-cha already knew, so give him a mask you like and pick out some abilities and dances you feel will help you in the near future. -------------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - THE DESERT GOURMAND [902] -------------------------------------------- Hunt a Nibelsnarf Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, sonic bombs, barrel bombs Well those recommended items will be available to you at the beginning of the quest so don't worry about it. Getting Nibelsnarf with barrel bombs and then fishing him out of the sand is fun but not strickly necessary to beat him. When Nibels is rushing across the desert sands with his mouth wide open that is your chance to lay down a barrel bomb and lead him into eating it. He can curve towards you while he's moving so you can direct him to your bombs. He will explode from the inside out and he stuck sitting up in the sand. This is your opportunity to put your weapon away (!?!) and then an icon should appear that allows you to FISH nibels out of the sand and lay him on his back for an even longer and more devastating attack on your part. Whenever Nibels falls over make sure you hit him enough that he gets knocked into that 'stuck up' position for you to fish him out. The fishing thing needs to happen fast and you have to wiggle your joystick quickly to fish it out. Nibels is a fish like thing that swims through the sandy plains. I don't know if he ever leaves areas 10 and 11 but if he does I've never seen him do it. He moves around a lot and can dive under the sand where you can't get to him. He'll come out to bite you, either on a forward moving thing or in a straight up jump into the air. He's kind of like a mixture of gobul and diablos, I guess. His weak point is deep in his mouth: his uvula. Hmm. Maybe nibels is more vaginal than phallic and I should be calling him 'her'. Anyways, this uvula is only open to attack when her mouth is open. She has gills on her sides that vent sand at you (as an attack after she's eaten up a lot of sand) that can be broken. She has a tail but this turns out to be a big tease because it sits there but can't be broken. So her head is where she is weakest but it is a sort of risk/reward situation as her main attacks all involve using her huge mouth to bite you and her attacks are pretty forward based. Maybe attacking her sides is better but she can still turn and bite you if she pleases. Sometimes she inhales a bunch of sand and then blasts it forward in a big sand cylinder. This attack can have a long draw-up and it leaves her vulnerable to sonic bombs. Oh and after eating a lot of sand she can vent it out of her gills to hit you anywhere behind her. This attack also has a large wind-up so you can see it coming. And maybe she's vulnerable to sonic bombs at some point? Yeah, maybe. I mean, you are given some in the blue box, so they must have a purpose. Try throwing some sonic bombs around and see if they do something. Whatever. Either this quest or 'Walk n' Roll' need to be completed to progress the game. See that quest to find out what's unlocked... or just play the game yourself. ------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - WALK N' ROLL [903] ------------------------------------- Hunt a Volvidon Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: deodorant, cool drinks, potions Head on up to area 5 to meet this annoying pest. His name is Volvi and he will try to inflict a bunch of status effects on you as a way of making up for how weak and small he is otherwise. Well I guess his attacks do an okay amount of damage but he is still small and squishy. Anyways, he is a fire element thing in a volcano so I hope you knew already that means you should bring a water weapon. It's super effective! Right, so Volvi is big on the status attacks. His big one is that he spits a big old wad at you that can paralyze you. He spits it forward and even if it lands behind you it will explode and paralyze you. Volvi will probably jump on you while you are paralyzed... probably. I don`t know. When I fought this guy for this walkthrough I happened to be wearing my totally fly bnahabra armor and it turned out to make me immune to paralysis. I bet you`re jealous of my sick armor now. Bring along some if you have it, but if you don`t you should know that it takes forever to get enough bnahabra parts for this stuff. Just go fight this guy with your noobie rathian armor and get paralyzed like a chump. Take your lumps and bring some potions to recover your health later. Or maybe not. Volvi has another status attack where he farts on you and you become soiled and unable to use items. That sucks. This attack has a big tell so you should be able to see it coming and get away before he really bursts. If you get this shit on you then you won`t be able to heal when you get paralyzed and whomped. This is a pretty devastating combo for a loser like Volvi. While you are dirty you`ll still be able to use a special item called 'DEODORANT' which cures the soiled condition. If you are really debilitated and injured then you should probably leave the area while you use your many recovery items. Volvi has a shell on his back. It's not very strong so feel free to attack it and break it. He likes to curl up in it and jump around. He likes to try and jump on you in one big jump, or maybe he'll just jump around a couple of times and maybe come near you and maybe not. Sometimes after jumping he is stuck on his back (and vulnerable). He also likes to roll around using that shell of his to get around or behind you. Maybe he'll even try to just roll over you. Mostly though you should understand that Volvi is just a bigger Arzuros and Lagombi. Can you see how all of those monsters stand on their hind legs and try you claw at you? They're all variations on the same monster except this time with some annoying status effects. So yeah that same claw attack where the monster spins while he claws at you returns again. If you need practice on an easier version of this guy then go fight those other guys. Let's see. Sometimes when Volvi tries to spit paralysis snot at you he will instead just whip his tongue at you which is not so bad. So after completing this quest (or the nibelsnarf quest) you get Chacha back and he'll tell you the real source of the earthquakes and he has a new mask idea that will need sharqskins and pelagicite ore. And once you complete that request you'll unlock some more quests. So go get those baubels and resources and let's get this thing moving along. Oh, by the way, there are lagiacrus in the woods now if you need lots of resources and rarer commodities to get cool stuff. And hey, maybe you could make a lagiacrus into a lightning weapon in case you ever have to fight something weak to lightning like a rathalos. ---------------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - THE WRATH OF RATHALOS [904] ---------------------------------------------- Hunt a Rathalos Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, flash bombs, antidotes Here's what you really need to know about rathalos: he's a rathian who flies a bit more. He is the same shape and size as rathian, he moves like rathian, he has the same weaknesses and strengths as a rathian. If you need pratice for fighting this guy, go fight some rathians. Heck, even wearing rathian armor will help you survive this guy's fire attacks. You didn't hear that from me. Rathalos uses fire a bit differently than rathian does. He doesn't do that move where ian stands still and spits fire in three directions (and leaves herself vulnerable for a long time). He does stand still and spit one fireball straight across the area if you are far enough way. Mostly though he does his fire fighting from the air. He will probably hit you with it, too. See, rathalos has a roar that stops you and while you are immobile he will jump into the air and shoot a fireball down in front of him. If you are standing in front of him when he roars you can expect to be exploded. His head is his weakpoint, sure, but he likes to roar and fireball you so don't stand right in front of it if you can help it. Rathalos also shoots fire from the air in threes. This attack is slower and more predictable so you really shouldn't be caught in it. He either fires 3 shots forward or aims them at you (following you as you run along the ground). When he's hanging in the air his tail will be hanging down and this is your best chance to attack it (because when he's standing on the ground it will be too high to reach). When he's shooting fire he seems to be immune to flash bombs which is too bad. If he's ever in a similar posture in the air but not breathing fire make sure to flash him and send him crashing down to the ground. A rathalos that spends all of its time in the air is one that you can't attack and therefore takes forever to kill. Rathalos will bite and claw at you from the air, too. He can just fly at you and run you down. He has an attack he doesn't use very often where he flies really high up and circles around the area a few times before diving down at you. Don't let him hit you with this even if it is hard to follow him with the camera while he does it. Don't make the mistake of thinking he left the area and stand still sharpening sticks. That's a recipe for disaster. When rathalos ends this attack he may stay in the air and turn around slowly: make sure he turns into a flash of light! Rathalos's most deadly aerial attack gets launched from a height between the other ones and you'll notice that he raises his claws a bit in preparation. That means that he is about to dive at you and scratch you with his claws. It's a fast attack and if it hits you you will be poisoned. When he flies up out of range you should put your weapon away and be ready to use your invulnerable superman dive to get through it. Okay, hopefully rathalos will spend some time on the ground where you can get at him. On the ground he is just a red rathian and you can kill him like one. He does that ridiculous two step tail swipe move and runs at you and tries to bite you. Nothing you haven`t seen before. If its on the ground then you should be constantly attacking it and putting your rathian training to use. If this is your first battle with the rathalos you can find him up in Area 8. That`s a bit higher up on the map than he usually goes. You can usually find him in the lower areas 1,2,3,4, and 6. He goes to 6 to sleep I think. Try to fight him in 1 or 4 because they have more room you you to dodge around in. -------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - A BARD'S TALE [905] -------------------------------------- Hunt a Barioth Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, cleanser Barioth is a pretty little kitty cat so hopefully you won't have any difficulty killing it. He's not so tough once you're used to him but for you newbies he's a fast and deadly creature so be careful with him and make sure you've got some tough armor. You don't need to worry about specific skills or ice resistance exactly... he only has one/two ice attacks and they're not especially common or deadly. Bring along your fire weapon and some hot drinks and then head on up to area 2 to see a cutscene of barioth wasting a popo. On subsequent fights with this guy you're gonna want to start by going over to area 6 which is the BARIOTH'S PLATEAU where barioth fights start and end. Here's some more stuff about the plateau that won't be helpful in this first encounter. The platform is nice because its big and those annoying baggis cant get up there to sleep attack you. It's just you and barioth. Be careful that he doesn't see you when you are on the lower part of area 6. He can fly up into the sky and come crashing down on you with lightning speed, and fighting him down there is not advisable because there is not enough room for you to run around him. Also be careful climbing up to the platform because if he's seen you coming he could be waiting at the top ready to attack you and knock you off. One last thing about this plateau of his is that he can jump onto the wall and launch himself into a flying claw attack. Try to roll under this towards the wall. Barioth likes to run at you. Try to make him run a lot to tire him out. If you're standing right next to him when he starts running then try to roll under his arms before he starts moving. Sometimes he will try to turn and claw you and swing his tail while he does it. He also has a tail attack has a big tell. Oh, he has a new hipcheck move he likes to spam. Friggin' hipchecks everywhere. He has this ice attack he uses to shoot ice in front of him and create an icy whirlwind. If you get caught up in any part of this attack you'll be covered in snow and unable to do anything (it's just like being covered in mud). You'll probably also be iceblighted and that will really hurt your stamina. But the thing is that this attack has a huge windup on barioth's part where he draws his head back like he's about to sneeze on you so you can make sure you don't get sneezed on. Bring cleansers and nulberries with you if you need to. Barioth flies around sometimes. He can fly to distant areas so make sure you paintball him. Sometimes he likes to fly and use his ice attack from the air. This is a bit harder to anticipate and can maybe kill you if you aren't tough. He likes to claw at you from the air, too. When he lands he'll spin around to try and claw and tail-swipe you too. Here's a useful bit of info: if you break his claws then he will lose traction on between moves and be unable to chain them together. And hey, if you cut off his tail too he won't be able to hit you with that either! Wowzers! So maybe you should focus on breaking his claws. I wish i didn't have to say this but swordsmen should be cutting tails. And hammer users will be happy to know that bari's face can be broken for even more quest rewards. Happy days. Okay so completing this quest and the rathalos one will unlock the next villager request and the next key quest which is the uragaan so that's where we're headed next. ------------------------------------------- 5-STAR KEY QUEST - THE VOLCANO's FURY [906] ------------------------------------------- Hunt an Uragaan Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: cool drinks The Uragaan is a tough beastie with high attack power and hit points and sometimes it even moves fast. On top of all of that his face and back and a lot of his tail are super-hard and will bounce your pathetic low-rank attacks. Yup. This is gonna be a tough one. You had better upgrade your water weapon if at all possible, or even switch to another weapon type with a better water weapon (and maybe a shield). I think most water weapons can be improved at this point with nibels or bari or diablos parts, probably because the game designers made a bunch of fire monsters for this sections and know that you'll need to buff up in order to beat them. As for armor, well make the toughest stuff you can find. Some useful armor skills to look into would be tremor-proof (Volvidon or Diablos armor would be good for that and other things) or maybe rathalos armor would be good. You have lots of options at this point. As for me, well I just upgraded my Arzuros armor some more and that stuff ended up carrying me all the way to HR6. This fight takes place in the volcano so bring cool drinks along if you're gonna take a long time to kill it. He's up in area 6. This is a special area for Uragaan where he can unleash an attack that will run you down and you'll be almost powerless to stop him. Well, you can trap him while he does this, but otherwise you'll have to dive out of the way if he rolls at you, or even just leave the area for ten seconds so you don't get hit with this, of course if you do that you won't be around to take advantage of his long recovery afterwards. Anyhoo, you'll see this attack coming when Ura digs down into the ground and then appears on the unreachable ledges of this area. Ura likes to curl up in a ball and roll around. In case you didn't notice he is massive and being rolled over will hurt you alot. And you might think that with his shape and movements being similar to the barroth that his roll would be like Barroth's charge in that it can't change direction after it gets launched: you would be wrong. Ura sometimes just rolls straight forward but sometimes that ball of death turns and circles around in strange patterns and will find you wherever you run. If you don't have a sturdy shield then make sure you are primed to dive for your life at any moment. His roll does have a wind-up where he draws his head back before he launches it. Really Ura is slow to move and attack except that the roll itself is fast once it gets going. If you've managed to get around the roll then you want to chase after uragaan and attack him when he comes out of it. Like the Barroth he will swing his tail afterwards to try and prevent you from taking advantage of him. So about that tail then. Well he has a tail attack where he spins all the way around to try and hit you with it. It's a slow attack that has a tell where he draws back a step or two. After the attack his head will be pretty much back where it started, except three firerocks will come out of somewhere and fly forward at you. They hurt a little and will trip you up as you approach, but their real threat is more subtle. See, ura has this chin attack that causes tremors and if he does this near those little rocks they will explode and do a hefty bit of damage to you. Try to be careful around these things by not ever being around them. So about that chin attack. It's a big one. He just lifts his head up and then strikes down on the ground in front of him (it can also hit you between his legs). He has another chin move where he attacks four times in a row, except he attacks to the side and moves forward each time. It has a suprising forward and sideways range so keep your distance or get behind him (note that it is difficult to attack him from behind because his tail is tough). Oh man, but then there is his worst chin attack. When ura does his roar (and he roars a lot) he does two chin pounds before you can move again so if you're in front of him you're gonna be squished. Yikes. If you have the soundproof skill that would be helpful. I think gigginox armor has it. And hey, if you go that route you might as well bring a poison weapon. That seems like an easy way of damaging this sucker. Let's see. Ura also has a hipcheck. Like most of his moves its very slow. Oh, it has another kind of special attack. If he draws up on his hind legs and little clouds of red or blue appear, take that as a sign to move away from the guy. He is about to ventilate either a fire gas that knocks you back and inflicts fireblight or a blue gas that puts you to sleep (so he can roll or chin smack you). Neither of these are good things to be hit with so just steer clear. ***Protip: When ura is doing his gas attack the gas only goes out his sides and doesn't go forward or backwards. This means you can still impact his head or slice his tail if you are careful*** Hammer users will want to focus on breaking ura's strong and durable chin. It can be done if you are persistant. Tail users will want to slice his tail but the very end of it is tough so concentrate on the softer root part. Most everybody will want to be attacking ura's legs and groin because that is pretty much the only part that is not covered in stone-tough hide. Anything else? Um... if he ever falls on his side you can mine his back for crap like LAVA NUGGETS if you want. Um... he gets into a rage a lot and becomes much more dangerous so maybe keep some flash bombs or traps handy to turn things back in your favor. Oh, and the blue box has two barrel bombs for you so you might as well use them to break his tought chin or something. Finishing this quest will get you the next URGENT QUEST: the Ceadeus! This is your chance to save the village (and unlock the HIGH RANK QUESTS). The ceadeus fight is a real slow boring thing so make sure you have a half hour to spare (maybe two if you don't get the job done the first time). --------------------------------------- URGENT QUEST - SAVE MOGA VILLAGE! [907] --------------------------------------- Repel a Ceadeus Locale: Underwater Ruins Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: air philters, UW Ammo (from the Argosy Captain) Okay so if you did the above mentioned hoopdidoo then you've unlocked this urgent quest to save the village from uncertain disaster from what may be the cause of the earthquakes. Personally I don't think one should put much faith in Chacha's apprehension of the situation and for all I know Ceadeus is totally innocent and you're just going down there to kill him for no reason, but hey, the game says you gotta do it so you gotta do it. The villagers are all behind you but the guild isn't, but as the Guild Sweetheart says: 'The man can put that in his pipe and smoke it!' Well you heard her so put whatever you like in your pipe and let's get going! First thing you need to know is that the battle takes place entirely underwater. In case you didn't know, Monster Hunter Tri was the game that introduced underwater fighting to the series and so the boss of that game had to be underwater as a sort of thematic thing. Chacha has a new mask available that allows you to call him (open the menu up and press X) and he will swim over to you and give you oxygen. Call him every couple of minutes or so to keep your oxygen meter filled. Bring some air philters just in case Chacha is unreliable. Also you can't eat meat underwater so maybe you should combine some of your well-done steaks with dash juice to make MEGA DASH JUICE. The Ceadeus battle is a long, boring, inconclusive affair. You probably won't even kill him. You'll probably just 'repel' him, which means make him run away. Not very satisfying. It's a thirty-five minute battle but it feels like forever. He's weakest to dragon weapons but if you've been following this guide you won't have one (it just goes to show you not to listen to me). His next biggest weakness is lightning and lucky for you the game made you fight that lightning monster a while back (I think his name was lagiacrus or something) that you can make a decent lightning weapon out of. Still you'll have to focus your attacks on his softer underbelly because his back is too tough for your low-rank weapon. You start the battle in a new location: the UNDERWATER RUINS. Go to area 1 and Ceady is behind you. He wont even try to attack you. Maybe his tail will flick you while he's trying to swim past you. Hell, he first uses his waterbeam to open a passageway to continue swimming. Be careful allthesame because when he fires that thing up he recoils pretty far backwards and can sweep you up in it even if you are behind him a bit. Anyways just wail away on him for a long time and maybe eventually he'll notice you. Chase him over to area 3 and the 'fight' begins, not that it gets much more difficult. Sometimes he shakes his head around and maybe his horns will hit you while he does it. Sometimes he lifts his tail up to hit you when you are in front of him. He has a bite attack, too. Let's just say that you are so small and weak that he probably won't even notice you attacking him for thirty minutes or so. He may try to hipcheck you like the lagi before him, but slower and without lightning. No big deal. I think it attacks to his right side. What you want to do when he does into rage mode is to lure him over to those big spikey things on the far wall of area 3. Call Chacha and Kayamba over to you too and wait for him below the switch. When he follows you over there then you swim up to the dragonator and hit the button and watch a scene play out of him being impaled on that thing. Hopefully his bigger horn will break off and you'll be able to carve it. Don't miss on that thing because it takes ten minutes to recharge (for some reason) so you'll probably only have two chances if you had to chase him into area 3. There is also a gun attached to the cliffs that you can use if you pick up some underwater ballista ammo (or bring some after trading for it with the Argosy Captain). This weapon does a nice bit of damage from afar but be careful because while you are using it you are locked into it and he can easily attack you with his body or waterbeam. Oh here's some more things about that waterbeam attack. First off: it's a huge beam and it'll be hard to get away from it if Ceady starts doing it while you are attack his face. And it can't be blocked with a shield. It does have a big windup where he lifts his head up, though. It inflicts waterblight which hurts your stamina which is bad since you're underwater swimming everywhere. If the time expires then dont worry so much because all of the damage you've managed to inflict will be carried over to your next attempt at this fight. Okay, so if you repel Ceady then the village is saved and you get to watch a video of Chacha teaching the village children to dance. I hope you feel that is worth all of your trouble. You also get some Ceadeus quest rewards but if you've ever listened to me before then listen to me now when I say that you shouldn't bother making ceadeus weapons or armor. Yeah, maybe it has nice skills, but you are going into high-rank and you are going to want high-rank armor. Futhermore when you are grinding monsters to get monster parts you want to grind on a monster that doesn't take 30+ minutes to kill everytime. Come back and grind on Ceady after you have a blue sharpness lightning weapon made out of lagi+ or Crimson Quru or Zinogre or whatever. And as for ceady weapons, well you can get good water weapons from Luddy+ and Plesioth so Ceady weapons are really redundant. You'll get a 'gem of the depths award' and everyone in the village has something to say. The Argosy Captain will give you a water longsword. You can now do high-rank quests and the chief explains how they work. Also the Misty Peaks area is unlocked and you can hunt SUBSPECIES now. Hurrah. --------------------------------------------- HIGH RANK URGENT QUEST - POISON CONTROL [908] --------------------------------------------- Hunt a Purple Ludroth Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: antidotes Start up this quest and you'll learn pretty quickly how high-rank quests work. No items for you and you have to start in a random spot. Deal with it. The monsters usually spawn in one spot but if you spawn far away they may just move before you get there. Check area 9 of the Misty Peaks to see if there is a big pink and purple luddy stompin' around there. If not, check somewhere else. It's a good chance to get to know this new hunting ground. He's a poison ludroth. Maybe you could tell that he was poison because he's purple and that's the color of poison. When this luddy does his belly flop thing a bunch of poison will splash up around him and onto you. Also he shoots poison bubbles and his claw attack is poisonous. Maybe bring an antidote along? If you're just advancing up out of low-rank you will find that this high-rank sucker has a lot of hp (hit-points) and attack power. At least he doesn't go underwater in the misty peaks. If you are using high rank gear then consider him to be a 3/10 difficulty like the ludroth. Beating him unlocks the Moga Woods Night Mode. From now on when you go freehunting you will be given the option to go during the day or night and at night you will find better items and commodities and stronger monsters. There are also a couple of new villager requests and purple luddys out in the woods. The Wyvern Artisan will give you an advanced armor sphere and the 6-star requests will be unlocked. Wow, there are like 18 of them. This is gonna take me forever to write up, so my advice to you for now would be to tackle the weakest monsters first (the Great Jaggis and Wroggis) and make them into armor, and make yourself a Rank 4 weapon that has blue sharpness. Low-rank armor and weapons are just not going to cut in from now on. And hey, maybe hang around in the Misty Peaks a bit and familiarize yourself with this new area why not? -------------------------- 5-STAR QUEST - HAMMER TIME -------------------------- Hunt a Duramboros Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: Well duramboros gets a bit easier with time. As you may remember he is weak to fire weapons, and as you may have noticed in the volcano there are lots of powerful fire monsters who are more than willing to have their throats ripped out in order to upgrade your fire weapon. Also this second time around you'll have your shakalakas around to help you whittle down this behemoth's health. Otherwise, this fight is just like before and you can find anything I have to say about the matter above. -------------------------------------- 5-STAR QUEST - THE HORNED WYVERN [909] -------------------------------------- Hunt a Diablos Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, sonic bombs, potions Diablos is actually a tough fight. It attacks quickly and with force. Yep. I mean, just take a look at this thing: it's made out of horns and claws and spikes and it just looks super pissed off all the time. Of course he wants to destroy you. Would you believe me if I told you it was a vegetarian? I know, that makes no sense whatsoever... but its totally true. Those delex it fishes out of the sand in its introductory video? It ain't gonna eat them. Totally pointless. Whatever. Just don't bother using tainted meat on this guy because it won't get you anywhere. Diablos likes to get pissed off and scream really really loud. There are actually two levels of monster roars in this game and if you want to use your EARPLUG SKILL on this guy you're gonna need the stronger one. But more importantly Diablos's roar is your best indication of when it is in rage mode (aside from how violent and fast he gets). See, when Diablos ISNT in rage mode (ie, right when you meet him, or when he moves to a new area and before he roars) then he is vulnerable to SONIC BOMBS right after he digs underground. And you really, really want to take advantage of this opportunity because bombing him gets him stuck in the ground for a good long time and it stops him from doing his dig attack. It's like a cheaper pitfall trap you can do 2 or 3 times in one battle. Actually, for this guy it really is just like a pitfall trap because he ignores it when enraged and when he does fall in his tail is underground. Okay, so Diablos likes to dig and go underground to attack you. Sometimes he digs slowly and you can wail on him. Sometimes he digs quickly and jumps up at you immediately. Sometimes when he's underground there will be a trail you can see for his movements. Usually he moves in a straight line but sometimes he turns around to attack you from behind (and sheilds don't sheild your behind). What I like to do when he dives (and is enraged and can't be bumped out) is to put my weapon away and run diagonally away from where he was. It's not the best strategy for being placed to attack him when he jumps up, but at least it keeps you safe. Diablos has a big tail with a lot of mass and spikes on it. If you are behind him he will probably try to pound you with it or swing it in two swipes. If you can get around this you have a good chance to attack him. Like a lot of monsters his back and face are tough but his belly and crotch and legs are squishy. Oh and that two step tail swing returns, except this time the tail is huge and deadly. Diablos has two huge horns on his face that you'll want to break off. Of course attacking them will leave you vulnerable to being attacked by them. Dia likes to just run you down with those things. He has this brutal move where he takes two big steps forward and swings his horns at you. This attack launches and has a large sideways range and his tail is swinging behind him too boot. And he has a headbutt/hipcheck thing. Yeesh. So yeah, this guy is an offensive machine. When you have to fight him in close quarters in areas 7 and 8 and 11 you are not going to like it. Out in the far desert and area 4 there is more room and you'll be able to make him run long distances and you'll have lots of time to get out of the way of his attacks. You should remember to bring cool drinks and meat to stay frosty out there. So other than that all I can tell you is to attack the squishy bits and use sonic bombs and maybe flash him. Oh, and seriously you should bring a trap and tranqs for when this guy goes to sleep in area 11 because you really do not want to fight this thing in that small cave. Oh yeah, here's something else you should know: Dia is weakest to ice weapons. If you don't have one and don't want to bother getting one then a water or lightning or dragon weapon will do just fine. ----------------------- 5-STAR QUEST - THE OMEN ----------------------- Hunt a Rathalos Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: flash bombs, antidotes Search for '904' to find my tips for fighting rathalos. I don't think he's very challenging though and if anything fighting him on the deserted island makes him easier to deal with: there's no need for cool drinks and the battlegrounds are nice and large and open. I guess just remember that he is weak to ice and lightning and dragon and water but not fire. -------------------------------------- 5-STAR QUEST - THE DECISIVE BATTLE -------------------------------------- Repel or Slay a Ceadeus Locale: Underwater Ruins Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: air philters, UW Ammo (from the Argosy Captain) This battle is just a long drawn-out pain. It takes forever and in the end the thing will probably just run away. Now if he does run away then the next time you come back it will be in area 3 and still damaged. You can get to area 3 quickly by taking the shortcut behind your camp (and if it turns out you went the wrong way well thats what that FARCASTER in the blue box is for). All that stuff I said above assumes that you will be able to actually get the ceadeus to area 3. All you have to do is attack it as it swims there, and it is a pretty big target. Yeah this quest is a pain. Make sure not to miss with that dragonator! As soon as its ready then lure Ceady over (call your sidekicks to you too). Try and float near the spikes and not near the button exactly so that Ceady goes to the right spot, and then swim up to the button and don't miss! Don't miss! What else can I say? ------------------------------ 5-STAR QUEST - URAGAAN'S TRAIL ------------------------------ Capture an Uragaan Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, traps, tranqs Well all of my tips for Ura combat are up above somewhere. This is not very different at all. Ura won't give you any trouble about letting you know when he's ready to be captured. He has a lot of hit points and defense and he's smart enough to limp off to area 6 when he needs to. Let him sleep and set up a trap and then throw tranqs at him. Yep. Nothin' to it. ----------------------------------------------- 5-STAR QUEST - DENIZEN OF THE MOLTEN DEEP [910] ----------------------------------------------- Hunt a Agnaktor Locale: Volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, sonic bombs, pitfall traps Agnaktor is a big uroktor. You've seen those little things around, right? They dive down into the molten rock and then jump out at you. Agnaktor does that too. Hmm... I think I'll call him Lasagna. That's kinda funny. Ha ha! He's over in Area 7 probably. He likes it there because in addition to diving into the ground he can jump up into the ceiling and attack you from there. What a pain. Usually when he's in the ground or ceiling you'll have ample warning of where he is going to strike. Heck, if he's not enraged then you can even sonic bomb him and get him stuck in the ground! However when he is enraged he attacks relentlessly and you could find yourself overwhelmed. He has this one diving attack where he just picks are target and jumps out at it repeatedly and this can really easily run you down if you don't run like a headless chicken. Also it causes tremors as he slides around under you so don't depend too much on a shield. As you probably figured out yourself, Lasagna is a fire monster and he has a lot of fire attacks so you want to be wearing fire resistant armor and bring a water or ice weapon. As for his fire attacks, well, he has a lot of them. The first is that peck he does with his beak whenever he tries to go into the ground. That does fire damage and sometimes he'll just peck at you 2 or 4 times moving forward a little each time. If you're far enough in front of his he'll just slowly click his beak and then shoot a fire beam straight ahead. And he has this other fire beam where he sits up in the ground and then shoots ahead, then a little bit to his right, and then he spins it around in a counter- cockwise circle. Well I'm not describing it well but you will know it when you see it. It's a 360 degree fire beam, okay? Put your weapon away and dive through it, or just be really close to him because this attack doesn't hit the area right around him and its a good chance to break his legs. Lasagna's whole body is covered in volcanic rock and this has strange elemental properties. Whenever he dives down into the lava or uses his fire attacks his armor becomes soft. If he just attacks you all regularly on land then his armor hardens up and your attacks will just bounce off him. You'll have to entice him to get down into the lava somehow. One easy way to do this is to lay a pitfall trap for him to fall into. Another thing you can do is stand really far away from him so that he'll use his firebeam attack (which softens up his chest and mouth at least). Also if you use a fire weapon you can soften up his armor yourself (but really, a fire weapon against lasagna? come on). Oh but if you ever break his armor then you can attack the broken spots at any time. Lasagna can be broken up pretty much everywhere if you try hard enough. Well maybe that is all of lasagna's special attacks or maybe not. Anyways otherwise he behaves kinda like lagi and luddy before him. He moves like a lagi and he has a few of those landlubbery attacks. He does that hipcheck that lagi does. He does that curl up tail spinning thing. He jumps at you and slides around and yeah he's like a more mobile lagi with fire attacks. So what can I say. Bring a pitfall trap and some sonic bombs and cool drinks. When he's in the lava don't stand on the edge because the edge of the volcanic ground does damage to you. When he's injured he'll run up to the top of the map to try and sleep but you can run up after him and hit up 4 or 5 great mining points on the way. ............................................ ******************************************** 10. 6-STAR QUESTS - VERY BIG MONSTERS [1000] ******************************************** ............................................ High rank! Woot! Let's get high up in here! High rank monsters are a lot like regular monsters. Most of the time you won't notice a difference outside of their having higher hitpoints and attack and defence. So it's like you're fighting the same monster except it will take longer and you'll be using more potions until you get tougher weapons and armor. Yeah, you're going to be going through the same content again to get stronger versions of things you already have. So it's not quite the same. Some of the monsters have some new attacks, kinda. What you're really going to be blown away by are the new MONSTER SUBSPECIES, like that Purple Ludroth from the urgent quest. Talk about your sinister switch ups. These things will be throwing all kinds of crazy remixes your way to keep things fresh while you desperately grind your way up to better gear. If you find yourself being overwhelmed at the level of damage coming your way then maybe you should be focussing on getting high-rank gear. The difference in the defence between high and low armor is so huge that it totally transcends whatever skills you have on your dopest lr gear. Get your hands on whatever is easiest to make: jaggi or wroggi armor or something like that. You should be able to scrounge up the parts for that without being overwhelmed. Don't just jump into the pink rathian fight without first working your way up through the ranks all over again. Get yourself some easy to get high-rank armor and start upgrading all of your weapons up to rare 3 or 4 (did you know that the rarity ranking of your weapons will clue you in to what you can expect to be upgrading in the near future?). Did you hear what I just said? I said you should totally ignore the key quests until you have killed a bunch of jaggis or wroggis and made them into armor! Yes, I am still listing them first, but seriously... ignore them and go kill those weak things instead! You have you work your way up! Moga Village has pretty much quieted down now. The flood of villager requests has pretty much receeded. And just to show you how messed up this is: now that you don't need a boatload of resource points for those requests, the woods are about to be filled with bunch of new monsters worth astronomical amounts of points! Yowza yowza! And now you can freehunt by day or by night, with night being the high-rank mode with all of the new monsters and new items to gather and that sort of fun stuff. Also it's darker out so it's scarier. You'll be getting your hands on some really nice rare commodities if you go out there at night, like 3 or 4 star stuff. You can get your hands on all sorts of nice stuff like new dances and masks and items and whatnot. Maybe you want to pick up those armor and power charms or whatever they are called? They claim that having them around makes you stronger and I guess you might as well believe them. One thing you really want to pick up is a shakalaka mask called the FALSE FELYNE which will turn one of your sidekicks into a powerful offensive weapon capable of staggering large monsters. The thing about that mask though is that you can ruin the attack and get yourself launched if you attack your companion: think of it as good training for multiplayer mode. It's about time you noobs learned to not attack your teammates and interrupt their attacks, and I can think of no better way of teaching you that lesson than by exploding you every time you screw up. And you can hang out in the Misty Peaks now. They aren't so interesting. Sure, some of the areas are pretty, but a lot of them are bland uninteresting areas with nothing especially unique to gather or mine or anything. Hmm. Add to that a bunch of vicious pink rathians and you have an altogether unpleasant spot that I still don't know the lay-out of because high-rank quests don't start you off with a map (or anything in the bluebox, which I'm sure I mentioned above but I'll just repeat myself anyways). Here's some other things you should know about high rank. You're going to want to keep your eye open for a DAILY SKILL in the restaurant called FELYNE EXPLORER. I don't know how often it shows up but try cooking double veggies to see if it's around. If you've unlocked the drinks category of food then you can get explorer by eating drinks and fish. But how do you get drinks on the menu? That's a mystery. Anyways the thing about this skill is that when you start quests with this skill you will start in an otherwise inaccessible secret area where you will have the opportunity to collect rare items. Don't forget your bug nets and pickaxes! The other, much more serious thing you need to know about high rank mode is that THE DEVIL might just show up while you are out there and he'll kill you dead for the lolz. Do yourself a favor and just run away. And hey, if you're not feeling up to high rank and you want to practice on those big low rank monsters for a bit, you can go talk to Neko (means 'cat') and head on over to port tanzia as you are now ready to take on the 2star port quests. There you'll get to fight slightly tougher versions of the 5star village mons. They're somewhere between the difficulty of high rank monsters and what they were in the 5star village quests. I'll leave the port stuff for you to find out and get back to my regularly scheduled coverage of the village quests. ------------------------------------ 6-STAR KEY QUEST - THE JAGGIA MENACE ------------------------------------ Slay 10 Jaggia Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: none Prepare to be humbled. Now that you are a high rank hunter you are no longer strong enough to fight large monsters and you'll have to settle for slaying defenceless jaggia. Well, that's not strickly true, and the game has a more sinister reason for making you engage in this small potato farming. Once you get up into area 6 you'll see a scene play out in which a great jaggi is 1hko'd by a much larger dinosaur known as THE DEVIL. In reality the devil can't kill gjaggis quite that fast, but he can probably kill hunters in low rank gear in 2 hits or so. You don't want to deal with him right now or in the near future. If you ever see this guy around just run away. If you have some moves you can paint him or dung bomb your target into another area, but still you want to just run away. He will rip you apart if you try to ignore him, and even if you are a tough number it still won't be worth your time to hunt him in the middle of another quest like this. Just run around the lower circuit of the deserted island until you rack up 10 jaggia kills. Take your time and gather some of the new high rank items you are now able to gather. --------------------------------------- 6-STAR KEY QUEST - BYE-BYE BLOOM [1001] --------------------------------------- Hunt a Crimson Qurupeco Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: sonic bombs, dung bombs, paintballs Did you read what I wrote above about not jumping right into the key quests for this tier until you've grinded on some weaker mons to make high rank armor? I hope you took my advice, or else you're about to find out what it's like to be beaten up by a qurupeco (spoiler: it feels shameful). Well, the real problem in this quest isn't the qurupeco per se, but rather that he calls in bigger monsters to help him out, and having to constantly chase quru away from ians or devils can really drag this quest out for a long long time. Bring along a lot of bombs and paint so you can keep this quest moving along even after devils start showing up every couple of minutes or so (and don't try to fight quru while there is a devil in the room... just don't). Crimson Qurupeco aren't so different from the regular variety. They're still weak to ice, for instance, so if you made a weapon out of barioth now is the time to use it. However, this quru is lightning based and also weak to fire weapons. He probably won't hit you with his lightning attack very often so don't go worrying about that... but make sure you don't go using lightning weapons on this guy in your ignorance. Yeah his only lightning attack is that 'flint' attack he does with his wings, you know, the one that used to be a fire attack on the old qurupeco? It's just as easy to avoid as before: you just have to change direction everytime quru does. If you do get hit, though, you won't be afflicted with the easy to extinguish fireblight, but rather with thunderblight, the awful condition that makes you more prone to being stunned. Drat. Maybe you should bring nulberries along if you think you can't avoid this attack easily every time. Crim has a new move where he smacks his flints together three times (or five times if they are damaged) to create a blinding flash of light. It's an obvious and slow enough move that you should have time to put your weapon away and dive your way through the attack and thus saving yourself from being stunned. The other thing that is different about Crim is that his roar is loud enough to stop you. It's not that significant a thing but it is different, I guess. Otherwise you can treat him like a regular qurupeco: you can sonic bomb him when he calls for help, you can knock him out of the air when he tries to fly around, and you can keep an eye open for when he lowers his head so you can bust open his pompous bill. The biggest danger in this fight is the devil showing up frequently enough that you use up all of your items trying to relocate the fight and in the process you get worn out and demoralized. The only way to prevent this is to come overprepared with lots and lots of items! So it turns out that Crim has another new move I am only newly aware of. He has a special song he does that puts you to sleep! That's certainly different. Unfortunately for Crim he's not good at taking advantage of this. He's about as likely to wake you up by taking flight and breezing on you as he is to put himself to sleep and spoon you. Crim's call can also put other large monsters to sleep. Oh, and here's the skinny on crimson qurupeco armor: it looks ridiculous (and that makes it awesome). In a tier or two you're going to go up against some tough lightning monsters with big lightning attacks so having some high-rank lightning resistant armor (like this crimson qurupeco armor) could be a huge help. Well, that's just my two cents. Did I mention how ridiculous it looks? Completing this quest will unlock crimson pecos in moga woods. Expect almost all of the monsters you defeat from here on out to do that. ------------------------------------------------- 6-STAR KEY QUEST - PINK QUEEN OF THE PEAKS [1002] ------------------------------------------------- Hunt a Pink Rathian Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: antidotes and herbal meds, mega potions, flash bombs Pink rathians are like regular rathians except that they can kill you with new secret ninja moves and like... machine guns and s**t. Don't fight pinkian until you've made some high rank armor. I'm totally serious about that. That's good advice. But the pinkian still has fire and poison attacks and pretty much all of the same moves. What makes her so much more deadly than regular old rathians? Well, I guess it's just that she's more aggressive. And she has two new moves that she is not shy about spamming. The first new move is an addition to her short and small bite attack. What bite attack? Let's just say that it was formerly of such a short range and small damage that it was beneath your notice except that it was an opportunity to hit her as she pathetically immobilized herself to extend her head to one side and bite at some air. But now this attack comes with a fiery explosion all in front of her, with significantly less warning than her old fire field attack. Yikes. I think she tends to bite to her left, but then again I thought her other new attack only went in one direction too and that turned out to be wishful thinking on my part, so I'm not to confident in that statement. Anyways just try not to be in front of her when he rears her head back and then steps forward for this attack. You're better off attacking her from the side to get at her legs and groin anyways. But you really really really really need to be careful about her next new attack because it is super deadly and has a huge range. Pinkian has this new poison tail spin move except this one doesn't just attack along her spinal axis but instead she flings her tail around her mostly attacking you off to whichever side she wants. This move is wild to look at and it has a huge range so if you see her winding up as if to take to the air then be super super quick about running away. When she's in the air though she does her old tail spin move, and she does it on the ground too on rare occasions. Yikes, unpredictable and deadly! So yeah, this new rathian is a monster and you should be wary about fighting it. I mean you should really put it off until you've done the rest of these 6star quests and made some killer armor. Some qurupeco or regular ian armor will be fireproof if you think you're going to be exploded a whole lot. Heck, you already know that this game is full of fiery monsters that are going to be regurgitated for you to fight again two tiers from now, so getting yourself fire-resistant armor now will be a good investment. Oh and by beating this monster you unlock pinkians in the moga woods. Make sure you check the forecast so you know if its safe to go out at night. ------------------------------------------ 6-STAR URGENT QUEST - SPLASH DAMAGE [1003] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a Plesioth Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: potions Compared to pinkian before it the plesioth is not very difficult at all. Sure it's big... but it also doesn't move around a lot in the water and it goes on land and stands around a lot too. He doesn't even have a lot of hitpoints either I don't think. Don't worry about Plesioth. Plesioth is weakest to fire so hopefully you've made a fire weapon by this point. You may want to wear some waterproof armor, like ludroth stuff or something, because plesi has this waterbeam attack that is pretty powerful and fast acting and goes through shields. When he's in the water this attack will shoot straight ahead so try not to dick around in front of him. On land he can fire forward or sweep the beam in front of him, either close up or far away. Sometimes when one of you is on land and the other is in the water he will take a shot at you. This isn't such a big deal but be aware anyways. Okay so let's start in the water since I think that's where Plesi is going to start. Yeah if you didn't know it Plesi is a fishy thing that hangs out in the watery areas of the deserted island... you know, like the luddy and lagi did. Now in the water the plesi is a big target and doesn't move as much as its fishy shape would suggest. Chalk that one up to lazy programmers. Anyways, when its not sitting still taking hits it will be swimming around doing those same underwater attacks you know and love. It can jump up out of the water and fall down on you. It spins around to whack you with its tail and it flips around to do the same thing. Plesi goes on land a lot for a fish and he is surprisingly tougher up there. When he gets on land you will notice that he is a very tall and long monster and that most of the time you'll only be able to attack his legs. He lowers his head to do his waterbeam but yeah otherwise it and the tail will be out of reach. Plesi's land moves are kind of ridiculous. He likes to run around like a... well nothing runs in quite such a horrifying spectacle as a Plesioth. He's trying to unnerve you so he can run you over. He also does that sliding move that the lagi liked to do on land. Plesi is infamous for his hip-check move and its strange dissociated hitbox. Basically what you need to know about hipchecks is that in addition to hitting you in the direction the monster is attacking, the hipcheck can also hit you if you are behind the monster (in the direction it is not attacking). That is just the way it is so you'd better just learn to deal with it. Keep you health up and stay clear of Plesi's sides... both of them. Now for the special plesi items. Plesi can be fished out of the water using sonic bombs and frogs somehow. Well that's just what I've heard. I've never got them to work and frankly I don't see the point in doing so because if anything Plesi is an easier target in the water. Just take your weapons to him and break his head and his back and his wing fin things. So beating this... thing... unlocks the seven-star quests. Kayamba will be talking about some 'ultimate mask' and there will be a villager request up to get you ready for the MOHRAN hunt. You'll also be happy to know that there are Plesioth in moga woods in case you want to farm them for commodities and the parts to make new water weapons. ----------------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: SANDY PLAINS ----------------------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: cool drink PawPass tickets show up in the bluebox after two minutes. Move one over to the red box to complete the quest and get some really bad quest rewards. You've been here before and you know the drill, right? I think gjaggi shows up on this quest. You can kill him if you want. ------------------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: FLOODED FOREST ------------------------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: PawPass tickets show up in the bluebox after two minutes. Move one over to the red box to complete the quest and get some really bad quest rewards. You've been here before and you know the drill, right? I think gwroggi shows up on this quest. You can kill him if you want. ---------------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: MISTY PEAKS ---------------------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: PawPass tickets show up in the bluebox after two minutes. Move one over to the red box to complete the quest and get some really bad quest rewards. You've been here before and you know the drill, right? I suppose a large monster could show up here, too. You can hunt it if you please. ------------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - THE MERCHANT'S MISSION ------------------------------------- Hunt a Rathian Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: flash bombs, antidotes, potions Get some high rank armor first. High rank ian can do a whopping ton of damage otherwise and you'll waste a lot of potions. Otherwise ian is exactly the same and if you need help I wrote out everything I know about ian up above somewhere. ----------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - CURRENT EVENTS ----------------------------- Hunt a Royal Ludroth Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: potions Well Luddy is still just a luddy so don't worry too much about him. Bring some potions along and make him into armor if you like wearing really ugly lifejacket parka things into battle. ----------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - HERD MENTALITY ----------------------------- Hunt a Great Jaggi and a Pink Rathian Locale: Deserted Island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: potions, antidotes, flash bombs It's wierd but true that fighting more than one large monster in a single quest actually makes them easier to fight. And the thing with Gjaggi is that it is such a pushover that it hardly counts as a large monster on its own. So this is basically another fight against the pinkian, except its easier because it takes place in a more familiar hunting ground. No more cramped spaces and getting lost for you! Oh and this is one of those 'hunt all the large monster' quests so that means instead of getting monster carves you get mega potions... so kill them if you need mega potions but trap them if you hope to get anything good out of this quest. --------------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - AVENGE THE FALLEN HUNTER --------------------------------------- Hunt a Barroth Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: potions, cleanser This is just another barroth quest. You can handle barroth, right? I sure hope so becaue soon you're going to be seeing barroth's head lurking in the ground in the moga woods. ----------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - DESERT WARFARE ----------------------------- Hunt a Rathian and a Barroth Locale: sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: traps and tranqs. cool drinks This is one of those 'hunt all the large monsters' quests and that means that the monsters will be weaker but instead of getting carves from them you'll be getting mega potions from their corpses. How does that work exactly? Well it involves a large guild conspiracy to replace all of the monsters with hollow clones for the purposes of making you question the purity of the drugs you are taking. Do yourself a favor and capture these monsters since you won't be getting carves anyways. --------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - TOXIC TROUBLEMAKER --------------------------------- Hunt a Great Wroggi Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: Yeah this quest is not tough at all. It's pretty much exactly the same as the low rank version, except by now you probably have better weapons. Make this one of your earlier high rank quests since its so much easier. It also unlocks moga gwroggi. ------------------------------ 6-STAR QUEST - HAIR OF THE DOG ------------------------------ Deliver 5 Slagtoth Oil Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: Slagtoths are those ugly green cows that show up sometimes in the flooded forest. They are easy to kill and the account item you are looking for shows up occasionally. Deliver 5 of these things to the red box when you have them. If pinkian shows up then throw a paintball at it and avoid it. There are plenty of slagtoth around so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. One thing you'll be happy to know is that this quest rewards you with a whole bunch of charms. ------------------------------ 6-STAR QUEST - DOUBLE JEOPARDY ------------------------------ Hunt 2 Arzuros Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: Dung bombs Arzuros still aren't tough, but in this quest they'll be working together to tag-team you. They'll to tough to keep separate and they can do a lot of damage so you may be in for a tough (but short) fight. So yeah, dung bombs and high rank armor might help. Beating these two unlocks arzuros in the moga woods. ------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - FIELD TRIP ------------------------- Hunt a Great Jaggi Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 2/10 Recommended items: potions It's a great jaggi. The misty peaks just makes it harder to find. ---------------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - BULLY THE BULLFANGO ---------------------------------- Slay 15 Bullfango Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: The bullfango are everywhere and they are not very tough. Run around and hunt them down. Pinkian and purple ludroth might show up but just ignore them. ----------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - UNDER THE YOLK ----------------------------- Deliver 3 Gargwa Eggs Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: Gargwa eggs come out of those wierd ostrich things in the first area of misty peaks. Anyways you have to scare them to make them drop their eggs. I like to kick them. Completing this quest gives cha-cha another new mask idea. --------------------------- 6-STAR QUEST - SIREN'S SONG --------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: sonic bombs, dung bombs This is a wierd quest that I don't get. You have to kill Qurupecos to get a pawpass ticket. You have to kill 2 Qurupecos to unlock the ticket. There is also a rathian around to make things difficult. When you kill the first Quru you will get a notice that there are '4 monsters left'. Kill another and you'll be told that there are '3 monsters left'. I have made no efforts to get any further than this. Does it mean that there are two more Qurus to kill and one rathian? Or is it three more qurus to kill and the rathian doesn't figure in? Again, I don't know. Yes, I know you guys count on me to provide you with everything you need to know about this game.... but I don't care. If you want to get to the bottom of this then feel free but I suggest that you come back to this much later when you have a much better weapon (ice, I suppose) that can dispatch these qurupecos in under ten minutes each. .................................................. ************************************************** 11. 7-STAR QUESTS - INCREDIBLY BIG MONSTERS [1100] ************************************************** .................................................. Now that you've gotten used to the increased challenge of high-rank mode, the next tier of quests shouldn't pose any problems for you. It's a straightfoward progression or levelling off after the difficulty spikes of the last tier. Basically this tier will take you to the tundra and make you fight high-rank versions of all of those monsters (except the barioth). Just bring your high rank gear and some hot drinks and you'll be fine. You did remember that you are responsible for bringing hot drinks and meat now, right? There are one or two new subspecies for you to encounter but they shouldn't give you much trouble. The big new battle in this tier is the JHEN MOHRAN hunt. It's very different from other battles and you'll have to unlock it through a villager request. Beating it is going to involve being pretty much perfect with your application of the DRAGONSHIP DEFENCES and having a much better weapon than you will probably have at this stage. Unless you like spending a half hour in a vain struggle for no reward I would suggest that you save this quest for later, like a tier or two later. I have no idea why this is a 7star quest. Speaking of weapons, right about now you should be upgrading up to rare 4 and 5 weapons. If you're using a blade then try to start getting some with BLUE SHARPNESS. For whatever reason such sharpness is not actually required to hit monsters at this point, but you might as well get it anyways. And like I said this tier takes place mostly in the tundra so that means you'll be fighting monsters who are weak to fire and that means that you should bring an up-to-date fire weapon. Unfortunately it doesn't look like qurupeco parts are going to cut it to get a better fire weapon at this point and instead you're going to need parts from the rathalos at the end of this tier. Aww. Sucks, I know. But then again, looking at the key quests for this tier we have a volvidon quest, a baleful gigginox, and a jade barroth. Of those 3 monsters only one is actually weak to fire, and the other two can be handled with water weapons (and there are new powerful water weapons that can be made out of your last urgent monster: the plesioth). So it is totally possible that you could make a water weapon out of plesioth and use it to power through this tier, defeat the urgent Rathalos at the end, make him into a new fire weapon, and then use that to come back and steamroll your way over the rest of this tier. Yep: that's my advice. The only other thing I would add is that you should also make a better lightning weapon (out of crim and baleful gigginox) to take down jade barroth and rathalos. That should cover the element spread for this tier. Now on to my armor advice. Well I don't think you need anything specific. As long as you're wearing high rank armor of any kind and upgrading its defence through the forge and the high rank armor spheres available in the tundra than you should be fine. Having some poison-proof armor will certainly make your dealings with noxi much easier (and there are A LOT of noxi fights in this tier for some reason). Just pick whatever you like best. One last thing you should know is that the 6star village quests roughly correspond to the 3star port quests. I say roughly because at the end of the 3star port quests is an urgent quest against a monster that doesn't show up for two more tiers in the village: brachydios. If you're progressing through the village and port together then it is entirely possible that you'll be having your first fight against brachy out in tanzia. And don't worry too much about that because he's an entirely new monster so it's kind of new for everyone. He's pretty aggressive though and he has a new status/element you should be afraid of. But if you come overprepared with 5 cool drinks, 10 potions, 10 mega potions, lifepowders, ancient and max potions, etc., you should manage to squeak through. Oh, and you can roll to get slime off of you, like fireblight. ---------------------------- 7-STAR KEY QUEST - ROCKSLIDE ---------------------------- Hunt 2 Volvidon Locale: Sandy Plains (N) Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: dung bombs, deodorant, hot drinks Ugh. Volvidon are annoying one at a time. Fighting them together is just a recipe for being afflicted and then jumped on from out of nowhere. Bring dung bombs along so you can deal with these guys seperately, and bring deodorant along so you don't lose access to your items (IE... those dung bombs you need). Apparantely deodorants can be made out of bomb casings and bitterbugs and you should have some of them in your item box. If you get caught in a situation where you are soiled and have no deodorant and there are two volvidon ganging up on you then you're going to have a bad time. ---------------------------------------- 7-STAR KEY QUEST - SNOWBALL FIGHT [1101] ---------------------------------------- Hunt a Jade Barroth Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, cleanser Jade isn't too different from her muddy brother. She uses pretty much all of the same moves you're already familiar with. She throws snowballs ahead of her pretty often though, and her charge move can change direction (thereby coming barroth's greatest exploitable weakness). These two new attacks are hard to dodge and you'll probably be swept up in them a bit, but the upside is that Jade doesn't have a lot of hitpoints or really powerful ice attacks so you should be able to bring her down even with a weak fire or lightning weapon. First things first are those snowballs. She likes to smash her head to the ground and bring these things up, and she likes to launch them forward at you in threes. They're easy enough to avoid once you know the directions they're going to go, but until then bring yourself some cleanser. You don't want to be a slow moving snowball when jade starts charging around in all kinds of directions. You want to be able to block or dodge out of the way of something crazy like that. Well the new charge isn't so crazy I guess. It's kind of like the roll uragaan does where it gets all screwy... except jade doesn't change direction quite as fast. Yeah she has a pretty wide turning radius and that translates into time to turn your guard around. Oh and here's something interesting... and secret. When jade limps out of the fight she'll move down towards area 1 and then head towards that pile of branches and crap on the far side of the area, you know, that spot that once you realized was empty and pointless and you never looked at again. Anyways, if you leave jade alone, or if you lure her into attacking in that direction, she will demolish the wall of the area and open up a path to two secret areas. You can follow her over there and kill her but mostly you want to get here to gather some rare dragonbone relics and whatnots. Do yourself a favor when jade starts limping by letting her open up the secret areas before you kill her. ---------------------------------------------- 7-STAR KEY QUEST - SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT [1102] ---------------------------------------------- Hunt a Baleful Gigginox Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, nulberries If anyone has suggestions for a cute nickname for baleful gigginox please email me at [email protected] Baleful gigginox trades in poison attacks for electric attacks and she does it with mad abandon. I hope you have some lightning resistant armor or at least ate a meal that made you lightning resistant because she has a lot of these attacks and they have annoying ways of getting to you. Bring nulberries along because thunderblight is the pits. Baleful gigginox is much more colorful than her pale counterpart. She is also much more deadly so she doesn't need to be camoflaged. She is bright yellow under normal circumstances but when she is enraged she is very very red. And when she is enraged her tail is soft and vulnerable and her head is hard, while normally her head is soft and her tail is hard. That's a useful thing to know. I think that applies to regular noxi too but its the sort of thing I only noticed when I got to this fight. Her most effective electric attack is to poop out a yellow mound of... yellow something... that will explode after a few seconds. This attack has a larger area than noxis poison pile did and it can paralyze you and leave you super vulnerable to being attacked. Blech. If you have some armor or charms to protect yourself from being paralyzed then this is the place to use them. Otherwise if you see baleful gigginox doing this move you may want to get away from her rear end even if she is in rage mode and her tail is her weakpoint. Oh and be super careful of this lame move that gigginox does after deploying this thing where she does two pivots and if you are between her head and arms she can move into into the blast radius. If you don't want to be hit by this thing then just get out of the dang way. Oh and sometimes the baleful gigginox excretes this pile onto its back and then it will carry it around until you break it or it explodes and destroys you. I've only ever seen this in g-ranked baleful gigginoxes but hey for all I know the high baleful gigginoxes do this too. Oh and she also shoots out electricity that splits into three paths and this can paralyze you, too. Oh and remember that move where noxi would brace herself and then squirt poison clouds out from under her? Baleful gigginox does that too but with an electrical field and its a little bigger than noxi's poison one and this attack really stings so steer clear. Baleful gigginox has this other thing she does where she gets all charged up and lunges at you and paralyes you and eats you. Yikes. Try not to let her get you into this position. Like noxi the baleful gigginox likes to hang out on the ceiling and this can drag out the fight interminably. And there's not too much you can do about that (if you are a blademaster). My advice you would be to turn your back on her and let her think she's getting the drop on you. If she thinks she can squash you, she'll come down in a heartbeat (you should move out of the way once she's committed to jumping down at you). ------------------------------------ 7-STAR URGENT QUEST - MASKED ROBBERY ------------------------------------ Hunt 1 Rathalos Locale: Deserted Island. Steve's Difficulty Rating: 5/10 Recommended items: Antidotes, potions, flash bombs. This rathalos is exactly like every other rathalos you've fought: it has a poison attack, it stays in the air a lot and needs to be flash bombed, and it likes to fly over your traps and make fun of your feeble attempts at ensnarement. The only thing different about this quest is that you are required to bring your sidekicks along because they have some beef with this guy sorta. In addition to unlocking the 8star quests, completing this quest will also get you a really ugly UNFORTUNATE MASK for kayamba. This mask is totally useless and the process of upgrading it will be serving as the plot for the next couple of tiers. It's a very thin plot. ----------------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: TUNDRA ----------------------------------- Deliver a Paw Pass Ticket Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: hot drinks Gbaggi or lagombi could show up. Whoopdidoo. Anyways you know the harvest tour drill. Bring a hot drink and get yourself some gracium and rare scarabs or whatever it is you're after. --------------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - SCENE OF THE CRIME --------------------------------- Hunt a Gobul Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: frog, sonic bombs Luddy can show up. Otherwise this is another gobul fight. Fish him out of area 4 with a frog so you can fight him on land. Don't get paralyzed. Don't fall for his attempts to jump out at you from underground. -------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - ON THIN ICE -------------------------- Hunt 2 Lagombi Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 4/10 Recommended items: dung bombs, hot drinks Lagombi are pushovers. They're small and weak. Two of them together might be a problem because they can hurl themselves across an area at a high speed. Do yourself a favor and dung bomb them to keep them apart. ------------------------------------ 7-STAR QUEST - LEADER OF THE ICEPACK ------------------------------------ Hunt a Great Baggi Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Recommended items: hot drinks Gbaggi are total losers. Make sure you clear out the little baggis so they don't put you to sleep so the gbaggi can smack you. On the other hand, if the gbaggi puts you to sleep then you have a few seconds to wander around and getting attacked by one of the small baggis is preferable over being attacked by the big one. ----------------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - RESEARCH ASSISSTANCE ----------------------------------- Hunt a gigginox and a baleful giggnox Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: antidotes, hot drinks, dung bombs When you fight multiple monsters they will be weaker versions so the fight should be easier. But bring extra pots in case this thing drags on. ------------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - DESIGNER ANTLERS ------------------------------- Deliver 5 antelka antlers Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: hot drink Lagombi shows up... no biggie. You're here to get antlers from 'antelka' or some such thing. They're like kelbi but a little more aggressive. Just knock them out until you have 5 antlers. ---------------------------- 7-STAR QUEST - TOXIC AVENGER ---------------------------- Hunt 3 Gigginox Locale: Flooded Forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, antidotes Another gigginox quest. This tier is surfeited with them. I don't know why. If you like inflicting status effects on monsters than I guess you should take advantage of all of these noxis to make noxi armor and weapons. Oh, did I ever mention that high rank noxi has stronger poison that does much more damage than regular poison? If I didn't, I am now. Noxi has pink poison now and that stuff will eat away at you super fast. Bring pots and antidotes. ------------------------------ 7-STAR QUEST - THE WRITE STUFF ------------------------------ Hunt a Jade Barroth and a Gigginox Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, antidotes Take out one or the other first. And hey, maybe you should save this quest until after you've beaten the rathalos and upgraded your fire weapon. ------------------------------------------------ 7-STAR QUEST - RUMBLE IN THE GREAT DESERT [1103] ------------------------------------------------ Slay or repel Jhen Mohran Locale: Great Desert Steve's Difficulty Rating: 9/10 Recommended items: potions. the special items you need are in the bluebox. Like I said above, this quest is unique from all others in this game and it is of a difficulty far above the rest of the 7star quests and your current power so you should put this off until later. Much later. Don't do it! In Monster Hunter Tri this quest was online only and that meant you had four people around to damage this thing and believe me when I say that the monster has not been properly scaled down so that one person can hope to defeat it at this point in the game. This quest has to be unlocked through a villager request. The parts you need are not hard to come by. Don't worry about it. Anyways this quest is not needed to progress in this game until you get to the final two quests so you can put it off until then. This quest has a couple of new ways to bring about your failure. For one thing the quest is only 30 minutes and if you don't inflict enough damage in that time then Jhenny will bug out and you will be a loser. There is also this thing called the DRAGONSHIP you need for this quest and if Jhen destroys it then you will fail. And believe me: this ship will take a beating over the course of the battle. The ship has a couple of DEFENCES that need to be employed practically perfectly in order to protect it (and to damage jhen enough to slay or repel it). Even if you use these things effectively the fact is that your small damage output may not be enough to stagger the massive jhen enough to keep it from wrecking your vessel. The dragonship's INTEGRITY is listed in your quest info. When it goes from 'Low' to 'Warning' to 'Danger' to 'The Dragonship was Destroyed, Quest Failed' then you are in trouble. Let's familiarize ourselves with the dragonship defences. No, let's start with what is in the bluebox because some of that stuff is used in defence. There are some ammo-like things in there you should not ignore. Some of them are ballista ammo that you will be using to shoot jhenny when she is otherwise too far away to attack. You can pick up more of this ammo up on deck from between the stairs to the front (or bow). Also in this box are some different bombs. The EZ bombs can be used on the ship or on the desert ground. The anti-dragon bombs can only be used on Jhenny's back. Make sure you use all of them. Finally we have the gold ammo thing that is known as the BALLISTA BINDER. This is a special ammo that stops Jhen in her tracks during some of her attacks. Like the other defences it has a period between uses during which it cannot be used so you have to be careful to use these things at the right times. The next dragonship defence is a circle pad thing on the centre of the deck known as the HUNTING GONG. It takes a bit of time to activate and it has a long refractory period. Anyways the most important thing you need to know about the gong is that you MUST NOT HIT IT ACCIDENTALLY OR AT THE WRONG TIMES because it is the only way to prevent jhenny from bellyflopping your ship for massive damage. Don't waste this thing. If you see Jhenny draw up on the side of the ship and draw her belly up then be quick about ringing this gong. I guess you can use it early in the quest because you don't actually need it for a while. Anyways later in the fight this gong is going to be your best method for getting Jhen to back away from the ship and maybe even knock her over. Don't waste this opportunity or else Jhen will just repeatedly smash up your ship until it breaks! Finally we have the most important and powerful dragonship weapon/defence: the dragonator. Cool name, right? It's essentially similar to the dragonator you used to kill ceadeus. This is a forward facing weapon (for the first phase of the fight) that does massive damage and can prevent the dragonship from taking massive damage. It needs to be used during a very specific part of the fight and if you use it at another time or screw up the timing of using it then you might as well just give up because you need to hit Jhenny with this thing to kill her. In the next phase of the fight the dragonator will be turned jhen-ward and it will eventually be made available for a second strike that will either be the killing blow or else make it possible. Besides the key defences the dragonship has two other weapons for you to use to damage Jhen when she is out of the range of your weapon (and perhaps they are stronger than your wee weapon). There are BALLISTAS (which you should already be familiar with from the ceadeus fight) that aim out over either side of the deck and you can gather ammo for these things from between the steps up to the foredeck. These weapons should be directed towards Jhen's tusks and then her legs and then just aimed at her face and belly. You can zoom with this weapon using the R trigger or something else just fiddle with it. At the stern end of the ship you can pick up CANNONBALLS that can be loaded into nearby CANNONS to damage jhenny through its massive hide. These cannonballs don't have as great a range as the ballistas, and if you are attacked while you are carrying one it is liable to explode and damage you. Both of these things have limited ammo. I think ammo comes back for a little bit in the second phase but eventually you'll have to get your hands dirty. Your best bet for completing this quest is to get a FELYNE skill called BOMBARDIER which pumps up your ballista and cannonball damage output. As you may have gathered from the preceding paragraphs: this fight has two 'phases'. During the first phase jhen is on the move and your dragonship is drawn up beside it and you'll only be able to attack from the dragonship deck or you can hop on jhenny's back and attack her there. In the second phase the ship is still and jhen slowly walks towards it and you are able to run out on the desert and attack her from the ground. This fight is already sounding very different from the other fights, right? Well there is one more most important difference between this fight and all of the others. This fight is actually very SCRIPTED. The other monsters all had their own repertoires of attacks available to them but they were able to use them in whatever order they liked and at any moment they could do one thing or any other thing. Jhen is different. The Jhenny fight progresses along a set pattern that repeats itself every time you do the quest. Therefore you can perdict when Jhen is about to perform her attacks and it is all up to you to take advantage of that knowledge to attack and/or defend yourself when the need arises. But don't get to thinking that this fight is ABSOLUTELY scripted. Jhen still has room for minor variations within the overall pattern... like small flourishes or riffs on an otherwise structured piece of music. Things are usually more subtle than simple binary oppositions like scripted-unscripted. Open your mind, man. Here is the broad overview of the battle. You begin inside the dragonship next to the bluebox. This is a safe area that you return to if you ever fall into the desert. You will grab your ammo and binder and bombs from the box and go up to the deck. Jhen will appear off of the starboard side of the ship. That's the right side. It will be far away at first and you can only hit it with the ballista so long as it doesn't hit you with rocks. Roll out of the area of the ballista and the ammo when rocks are flying around. Soon enough it will be close enough to cannonball it. It will start ramming the ship and it would be a good idea to bind it early because you don't need the binder for a little while. A little later it will be right next to the ship and a red indictor will appear to tell you that you can leap over onto Jhenny's back. Here you have the chance to attack two visible weak points on jhen's back. Either use your anti-dragon bombs here or else take them up to the tusks. Eventually jhen will shake you off its back and you will take damage and return to the below-decks. Jhen will then move to the other side of the ship and come up for a head on attack. You will either have to bind or gong her depending on how she chooses to attack. Probably bind. You can bind her at the start of the fight and have the binder again for this. Jhen's head will now be looming over the boat and you will be able to directly attack her tusks. Before you break them you will be able to jump on them to get to her back and finish off her back. After this stage jhen will move ahead of the ship and then turn back for her most massive attack. This is when you have to hit her with the dragonator in a make-or-break attack. Head on up to the foredeck and position yourself over the dragonator and watch as jhen jumps up and into the sand and barrels towards you. The timing of your attack is critical. If you miss, or even if you hit at the wrong time, the dragonship will be sad. You want to press A when jhen comes up for the second time. Try to be a little early over a little late. If you screw this up then just give up and start the quest over again (or put it off for two tiers). Then jhen will draw up beside you again and this part is just a repeat except you be low on ammo. When she is right next to your ship you can attack her forelegs with your weapon. Jhen will jump over to the other side and may try for a bellyflop that you will need to hunting gong away. And if all goes well you will be told that you are going into the second phase of the fight. When that starts, gather up some ballista ammo and shoot at it for a while because jhen is going to take a while to waddle into the area you can attack it in. When she is closer then you want to use your binder and gong to stop her attacks and keep her away from your ship. When they are unavailable then you want to run out into the desert and hack away at her legs until they break, and then keep doing it. When jhen gets close to the dragonship then you want to run back to the ship and use the dragonship defences to counter her attacks on the ship and push her back a bit. Save gongs for bellyflops. Use the dragonator when it is available. Use the binder when you can. Cannonballs are available and powerful too. And if everything goes perfectly and the the dragonship doesn't buckle and jhen takes enough damage, she will run away, or even better she might keel over and you will be able to carve her up. You can carve her body and again at her mouth so try to be quick and carve both of those areas. Oh... did I ever mention which elements you should be using against Jhenny? No? Well you should be using ice/dragon. Her biggest weakpoint is in her mouth and after that it is those things on her back. And fire is the worst element to use against her. Yup. You're welcome. Killing jhen gets you another mask idea from cha-cha. Hooray. .................................................... **************************************************** 12. 8-STAR QUESTS - RIDICULOUSLY BIG MONSTERS [1200] **************************************************** .................................................... So you defeated rathalos and barroth and gigginox and volvidon, did you? Well congratulations! You are now qualified to fight high rank versions of all of the monsters you fought in low-rank mode (and one and two new ones). There is not much to say about this tier. It has a nice variety of monsters and it allows you to go to the high-rank version of the volcano. But really there is nothing fundamentally new here. There is hardly any plot left anymore and not too many villager requests to fulfill. You'll beat up monsters you've beat up before and you will be able to hunt them again in the woods afterwards. Your weapons and armor will probably get a slightly better as you get access to slightly better materials. You will probably want blue sharpness by this point. I know I upgraded my weapons to blue by now so I can't say authoritatively that green weapons bounce because I always keep my weapons sharp. Let's talk about the new monsters because that's what's interesting, right? You unlock the brachydios by talking to the argosy captain so you may have to wait a few in-game days for him to be around and set this quest up for you. And all I can tell you about the fight beforehand is that brachydios has a quality that is unique to him that is not quite an element and not quite a status effect and there is no armor with a resistance to it so you'll be going into this fight in a very very vulnerable state. Good luck. The other new monster is a more standard fare but he is dangerous in that he can get enraged and power up all of his attacks with electricity. I hope you have some lightning-proof armor (maybe this is why the last tier was full of gigginoxes...). ---------------------------------------- 8-STAR KEY QUEST - THE FISHERMAN'S FIEND ---------------------------------------- Hunt a lagicrus Locale: deserted island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: Lagiacrus is not that tough once you are used to him. He's a lightning monster who hardly ever uses lightning attacks. Use your high rathalos fire weapon and have your way with him. --------------------------------------------- 8-STAR KEY QUEST - DENIZEN OF THE MOLTEN DEEP --------------------------------------------- Hunt an agnaktor Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, sonic bombs, pitfall traps Hopefully you took the time to hunt a low rank agnaktor when it wasn't mandatory so you are prepared to fight a slightly tougher version. Actually when i fought him this time he had this new move where he was doing his fire beam and he tilts his head back and then like loses control of it and the fire beam fans in front of it. Maybe the low rank version does this too but I never saw him do that. It's not that big a deal though. -------------------------------------- 8-STAR KEY QUEST - THE MOVING MOUNTAIN -------------------------------------- Hunt a duramboros Locale: misty peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: Duramboros is not nearly as tough as he was the first time around. This time you have two helpers with you and you have stronger weapons. Fire or poison will do the trick. ---------------------------------------------------- 8-STAR KEY QUEST - 'BRACHYDIOS' MEANS TROUBLE [1201] ---------------------------------------------------- Hunt a brachydios Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cool drinks I don't like how brachy looks. He looks fake. I get that he is some kind of plastic mould monster, but I think his whole aesthetic clashed violently with the natural atmosphere of this game. All of the other monsters look like things that could live in these environments but brachy just looks like a toy. And his armor has that same plastic look that just looks totally different from everything else and just doesn't seem to belong. My next problem with brachy is his unique element/status: slime attacks. Slime doesn't fit into the established types. You can't call it an element or a status. That's bad enough, but what's worst about it is that slime weapons are overpowered compared to everything else. It makes all of the elements and statuses worthless and robs this game of the diverity of approach and freedom of character customization it used to enjoy. I don't use slime weapons out of principle and I regard anyone who does use them as noobs who need to play this game on 'easy mode'. Moving on -> Your first encounter with brachy will be in area 7 of the volcano. You will notice that his fists are very large and distinctively colored. He is going to be punching you with those things a lot. He also has a tail with a large weapon on the end, and a horn with special attacks. Later on you will notice that when he gets into a rage that he glows green/yellow with slime. Let's start with the slime. His punch attacks tend to coat you with the stuff. If it stays on you for long enough it will explode. You don't want to explode. You can roll a few times to cure yourself of the condition (like with fireblight). Sometimes brachy punches the ground as part of his attack or his movement. This leaves a little slime bomb on the ground. As it changes color from green to red it is counting down to a little burst that can harm you if you are close. Slime can also be detonated by attacks, fire, bombs, roars, and other thingies. Be wary. Like I said before, slime isn't a real element so you can't get slimeproof armor except through skills which are not applicable elsewhere so why even bother. Brachydios spins and moves a lot. He has this forward jump that can hit hard. Sometimes he just runs around punching the ground. He also does that two step tail spin. You'll probably want to attack him from the sides or from behind so he can't punch you. When he goes into rage mode his horn will glow and his head gets harder. He has these special attacks where he sticks his head into the ground and causes explosions. He can cause an area explosion that hits all around him (including behind). If he looks like he is aiming ahead of him then he is doing an attack that creates a cloumn of explosions ahead of him. These things can explode slime spots too so they are of varying range and danger. You can break off his tail anvil thing, and break his horn and his arms. He'll still slime you, though. Oh, and I think he's weak to water. After this fight you'll be able to fight brachy in Moga Woods but that place is getting kind of crowded don't you think? --------------------------------------------- 8-STAR URGENT QUEST - HOWL AT THE MOON [1202] --------------------------------------------- Hunt a zinogre Locale: misty peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: When the 8star keys are done then you'll be told that the Unfortunate Mask is 'reacting' and the chief will give you some info on the Zinogre, your next foe. You must have Kayamba and the Unfortunate Mask for this because it says so. I wonder what happens if you don't? Does the Guild Sweetheart say something silly? I'll never know. The Zinogre will henceforth be called Ziggy and he is weak to ice and then water. When you find him in area 7 you will see how he can howl and transform himself into an electrified demon. Usually he will begin in a relatively harmless state but for this first quest he will start out enraged and deadly and that's just too bad for you. I hope you figured out ahead of thime that he makes his attacks more deadly in rage mdoe by adding electricity to all of them and you came prepared to survive shocks and thunderblight. Normally Ziggy is a green and yellow wold and he is kind of a joke. He is lazy and his attacks are prone to missing. When he stands still and howls he can draw energy to himself and power up. He does through a couple of power stages. Sometimes he glows and sometimes bolts zap around him and his fur stands up. Finally he just goes full-out and becomes a huge aggressive dynamo. You can interupt his powering up if you attack him enough while he does it. You won't be able to stop him everytime though, and when he makes the leap to his ultimate form he will let loose a burst of electric energy all around him (but not at the end of his tail). Funny story: an unpowered or half-powered Ziggy can draw electricty from shocktraps to power himself up and shock you. A fully powered ziggy just breaks them. Don't use shock traps except to hold him long enough for a capture. Ziggy is fast and aggressive and can change direction quickly. One of his signature moves is this backflip he does to smack you with his tail if you are behind him. He also runs and lunges and shoulderchecks and so on and so on. He has this two or three step claw attack that SEEMS slow but actually he is just faking being done so you'll stop running away and he can hit you. Don't stop running until you are sure that he's done. And he has this wild jump attack that can catch you as he spins going up or when he comes crashing down. And all of these attacks are electrified when he's mad. Ziggy has this wierd electric attack where he plants himself on the ground and pivots to shoot balls of light out at you. He shoots one set of two balls or two sets of two if he is angry. These things fly forward and curve to make them hard to avoid. They are hardly deadly though and when he is planted for this move you are completely safe if you are next to him and wailing on him. His other lightning attack is much rarer and he needs to be powered up for it. He stands still and summons lightning strikes all around him. You can see spots on the ground where he will call in bolts. This attack is big so just stay clear. When you complete this quest Kayamba will tell you that his mask is not yet empowered and junior will tell you that there are zinogre in the woods. But there's some good news though: the 9star quests are unlocked! Well, a couple of them are. ------------------------------------ 8-STAR QUEST - HARVEST TOUR: VOLCANO ------------------------------------ Deliver a paw pass ticket Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, pickaxes Now you can go to the high rank volcano! Yay! Did you know that you CAN'T use felyne explorer to get to secret areas during harvest tours? That's a real shame, especially since this is one secret area you really want to get to so you can get your hands on rustshards and whatnot. Well high rank rustshards aren't amazing yet but you'll get some better ones once you go to Tanzia and go on some g-rank quests. ------------------------------ 8-STAR QUEST - TROUBLED WATERS ------------------------------ Hunt a lagiacrus and a plesioth Locale: deserted island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: nulberries, dung bombs Well I wouldn't want to fight both of these things at the same time, but otherwise this should be kind of straightforward. I think you can even find them pretty far inland anyways. -------------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - THE HORNED WYVERN -------------------------------- Hunt a Diablos Locale: sandy plains (N) Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, sonic bombs Diablos is a tough cookie, as I'm sure you already know. ---------------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - THE DESERT GOURMAND ---------------------------------- Hunt a nibelsnarf Locale: sandy plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: barrel bombs Nibelsnarf is the same as ever. A lot of these guys are the same as before except with more hitpoints and attack power. Hopefully you have better defence. ---------------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - THE LOST EXPEDITION ---------------------------------- Hunt a barioth Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, cleanser This is a barioth quest. check out my info on barioth from earlier in this walkthrough. --------------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - THE VOLCANO'S FURY --------------------------------- Hunt an uragaan Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cool drinks All of these fights are old-hat now. If a volvidon shows up then just shoo it away. ------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - TWIN PEAKS ------------------------- Hunt 2 duramboros Locale: misty peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: dung bombs Whoa, two!?! Actually, they're not that big of a deal. Multiple monsters mean smaller hitpoints. Bring some poison weapons because those things can just slice through duras without incident. ------------------------------- 8-STAR QUEST - THE ENDLESS HUNT ------------------------------- Hunt a gobul, a great wroggi, and a lagiacrus Locale: flooded forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: antidotes, frog So this is a 'canteen' quest which I have recently been made aware means that completing it will upgrade one of your restaurant food choices so you should totally do it. The monsters appear in the order listed so you can run up to area 4 and fish gobul out of the water and utterly destroy it with haste because its a low hit point gobul. Then go kill the wroggi even faster. Finally hop in the water and find lagiacrus and hopefully he falls just as fast. I think you'll want a fire weapon for this one. ------------------------------ 8-STAR QUEST - CLOBBERIN' TIME ------------------------------ Hunt an agnaktor, a volvidon, and a rathalos Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, deodorant These guys have low hp and they appear in the order listed. Bring a water weapon I guess and take down that agnaktor super fast. Volvidon is a weak guy and shouldn't take very long. Rathalos could be a big time waster so paint him so he doesn't lead you on a drawn out wild goose chase. When I did this quest they appeared in areas 7,5, and 3. ............................................... *********************************************** 13. 9-STAR QUESTS - THE BIGGEST MONSTERS [1300] *********************************************** ............................................... This section could take me a while to write. I looked into how many new monsters are introduced in this tier... and it is a lot of them. Like... more than five... and that's the biggest number I know. It's like tier 5 all over again. I have no idea why capcom decided to split up the tiers in such a way that you have to fight a bunch of old monsters for 3 tiers in a row and then you get to tier like this that is just new monster after new monster. It's ridiculous and it's going to take me forever to write about all of these guys. Augh. The first and most important thing you need to know about this tier, the final tier, is that if you want to get to the final two quests (Mark of the Hero and the Alatreon fight) then you are going to have to complete EVERY QUEST that comes before them. That's right, you can't fight alatreon until you've gone back and fished a bunch of goldenfish and captured a great jaggi and slayed some altaroth and captured some uragaan and gathered some gargwa eggs and hunted dozens of gigginox and so on and so on. Ugh. What a drag. Completionists will be pleased though. *** Pro-tip: If you do have to go back and fight a bunch of boring easy quests, try using an all-new weapon type. This is a good opportunity to learn a whole new way to play this game.*** This tier at least is very interesting. It is stocked full of 'new' monsters that are more or less variations of old monsters. I don't think they're much tougher than anything you've faced before. Maybe you'll want to take the time to turn one of these guys into upper-tier high-rank armor. You'll certainly want to make a bunch of better weapons. If you're into a game like this then you're proabably compulsive enough that you'll be interested in making stronger weapons of every element and status just in case you ever need them. Anyways this is your final village tier. These are the hardest tests you'll find before heading over to Port Tanzia (and if you go there with other people you will probably find it easier than this). After this tier is done, only the G rank quests over in Tanzia will remain and they're all the more annoying in that you can't farm parts for g rank weapons and armor in Moga. Yeesh. Let's power through this already! There is a small amount of story left in this game in the form of an old rivalry between the Village Chief and one of your new subspecial opponents: the IVORY LAGIACRUS. If you avenge the Chief's disgraceful defeat then he will never have to speak to you again. I'm sure that is reward enough. This is also the point in the game where you will no longer have to run every time THE DEVIL rears his ugly head. That kind of thinking is for children and shood be discarded with other outdated notions of how to function in the world. You are now ready to take down that sucker and make him into a really cool looking weapon. Just be advised that he has a nasty dragon attack that you should avoid being hit by. If you've gathered a bunch of DRAGONBONE RELICS and other materials you can make some sexy dragon resistant DOBER armor to help you through this fight. At the end of this tier is the ELDER DRAGON ALATREON. He was formerly an online only monster back in Tri, but now you get to fight this dragon all on your lonesome (with your shakalakas). And he's a real doozy of an opponent who can wield all of the elements and has a plethora of hit points. Good luck. There are a lot of key quests in between you and alatreon though. A lot of these quests won't even be unlocked when you first get to this tier, but if you do the key quests listed here then you'll eventually unlock everything. Talk to the Argosy Captain if things stall for some reason. And did you remember what I said about having to do EVERY village quest to unlock the final two urgents? Good. -------------------------------------- 9-STAR KEY QUEST - DESERT STORM [1301] -------------------------------------- Hunt a sand barioth Locale: sandy plains (N) Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: hot drinks Sandy is just like a regular barioth except that she is brown and red (with blood)? She's not very different from her albino brother. She has this new move though when she creates a sand blast (like bari's ice blast) it will create a large twister of sand that will exist for a little while and allow sandy to hop up into it and spin around and then fly down at you with her claws. It hurts but her aim is not great and you should have plenty of time to dive or shield or something. Otherwise she is a barioth in a large desert area (which gives you more room to move around). Break her claws to hinder her mobility. Bring some cleanser so you don't get muddy. I don't know if high sandy does this too but on g rank sandy has this awfully annoying move where she makes a bunch of little twisters that move around really fast and launch people and do a surprisingly hefty amount of damage. Seriously, these buggers are a bigger threat than sandy herself. -------------------------------------------- 9-STAR KEY QUEST - JUMPING AT SHADOWS [1302] -------------------------------------------- Hunt a nargacuga Locale: flooded forest Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: sonic bombs Narga is a black panther that shares a lot in common with barioth. It's not particularly special in any way. It's fast and mean but its not elemental. It's just a straight up fight between you and a monster without a lot of special tricks. When was the last time that happened? After this quest and 'Desert Storm' are completed then you will get some news on the Ivory Lagiacrus and unlock a bunch of new quests featuring a bunch of new subspecies. Narga likes to hang out in area 7 but maybe sometimes it will go to 2 or 10. Head on up to area 4 and just kill it right there. It's weak to fire and lightning and you should have no shortage of those types of weapons. He likes to charge at you and swipe at you with his claws and tails. He moves a lot like barioth does. His claw attack is similar but a little slower sorta. He does the same tail swipe that can hit you when you are in front of him, but he does this one a lot faster. He can also fly to far away areas like barioth, and also like barioth his wings can be broken to knock him over and make him less nimble. His wings are really tough though. Narga has some special tail moves though. Like sometimes he'll brace himself and make a funny noise and raise his tail and shoot spike out of it. These things can fly a long ways. Later cuga subspecies will have poison spikes to shoot at you but these are vanilla. His other tail move he does when you think he can't hit you with his tail. If you are in front of him and he shivers he can unexpectedly jump and spin around and bring his tail crashing down on top of what used to be in front of him (i.e. you). His tail can get stuck in the ground when he does this in rage mode so feel free to hack it off of him. Oh and you can sonic bomb him when he's getting ready to pounce you. It just stops him for a second but its kind of amusing I guess. ------------------------------------------ 9-STAR KEY QUEST - HEAVEN AND EARTH [1303] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a pink rathian and an azure rathalos Locale: Misty Peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: flash bombs, antidotes You can fight azure rathalos before getting to this quest but hey, this is key. Since there are two monsters they will be weaker than normal but this is your first required fight against Azure so I'll be using this opportunity to cover what makes this rathalos so different from his rubicund cousin. It's not much. It may seem impossible to believe but Azure actually spends even more time flying than los did. And Azure is quick to move and change direction in the sky so it won't be easy to flash him. He's a real pain. Furthermore he has a couple of new moves up there that make him a pesky opponent. His talon attack that inflicts poison is very different. Instead of being slow to set up and very obvious to see coming, it is now a quick attack launched from a very low attitude. He'll just turn around and launch this quick lunge at you. I hope you're good at diving/shielding. Azure's other new flying attack is that when he is hovering he can breathe flames down straight down in front of him. This does not have a very large range but it does attack an area you'll probably be in if you are trying to attack him as he is flying, so that sucks. You can't shield this either because it attacks from above you, or something. I think he has another fire attack like the pink rathian's flame bite but like not as bad. I was sort of disappointed with Azure rathalos. He wasn't nearly as big a threat as pinkian was. ------------------------------------------ 9-STAR KEY QUEST - MIDNIGHT MADNESS [1304] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a black diablos Locale: sandy plains (N) Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, sonic bombs Black Diablos, or Diablack as he will henceforth be known, is not at all dissimilar to Diablos. They are completely identical. You can go through this fight without finding any difference at all. Diablack has no new moves at all. He is just more easily enraged and faster and more likely to be chaining attacks together quickly. You may remember that Dia was already prone to this so this won't be much of a surprise for you. If you are having trouble with this guy then the only thing that can help you are better weapons (ice, water, poison) or stronger defences (with say, tremor proofing skills or high grade earplugs). ----------------------------------------- 9-STAR KEY QUEST - ACE IN THE HOLE [1305] ----------------------------------------- Hunt a steel uragaan Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, deodorant I was going to call this guy Durasteel but then I thought that could be confused with Duramboros so I'm just going to call this guy Steely. Steely has a lot of flashy colors on his hide and his head but he is not too different from his earthen counterpart. His basic change is that his gas attack now causes the soiled condition and prevents you from using items. Make sure that you have your hit points up and cool drinks drank and weapons whetstoned before you get soiled. --------------------------------------- 9-STAR KEY QUEST - ECHO LOCATION [1306] --------------------------------------- Hunt a glacial agnaktor Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, nulberries, sonic bombs Oh man this guy has a tough hide and he likes to use a sweeping beam attack that shoots forward and then to his right side (your left if you are facing him). And this thing goes through shields and it can cause waterblight AND iceblight. Having both of those at once will keep you from moving or doing anything really. Bring a friggin nulberry or two. You should be farming those things anyways since they sell for a lot of gold but dont cost many resource points. Like the old agnaktor this guy (I'll call him glacie) can be sonic bombed when it is underground and not enraged. Makes for some easy attacks. Otherwise just break his legs and tail like usual and use fire weapons to melt down his icy armor. And if you are ever running towards him try to stay on his left. ------------------------------------------------------ 9-STAR URGENT QUEST - CONQUEROR OF LAND AND SEA [1307] ------------------------------------------------------ Hunt an ivory lagiacrus Locale: deserted island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: nulberries Once you've bagged all of those key monsters I covered before you'll be able to take on the Chief's nemesis: the Ivory Lagiacrus. Now when I say that Ivory here is just a lagiacrus that spends almost all of its time on land, you may be tempted to think 'Hot damn! Fighting lagi on land is the easiest thing in the world' and normally you would be right. But this lagi likes to use his lightning attacks on land, and they have great range and hit hard, so if you're vulnerable to electric attacks and being stunned by thunderblight then no, this is not going to be an easy quest. This is going to be a painful, painful quest. You will be hit by lightning during this quest. Do yourself a favor and get some armor that has lightning resistant. And then go to the restaurant and eat some veggies or whatever it is that gets you extra thunder res. And then bring some nulberries because thunderblight is super sucky for you. He has this awful attack where he shoots lightning ball but he puts english on the shot and twists his head so that the lightning hits the ground and electrifies it and moves sideways (to lagi's right usually) and zaps a big area. ------------------------------------------ 9-STAR URGENT QUEST - INTO THE FIRE [1308] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a deviljho Locale: volcano Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, tainted meat, traps, dung bomb Deviljho is a big tyrannosaurus sort of dinosaur. Up until now I've just been obliquely calling him THE DEVIL and saying you should just run away fom him at all costs. Well, that thinking has served its purpose and now is about the time for you to come around on the idea of hunting this beast. He's not really all that bad. He does get mad and get access to a big dragonbreath attack that you probably don't have resistance to, but so long as you see him rear up his head for this attack and you know how he sweep his head from his one leg to his other, fanning his breath out in front of him, you can easily avoid it. Otherwise he'll just be trying to bite you and stomp on you and whack you with his tail. He does this like five step criss-cross sort of advancing attack, kind of like Diablos did, and it can bite you or get you with wild tail swings. Sometimes he jumps and causes tremors or pins you and eats you. He can just stomp on you if he pleases. Of and he has this little spin move he does that can hit you twice: once to exhaust your shield and once to smack you with his tail. And he throws rocks at a distance and he can dig to escape from you. Yup. That's deviljho. ------------------------------------ 9-STAR URGENT QUEST - MARK OF A HERO ------------------------------------ Hunt an ivory lagiacrus and a brachydios and an azure rathalos. Locale: land arena Steve's Difficulty Rating: 10/10 Recommended items: the more items you bring, the better. Surprise surprise: the monsters in this quests aren't weaker than usual... they're stonger than usual! Isn't that a hoot!? And you have to fight the last two stronger-than-usual monsters at the same time! It's your lucky day! Now about your weapon. The best element to have would be dragon, since ivory and azure are weakest to it. But if you don't have a dragon weapon (and if you have been doing the quests in order then you probably won't) maybe ice would be best. It's only a secondary weakness of all of these monsters. I mean, ivory is weakest to fire... but brachy and azure sure aren't. And lightning is no good either against Ivory. Water is great for brachy but is less and less good on the other two guys. Of course if you use slime and poison then just go ahead and do that. Whatever weapon you bring make sure you have some skills to pump it up. These monsters are very powerful. High rank armor may not be enough protection. Heck, I first attempted this quest with G-rank armor and a G rank hammer and I still got wasted. I had to beat it with a high rank shielded weapon. My armor was still G rank for the high defence and thunder-res, but it had useless skills so you can probably also win with high rank armor with good skills. Anyways, going over to Tanzia and getting some g-rank armor aside, your best bet for unevening the odds in your favor is to bring a lot of items. I'm sure I've mentioned this already, but hey, why not mention it again: overpreparation is the key to success. In addition to ten potions and 10 mega potions, you should be filling up your 24 item pouch slots with an incredible redundancy of healing items to keep you in the fight as long as possible. Here are some good things to bring along: 10 pots (combine these with honey when the mega potions run low) 10 mega pots (you can get more of these from the dead monsters) 3 lifepowders (there are more in the center of the arena) 1 ancient pot 2 max pot 10 herbal meds (save for when azure poisons you) powercharm armorcharm 10 honey 5 mega nutrients 5 dragon toadsools (to make max potions) 5 immunizer 5 kelbi horn (to make ancient potions) 2 mega-armorskin 5 mega dash juice 3 large barrel bombs 20 whetstones 5 flash bombs 1 shock trap 1 pitfall trap 2 trap tools 1 thunderbug 1 net and for the last slot... well... be creative ;) If you're worried about azure pinning you while you're not looking then bring dung bombs. Dust of Life is another healing item that can keep you in this fight longer. And a couple of nulberries would be nice to recover from Ivory's attacks. Basically just make sure you have enough potions to survive a 50 minute fight with multiple monsters. If you use up your lifepowders and mega potions during the Ivory part of the fight then you can replenish these items to a small degree. A couple of lifepowders can be found in the center of the arena. The monsters here give out mega potions when they are carved. They give out 3 from their bodies and another one can be carved from their tails so try and rip off Ivory's tail at least. There is a brief window between Ivory's death and the arrival of the next two monsters. Use this time to sharpen up your weapon, combine more potions, drink some more mega dash juice, and lay down some traps. If you use two traps on Ivory and then combine your trap tools to make more traps in the interim, you can trap azure and/or brachy a couple of times without being hasseled. Heck, lay down some barrel bombs while the monsters are stuck and try to speed things along. The arena has a base camp but it doesn't have a bed, so farcasters won't be of much use. The bluebox has a very limited array of items for you that you can pick up when you die. If you ever die then drink an ancient potion to replenish your HP and Stamina, and drink some dash juice and armorskin and combine more items while you are safe in the camp. The arena is sort of a small and sterile place. It doesn't even have a dragonator to help you out. At the beginning it is just you and an ivory lagiacrus. And he's beast. He as a lot of attack power and hit points and it's entirely possible you'll use up all of your potions just fighting him. But try not to. When he goes down you'll be fighting brachydios and an azure rathalos at the same time! Yeesh! Well actually they aren't as big a threat as Ivory was. They're a bigger threat to each other than they are to you... so long as you don't wander in between them. It turns out that a brachydios could totally take an azure rathalos in a fight. If you do your best to keep azure between you and brachy, brachy will do a lot of damage to azure for you, and azure will be acting as your meat shield. You may be better off in this fight if you spend this time shielding and dodging instead of fighting, especially if Cha-cha and Kayamba aren't around. Do your best to lead brachy into destroying azure and flash bomb azure when he's in the air to make him vulnerable. Focus all of your attacks on Azure during this stage of the fight. This will make him go down quicker and it will also keep you from making Brachy mad and giving him access to his more deadly attacks. Once azure goes down you are mostly out of the woods. However, you may be caught in the unenviable situation of being low on healing items and low on time. You can pick up a couple of mega potions from azure's corpse, but there is not much you can do about the time except to hurry. Hopefully brachy will be exhausted and will stand still frequently for you to attack him. You should have at least 15 minutes alone with brachy or else you may run out of time. This is probably the hardest quest in the game, so congratulations if you beat it. I mean, it is probably even more difficult to do some of the Tanzia G rank quests on your own... but hey, they weren't designed to be tackled solo and you really should be able to find someone to help you out. Completing this quest unlocks the final village quest: the alatreon fight. It is less difficult... barely. --------------------------------------------------- 9-STAR URGENT QUEST - THE BRILLIANT DARKNESS [1309] --------------------------------------------------- Hunt an Alatreon Locale: Sacred Land Steve's Difficulty Rating: 10/10 Recommended items: smokebomb, cool drinks, nulberries, flash bombs, farcaster This is the final moga village quest! If you can beat this, you're done! Game over, man! It's really the end! It's not like there are a dozen new monster subspecies to find over in Tanzia... and a whole bunch of event quests you can download to extend this game forever.... This quest is slightly less difficult than 'Mark of the Hero' but don't let that make you complacent. Did you see that huge list of items I listed as being ways of overcoming that quest? You'll probably need a similar pharmacopoeia with you to survive this quest. Alatreon can do huge damage in a lot of different ways, and he has a lot of hit points to keep this fight going on a long time. Make sure you have an inexhaustible supply of healing items. Make sure you have lots of cool drinks too. If you are planning on dying twice over the course of this quest you may even need more than 5 cool drinks. There are ways of doing this, of course, and I hope you know them by now. There are some other items you're going to want over the course of this quest. Nulberries are a necessity and they can be picked up in the center of the sacred land. Alatreon has an attack that causes snowman, too, so you may need a cleanser if you cannot dodge this easily avoidable attack. Flash bombs are needed to get Alatreon out of the air, where he is hard to hit, and you may want to bring extra bomb casings and flashbugs to combine later. The only way to get to the camp is either to die or to use a farcaster, so bring one along in case you need to use the bed and/or combine some more potions. Finally, this is the one instance in the game where a SMOKEBOMB is useful. Bring one along and put it as the first item in your pouch so you can use it immediately at the start of the fight, which will prevent Alatreon from noticing you long enough for you to use a cool drink and whatever other buffs you want to bring into the fight. Aside from these items you will be happy to discover that some generous programmer has placed to BALLISTAS in the sacred grounds for you to use in getting Ala back down on the ground where you can fight him. One of them requires you to collect nearby ammo to fire. The other one uses a BINDER to take Ala down, but it has a downtime of some minutes after using it so you'll still need flashbombs from time to time. The other special element of this area are the walls on either side. Ala can be coaxed into charging into these walls and getting stuck for a short time. This is one of the few times his head will be close to to the ground for you to attack or even barrel bomb his valuable horns. However, this opportunity is also a crisis. Ala can get out of this predictament in a violent fury that shatters the wall he is stuck in and maybe kills you if you are nearby. Did I ever mention that Ala is immune to traps and cannot be captured? He can be put to sleep and people like to SLEEPBOMB him for his horns. The other wierd thing about Ala is that his elemental weaknesses are different in the air than they are on the ground. On the ground he is weak to Ice (and he attacks you with dragon and fire and lightning attacks but in the air he is weak to somethin else that only gunners should even bother with (and ala will be attacking you with lightning and ice). You're going to be doing most of your attacking while he is on the ground, but don't shy away from hitting him as he flies. That is a legitimate method for bringing him down, too, and its a good chance to hack his tail. For those of you who fought Alatreon back in Tri, you will probably think that he has been nerfed in several ways. Well... yes and no. A lot of his attacks are less deadly... but he has a hell of a hot of hitpoints for a moga village monster and its totally possible that you can fight him for 50 minutes and fail to bring him down. Still, you'll be happy to hear that when he jumps back into the air that he doesn't shoot fire down as often as he used to. He doesn't use fire attacks often at all. Now he does lightning attacks on the ground... and these have huge tells for where they will strike. And he has this one lightning attack where he shoots lightning straight forward in a line and this is super easy to avoid and leaves him vulnerable to attacks. Another change to Alatreon is that after he charges his tail still swings to protect you from running up behind him to attack, but he doesn't swing his tail as vigorously as before and he won't hit you with it as often. And when he is in the air doing that lightning pound attack he moves slower and hits fewer times than he used too. Also its easier to bring him down with flashbombs and he stays down the first time. So... yeah... a couple of nerfs for Alatreon not even including the super helpful ballista binder. Mostly Alatreon is going to be attacking you with dragon type attacks and they are really powerful. He's a really strong opponent and there is not a whole lot of dragon resistant armor available. You may need to go get some really strong G RANK armor by playing over in Port Tanzia. This quest is doable with High Rank gear and a hell of a lot of skill and items... but do yourself a favor and just wear G rank gear instead. The Volvidon X gear has dragon resistance and a little bit of fire resistance too... though Ala doesn't seem to do his fire moves as often as he did back in Tri. Alatreon's basic attack is to pick a target player and charge at them, usually with a dragon power-up. This is his most common attack and it is also your most reliable chance to attack him. After he is done with this attack he will be still for a moment for you to attack him. He may flick his head about and sweep his tail behind him, but you should be able to get up to his legs and stab them with your weapon. After he stops he takes one more step forward so aim your attack just ahead of where his legs are to make sure that you hit them. His legs are the easiest to attack but if its all the same to you then try to attack his belly because it is slightly more vulnerable. His head would be a great target if it weren't so high off of the ground all of the time. He brings it down at certain times but only briefly. He has a two strike horn attack that does a lot of damage and has a surprising forward range. Don't stand in front of him like a goofball unless you like getting hit. Don't stand behind him either or you will have him swat you with his tail. Actually, if you get him to initiate a tail swipe, he will be immobile for a bit for you to attack him. Anyways, when he is on the ground, you want to have him charge at you and then go around that and get a few hits in. When you are attacking his sides he can turn suddenly and dragon punch you and that really bites. It inflicts the nasty dragonblight too, so don't be caught by this. He rarely shoots fire but if he does then move away from it. Keep your guard up when he jumps away because he may just jump back at you. When he's in the air he has a whole different moveset and he'll be resistant to your attacks probably. He has two ice attacks. One of them shoots icicles at you. The other is icebreath that can cause snowman. These are both easy to avoid and good opportunities to get under him to attack his tail a bit. His lightning attacks are worse. He has this lightning charge that can get him across the map in an instant so you're never truly safe trying to sharpen or gather ammo or use the binder. You want to lead him to near the binder so you can bring him down. Call your shakalakas over to make sure they dont waste time keeping him in the air far out of range. But dont bring alatreon right on top of the binder either because that makes it hard to attack him, doesn't it? Lead him nearby and wait for him to get caught up in his icebreath or lightning pound or other attacks on your diversions-I mean, sidekicks, and then hop on the binder and bring Alatreon crashing down. When your binder isn't available, you can flashbomb him, but not during his attacks. You have to wait for him to switch up attacks. This also brings him down, but it doesn't keep him on the ground as long as the binder does. That's a good chance to attack his head or tail or wings or whatever is closest. Oh, and if he stays in the air long enough, he'll fly up into the air and initiate this other ice attack which isn't really as deadly or whatever. It does take up a lot of time, though... and this quest can certainly come down to the wire. Let me tell you, fighting Alatreon for 50 minutes and failing to bring him down SUCKS. Keep up your attacks! Use that binder as often as possible. Maybe you should save this quest until you've made some great g-rank weapons. --------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - AZURE ATTACK --------------------------- Hunt an azure rathalos Locale: deserted island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: flash bombs, antidotes my tips for fighting azure rathalos are up above in the 'Heaven and Earth' quest because that is the azure's KEY quest (even though you can do this one first, and probably should, as azure rathalos can get you better fire weapons). ---------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - TRIPLE THREAT ---------------------------- Hunt a nibelsnarf and a volvidon and a sand barioth Locale: Sandy Plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, barrel bombs, deodorants, cleansers When I did this quest all of these monsters spawned out in the far desert regions. I think volvi was in 8. --------------------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - OPERATION: PARADISE LOST --------------------------------------- Hunt an great jaggi, a duramboros, and an azure rathalos Locale: destered island Steve's Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: Gjaggi I think spawns in his den. He will go down within a minute. Dura hangs out in the big areas like 5 and 2 and 7 and he can dig and move around a lot if you aren't careful. Azure sticks to los's predictable routes around the island. Check for him in area 7 or 8. ----------------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - LURKERS IN THE WOODS ----------------------------------- Hunt an arzuros, a nargacuga, and a zinogre Locale: misty peaks Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: It can take while to find these guys but I think they all spawn in the center areas like that forested place and that river/waterfall area. ------------------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - TRIUMPH OF THE TYRANTS ------------------------------------- Hunt a diablos and a black diablos Locale: sandy plains Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: cool drinks, sonic bombs, flash bombs These guys are a pain apart and they are a pain together. Bring tough armor and some sonic bombs, maybe a nice weapon too. ------------------------------- 9-STAR QUEST - FROZEN BLOODLUST ------------------------------- Hunt a glacial agnaktor and a barioth Locale: Tundra Steve's Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: hot drinks, nulberries, cleanser Try to fight these guys one at a time. Getting doubleteamed inside that tight baggi's den ain't no fun. .................................... ************************************ 14. PORT TANZIA AND THE ARENA [1400] ************************************ .................................... The PORT QUESTS are pretty much exactly the same as the village quests except that you can do them with other people. You don't have to do them with others though. Port Tanzia comes in three flavors: SOLO (self-explanatory), MULTI (for local multiplayer with 3DSs), and NETWORK (for online play on the WiiU). The port quests are also the only way to make it up to G RANK, which is a difficulty that is even higher than HIGH RANK. You'll have to do all of the KEY low and high rank port quests before you can do G rank. Port Tanzia operates on a HUNTER RANK (HR) SYSTEM that ties into the quest difficulties. You start at HR0 and you must talk to the GUILDMASTER in Tanzia to get up to HR1 and start doing HR1 quests. Completing key and urgent quests will bump you up to higher hunter ranks and allow you to do harder quests. Your hunter rank will be an easy way for you and others to see how good you are and what quests you are eligible for. Now if you are a beginner and you're unsure about when you should be tackling Port Tanzia, I would have to say that you should complete AT LEAST the first four tiers of the village quests before heading to the port, since the first tier of Port quests goes all the way up to the lagiacrus fight. The Port quests are of a higher difficulty than the village quests because they are scaled up in difficulty to accomodate more players. The basic metric you need to know about difficulty is that it goes: low rank village -> low rank port -> high rank village -> high rank port -> g rank port. That said, having 3 good players with you in Port Tanzia can make all of those quests EXTREMELY EASY. In fact, you could concievably be CARRIED through all of the port quests on the shoulders of players much better than yourself. You should instead aim at being good enough yourself that you aren't a burden on your teammates, since after all in Port Tanzia those 3 lives you have for every quest are COMMUNAL. If you tackle Tanzia with friends or strangers you're going to have to learn how to get along with other players. The section in this guide called ONLINE ETTIQUETTE covers a lot of the dos and don'ts (it's mostly don'ts). For now all you need to know is that some of your attacks can hit your teammates, and while it may not damage them it can still hinder their performance and no one likes that. Anyways when you feel ready to take on Tanzia then just boot up your game and run on over to the lower left part of Moga Village and talk to the CAT there named NEKO MEANS TIGER and he'll ferry you off to whichever version of Tanzia you desire. Let's familiarize ourselves with what we'll find when we get to Tanzia. ............................ THE MARINA AND TAVERN [1401] ............................ Tanzia is divided into two sections: the MARINA and the TAVERN. The tavern is the more important because it is where you get quests, but the marina is where you need to go to change your weapons and armor. It is actually very annoying that these two areas are divided and you can't change your weapons at the bluebox in the tavern... but there's nothing to do about that. Let's go over what's in the marina first. When you go to the MARINA you will be next to NEKO and his boat which has a bed on it for some reason. Neko can also connect you to the Moga farms and fisheries so you can get your dues without going back to Moga yourself. The next point of interest is the fully functional blue box, and beyond that there is a FELYNE COURIER who handles GUILD CARDS in case you can't just use the menu option. If you go down you can talk to a SAVVY TABBY who occasionally gives you CHUM-CHUM TICKETS that may be useful for something. On the right side of the screen there is GRANNY GO-TO'S ITEM SHOP, which has a rotating inventory of nice items, and there is a forge and a weapons shop which are identical to their Moga counterparts. The TAVERN is more interesting. It has a QUEST COUNTER with multiple attendants. On the left side is the girl who holds the QUEST LIST, in the center is an old troll dude you have to talk to when you rank up, and on the right side there is the girl who has the ARENA QUEST LIST. Oh and there's another girl in the back who bangs the GONG to let people know that you are looking for help. There is another item shop on the right, and on the left is a RESTAURANT you want to go to before every quest. At the far end of the tavern is a blue box where you can do inventory management, and the DEPARTURE GATE. When you want to get multiple people in on a single quest they will have to join the quest posted on the QUEST BOARD and they will have to press A at the departure gate before the person who posted the quest starts the quest. And finally in the center of the tavern is the most important feature: the ARM WRESTLING BARREL. All disagreements should be settled over an armwrestle. If you are in a solo instance of the port then it may be occupied by the GHOSTS of people you have exchanged GUILD CARDS with. You can HIRE these hunters to go on quests for you. In exchange for a small amount of money you can send 1 to 4 hunters on a quest and they will bring back items for you. It is actually a very easy and cheap way to get a lot of very nice items, including some unique items. The quests they go on have a difficulty rating and you will get ODDS on how likely the quest will be successful. The odds go up with more hunters involved. If you are playing multiplayer or network mode then you will have new menu options and you'll be able to see the names and weapons of your fellows and you'll be able to use various IN-GAME CHAT options. The touchscreen makes for an east means of communication outside of the ten or so set phrases the game lets you have. You can also find options for VOICE CHAT over the NETWORK MODE if that is your thing. And there are status indicators and a wide variety of comical GESTURES at your disposal to help you attempt to communicate across language barriers. .................. PORT QUESTS [1402] .................. The port quests are pretty similar to the village quests so hopefully you will find this to be familiar ground. You do want to get to these quests in a timely manner since multiplayer is more fun and this is the only way to get to the highest difficulty level. On the other hand you don't want to come to tanzia unprepared and cart three times and bring three people down with you. Try to do Tanzia roughly in sync with Moga since that way you can work on two fronts towards collecting the pieces for your next set of armor or weapons. If you happen to play through either moga or tanzia first and then find yourself starting from square one in the other... I would recommend that as a good opportunity to try out a new weapon type. I mean, if you're going to play the whole game over again, you might as well do it in a whole new way. I'm not going to cover these quests in detail because they are not substantially different from the Moga quests. You can search for all of that information on the monsters you will face here in the earlier parts of this guide if you need it. What I will list here are the KEY QUESTS you need to do in order to rank up (note that the game never tells you about key quests so I'm getting this information off of the MHWIKI, which as a wiki means the info is being contributed by players). And I'll also point out to you the CANTEEN QUESTS and tell you right now that those quests are important to do because they will help you get better food in your restaurant. There are many different types of quests in Tanzia, like arena quests and advanced quests and event quests and whatnot. I'll cover the arena and event quests seperately and just tell you now that advanced quests come and go and are a little more difficult but not really don't worry about them. ---- HR 1 ---- The first tier of port quests goes all the way up to the Lagiacrus so you're going to want to have beaten the lagi in tier 4 moga first. The key quests are: PLAYING WITH FIRE (Quru) LEADING THE CHARGE (Barry) THE MERCHANT'S MISSION (Ian) ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION (Gobby) THE FISHERMAN'S FIEND (Urgent - lagi) In addition to these there are two CANTEEN QUESTS to upgrade your restuarant to make you even stronger. [Canteen] FORECAST: LAGOMBI (lagombi) [Canteen] THE FISHER KING (goldfishing) ---- HR 2 ---- At HR 2 the port quests cover the rest of the low-rank monsters so you should come and do this after you've made your way through some of tier 5 in the village. Here are the keys: THE HORNED WYVERN (Dia) THE DESERT GOURMAND (Nibs) THE CREEPING VENOM (Noxi) DENIZEN OF THE MOLTEN DEEP (Lasagna) DOUBLE TROUBLE (Urgent - Raths) [Canteen] ROAD WORK (Ura) ---- HR 3 ---- This is a HIGH RANK tier, which means that the monsters are much stronger than they were on low rank. Go do the 6star quests in Moga and make yourself some high rank armor before coming here. The urgent monster for this tier is Brachydios, a monster which shows up much later in the village quests but he is brand new to this game so go ahead and fight him first here if you want. SPLASH DAMAGE (Plessy) MUD BROTHERS (2 barrys) BYE-BYE, BLOOM (Crim) SUPPLY CONSTRAINTS (2 Gwrogs) BRACHYDIOS MIO! (Urgent - Brachy) [Canteen] GRAB A GOBUL (gobby) ---- HR 4 ---- This tier is pretty close to the 7star quests in moga except for the early addition of Ziggy and Ivory. If you've done those 7star quests then you should probably have the materials to make some lightning resistant armor which should enable you to deal with these lightning based mons. UNWANTED VISITOR (Ziggy) TUMBLE ON THE TUNDRA (baleful gigginox and jade) THE VOLCANO'S FURY (Ura) RULER OF TWO REALMS (Urgent - Ivory) [Canteen] FISHING FAILURE (dura) ---- HR 5 ---- HR 5 includes all of those new monsters from the tier 9 village quests. Unlocking the final two quests of the village can take a while so you might as well do this tier in the interim. The urgent quest is a new sub but it is an easy enough fight for multiple hunters. DESERT DESERTION (bari and sandy) ECHO LOCATION (glacie) BEDEVIL A DEVILJHO (jho) AZURE ATTACK (azure) THRONE OF THE ABYSS (urgent - beardy) [Canteen] END OF THE ROADS (steely) [Canteen] DESERT RUMBLE (jhenny) ---- HR 6 ---- This is the super special awesome G RANK everyone's always talking about. Only the best of the best play here... and also all of the scrubs who were carried here. Anyways, you'll notice that in addition to the expected bump in enemy hp and attack power, some of the smaller large monsters (Gjaggi, gbaggi, etc) are much faster than they were formerly and they can be pretty dang deadly. Good luck. Oh, and if you want G rank weapons and armor you'll have to grind out monsters here and not back in moga. THE CHERRY BLOSSOM QUEEN (pinkian) THE GREEN FLASH (green plessy) AVENGE THE FALLEN HUNTER (barry) PLAYING WITH FIRE (quru) SWELTERING SHOWDOWN (2 volvis and 2 gjaggis) THE DESERT GOURMAND (nibs) AXE TO GRIND (Rusty) SNOWBALL FIGHT (Jade) THE CREEPING VENOM (Noxi) THUNDER ON THE TUNDRA (bari and baleful giggi) STICKY SITUATION (2 brachy - urgent) Yikes! That's a lot of keys! ------ HR 7 ------ Well you're pretty deep into G rank now. Hopefully you've played enough of the solo mode that you now how to handle all of these monsters. At the end of this tier and going into HR8 you're going to be introduced to some new monsters and subspecies you can only fight here. Some of these are pre-requisites that unlock other key quests. Some of them are pre-requisites for unlocking non-key quests. It's actually very confusing and intricate so I'll just say that do all of them that are available to you and that should hopefully unlock the other ones you need. THE HORNED WYVERN (Dia) DESERT STORM (Sandy) THE THRILL OF THE HUNT (Ura) RATHALOS ALERT (los) THE FISHERMAN'S FIEND (Lagi) A SEA OF WYVERNS (Ivory and gobby) (must do 'Fishy fiend' first) VOLCANIC ACTIVITY (los and steely) ('rath alert' and 'thrill hunt' first) NIGHT STALKER (Green cuga) (do 'desert storm', 'horny wyvern', and 'vol act') INFERNAL OVERLORD (Stiggy) (must do 'Night Stalker' first) DEEP-SIX A DEVILJHO (jho) (must do 'Night Stalker' first) DENIZEN OF THE MOLTEN DEEP (lasagna) (must do 'Night Stalker' first) BLACK FLAME OF CALAMITY (mira - urgent) [Canteen] COLD DAY IN HELL (2 gbaggi and a brachy) ------ HR 8 ------ Well this is the final tier of quests so there are no keys and nothing to unlock. Well that's not entirely accurate. Until now you HUNTER RANK has been tied to the quest level you had unlocked, but now your hunter rank is going to be shooting up just for completing any old quest. The final quests in this tier have to be unlocked by reaching the following hunter ranks: HR 40 - THE INVISIBLE PREDATOR (Lucy) HR 45 - RAGE MATCH (2 jhos) HR 50 - MOONLIGHT TRYST (sylvie and goldie) HR 55 - THE EARTH SHAKERS (pinkian, rusty, brachy, stiggy) HR 60 - THE SEA SHAKERS (luddy, gobby, plessy, lagi) HR 70 - ABYSSAL AWAKENING (Abby) HR 80 - FOUR POINT FORMATION (cuga, bari, green cuga, sandy) HR 90 - HEAVY HITTERS (diablack, jade, dura, steely) HR 100 - MARCH OF VICTORY (Brachy, rusty, ivory, stiggy) [Canteen] SUBMARINE STRUGGLE (green plesioth and a royal luddy) There are a bunch of new subspecies in this tier, and a couple in HR6 and HR7, that can only be fought in Tanzia. The next few sections of the guide are going to be covering these lastest additions, if and when I ever get around to covering them. After two months of playing this game pretty exclusively I'm feeling the need for a long break. Maybe I'll even go outside. ---------------------------------------------------- HR5 -> HR6 URGENT QUEST - THRONE OF THE ABYSS [1403] ---------------------------------------------------- Hunt a Goldbeard Ceadeus Locale: Underwater Ruins Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: nulberry, air philter, um... yeah that's it. This quest is not a very big deal. It's just like the old Ceadeus quest except it only takes place in the final area and there will be three other players around to speed things up for you, probably. It seems that people are really big on doing this quest because they like the armor or something. I don't think you'll have much trouble finding people to do this quest for you. The only thing you need to know about goldilocks here is that he has a waterbeam attack that sweeps across the arena, either sideways or from above. It's hard to dodge but he'll probably be far away when he does this so you'll have nothing to do but try to dodge it. Anyways, it's my opinion that you should just bring some water resistant armor so this attack doesn't OHKO you. I'm a big fan of resisting. And I'm also a big proponent of bringing potions to heal damage when you take it. Yup. You should do that. There is still a dragonator here for you to skewer ceady. Use it. Have some people lead ceady in front of it while someone else presses the button. There are also ballistas around but they're not exactly necessary. Oh and he's weak to dragon, if you have dragon weapons. If not... bring lightning. --------------------------------------- HR 6 KEY QUEST - THE GREEN FLASH [1404] --------------------------------------- Hunt a Green Plesioth Locale: Deserted Island Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: potions Get some g-rank level armor before doing this. This guy does a lot of damage but he is not different from plesioth in any way. Bring g rank armor that is resistant to water. He's weak to lightning and fire. ------------------------------------ HR 6 KEY QUEST - AXE TO GRIND [1405] ------------------------------------ Hunt a Rust Duramboros Locale: Sandy Plains Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: cleanser Well he has a lot of hitpoints and does a lot of damage... just like a plain old duramboros. The difference for this guy is that he just gets up faster after his tail attacks. No more free hits as dura lays around like a baby just asking to be smacked. I think also his tail can get you muddy too. Big freaking deal. He's weak to the elements of water and or ice. ------------------------------------- HR 7 KEY QUEST - NIGHT STALKER [1406] ------------------------------------- Hunt a Green Nargacuga Locale: Flooded Forest Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: some sort of large wooden badger Well cuga is a tough cookie already, and the green cuga is even tougher. He's faster and meaner and you should be careful. Well actually most of the time he is pretty much the same. It's when he gets enraged that he gets some variation in his moveset. Like you know that tail spin that cuga did? Well nargreen here can do it twice. He spins around and slams his tail down in what used to be in front of him. And then he picks his tail up and brings it down somewhere else. Sometimes he hits the same spot twice just to break through your shield. And it causes stun so don't get hit by any of these attacks. It still gets stuck in the ground so you can attack it afterwards. ----------------------------------------- HR 7 KEY QUEST - INFERNAL OVERLORD [1407] ----------------------------------------- Hunt a Stygian Zinogre Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: nulberry, hot drinks This zinogre is dragon flavored zinogre. He's not much tougher than the old zinogre. Um... he takes longer to power up I think but its harder to stop him. His biggest change is that when he shoots out orbs they stay still for a bit and then sort of home in on you so look out for those. You'll get the hang of dodging them pretty quickly. he brings down dragon lightning before he is fully chaged so keep an eye out for that. his energy balls can be blocked by him if he is moving or you get behind him ---------------------------------------------------------- HR 7 -> HR 8 URGENT QUEST - BLACK FLAME OF CALAMITY [1408] ---------------------------------------------------------- Hunt a Dire Miralis Locale: Tainted Sea (it's a beach with a couple of wrecked dragonships) Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: nothing specific. bring potions. This dragonish thing looks a lot like the monster that lives in the lake by my uncle's cabin. That's probably just a coincidence though. He's covered in rocks or made of rocks or something. Some of those rocks will be glowing red which means they are soft and can be attacked and broken. Everything else is super hard and will be difficult to attack. Just move up and down this guy's body attacking the glowing weak points. It should be a familiar approach to anyone who has played action adventure videogames. Bring an ice or dragon weapon and go to town. This fight takes place in a unique area that is basically just a beach near a volcano. Mira starts out in the water and when it's out there you can jump into the water to attack it. It crawls up on land from time to time and you'll have to follow it to continue your attacks, but when it's on land you will only be able to attack those parts of it that are near the ground most of the time. This monster is freaking huge. But when it is on land you also have the chance to lead it over to a shipwreck and stab it with a dragonator. Do that when you have the chance. There are also a couple of ballistas around and the ammo can be found on that ship next to the dragonator. You can shoot mira when its in the water or on land. Some people like to start shooting it at the beginning of the quest. Just be careful because it can fire fiery rocks at you from a distance. Oh I should warn you that at the very beginning of the quest that mira will shoot rocks at where you spawn so as soon as the opening cinematic is skipped you shood book it or else you could very easily be killed! Heads up! Mira hits real hard but like ceady and jhenny it is not usually actively attacking you but rather just moving around with such large mass that it just sort of runs you over. Well there's not much you can do about that since you need to be close to it to attack it (probably) so just bring potions and heal yourself. Oh and he has one more attack. He can wind up and shoot fire out of his mouth and that makes a big explosion. Try not to be hit by this one if you want to live. So yeah, not a hard fight, aim for the glowing weak-points, heal when damaged, use the dragonator. Congrats! You have conquered the preamble part of g-rank. Now you are in the top godly tiers of heaven! ------------------------------------------- HR 8 QUEST - RING OF THE GOLDEN LUNE [1409] ------------------------------------------- Hunt a Gold Rathian Locale: Tower (N) Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: antidotes, dung bombs, flash bombs This is just an unnaturally golden rathian. It's like all of the rathians that came before it except with a a hard head and body and it can crush you as it lands and it is weak to lightning and water for some reason and it has a new move combo. But other than that it is exactly the same. Goldielocks does lots of tail flailing with poison barbs. That tail will take a while to break off, too. She does pinkians wild spin as well as a slower, trickier forward spin. Has faster fire attacks that hit with a lot of force and create small field explosions. Also when goldie is shooting fire sometimes she'll step back a bit and after two fireballs chain into a tailspin move so if you're up next to her thinking that you're safe from being fireballed you can suddenly find yourself missing three quarters of your health bar and also poisoned. Luckily goldie doesn't usually go after you right after nailing you like that. This may be your introduction to the TOWER area. Yeah... there's not much to it. I don't know why this doesn't just take place in the arena. Oh, there is a corner where you can gather rare items. ------------------------------------------ HR 8 QUEST - RING OF THE SILVER SOL [1410] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a Silver Rathalos Locale: Tower (N) Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 7/10 Recommended items: antidotes, dung bombs, flash bombs This guy is just a beefy rathalos. He has more hitpoints, does more damage, and he has stronger skin along his back and tail and especially his head. His legs and underbelly and wings are still soft enough for you to plunge your weapons into. He might be slighty faster I don't know. Oh, and when he lands from flight he comes down hard and can hurt you. For all his armor he is still just a regular old rathalos with the regular old rathalos abilites and weaknesses. He has all of the old fire attacks like when he jumps in the air and shoots fire forward, and that one where he shoots 3 fireballs down from the air, and the one where he stands on the ground and fires forward, and that azure attack where he breathes flames down in front of him, and that fire bite attack... and one I've never seen before where he's in the air and sneezes and there is a fiery explosion off ahead of him. Yup, fire. He still has his poison talons, although he can swing around in the air and try to fool you for which target he is attacking. And he can still jump on you and pin you and you'll need to dung your way free. He can still be flashed out of the air. Wait for when he does his three fireball move and then he'll spend a couple of seconds flying low to the ground just asking to be flashed. He's weak to lightning and water (!?) and not ice and dragon and fire. Kinda different, I suppose. ------------------------------------------- HR 40 QUEST - THE INVISIBLE PREDATOR [1411] ------------------------------------------- Hunt a Lucent Nargacuga Locale: Tower (N) Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 9/10 Recommended items: antidotes, lifepowders She's invisible oh noes! Weak to ice/dragon. Can cause poison with its tail spike shots. And because her name lends itself to the monicker 'Lucy' she is a female. That's the basics up there. This is just another nargacuga... a blue one this time. It's the first nargacuga that doesn't look completely revolting. She is also invisible when moving. You may have noticed that angry nargacuga have glowing eyes that leave trails, though... and this one does that too, so you can follow her eye trails to see where she goes. Also her steps cause dust to fly up and if she is poisoned then you can watch for that. Speaking of poison, she shoots out a lot of poison barbs when she does her tail flip move. Sometimes she does the green cuga's double tail flip and then shoots out two sets of poison spikes. Super lame. These things fly out in many directions... but not through the cuga so if you are in front of her you are safe from spikes (but not from being tailflipped). Sometimes she just shoots these things forward like regular cuga spikes. Sometimes she winds up for these attacks and you can flinch her to prevent it... like with the zinogre. This gal does less tail whipping, I think. I mean, she does lots and lots of tail flipping, but the whip move hse shares with barioth... she does that less. She does sometimes spin around real fast and shoot out poison barbs, and that move has a huge range and hits all around her so you may commonly find your whole party knocked back by that one. Why not be nice and bring some lifepowders along for this one, hmm? Lucy's got a tougher head and hide than older cugas but I think you expected that. Like the other cugas this one has tough wings but you still want to break them to make her stagger between moves. And then you can cut her tail and then she's pretty much dead. -------------------------------------- HR 70 QUEST - ABYSSAL AWAKENING [1412] -------------------------------------- Hunt an Abyssal Lagiacrus Locale: Underwater Ruin Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 9/10 Recommended items: nulberries, air philters, kazoos and tambourines This is an underwater lagi fight that takes place in the underwater ruin This guy is just a cool looking lagiacrus with big electric attacks and he can create little whirlpool twister things to mess with you like sandy does. Damn I hate those things. Oh, and he's weak to dragon element. And the electric attacks are super annoying too. Remember those powered up Ivory Lagi attacks? Imagine how awful they would be underwater where lagi can move and attack in three-er dimensions. Like, he does that move where he shoots lightning out of his mouth and it just streaks everywhere and ughhhh. Abby here needs a lot of HR to unlock so by the time you get here I hope that you already know how to go into a quest with enough items and the proper gear not to get triple-carted. Use the dragonator on this guy. Just do it. ----------------------------------------------- HR 8 QUEST - FESTIVAL ON THE SEA OF SAND [1413] ----------------------------------------------- Hunt a Hallowed Jhen Mohran Locale: Great Desert Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 9/10 Recommended items: pot This one is weak to fire. He's just a bigger jhen mohran with a different attack pattern. You have to unlock this fight by defeating every other monster in the game except for abbysal lagiacrus, lucent nargacuga, and savage deviljho, so by the time you get here you should have some really good armor and a decent sense of the items you'll need to bring on this quest to survive. This guy and the g rank jhen (which I think is an event quest) have a new move where they create a blast of sand... sort of like that... what's its name... that ugly sand fish thing from the start of the game. Wow... it's been so long I'm actually forgetting the names of the easy monsters. Oh wait, now I remember. Blech... I was probably just repressing it because nibblesnarf is such a crappy, crappy name. Snarf snarf nibble nibble. Well... it's pretty funny I guess. Anyways yeah, this quest has a different script from the last one, but it is still on the same dragonship in the same desert (except at night I guess). He'll try to surprise ram you at the start, but you can gong him and show hm you know the score, and then bring him in close and bind him and wail on him and jump on his tusks and board his ship and plunder all of the spices he is carrying. You still have to break his back weakpoints and then his tusks and then his forearms and then just whatever you can reach. Try and shoot his mouth if you can of course. And eventually you will be in a final showdown that is pretty similar to the last one. Honestly describing all of these monster subspecies seems like a waste of time to me. You should be able to completely decimate anything monster hunter can throw at you by this point, and do it while looking totally awesome to boot! ------------------------------------------ HR 8 EVENT QUEST - BOTTOMLESS BEAST [1414] ------------------------------------------ Hunt a (Savage) Deviljho Locale: Tundra Steve�s Difficulty Rating: 8/10 Recommended items: poison meat, tinged meat, sleepy meat, dung bombs, barrel bombs, flash bombs, hot drinks, potions, whetstones, etc. Savage Deviljho is a more powerful version of deviljho... but pretty much exactly the same. Savage Deviljho (from here on out known as SAVVY D) is like Deviljho in that he can show up during any G rank quest quite uninvited. If you want to fight this guy specifically (he does have one unique item drop you may covet) then you have to download this event quest. Note that the quest doesn't indicate that this is a savage deviljho, probably because he is so similar that he doesn't even qualify as a subspecies. If you want to fight this deviljho earlier than hr8 though you have good chances of encountering him in the HR6 event quesr 'An Ominous Cry' and in the HR7 quest 'Night Stalker'. If you go to the restaurant and look for the FOOD SKILL 'FELYNE GAMECHANGER' (double veggies?) you can increase your chances of monsters like Savvy D coming over to play. (If you don't know how event quests work then go check out the section of this guide that covers event quests... it's right below this quest actually.) When Savvy D shows up he will look like a perfectly ordinary deviljho... except that he starts in rage mode. Heck, even his little lock-on icon looks like a regular deviljho. But Savvy is always mad and so he's always ready to bust out a dragonbreath attack. And when you injure him a little bit, he'll enter his new super saiyan 3 mode that makes him distinct from other deviljho. Well, it's mostly just a cosmetic change. Sure, now he has dark dragon energy spiking up around his head... but he still moves and acts like a regular deviljho. Maybe he's a little faster? I don't know... that could just be me reaching for something new about this guy. He's pretty similar. His dragonbreath is a bit bigger so stay a little further away. So yeah, treat him just like any other deviljho. He's still extremely vulnerable to tainted meats of all kinds. He still shows up in every environment and if he gatecrashes your quests you should just shoo him away with some dung bombs. ................... EVENT QUESTS [1415] ................... Event quests are special Tanzia quests that have to be downloaded from the internet. More of them are being released every so often. It's free DLC! Event quests are special and completing them will get you special items and getting enough special items allows you to make special weapons and armor that are typically super sweet looking and kind of powerful. Yup. You WANT these. Back in the day, event quests were online quests that were rotated from week to week. Since they were only available for a limited time people were super excited to do them before they disappeared again. In Monster Hunter Ultimate the quests are being released every week, but once they are released and you have downloaded them they are available all of the time. And what seems to be the case online is that people aren't all of that enthused to do these things. Well, there are usually people online doing the deviljho quests or the super powered Ivory Lagiacrus, but the other ones just get done when they are released and then people move on and forget about them. If you ever want to do these quests, do a search for 'Event Quest Players' and see what comes up. If there's nothing resembling the quest you want to do then make your own room and advertise you desired event as clearly as possible. You may have to wait a while for players, but once you get them they usually won't mind doing the same quest over and over until you all have enough tickets or whatever for the sweet near weapons. Super sweet. So what weapons do you want? What quests give you what? Well, a quick online search is your best friend here. I mean, I guess I could make a list here... but the Event Quests are still being rolled out here in the Americas and I don't know what's coming in the future. I guess what I'm saying is that I'll update this section with that information in the distant future when the releasing of DLC content has stopped. To get the event quest DLC you just need to talk to your pet cat CHAMBERLYNE in your house back in Moga. He'll hook you up. Make sure you check back every so often. Oh, and as far as I know, you don't have to download quests yourself if you go online and someone else has posted a quest that you don't have. At least, that's what I think I've found out myself. I could be wrong, not that I've ever been wrong about anything before. You can select the event quests you've downloaded from the quest counter in Tanzia. They are listed in a special 'event quests' section below the other quests, so they are divided up between low, high, and g ranks. ................ THE ARENA [1416] ................ The arena is where you go to see if you are actually GOOD at hunting monsters. Arena quests don't let you overpower yourself with higher-tier weapons and armor and an overabundance of healing items. No, when you step into the arena, you are given a choice of pre-made weapon/armor/item sets and tasks you with making the most of them using your pure gaming skill. Oh, and your given a couple of PAR TIMES to chase after, and everyone you exchange guild cards with will be able to compare their times with yours in a LEADERBOARD. Yeah, this is for GAMERS. The HARDCORE. The HIGHSCORERS. You should totally do these quests and try and get awesome times. Anyways, the arena is in Tanzia. It's on the right side of the quest counter. The quests are divided up by the number of players who can participate. You are allowed to take on the four-person quests by yourself, sure... but you're not going to get good times that way. Go online or find some friends and tackle these things. Arena quests take place in ARENAS. There is a land arena and a water one. They're medium sized sterile environments. The environments are not a big deal. It's just you and the monsters. It's all about skills. There is no benefit to breaking parts, no stuff to carve to get items. All you get is times for a leaderboard and some special COINS that allow you to make some sweet armor. ........................... *************************** 15. ONLINE ETIQUETTE [1500] *************************** ........................... Monster Hunter as a single-player game is a brutal experience that I can say from experience captures the slogging difficulty of going out in the punishing wilderness and trying to stab a bear to death as it runs you down and rips open your flesh. Multiplayer MonHun is a wholly different story and it is much, much easier and a lot more fun. If you are playing on the 3DS then you have the mobility to go out and find other players, either on 3DS or WiiU to play with. But if you are playing on the WiiU then you will be able to take advantage of this new fangled gizmo called THE INTERNET to connect with people from all over the world and hunt together. Playing online is a lot of fun and it makes the game super-easy. Unfortunately it also involves playing with other people. As Lewis Carroll said: 'Hell is other people'... I'm sure it was Lewis Carroll who said that... anyways he was totally right. Playing video games online involves a certain level of anonymity and lack of consequences for bad behaviour and this can bring out the worst in people. If at all possible you should find some friends to play with in person or online... but if you are like me in being an unbearable and joyless sourpuss with no friends then you'll just have to brave the plebeian masses and hope for the best. You do have the options of BOOTING people out of rooms you've created or BLOCKING users who are harassing you. I've never had to rely on either of these tools but they are there if you need them. Furthermore the MICROPHONE CHAT in this game can be disabled on a player-by-player basis through your ONLINE OPTIONS MENUS, or you could just turn the volume down on your television or gamepad if you run into some foul-mouthed hatemongerer. Again, this sort of thing doesn't come up very often... but you do have ways of dealing with it. There are two fundamental attitudes you should hold when you are playing online. Unfortunately they are contradictory... but do your best to hold both of these ideas in mind at all times. The first is that hunting online should be quick and efficient, that everyone involved should be doing their best, or at least not dragging the team down with bad play and carting. The second is that hunting online should be fun, that this is a game and shouldn't be taken too seriously. People play this game to relax and unwind, and trust me when I say that when sitting down to some mindless monster hunting after working 5 10-hour days, the last thing you need to hear is some entitled pubescent complain about your performance. But even then, don't just disappear for whole quests and expect your teammates to do all of the work for you. You still have to try. So try to be understanding when your allies aren't in peak performance, but try to maintain an acceptable level of performance yourself. I know these two attitudes are hard to work with but do your best. If you are seriously focussed on obtaining some rare part or fighting some difficult monster and you don't want to put up with failure and noobs then do everyone a favor and put a sign on your room that says "Looking for experts". Likewise if you want a more chill atmosphere where no one is going to bitch if you happen to die or bring the wrong weapon or something then you want a room that says 'Relaxed hunting'. There is room to accomodate all playstyles just so long as you remember that COMMUNINCATION IS KEY. ....................... Multiplayer Play Basics ....................... Online (or just multiplayer) play in this game is CO-OPERATIVE, which means that you and your teammates are working towards a common goal. It is in everyone's best interest to decide what that goal is and then to work together in achieving it. Communication can go a long way towards forging an understanding and achieving your goals. Sometimes you may find yourself playing across language barriers and this can make things difficult, but a combination of GESTURES and common decency can sometimes suffice to get things done. The Most Important Thing to know about multiplayer is that those three lives you've enjoyed as a safety net on your own are now COMMUNAL LIVES. That means that those three extra lives have to cover your whole team. If you are playing on a four man team, then, that means that each of you can die 0.5 times per quest without failing (since that number is less than 1, if you die ((or CART)) even once on a quest, you are using up more of the teams resources than you are entitled to). The long and short of this is that when playing multiplayer TRY NOT TO DIE EVEN ONCE BUT ESPECIALLY NOT THREE TIMES because you'll ruin the quest for everybody and we probably could have succeeded without you. You need to be on top of your game to go play online, or at least be familiar with the monsters you are fighting. You don't have to worry if you die once in a while, people are understanding... but don't make a habit of it! Multiplayer play has a different tempo from single player play. When people work together they can get lots and lots of quests done in very little time. This feels good and is an effective use of MonHun time, but it does place certain obligations on you. Your teammates in Tanzia won't appreciate it if a good quest rhythm gets interuptted because you had to go spend five minutes in the forge looking at new gear. Between quests you should expect to have enough time to go over to the MARINA and switch your gear, but if you want to use this time for forging you should at least inform your teammates of this. But you really shouldn't be using your online time for forging new gear. If you can quickly check in at the forge and see what items you still need for your next upgrade, then sure, do that quickly, but don't waste other people's time doing things you should be doing offline in solo mode. While you are at the forge you will be unable to read the text chat of your teammates so you may be unaware of how imposing you are being on their patience to start the next quest. Like i said, communication is key, so don't spend an inordinate amount of time in the forge where you can't communicate! Another aspect of this game that should be handled in solo mode is keeping your ITEM BOX stocked with enough items to quest with. When you hunt online you should expect to be doing 5 or 10 or 50 hunting quests in a row because no one wants to get together to go pick mushrooms or fish for ammo or anything lame like that. It is your responsibility to have a stocked box that can carry you through all of this marathon gaming, and if you ever run out of certain key items then you should just retire from online mode for a little while and go back to moga to do some gathering. That said, Port Tanzia does have two item shops that can quickly replenish your supplies of potions, whetstones, ammo, bombs, and some other key items, and NEKO in the MARINA can hook you up with your farm which you should be using to produce a steady stream of honey for upgrading your pots to super pot. And if you are out on a quest and know that the area you are in has a good spot for gathering SPIDERWEBS or DUNG or whatever it is that you need, try to find some time to gather this after the monster has died or run away or something. If you want to take a bit (but not too much) more time to gather stuff then remember to COMMUNICATE this desire to your teammates! A lot of these paragraphs are ending with exclamation points! ........................ DON'T ATTACK YOUR ALLIES ........................ The second most important thing to know about about multiplayer is that your attacks cannot DAMAGE your allies but they can still annoy them and negatively impact their performance and in doing so bring down the performance of the entire team. Certain attacks can LAUNCH your allies into the air, which is extremely disruptive. Some attacks can TRIP your allies, a shorter pause but still annoying enough in that it can freeze your allies in place when they would rather be moving somewhere. Some attacks just STAGGER your allies, INTERRUPTING their attacks. These are all bad things to do and no one likes being hit by these (under most circumstances... being launched does give you some invulnerability and can save a person from damage). What this whole paragraph boils down to is a message that says 'Don't hit you teammates! (duh!)' If you are running up to a monster and your ally is already attacking a certain point, then don't attack that spot and your ally! I don't know why this is so common, but if you can't add damage without interrupting your allies from delivering damage, then you aren't actually adding anything to the team. Find somewhere else to attack, wouldcha? The monsters are really large and made up of disparate components so as to allow four people to be attacking different areas and not get in each others way. If one person is already swinging their big clumsy longsword on the monster's legs, then you should find somewhere else to attack, like the head or tail or body or wings or... something! Trying not to get in each other's way also means knowing how all of the weapon types work. If you spend all of your time in solo mode using a sword, you may be surprised when you go online and find out that hammers primarily work by aiming at the head and that almost all of their attacks launch people who get near them. A little experimentation before going online would be super useful so that you will know ahead of time that it is just practical to let those hammer users have exclusive rights for shots to the head so that you dont get launched and/or get in their way. Learning about other weapon types may even help you learn a thing or two about your own weapon (in the case of our hypothetical swords user, he may learn that weapons like hammers and guns have real problems breaking or even hitting tails and that it is actually the responsibility of swordsmen to be tailcutters). So yeah, hammers get priority for headshots, but if you can get in bowgun shots there without interupting them, go ahead. You also want to use the gunlance's super wyvern fire attack on the head usually... so be sure to communicate this. Some weapons like the great sword and the switch axe have attacks with huge ranges that also launch allies (these are commonly known as UPSWINGS). These attacks hurt your team more than they hurt monsters, so when you are online just don't use them! Similarly, the lance has a charge attack that can be absolutely disruptive and it shouldn't be used if there is even a chance of hitting your teammates... but since it is primilarly for moving without putting your weapon away you can sometimes use it when you are far away from people... it's not something you'd bust out in a crowd anyways. Let's see... what else. Um... oh yeah the longsword when it does it's SPIRIT ATTACK THING takes up a lot of space and trips people, but it is a necessarily evil to get that weapon up to scratch so try and use it responsibly and watch out for other players using it. Dual swords are another weapon that trip up teammates but their range is much smaller so it SHOULD be easy for them to avoid attacking allies (but dualswords users are all noobs it seems). Bowgunners have their own way of doing things that doesn't always gel with playing well with others. When gunners play with other gunners they are able to go wild because there are no allies near the monster to block or get hit by their shots, and I think this spoils them a bit because sometimes when they play with blademasters they still spam clust and pellet shots like its not super disruptive and irritating. Save ammos like these for when the monster is far away from the hunters. And try to aim your shots up high so that they clear the hunters and hit those parts of the monster that are otherwise never getting attacked. If you are a big fan of SLEEPBOMBING, or sleeping, or bombing (again, primarily a bowgunner thing) then you really should COMMUNICATE this before the quest begins and maybe even again when you are doing it. When monsters fall asleep it is not always obvious what is happening. Furthermore pulling out bombs suddenly and without warning is a surefire way to blow your whole team up idiotically. Sleep and bombs are super useful though so if you want to do it just make sure you tell people and inform them that they should be bringing bombs of their own. ........................... HOW TO NAVIGATE THE LOBBIES ........................... Let's take a step backwards. If you want to play online you have to navigate quite a few menus first and try to make any breaches of ettiquette along the way. There are a lot of unwritten rules you have to follow here... maybe its about time someone wrote them down, eh? Actually, there is one written rule that people don't follow for some reason. The online mode is divided up into a couple of WORLDS and some of these are clearly marked as belonging to LOW RANK (HR 1 and 2), HIGH RANK (3-5), and G RANK (6 and up). And yet for some reason when you go into these worlds you will find people of the wrong hrs posting quests that don't belong in those worlds. Like you will find people posting G RANK quests in the low rank world... just taking up space. Maybe they are hiding from randoms by being out of place? I don't know... if you are that concerned with having randoms join your game, then mark your room 'playing with friends' or put a password on it. Oh, yeah, don't join rooms marked 'playing with friends' unless you are on that person's FRIEND LIST or are actually their friend IRL. And on the subject of friend lists, you can add people you got along with to this list and then you can see when they are online and what room they are in and join them or send them messages, but try not to be needy and constantly messaging your 'friends' when it clearly says they are already on quests. Just because the next strongest weapon you can get needs just one more Nargacuga's upperlip to forge doesn't mean that anyone else in the world cares or has to drop everything to help you. Back to the menus. When you talk to NEKO MEANS TIGER and select NETWORK MODE you will be asked to join a world. Pick whichever world includes your current hunter rank, or go to the FREE world or the RECRUITING one or whatever. It doesn't matter. Join a lobby that has a healthy number of people (more than 50) What you want to do next is press the SEARCH FOR A ROOM button. This will give you a couple of options to do a search of all of the rooms and see what matches your query. You could search for 'Relaxed hunting' or 'Chat and hunt' if those are your cup of tea, or 'event quest players' or 'arena' if that's what you are looking for. You can search for certain monster targets. If your search doesn't work out then you can go into the 'ENTER A ROOM' option and that will show you all of the current ROOMS being HOSTED in your LOBBY. Confusing, i know. You can look through these to see what is going on in that room and how many people are needed there and if you press R you will get extra information that will tell you what HR the HOST is and whether they are out on a quest or not (or if they are seeking companions, which is a useless smokescreen). Try to join rooms that have space and have an appropriate HR and who are in Port Tanzia. That's the sweet spot. Now here is the hard talk the noobs need to hear. You cannot, CANNOT just join rooms with people who have HRs much higher than yours and expect them to drop down to your level and do your kiddie quests for you. It doesn't matter if the room says 'anyone is welcome' because even that message carries the unstated fact that people want to play at their own level and want people to join their rooms who can help them achieve THEIR goals, not YOURS. When you join someone's room, don't start asking for help or saying you need this or that. Ask what is being hunted next (or just say hi). If you need help advancing because you are of low rank and skill, then you should join rooms with people of similar hunter rank and work your way up together. You could even create a room of your own in the appropriate spot and mention that you are 'looking to increase HR' and hope that some godly player takes pity on you and condescends to help you. That is a very nice thing when it happens, but you should count on it and you are absolutely not entitled to it. I don't know, I got sort of lost on a rant there. Does everyone understand how to navigate worlds and lobbies and room now? Well I hope so, because that material will be on the next midterm. .......... MORE STUFF .......... Let's see if there's any other miscellania. Um... if you enter a room and people are out on a quest you can ask them how long they'll be but if they are busy they may not answer so dont go expectign them to drop everything just to talk to you because that is a good way to get killed. Traps and captures. Don't just stand beside traps far across the area pinging all day. That's stupid. Don't post capture quests and not bring your own trap tranqs and depend on others to do it. Take responsibility for your own quests. And don't demand that monsters be capped when someone else posts a hunting quest. That sort of thing should be REQUESTED POLITELY before the quest starts, not demanded once the monster starts limping. Basically the person who posts the quest is the leader and gets to decide. Ah, but who is posting quests? For starters it should be the person who created the room (the HOST). If you are in a room without a specific target then the usual fair play deal is for everyone to take TURNS posting quests, usually with a bit of a heads-up of what will be hunted. You can ask to hunt certain monsters next, for instance. Being polite is the way to go (and if that isn't working, finding a room where politeness is respected is probably the way to go). The HOST is the one who keeps the room existing so it is in your best interests not to harass them (don't harass anyone, but especially not the people who can kill you mid quest). And HOSTS, you have some responsibility not to BOOT people indiscriminately, and especially not to end rooms in the middle of quests or even between quests without informing people and letting them save and whatnot. Express your intentions! If someone joins your room while you are out on your last quest, don't leave them in the tavern while you finish and then close the room without telling them. I would also advise you not to play this game for very extended stretches of many hours because people get sloppy as they get tired. Oh yeah, when you're out playing, don't stand in doorways or in corners or spots because that is just inviting monsters to wipe your party. About the doorways more specifically, what I mean by that is that if you follow a monster into a new area then it will probably turn and attack you, and so if you are the first person into the area and you stand in the doorway, then the monster will be attacking in that direction as the three people following you enter the room and they will get hit and it will be your fault. I mean, sometimes monsters attack doors anyways and there is nothing you can do to attract their attention away, but that's different. And when tails fall off don't everyone immediately rush over to it. it will still be there in five minutes when the monster leaves or dies. When a monster loses its tail it is typically vulnerable to attack for a few seconds, but if someone is carving its tail when it gets up it will probably attack them. So if everyone just runs for the tail immediately then you're all going to be attacked and that is stupid! And finally if you are going to be 'Away From Keyboard' for an extended period of time then you should tell people. Obviously this is not at all ideal during a quest but people understand that life happens but please do us all a favour and try to leave your character somewhere relatively safe! Well I hope that's everything. Love each other. There. That ought to suffice. .............................................................. ************************************************************** 16. VERSION HISTORY AND CONTACT INFO AND SPECIAL THANKS [1600] ************************************************************** .............................................................. 4/20/13 - Version 0.40 is submitted. Contains a table of contents, an intoduction with hypothetical FAQS and 8 sections of 'Useful Notes' and a walkthrough for about half of the Moga Village quests. 4/29/13 - Version 0.45 is submitted. Adds information on Rathalos, Uragaan, Nibelsnarf, Barioth, and Volvidon. And Ceadeus. Also some things about Gigginox I forgot to write down. And I made my explanation of Questing and Freehunting more clear. And I thought to tell people about the Sandy Plains temperature system. Corrected some other minor things. 5/06/13 - Version 0.50 is submitted. Adds information about Diablos, Agnaktor, and Crimson Qurupeco. Information about high-rank mode is provided. 5/14/13 - Version 0.60 is submitted. It includes a section on shakalakas by Heavyacademic. And I finished up the info on the 6star quests. 5/27/13 - Versions 0.70 is submitted. It covers the 7star quests and includes a section on 'hunting grounds.' 6/03/13 - Version 0.80. It covers the 8star quests. 6/11/13 - Version 0.85 covers some 9star things and gives an overview of the Port Tanzia quests. 6/19/13 - Version 0.90. Gives some basic info on a couple of Tanzia monsters and it goes over Event Quests and Arena Quests. 6/28/13 - Version 1.00! The guide is done and covers all of the monsters that can be hunted! This guide was written by Steve Edwards, also known as CanWizard. My email address is [email protected]. Feel free to email me to point out mistakes in this guide. I mean, I'll probably catch them eventually so don't bother unless it's really important. I don't really want to be hassled with suggestions for things that could be added to this guide. I especially don't want to be bombarded by people asking me for help. This guide is all I am willing to give you. Special thanks to Mr. I Noble, aka heavyacademic, for contibuting his guide on the shakalakas.
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