Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Wii U/Nintendo 3DS)

So, post-release-day thoughts.
The 3DS is uncomfortable to hold with a game like this. I'll get a Circle Pad Pro at some point, honestly to make the console more ergonomic for me more than to help with underwater combat. Apart from that, MH3U plays fine and at a higher framerate than the PSP games, which should make it feel more responsive (not that this was an issue before). My only complaints about the game itself (at least after customising the UI to my liking; nice new feature, that) are graphical: shadows are pixelated, texture filtering is poor, and the light a held torch casts on the ground is a flat texture rather than actual lighting, so it clips into sloped ground. These could be issues related to the limits of the 3DS's hardware, but I refuse to believe that, given how much they pushed the visuals in MHP3rd, and as I said there are all these extra frames, which could be sacrificed on at least higher shadow resolutions.

Edit: Framerate is noticeably lowered when on a quest with Cha-Cha and Kayamba... I wonder why; having two comrades didn't affect MHP3rd's performance on the PSP.

SnowpointQuincy said:

The hardest part is that the monster keeps sliding right past me and off my screen. I have to stop moving to turn the camera. I hear there is a Lock on feature, but the game doesn't tell you squat.

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In the full game, NPCs do talk about it at a point, and there are always the manual and in-game articles.

SnowpointQuincy said:

My "favorite" thing is when a text box of dialogue pops up and disappears, you never have time to read it. It doesn't seem important anyway. Looks like gibberish. Why even put it on screen if I can't read it. And the box is too small to begin with.

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?.. I guess that's just the demo. All text in the full game is 'press A to continue'.
That reminds me though, I find a lot of the text too small to comfortably read, and the chosen font doesn't help either; in fact it's quite terrible, almost as bad as Escape Velocity Nova with ClearType enabled.

SnowpointQuincy said:

I'll have to read a FAQ to tell me why it is taking me so long to kill this Logombi.

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Probably just the equipment they give you, or you're bad at the game... but there's no shame in that.

Cassino said:

?.. I guess that's just the demo. All text in the full game is 'press A to continue'.
That reminds me though, I find a lot of the text too small to comfortably read, and the chosen font doesn't help either; in fact it's quite terrible, almost as bad as Escape Velocity Nova with ClearType enabled.

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It is dialogue from the little minions during battle. they make noise and a text box appears, but it is not there long enough to read.

SnowpointQuincy said:

It is dialogue from the little minions during battle. they make noise and a text box appears, but it is not there long enough to read.

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Oh, that. They don't generally say anything important, at least.

I made my first big kill today! The Great Jaggi. I had full Hunter Armor and Soldier's Knife.

It was an Extremely Close battle. I had to chase GJ into a new area with 1 hp and no healing items. I was jamping like a MADMAN! Dodging attacks from all around me! It was such a close call.

I have Full Chain-mail Armor, Hunter Armor, Bone Armor. What is good for a sword and shield guy, and what armor should I work toward at this stage in the game?

I absolutely love playing MH3U. I purchased MHP3rd HD for my PS3, but everything was in Japanese, so I could barely understand what to do and finding items to create equipment was a complete pain. I tried using a guide, but it didn't help much, and I eventually stopped playing it.

Once I bought MH3U, I wasn't a newbie since I had prior experience with MHP3rd HD, so I knew what weapon I wanted to use along with attack patterns/weaknesses of specific monsters. However unlike MHP3rd, where I used Dual Blades, I tend to use Long Swords and Sword and Shields more often because they suit my playstyle well. I also have started using light crossbows occasionally due to finding a rare weapon while mining, which was stronger than any other light crossbow I could create.

As for where I am in the story, I did all Moga low rank quests and I am halfway done with all high rank quests. Right now I have the full Rathalos set, however I don't use the full set because of the recovery penalty, so I have Barroth's helmet equipped instead.

@SnowpointQuincy
I found the full Barroth set to be useful early game but the only real problem is it makes you hungry much faster than normal.

Some great references for everyone, by the way, are the weapon trees and the skill list page on the MH Wiki. Neither are entirely finished yet, but they're already reasonably complete.
And if anyone needs any help, feel free to PM me or post here.

SnowpointQuincy said:

I made my first big kill today! The Great Jaggi. I had full Hunter Armor and Soldier's Knife.

It was an Extremely Close battle. I had to chase GJ into a new area with 1 hp and no healing items. I was jamping like a MADMAN! Dodging attacks from all around me! It was such a close call.

I have Full Chain-mail Armor, Hunter Armor, Bone Armor. What is good for a sword and shield guy, and what armor should I work toward at this stage in the game?

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Good job on surviving at that sort of health. If you didn't already think of it at the time: the Moga area has a lot of gathering spots for all the things you need to make mega potions; so long as the Great Jaggi isn't sleeping to recover its own HP, don't be afraid to take the time if you need to. You might actually find Arzuros easier than Great Jaggi, since it won't have any allies.


Out of what you have, Chainmail armour should be the most useful (although, admittedly, I say this not knowing what the Hunter set's Ranger skill does), and the Soldier's Knife and its upgrades make a solid general purpose S&S with large amount of sharpness. Bone armour's skills are only really suited to the Hunting Horn.

As for improvement, depends on your style. Especially if you prefer to block rather than evade attacks, Barroth blademaster armour gives Attack Up (S), Defense Up (S) and Guard +1, so you pretty much get an all-round stat boost that plays into the S&S's jack-of-all-stats nature; and you can remove the negative Hunger skill using decorations.

Later on, Lagombi and Volvidon have some evasion-oriented armour; neither monster has any rare drops to my knowledge, so either or both sets should be relatively easy to make. Why you would make both?— their elemental resistances are polar opposites, and the actual evasion skill each gives is different, so it would be a way to find out which one you prefer as it's difficult to get both skills on the same set outside of Nargacuga armour, which is a long way off yet.

Also possibly worth mentioning is the Bnahabra set, due to Status Atk Up and the fact that S&S is the one of the best melee weapons for inflicting status effects (ie. poison, paralysis, sleep), but going for status is a rather niche pursuit, particularly for solo hunts, so this isn't exactly a recommendation.

A couple of things I would recommend against getting are Rathian and Rathalos armour, due to the rare items needed... unless of course you happen to get a Plate without any trouble, in which case they make excellent armour.

I personally went with Jaggi armour mainly because I like the look of it. While the skills it gives are rather mundane, they'd probably help a rookie hunter a lot more than I realise.

I've been playing for 20 hours. Haven't fought many big monster. Spent the whole day grinding Great Jaggi. Got the Whole set upgraded to Lv.3 and gemed for Attack+15.

Forged a Lugroth Nail, does water damage. Need to kill the Qurupeco to make a fire weapon.

This game is awesome!

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Edit. Took ALL DAY to trap a Quropedo. I had to make a "Trap Guru"/"Trap-Master" Armor set just to make it happen. The armor has to tell me when Quropedo is ready to trap. Because whenever he jumps areas, you never know if still ready to trap. I wanted "Auto-Detect"/"Trap-Master", but the Psychic gems are just a little out of reach right now.

I got like 3 Vivid Feathers out of it, so cool.

After 2 days of trying, I was FINALLY able to break the Qurupeco's Beak. I was able to forge a Bone Tomahawk and immediately upgrade it to "Bone-Tomahawk+" This weapon is amazing!

It took 3 Pitfall Traps break the Qurupeco Beak.

I also forged a whole set of Azuros Armor, which is weird because I only fought him 4 times total. After 2 kills and one trap I was only 2 pelts shy of a full set. Either I'm lucky, or it is an easy set to make. REMEMBER Put a Paralysis gem in the TORSO to disable it's bad ability.

Next I will focus on Barroth Armor.

SnowpointQuincy said:

I wanted "Auto-Detect"/"Trap-Master", but the Psychic gems are just a little out of reach right now.

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What skill, now? There are Autotracker (from +15 Psychic) and Trap Master (from +10 Speed Setup), but it's only Capture Guru (from +10 Perception) which gives the colour change thing.

Auto-Detect and Trap Guru is the combo I meant. It would tell you where Monster is and when it is ready to trap.

Trap Master is great if you like using bombs, or if you need to make traps during the quest.

I used a Great Sword for the first time, a Barroth sword. AMAZING. I think I will start using a GS more often, IF I can successfully chop a Barroth Tail with one. I cut a Barroth tail with a Sword and Shield, but I didn't get the Tail from carving it. And it took a long time. I am ONE TAIL away from a full set of Barroth Armor. This set, too, was really fast to make.

Try all the weapons, changes the game so much. It is like playing a new game!

SnowpointQuincy: Greatswords are AMAZING. Unsheathing slash and dodge is the way to go for it. Charge when you have the opportunity and deal massive damage on a monster!

Picked this up the other day, really enjoying it! I'm still a noob, but some of the things that seemed strange and tedious like catching a monster are starting to become second nature

I started out using Duel Blades, and now I'm starting to a Great Sword. It's cool pulling off really long drawn out combos with it. Tried using a long sward too, and that was cool once I figgurd out how to combo with it

I have a bit of an obscure question considering the small MH fanbase here, but if anyone knows: can Plesioth still inflict sleep in any way?

Musica said:

SnowpointQuincy: Greatswords are AMAZING. Unsheathing slash and dodge is the way to go for it. Charge when you have the opportunity and deal massive damage on a monster!

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You can unsheathe into a charge, if you don't happen to have tried that.

Killjoy said:

Great Sword. It's cool pulling off really long drawn out combos with it.

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That seems to have a reputation as the noobiest combo in the entire game. It has its uses, especially if the great sword has an element or attribute, but generally if you have enough time to do an 'infinite combo', landing charged hits instead will cause more damage... or so the pros say.

Cassino said:

I have a bit of an obscure question considering the small MH fanbase here, but if anyone knows: can Plesioth still inflict sleep in any way?

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As far as I know, neither the Plesioth or Green Plesioth can inflict sleep (correct me if i'm wrong) however the weapons crafted from Green Plesioth's items allow you to inflict sleep.

Cassino said:

You can unsheathe into a charge, if you don't happen to have tried that.
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Yep, unsheathe then charge is cool but it won't work well for every monster. Unsheathing slash> dodge> sheath> run and find new spot to hit> repeat. I usually do unsheathing charged slash when a monster is "lagging."

I'm now going for Slime Weapons, but I've yet to see how overpowered, as others say, they are.

I just beat Ceadues yesterday and got to High Rank Quests! Purple Ludroth was a rude awakening! I fought him in LR Wroggi armor because I was afraid of poison. He didn't need it to faint me 3 times. I got him good on the second try.

I find it a lot easier to trap monsters than to kill them. I usually bomb them with 1 or 2 traps, then use my last 2 traps to guarantee a capture.

It took me 90 hours to get to High Rank. How long did y'all take? I wasted about 10 hours doing Tanzina Port Quests when there really wasn't any reward. Single player has high rank stuff too.

My first HR Armor is Hunter-S. Gemed in Auto-Tracker, Bombardier, and Trap-Master. I love using traps and bombs.

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Should I spend time getting LR Uragaan Armor. I like the idea of adding Stamina Drain to my Trap/Bomb style. Seems like I would get more chances to trap them while drooling.

The problem being that Uragaan is a tough monster to fight. All of my weapons have green sharpness. My best weapons are "Red Wing" and "Royal Claw+"

SnowpointQuincy said:

I just beat Ceadues yesterday and got to High Rank Quests! Purple Ludroth was a rude awakening! I fought him in LR Wroggi armor because I was afraid of poison. He didn't need it to faint me 3 times. I got him good on the second try.

I find it a lot easier to trap monsters than to kill them. I usually bomb them with 1 or 2 traps, then use my last 2 traps to guarantee a capture.

It took me 90 hours to get to High Rank. How long did y'all take? I wasted about 10 hours doing Tanzina Port Quests when there really wasn't any reward. Single player has high rank stuff too.

My first HR Armor is Hunter-S. Gemed in Auto-Tracker, Bombardier, and Trap-Master. I love using traps and bombs.

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Should I spend time getting LR Uragaan Armor. I like the idea of adding Stamina Drain to my Trap/Bomb style. Seems like I would get more chances to trap them while drooling.

The problem being that Uragaan is a tough monster to fight. All of my weapons have green sharpness. My best weapons are "Red Wing" and "Royal Claw+"

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I'm going for a "no" in getting Uragaan armor (it's a friggin pain in the ass when it rolls away and you have to chase it again and again). I find Barroth (or S) and Rathalos Armors better than Uragaan with Attack Up Med (you can gem it up to attack up L). I like killing monster though, but I do capture them when I feel like it. I find it enjoyable when I face the monster with just potions and paint balls.

It took me 30 hours to reach 6* quests in Moga (should have been 20 or less if I didn't waste time looking for Rathalos Plates).

I am currently farming for Rathalos Mantles. I need two to finish creating my Rath Soul Z set which I want for HG Earplugs and Mind's Eye. At the moment I am stuck on Dire Miralis, and i'm debating whether to upgrade my Glacial Agnaktor longsword to its final stage or create a stygian ira lance for an easier time against it. I want to avoid farming Stygian Zinogre and normal Zinogre for parts because I have done an excessive amount of farming already to create all of my G rank gear.

So far i've managed to breeze through all G rank missions solo with a full Barroth X set, an attack +5 talisman, and my dios katana which is fully upgraded. Slime weapons are just ridiculously overpowered in my opinion. If the slime buildup doesn't affect or damage the monster, the high raw damage will, even the dios duals are great for soloing high to G rank quests because of its high slime/dps output.

I still consider longswords to be my most preferred weapon because they do high damage and if you can get a level 3 charge, your attacks can do a significant amount of damage, especially with attack boosters and a powerful longsword.

SnowpointQuincy said:

It took me 90 hours to get to High Rank. How long did y'all take? I wasted about 10 hours doing Tanzina Port Quests when there really wasn't any reward. Single player has high rank stuff too.

My first HR Armor is Hunter-S. Gemed in Auto-Tracker, Bombardier, and Trap-Master. I love using traps and bombs.

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I took about that long as well. I think only Tanzia has G-rank, mind.
I still feel like I rushed low rank a bit, but apparently I've progressed rather slowly. I'm still high rank right now; I haven't played MH3U all that much since getting it, honestly.

The first high rank armour I'm really putting to use is Volvidon S; just finished it today so see how Evade+ would work with S&S since Guard+ is no longer necessary to make blocking worthwhile. This'll be a nice general purpose set once I have a +5 evasion talisman (assuming I don't have a bugged table; I became aware of these after starting but I don't really care anyway); I think it looks nice, too.

SnowpointQuincy said:

Should I spend time getting LR Uragaan Armor. I like the idea of adding Stamina Drain to my Trap/Bomb style. Seems like I would get more chances to trap them while drooling.

The problem being that Uragaan is a tough monster to fight. All of my weapons have green sharpness. My best weapons are "Red Wing" and "Royal Claw+"

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It isn't so much its hard body as its high defences that make Uragaan arduous to hunt (all hitboxes take relatively little damage; it has no particular weak points, unlike most monsters). You need at least one of: water element; poison; piercing shots; bombs plus materials for more. All said and done, Uragaan is a damnsight less annoying than Gravios. If you intend on using the armour for a long time then you might as well make it, but it's up to how easy Uragaan is for you.

Sorry to revive an old topic, but i just recently got a 3DS and have seen this game. It looks beastly. But is it worth the purchase? Last Monster Hunter i Played was on the PS2. Does it keep with the same flow? I'd hate to think all the armors are preset.