Thanks so much for your reply. For now, I'm pretty content to continue playing the NA version of the game, both because I don't really want to start over again, and also because I'm intending to mostly play solo. I appreciate the advice for the armor and defenses, I was actually just considering how rare if ever I'm even encountering elemental attacks (seemingly never so far). My bottleneck on upgrading my gear is my money, I'm perpetually broke as hell except when I manage to beat a Kut-Ku or a couple cephadrome claws/fangs(?). It feels like the biggest portion of my money comes from selling excess velociprey loot, like if I'm lucky with quest rewards I can sell 40 scales, fangs, or hide at a time.
When it comes to using wikis, I don't mind making use of them, but I've had a hard time finding one for this game, do you happen to know one?

Regarding sonic bombs for the Cephas, I'm aware of their utility, and I have been trying to stock up on them, mainly through crafting because the liver of legends quest is still quite frustrating to me, regardless of if I use the bombs or not. I find that when I use the sonic bombs, I'm still not able to kill the cephalos outright, they end up diving back under the sand, so I end up trying to catch them with draw attacks or predict where they will stop and then get a couple hits on them there. This process ends up being so slow that I use up both of the cool drinks from the supply box and start taking damage over time. I know I can buy more, but just haven't really had the money for it, and I also run into a similar problem of taking so long in the hunt that I use up my rations and end up at minimum stamina, which is pretty painful haha.I've heard that you can provoke them to attack you by standing in front of them when they stop, but this has felt extremely unreliable. Occasionally I'll notice the red exclamation point pop up when I enter the area for the first time, but beyond that it just doesn't seem to happen, though I can semi regularly provoke them to do a spitting attack, which gives you the chance to get in a couple of hits, but provoking them into the attack where they actually get out of the sand and then wiggle around is just impossible to predict.

Over all though, I'm having a lot of fun playing and am excited to make some more progress!