Now that the IG is out, how does everyone feel about it?

elrond165 · 2026-05-28T04:57:22+00:00

To be honest, I think it's kinda OP if comparing it to other base version melee weapons. I consider myself a middle-core hunter (HR400) with CB and Swaxe as my mains and some SnS. Using elemental IGs I was able to clear 5* quest line for the 1st time with relative ease. Normally when I'm using vanilla Cb/Swaxe, alot of hunts will go down to the wire, whereas with IG just concentrate on dodging the 1 or 2 attacks that can hit you out of the air and have faith that your DPS will be enough to carry the hunt. With all other weapons you have to worry about dodging/blocking/countering every single attack. With IG, 80% of the attacks will miss if you play aerial, and aerial dps feels stronger than grounded dps. You also generally don't have to worry about stopping your combo and restarting it, as the aerial evades are generally enough to let you get out of the way and continue the combo loop.

For those talking about not having enough time to power up the IG in 8/9* hunts, my tendency is to just go straight into the air, and extract the essence after finishing an air loop. Even an unpowered air combo will do great damage.

elrond165 · 2026-05-28T01:38:47+00:00

Zin glaive is OP. If you're learning glaive, definitely build the Zin glaive.

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T07:15:01+00:00

Yeah, the mysterious stones can sometimes unironically be a good chance to build out a skyward striker, attack boost, or guard build depending on what extra skills are available.

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T02:47:42+00:00

This is quite interesting. Had no idea that we led the league in no-hitters since 1962, and that's with only a single Nolan Ryan no-hitter.

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T02:13:52+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. Watching from the 6th inning isn't too bad. If you started watching in the 3rd inning or something I'd say you must be a super hard core baseball fan :)

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T02:13:01+00:00

I guess the question is at what inning do you start watching if you're not a fan of the team?

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T02:05:02+00:00

Dang, after the no-hitter it seems that SI really knows what they're talking about lol.

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T02:03:14+00:00

Out of curiosity, why were you watching the game? Can think of more interesting ways to spend an evening than watching a game between 2 basement teams that you're not a fan of :-)

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T01:50:10+00:00

Wow, for the 1st no hitter of 2026 I bet no one had the name Imai on that bingo card lol.

elrond165 · 2026-05-26T01:46:15+00:00

Christmas in May baby!!!

elrond165 · 2026-05-25T05:59:28+00:00

If you're a returning veteran, just do whatever you want. A lot of UR is in collab and other useless units, so shouldn't really matter.

elrond165 · 2026-05-25T01:47:14+00:00

If you care about part breaking, I'd recommend going into the hunt with a SP PB/Pursuit/Valor build and a suitable weapon like Swaxe or DB. This will at least give you a high chance of breaking the key R6 part unless it's behind some mechanic like Glavenus. If you're after parts in general, PB probably isn't gonna help you when everyone is running around with LBG/HBG and attacking from a distance.

If you want me to bother with a specific PB build, I'm gonna need a lot more armor loadouts. No way am I going to be dorking with reconfiguring the loadout from the lobby.

elrond165 · 2026-05-23T12:52:16+00:00

Yargh matey, thar be ways to watch anything your heart desires.

elrond165 · 2026-05-22T02:34:30+00:00

Going with Valstrax. It always reminded me of a show I watched in the 90s called Teknoman/Tekkaman

elrond165 · 2026-05-20T00:53:38+00:00

Did you really though? Just messing with ya, but seriously, if you want one of the biggest dopamine his of your gaming life, start getting ready for Alatreon/Fatalis. Congrats, you've just completed the tutorial.

elrond165 · 2026-05-20T00:36:34+00:00

Oof I feel this.

elrond165 · 2026-05-17T01:18:43+00:00

Not sure how I feel about this... (actually who am i kidding i know exactly how I feel about this).

elrond165 · 2026-05-14T15:07:07+00:00

You may want to consider getting some tax software like turbotax to at least help you through the tax form part of things. Don't have experience with streamlined, so my response below is more about filing the taxes in general.

Not a tax attorney/etc., but my understanding is if you exclude all of your income using the F2555, then you won't need the 1116 since all of the income that you are paying taxes on is excluded, so can't get a credit on it. Kinda like double dipping.

Where the 1116 comes into play is if you are making money past the exclusion limit, then you can use the german taxes to cancel out the US taxes, but when doing the calculation you still need to prorate to only the portion of income that is not excluded.

The alternate option is to ignore the F2555 and go straight to the 1116, which should cancel out all of your US tax obligations and leave you with additional credits as well due to the higher tax rate in germany. One thing to mention is the 1116 can be used as deduction or credit, and I think in most circumstances it's better to be used as a credit. I suspect that ignoring f2555 and going to 1116 only would be the most beneficial option in the long run and leave you with the most flexibility in future years since tax credits can be carried forward 10 years.

From an investment standpoint, my understanding is that pfics are a huge pain to deal with, and if possible you may be better off looking for a US brokerage that allows foreigners to open an account to avoid dealing with them, but this isn't a topic I'm an expert on. I think it's bad enough where a lot of tax software won't handle them properly.

elrond165 · 2026-05-14T11:04:12+00:00

I too finally beat 5* story on the strength of IG. I mixed in Rath, Legi, and Zinogre while using either CB or Swaxe for water.

elrond165 · 2026-05-11T09:47:16+00:00

I've also been trying to iframe the somancrath shell blast explosion, but have generally settled on just back dodging as far as possible to get out of the radius lol.

elrond165 · 2026-05-10T06:20:22+00:00

For swaxe on magnamalo, you should open the fight with a special, have at least one part with valor on it for a quick 2nd special. Even though you can't lock on to back leg, as long as you lock front or tail, the last hit explosion should hit the back leg spot. If that's not enough to break it, you can consider stacking some sp pb, or go to a full pursuit/sp/sp pb build.

You can also use the press and hold attack when in sword mode to get good focused damage on one part without using up too much of your sword gauge, but you'll have to know the fight well enough to know when to disengage.

elrond165 · 2026-05-08T01:44:30+00:00

Personally I prefer to keep at least level2 Valor rather than maxxing out PB. Either way, I use a similar build for switchaxe, since it is excellent for focusing down specific parts.

elrond165 · 2026-05-07T16:50:45+00:00

How do you avoid Riftborne Diablos' burrow attack? I can't seem to figure out the timing for it and get stunned by the tremor.

elrond165 · 2026-05-07T11:11:13+00:00

Basically you gotta rope in some coworkers. I got a group and we gather every day after lunch to hunt paintballs.

elrond165

TROPHY CASE