Meh once you know the moves velkhana is the easiest elder dragon imo, most is very telegraphed and easy to avoid or it's the quick tail shit that doesn't do a whole lot of damage(and you can avoid easily by just running circles around her). She has good HZV everywhere so even without tenderizing you do good damage and has low hp so you can kill her pretty quick. I think it's probably harder on ranged too, she spams beam breath shit at range which is annoying to avoid but in melee as long as you're not in front it's easy to avoid and punish. Safest place for most of the fight is next to her front legs, or on the tail if she's aggroed on someone else(palico included). Only the sweep tail attack is dangerous in these spots and that shit does super low damage and has a lenghty animation. She doesn't even have strong tail attacks like Luna/Teo or spin breath shit.
Brando You mean the like 3 layers of frost circle? I recommend rolling into it. Because the center explodes before the outer so you can usually roll into it to avoid it exploding where you're currently standing.
Oh yeah on Longsword I quite often end up mistiming stuff I usually dodge fine trying to build the meter and then it goes all to shit. Almost ran out of time on a 25mins temp lunastra earlier cause I figured I'd do it on longsword after a while of not playing it and between me fucking up and lunastra changing places every fucking 2minutes it was hell. Oh and some bullshit nova where she roared longer than usual so I didn't get time to sheathe at all and just was permanently disabled while burning, hate how this shit goes weird sometimes.I have failed on the 3rd attempt. What has got me is the AoE that goes in concentric circles and then I got to nulberry/heal and I somehow miss the beam. For whatever reason when I see the Ice build up I'm still mistiming the counter slash move invulnerability. Probably just better to run away from her. Might get some time to play tonight.
Oh yeah on Longsword I quite often end up mistiming stuff I usually dodge fine trying to build the meter and then it goes all to shit. Almost ran out of time on a 25mins temp lunastra earlier cause I figured I'd do it on longsword after a while of not playing it and between me fucking up and lunastra changing places every fucking 2minutes it was hell. Oh and some bullshit nova where she roared longer than usual so I didn't get time to sheathe at all and just was permanently disabled while burning, hate how this shit goes weird sometimes.
While I think the weapon is strong and I sometimes get disgustingly good clears with it, it tends to favor playing for dodges and if you mistime you get fucked pretty badly. That or you get baited into countering something that has a follow up so you get hit anyway. I don't play it all that much in the end, mostly favoring SA, SnS, HH and CB, with Lance obviously when I want shit to get cleared(1 cart investigations and such).
Now you got me thinking I should try some different weapons. I probably have the mats for most of anything in the middle MR ranges at this point. Just really like LS but it's so touchy as you're noting where I'll get a kill super quick as I just combo non-stop but on the otherhand on Velkhana and others that I struggle with I seemingly can't figure out how to keep the damage up or the dodges up.
Try one that lets you block. HBG, Lance, Gunlance, Greatsword, Sword and Shield, Charge Blade.
1) About 2/3rd in.I run DB exclusively (It's what I'm most comfortable with) and am just past the point of fighting the shreiking legiana in the story. I have a few questions for the pros:
1. Without any spoilers, how far into IB am I? I am guessing around 30-40%.
2. I am having an issue where as a DB player, I find myself constantly hitting other players, which I know is annoying. Any pointers on what I can do to avoid this, short of simply fighting another area? When a mob is downed, and we're all going for the face, I don't know how annoying that is when I am bashing other players. It's never on purpose.
3. I am very particular about always having weapons to match weak element/ailment of what I'm going to be fighting, as well as decos for defense. However, what is the most important decos for DB? I am *assuming* maxing out crit eye is extremely important, but not sure what else is important.
4. Lastly, as a DB player that will likely be DB forever, can I get end game recommendations on gear and decos? I'd like to be well prepared, and I am one of those that likes to work toward min/maxing as best I can. I suck at video games, so I try to make things like my gear as perfect as I can to make up for the fact I suck.
Anything I'm missing here that I should get on palico or myself? This is kinda how I'm rolling atm at this point in the story.
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Yeah you can basically put on very rare "buff" on Safi weapons that makes the weapon behave as one piece of the set to activate the bonuses. So for example you can use 2pc teostra with a safi weapon that has teostra essence on it and get Master's Touch as if you had 3pc(which then lets you use 3pc Safi armor on top and basically get 2 sets). Those aren't very common and more something you grind for for your true endgame weapon, but they give a ton of room to improve your build since in most cases current sets have at least one if not more poor pieces to get the set. They also replace a normal safi upgrade(Attack V or sharpness V or whatever else) so they're not always the best(although for velkhana they probably are).So what are the monster "essences" you can get - like for my frostcraft build db's, he has "velkhana" essence that covers one of the gear slots for the set bonus but it seems like something entirely different to the augments? I assume this is something from Safi when she drops in game?
Do note that blocking weapons are garbage on velkhana unless you have guard up, because all her breath attacks go through normal block, and since she breathes a fuckton, the fight is basically impossible if you rely on block(mostly lance and somewhat guns, SnS/CB/GL don't necessarily need to block).
And yeah to craft old weapons you need old materials quite often. Sometimes they have spots where you can craft an advanced version right away which uses some MR mats, but not every tree lets you do that.
Best way to try random weapons atm if you haven't played LR/HR without much time investment is to look into the Guild Palace event weapons. Do the Barioth 50shades of white event quest for tickets, and then upgrade the weapons once you have mats(not sure where you are in the story, the upgrade requires Namielle mats and iirc some guiding lands shit so it's post story stuff but the basic is only some barrioth mats, the event ticket and some mining shit). They're very solid starting weapons, not necessarily the best but still good enough to get a taste of each weapon type and they mostly just require you run the event once per craft, with some mining on the side. Some of the options are actually endgame meta until Safi is released(IG, Gunlance, Hunting Horn, maybe some others).