Early Wednesday morning, Capcom took to their official YouTube channel to talk and tease a bunch of upcoming video game goodness. Among all of the Teppen and Street Fighter stuff that I know nothing about (my phone keeps crashing when I try to install Teppen, tears) was a whole load of new info on Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, specifically revolving around one of it’s biggest bads, the Glavenus. The stream’s centerpiece was a live, on-stage hunt for the new beastie, giving us another peek at it after PlayStation’s stream last week, but we also got a good look at the layered armor set we’ll be getting as a pre-order bonus, as well as some weapon and gear stat changes for us Monster Hunter spreadsheet nerds. For your ease of access, I’ve wrapped all the new info up in a nice URL bow.
Hunting the Glavenus
Otherwise, the Beyblade Dinosaur is still letting it rip like the good ol’ days, and I can’t wait to hit him with a hammer again.
Yukumo Layered Armor Pre-Order Bonus
Paying some sweet homage to Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, pre-ordering Monster Hunter World: Iceborne unlocks a layered set of Yukumo armor for the player, modeled after Portable 3rd’s armor of the same name. Being layered armor, the set has no defensive value, and will only affect your appearance.
And on the off chance you’re as worried as that one guy on Reddit was about it, yes, the feather on top does move.
You Can Have Penguins and Pictures of Cats in Your Room
I know you were concerned because I was too, but yes, you can have penguins and pictures of Felynes in your pad in Seliana.
This doesn’t matter at all, it just made me very happy.
Gear, Skill, and Stat Changes
Elemental and Non-Elemental Skill Changes
If you’re a part of the Holy Church of Tiny Swords like I am, you know that thus far the Dual Blade and Sword and Shield weapon classes have been optimized to their highest potential by focusing on raw damage output, instead of elemental. That being said, if you’re a Monster Hunter veteran, you know that this usually isn’t the case. S&S and Dual Blades are traditionally very specialized builds (more Dual Blades than Sword and Shield but you know, generalizations), requiring the player to create a gear set that focuses on individual monsters’ elemental weaknesses to be used to their full effect. In World, this isn’t the case; put together a raw damage build and you can ice pretty much anything put in your path. After this stream, it’s clear Iceborne will be changing this.
That’s a lot of arbitrary numbers if you don’t know what you’re looking at, but this basically breaks down into three parts:
-The maximum attack power boost from elemental attack skills has been increased.
-The non-elemental boost skill effect has been slightly decreased from 10% to 5%
-Elemental attack skills go to level 6, new skill added that grants the free element status and increases elemental attack damage when continually attacking, etc.
It’s important to note that it appears this will affect all weapons, not just S&S and Dual Blades. No need to worry though, Great Swords and Hammers will surely still be the raw powerhouses they’ve always been.
“Maximum Might” Nerf
“Maximum Might” is one of the more viable skills in Monster Hunter World right now, giving the player boosts to affinity when their stamina is full. At the moment, the skill has 3 levels, and is relatively easy to implement in builds that don’t utilize a lot of stamina. Again, Iceborne will be changing this.
Basically, “Maximum Might” will now have 5 levels, and the first 4 will require you to keep your stamina gauge full for a whole 5 seconds (a long time) for the skill to activate. That being said, the skill now maxes out at a 40% increase in affinity, and level 5 will activate immediately the way it used to. Basically, if you want to make a Max Might build, you’ve got to get a little more skin in the game now.
Weakness Exploit Adjustments
Until now, the “Weakness Exploit” skill has been a staple for raw damage builds. Personally, I don’t see that changing too much, but there are definitely some new caveats. Keep in mind, “Weakness Exploit” levels 1, 2, and 3 currently increase affinity by 15%, 30%, and 50%, respectively.
So basically, “Weakness Exploit” is being adjusted to mesh with the new wounding mechanic, yielding the same results if players put in the time to create favorable conditions. That being said, if those conditions aren’t met, this skill definitely takes a hit.
Gunlance Adjustments
Okay, so the Gunlance…
The Gunlance is getting guard point. There’s a lot of other stuff there, but guard point is by far the most important thing on this list. For the unaware, some weapons, like the Charge Blade, have certain frames in the weapons’ actions where an attack on the player will be automatically blocked. This is a major advantage if you can use it right; it’s technical as all hell and takes some practice, but some instances of guard point will even deal damage back to the monster if you can pull it off, so it’s worth working on. Check out this video if you want to see guard point in action.
And Now We Wait…
We’ve still got a good month to go before Monster Hunter World: Iceborne drops on September 6th and PC players are looking at an even longer wait with a vague “January 2020” release date still taunting us. That being said, it’s a great time to be a Monster Hunter fan; it wasn’t long ago that there were dozens of us (dozens!), and now Monster Hunter World is celebrating 13 million copies sold. September will be here before you know it, especially since you can check out our coverage on Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild and the Monster Hunter movie while you wait! Just make sure to read those articles real slow so they last you long enough.
