Haven't played with anyone yet. Seen some of you in the session but my HR is always too low to join any quests. Hopefully can catch up a bit to make it worthwhile teaming up.

I've just stopped playing tonight after doing the anjanath quest. First time I've felt like it was a decent challenge, where I actually had to be careful not to get knocked out. Was helped out by Randy, which I believe is CiT's cat thing, which was a nice touch.

So now I've got a firey gun lance, ready to kill more stuff with tomorrow.

Just had an absolutely epic hunt with Nina for the HR49 quest. Proper tough - we ended up using all the bombs, potions, mantles and buffs in existence, failed once, carted in our second attempt and still took 46 minutes, but we got there. The single most stressful hunt yet.

Blue Swirl wrote:

I'm always up for a hunt though

Mint.

Added you last night. I could have sworn you were on my friends list. You definitely were in the 360 days. Did you change your tag or something?

Nina wrote:

Think it was 44:19 (as I thought we only had a couple seconds left, was too tired to actually count to 50) Drained, mentally and my item box. What a hunt. Luckily we don't need to fight the tempered one for item farming. Upgraded all my gear to max (apart from the ugly headpiece) and still needed 1 max potion and 1 regular to recover and not get 1hko next hit.

Glad you two had "fun". I just lamed him out by crafting the best Rapid-fire Normal 2 LBG and shooting him in the face for approx 25 mins. Didn't come close to carting...or even using up my Max Potions. 

I can't believe i'd been putting it off, like it was going to be a problem.

Aye - not a bad kit either. Some decent bow perks (stamina regen and focus), no obvious elemental weaknesses and lots of spaces for gems. Get it, that’s my recommendation.

Special Ammo boost, critical eye/ weakness and piercing shot are all great and are also in both my build and the one Gaijin mentioned. Your dragon piercers will hit hard.

Focus is also good, as it lets you charge shots faster, evade window / extender are useful for last minute dodges, and anything that helps with stamina is good too.

One pair of the elder dragon legs has normal shot - which ups standard non-special shot damage, so that’ll be good for all your bows. So, for diablos focus on attack damage and survivability.

Arena bow could do with a blast attack perk - you’ll be hitting a lot and you’ll frequently be doing consistent blast damage. Plus, it has every coating except power. Now power coating is a big loss, tbh, so look to make up for that via blast, and use the gems I mention below to make your other coatings more useful.

Partbreaker could be good for both - it’s a skill I want to work into my build somehow, as Bow users should be mainly aiming at breakable parts of the body. A strong dragon piercer with partbreaker could be real dangerous.

Rathalos armour set is good for me, since it ups elemental damage on crit hits, but will be nearly useless for you as the elements on your bow will be hidden, so it’ll only be worthwhile if you have free element.

Legiana set perk is an extra charge level for your bow, which is amazing, but you might need to make too many compromises to get enough pieces, I dunno.

For gems - assuming you focus on the above perks first, level 3 gems that allow you to add coating to bows are your priority, plus anything which ups the effectivess of status coatings, like sleep.

Divine blessing (level 3) with evade window will make you almost unkillable, but you’ll be giving up space for perks that could increase attack. Your choice.

Another really unusual perk (for a combat build) that I’ve used before, has been forage based. You’ll chew through ammo easily, so if you wanted a perk which let you pick up an extra nitroshroom each time (for power coatings) or parashroom (paralysis) without having to go back to your tent, that can be good too. I’m often picking up materials and making ammos between fight stages - otherwise I’ll always run out. Still, I don’t think many people use that, and I generally only do it solo, since I can’t rely on other people to do damage.

1m money reached.

Bow bros unite!

The HR49 fight can be tricky - well done!

Got the Aloy stuff this morning and then promptly spent 100k+ upgrading, just cuz...

Generally running mainly Ura set with eyepatch for Part Breaker, Exploit Weakness and Guard V.  Usually Teams up with Nerg Lance for dragon damage and Elder seal - many slots to customise resistances etc.

More importantly than all that guff, it looks cool.

If I'm in a squad session and I send out an SOS is that just to the squad or to the wholes internet's

Whoop, first Anjanath down. I'm way behind many of you but getting there!

To start just approach when asleep (after battering it for 10 odd minutes) - shock trap it, then hit it with a couple of tranq bombs.

If you've done a bit of research, a skull will show next to a monster's icon on the mini map, another sign that you can capture. You can also tranq before trap in this game.

You're still in low rank, there will be a couple of monsters that could be a potential wall, but otherwise it felt like a tutorial to me.
I'd say maybe upgrade the starter armour a bit, and once you've hit a wall or are close to high rank, look at armour sets and make one. That will give you a bit of advantage at the start of high rank. Don't focus to much on grinding out the monsters / maxing research. Try to keep a couple of your favourite weapons upgraded to their current max.

Once you're in high rank there are more customization options, weapon trees will open up so you get a better idea which ones you want to upgrade etc.
Fights will probably take longer, you might need more different items etc. I don't want to say to much but high rank definitely feels different than low rank.
Once you feel comfortable with your current weapon, try others. I've played the story with Sword and Shield, but I'm now working on lances, hammers, bows and maybe switchaxe. Others will probably follow but I just haven't had the time yet.
I just look at the armour skills, check which monster I need and try fight them with different weapons.

And yeah, play with others, either squad or SOS. It feels good if you have a nice team where everyone knows their position (hammers at the head, swords for cutting, glaive for mounting, bows for back etc).

Tactics will come, there will be a point where just mashing a monster won't work, and you need to know when to use certain attacks. For example my sword and shield can jump up, and do either a sword attack for mounting damage, or shield attack for ko damage. If I just mounted a monster, it will take a while before I can get another in. So I just try to bash his head, to tire it and maybe ko it. If it moves to another area I might go for another mount, but I think 2 or 3 is usually the max.
My sword is too small to reach higher up tails, but I can hack at the feet, hoping it will trip so that I can try and cut the tail. If I want the head, I can use a pitfall trap so the monsters falls down and I can do some damage there.
Or, I can let do @Cinty all the work while I pick flowers.

Watch some weapon tutorials (gaijin hunter is my go to, arekkz is good but sometimes misses things, read the comments for more info, rurikhan has a lot of basic videos out as well, there are probably more) to get an idea what your own weapon can but also know about the potential of others. If there's a hunting horn on your team, don't run after the monster immediately, maybe they're preparing some buffs for you to take advantage off.
If a monster is asleep, wait for the others in case someone brought bombs, or has a weapon that can charge up an attack (great sword, hammer and bow for example) and let them go first, to max out damage.

@ayns, had a look at the set you mentioned, good skills and I might make a couple pieces, but to say it looks good...? Not on the female character (imo etc). Maybe if I make it pink.

Looking good. I took my Anja set into high rank, which I think you encounter earlier in the story, so paulomo would be good enough to last you a while. Think @Shabby still won't take off his head piece of that set.

Nice set of gun lances. I'm not sure what you're palico is wearing, might be nice to give her a poison or paralyze weapon as you don't have those right now. Poison will do continuous damage when it's active, a paralyzed monster gives you a lot of easy hits and you can usually get a combo in.

Nina wrote:

I'm not sure what you're palico is wearing, might be nice to give her a poison or paralyze weapon as you don't have those right now. Poison will do continuous damage when it's active, a paralyzed monster gives you a lot of easy hits and you can usually get a combo in.

It's wearing ladybug armour. The rod that goes with that set causes paralysis, and I've got another that causes sleep.