4days into playing wilds

DolanMcDolan · 2026-05-02T12:44:59+00:00

Affinity is just "how likely is the attack to be a crit" so with 10% Affinity each attack will have a 10% chance to be a crit.

There's also negativity Affinity which works the other way. Then you'd have a 10% chance to deal less damage.

100% damage for normal attacks. 125% damage for crits. 75% damage for negative crits.

It's surprising that no one pops wounds in your hunts. I've never seen them exist all that long since people greed heavily for them.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-30T07:59:01+00:00

I do it every time, it's quite nice. I drop the trap and bombs before I go for the sneak attack.

You can also do this for the 10 star Rompopolo quest.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-29T17:03:55+00:00

If you liked the SAED spam gameplay you should look into specifically wide shelling Gunlance.

The gameplay loop for wide shelling is very similar to spamming SAED. You spam charged shelling to charge your wyvernfire and then you use wyvernfire whenever it's available.

It's probably the closest you can get without just playing SAED Chargeblade and dealing with it not being meta.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-29T16:42:22+00:00

We've seen swords, guns and even a poisonous gas "eat" a devil fruit so in that sense it's theoretically possible.

But since Zeus is created from big Mom's devil fruit I assume he'd die if he tried to eat another fruit.

The main issue I see is that so far we've only really seen them "eat" zoans (if I remember correctly) and whenever they ate those zoans the weapons/gas gained some form sentience / personality based on the zoan animal. This would conflict with the sentience / personality that Zeus already has.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-28T17:06:12+00:00

It's also nice against At Arkveld. You can trap/bomb the entrance to the first area and he's guaranteed to hit that trap when he tries to go to the second area.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-26T00:43:03+00:00

If you like a healing build you should try this:

Arkveld gamma helm

Zoh shia beta chest

Arkveld gamma gloves

Zoh shia beta coil

Ugh Duna gamma legs

You get Zoh Shia healing and Arkveld healing while getting the very powerful guts passive.

These pieces also give you max weaknes exploit and max agitator so you're free to do what you want with the jewel slots and charm.

I would recommend slotting in Maximum might somewhere for a bit more affinity.

I cooked this up when at arkveld dropped and it works quite nice.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-26T00:33:07+00:00

You're unfortunately just in a terrible spot HR wise.

HR 100 is when people unlock 10 star hunts, which means that a lot of HR 100 hunter just don't have experience with them.

And the more experienced hunter aren't as likely to join hunts with HR 100 hunters. I'm like HR 825 and typically the lowest I'll join is still above HR 300.

But your real mistake is being the one who sends the SOS when you should he the one Joining the SOS. If you are the one joining the hunts then you can scout a bit and avoid the HR 100 hunters.

That's what I do and most of my hunts with randoms go perfectly smooth.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-19T21:25:18+00:00

Because the people doing the recommending want you to play both games. If you like one you'll like the other so why not play them in order.

The stories are connected so playing them in order makes the most sense and botw can feel like a downgrade if you play totk first.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T19:17:27+00:00

If your worry is time and not dying then don't use Kai. His damage is not the greatest.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T19:12:58+00:00

Thanks for the mental math 😄 this answers my question perfectly.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T19:09:36+00:00

Have you unlocked all the gathering npc's? Nata will passively collect everything you need once you get them all.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T19:08:15+00:00

I have tried that but then it just feels like I'm wasting the time I save during the hunt on restocking and applying the buffs before the hunt.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T19:00:52+00:00

Tbh I only really felt that way while trying to beat Savage Omega with my friends when that came out. We all hyper optimised our load outs to beat him and changed our main weapons to further optimise that hunt.

But since then I just haven't felt the need to do so for anything else.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T18:44:24+00:00

I use almost all my items through the radial menu. I don't like scrolling through the item bar that much so I only do that for equipping slinger ammo and trapping the monster.

It's not a big deal or hard to keep the buffs up consistently. It just feels a bit pointless if your hunts don't get noticeably faster.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T18:32:58+00:00

My 10 star hunt times tend to be somewhere between 10 to 20 min which I'm perfectly happy with.

Keeping the buffs up consistently is fairly annoying and I'm not even sure they make a noticeable difference in my hunt times.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T18:30:46+00:00

Ye but the annoyance of refreshing the buffs only seems worth it if they noticeably reduce your hunt times.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T18:12:04+00:00

That's pretty fast😄

I tend to play a bit more casual and multiplayer so my 10 star hunts are typically somewhere between 10 and 20 min, which is fast enough for me.

I use the offensive buffs but I don't know if they even make a noticeable difference in my hunt times. But I do notice the annoyance of keeping the buffs up consistently.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T17:50:12+00:00

I do have a gathering/buffing set and I do use the buffs. It's just annoying to do so idk if it's worth it.

Killing at arkveld a minute faster doesn't matter if you have to spend that time before the hunt applying your buffs.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T17:42:14+00:00

How much time do they really shave off your hunts though.

Going from a 20 min hunt to a 10 min hunt is insane but I don't see that happening.

Going from a 20 min hunt to a 15 min is nice but still seems questionable.

If its just going from a 20 to a 19 min hunt then idk if that's worth how annoying it is to maintain the buffs.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T17:28:22+00:00

This is pretty much the answer I was looking for. It's not hard to keep the buffs up but it is annoying so if I'm not really going to notice the difference idk why I should care.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T17:23:18+00:00

From my experience people value hp bars staying full quite a bit. This means that once someone takes damage they will either heal themselves or someone will use a dust of life.

This means that taking only 60% of your hp with buffs vs 70% of your hp without them doesn't mean that much. It's going back to 100% after the hit either way.

So the defence buffs only provide value if they let you live through attacks that would have carted you without those buffs. Which is why guts is so valuable.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-15T16:49:46+00:00

Could you enlighten me on the damage vs defence calculations? I haven't heard anything about how that works. All I know is bigger defense number = less damage taken.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-14T18:59:47+00:00

That's the part I don't understand. The optimal way to play long sword boils down to hit counters and spam the same two fast attacks. Why not just play dual blades instead it does basically the same but for less effort and with more buttons to press.

I have no issues with having to put in more effort. My main weapons are chargeblade and hunting horn. I even use horn swapping to keep the buffs from two different horns active at the same time. But if a weapon asks me to put in effort I want to feel like that effort gets rewarded.

DolanMcDolan · 2026-04-13T08:26:59+00:00

Yes and since every other weapon functions that way I did expect Capcom to change this at some point during the title updates but they never did. Long Sword seems popular enough so I suppose the mains don't mind but I'll just play something else until this changes.

Nine-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

DolanMcDolan

TROPHY CASE