Hunting Journal

So yesterday was pretty eventful for me; or it seemed like it. Mostly took a break from forging ahead (in terms of quests) and focused on finishing up the Jaggi set, giving me a pretty nice boost in power; then upgrading my base Dual Swords, all the way from rock bottom to Insecticutters, clearing Bug Hunt, Pest Control and Hunter Killer.

So now I'm up to 4* urgent, repelling the Lagiacrus, and I think I'm about ready; just have a million Village Requests still stacked up I'd like to get done.

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Breezed through the 4* Urgent, remember it being a lot tougher... Though the Insecticutters are goram beastly against LR. After I cleared that, spent a while in Free Hunt, killing a few G.Jaggis, Pecos and R.Luddies before heading back; partly for the res and partly for the commodities. (less so the money from carves and hunt report but it helps)

That helped me finish a few more village requests, including the Grill Mask and up to the second tier honey box (to bring it in line with the rest of the farm)

Then moved on to the Rathian which was a fun fight; in which I remembered I haven't actually upgraded my Jaggi armour yet, so she could probably have two hit me. I almost carted twice but potions being the godsend they are saved me and my base health bar both times. Again Insecticutters proved their worth and cleared the quest in ten minutes, breaking all breakable parts. My reward? As I carved her tail (my first Rathian carve of Tri Ultimate) I got a plate! Unfortunately Rathian armour isn't what it used to be; was looking forward to the early earplugs... :/

While I was surfing through armour skills, I saw that Lagi's set has some pretty interesting ones. Is Tenderizer actually worth the points? It seems like it could be useful for GS or Hammers, maybe Lances too.

Leveled mah Jaggi armour to 4, then proceeded to ignore Cha-Cha's 'new' mask ideas, sold a Silver Egg the fishing fleet dug up, solving my money troubles for a while and then sliced up the Lagiacrus some more. Gawd that was an eventful hunt... Everything was going really well up until he fled to area 12. At first Cha-Cha wouldn't let him out further than where he dived up onto the land... somehow. Lagi just kept backing away even though Cha-Cha was in his fluffy mask; so I couldn't get a hit in edgeways or I'd get knocked down or jump into the water. Then when he finally came out towards me he managed to back me against a wall; except I was inbetween his feet, so everytime he did something I would get knocked down again. Finally coaxed him away from the wall into the middle, where he spammed his 360 degrees tail spin thing; which even though the tail was off I couldn't seem to dodge cause the place is so small...

Still, did it in the end, in about 15 minutes.

After that, I donned my Leather armour once more and traded every commodity I had (not very many) for about 6 Mega Bug Nets, and spammed the Harvest Tour: Volcano sooo many times for those damn Hercudromes. T_T

Still; got a huge surplus of Carpenters, Killer Beetles, Godbugs, Flashbugs and Thunderbugs so it's not all bad. Plus at the end I got mah Insecticutters+ which I'm thinking will last me til HR swings around. (or they better; cause the next upgrade needs HR Bnahabra)

Took on another Lagiacrus in the Flooded Forest this time; in a capture quest. That gave me some flashbacks to the Tri days... Didn't cart though, I'm wondering if I can go through the entire offline without carting once...

At first I was looking forward to fighting the Duramboros, then I saw it was in Flooded Forest and I knew right then and there I wasn't going to enjoy it.
And then the fight started.
Oh. My god. Half an hour. All of my potions. Nearly carted at the end. WHY DOES HE NEVER DIE? WHY DOES HE HAVE TWO OF THE MOST BULLCRAP MOVES I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE?! For such a cool monster he sure as hell made that needlessly painful. All that and I got 4 pieces of him at the reward screen. Not. Cool. Spent all hunt trying to cut the tail too, not sure whether I cracked it or its head, certainly didn't break a chunk off. Not an easy fight for Dual Swords...

Moved on to Volvidon, looking to farm it for its armour. Looks pretty sweet, Evasion+1 and AUS; plus tremorproof which is slightly less useful. Problem is, I kill it so fast I can't break its back, even when its what I'm hitting 85% of the time. Might be the reach of the DS, looking at its hitboxes it seems like a Lance would be better suited for it, maybe a HH or Hammer or something. Still; somehow I'm still getting Rickracks so it's not that big of a deal.

So I decided, after making the ugliest armour in the game, (Volvidon BM) beating a Rathalos and visiting Tanzia port for the giggles; that I would branch out to the Lagi DS and Los/Ian DS; cause Insecticutters+ seem to have lost some of their glean. So making a mental note of the required mats, I went after Los again.

2 broken mega pickaxes, (with nothing to show for it) 5 minutes wasted looking for the damn thing and a cart thanks to being comboed into oblivion later; I abandoned and tried again; to much greater effect. With the Los specific parts done, I embarked on an Ian cap quest; everything was going fine, except I hadn't broken one of the two wings but that was ok. I set my EZ shock trap down after about 5 minutes of wailing on it so it started limping, then panicked as I couldn't find my tranqs. Kayamba and Cha-Cha kept her busy for a while as I searched and finally found them, then I positioned myself behind the trap and waited for the Ian to charge at me.

She didn't.

Cha-Cha tripped her and as she got up she started limping again, the opposite direction to my ONLY trap. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot. -.-" Checked back at the supply box; no subquests, so no spare. Abandoned. Made a mental note to carry some spare traps as standard.

Tried again, much more successful; broke everything, cut the tail and captured easily. Two Rath Marrows for my trouble, one more than I needed; and a flame sac. (just three more to go T_T) I also got a +8 Whim talisman, could be useful on my Leather set.

Then went on to beat the snot out of Rathian's kill quests a few times for said Flame Sacs. Desire sensor is such a byetch... Still, got what I needed, and at 5 minutes per kill, I can't complain. With my shiny new Fire Dual Swords I went back to the Lagiacrus to get the one material I need for the Lightning Duals; his horn. (always the way)

Luckily, I got it on my first go, the fire DSs absolutely tearing through him in about 10 minutes. It's looking like I'll be back to the dragon DS line shortly after I hit HR though; Insectirippers are better than my two new DSs upgrades; and are available earlier I believe. Now all I have to do is decide whether to use Insecticutters+ or Twin Acrus for the Ceadeus... Not that it really matters too much.

Next destination was the Tundra, to mop up the Barioth key quest. His new hipcheck caught me by surprise but ultimately let me get loads of free damage off on him because he locked himself into a routine of hipcheck->sit still for ages; and since I have evasion+1 I was able to dodge pretty easily. He was down in 5 minutes and I got not only some tusks, but a cold res talisman, so I can at least cancel out Cold Surge on my set now.

Ceadeus was finally named and shamed, and so I went off to hunt the Gigginox for his hide to finish off the base camp at his lair. Took me a bit longer than Barioth, thanks to endless poison and him hiding up the walls 'n' all. His new move is really... ugh... 

Then went off to fight the Uragaan, burnin' through another key quest. He's still as bitchy as ever to fight and probably my least favourite. He's just... not satisfying. He never tells you when he's injured, or at least you never really feel like he's wounded and that you're doing a number on him. Got through his health pool eventually though, in about 15 minutes... with a weapon he's weak to... with him leaving huge openings for my entire combo...

Damn Uragaans.

Then headed out into Free Hunt since there was a Rathalos knockin' about, took me longer than usual and I actually carted but I took him down. Also in the same hunt I chugged one of my mega dash juices I'd really made for fighting the Ceadeus but whatever. Good gawd the DSs make that so worthwhile. Nabbed a 1000 res from that; headed back, stocked up on supplies, and then downloaded some DLC because could; before heading out to save Moga Village.

Mega Dash Juices put in some serious work in that fight, allowing me to stay right under his nose and permanently in demon dance, and since underwater the combo makes you travel even further, it allowed me to put out some crayzeh damage with my dragon duals. Finished the urgent in about 15 minutes, which honestly surprised me a bit.

So. That was fun. Nice end to low rank. Restocked at home then dived straight into the HR urgent; traveling for the first ever time to the Misty Peaks! Beautiful place but holy hell did the Purple Ludroth give me a run for my money. Everything was broken at about the 10 minute mark and yet it took 25 minutes to kill the damn thing; and he hit like an absolute truck too... Used all but 3 regular potions and about 5 antidotes.

That'll do for today... High rank reached. Great Wroggi armour next, sack being poisoned all day.

Started the day with clearing a bunch of village requests, maxing out my farm (finally) and learning a cool place to get Dash Extracts whenever I need 'em, which I imagine will start being quite a bit once I start using Mega Dash Juices every hunt.

Slapped around another Purple Ludroth in free hunt, this time with my fire Duals, making the fight much easier. Moved on to HR G.Jaggi; even less of a problem. Honestly felt like low rank, I was quite surprised at how fast the run was. It was putting out some damage though, when it actually did hit me. :P

Decided to grab HR Wroggi armour as sharpening mid-fight is getting more and more costly, and poison is really dangerous to deal with. Wroggi took a while to get through first time, don't have an Ice DS yet, even though they are available. Decided to mop up some LR Lagombi to get it and see if it had much of an effect on the speed G.Wroggi went down.

Two Lagombi and three Barioth later, I had my Ice Duals and had upgraded them; so I took on the Wroggi again. Not much of a time difference; felt a lot stronger; but its the Rathian that turns up and follows you around that slowed me down the most.

Headed into Free Hunt at night, killed a G.Wroggi and G.Jaggi pretty damn quickly this time, confirming my suspicions that it was the Rathian slowing me down.

*sigh* Let the Wroggi farming commence in earnest...

After two Wroggis I started doing the Flooded Forest gathering quest, getting a load of frogs, some carbalite ore, wroggi scale+ and most importantly some hercudromes. I repeated this a few times but quickly switched to standard Free Hunts, seeing that you can get Hercudromes at areas 1-5 in Moga. After a few rounds of that and collecting some stray Wroggi hides along the way, I finished my HR Wroggi set at last.

I'm a goram cowboy and I look kickass.