User blog:Inurian/A few simple tips that may save your life.

These are, in general, common knowledge, and in many cases common sense, but they can be helpful to a new player, who might not be aware of these, as of yet.

Tip 1: Learn. The most important tip of all for hunting large monsters... at least, in my opinion.

Watch and listen very carefully to their actions. The amount of time it takes for them to prepare an attack, what sounds and what motions precede an attack, the amount of time it takes for them to recover. If you can, remember exactly how long it takes them to recover, or record it. This is especially handy for a greatsword user, as it's easy to figure out how long it takes for you to charge. Watch how far each attack carries them, how much damage an attack does to you, which side of the opponent the attack is on. Watch for special effects, like paralyze. Learn, learn, and learn some more. To defeat thine enemy, you must know thine enemy. This is especially true for monster hunter. Myself? If it's a new monster, I prefer to go out on the quest and just dodge attacks for a little while. Learn what the attacks are, and what the monster is capable of, and get a feel for how you need to move and when, in order to be safe.

Tip 2: Be Prepared

You don't want to go out there, only to get down to chipped sharpness, and find out you have no more whetstones, or to be at a tenth of your health and have no mega potions. Before setting out to hunt any large monster, even something as simple as a Great Jaggi or a Velocidrome. Make sure you have traps, the proper bombs, cool or hot drinks where applicable, whetstones, mega/max/ancientpotions, Ironskin and Demondrugs, the proper kinds of bowgun shot, the proper status cures, some kind of stamina booster, and whatever else you might need before you go out.

Tip 3: Gemming is everything

You know how you can forge these little things from Aquaglow, Sunspire, Bloodrun, and Lazurite Jewels called 'Decorations'? Those are VERY important. A little knowledge of gemming and armor skills can completely change your game. Gemming is the art of applying the proper Jewels to armor in order to give you armor skills. Usually, this comes in the form of adding one specific skill you'd really want, but some people combine the best of many different armor sets by gemming with very high rank jewels, by taking the bonuses they can get from different armors and adding jewels to make them function. Armor skills work as such: Every piece of armor or jewel you inlay in your armor or weapons add points towards a skill, dictated by armor or jewel. once you have enough points, that skill is activated. ALL armor skills are passive, and most are quite useful. one of my personal favorites is the Handicraft skill, which grants "Sharpness+1". That skill adds another bar of sharpness onto your weapon. There are many more kinds, and a complete list can be easily found on this website.

Tip 4: Watch those Elements.

It might be tempting to go for the sheer raw damage weapons, and indeed, that can work, especially for low hit-count weapons such as Hammers and Greatswords.. However. With faster weapons, such as the SnS, and I'd assume the dual swords, having never played the earlier games myself, can really take advantage of a monster's elemental weaknesses. Always learn what your enemy is vulnerable to, as well as it's own element. This is especially an important factor in choosing your armor, as elemental resistances are a serious boon against monsters. With a high enough resistance, you can diminish, or even negate, elemental status afflictions like Lightning/Ice/Water/Fire/ and Dragonblights... not to mention reducing the damage a monster's attacks will deal to you in the first place!

Tip 5: Food Buffs.

Utilize these to their fullest extent. I ignored them earlier on, when I first started playing, and it was a foolish mistake. The many and varied buffs can be very useful. Some, like Felyne Fighter, do something arbitrary and useless, like, in the case of Felyne Fighter, increasing the power of the shadowboxing gesture. but SOME, Like Felyne Moxie, Fraidy Cat, Felyne Black Belt, and Felyne Great Break, are very Nice. Felyne Moxie is the "Endure" of monster hunter. You can take a hit that WOULD have killed you and survive with 1HP remaining. Fraidy Cat gives you a VERY good chance of the large monsters encountered being weak. Felyne Blackbelt makes Defending and Dodging consume less stamina. and Felyne Great Break decreases the sharpness damage to a weapon when you 'Bounce'. These are all examples from MH3, but there is a similar system in other games.

Keep these five tips in mind, and you might find yourself doing a bit better at the game. It might seem like battletoads at first, but unlike battletoads, it gets easier with practice.